Schwaller’s Generos de Gente divides into two parts. “Ideology and Law” tracks the etiology of early sixteenth-century Spanish royal degrees, revealing not only the historic processes that shaped the appearance of socioracial vocabularies, such as mestizo and mulato (15), but also how these vocabularies became entrenched into “Indies Law” (derecho indiano) (55). Schwaller’s second emphasis, “Lived Experience,” probes Inquisition records (1545–1599) through a novel methodology, eschewing evaluation of the cases themselves (85). Instead, his analysis concentrates on prosopography, collecting “substantial personal information suitable for qualitative analysis” to provide details concerning the lives, connections, and cultural identities of sixty slaves, natives, mestizos, and mulatos (115). The focus is on how these people “experienced life” in the early decades after the conquest (6). Both sections produce revisionist interpretations.

“Ideology and Law” tracks how legislation concerning mestizos and mulatos evolved. First, through petitions and complaints, elites as well as mestizos or...

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