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Mestizo ( , ; fem. mestiza, literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors were Indigenous American or Austronesian. The term was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race that evolved during the Spanish Empire. It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as , , Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used the term in self-identification. With the Bourbon reforms and the independence of the Americas, the Caste disappeared and terms like "mestizo" fell in popularity.Rappaport, The Disappearing Mestizo, p. 4
The noun mestizaje, derived from the adjective mestizo, is a term for racial mixing that did not come into usage until the 20th century; it was not a colonial-era term.Rappaport, Joanne. The Disappearing Mestizo, p. 247. In the modern era, mestizaje is used by scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa as a synonym for miscegenation, with positive connotations.Lewis, Stephen. "Mestizaje", in The Encyclopedia of Mexico. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997, p. 840.
In the modern era, particularly in Latin America, mestizo has become more of a cultural term, with the term indio being reserved exclusively for people who have maintained a separate Indigenous ethnic and cultural identity, language, tribal affiliation, community engagement, etc. In late 19th- and early 20th-century Peru, for instance, mestizaje denoted those peoples with evidence of Euro-Indigenous ethno-racial "descent" and accessusually monetary access, but not alwaysto secondary educational institutions. Similarly, well before the 20th century, Euramerican "descent" did not necessarily denote Spanish American ancestry (distinct Portuguese administrative classification: mestiço), especially in Andean regions re-infrastructured by United States and European "modernities" and buffeted by mining labor practices. This conception changed by the 1920s, especially after the national advancement and cultural economics of indigenismo.
To avoid confusion with the original usage of the term mestizo, mixed people started to be referred to collectively as castas. In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, the concept of the Mestizo became central to the formation of a new independent identity that was neither wholly Spanish nor wholly Indigenous. The word mestizo acquired another meaning in the 1930 census, being used by the government to refer to all Mexicans who did not speak Indigenous languages regardless of ancestry.
In 20th- and 21st-century Peru, the nationalization of Quechuan languages and Aymaran languages as "official languages of the State...wherever they predominate" has increasingly severed these languages from mestizaje as an exonym (and, in certain cases, indio), with Indigenous languages tied to linguistic areas as well as topographical and geographical contexts. La sierra from the Altiplano to Huascarán, for instance, is more commonly connected to language families in both urban and rural vernacular.During the colonial era of Mexico, the category Mestizo was used rather flexibly to register births in local parishes and its use did not follow any strict genealogical pattern. With Mexican independence, in academic circles created by the " mestizaje" or "Cosmic Race" ideology, scholars asserted that Mestizos are the result of the mixing of all the races. After the Mexican Revolution the government, in its attempts to create an unified Mexican identity with no racial distinctions, adopted and actively promoted the "mestizaje" ideology.
The Portuguese cognate, mestiço, historically referred to any mixture of Portuguese and local populations in the Portuguese colonies. In colonial Brazil, most of the non-enslaved population was initially caboclo]], i.e. mixed Portuguese and Native Brazilian. There was no descent-based casta system, and children of upper-class Portuguese landlord males and enslaved females enjoyed privileges higher than those given to the lower classes, such as formal education. Such cases were not so common and the children of enslaved women tended not to be allowed to inherit property. This right of inheritance was generally given to children of free women, who tended to be legitimate offspring in cases of concubinage (this was a common practice in certain Indigenous American and African cultures). In the Portuguese-speaking world, the contemporary sense has been the closest to the historical usage from the Middle Ages. Because of important linguistic and historical differences, mestiço (mixed, mixed-ethnicity, miscegenation, etc.) is separated altogether from pardo (which refers to any kind of brown people) and caboclo (brown people originally of European–Indigenous American admixture, or assimilated Indigenous American). The term mestiços can also refer to fully African or East Asian in their full definition (thus not brown). One does not need to be a mestiço to be classified as pardo or caboclo.
In Brazil specifically, at least in modern times, all non-Indigenous people are considered to be a single ethnicity (os brasileiros. Lines between ethnic groups are historically fluid); since the earliest years of the Brazilian colony, the mestiço group has been the most numerous among the free people. As explained above, the concept of mestiço should not be confused with mestizo as used in either the Spanish-speaking world or the English-speaking one. It does not relate to being of Indigenous American ancestry, and is not used interchangeably with pardo, literally "brown people". (There are mestiços among all major groups of the country: Indigenous, Asian, pardo, and African, and they likely constitute the majority in the three latter groups.)
In English-speaking Canada, Canadian Métis (capitalized), as a loanword from French, refers to persons of mixed French or European and Indigenous ancestry, who were part of a particular ethnic group. French-speaking Canadians, when using the word métis, are referring to Canadian Métis ethnicity, and all persons of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry. Many were involved in the fur trade with Canadian First Nations peoples (especially Cree and Anishinaabeg). Over generations, they developed a separate culture of hunters and trappers, and were concentrated in the Red River Valley and speak the Michif language.
During the initial period of colonization of the Americas by the Spanish, there were three chief categories of ethnicities: Spaniard ( español), American Indian ( indio), and African ( negro). Throughout the territories of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, ways of differentiating individuals in a racial hierarchy, often called in the modern era the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas, developed where society was divided based on color, calidad (status), and other factors.
The main divisions were as follows:
In theory, and as depicted in some eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings, the offspring of a castizo/a mixed and an Español/a could be considered Español/a, or "returned" to that status.Mörner, Race Mixture, p.58.
Racial labels in a set of eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings by Miguel Cabrera:
In the early colonial period, the children of Spaniards and American Indians were raised either in the Hispanic world, if the father recognized the offspring as his natural child; or the child was raised in the Indigenous world of the mother if he did not. As early as 1533, Charles V mandated the high court (Real Audiencia) to take the children of Spanish men and Indigenous women from their mothers and educate them in the Spanish sphere.Mörner, Race Mixture, p. 55. This mixed group born out of Christian wedlock increased in numbers, generally living in their mother's Indigenous communities.
Mestizos were the first group in the colonial era to be designated as a separate category from the Spanish (Españoles) and enslaved African blacks ( Negros) and were included in the designation of "vagabonds" ( vagabundos) in 1543 in Mexico. Although Mestizos were often classified as castas, they had a higher standing than any mixed-race person since they did not have to pay tribute, the men could be ordained as priests, and they could be licensed to carry weapons, in contrast to negros, mulattoes, and other castas. Unlike Blacks and mulattoes, Mestizos had no African ancestors.Lewis, Laura A. Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft, and Caste in Colonial Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press 2003, p. 84. Intermarriage between Españoles and Mestizos resulted in offspring designated ("three-quarters white"), and the marriage of a castizo/a to an Español/a resulted in the restoration of Español/a status to the offspring. Don Alonso O’Crouley observed in Mexico (1774), "If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma of disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo; a mestizo and a Spaniard, a castizo; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to mestizos the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard."Sr. Don Pedro Alonso O’Crouley, A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain (1774), trans. and ed. Sean Galvin. San Francisco: John Howell Books, 1972, 20 O’Crouley states that the same process of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. "From the union of a Spaniard and a Negro the mixed-blood retains the stigma for generations without losing the original quality of a mulato."O’Crouley, "A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain’’, p. 20
The Spanish colonial regime divided groups into two basic legal categories, the Republic of Indians ( República de Indios) and the Republic of Spaniards ( República de Españoles) comprised the Spanish (Españoles) and all other non-Indian peoples. Indians were free vassals of the crown, whose commoners paid tribute while Indigenous elites were considered nobles and tribute exempt, as were Mestizos. Indians were nominally protected by the crown, with non-Indians (Mestizos, blacks, and mulattoes) forbidden to live in Indigenous communities. Mestizos and Indians in Mexico habitually held each other in mutual antipathy. This was particularly the case with commoner American Indians against Mestizos, some of whom infiltrated their communities and became part of the ruling elite. Spanish authorities turned a blind eye to the Mestizos' presence, since they collected commoners' tribute for the crown and came to hold offices. They were useful intermediaries for the colonial state between the Republic of Spaniards and the Republic of Indians.Lewis, Hall of Mirrors, pp. 86-91.
A person's legal racial classification in colonial Spanish America was closely tied to social status, wealth, culture, and language use. Wealthy people paid to change or obscure their actual ancestry. Many Indigenous people left their traditional villages and sought to be counted as Mestizos to avoid tribute payments to the Spanish. Many Indigenous people, and sometimes those with partial African descent, were classified as Mestizo if they spoke Spanish and lived as Mestizos.
In colonial Venezuela, pardo was more commonly used instead of mestizo. Pardo means being mixed without specifying which mixture; it was used to describe anyone born in the Americas whose ancestry was a mixture of European, Native American, and African.
When the First Mexican Republic was established in 1824, legal racial categories ceased to exist. The production of casta paintings in New Spain ceased at the same juncture, after almost a century as a genre.
Because the term had taken on a myriad of meanings, the designation "Mestizo" was actively removed from census counts in Mexico and is no longer in official nor governmental use.
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Sometimes, particularly outside of Mexico, the word "mestizo" is used with the meaning of Mexican persons with mixed Indigenous and European blood. This usage does not conform to the Mexican social reality where a person of pure Indigenous ancestry would be considered mestizo either by rejecting his Indigenous culture or by not speaking an Indigenous language, and a person with none or very low Indigenous ancestry would be considered Indigenous either by speaking an Indigenous language or by identifying with a particular Indigenous cultural heritage.
In the Yucatán Peninsula, the word mestizo has a different meaning to the one used in the rest of Mexico, being used to refer to the Maya-speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during the Caste War of Yucatán of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as mestizos. In Chiapas, the term Ladino people is used instead of Mestizo.Due to the extensiveness of the modern definition of mestizo, various publications offer different estimations of this group, some try to use a biological, racial perspective and calculate the mestizo population in contemporary Mexico as being around a half and two-thirds of the population, while others use the culture-based definition, and estimate the percentage of mestizos as high as 90% of the Mexican population, several others mix-up both due lack of knowledge in regards to the modern definition and assert that mixed ethnicity Mexicans are as much as 93% of Mexico's population. Paradoxically to its wide definition, the word mestizo has long been dropped off popular Mexican vocabulary, with the word sometimes having pejorative connotations, which further complicates attempts to quantify mestizos via self-identification.
While for most of its history the concept of mestizo and mestizaje has been lauded by Mexico's intellectual circles, in recent times the concept has been a target of criticism, with its detractors claiming that it delegitimizes the importance of ethnicity in Mexico under the idea of "(racism) not existing here (in Mexico), as everybody is mestizo." Anthropologist Federico Navarrete concludes that reintroducing racial classification, and accepting itself as a multicultural country, as opposed to a monolithic mestizo country, would bring benefits to Mexican society as a whole.
The study also highlights that genetic variation among Mexican populations has medical implications, affecting susceptibility to autoimmune and infectious diseases. The biological diversity observed in contemporary Latin American populations reflects the region's complex demographic history, shaped by extensive geographic movements and social stratification among ancestral human groups. Previous studies have demonstrated that the geographic variation in admixture proportions reveals significant population structure, highlighting the lasting influence of historical demographic processes on the genomic diversity of Latin America.
A 2012 study published by the Journal of Human Genetics found that the Y-chromosome (paternal) ancestry of the average Mexican mestizo was predominantly European (64.9%), followed by Indigenous American (30.8%), and African (4.2%). The European ancestry was more prevalent in the north and west (66.7–95%) and Indigenous American ancestry increased in the centre and south-east (37–50%), the African ancestry was low and relatively homogeneous (0–8.8%). The states that participated in this study were Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Veracruz and Yucatán.
An older study of 104 mestizos from Sonora, Yucatán, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Veracruz, and Guanajuato by Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine, using “Asian” ancestry as a proxy for Indigenous American admixture, reported that mestizo Mexicans are 58.96% European, 31.05% “Asian” (Indigenous American), and 10.03% African. Sonora shows the highest European contribution (70.63%) and Guerrero the lowest (51.98%) which also has the highest “Asian” contribution (37.17%). African contribution ranges from 2.8% in Sonora to 11.13% in Veracruz. 80% of the Mexican population was classed as mestizo (defined as "being racially mixed in some degree").
In May 2009, the same institution (Mexico's National Institute of Genomic Medicine) issued an updated report on a genomic study of 300 mestizos from those same states, this time using Indigenous American samples to represent Indigenous admixture, rather than an East Asian proxy population. The study found that the mestizo population of these Mexican states were on average 55% of Indigenous ancestry followed by 41.8% of European, 1.8% of African, and 1.2% of East Asian ancestry. The study also noted that whereas mestizo individuals from the southern state of Guerrero showed on average 66% of Indigenous ancestry, those from the northern state of Sonora displayed about 61.6% European ancestry. The study found that there was an increase in Indigenous ancestry as one traveled towards to the Southern states in Mexico, while the Indigenous ancestry declined as one traveled to the Northern states in the country, such as Sonora.
Due to centuries of racial mixing among Indigenous peoples, Spanish colonizers, and enslaved Africans brought during the colonial period, many Hondurans have multi-ethnic backgrounds. Although official discourse and census categories emphasize the mestizo identity, genetic studies and regional histories suggest that African ancestry is much more widespread than often acknowledged.
Over time, a broad national identity centered around mestizaje (racial and cultural mixing) was promoted as a way to unify the country. As a result, many individuals with African or Indigenous roots adopted the mestizo label, sometimes as a means of accessing social or economic opportunities, or due to the stigmatization of Black and Indigenous identities, in fact up until recently Hondurans could only identify as (White, Mestizo, or Indigenous) further creating a more “unified nation”. Today, mestizo identity in Honduras is less about strict genetic lineage and more about cultural belonging and national identification. While African and Indigenous roots are often under recognized or blended into the mestizo category, they remain an integral part of the population’s heritage. The average Hondurans mestizo is 21% West and Central African. [3][4][5][6][7][8]
European migrants used Costa Rica to get across the isthmus of Central America as well to reach the U.S. West Coast (California) in the late 19th century and until the 1910s (before the Panama Canal opened). Other ethnic groups known to live in Costa Rica include Nicaraguan, Colombians, Venezuelans, Peruvian, Brazilians, Portuguese, Palestinians, Caribbeans, Turks, Armenians, and Georgians.
Costa Rica has four small minority groups: , Afro, Indigenous Costa Ricas, and Asians. About 8% of the population is of African descent or mulatto (mix of European and African) who are called , English-speaking descendants of 19th century Afro- immigrant workers.
By the late 20th century, allusions in textbooks and political discourse to "whiteness," or to Spain as the "mother country" of all Costa Ricans, were diminishing, replaced with a recognition of the multiplicity of peoples that make up the nation.
Historical evidence and census supports the explanation of "strong sexual asymmetry", as a result of a strong bias favoring children born to European man and Indigenous women, and to the important Indigenous male mortality during the conquest. The genetics thus suggests the Native men were sharply reduced in numbers due to the war and disease. Large numbers of Spaniard men settled in the region and married or forced themselves with the local women. The Natives were forced to adopt Spanish names, language, and religion, and in this way, the Lencas and Pipil women and children were Hispanicized. This has made El Salvador one of the world's most highly mixed race nations.
In 1932, ruthless dictator Maximiliano Hernández Martínez was responsible for La Matanza ("The Slaughter"), known as the 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre in which the Indigenous people were murdered in an effort to wipe out the Indigenous people in El Salvador during the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising. Indigenous peoples, mostly of Lenca, Cacaopera, and Pipil descent are still present in El Salvador in several communities, conserving their languages, customs, and traditions.
There is a significant Arab population (of about 100,000), mostly from Palestine (especially from the area of Bethlehem), but also from Lebanon. Salvadorans of Palestinian descent numbered around 70,000 individuals, while Salvadorans of Lebanese people descent is around 27,000. There is also a small community of Jews who came to El Salvador from France, Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. Many of these Arab groups naturally mixed and contributed into the modern Salvadoran Mestizo population.
Pardo is the term that was used in colonial El Salvador to describe a person of tri-racial or Indigenous, European, and African descent. El Salvador is the only country in Central America that does not have a significant African population due to many factors including El Salvador not having a Caribbean coast, and because of president Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, who passed racial laws to keep people of African descent and others out of El Salvador, though Afro-Salvadoran, called Pardos, were already present in El Salvador, the majority are tri-racial Pardo Salvadorans who largely cluster with the Mestizo population. They have been mixed into and were naturally bred out by the general Mestizo population, which is a combination of a Mestizo majority and the minority of Pardo people, both of whom are racially mixed populations. A total of only 10,000 enslaved Africans were brought to El Salvador over the span of 75 years, starting around 1548, about 25 years after El Salvador's colonization. The enslaved Africans that were brought to El Salvador during the colonial times, eventually came to mix and merged into the much larger and vaster Mestizo mixed European Spanish/Native Indigenous population creating Pardo or Afromestizos who cluster with Mestizo people, contributing into the modern day Mestizo population in El Salvador, thus, there remains no significant extremes of African physiognomy among Salvadorans like there is in the other countries of Central America.
Today, many Salvadorans identify themselves as being culturally part of the majority Salvadoran mestizo population, even if they are racially European (especially Mediterranean), as well as Indigenous people in El Salvador who do not speak Indigenous languages nor have an Indigenous culture, and tri-racial/pardo Salvadorans or Arab Salvadorans.
"The Ladino population has been characterized as a heterogeneous population which expresses itself in the Spanish language as a maternal language, which possesses specific cultural traits of Hispanic origin mixed with Indigenous cultural elements, and dresses in a style commonly considered as western."
Argentine Northwest still has an important mestizo population, especially in the provinces of Jujuy Province and Salta Province. Encyclopædia Britannica. Book of the Year (various issues). Britannica World Data: Argentina. Aside from that, the Mestizo component of Argentina has seen a resurge following the arrival of Mestizo immigrants primarily coming from Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru since the late 20th and early 21st century and their descendants living in the capital Buenos Aires, the Province of Buenos Aires or throughout the country, with important concentrations on the border regions with Bolivia and Paraguay.
A public health book from the University of Chile states that 60% of the population is of only European origin; mestizos are estimated to amount to a total of 35%, while Indigenous peoples comprise the remaining 5%. A genetic study by the same university showed that the average Chilean's genes in the Mestizo segment are 60% European and 40% Indigenous American.
As Easter Island is a territory of Chile and the native settlers are Rapa Nui, descendants of intermarriages of European Chileans (mostly Spanish) and Rapa Nui are even considered by Chilean law as mestizos (even by the whole Spanish-speaking world).
Over time Colombia has become a primarily Mestizo country due to limited immigration from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, with minorities of and , both mixed race groups of significant partial African ancestry who live primarily in coastal regions among other Afro-Colombians; and pockets of Indigenous peoples living around the rural areas and the Amazonian Basin regions of the country.
Estimates of the Mestizo population in Colombia vary, as Colombia's national census does not include White Colombians or Mestizo as ethnic options. According to the 2018 census, approximately 87% of the Colombian population listed no ethnic affiliation, being mostly White or Mestizo, while an estimated 49–60% of Colombians are of mixed race. A 2010 study by Rojas et al. reported an average ethnic composition of 47% Indigenous, 42% European, and 11% African. A 2023 genetic study conducted by Criollo et al. estimated that the average admixture for Mestizo Colombians is 50.8% European, 40.7% Indigenous, and 8.5% African ancestry, however this varies significantly across regions of the country.
Afro-Ecuadorians, (including zambos and ), are a significant minority in the country, and can be found mostly in the Esmeraldas Province and in the Valle del Chota of the Imbabura Province. They form a majority in both of those regions. There are also small communities of Afro-Ecuadorians living along the coastal areas outside of the Esmeraldas province. However, significant numbers of Afro-Ecuadorians can be found in the countries' largest cities of Guayaquil and Quito, where they have been migrating to from their ancestral regions in search of better opportunities.
As of the 2022 census, 85.17% of the population identified as Mestizo, a mix of Spanish and Indigenous American ancestry, up from 71.9% in 2000. The percentage of the population which identifies as European Ecuadorian was 2.2%, which fell from 6.1% in 2010 and 10.5% in 2000. Indigenous Ecuadorians account for 7.7% of the population and 4.8% of the population consists of Afro-Ecuadorians. Población del país es joven y mestiza, dice censo del INEC. (Census results, in Spanish) eluniverso.com (2011-09-02) Genetic research indicates that the ancestry of Ecuadorian Mestizos is on average 53.8% Amerindian ancestry, 38.3% European ancestry and 7.4% African ancestry.
As a result of this, today 70% of Paraguay's population is mestizo, and the main language is the native Guaraní, spoken by 60% of the population as a first language, with Spanish spoken as a first language by 40% of the population, and fluently spoken by 75%, making Paraguay one of the most bilingual countries in the world. After the tremendous decline of male population as a result of the War of the Triple Alliance, European male worker émigrés mixed with the female Mestizo population to create a middle-class of largely Mestizo background.
In modern Guam, the Chamorro term mestisu (feminine mestisa) refers to a person of mixed Chamorro and any foreign ancestry. It can be heritage-specific, such as mestisan CHamoru yan Tagalu ("female of mixed Chamorro and Filipino descent") or mestison CHamoru yan Amerikanu ("male of mixed Chamorro and White American descent").
The term most commonly applied to mestizos de español ("Spanish mestizos"), most of whom were descendants of intermarriage between Spanish settlers and the Maginoo ( caciques). They were part of the land-owning aristocratic class known as the Principalia.
The mestizo classification was also applied to people of mixed native and Chinese ancestry who converted to Catholicism, of which there was a much larger population. They were differentiated from the Spanish mestizos as mestizos de sangley ("Chinese mestizos"), most of whom were merchants and traders. They paid about twice the amount of taxes than natives, but less taxes than someone of full Chinese ancestry (the ).
Both mestizos de español and mestizos de sangley were often from wealthy families and thus part of the educated class in the late 19th century (the ilustrados). Along with children from wealthy native families, they played a prominent part in the Propaganda Movement (1880–1895), which called for reforms in the colonial government of the Philippines. Mestizos were a key demographic in the development of Filipino nationalism.
During the American occupation of the Philippines (1898–1946), the term expanded to include people of mixed native Filipino and American ancestry.
In the modern Philippines, the Tagalog language term (feminine mestisa) refers to anyone who has the fair-skinned appearance of mixed native and European ancestry, often used as a compliment. It is commonly shortened to "" (feminine "tisay") in colloquial usage.
A 2015 report by the Pew Research Center showed that "When asked if they identify as "mestizo," "mulatto" or some other mixed-race combination, one-third of U.S. Hispanics say they do". These were more likely to be U.S. born, non-Mexican, and have a higher education attainment than those who do not so identify.
The Mexican state after the Mexican Revolution (1910–20) embraced the ideology of mestizaje as a nation-building tool, aimed at integrating Amerindians culturally and politically in the construction of national identity. As such it has meant a systematic effort to eliminate Indigenous culture, in the name of integrating them into a supposedly inclusive mestizo identity. For Afro-Mexicans, the ideology has denied their historical contributions to Mexico and their current place in Mexican political life. Mexican politicians and reformers such as José Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio were instrumental in building a Mexican national identity on the concept of "mestizaje" (the process of ethnic homogenization).
Cultural policies in early post-revolutionary Mexico were paternalistic towards the Indigenous people, with efforts designed to "help" Indigenous peoples achieve the same level of progress as the mestizo society, eventually assimilating Indigenous peoples completely to mainstream Mexican culture, working toward the goal of eventually solving the "Indian problem" by transforming Indigenous communities into mestizo communities.
In recent years, Mestizos' sole claim to Mexican national identity has begun to erode, at least rhetorically." A constitutional changes to Article 4 that now says that the "Mexican Nation has a pluricultural composition, originally based on its Indigenous peoples. The law will protect and promote the development of their languages, cultures, uses, customs, resources, and specific forms of social organization and will guarantee their members effective access to the jurisdiction of the State."
There is also verified evidence of the grandchildren of Moctezuma II, Aztec emperor, whose royal descent the Spanish Crown acknowledged, willingly having set foot on European soil. Among these descendants are the Counts of Miravalle, and the Dukes of Moctezuma de Tultengo, who became part of the Spanish peerage and left many descendants in Europe. The Counts of Miravalle, residing in Andalusia, Spain, demanded in 2003 that the government of Mexico recommence payment of the so-called "Moctezuma pensions" it had cancelled in 1934.
The mestizo historian Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, son of Spanish conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega and of the Inca Empire princess Isabel Chimpo Oclloun, arrived in Spain from Peru. He lived in the town of Montilla, Andalucía, where he died in 1616.
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