The territories governed by Spain were home not only to millions of Indigenous people and a much smaller number of Europeans, but also millions of Africans taken against their will to labour in the sugar plantations, mines and other enterprises that for centuries made its American empire a source of profit to the Spanish state. In Spanish America, these distinctions were framed within the language of race, or caste (scholars argue over what term best captures the features of these early modern societies). Many other observers echoed their comments about the importance of dress in marking out the hierarchies that shaped colonial society.īy their very nature, colonial projects require the construction of sharp distinctions between the governed and the governing. ‘The lowest class of Spaniards are very ambitious of distinguishing themselves from, either by the colour or fashion of the clothes,’ observed two Spanish travellers in the 18th century, who went on to detail the ways in which clothing helped differentiate between ‘Spaniards’ and those they called mestizos.

From Mexico City to Lima, colonists and locals alike paid close attention to what they and everyone else wore. Spain’s American colonies were established in the decades after Christopher Columbus’s inadvertent arrival in the Caribbean in 1492 and endured into the 19th century. Courtesy Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen Drawing 321 from El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615-16) by Felipe de Guamán Poma de Ayala. His companion blends European clothing techniques such as sleeves with Indigenous fashions such as the tupu, or shawl pin, that fastens her tunic. The man wears a Spanish hat, breeches and shoes with an Indigenous tunic. Amerindians wearing a combination of European and Andean garments. The ban on fine fabrics, they complained, caused them ‘much trouble and vexation’. The Indigenous elite did not accept these prohibitions without protest, and launched an appeal in defence of their right to wear velvet and silk. Their sartorial exuberance annoyed local Spaniards, who issued repeated orders prohibiting Amerindians from wearing such garments. According to 16th-century documents, wealthy Amerindians in Lima, Quito and other colonial cities enjoyed wearing a combination of European and Andean garments, sometimes made of silk and other expensive, imported fabrics (see image below). On holidays and other festive occasions, Andean peoples in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru liked to dress up.

Power to the people in spanish