92 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 1 1 



SECULAR NAME CHANGES 



From the fragmentary material available it 

 appears that during the sixteenth century Qui- 

 roga was made up entirely of Indians whose 

 names were predominantly Tarascan. By the 

 end of the seventeenth century Christian sur- 

 names vied with Tarascan family names, but the 

 community apparent!}' was still all Indian. Dur- 

 ing the eighteenth century Spanish surnames 

 appeared, and mestizos (and perhaps whites) 

 constituted some portion of the population. 

 During this same century negroids also formed a 

 part of the population. Probably the mestizos 

 and negroids came into the community by the 

 same processes; i. e., by marriage with Indian 

 women, and by setting up as tradesmen and crafts- 

 men. Apparently there were thi-ee common 

 sources for these extraneous elements. Val- 

 ladolid (modern Morelia) and Pdtzcuaro were the 

 two nearest and largest centers of white, mestizo, 

 and negroid population in Michoacan. And just 

 to the east and south was the great maize-growing 

 and cattle-raising hacienda whose northern por- 

 tion is now occupied by the ranchos of Atzimbo, 

 Caringaro, Icudcato, and Sanambo. Probably 

 the resident laboring population and illegitimate 

 sons of the landlords contributed most directly 

 to Quiroga. 



Two sources give us imperfect statistics on 

 race status in Quiroga during the eighteenth cen- 

 tury. In 1742 Jose Antonio de Villasenor y 

 Sdnchez, cosmographer for New Spain, carried 

 out a rough census of families, which was pub- 

 lished in 1746 (Villasenor y Sanchez, 1746-48). 

 In discussing the partido of Zinzuntza (Tzint- 

 zuntzan), Villasenor states that the dependent 

 pueblo of San Diego Cocupa contained 70 Indian 

 families, 60 families of mestizos and mulattoes, 

 and 30 families of Spaniards. Unfortunately 

 we cannot determine the proportion of mestizos 

 and of mulattoes, nor can we be certain that the 

 so-called Spanish families were really white or 

 merely mestizos culturally and socially advanced 

 enough to be classified as "Espanoles." There 

 was httle at that time in this small Indian village 

 to attract pure whites. 



Our second source is the parish register. Be- 

 ginning in 1781 in Quiroga, separate baptismal 

 books were kept for different races or castes. 



One book was set aside for "Mulatos, Lobos, 

 Negros y Moriscos," that is, for Negro-white and 

 Negro-Indian castes, and Negroes. This book 

 covered the years 1781 to 1831. In the Quiroga 

 area, during the years mentioned, there were 

 baptized two Negroes with the surname of Rinc6n. 

 There were noted no lobos (offspring of an Indian 

 and a Negro or mulatto), and no moriscos (off- 

 spring of a mestizo or wliite and a mulatto).' 

 Numerous mulatto chUdren were baptized, with 

 the following surnames: 



Acosta. Gaona. Ortiz. 



Alexandre. Garcfa. Palencia. 



Almanza. Guzmdn. P^rez. 



Alvarado. Hernandez. Pifia. 



Arciniega. Hidalgo. Pulido. 



Ayala. Hurtado. Ramirez. 



Borja. Jacobo. Rangel. 



Cabrera. Jimenez. Redondo. 



Calder6n. Judrez. Reyes. 



Campuzano Le6n. Rinc6n. 



Castaneda. L6pez. Rodriguez. 



Castillo. Medina. Sdnchez. 



Castor. M^ndez. Santiago. 



Chico. Molina. Santoyo. 



Conejo. Morales. Serna. 



Corona. Munoz. Vidal. 



Cuiris Ponce. Navarro. Zacapu. 



Domingo. Ochoa. Zamorano 



Escobar. Olguln. Zavala. 



Espfndola. Oliva. 



This marked presence of negroids in Quiroga, 

 where none are now noted, brings up an interesting 

 point. We know that at one period in colonial 

 history there were more negroids than whites in 

 Mexico. Also, it is known that Negroes and 

 mulattoes often were used as overseers on the 

 haciendas and elsewhere. Furthermore, any ex- 

 tensive examination of colonial records discloses 

 that there were hundreds of communities in 

 colonial Mexico where a large fraction of the 

 population were negroids. This situation was not 

 confined to the Veracruz and Guerrero coast lands 

 of present concentration of visible Negro blood, 

 but obtained from Chihuahua to Chiapas. There 

 are a number of communities listed as being all 

 mulatto in the eighteenth century whose popu- 

 lations now show little or no traces of Negro blood. 

 On the other hand, a number of individual Negro 



3 The terminology and percentages of white, Negro, and Indian blood 

 involved in Mexican mixed castes during the colonial period is exceedingly 

 complex and variable. The definitions given above approximate the most 

 commonly accepted definitions of tobo and morisco. 



