''Gente de razón'' (, "people of reason" or "rational people") is a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

term used in colonial

Spanish America Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during the territories' imperial era between 15th and 19th centuries. To the e ...

and modern

Hispanic America The region known as Hispanic America (in Spanish called ''Hispanoamérica'' or ''América Hispana'') and historically as Spanish America (''América Española'') is the portion of the Americas comprising the Spanish-speaking countries of North, ...

to refer to people who were culturally

Hispanicized Hispanicization ( es, hispanización) refers to the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by Hispanic culture or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-Hispanic becomes Hispanic. Hispanicization is il ...

. It was a social distinction that existed alongside the racial categories of the '' sistema de castas''.

Indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

(''indios'' or "Indians"), who maintained their culture and lived in their legally recognized communities (the ''repúblicas de indios''), and

mixed-race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-eth ...

people (the '' castas''), especially the poor in urban centers, were generally considered not to be ''gente de razón''.

Etymology

The term is ultimately derived from Aristotelian and Roman legal ideas about the use of reason in persons and the status of minority before the law. Under Roman law many adults (women, grown men who were not heads of household) were deemed legal minors under the protection of a tutor (usually the

pater familias The ''pater familias'', also written as ''paterfamilias'' (plural ''patres familias''), was the head of a Roman family. The ''pater familias'' was the oldest living male in a household, and could legally exercise autocratic authority over his ext ...

). Additionally, in the early establishment of New Spain, indigenous peoples who converted and were baptized into the Catholic religion often adopted Christian first names and Spanish last names as signs of outward transformation. Colonial leaders used the term "gente de razón" ("people of reason") to distinguish these converted natives from unconverted ones.

In Spanish America

Since the sixteenth century the

Laws of the Indies The Laws of the Indies ( es, Leyes de las Indias) are the entire body of laws issued by the Spanish Crown for the American and the Asian possessions of its empire. They regulated social, political, religious, and economic life in these areas. T ...

categorized Indians as minors under the protection of the Crown (cf. Dhimmi status in the Ottoman legal system). Slaves, and by extension all

Blacks Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in ...

, were also legally deemed not to belong to the ''gente de razón''. These groups were also excluded from the priesthood for most of the colonial period. In frontier regions such as

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

Río de la Plata The Río de la Plata (, "river of silver"), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and fo ...

or the

Provincias Internas The Provincias Internas, also known as the Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas (Commandancy and General Captaincy of the Internal Provinces), was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire created in 1776 to provide m ...

, the category of ''gente de razón'' gained additional importance and it was interpreted differently than in the areas with a longer Spanish presence. Since the term was used to distinguish between acculturated people who lived in Spanish settlements (the ''repúblicas de españoles'') from the ''gente sin razón'' ("people without reason"), or Natives who had not accepted Spanish rule or who lived on missions, it often included acculturated people who normally might not have been included. These areas were settled by Hispanized Indians from the older areas of Spanish settlement, Mulattos, Blacks and Mestizos, all who usually became ''gente de razón''. Because of this, in the frontier areas mixed-race people had a greater chance of social mobility, and their descendants often became the elites of the region.

Etymology

In Spanish America

See also

References

Further reading