BOOK REVIEWS.

115

L a poblacibn negra de M6xXic0, 1519-1810: Estudio etnohistbrico. GONZALOAGUIRRE

BELTRAN.(xi, 347 pp. Ediciones Fuente Cultural, Mkxico, D. F., 1946.)
I n regard to Mexico one does not ordinarily ascribe importance to the Negro, be-
cause there are only some 80,000 Negroes (less than 1 per cent of the population) there
now. Yet since Mexico is surrounded, from the United States to Panama, by countries
where the Negro represents either a dominant or a substantial element, one might
suppose that New Spain, the gem of the Spanish empire, would have shared in the
slave immigration to this general region. Seiior Aguirre BeltrSm’s study reveals the
truth of this assumption, for it shows that the Negro has formed a more abundant part
of the racial amalgam in Mexico than is realized by contemporary opinion.
In order to place Mexico properly in the historical canvas, the author begins with
an enlightening account of the slave trade to the Spanish colonies as a whole. Whether
the trade was legal or contraband, whether it was carried by Spanish, Portuguese,
Dutch, or English ships, a good share of it came to Mexico, where the high value of
Negro labor was recognized. The h s t Negroes came with the original conquistadores,
and they kept coming (often not directly from Africa but rather from the neighboring
Antilles) until about 1750 when the impoverished mestizos and mulatos became sufficient
in number to meet the demand for cheap labor. But by that time enough Negroes had
been introduced to form a good portion of the population. In fact, until that time, more
than two centuries after the Conquest, the Negroes constituted a greater percentage of
the population than did the Europeans.
The virtual disappearance of the Negroes as a separate group did not mean the
extinction of Negro genes in Mexico. On the contrary, a double process of biological
amalgamation and sociological assimilation transpired which spread the Negro racial
traits widely in the populace. As late as 1810 the persons with obvious Negro traits
constituted more than 10 per cent of the total population. The author believes that the
importance of the Negro element has been minimized because of “passing,” the persons
with Negro mixture successfully identifying themselves with the Indian, Mestizo, or
Creole castes. He offers abundant historical evidence to demonstrate the exodus of
persons out of any classification that would disclose their Negro origin, despite the
attempt of the Colonial authorities to create a caste system based on race.
Every page of the study is packed with solid information. Perhaps the least reward-
ing part is the section that deals with the places of origin of the slaves who came to
Mexico, but even here Seiior Aguirre Beltrln contributes an acute discussion of the
obstacles besetting the investigator in this matter, and he shows clearly that it was
not alone Africa, but also Asia and the Pacific Islands, that furnished slaves. In the
section on the characteristics of the slaves he has an informative description of the
system of racial castes, and of the biological and sociological interplay between them.
Indeed, the leitmotif, and certainly the main contribution, of the whole volume is pre-
cisely the analysis of the racial basis of status ascription in Mexico. He analyzes in full
detail the racio-caste terminology, showing how the terms changed as, in time, succes-
sive euphemisms were applied and the historical circumstances were altered. He gives,
in the demographic section, a comparative evaluation of population figures. He also
tries to explain, mainly in cultural terms, why the Negro slave was considered so su-
perior to the other castes as a laborer. I n addition, he discusses the immunity of the
Negro and the Mulatto to certain tropical diseases, and describes the role of the castes
in the evolution of Mexican family organization-delineating especially the role of
116 A M E R ~ C A NANTHROPOLOGIST [N.S., 50, 1948

concubinage and illegitimacy-an account that forms a necessary background to under-

standing the contemporary family institutions of Mexico.
The volume, it can be seen, is more than an historical account of the Negro in
colonial Mexico. It is a careful, thorough, balanced, and fully documented study of
social stratification and racial amalgamation during a period of remarkable evolution.
KINGSLEY DAVIS
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON, N. 1.

Trinidad Y’illage. MELVILLE J. HERSKOVITS and FRANCES S. HERSKOVITS.(viii, 351 pp.,

8 illustrations, bibliography and index. $4.75. Alfred A. Knofp, New York, 1947.)
With the appearance of Trinidad Village an important chapter has been added to
the larger work of Melville and Frances Herskovits devoted to the study of the process-
es of culture change, for, like the several earlier publications by one or both of the
authors, the present book is not only a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of
the Negro in the New World, but it is also a record of experimental research into the
problem of the dynamics of social relations and of cultural adjustment in time and
space. Their field work has long been guided by a thoughtfully conceived program of
investigation and by their intention to develop and verify a number of general hy-
potheses of basic interest to the more classical as well as the applied anthropologist.
Consequently, the whole span of their work has a unity that makes almost necessary a
ready familiarity with previous monographs in order to appreciate fully the implica-
tions of this new book.
Some of the hypotheses that underlie their monographs and that are once more
put to the test may perhaps be summarized as follows: Culture, being learned and
therefore transmittable to anyone who may receive it, changes in contact situations
both in conformance with particular historical circumstances, and according to inner
laws whose application is limited neither to a specific culture nor to cultural forms as
such. In order to get a t cultural process it is necessary in each case to separate out, as
it were, the historical factors. It is a historical accident, for instance, that the Negroes
in Trinidad have in modern times lived in a largely Protestant community controlled
by an English-speaking nation. Certain aspects of their present-day culture, in which
one sees obvious differences from the cultuxes of groups on islands where Spanish and
French influences have predominated until now are attributable to this historical event
and its consequences. Wherever it occurs, cultural borrowing is selective and “will
never take place evenly over the total range of culture, but will rather be determined
by the prior concerns of a borrowing people” as well as by their ability to act in conform-
ance with older traditions and new suggestions. In a stable situation, the authors be-
lieve, innovations will most readily be accepted in the area of “cultural focus,” but
under conditions of change it is just here that resistance will be most strong. Elements
which in the original culture are similar to others in the impinging culture-and which
are permitted expression-will be retained (syncretism). Where the easy merging of
forms is not possible, change will none the less involve adaptation and reinterpretation
of the new in terms of the psychological values inherent in institutions and beliefs
apparently abandoned, The working out of such processes has made possible some
diachronic interpretations based on synchronic studies of New World Negro communi-