Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working-Class Spaniards, Indians, and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1821
ARON Alexander von Humboldt occasionally made a mistake. In the 1803 edition of Ensaiyo politico, he lamented that the Revillagigedo census of 1793 had never been completed for the Intendency of Guadalajara.' Fortunately, he was wrong. Although it is true that the official returns from Guadalajara came in so late and so riddled with minor errors that its compiler earned a reprimand from his superior, the census indeed had been taken and arrived in Spain in the fall of 1793. The statistical data were organized by marital status, age, and sex, and then summarized under two headings: "Distinci6n de castas" and "Distinci6n de clases."2 Modern-day historians have differed sharply over those very terms, debating whether, by the late colonial era, economic class had super-