The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 77, July 1973 - April, 1974 Page: 293
568 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Comparative Demographic Analysis
land and property.' At first glance this classification seems applicable to
Texas, but closer scrutiny reveals that its generalities are inadequate be-
cause of numerous exceptions.
The northern borderlands of New Spain became the assembly point for
a quite heterogeneous population, coming from all walks of life and places.
Such a frontier society can be identified with the relatively open society of
the Conquest much more easily than with the cohesive and hierarchical
structure later imposed by Spain on its American possessions.
This is not an isolated or casual fact. Texas was incorporated into the
Spanish realm when the colonization of Central Mexico had been already
completed. San Antonio, originally just a tiny garrison town, was settled by
peasants from the Canary Islands, who, fortified by their own rural past
and their innate toughness, adapted themselves perfectly to the new environ-
ment, despite isolation and need. The social stratification of the viceking-
dom, which reached its most significant momentum in the second half of
the eighteenth century, was not completely absent, however, from this new
frontier society. It unquestionably existed, but only in such an extenuated
and permeated way that it presents-unlike the situation in some other re-
gions of America-a clear case of acculturation of the European, a process
which at the beginning of the nineteenth century would turn into a com-
plete identification with the natives and the environment.
It is pretentious, however, to define that Texan culture as a democratic
society in the current and present sense. The new province was formed un-
der the influence of the social order ruling in New Spain, but without the
presence of really closed ethnic or economic groups. This circumstance was
primarily determined by the scarcity of the original European population,
which was readily followed by larger contingents of settlers from Mexico.
Racial miscegenation was strong in this second wave of immigrants. They
3L. N. McAlister, "Social Structure and Social Change in New Spain," Hispanic
American Historical Review, XLIII (August, I963), 362. For more recent discussion,
see D. A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763-18zo (Cambridge,
England, 1971), 247-270; Brading, "Grupos etnicos, clases y estructura ocupacional en
Guanajuato, 1792," Historia Mexicana, XXI (January-March, 1972), 460-480; and
Brading, "Government and Elite in Late Colonial Mexico," Hispanic American Historical
Review, LIII (August, 1973), 389-414.
4Relative to frontier dynamics in northern Mexico, see among others: Silvio Zavala,
New Viewpoints on the Spanish Colonization of America (Philadelphia, 1943), and "The
Frontiers of Hispanic America," in The Frontier in Perspective, edited by Walter D.
Wyman and Clifton B. Kroeber (Madison, 1957), 43-58; Francois Chevalier, La forma-
cidn de los grandes latifundios en Mdxico (Mexico City, 1956), 226-229; Enrique Flores-
cano, "Colonizaci6n, ocupaci6n del suelo y 'frontera' en el Norte de Nueva Espafia,
1521-1750," Tierras Nuevas, edited by Alvaro Jara (2nd. ed.; Mexico City, 1973), 43-
76.293
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 77, July 1973 - April, 1974, periodical, 1973/1974; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117148/m1/343/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.