<P> A casta (Spanish: (ˈkasta)) was a term to describe mixed - race individuals in Spanish America, resulting from unions of European whites (españoles), Amerindians (indios), and Africans (negros). Racial categories had legal and social consequences, since racial status was an organizing principle of Spanish colonial rule . During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European elites created a complex hierarchical system of race classification . The sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas was used in the 17th and 18th century in Spanish America and Spanish Philippines to describe as a whole and formally socially rank the mixed - race people who were born during the post-Conquest period . The process of mixing ancestries in the union of people of different races was known as mestizaje (Portuguese: mestiçagem (meʃtʃiˈsaʒẽj), (mɨʃtiˈsaʒɐ̃j)). In Spanish colonial law, mixed - race castas were classified as part of the república de españoles and not the república de indios, which set Amerindians outside the Hispanic sphere . Other terminology for classification is categorization based on the degree of acculturation to Hispanic culture, which distinguished between gente de razón (Hispanics, literally, "people of reason") and gente sin razón (non-acculturated natives), concurrently existed and supported the idea of the racial classification system . Castas is a Spanish word that is used in New Mexico history to describe pueblo people and New Mexicans . </P> <P> Created by Hispanic elites, the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas, varied largely due to their birth, color, race and origin of ethnic types . The system of castas was more than socio - racial classification . It had an effect on every aspect of life, including economics and taxation . Both the Spanish colonial state and the Church required more tax and tribute payments from those of lower socio - racial categories . Related to Spanish ideas about purity of blood (which historically also related to its reconquest of Spain from the Moors), the colonists established a caste system in Latin America by which a person's socio - economic status generally correlated with race or racial mix in the known family background, or simply on phenotype (physical appearance) if the family background was unknown . From the colonial period, when the Spanish imposed control, many wealthy persons and high government officials were of peninsular (Iberian) and / or European background, while African or indigenous ancestry, or dark skin, generally was correlated with inferiority and poverty . The "whiter" the heritage a person could claim, the higher in status they could climb; conversely, darker features meant less opportunity . </P>

When was the social class system latin american colonies created