<P> In the mid to late eighteenth century, the pace of race mixture (mestizaje) increased in New Spain, political changes of the Bourbon Reforms privileged peninsular Spaniards over American - born Spaniards, and casta paintings began to be produced in great numbers in Mexico . It was also the period when the power of the sistema de castas declined significantly . </P> <P> In Spanish America (and many other places), racial categories were formal legal classifications . Initially in Spanish America there were three racial categories . They generally referred to the multiplicity of indigenous American peoples as "Indians" (indios), a Spanish term applied to, but seldom used by Amerinds themselves . Those from Spain called themselves españoles, which in the late colonial period was further refined to those born in Iberia, called politely peninsulares, while American - born españoles were called criollos . The third group were black Africans, called negros ("Blacks"), brought as slaves from the earliest days of Spanish empire in the Caribbean . There were fewer Spanish women than men who immigrated to the New World and fewer black women than men, so that mixed - race offspring of Spaniards and of Blacks were often the product of liaisons with indigenous women . The process of race mixture was termed mestizaje . </P> <P> In the sixteenth century, the term casta, a collective category for mixed - race individuals, came into existence as the numbers grew, particularly in urban areas . The crown had divided the population of its overseas empire into two categories, separating Indians from non-Indians . Indigenous were the República de Indios, the other the República de Españoles, essentially the Hispanic sphere, so that Spaniards, Blacks, and mixed - race castas were lumped into this category . Official censuses and ecclesiastical records noted an individual's racial category, so that these sources can be used to chart socio - economic standard, residence patterns, and other important data . </P> <P> General racial groupings had their own set of privileges and restrictions, both legal and customary . So, for example, only Spaniards and indigenous, who were deemed to be the original societies of the Spanish dominions, had recognized aristocracies . Also, in America and other overseas possessions, all Spaniards, regardless of their family's class background in Europe, came to consider themselves equal to the Peninsular hidalgía and expected to be treated as such . </P>

When was the social class system in latin america created