Daily Life In Colonial Latin America (15 page)

Enslaved laborers on the plantations of Brazil lived in
small one-room huts no different from those of the rural working people of
Spanish America, or in large structures divided into rooms with one family
occupying each room. In Brazil, it was common for working families, whether
made up of slaves or freemen, to be allotted a garden plot to grow at least
some of their own food. Indeed, this arrangement was not only a regular but
often an essential feature of plantation life owing to the notorious failure of
many sugar planters to provide adequate nourishment to their slaves. A 1701
decree by King Pedro II of Portugal reflects this fact. In it he ordered his
officials in Brazil to force local slave-owners “either to give their slaves
the required sustenance, or a free day in the [work] week so that they can
themselves cultivate the ground.”  At times, these small-scale cultivators
might sell their surplus to the
casa grande
(main house) in exchange for
a little money they could save toward the purchase of their freedom or spend on
a small luxury.

Circumstances were similar on large sugar plantations in
Spanish America. One such property, located just south of what is now Guatemala
City and home to some 200 enslaved residents in 1630, was described by an
English observer as “a little Town by it selfe for the many cottages and
thatched houses of
Blackmore
slaves which belong unto it.”  As in
Brazil, the houses of the working people of Spanish America, both slave and
free, often included a garden plot as well.

Homes
constructed of adobe and thatch in modern Ecuador, a style of housing that has
been in use in some areas of Latin America for hundreds of years.

Urban Housing

People who left rural areas to move to a nearby town or
city sometimes lived where they worked, in the homes of the wealthy. These
domestic workers had a small space in the home of their employer, an
arrangement that afforded protection from the precariousness of independent
life, if not from members of the family they served. In exchange for this
security, they had to be available for work as needed, meaning at any hour of
the day or night. For those who did not find a place with a wealthier family
the housing prospects were grim. Many recent arrivals found, or helped
themselves to, some kind of material with which to construct a makeshift
shelter, designed to serve as a temporary home, although frequently what was
conceived as temporary became permanent or lasted at least until the next
earthquake or mudslide destroyed it. These little dwellings clustered together,
completely devoid of any formal plan, in a ravine or other area marginal to the
city proper, gradually forming whole neighborhoods of slums that housed much of
the working population of the city.

Priests lived in housing supplied by the church, although
if they came from wealthy families, they might live in lavishly appointed homes
in town or sometimes on a hacienda they had bought with family money; the
servants of priests were usually Indians or
casta
members of the working
classes. Secular urban professionals like lawyers, doctors, merchants,
tradesmen, or shopkeepers and officers in the military lived in homes that were
more or less well appointed, depending on their income.

The wealthy generally lived in town. In Brazil, plantation
owners and their families might live in the countryside on their sugar
plantation, or
engenho,
although they would usually have a home in the
nearest city as well, and family members moved back and forth. The homes of
government functionaries, most of them sent to the colonies directly from
Europe as agents of the crown, and of the wealthiest colonists in both Spanish
America and Brazil displayed art objects and treasures imported from the mother
country. Things produced in the colonies could not compete in beauty or value
with the luxury goods, possibly originating in China or India, brought over
from Europe.

Architecture and Social Relationships

In the countryside, even the homes of the wealthiest owners
of large estates were often like large fortresses of many rooms with almost no
furniture. For the most part, the building materials were the same as those
used in more humble dwellings with the exception of the roof, which would often
be of tile rather than thatch. Some adornments might be added, including walls
of stucco with wooden beams and interior wood paneling. Rooms, usually without
windows, were arranged around a central patio, a style based on the houses of
the ancient Romans that were built around an open-air space known as the
atrium. Fancy houses in town might be constructed in a figure eight around two
patios, a front one with a formal garden and possibly a fountain, and a
functional back patio with an open water storage tank for washing the laundry
and watering the horses, and with a kitchen and food storage area off to one
side.

Architectural styles were also affected by the quite
practical consideration of earthquakes. As a result, houses of the wealthy,
especially in the Andes, were sometimes constructed for flexibility with beams
linked by heavy leather bindings in place of nails. In areas of frequent
tremors, wide sturdy archways might be included to provide protection for the
family members.

Compared with the housing of today’s industrialized world,
the houses of people in colonial Latin America provided precious little
comfort. Most large houses were drafty and dark; most small houses were cramped
and cheerless. Furniture, what there was of it, was built for function rather
than comfort. This generalized lack of comfort at home reflects an important
aspect of life in the colonial period, however, which is that people spent a
lot more time outside in public spaces. A great deal of work was done outside,
either in the fields or in the streets and open-air markets. Going to the local
spring or well for water, or going to wash the laundry at a local stream or
public wash house became an opportunity to chat with others, exchange news and
gossip, and spend parts of the day outside the house. This was more true for
the working people than for their social “betters,” however. Women from elite
families were expected to stay at home unless they were heading out to church,
usually in a group of other women from the household. If the family could
afford a carriage, the women would make use of it to avoid the streets, which
were sometimes filthy and, depending on whether it was the dry or rainy season,
were likely to be a dustbowl or a sea of mud.

Another interesting feature of housing in the colonial
period is that it was more crowded than the houses many people are used to in
today’s world. The homes of the wealthy included the patriarchal family and
might also house maiden aunts, a widowed mother, or a ne’er-do-well brother; a
quantity of domestic servants, free or enslaved, commensurate with the family’s
wealth; possibly one or more illegitimate children of a family member; and the
occasional visitor. The families of poorer people may have lacked this wide
variety, but their homes were smaller and often did contain an extra member or
two, possibly a farmworker, a “girl” to help with the housework, a widowed
mother, or an unwed sister or aunt. To some extent, family members were driven
out into public space because there were so many people in the house.

CLOTHING

In colonial Latin America, clothing truly did “make the
man,” as the saying goes. There was no greater marker of social class than
clothing. A humble home is left behind when one goes out into the public arena,
but a person’s dress conveys his rank in society. The more European the style
of one’s clothing, the more respect he commanded. Even wealthy people had fewer
clothes than modern industrial production provides many people of today’s
world, but the clothing they did have was designed to communicate their social
standing. People dressed in the most elegant style they could afford in their
attempt to assure their position in high society. Clothing represented a
necessary investment in social standing.

Elite Clothing Styles

Elites or people aspiring to elite status adopted European
clothing, meaning, for men, leather shoes or boots, silk hosiery, silk or linen
underwear, knee breeches or other pants imitating the latest European fashion,
a jacket and shirt with sleeves, an overcoat, and a hat of felted wool. Women
of high society possessed different clothes for different activities, outfits
for riding and going to church, as well as everyday dresses, party clothes, and
various capes, shawls, and lace head coverings. They favored silk underwear and
nightgowns; many petticoats; long-sleeved, ankle-length dresses, possibly of
Asian silk trimmed with lace; and footwear of fine leather.

Clothing Styles among the Common People

The common people dressed in practical clothing of home
manufacture, constructed of local materials, especially cotton or at times wool
from the sheep brought by the Spanish in the 16th century. The working men of
New Spain generally wore durable cotton fashioned into loose-fitting pants and
shirt. In addition, they frequently wore some kind of handwoven cloak that
replaced the overcoat of their social “betters.” Many people went barefoot, but
they might have had a pair of sandals made of hides. On their heads, they often
wore a straw hat with a wide brim for protection from sun and rain. In colder
areas like the Andean highlands, men wore more wool and a hat made of some
fiber. Since the clothing of working people was usually made of local materials
and had to suit local weather conditions, areas based on a cattle economy
tended toward leather clothing, while cotton was preferred in warmer areas, and
wool in the chilly highlands.

Women wore homespun cotton or wool skirts, sometimes
covering several petticoats, and over their blouse, or
huipil,
they
threw a shawl of cotton or wool that doubled as a carrier for the latest baby
or for goods on their way to or from market. Underwear was nonexistent for both
men and women of the working classes.

Most enslaved workers, especially those employed in
plantation labor, were not in a position to buy their clothes; they wore what
was provided for them. While conditions varied somewhat from one work site to
another, the general rule was for owners to spend the absolute minimum to
clothe the workforce. They might allot each worker a few yards of the cheapest
cloth to fashion into pants or a skirt. Sometimes the workers would receive a
new item of simple cotton clothing once a year or every other year. In very hot
conditions like the sugar-boiling house, the workers might go naked or nearly
so. Some contemporary accounts relate that the slaves went naked, but most
drawings show them with pants or a skirt of handwoven cotton cloth.

Enslaved workers who earned wages, paying their owner his
share and keeping a share themselves, sometimes invested that money in items of
clothing or jewelry for use on festival days. Foreign observers often remarked
on the strikingly elegant clothing worn by some women of color, including
slaves, in Mexico City, Lima, and other urban areas. This phenomenon was
widespread enough to prompt a number of apparently ineffectual royal decrees
prohibiting such displays of finery by anyone outside the colonial elite. In
some cases, it was status-conscious slave owners who purchased the
“extravagant” clothing worn by women (or men) who served them, although
considerations of status were no less important when an enslaved person
acquired a fine article of clothing on her own. Public display of the article
served to establish its wearer’s claim to the upper rungs of the social
hierarchy, in this case the slave hierarchy.