Castas in New Spain

Over the decades, and then over the centuries, new ethnic combinations emerged that would then be codified in what was called the casta. These peninsula emigrants then ran into the indigenous amarindian tribes. And so a little indigenous blood was always allowed into these families, though they did their best to pretend tike those impure parts of the family tree did not exist. The indigenous tribes lived in their own villages and towns under their own hierarchies, and often were exempt from as vice regal taxes.