Personal Narrative: Uncovering The New World

Three months ago I stepped off the ship to see ground for the first time in three years. My initial sights of the New World and the native people was enigmatic and disconcerting- never have I felt so unacquainted with a populace. I have spent my time here in Mexico City trailing along with a group of apprentices of master artists whom I traveled with on the ship from Seville. My artist companions have enlightened my understanding of New World society with their paintings in the time that we have spent together. I’ve been earning exceptional fortune in harvesting New World cochineal for export to Europe and providing pigments for the paint of my fellow artist friends. A great patron of mine, Miguel Cabrera, bestowed upon me his lovely paintings …show more content…
The prevalence of racial intermarriage has caused the blending of skin color and phenotypes, making discerning each person’s casta based on appearance very difficult. The Spanish hierarchy makes this easier by assigning certain material culture for each race. In the second painting I sent, De lobo y india, albarasado, my good friend Cabrera depicts a branch of the lower class. The characters are wearing tattered clothes that are clearly not tailored with pockets or buttons like the Spaniard in the first painting. The Libo worker wears a ripped round hat, contrasting greatly in design from the bourbon hat worn by the Spanish man in the first painting. This ripped hat most likely functions to protect against sun exposure from manual labor outside. On the other hand, the bourbon hat that the Spanish man in the first painting is worn less for . He also wears a white cape knotted around the neck- this reveals that he has to pay tribute or labor to the government. It is evident that this man is of lower class than his wife because he is staring at her in the painting. The wife, an India, wears a simple and dull dress while carrying a sack of produce on her