The Mestizo Identity of The Spaniards: The Memory of Ethnic Intermixture in Early Modern Spain

Abstract In the historiographical account that has prevailed so far, the Spanish early modern age has been presented as a period in which national identity would have been constructed on a unitary, homogeneous, and unanimously defended conception of the genealogical origins of the Spanish nation. A common origin, based on the idea of a pure and uncontaminated “Tubalist” or Gothic heritage, would have provided a common identity, and this identity would thus have become national. According to this vision, the Spaniards of the time would have ignored, hidden, rejected, or forgotten any trace of intermixture with other peoples. This dominant historiographical account has ignored, or tended to undervalue, other, far from marginal, views of the genealogical origins of the Spaniards. In this article we will show that, although that vision of the Spanish people certainly existed, many Spaniards thought otherwise. Many, including some members of the upper strata of society, considered the Spanish “nation” to be the product of a mixture of different peoples, to which Jews and Muslims would also have contributed significantly. For them, far from being a people that had been kept “pure” since antiquity, Spaniards were a mixed people, a nation that was the result of a long process of intermixture.