Social Life in Colonial Mexico

The elegant social life of the elites took place within the walls of their houses, not on the streets or in the many taverns and eateries of the city. Life outside of the household included attendance at concerts and performances held in theaters and a quite stylized and controlled social intercourse among the young involving promenades in parks and avenues. Urban merchants completely dominated commerce in colonial Mexico. Many of the major wholesalers—congregated entirely in Mexico City until the second half of the eighteenth century, when some newcomers based themselves in Veracruz—were quite independent of Spanish commercial houses. The staff of these firms was routinely refreshed by new recruits from Spain, some of whom rose rapidly to head the businesses. The offspring of these wholesalers commonly intermarried with established elite families of the colony and became smoothly integrated into the higher ranks of society. Over the course of time, numerous elite families added merchant houses to their diversified set of investments, along with rural estates, and sometimes mills, processing plants, or mines.

At least the several largest cities had substantial middle classes, composed of the many professionals in the society, prominent retail store and mill owners, business managers, and the most successful master artisans. In these cities the several governmental bureaucracies, the diverse agencies of the Catholic Church, the educational institutions, and the medical establishments employed a good number of wellcompensated and respected professionals. Individual families sometimes owned several specialized retail stores or processing plants. Master artisans on occasion expanded their enterprises into a large establishment or several shops.

Such entities as Mexico City, Puebla, Querétaro, and San Miguel employed large numbers of workers in refining mills, textile plants, and other types of processing enterprises. Mining centers such as Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Real del Monte, and Taxco engaged thousands of individuals in refining and transporting silver ore, leaving aside the great numbers who labored in the mines themselves, often earning a rather substantial income through incentive programs. The vast retail sectors of these urban centers, including hundreds of small restaurants and drinking establishments besides stores and market stalls, provided decent livings to many more. Artisan shops commonly employed at least several journeymen and apprentices and even perhaps another master craftsman or two.

An array of construction and transportation businesses flourished in these cities. Buildings, streets, roads, canals, and aqueducts were being constructed continually in and around urban centers. Humans also conducted much of the portage of goods around the city and directed the mule teams that characteristically transported goods over any long distance. But even this vast spectrum of employment possibilities could not accommodate the large unskilled urban population. Probably between one-fifth and one-third of the population of the major cities had no regular employment and lived from day to day, soliciting temporary jobs and sometimes engaging in petty crime, the latter being rampant in the streets and retail establishments.