3. Fino Mustees, their Children married again with the Spaniards.
4. Terceroons de Indies, their Children again mix’d with the Spaniards.
5. Quarteroons de Indies, their Posterity again mix’d with the Spaniards. These last are allowed to be Primitive Spaniards again.
6. Mullattoes, begot by a Spaniard, or any European, on a Negro Woman.
7. Quarteroon de Negroes, again mixt with the Spaniards, and esteem’d no better than Mullattoes.
8. Terceroon de Negroes, a third Mixture with the Spaniards, still call’d Mullattoes, because they will not allow ’em the Privilege or Title of Spaniard after once debas’d with the Negro Breed, tho’ some of ’em are as white as themselves; but they can’t get off the ugly Name of Mullatto, unless they hide their Descent, which is no hard Task, if they remove their Abode to another Place where they are not known, which is often practis’d and conniv’d at by the Fathers of the Church, to increase the Number of good Catholick Spaniards.
9. The 9th Sort is Indians, who are all of a dark Olive-tawny Colour; these (tho’ the true and antient Proprietors of the Country) are placed a Class below the worst of the Spanish Descendants, which are generally begot without Marriage on their Servants and Slaves.
10. Negroes.
11. All the Species and Breeds between the Negroes and Indians are call’d Sambos, tho’ by mixing their Breed as they do, they commonly differ little or nothing to the Eye from the Spanish mix’d Descendants.
These 11 are the common Sorts, tho’ some of ’em seem not very regularly distinguish’d: But they have rung Changes so often in those Peals of Generation, that there is no End of their Distinctions. The Spaniards are the fewest by far of all the Inhabitants; and were it not for those Mixtures, which the Fathers of the Church keep united, the Indians might again take possession of their Country, for the Spaniards would be too few to keep it, and much more uncapable of peopling it. Few of those Prisoners that fell into our hands were healthy and sound; near half of the Spaniards discover’d publickly to our Doctors their Malady, in order to get Physick from them against the French Disease, which is so common here, that they reckon it no Scandal to be deep in the Powdering Tub; and the Heat of the Country facilitating the Cure, they make very light of it. All the Spaniards I discours’d allow that this rich Country is not a tenth peopled, nor are half the Indians far within Land civilized, tho’ they affirm their King has in the West Indies more Subjects of several Colours, than in all Spain, or the rest of his Dominions in Europe (which may be true) and I believe they are such Subjects, as no Christian King can boast of; for the King of Spain is able to match the Skins of his Americans to any Colour, with more Variety and Exactness than a Draper can match his Cloth and Trimming.