Rendering of a Mulata: The Discovery and Rethinking of Mulatas in Colonial Latin American Art

Colonial Latin America during the 16th and early 19th centuries experienced a great transformation in the make up of its population never before experienced and today lives on the dividends of what was rendered. Often referred to as the 'forgotten root ' or the 'third root, ' the African population in colonial Mexico greatly outnumbered the Spanish population. It is estimated that approximately 250,000 to 500,000 Africans were brought to Mexico as slaves. As Herman Lee Bennett describes the population boom, "In 1698, the Franciscan traveller John Francis Gemelli Careri estimated that Mexico City’s inhabitants numbered 100,000 of whom ‘the greatest part of them are Blacks and Mulattoes by reason of the vast number of slaves that have been carried thither.’"1 Such a great population inspired great fear amongst the minority Spanish inhabitants. It also inspired feelings of another sort and perhaps not altogether estranged leading to the vast numbers of mulatos born during the 16th and 19th centuries in colonial Latin America. The appearance of the mulata in Latin America shares similar experiences that permeate its geographical borders. For the purposes of this essay, the scope of countries will be limited to Mexico and Cuba although the mulata experience in colonial Latin America appears i