Spanish authorities suspended racial hierarchies to promote colonial settlement.

Evidence

I understand ontology as that which is about the ascribed being or essence of things, the categories of things that are thought to exist or can exist in any specific domain, and the specific attributes assigned to them. Ontologies, as Ian Hacking writes, refer to “what comes into existence with the historical dynamics of naming.” Pursuing an “historical ontology,” then, demands something that philosophical study of ontology tout court might pursue but more often does not: identification of mutating assignments of essence and its predicates in specific time and place. On the face of it, the notion of essence implies stability and fixity, the enduring properties of people and things. But if there is anything we can learn from the colonial ontologies of racial kinds, it is that such “essences” were protean, not fixed, subject to reformulation again and again. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 45 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Some late-colonial officials publicly rejected the racial hierarchy of ruler and ruled; Colonial racial essences were protean and repeatedly reformulated, not fixed — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 45; Colonial race was judged by conduct and affiliation rather than appearance

Related

• Colonial racial essences were protean and repeatedly reformulated, not fixed (similarity 0.90)
• Colonial domination doctrine reduces humanity to fixed racial essences (similarity 0.84)
• Colonial policy disputes centered on how race should be assessed, not what race is (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Some late-colonial officials publicly rejected the racial hierarchy of ruler and ruled #corroborates (0.70)
• Colonial race was judged by conduct and affiliation rather than appearance #corroborates (0.60)
• Colonial racial essences were protean and repeatedly reformulated, not fixed #complicates (0.50) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 45