Natives and Foreigners: The Construction of Categories in the Early Modern Spanish World

Abstract

This essay examines the meaning, uses and extension of the concepts ‘native’ and ‘foreigner’ in both Spain and Spanish America during the Early Modern period. It argues: i. that the distinction between natives and foreigners was not always important, not even relevant; ii. that discussions regarding these categories only happened when actors identified particular interests that they were willing to defend; iii. that nativeness and foreignness were not concrete situations but instead reflected the existence of a continuum that connected those totally native and those totally foreign, through a wide range of intermediary situations; iv. that the discourse regarding foreignness was also applied to those we currently identify as minorities in order to discriminate against them.