Peninsulares

"Peninsular" redirects here. For the geographical formation, see peninsula.

In the colonial caste system of Spanish America, a peninsular was a Spanish-born Spaniard residing in the New World, as opposed to a person of full Spanish descent born in the Americas (known as criollos).

Peninsulares held high official power or positions in the Americas. Apart from the distinction of peninsulares from criollos, the castas system distinguished also mestizos (of mixed Spanish and Amerindian ancestry), mulattos (of mixed Spanish and black ancestry), Amerindians, zambos (mixed Amerindian and black ancestry) and finally Blacks. In some places and epochs, they were called depreciatively godos ("Goths"), or in Mexico, gachupines.

Only peninsulares could hold the position of Viceroy, by law. The criollos held high positions in government and in the church, and owned almost all of the land. Mestizos could enter the priesthood, but were usually small farmers, craftsmen and artisans. Land ownership restrictions loosened up later in the Empire.

Colonial officials at the highest levels arrived from Spain or Portugal to fulfill their duty to govern Iberian colonies in Latin America. Often, the Peninsulares had large quantities of land. They defended the Cádiz monopoly on trade, upsetting the criollos, prone to smuggle with British and French colonies. They worked to preserve Spanish or Portuguese power and acted as agents of patrol, in certain cases.

In colonial social hierarchy, the peninsulares were nominally at the top, followed by criollos, who developed a fully-entrenched powerful local aristocracy during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. In the French Revolution, the peninsulares were generally conservative.

In the twentieth century, peninsular was an euphemism for white in Spanish Guinea. It is also used in the Canary Islands for a non-Canarian Spaniard.

The descendants of peninsulares and criollos in the Philippines, later extended to anyone in the Anglophone upper-class, came to collectively be known as konyos after their frequent use of the Spanish swearword coño. Their variant of English with Tagalog words is characteristic.

Other use

Peninsulares was also a Spanish brand of cigarettes.

See also

• Isleños. Some regions distinguished between Peninsular Spanish immigrants and those from the Canary Islands, the isleños.