“Mexico is the country of inequality. Nowhere does there exist such a profound difference in the distribution of fortune, civilization, cultivation of the soil, and population. The indigenous people offer a picture of extreme misery. They are banished into the most barren districts and live only from hand to mouth. Besides them, there are the people called castas, who spring from the mixture of the races with one another. These castas constitute a mass almost as considerable as the indigenous people.

The government is suspicious of the Creoles1 and bestows great estates exclusively on European Spaniards. Since 1789 we frequently hear the following being proudly declared, ‘I am not a Spaniard, I am an American!’ These are words that betray a long resentment. In the eye of law, every White Creole is a Spaniard, but the abuse of the laws, the bad policies of the colonial government, and the influence of the opinions of the age have loosened the bonds that formerly united more closely the Mexican Creoles to the European Spaniards.”

Alexander Von Humboldt, Prussian geographer and explorer, Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, 1811

Question
The passage would be most useful to a historian researching which of the following topics?

Responses

The global influence of Enlightenment ideals on emerging nationalist movements

The global influence of Enlightenment ideals on emerging nationalist movements

The influence of Christianization on ethnic identities

The influence of Christianization on ethnic identities

The influence of the Marxist concept of class conflict on Latin American societies

The influence of the Marxist concept of class conflict on Latin American societies

The global influence of economic liberalism on imperial land policies