Posted by Pamela on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 14:35:49 :

Does anyone know about the "calidad" categories present on census rolls displayed at the Data Nook on this site? A book by Wm Marvin Mason is said to explain how the terms were used. But I don't have the book. Espanolo, mestiza, indio, mulata are familiar, but morizco, color quebrado and especially the coyotes and coyotas are beyond my imagination.

[coyote] originates, at least in parish records, in the first half of the seventeenth century, and as do several terms signifying mixtures, appears to have more than one meaning. In eighteenth century California a coyote was apparently a person who was three-fourths Indian and one-fourth white. Elsewhere in Mexico, however, a coyote could be half Indian, one-fourth white, and one-fourth black. More commonly, however, they were Indian-white mixtures, as in California.

-Ron Filion, sfgenealogy