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Scholars of colonial Spanish America are divided between those who cherish Spaniards for respecting indigenous land rights and those who denounce them for not having done so. For the first group, Spanish respect was enshrined in political and theological debates and in legislation and practice that from the sixteenth century asserted that natives had right to the lands they possessed before Europeans arrived. For the second group, native dispossession was a dominant feature of colonial life. Whatever the theory may have mandated, the balance of power favored non-natives by allowing them access to a wide variety of social, legal, political, economic, and cultural instruments enabling them to control the land.

Scholars of colonial Spanish America are divided between those who cherish Spaniards for respecting indigenous land rights and those who denounce them for not having done so. For the first group, Spanish respect was enshrined in political and theological debates and in legislation and practice that from the sixteenth century asserted that natives had right to the lands they possessed before Europeans arrived. For the second group, native dispossession was a dominant feature of colonial life. Whatever the theory may have mandated, the balance of power favored non-natives by allowing them access to a wide variety of social, legal, political, economic, and cultural instruments enabling them to control the land.

ReSuMen Este ensayo indaga sobre el sentido, utilización y extensión de los conceptos "natural" y "extranjero" tanto en España como en Hispanoamérica durante el período moderno. Aboga por una lectura que destaca i. que la distinción entre naturales y extranjeros no siempre era importante, ni siquiera relevante; ii. que para que haya discusiones al respecto hacía falta una parte afectada y unos intereses concretos; iii. que la naturaleza y la extranjería no eran situaciones concretas sino que reflejaban la existencia de un continuum que iba de los totalmente extranjeros a los totalmente naturales, pasando por una amplia gama de situaciones intermedias; iv. que el discurso sobre la extranjería también se aplicaba a lo que hoy llamaríamos minorías con el fin de discriminarlas.palabras clave: natural, extranjero, vecino, gitano, africano, converso, morisco. natives and foreigners: the Construction of Categories in the early Modern Spanish World ABStRACtThis 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.

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