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Criollo

Notable Criollos: Agustín de Iturbide · Juan Ponce de León II · Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz · Simón Bolívar · Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi · Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
Regions with significant populations
Spanish colonial empire in the Americas
Languages
Spanish
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic

Criollos (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkɾjoʎos], sing. Criollo, "creole") were a social class in the caste system of the overseas colonies established by Spain in the 16th century, especially in Latin America, comprising the locally born people of pure or mostly Spanish ancestry.^[1]

The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born (yet class of commoners) permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes — people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans. According to the casta system, a Criollo could have up to 1/8 (one great-grandparent or equivalent) Amerindian, ancestry and not lose social place (see Limpieza de sangre).^[2] In the 18th- and early 19th centuries, changes in Madrid's policies towards her colonies (and their polyglot of peoples) led to tensions between the Criollos and the Peninsulares. The growth of indigenous Criollo political and economic strength in their separate colonies coupled with their global geographic distribution, and led them to each evolve a separate (both from each other and Spain) organic national personality and viewpoint. Criollo nationalists were the main supporters of the Spanish American wars of independence.

The term criollo is often translated into English as creole. However, the word "creole" is also applied to many ethnic groups around the world who have no historic connection to Spain or to any colonial system. Indeed, many of those creole peoples were never a distinct social caste, and were never defined by purity of descent.

Origin of the term[link]

The word criollo and its Portuguese cognate crioulo are believed to come from the Spanish/Portuguese verb criar, meaning "to breed" or "to raise". The term came into use in the settlements established by the Portuguese along the West African coast.^{[citation needed]} Originally the term was meant to distinguish the members of any foreign ethnic group who were born and "raised" locally, from those born in the group's homeland, as well as from persons of mixed ethnic ancestry. Thus, in the Portuguese colonies of Africa, português crioulo was a locally born person of Portuguese descent; in the Americas, negro criollo or negro crioulo was a locally born person of pure black (i.e. African) ancestry; and, in Spanish colonies, an español criollo was an ethnic Spaniard who had been born in the colonies, as opposed to an español peninsular born in Spain.^{[citation needed]}

Limpieza de sangre or "cleanliness of blood" was a legal conception derived from the Spanish Reconquista, and later introduced to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. In Spain, the concept was used to distinguish old Christians of "pure" unmixed Iberian Christian ancestry (either Southern Spanish Mozarabs or Christians from the Northern Kingdoms of Spain) from new Christians descending from baptized Moriscos (Iberian Muslims) and Sephardim (Iberian Jews), together known as conversos (converts), whose real faith was institutionally suspected.

The English word "creole" was a loan from French créole, which in turn is believed to come from Spanish criollo or Portuguese crioulo.^{[citation needed]}

The Spanish colonial caste system[link]

Most Spanish colonies started with a sizable population of indigenous Amerindians. Because the Spanish colonists were mostly men, they had liaisons with Amerindian women. (European women at the time did not travel to the Americas) Their children were mixed race. The population of mixed Spanish-Amerindian ancestry grew large enough to become a rather distinct group. In the 17th or 18th century, some Spanish colonies also imported large numbers of African slaves, who contributed to the racial mix of the populace.

In theory, Criollo status was attained by people of mixed origin who had one-eighth or less (the equivalent of a great grandparent) Amerindian ancestry, although in some cases individuals had much more. Such cases might include the offspring of a Castizo parent and one Peninsular or Criollo parent.^[2] This one-eighth rule, also in theory, did not apply to African admixture. In reality, officials assigned various racial categories to mix-raced people depending on their social status, what they were told or due to testimony from friends and neighbors.

To preserve the Spanish Crown's power in the colonies, the Spanish colonial society was based on an elaborate caste system, which related to a person's degree of descent from Spaniards. The highest-ranking castes were the españoles, Spaniards by birth or descent. The Penisulares were the persons born in Spain, while the Criollo comprised locally born people of proven unmixed Spanish ancestry, that is, the Americas-born child of two Spanish-born Spaniards or mainland Spaniards (peninsulares), of two Criollos, or a Spaniard and a Criollo.^{[citation needed]} People of mixed ancestry were classified in other castes — such as castizos, mestizos, cholos, mulatos, indios, zambos, and enslaved Africans, called blacks.

While the casta system was in force, the top ecclesiastical, military and administrative positions were reserved for crown-appointed Peninsulares,^{[citation needed]} who also favoured the Cádiz monopoly.^{[clarification needed][citation needed]} Most of the local land-owning elite and nobility belonged to the Criollo caste.

Criollos and the wars of independence[link]

Until 1760, the Spanish colonies were ruled under laws designed by the Spanish Habsburgs, which granted the American provinces great autonomy. That situation changed by the Bourbon Reforms during the reign of Charles III. Spain needed to extract increasing wealth from its colonies to support the European and global wars it needed to maintain the Spanish Empire. The Crown expanded the privileges of the Penisulares, who took over many administrative offices which had been filled by Criollos. At the same time, reforms by the Catholic Church reduced the roles and privileges of the lower ranks of the clergy, who were mostly Criollos.^{[citation needed]}

By the 19th century, this discriminatory policy of the Spanish Crown and the examples of the American and French revolutions, led the Criollos to rebel against the Peninsulares. With increasing support of the other castes, they engaged Spain in a fight for independence (1809–1826). The former Spanish Empire in the Americas separated into a number of independent republics.

Modern colloquial uses[link]

The word criollo retains its original meaning in most Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas.^{[citation needed]} In some countries, however, the word criollo has over time come to have additional meanings, such as "local" or "home grown". For instance, comida criolla in Spanish-speaking countries^{[clarification needed]} refers to "local cuisine", not "cuisine of the criollos". In Portuguese, "crioulo" is also a racist slang referring to Blacks.^[3][4]

In some Latin American countries, the term is also used to describe people from particular regions, such as the countryside or mountain areas:

• In Puerto Rico, natives of the town of Caguas are usually referred to as criollos; professional sports teams from that town are also usually nicknamed criollos de Caguas ("Caguas Creoles"). Caguas is located near Puerto Rico's part of the Cordillera Central mountain area.^{[citation needed]}

• In Argentina, locals of Argentina's northern and northwestern countryside provinces are called criollos by their porteño counterparts from Buenos Aires. They are typically seen as more traditionally Hispanic in culture and ancestry than the melting pot of non-Hispanic European influences that define the people and culture of Buenos Aires. Misa criolla is the name of a very popular mass composed Ariel Ramirez, and sung by Mercedes Sosa among others.^{[citation needed]}

• In Perú, criollo is associated with the syncretic culture of the Pacific Coast, a mixture of Spanish, African, indigenous, and Gitano elements. Its meaning is therefore more similar to that of "Louisiana Creole people" than to the criollo of colonial times.^{[citation needed]}

• In Venezuela, criollo is associated with the national culture of Venezuela. Pabellón criollo is Venezuela's national dish and the baseball Corporación Criollitos de Venezuela is a seeder to the well renowned Venezuelan National Baseball League LVBP among other examples. Música Criolla is a way to refer to Venezuelan traditional music i.e. joropo. In Venezuela novelists like Rómulo Gallegos with his novel Doña Bárbara, Pedro Emilio Coll, and Luis Manuel Urbaneja Achelpohl with the novel Peonía were major exponents of the Criollismo movement. Around Latin America the term criollo is used to identify venezuelan citizens, much like the term llanero.

References[link]

• Will Fowler. Latin America, 1800-2000: Modern History for Modern Languages. Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-340-76351-3
• Carrera, Magali Marie (2003). Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings. Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture. Austin: University of Texas. ISBN 978-0-292-71245-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=cgEYQ7LTkBQC&pg=PR8. 

http://www.rena.edu.ve/cuartaEtapa/literatura/ModerCriollismo.html

See also[link]

• Academia Antártica
• Creole peoples
• Latin Americans
• limpieza de sangre (literally, "cleanliness of blood")
• White Latin American
• White Brazilian
• White Cuban
• White Mexican
• European Peruvian
• White Venezuelan
• White Hispanic and Latino Americans
• Emancipados
• Fernandinos
• List of Criollos
• Latin Americans of Spanish descent

Antonio Lauro (August 3, 1917 – April 18, 1986) was a Venezuelan musician, considered to be one of the foremost South American composers for the Guitar in the 20th century.

Biography[link]

Antonio Lauro was born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. His father, an Italian immigrant, was a barber who could sing and play the guitar so he taught his son what he could, but died when Antonio was still a child. After the family moved to Caracas, Lauro pursued formal musical study (piano, composition) at the Academia de Música y Declamación, where the distinguished composer Vicente Emilio Sojo (1887–1974) was one of his teachers. A 1932 concert performed in Caracas by Agustín Barrios, the legendary Paraguayan guitarist and composer, so much impressed the young Lauro (already an accomplished folk guitarist) that he was persuaded to abandon piano and violin in favor of the guitar. From 1933, Lauro studied with Raúl Borges (1888–1967), and was introduced to the traditional classical guitar repertoire. In the next decade, Borges' pupils would also include Rodrigo Riera, José Rafael Cisneros, and Alirio Díaz. These colleagues, especially Díaz, were later responsible for unveiling Lauro's works to an astonished international audience, introducing these unheard works to the likes of Andrés Segovia and John Williams.

Like many South Americans of his generation, Lauro was a fervent cultural nationalist, determined to rescue and celebrate his nation's musical heritage. As a member of the Trio Cantores del Trópico in 1935-1943 (Lauro sang bass and played both guitar and cuatro), he toured nearby countries to introduce them to Venezuelan music. Lauro was particularly attracted to the myriad colonial parlour valses venezolanos (Venezuelan waltzes) created in the previous century by accomplished national composers such as Ramón Delgado Palacios (1867–1902). Unfailingly melodic, alternately wistful and brilliant, and characterized by a distinctive syncopation (created by a hemiola in which two measures of 3/4 become a single measure of 3/2), such music was precisely the sort of folkloric raw material which the likes of Smetana, Bartók or Granados had elevated to the category of national art in Europe.

A concert whose programme consisted entirely of such valses venezolanos (Venezuelan waltzes) by the distinguished Venezuelan pianist Evencio Castellanos (1914–1984) convinced Lauro that the guitar, too, should have comparable pieces in its repertory. Among his first efforts in this genre were the pieces later known as Tatiana, Andreína, and Natalia, composed sometime between 1938 and 1940; their instant popularity inspired still others. In addition to his guitar pieces, Lauro composed dozens of works for orchestra, choir, piano and voice; many of which remain unpublished. He occasionally experimented with modern compositional techniques, but most of his guitar music remains essentially on the Calle Real or "main street," an expression used by musicians of Lauro's generation to refer to a straight and direct route, without distracting harmonic detours.

In 1951-1952, the military junta of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez imprisoned Lauro for his principled belief in democracy. Lauro later shrugged off the experience, telling his friends that prison was a normal part of life for the Venezuelan man of his generation. He had continued composing even in prison, and after his release immediately returned to performing with a pioneering professional classical guitar trio, the freshly formed “Trio Raúl Borges”. In the following decades Lauro's compositions were published, recorded, and performed throughout the world, and his contributions to his nation's musical life were recognized and acknowledged everywhere. Lauro was appointed professor of guitar at several distinguished schools including the Juan José Landaeta Conservatory, and was named president of the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra. In spite of his modest insistence that he was a composer rather than a performer, he was persuaded by his friends to embark upon a solo concert tour which began in Venezuela and culminated in a triumphant 1980 performance at London's Wigmore Hall. Shortly before his death at Caracas in 1986, he was presented with the Premio Nacional de Música, his country's highest artistic award.

Popular Works[link]

Seis por derecho: a joropo, subtitled "al estilo del arpa venezolana" ("in the style of the Venezuelan harp"), is an extraordinary version of this energetic regional dance. Like the vals venezolano, the joropo makes extensive use of a hemiola, in this case an alternation of 6/8 and ¾. The title of this work comes from the llaneros (inhabitants of the Venezuelan llanos or plains) who approved of its insistent rhythm (6/8 = seis), thus giving it the right (derecho) to be so named. The next four pieces were classic valses venezolanos (Venezuelan waltzes): María Carolina (file info...), unpublished until 1983, named after the composer's first granddaughter. El Marabino refers to a native of Maracaibo (a more common term is maracucho), an important city where Lauro himself lived for a time. Lauro once told his pupil Luis Zea that he had named a new composition María Luisa after his wife, and that the piece was as difficult as she was – a comment which later caused Señora Lauro to burst into laughter. In fact, it is a very romantic work, the second section of which was inspired by Chopin's Waltz in A flat, Op. 69, No. 1. Angostura is the ancient name for Ciudad Bolívar, Lauro's birthplace.

Lauro wrote the impressive Suite Venezolana, consisting of Registro (Prelude), Danza Negra, Canción, and Vals, during his imprisonment in 1951-52. The curiously named first movement, Registro, refers to the sort of improvising (registrar) a musician might do to warm up his hands or to explore a new or unfamiliar instrument; it is therefore equivalent to the Italian term ricercare as it was used originally used in the Renaissance. Lauro used the identical title for the first movement of his Suite para piano. The Danza negra is a very difficult piece, frequently selected as the main or final challenge in international guitar contests, demanding not only a mature technique but a solid command of intricate Venezuelan rhythms as well. It is mainly an Afro-Venezuelan dance which quotes a Venezuelan folksong named San Pedro; another popular tune, La Tumba, is quoted in both of the last two movements, a typical canción de serenata (serenade song) and a vals. In 1971 Lauro wrote the waltz El Niño, dedicated to his eldest son, Leonardo.

The first three of the Cuatro Valses Venezolanos (Four Venezuelan Waltzes) were composed in Ecuador in 1938-40 while Lauro was touring there with the Trio Cantores del Trópico; years later, after the pieces had been published, Lauro decided to name them after his niece Tatiana, her sister Andreína, and his own daughter Natalia, respectively. The last is by far Lauro's most famous work, commonly known as Vals criollo (the title under which it was recorded by Andrés Segovia), or as Vals No.3 (the title under which it was published in 1963). The fourth waltz, Yacambú, is in rondo form having curious chromaticisms and unexpected harmonies; it was named after a picturesque mountainous area of western Venezuela.

El Negrito (referring to Lauro's youngest son Luis Augusto) and La Gatica (the kitten, a nickname for his wife) were published together in 1984; they were intended to be played as a pair. Lauro's Tríptico consists of three pieces in e minor which the composer collected together to comply with a request from Andrés Segovia. The first of these, Armida, is a contemplative song named after the composer's sister. Madrugada ("before dawn") is an appoggiatura study inspired by one of Sojo's few original works for guitar. Lauro composed this piece in 1974, shortly after the death of his beloved maestro. La Negra was the nickname of Lauro's niece Armida, the daughter of his sister of the same name; this little waltz was composed in August, 1976.

Lauro's Variaciones sobre una canción infantil [venezolana] carries the dedication "Homage to the guitarists of the XIX Century;" that is, to Sor, Giuliani, Carcassi, and the others of their generation who loved the theme and variations form. The first half of the melody is the children's song Palomita Sentada, but the second half is original to Lauro, who found the little tune too brief to be developed successfully. Carora became a favorite of guitar virtuoso Alirio Díaz; when Lauro invited him to title the piece, Díaz chose the name of his home town (and that of his friend and fellow guitarist, Rodrigo Riera), a city in Lara state, in western Venezuela.

Legacy[link]

The works of Antonio Lauro have long been very popular with guitarists worldwide, yet there have been few recordings devoted exclusively to him. However, several recordings by John Williams and David Russell have set Lauro's fame in the honorific place he deserves. John Williams is quoted as having justly referred to Antonio Lauro as being the "Strauss of the guitar". Another recording worth mentioning, "A Tribute to Antonio Lauro" by Thomas Cronin (guitarist), recorded initially for Irish National Radio on the RTE label, gained great appeal with Venezuelans worldwide.

Recordings by Lauro[link]

• Lauro interpreta a Lauro (Discos León)^[1]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Bibliography[link]

• Elliot, Paul Frank: The Venezuelan Waltzes of Antonio Lauro - Thesis/dissertation/manuscript (1994). OCLC: 35822159

• (Spanish) Alejandro Bruzual: Antonio Lauro - Publisher: FUNDARTE, Caracas (1998) ISBN 980-253-338-6 OCLC: 43905994

• (Spanish) Alejandro Bruzual: Antonio Lauro, Un Músico Total: Su Época, Su Vida y Su Obra - Ensayo Biografico - Publ. CVG Siderúrgica del Orinoco, Caracas (1995). OCLC: 43468475

• Daniel Oliver Smith: Notes on graduate guitar recital 5/91 - Thesis/dissertation/manuscript (1991). OCLC: 25978521

• (Spanish) Alirio Díaz; Vicente Emilio Sojo; Antonio Lauro; Benito Canónico; Agustín Barrios: Solos de guitarra - Publ. Grabaciones Espiral, Caracas [undated] OCLC: 48358423

• Rick Laezman: 100 Hispanic Americans who changed American history - Publ. World Almanac Library, Milwaukee, WI (2005) ISBN 0-8368-5769-0 OCLC: 57142327

• Cesar Alegre: Extraordinary Hispanic Americans - Publ. Children's Press, New York (2006) ISBN 0-516-25343-3 OCLC: 62330607

References[link]

1. ^ Lauro interpreta a Lauro

External links[link]

• Photos
• Caroni Music - publisher of scores and CDs of South American music
• Antonio Lauro: una música afianzada en la tierra (Article by Alejandro Bruzual, Revista SIDOR Literal, Año 2, Nº 3, 1994)
• Biography in Spanish
• Antonio Lauro playing "María Cristina" on YouTube
• Venezuelan Guitarist Humberto Bruni playing "Seis por Derecho" on YouTube
• Venezuelan Guitarist Humberto Bruni playing Natalia on YouTube

See also[link]

• Music of Venezuela
• Waltz

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