Uses the participation of free colored men, whether mulatos, pardos, or morenos (i.e., Afro-Spaniards, Afro-Indians, or ‘pure blacks’), in New Spain’s militias as a prism for examining race relations, racial identity, racial categorization, and issues of social mobility for racially stigmatized groups in Colonial Mexico. By 1793, nearly 10 percent of New Spain’s population was made up of people who could trace some African ancestry - people subject to more legal disabilities and social discrimination than mestizos, who in turn fell below white creoles, who in turn fell below the Spanish-born, in the stratified and caste-like society of Colonial Spanish America. By exploring the lives of tens of thousands of free-colored soldiers, who served the colony as volunteers or conscripts, and by adopting a multi-regional approach, the author is able to show how military institutions evolved with reference to race and vice versa.