Europeans who lived in the spanish colonies of latin american were called <em>peninsulares</em>, which means, people from the peninsula, because Spain is part of the Iberian Peninsula.
They represented the highest class and the top positions in government and the army were usually reserved for them. They were not very numerous though.
Americans by bith who were direct descendants were called <em>criollos</em>. They constituted the majority of the economic elite in all spanish colonies, but were still below their european cousins. They were the group that led the independence revolutions in the nineteenth century.
