They are husband and wife who passed away in year 1777 and at Hacienda San Antonio De Padua, near Huejuquilla El Alto, Jalisco, Mexico they are espanoles and says they are poor?
Joseph Guevara, Espanol - passes away on 1/25/1777
Juana Maria Zarate, Espanola - passes away on 1/29/ 1777
They are husband and wife and found them on the same page. I wonder how can "espanoles" be poor? Doesn't say what the passed away from.
http://oi62.tinypic.com/kdla2f.jpg
http://oi58.tinypic.com/24qmsnq.jpg
Husband/Wife pass away year
This would be a bit odd if it was in the 1500's or even in the 1600's, I've seen plenty of records showing Spanish people as poor, situations are many, and by the 1700's societies in Mexico where no necessarily driven by race as we may think, for example Peninsulares had (usually) more rights than Spanish Criollos, been "white" wasn't enough any more, one of the reasons for the Independence.
Now the "poor" condition could have a myriad of backgrounds, for example not all kids in wealthy families "make it", nor all had inheritances, we find often siblings in a total opposite situations. Some times the parents would inherit or give everything they had to their kids passing away in "poverty", some loose their wealth, and some where never rich at all, many came to the continent between the mid 1600's and 1800's as a regular workers, with no much in their homeland and lived as a laborers for all their life, and the list can keep going.
Now the interesting part of that document is the fact that the husband is address as "Don", but even there we know that since the days before Cervantes there where plenty of "Hidalgos pobres", this is, not even a social title would secure wealth.
Note that in a few instances, the inheritances and conditions where "hidden" as to not provide the church with any fee/donation, something similar goes with the famous lack of signatures, many people did know how to sign but refuse to "accept" it, giving away signatures was a tricky situation.
Husband/Wife pass away year
It says: no testó por pobre, did not make a will for being poor.
Not everybody can be rich, not even all the people of Spanish descent in New Spain. Many came as servants of the wealthy folks, or were soldiers, children born here and abandomned by their parents, etc. Many became rich one way or another, but they did not start like that.
Victoriano Navarro.