Mestizo  or mestiza is a term historically used in Spain, Spanish Empire and the Philippines that originally referred to a person of combined European and Indigenous American descent, regardless of where the person was born. The term was used as an ethnic/racial category for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire. Although broadly speaking, Mestizo means someone of mixed European/indigenous heritage, and usually for someone considered a plebeian(low class), the term did not have a fixed meaning in the colonial period.