History of Colonial Mexico

For 300 years, Franciscans were at the forefront of the spread of Catholicism in the New World. In the late seventeenth century, Franciscans developed a far-reaching, systematic missionary program in Spain and the Americas. After founding the first college of propaganda fide in the Mexican city of Querétaro, the Franciscan Order established six additional colleges in New Spain, ten in South America, and twelve in Spain. From these colleges Franciscans proselytized Indians in frontier territories as well as Catholics in rural and urban areas in eighteenth-century Spain and Spanish America.

To Sin No More is the first book to study these colleges, their missionaries, and their multifaceted, sweeping missionary programs. By focusing on the recruitment of non-Catholics to Catholicism as well as the deepening of religious fervor among Catholics, David Rex Galindo shows how the Franciscan colleges expanded and shaped popular Catholicism in the eighteenth-century Spanish Atlantic world. This book explores the motivations driving Franciscan friars, their lives inside the colleges, their training, and their ministry among Catholics, an often-overlooked duty that paralleled missionary deployments. Rex Galindo argues that Franciscan missionaries aimed to reform or "reawaken" Catholic parishioners just as much as they sought to convert non-Christian Indians.

In this article, I explore the parallel responses of two groups of colonial subjects who were confronted with the institutional changes that occurred in the context of Enlightenment ideas in eighteenth-century Mexico: Creole clerics headed by the Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero; and native religious men who petitioned to colonial authorities and the crown for additional spaces for the education of indigenous men.

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

Within the territories under the dominion of the Iberian monarchies, on both sides of the Atlantic, we seek to approach the cult rendered to Saint Iphigenia mainly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In addition to the specialized bibliography, we rely on the first European and American publications that gave news about this African saint, as well as on the brotherhoods that were the driving force of devotion. With all this, we have raised a geography of images to Iphigenia in sculpture and painting in three continents, and we show how the 1738 Carmelite model of the friar José Pereira de Santana dominated in the representations of the saint in Europe, Africa and in Portuguese America, not so in the American territories of the Hispanic monarchy, being these images particularly novel and some of them unpublished.

How did Spain rule over an immense global empire for more than three centuries given the absence of a standing army and the presence of stark inequalities? In this course students will learn how historians have answered this enduring question, and will analyze a range of primary sources such as wills, artworks, and petitions to develop theories of their own. We explore the experience of empire from the perspectives of diverse groups of people including free and enslaved Africans, indigenous men and women, mestizo soldiers, nuns, and colonial elites. By studying the writings of Andean intellectuals and the testimonies of slaves who took their masters to court or rose up in violent rebellions against the colonial order, students will develop a deeper understanding of the complexity of Spanish rule and its variations across time and place. We also consider the legacies of this global empire, and controversies about how we tell its history.
This course is chronologically and thematically organized. It begins in 1491, on the eve of the Iberian invasion of the Americas and the Caribbean, and ends in 1898, when Spain lost the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.  The semester is structured around four myths about the global Spanish empire that persist in historiography and popular culture: the myth of colonial rule by coercion; the ‘commercial revolution’ and the myth of mobility; and the myth of imperial collapse. Key themes include the development of racial ideologies in the Iberian world, and their impact on the evolution of racial slavery.

I testi raccolti in questo volume mirano a indagare, in una prospettiva storico-religiosa, il rapporto dialettico indissolubile tra Religione e Conquista che anima i processi del contatto tra il mondo europeo e le culture native del continente americano. Primariamente, il volume intende riconoscere una funzione dialogica e negoziale al concetto di Religione che, al principio dell'Età moderna, si impone come uno dei principali strumenti di "occidentalizzazione del mondo". In questa prospettiva, la Religione diviene dispositivo atto alla Conquista, da intendersi però non tanto ideologicamente come strumento pratico del dominio politico e militare, quanto, processualmente, come "arma simbolica", spazio, teorico e pratico, del confronto interculturale. Questa lettura vuole contribuire alla costruzione di una disciplina disposta a volgere il proprio sguardo ai processi di incontro tra mondi diversi, per elaborare una teoria storico-religiosa dei contatti culturali. In questa direzione, i processi legati alla Scoperta e alla Conquista del continente americano costituiscono un perfetto laboratorio di indagine, giacchè mostrano come le relazioni tra culture nella modernità abbiano avuto inizio grazie al codice della Religione.

Uno de los aspectos más importante tras descubrimiento de América fue el proceso de conquista y ocupación del territorio que llevó a cabo la corona española. En este ámbito, el papel de las órdenes mendicantes (franciscanos, dominicos y agustinos) fue decisivo, ya que fueron las encargadas de llevar a cabo la empresa evangelizadora en el Nuevo Mundo.

Estas órdenes, con la ayuda de los indígenas, levantaron grandes conventos en el virreinato de Nueva España para expandir el cristianismo por este nuevo territorio y, partiendo de la misma tipología conventual occidental, desarrollaron una serie de nuevos conjuntos arquitectónicos que dejan de tener las características europeas. Se trata de una nueva arquitectura donde se fusiona la tradición occidental con la precolombina.

Se van generando así las primeras expresiones de arquitectura mestiza del siglo XVI, entendidas no como una mezcla de elementos de ambas culturas, sino como una nueva expresión donde se sintetizan las sensibilidades de ambos pueblos.

Lo que se plantea en este trabajo es el análisis y la demostración de este mestizaje mediante tres conventos, centrándonos en el legado que llevaban consigo tanto del fraile europeo como el indio mesoamericano.

Desde o início da colonização, o trabalho compulsório dos indígenas esteve entre as questões mais debatidas na Espanha e em suas possessões americanas. Nos anos finais do século XVI, os repartimientos, instituição de recrutamento de mão-de-obra nativa, estiveram sob o julgamento de franciscanos e jesuítas. Teólogos dessas duas ordens religiosas foram chamados a dar seus pareceres a respeito da licitude e legitimidade do repartimiento no México. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar e confrontar as duas visões sobre aquela instituição, avaliando e enumerando os seus respectivos argumentos.

Depuis le début de la colonisation, le travail forcé des indigènes a été largement discuté en Espagne et ses possessions américaines. Dans les dernières années du XVIe siècle, les repartimientos, institution de recruter la main-d’oeuvre indigène, ont été examiné et jugés par les jésuites et franciscains. Les théologiens de ces deux ordres religieux ont été invités à donner leurs avis sur la légalité et la légitimité des repartimientos dans le Mexique. L’objectif de cet article est d’analyser et de comparer les deux points de vue sur cette institution, en train d’évaluer et d’énumérer leurs arguments respectifs.

In New Spain, cocoa was a staple food whose high demand at the beginning of the 17th century meant that cocoa beans were imported from Guatemala, Venezuela, and Guayaquil. The viceroyalty of New Spain became the largest world buyer of cocoa because it paid for the product with silver, which was the principal means of exchange at the time. The cocoa trade was monopolized by a small, powerful group of the Consulado (merchants’ guild) of Mexico City who contracted it, redistributed it to the rest of the viceroyalty, and shipped it to Spain. However, the Spanish Crown’s prohibitionist trade policy hindered the expansion of the cocoa trade to meet the demand in New Spain. As Spain intermittently suspended sailing between the viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru, the supply of Guayaquil cocoa was limited to shippers who could obtain special licenses and those who smuggled it. When the monarchy required extraordinary funds to finance its wars in Europe, it granted permits to move Ecuadorian cocoa through the Pacific routes. However, it preferred the supply of cocoa from Caracas for geostrategic reasons, a factor that was used by Caracas shippers to raise prices.
Mexican merchants preferred to import Ecuadorian cocoa because of its higher profitability. Trade in cocoa from this source was based on a confluence of complex kinship, community, and friendship networks. Finally, in 1789, the Guayaquil cocoa trade was authorized without restrictions, which significantly reduced the demand for Caracas cocoa. In addition, cocoa from Tabasco, Guatemala, and Maracaibo was traded in New Spain. The relationship between the Crown and the commercial elite of Mexico was characterized by a policy of continual ongoing negotiations. The cocoa trade was privileged in exchange for merchants’ contributions over and above regular fiscal payments.

On the threshold of the sixteenth century a good many western European cities and villages were already placed under the patronage of one or several saints. These patron saints, voluntarily chosen by the local inhabitants, came to the assistance of the titular parish saints, already assigned to the general protection of the community as well as to the individual protection of each of its members....

En 1584, el cacique de Tepexi de la Seda, don Joaquín de San Francisco, solicitó a la corona la exención de tributos por los méritos que don Gonzalo Mazatzin Moctezuma, su abuelo, había prestado al rey de España. Avalado por más de treinta testigos, don Joaquín relata que cuando Hernán Cortés se encontraba en Tlaxcala, su abuelo le envió embajadores para aliársele, jurando fidelidad al rey. Mientras Cortés partió al norte a someter Tenochtitlán, el nahua don Gonzalo Mazatzin, nombrado capitán, se dirigió al sur de Mesoamérica, y poco antes de que la ciudad mexica cayera, conquistó sin ayuda europea una veintena de pueblos de la Mixteca en nombre del rey de España.

https://www.rutter-project.org/uploads/1/2/9/4/129482413/salomoni_review_nuns_navigating.pdf

The history of women in the context of the early modern globalization is still largely unwritten, despite the increasing gender awareness of this research field. Among the reasons for this historiographical deficiency is the scarcity of sources produced by women in the Renaissance, also due to a lower female schooling during this age. In addition to this, the world of transoceanic sailing was particularly lacking in female presence, even for Renaissance standards. Women on board ships could create disorders among the motley crews, which were composed by sailors, soldiers, and adventurers of all kinds. As we can easily imagine, the captains were not eager to embark ladies. However, this was not a strict rule and there is abundance of exceptions. Noblewomen, widows, prostitutes, slaves, and servants often had room on board. To these categories we can add that of the nuns. Sometimes, an exception within an exception, thanks to their greater literacy, they could produce written sources and testimonies of their travels.

La Malinche, the female consort of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, is one of the most reviled (and misunderstood) individuals in history. Combining art historical, ethnohistorical, and archaeological arguments this paper will re-conceptualize Malintzin, the native princess, within her indigenous context. In a society where women held prominent political and religious offices, Malintzin was trained for precisely the kinds of courtly intrigues and alliance building that resulted in the overthrow of the Aztec empire. I argue that Malintzin was not only an active participant in the Conquest, but to a considerable extent she was the brains behind the successful campaign.

At 21, Robert Tomson had become an integral part of an English merchant’s household in Seville and in 1555 he joined their emigration to Mexico. There he fell victim to the Inquisition. After languishing in jails in Mexico City and Seville, Tomson resumed his career in Seville under the protection of another English merchant and married a Spanish heiress. On returning to England, Tomson, eager to avoid accusations of papacy, wrote an account of his experiences. In this chapter I look at the personal relationships and family connections central to his story, exploring a world where marriages that transcended national ties and traditional boundaries were central to individual survival and to the project of national expansion.

Based on research from rural central Mexico, this essay explores Afro-Mexicans' ambiguous position in historical Indian communities. Long-term Afro-Mexican residents in Indian villages differed little from their Indian neighbors. Afro-Mexicans depended on their milpas (cornfields); they paid tribute; and they served in church and village offices. Many spoke the native language of the community, such as Nahuatl. Their neighbors were often kin, either by common ancestors or by marriage. Given this shared blood, physical differences between Afro-Mexicans and Indians were not always obvious. Sometimes, a person’s ‘‘true’’ race could be determined only by searching for a grandparent in a dusty old parish register or by a recollection of telltale curly hair.

Daft review of Jaime Lara, Christian Texts for Aztecs: Art and Liturgy in Colonial Mexico. Notre Dame, (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008). Everything about the Spanish/Aztec encounters in sixteenth century Mexico has been called into question, beginning with the term "encounters" (Spanish encuentros), adopted as a temporizing locution during the promotion of the Columbian Quincentennial in 1992, a kind of euphemism intended to avoid such starker choices as ethnic holocaust, colonial invasion, spiritual conquest, or hispanization. The story of these 16th century interactions and arrangements between Spanish conquistadors, colonists, and missionaries on the one hand, and the various indigenous populations of the land that would become known first as New Spain and then as Mexico, on the other, is so richly complex precisely because we have such an abundance of primary sources and textual evidence upon which to draw for analysis and interpretation-especially when we use the term text, as Lara does, to mean not only written documentation, but monumental architecture, material artifacts, artworks, public and private spaces, and activities such as processionals, ceremonies, and rituals. Lara persuasively argues these diverse sources and texts do not neatly separate into two polarized discourses, one Spanish and the other Native or Amerindian-because the locus of enunciation is so variegated. From the side of what is often loosely referred to as the Spanish perspective (actually itself a significant mix of various other European and also African elements), what we actually have are the varied, distinctive and often divergent perspectives and discourses of such groups as adventurers, conquistadors, and foot soldiers; encomenderos (settlers, with specific rights and obligations, as mandated by the Crown, in relation to Native populations); Franciscans, and members of other missionary orders; bishops, parish priests and other secular clergy; government officials.

[de la introducción de los editores:] "el capítulo presenta el espacio conventual como un lugar de elaboración y circulación de conocimientos y prácticas médicas, resultado del llamado 'encuentro cultural' entre el mundo mesoamericano y el europeo. Tratando de evitar el análisis estático de las fuentes seguido hasta ahora, se intenta interpretar de forma diferente el conocimiento y las prácticas puestas en circulación en los conventos de Tlatelolco, Oaxtepec y Malinalco, entre otros.

See also the following listings:

1. 'The Journal of Madame Callegari' under Books, and at https://historiaincognita.net/2015/05/06/the-journal-of-madame-callegari-2/

2. 'Femina Incognita: Alexandre Dumas's Madame Giovanni', Terrae Incognitae, March 2016.

Peer reviewed and published in Explorations - Journal of the Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations (ISFAR), 2013.

AboutFrom Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560 1840
Book
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In an age of revolution, Mexico's creole leaders held aloft the Virgin of Guadalupe and brandished an Aztec eagle perched upon a European tricolor. Their new constitution proclaimed the Mexican Nation is forever free and independent. Yet the genealogy of this new nation is not easy to trace. Colonial Mexico was a patchwork state whose new-world vassals served the crown, extended the empire's frontiers, and lived out their civic lives in parallel Spanish and Indian republics. Theirs was a world of complex intercultural alliances, interlocking corporate structures, and shared spiritual and temporal ambitions. Sean F. McEnroe describes this history at the greatest and smallest geographical scales, reconsidering what it meant to be an Indian vassal, nobleman, soldier, or citizen over three centuries in northeastern Mexico. He argues that the Mexican municipality, state, and citizen were not so much the sudden creations of a revolutionary age as the progeny of a mature multiethnic empire."

As an early modern enterprise, the Society of Jesus established networks that relayed in formation from far-flung missionaries back to superiors in metropolitan centers. At the same time, Jesuits linked to colleagues serving in other locales by sharing letters, maps, and devotional objects that helped forge a worldwide, imagined community. Through these informal means, Jesuits in New Spain developed particularly strong ties to Asia as the colonization of the Philippines and establishment of the Manila Galleons turned their viceroyalty into a transpacific contact zone. Beginning with a sixteenth-century debate over forceful conversion, this chapter traces confrontations and comparisons engendered by this communication. It tracks religious devotion to Japanese martyrs in the Americas to better understand the function of hagiography in colonial contexts. Martyrs also fac tored into transpacific competition and cooperation, leading Jesuits in Mexico, China, and Spain to connect their personal sacrifices to the larger effort to convert the Pacific. A Trans-Pacific Network AS an early modern global enterprise, the Society of Jesus famously established networks that relayed information vertically from far-flung missionaries up to superiors in metro politan centers. At the same time, Jesuits linked horizontally to colleagues serving in oth er continents by sharing letters, histories, maps, and devotional objects that helped forge a worldwide imagined community. Through these less formal means, missionaries in New Spain and Asia developed particularly strong ties, reinforced by a shared history of colo nization, trade, and inevitable competition for resources. Accounts focused on direct rela tions between discrete peripheries and hierarchical centers have sometimes missed the extent to which intercolonial communication influenced historical developments across fields. Yet the viceroyalty of New Spain was a trans-oceanic contact zone for European, Asian, and indigenous cultures, in which Jesuit networks gathered information, fostered

En este artículo se analiza el proceso mediante el cual la virgen de Zapopan, una imagen sin origen sobrenatural, adquiere la categoría de reliquia milagrosa a partir del siglo XVII. Este proceso ejemplifica la manera en que los saberes jurídico, teológico e histórico, a través de sus prácticas y discursos, norman las prácticas religiosas relacionadas con la devoción a la virgen de Zapopan con el fin de configurar a un sujeto social, en este caso un creyente ilustrado acorde con los principios de las reformas religiosas tridentinas y borbónicas. En la historia del culto a la virgen zapopana se observa como las devociones son el producto de elección de los fieles, quienes las practican por considerarlas útiles a sus propósitos de acuerdo con sus creencias y tradiciones, en este caso dentro del contexto de la espiritualidad barroca. Pero también dependen de la interacción de los individuos con diversos elementos de la sociedad (como el Estado, las élites, las corporaciones civiles y religiosas) articulados en lo que Foucault llama un reticulado de poderes, que ejercen un poder disciplinario sobre las personas. La interacción de todos estos elementos norma las prácticas religiosas a través de un conjunto de saberes y discursos, con el fin de configurar un sujeto social determinado. Se estudian la indagatoria jurídica ordenada por el obispo Juan Ruiz Colmenero en 1653, la de 1731 del obispo Nicolás Gómez de Cervantes así como las disposiciones del IV Concilio Provincial Mexicano de 1771.

The right to bear arms was one of the most exclusive sumptuary rights in early modern Iberia. The privilege of carrying weapons was transferred to Spanish America where it became a right reserved to Spaniards. This article examines over one hundred and fifty licenses to bear arms granted to non-Spaniards in New Spain during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. These licenses preserve the rhetoric of honor used by supplicants in order to justify the award. The varied content of these petitions provides a vivid illustration of how non-Spaniards sought to undercut the negative stereotypes imposed by society. By tracing the changing distribution of these licenses among various socio-racial groups, this article helps illustrate important changes in colonial racial attitudes and demographics. In particular, this study shows that over time men of African descent came to account for a larger percentage of recipients. These men demonstrate that the negative perception of African ancestry did not create an insurmountable barrier to individual advancement. Ultimately, these licenses highlight the personal pride and determination shown by these men as they sought to elevate their status in a highly stratified and discriminatory society.

James Lockhart, "Charles Gibson y la etnohistoria del centro de México", Traducción de Rodrigo Martínez Baracs, historias, 20, abril-septiembre de 1988, pp. 25-48. Con una "Bibliografía básica" de los escritos de Charles Gibson, pp. 46-47.

The pictorial genre known as casta painting is one of the most compelling forms of artistic expression from colonial Mexico. Created as sets of consecutive images, the works portray racial mixing among the main groups that inhabited the colony: Indians, Spaniards, and Africans. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ilona Katzew places casta paintings in their social and historical context, showing for the first time the ways in which the meanings of the paintings changed along with shifting colonial politics. The book examines how casta painting developed art historically, why race became the subject of a pictorial genre that spanned an entire century, who commissioned and collected the works, and what meanings the works held for contemporary audiences. Drawing on a range of previously unpublished archival and visual material, Katzew sheds new light on racial dynamics of eighteenth-century Mexico and on the construction of identity and self-representation in the colonial or viceregal world.

Legal and Moral Theological Literature and the Formation of Early Modern Ibero-America Editors: Thomas Duve and Otto Danwerth Knowledge of the pragmatici sheds new light on pragmatic normative literature (mainly from the religious sphere), a genre crucial for the formation of normative orders in early modern Ibero-America. Long underrated by legal historical scholarship, these media-manuals for confessors, catechisms, and moral theological literature-selected and localised normative knowledge for the colonial worlds and thus shaped the language of normativity. The eleven chapters of this book explore the circulation and the uses of pragmatic normative texts in the Iberian peninsula, in New Spain, Peru, New Granada and Brazil. The book reveals the functions and intellectual achievements of pragmatic literature, which condensed normative knowledge, drawing on medieval scholarly practices of 'epitomisation' , and links the genre with early modern legal culture. Readership All interested in the legal history, the history of knowledge and book history in early modern times, especially with regard to colonial Ibero-America.

Una investigación sobre pinturas murales del siglo XVI, así como su matrimonio con una mujer ñhahñú, condujeron a David Wright a profundizar en las fuentes etnohistóricas referentes a los antiquísimos habitantes del altiplano central. La Relación geográfica de México, los Documentos sobre el cacicazgo de Hernando y Diego de Tapia, el Mandamiento de amparo a los chichimecas de Querétaro y el Mandamiento sobre el poblamiento de Santa María Atongo, se presentan en versión crítica en la obra Querétaro en el siglo XVI, proponiendo nuevos caminos de interpretación histórica acerca de nuestra región. (Cuarta de forros.)