Black Confraternity Members Performing Afro-Christian Identity in a Renaissance Festival in Mexico City in 1539

Abstract

In February 1539, Mexico City was the stage of a lavish two-day festival meant to commemorate the Truce of Nice, signed the year before between Emperor Charles V and King Francis I of France at Aigues-Mortes. In this article, I analyze Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s description of a performance by “more than fifty” blacks with “their king and queen”, all “wearing great riches of gold and precious stones and pearls and silver.” This article argues that the black participants of this festival most likely belonged to a Catholic confraternity, which not only would demonstrate that black confraternities were brought to the Americas very early, but also that, as in the Iberian Peninsula, they were used by members as vehicles of social mobility and agency from the start of imperial expansion. Juxtaposing this and other black performances with instances of perceived black resistance to Spanish domination, the article shows how confraternities could offer blacks a space where they could continue some of their ancestral festive prac­tices without being perceived as a threat to colonial order.