Innocent Infants or Abusive Patriarchs? Spousal Homicides, the Punishment of Indians and the Law in Colonial Mexico, 1740s–1820s

Abstract

This article examines numerous spousal homicides occurring all over New Spain (colonial Mexico) during the last seven decades of the colonial period. After killing their spouses, sometimes in an extremely brutal manner, a considerable number of the defendants managed to get away with little more than a slap on the wrist. I argue here that this was not due to the fact that written laws were dead letters. After examining general patterns of spousal homicides, I focus on the legal treatment and punishment afforded to indigenous criminals, several of who were drunk at the time of their crimes. Being an ‘Indian’ or committing a crime while drunk – both characteristics of many defendants in the records – were treated as a mitigating circumstance under law and led to the acquittal of several of the accused. Royal graces, an important legal mechanism, also played a significant role in easing the severity of the treatment of these and other domestic criminals. The judicial treatment of spousal murders thus did not reflect a considerable gap between law and practice at the time. Punishment derived from a complex combination of socio-cultural factors and longstanding legal prescriptions, doctrines and traditions.