Preparing for the afterlife: death, dying, and religious practice in eighteenth-century Puerto Rico

Abstract

Every society possesses deeply rooted attitudes about death, yet much of what we know about the religious practices of ordinary people in colonial Latin America overlooks the way(s) in which people prepared for death and the afterlife. Sacramental records from eighteenth-century Puerto Rican communities provide insights into both religious elements and social aspects of death. The time period selected is important because new sensibilities toward death emerged in the late eighteenth century, with a movement away from elaborate status-affirming funerals toward the embracing of interiorized piety. This article uses sacramental records to examine reception of the last rites, funerary practices, and burial customs in eighteenth-century Puerto Rico. Three questions guide my inquiry: first, did reception of the last rites (penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick) decline in Puerto Rico and, if so, was this related to religious factors or demographic and socioeconomic ones as well; second, how successful were religious authorities in reshaping religious practices manifesting ‘baroque piety’ with a ‘more inward looking piety’: in peripheral areas of the Americas; and third, in what ways did burial customs reflect growing concern with the fear of Hell and time spent in purgatory?