Transatlantic Obligations: Creating the Bonds of Family in Conquest-Era Peru and Spain by Jane E. Mangan

Abstract

In the preconquest period, the Nahuas, the indigenous peoples of central Mexico, spoke of family in terms of larger kinship units that shared a common space—cemithualtin, “those of one patio.”1 Mangan’s beautifully written and exhaustively researched book inspires the question of whether colonial families should be described as cemailuikatltin, those of one ocean. Mangan’s book reconsiders the concept of family within the sixteenth-century Spanish empire through a transatlantic approach that illustrates the customary, emotional, and economic ties between Spain (primarily Seville) and Lima and Arequipa, which even an ocean could not dissolve. In analyzing the evolution of family within an Iberian context, Mangan’s study offers an excellent model of a history that is both global and local, while in the process examining whether the Atlantic served to unite or divide imperial peoples, a theme that she first explored in her co-edited volume, Women of the Iberian Atlantic.2Mangan does a masterful job of tempering prescriptive literature with the local practices and lived experiences of men, women, and children that emerge from mundane documents, particularly wills (more than 500) and judicial records. Family, Mangan acknowledges, was an institution of empire, but in the colonial context, despite royal laws, decrees, and expectations, it evolved into a protean social unit and not a reproducer of an idealized social order. Family became a flexible body, accommodating both Incaic and Iberian traditions, as well as new members, including fathers (local and long-distance), surrogates, hijos naturales (illegitimate children), estranged indigenous mothers, and family members in Iberia. These arguments challenge previous scholarly interpretations, which viewed family in this period as configuring rigid binaries of indigenous/Spanish, legitimate/illegitimate, and Iberian/American. By introducing heretofore unconsidered protagonists into the narrative, Mangan convincingly illustrates how empire building placed strains on kinship on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet, in kind with other colonial institutions, the family underwent a form of mestizaje, creating the conditions by which America became a place to “sustain” family as it generated “new branches on the family tree” (112).Transatlantic Obligations adds another layer to the growing genre of Atlantic family studies, as it contributes to the literature about gender and ethnohistory.3 In it, family serves as an entry to broader discussions about indigenous resilience, societal norms, and cultural change. Among the book’s novel contributions are Spanish fathers who emerge as men who regarded their American children with care and a sense of responsibility and their mestizo children who are integral (if not always favored) members of familial units. Navigating the delicate balance between indigenous agency and exploitation, Mangan illustrates that notwithstanding conquest and violence, survival, innovation, and accommodation led to new family patterns and practices that were the fulcrum of everyday life.Mangan’s discussion of change over time within family configurations furthers our understanding of sixteenth-century Peru and the dynamics of transatlantic migrations and interactions. Cogent and readable, Transatlantic Obligations will appeal to students of all ranks and professional scholars. Ultimately, it challenges us to reconsider whether the heterogeneous “modern family” of our period is such a recent creation.