Spanish Colonial Research Articles

La República de Los Indios: Tlaxcala, Survival, and the Struggle for Autonomy within New Spain, 1519-1558.

This thesis examines the strategies Tlaxcalan leaders employed to maintain their autonomy directly with the Spanish colonizers and administrative officials in their province in the 16th century. Previous scholarship has portrayed the Tlaxcalans as insignificant collaborators or willful allies of Spanish colonizers. This thesis, by contrast, shows that they maintained their autonomy through their strategic appeals to various colonial authorities, integration of Catholicism into native culture, and the use of both prestige and alliance to emphasize the importance of the province. This thesis uses contemporary annals, government records, literature, artwork, and letters created by the Tlaxcalans, and Spaniards, to analyze the methods and reasonings behind their adaptations.

Lost in Translation; The Evolution of Spanish Translations and the Black Legend in England from 1578 to 1740

This paper traces the evolution of the Black Legend using Spanish accounts of the colonization of the Americas published in English from 1578 to 1740. The Black Legend, largely spread by English, Dutch, and German Protestants, was an anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish narrative demonizing the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Relying in particular on the English appropriation of Spanish Friar Bartolomé de las Casas’s Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, originally published in Spanish in 1552, the thesis argues that English editions of the text reflect England's political and religious turmoil in the 16th and 18th centuries. Previous work on the Black Legend centered on how the authors of New World accounts intended to have their work received in Europe. By studying printed paratexts, including dedicatory letters to patrons, letters to the readers, and the translations themselves, I show how English publishers and translators, and the statesmen who sponsored these publications sought to use Bartolomé de Las Casas's accounts as political. The conquest of the New World brought enormous wealth and power to Spain. At the same time, throughout this period, England suffered religious and political conflicts that boiled over into civil war in the mid-17th century. Many in England feared being overrun by a Catholic Empire or overthrown by Catholics from within. Facing various religious and political crises at home English leaders and booksellers used translations of Las Casas's work to advance their own hopes of British imperial expansion in the New World and to encourage the English to unite in the face of the Spanish threats, such as the Netherlands Civil War and Spanish Armada.

Entangled Sainthood: Imperial Canonisations and the Invention of Saints in Colonial Latin America

This article examines the impact of canonisation trials on the promotion of new saints across the Spanish Empire. Focusing on New Spain and Peru, it demonstrates that the physical arrival of copies and summaries of a canonisation trial or hagiographies of a saintly candidate supported by the Spanish crown in Colonial America served as a catalyst for revitalising pre-existing devotions and even inspiring the creation of new ones. By examining the start of the canonisations of Fray Sebastián de Aparicio in Puebla (Mexico) and Toribio of Mogrovejo in Lima (Peru), the work provides an introduction to an often neglected phenomenon: the entanglement between religious, political and cultural forces in the formation of Latin American sainthood, mainly in four ways: causality, opposition, dialecticism and affiliation. *

Rethinking the Coloniality of Race: Blood Purity and the Politics of Periodization

The coloniality of power stands as a major framework for theorizing race within the context of Latin America, providing an influential account of the origin of race in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Without abandoning the task of theorizing the ways in which race functions in Latin America, this article asks: what is obscured by an insistence on 1492 as the moment when race emerged, and what different understandings of race can be made available by connecting the colonization of the Americas to a different set of temporal and spatial referents? Specifically, I develop a “prismatic” approach to analyze the impact of fifteenth-century Iberian blood purity statutes on the development of race without positing these as the new, singular origin of race. This article thus suggests an alternative genealogy of racialization while providing a critical engagement with the coloniality of power’s account of race.

Sensorial and Sonic Aspects in the Writings of the “English-American” Thomas Gage (c. 1603–1656) on Mexico and Guatemala

Objective/Context: This article examines dimensions of sensoriality within the writings of Thomas Gage (c. 1603–1656) regarding his experiences as a Dominican friar in Mexico and Guatemala between 1625 and 1637. His 1648 travelogue, The English-American His Travail by Sea and Land, is the first detailed eyewitness report of daily life in the Spanish colonies by an English writer. Yet this work and his other writings were published after he converted to Protestantism and formed an explicit part of anti-Catholic discourse in England. Methodology: Written from a historical-musicological perspective, this study is informed by the approaches of sensory history to identify and critique the sonic episodes and metaphors in Gage’s texts. It critically analyzes his travelogue and investigates how his accounts of musical, gastronomic, and religious experiences underpinned and influenced his political and theological views. To draw out his unique perspectives on music, it also considers soundscapes and the material and cultural dimensions in his descriptions. Originality: Recent scholarship has shown how Gage’s transnational and transconfessional identities did not fit traditional frameworks of analysis and limited scholarly attention to him. Lately, however, researchers have highlighted his mention of the senses. This article focuses specifically on hearing to show that his writings contain unique viewpoints and data on music and sound. Conclusions: Assessment of Thomas Gage within the frameworks of musicology and sensory history demonstrates that he invoked the senses in seemingly unique ways, especially by conflating their physical and metaphysical dimensions when critiquing Catholic practices in colonial contexts.

Experiencias sensoriales y prácticas políticas en el Imperio español, siglos XV-XVIII

Objective/context: This introduction, mainly of a historiographical nature, has two objectives: first, to present the most relevant contributions of sensory history as an interpretative approach that conceives the senses as conditioned by social and cultural factors in a given time and space, and second, to relate sensory experiences with political practices in the Spanish Empire of the fifteenth-eighteenth centuries, contextualizing the contributions of this dossier in this line of research. Methodology: The study analyzes contributions that have allowed the definition of sensory history as a heuristic approach valid for a plurality of fields and topics, which enjoys enormous popularity in the research agenda. Originality: This dossier includes a valuable collection of essays specifically dedicated to the sensory experience in the Hispanic Empire between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. It is the first thematic issue on this subject. Conclusions: The article places the studies included in this volume within a broader historiographical context while pointing out possible future avenues of research.

Characterization of SNPs in meat quality-related genes in Argentine Coastal Creole pigs and their potential as a porcine genetic resource.

The Coastal Creole pigs in Argentina are predominantly found in the wild and can trace their lineage directly back to the Iberian breeds introduced by Spanish colonizers. They currently stand as the sole Creole breed in the country recognized by the FAO. However, there exists a dearth of studies assessing their genetic potential within the swine industry. Therefore, this study aimed to genetically characterize the meat quality of Coastal Creole pigs based on seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the Ryr1, PRKAG3, MC4R, H-FABP, and CAST genes. A total of N = 158 samples were collected from specimens distributed along the coastal region. Our findings revealed all loci to exhibit polymorphism, underscoring the population's remarkable genetic diversity. Furthermore, a higher frequency of alleles favorable for the PRKAG3191I>V/200R>Q, MC4R1426A>G, CAST76872G>A, and Ryr11843C>T genes was observed, while alleles unfavorable predominated for H-FABP1811G>C and CAST638Ser>Arg. The results obtained in this research are highly encouraging, reflecting the genetic potential of these pigs to be utilized in swine production programs.

Financing Freedom: Self-Purchase and Reenslavement in Seventeenth-Century Andalucía

Abstract: This article explores cases in which slaveholders, enslaved and freed people, and courts battled over the customary interpretation of the rights of wage-earning slaves in seventeenth-century Andalucía. Throughout the Spanish Empire, enslaved people could purchase their freedom through the processes of cortación (later known as coartación ) and ransom ( rescate ). People paid their purchase price in installments and eventually received freedom papers, which were notarized agreements that reflected the terms of both parties upon receipt of payment. However, freedom papers do not reveal what happened when contracting parties experienced changed circumstances, and many of the particularities of waged enslavement on the Iberian Peninsula and in the Spanish Empire have remained obscure to scholars. Wage-earning slaves inhabited an ambiguous legal space of conditional liberty with rights determined by custom or social practice rather than legislation. Legal cases can shed new light on how the conditions of waged enslavement and conditional liberty were understood and contested in historical moments of economic crisis in seventeenth-century Andalucía. By focusing on stressful moments of property confiscation and currency devaluation, we can see the meanings ascribed to conditional liberty and the attendant legal rights that people who inhabited this conditional status wielded or struggled to enforce in the absence of legislation or codified doctrine.

Las comisiones de la verdad y los legados coloniales: lecciones desde Colombia (2018-2022)

With its signing of the Havana Peace Agreement in 2016, Colombia sought to end an armed conflict that had lasted more than sixty years and had left nearly nine million victims. The agreement led to the establishment of a transitional justice (TJ) framework, including the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition (CEV). This study identifies how the CEV incorporated the legacies of colonialism into its analytical framework. The research is based on in-depth interviews with twenty scholars specializing in colonialism and/or TJ, nineteen peacebuilders, informal conversations with CEV members, and a review of various volumes of the final report. The findings highlight that the commission adopted a long-term historical perspective, revisiting aspects of Spanish colonialism (including structural racism and the hacienda system as an institution of territorial, political, and economic order) as explanatory factors for the various forms of violence experienced during the armed conflict. Additionally, several volumes of the final report emphasize the ongoing impact of colonial legacies, viewing them more as continuities or “ruins,” using Stoler’s concept (2008). While the possibility of dismantling colonial legacies on a material level due to the CEV’s work is debated, its symbolic significance must be highlighted, especially in a context where the State had sought to erase the colonial past. This article contributes to the emerging literature that examines TJ from a decolonial perspective, providing an empirical analysis of the CEV in Colombia, which we believe can become a key reference for this field.

The Socioeconomic Image of China in the Early Modern Age and the Debate on the Decline of Castile

This article analyzes the socioeconomic image of China developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Spanish travelers and historians, differentiating between the idealized “Iberian view” and the more nuanced and critical Jesuit perspective. What were thought to be the main reasons behind China's wealth that impressed Europeans so much is relevant for a better understanding of the seventeenth-century debate on the causes of the decline of Castile, the heart of the Spanish Empire. On the one hand, the contrast between the increasingly battered Hispanic monarchy and the image of prosperity—more or less nuanced—conveyed by both visions of China made clearer the situation of socioeconomic decline of the Spanish Empire. In fact, from both visions could be implicitly derived diverse criticisms of the Spain of the last Habsburgs. On the other hand, it is paradoxical and surprising that the protagonists of the debate on the Castilian decline, the arbitristas, were not aware of the writings on China of their contemporaries, which reduced the potential of their analysis.

The Philippines (and Chile) in Martínez de Zúñiga's 19th-Century Ideas about pre-Columbian trans-Pacific Contact

ABSTRACT Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga (1760–1818) was one of the earliest scholars to propose a trans-Pacific contact theory in his Historia de las Islas Philipinas. Although his 1803 publication contains the earliest-known theory establishing linguistic comparisons between the Mapuche language of Chile and Tagalog (the Philippines), his ideas and evidence have not been fully explored. This article argues that while Martínez de Zúñiga’s ideas were novel and set some scientific grounds for one of the most resilient debates in the history of archaeology, his evidence was scarce. Furthermore, his attribution as one of the earliest individuals to propose a trans-Pacific contact theory is arguably inaccurate, as similar ideas were pondered as early as the 16th century. This article investigates supporting and opposing ideas proposed by Martínez de Zúñiga and his contemporaries, which were either produced in Spanish and British colonies, or shaped by knowledge about them with a colonial bias. These scholars’ hypotheses were predominantly based on linguistic and anthropological grounds, on the direction of sea currents and winds, and on the numerous islands across the Pacific that could facilitate long-distance voyages. Similar ideas continue to feed into the pre-Columbian trans-Pacific contact debate today.

Selkea! Memories of Eating Non-Kosher Food among the Spanish–Moroccan Jewish Diaspora in Israel

Drawing on life-story interviews and ethnography conducted in Israel from 2009 to 2023, this article examines how members of the Spanish-speaking Moroccan–Jewish diaspora in Israel recalled their habits of eating non-kosher food in Morocco. We explore how these memories emerged in response to commonplace discourses that depict Moroccan Jews as a distinctly religious-traditional ethnic group, untouched by European secular influences, and dichotomous to modern secular cultures in Israel. Contrary to this image, members of the community whom we interviewed highlighted a Jewish Moroccan life that was deeply connected to Spanish colonialism and the broader Hispanic and Sephardi worlds. We focus specifically on the concept of selkear, a Haketia (Judeo-Spanish) term meaning to let something go, make an exception, or turn a blind eye. Our analysis of our participants’ memories provides a nuanced understanding of Jewish religiosity in the context of colonialism and of how Mizrahi–Sephardi immigrants in Israel reclaimed their Judaism. Highlighting the practice of eating non-kosher food is thus a strategy used to challenge dominant notions of rigid religious commitment within the Sephardi diaspora and their interpretation in Israel.

The History of a Periphery: Spanish Colonial Cartography from Colombia's Pacific Lowlands

The History of a Periphery: Spanish Colonial Cartography from Colombia's Pacific Lowlands

Indigenous Raiding, Captive Taking, and the Politics of Maritime Violence in the Long Sixteenth-Century Lesser Antilles

Abstract At the core of this piece lies an examination of how Indigenous people forged a system of raiding, captive taking, sea marauding, and trade that became instrumental in the exertion of political power and commercial autonomy in the formative stage of the multi-imperial Caribbean. Indigenous maritime technologies and martial skills allowed them to forge transimperial networks of raiding and trafficking of European merchandise, captives, foodstuffs, and staple commodities. These practices were tools used to repel European incursions, exploit the Spanish Empire, and maintain control over their territories. Likewise, the strategic position of the Lesser Antilles facilitated Indigenous people's integration in the northern European system that blended exploration, sea marauding, and contraband in the Caribbean. By focusing on Indigenous people, we are able to access a more exact portrayal of this archipelago, one that transcends established narratives of European privateering, settlement, and imperial competition.

The initial spread of peaches across eastern North America was structured by Indigenous communities and ecologies

We conduct a synthetic archaeological and ethnohistoric dating program to assess the timing and tempo of the spread of peaches, the first Eurasian domesticate to be adopted across Indigenous eastern North America, into the interior American Southeast by Indigenous communities who quickly “Indigenized” the fruit. In doing so, we present what may be the earliest absolute dates for archaeological contexts containing preserved peach pits in what is today the United States in the early to mid-16th century. Along with our broader chronological modeling, these early dates suggest that peaches were likely in the interior prior to permanent Spanish settlement in the American Southeast and that peaches spread independently of interactions with Spanish colonizers. We further argue that that eventual spread of peaches was structured exclusively by Indigenous communities and the ecologies produced through long-term Indigenous land management and land use practices, highlighting and centering the agency of Indigenous societies in the socioecological process of colonization.

REFLECTION OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN ART: THE CASE OF CASTA PAINTINGS

Visual culture products are not neutral objects. It can be argued that visual culture products are indicative of power relations, and that these relations are more pronounced during periods of social change and upheaval. Understanding visual cultural products beyond the confines of their frames, evaluating these images within contexts, and looking beyond the images are necessary both to conduct a profound analysis of artistic production and to reveal the dynamics of social power relations. Throughout mainstream art history, it is evident that people of colour have been represented with stereotyped identities distinct from those of whites. Western visual regimes reproduce existing inequalities and stratifications in society through racialized images. Casta paintings crystallize this perspective, depicting the process of racial mixing among the three main groups living in Mexico, which was part of the Spanish colony in the 18th century. Casta paintings narrate the ways in which a racialized society is expressed in visual culture. This study focuses on the exhibition Casta: The Origins of Caste to examine how social stratification and race are visualized in works of art.

A független Uruguay születése a brazil–argentin konfliktus során

The independence movements of Latin America lasted for a century, with sovereign states emerging in quick succession until 1898. Most of the Latin American countries declared war on the Spanish Monarchy to establish their autonomous governments. The case of Uruguayan independence differed from this process, as it was complicated by the rivalry between Argentina and Brazil. Both countries were dominant in the region and sought to occupy the valuable territory of Uruguay, leading to the Cisplatine War between 1825 and 1828. Uruguayan citizens had to fight against Spanish colonization and the impending occupation of two dominant neighbors concurrently. The diversity of the peoples populating Uruguay manifested in different interests, leading to the formation of various „political” groups. Some advocated for joining Argentina or Brazil, while others preferred Spanish dominance, or fought for freedom. Uruguay achieved independence on August 28, 1828, with the conclusion of the Cisplatine War, when both Brazil and Argentina accepted the independence of the country.

Gender, Intersectionality, and Global Social History

AbstractOne of the most fruitful concepts of recent social analysis has been that of intersectionality, the idea that the nature of oppression is multiplicative rather than additive, and that no one identity – race, class, gender, religion, ability, sexual orientation, and so on – should be considered apart from other identities, but is always materialized in terms of and by means of them. Although it was developed out of the US experience, intersectional epistemology has been dynamic and mobile, as scholars have not simply used social groupings drawn from the Western past and present but have elaborated social categories taken from local understandings as well. This article analyses some recent examples of gendered world history that also take other social hierarchies into account, and assesses how these help us better understand global processes that transformed societies. It begins with a place and time where global entanglements led quite clearly to the emergence of new social groups, the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas, and then more briefly examines this process in other parts of the early modern colonial world.

Saints of Resistance.

As the largest Catholic country in Asia, with about 92 million faithful, the Philippines is the scene of various religious celebrations with deep historical roots as a result of 333 years of Spanish colonization (1565-1898). From the feast of the Black Nazarene of Quiapo on January 9, the Santo Niño of Cebu (Sinulog) on the third Sunday of January, to the crucifixion ceremony during Holy Week, to the closing of the year with the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe of Mexico on December 12, the whole country moves to places of worship to reverence important Catholic devotions.

Thinking with the Spanish Empire: The Religious Orders and World Evangelization

ABSTRACT This article argues that in order to achieve a fuller and more accurate understanding of the history of the early modern Spanish world, we need to study the Spanish Empire as an integrated and coherent unit of analysis, instead of separating it into nation-state fragments or simply placing it in the background of our studies. It was an empire that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was not only European and American but also African and Asian, especially during the period of the union of the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns between 1580 and 1640. An imperial mindset, great mobility, and a global perspective characterized the lives and mentalities of many inhabitants of the empire. This was especially evident in the case of the religious orders, which played a fundamental role in the history of the Spanish Empire. Many of their members, both male and female, thought and acted within a worldwide framework, not only because they saw the conversion of all the peoples of the world to Catholicism as their inescapable, pressing task, but also because they inhabited a polity whose mental horizons were equally global in scope.