Description
Book SynopsisHistorical investigations into how Iberian settlers, African slaves, Native Americans, and their multiethnic progeny understood their identities in colonial Latin America.
Trade Review“The essays . . . offer important insights into the complicated processes of social formation in the colonies. . . . [H]istorians, as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students, will find much to think about in this provocative work.” - Karen B. Graubart,
Catholic Historical Review“This is a pioneering study of the constructions of socio-cultural identities in colonial Latin America. . . . [An] innovative collection of essays.” - David J. Robinson,
Journal of Latin American Geography“While scholarly in content, these short essays are readable and could be included in an undergraduate syllabus. The volume is crisply edited; many of the essays refer to each other. I highly recommend the volume for college and graduate courses. The essays invite comparison of different regions, in addition to offering intriguing lessons about the multiple ways that identities evolved in the colonial era.” - Deborah Kanter,
The Americas“This volume presents a superb collection of essays covering the muddled, confused, overlapping, and changing dimensions of identity-making in the Hispanic colonial empires of the New World. . . . The authors of these essays expose us to all these intensely real aspects of life in the Spanish and Portuguese empires of the Western Hemisphere. This volume should be required reading for those trying to understand how people related to one another, government, and institutions in these colonial empires.” - Sheldon Avenius,
History: Reviews of New Books“It is imperative that historians incorporate a number of perspectives to enhance our understanding of this unique period, especially within the studies on race and identity.
Imperial Subjects does just that. The respective authors approach the subject through a variety of perspectives, incorporating unique themes, all of which are backed by a solid archival research.” - Larry V. Larrichio,
Colonial Latin American Historical Review“[T]his volume provides an excellent collection of well-researched and well-argued essays. Together they represent the most recent and cutting-edge scholarship on this topic. . . . The diversity in time period and geography make the collection highly useful to those researchers and scholars interested in comparative studies of race and ethnicity. The manageable length of each essay, in addition to the excellent introduction and conclusion, make this work an ideal text for introducing students to current research. Overall, the high calibre and diversity of research presented by I
mperial Subjects make it a notable addition to the literature.” - Robert Schwaller and Matthew Restall,
Social History“Grounded in solid archival research and informed by sound, up-to-date theoretical approaches, these essays break substantial new ground in showing how ‘ordinary’ people experienced living in the Spanish and Portuguese empires. Anyone wishing to sample the best in recent scholarship on colonial Latin America should begin with this book.”—
Cheryl English Martin, author of
Governance and Society in Colonial Mexico: Chihuahua in the Eighteenth Century“This excellent and necessary collection brings together some of the most important scholarship on race in colonial Latin America. Importantly, the contributors do not assume racial and ethnic identities to be static, nor do they take hybridity as a given. Rather, they examine the social identities that emerged from ‘contact points’ between institutions and individuals.”—
Pete Sigal, author of
From Moon Goddesses to Virgins: The Colonization of Yucatecan Maya Sexual Desire“The introduction to
Imperial Subjects should be required reading for graduate students entering the field of colonial Latin American history.” -- Nicole von Germeten * Latin American Research Review *
“This volume provides an excellent collection of well-researched and well-argued essays. Together they represent the most recent and cutting-edge scholarship on this topic. . . . The diversity in time period and geography make the collection highly useful to those researchers and scholars interested in comparative studies of race and ethnicity. The manageable length of each essay, in addition to the excellent introduction and conclusion, make this work an ideal text for introducing students to current research. Overall, the high calibre and diversity of research presented by I
mperial Subjects make it a notable addition to the literature.” -- Robert Schwaller and Matthew Restall * Social History *
“It is imperative that historians incorporate a number of perspectives to enhance our understanding of this unique period, especially within the studies on race and identity.
Imperial Subjects does just that. The respective authors approach the subject through a variety of perspectives, incorporating unique themes, all of which are backed by a solid archival research.” -- Larry V. Larrichio * Colonial Latin American Historical Review *
“The essays . . . offer important insights into the complicated processes of social formation in the colonies. . . . [H]istorians, as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students, will find much to think about in this provocative work.” -- Karen B. Graubart * Catholic Historical Review *
“This is a pioneering study of the constructions of socio-cultural identities in colonial Latin America. . . . [An] innovative collection of essays.” -- David J. Robinson * Journal of Latin American Geography *
“This volume presents a superb collection of essays covering the muddled, confused, overlapping, and changing dimensions of identity-making in the Hispanic colonial empires of the New World. . . . The authors of these essays expose us to all these intensely real aspects of life in the Spanish and Portuguese empires of the Western Hemisphere. This volume should be required reading for those trying to understand how people related to one another, government, and institutions in these colonial empires.” -- Sheldon Avenius * History: Reviews of New Books *
“While scholarly in content, these short essays are readable and could be included in an undergraduate syllabus. The volume is crisply edited; many of the essays refer to each other. I highly recommend the volume for college and graduate courses. The essays invite comparison of different regions, in addition to offering intriguing lessons about the multiple ways that identities evolved in the colonial era.” -- Deborah Kanter * The Americas *
Table of ContentsForeword / Irene Silverblatt ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Racial Identities and Their Interpreters in Colonial Latin America / Andrew B. Fisher and Matthew D. O'Hara 1
1. Aristocracy on the Auction Block: Race, Lords, and the Perpetuity Controversy of Sixteenth-Century Peru / Jeremy Mumford 39
2. A Market of Identities: Women, Trade, and Ethnic Labels in Colonial Potosí / Jane E. Mangan 61
3. Legally Indian: Inquisitorial Readings of Indigenous Identity in New Spain / David Tavárez 81
4. The Many Faces of Colonialism in Two Iberoamerican Borderlands: Northern New Spain and the Eastern Lowlands of Charcas / Cynthia Radding 101
5. Humble Slaves and Loyal Vassals: Free Africans and Their Descendents in Eighteenth-Century Minas Gerais, Brazil / Mariana L. R. Dantas 115
6. Purchasing Whiteness: Conversations of the Essence of Parso-ness and Mulatto-ness at the End of Empire / Ann Twinam 141
7. Patricians and Plebians in Late Colonial Charcas: Identity, Representation, and Colonialism / Sergio Serulnikov 167
8. Conjuring Identities: Race, Nativeness, Local Citizenship, and Royal Slavery on an Imperial Frontier (Revisiting El Cobre, Cuba) / María Elena Díaz 197
9. Indigenous Citizenship: Liberalism, Political Participation, and Ethic Identity in Post-Independence Oaxaca and Yucatán / Karen D. Caplan 225
Conclusion / R. Douglas Cope 249
Bibliography 263
Contributors 291
Index 293
