Mexico in the Time of Cholera 2019003516, 2019003906, 9780826360564, 9780826360540, 9780826360557

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Mexico in the Time of Cholera

Diálogos Series kris lane, series editor Understanding Latin America demands dialogue, deep exploration, and frank discussion of key topics. Founded by Lyman L. Johnson in 1992 and edited since 2013 by Kris Lane, the Diálogos Series focuses on innovative scholarship in Latin American history and related fields. The series, the most successful of its type, includes specialist works accessible to a wide readership and a variety of thematic titles, all ideally suited for classroom adoption by university and college teachers. Also available in the Diálogos Series: The Origins of Macho: Men and Masculinity in Colonial Mexico by Sonya Lipsett-Rivera Mexico City, 1808: Power, Sovereignty, and Silver in an Age of War and Revolution by John Tutino Tides of Revolution: Information, Insurgencies, and the Crisis of Colonial Rule in Venezuela by Cristina Soriano Murder in Mérida, 1792: Violence, Factions, and the Law by Mark W. Lentz Nuns Navigating the Spanish Empire by Sarah E. Owens Sons of the Mexican Revolution: Miguel Alemán and His Generation by Ryan M. Alexander The Pursuit of Ruins: Archaeology, History, and the Making of Modern Mexico by Christina Bueno Creating Charismatic Bonds in Argentina: Letters to Juan and Eva Perón by Donna J. Guy Gendered Crossings: Women and Migration in the Spanish Empire by Allyson M. Poska From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de la Plata by Alex Borucki For additional titles in the Diálogos Series, please visit unmpress.com.

mexico in the time of

cholera .

D o n a l d F ithi a n S t e v e n s

University of New Mexico Press  \ Albuquerque

© 2019 by the University of New Mexico Press All rights reserved. Published 2019 Printed in the United States of America Names: Stevens, Donald Fithian, 1953– author. Title: Mexico in the time of cholera / Donald Fithian Stevens. Description: Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019003516 (print) | LCCN 2019003906 (e-book) | ISBN 9780826360564 (e-book) | ISBN 9780826360540 (printed case: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780826360557 (pbk.: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Cholera—Mexico—History—19th century. Classification: LCC RA644.C3 (e-book) | LCC RA644.C3 S74 2019 (print) | DDC 614.5/140972—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019003516 Cover illustration: detail of Carl Nebel, Interior de Aguas, Calientes, in Voyage pittoresque et archéologique, dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique, par C. Nebel, architecte: 50 planches lithographiées avec texte explicatif (Paris: M. Moench; M. Gau, 1836), pl. 27. Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

For J. A. S.

Contents

.

List of Illustrations ix

Chapter 1 Pomp and Pageantry, Impiety and Obscenity 1

Chapter 2 Birthdays, Patron Saints, and Names for Newborns 23

Chapter 3 Pregnancy, Privacy, and Parish Priests 49

Chapter 4 But If You Do Not Love Him? 65

Chapter 5 Men Remembering Romance (and Other Reasons to Marry) 91

Chapter 6 Inventing Love Stories 113

vii

viii

contents Chapter 7 True Wedding Portraits 135

Chapter 8 Where Their Bodies Were Buried 155

Chapter 9 To Fear the Wrath of Heaven 183

Conclusion 203 Afterwor d 221

Notes 227 Sources 281 Index 305

Illustrations

.

Figures 1.1. A procession bearing the Host

3

1.2. Santa Clara holding a monstrance

10

1.3. Portrait of Carlos María de Bustamante

15

2.1. Portrait of Madame Calderon de la Barca

25

2.2. The churrigueresque façade of Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish church

33

5.1. Corpus Christi Street

103

5.2. Portrait of Andrés Quintana Roo

105

5.3. Portrait of Anastasio Bustamante

107

5.4. Portrait of Guillermo Prieto

111

8.1. The Hospital of San Andrés

165

Maps 2.1. Four cities in Mexico

43

8.1. Burial locations in Mexico City, 1779

161

8.2. Approved burial locations in Mexico City, 1797

172

ix

Ch a p t er 1

Pomp and Pageantry, Impiety and Obscenity .

\  On a summer evening in August 1824, a man from Connecticut

was murdered in Mexico City. According to the oral tradition passed down in his family, Seth Hayden had been “killed by the Catholics for refusing to kneel on the sidewalk.” Hayden knew that he should have shown his respect like everyone else by dropping to his knees when a solemn religious procession passed by his place of business. Yet, “by oversight or design, [he] remained in his store, instead of obeying the behests of the Catholic Priests, and kneeling on the pavement.” As a result, “two men from the ranks rushed in and stabbed him to death where he stood.”1 For three hundred years, Spanish authority had insisted that Mexico would be an exclusively Catholic kingdom, a New Spain. Then, soon after independence, Protestants began to trickle into the new country. The arrival of these non-Catholic Christians led to countless collisions between Mexicans’ expectations of respectful, reverential uniformity and Protestants’ ignorance of and, frequently, contempt for what Mexicans expected as proper deportment. As one United States envoy to Mexico explained: “I have visited no other Catholic country; but to one educated in the unostentatious purity and simplicity of the Protestant religion, there is something very striking in the pomp and pageantry of the Catholic ritual as it exists in Mexico, and I must say something equally revolting in its disgusting mummeries and impostures, which degrade the Christian religion into an absurd, ridiculous, and venal superstition.” 2 1

2

Chapter 1

One of the crucial scenes of contention between Catholics and Protestants was their understanding of what takes place when bread is consecrated for the sacrament of Holy Communion. For most Protestants, the communion wafer represents the physical body of Jesus Christ. For Catholics, Holy Communion is a more mystical process, and the bread is not merely symbolic. Once the priest has consecrated it, what had been only wheat bread has become the actual Body of Christ, through a process called transubstantiation. Thus transformed, the consecrated wafer is referred to as the Host, from the Latin hostia, for “sacrificial victim.” 3 What most Protestants regarded as a symbol was, for Catholics, a real physical presence. This doctrinal distinction played out as a critical discrepancy when Catholics, Protestants, and the consecrated Host happened to meet in Mexico’s streets. When the Hayden family history was published in 1888, someone remembered that the story of Seth Hayden’s murder had first appeared in print several decades earlier, but no one could recall exactly when or where that had been. In fact, the homicide had been described in two books published in the 1840s.4 These works were part of a popular upsurge in anti-Catholic publications in the United States that began in the 1830s and continued up to the war with Mexico. As troops from the United States marched into Mexico in 1846 and 1847, many of the soldiers carried such books along with them as guides to what they would experience in Mexico. “Nearly all [the soldiers] were familiar with the travel and historical literature about Mexico. Still more had read or heard popular anti-Catholic stories.” 5 The murder of Seth Hayden was one of those anti-Catholic stories. The first, as well as the most popular, published account of Hayden’s death was written by Brantz Mayer, a lawyer who had been secretary to the US legation in Mexico City between 1841 and 1844. Mayer described what he called “a murder of the most appalling character.” He wrote that Hayden was a shoemaker and a Protestant who had “carefully observed all proper and decorous respect for the Catholic ceremonies and institutions of the country.” As a Catholic procession carrying the Host passed by in the street outside his shop, Hayden quietly arose from his work-bench, and coming forward, knelt on the sill of his door. He had scarcely prostrated himself, when a person (who is believed to have been an officer) accosted him, demanding in a rude tone “why he did not advance into the street and kneel?” Hayden

Figure 1.1.  A priest holding the Host rides in a carriage preceded by two men, one ringing a bell while the other carries a small table to be used as a temporary altar. Detail of Carl Nebel, Interior de Aguas, Calientes, in Voyage pittoresque et archéologique, dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique, par C. Nebel, architecte: 50 planches lithographiées avec texte explicatif (Paris: M. Moench; M. Gau, 1836), pl. 27. Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

4

Chapter 1

replied, that he thought it proper for him to kneel where he was. Scarcely had he uttered this when the soldier laid his hand on the hilt of his sword as if to draw. Hayden perceived this, and stepped toward his counter to seize a boot-tree for defense; but before he could reach it, the soldier had plunged his sword through the poor man’s back, directly into the heart, and he fell dead on the spot.6 Mayer’s account is a curious mixture of precision and uncertainty. He knew exactly where Hayden had knelt, just on the threshold of his shop, in the doorway, the liminal position between inside and outside. Mayer specified that the killer’s voice was “demanding in a rude tone” as he challenged Hayden to step into the street and kneel there. Mayer was even able to describe Hayden’s personal perceptions and his intentions, as well as the precise choreography of the murderer and his victim as their movements culminated in Hayden’s death: “Scarcely had he uttered this when the soldier laid his hand on the hilt of his sword as if to draw. Hayden perceived this, and stepped toward his counter to seize a boot-tree” to defend himself. At the same time, Mayer was vague or uncertain about who it was who had reported these details. Mayer described the witness to these events only as an unnamed “American who was in the shop at the time,” and he identified the killer simply as “a person (who is believed to have been an officer).” Mayer likely heard the story of Hayden’s death from John Black, who had been appointed United States consul in Mexico City while Mayer was secretary to the legation there in the early 1840s. Mayer named Black as a participant in Hayden’s funeral, but Mayer did not claim that Black was the unidentified American who had witnessed Hayden’s death. Nevertheless, US diplomatic records confirm that John Black was in Mexico City in the 1820s and that he had played a significant role in Seth Hayden’s funeral. The US consul in Mexico City at the time was a man named James Smith Wilcocks.7 His official diplomatic communications from Mexico City tell us Wilcocks had formally requested that Mexican officials consign Hayden’s corpse to John Black for burial.8 The same reports also tell us the Mexican government agreed that Hayden’s death had been the act of a Catholic religious zealot. The day after Hayden died, Lucas Alamán, Mexico’s minister of external and internal relations, wrote to Wilcocks to express the Mexican government’s official concern with “the atrocious murder committed yesterday by a fanatic.” Alamán explained that he himself “gave the strictest orders so that the greatest persistence would be employed to find and punish the aggressor,

Pomp and Pageantry, Impiety and Obscenity

5

since a crime of this magnitude could not remain unpunished nor could it be seen with indifference by a Nation that knows the respect and consideration that other nations, its friends, deserve and that wants and desires always to fulfill its obligations to justice.” 9 Alamán also expressed his hope that further crimes of this nature might be precluded by avoiding the public confrontations that could result from the contrast between the beliefs and practices of Mexican Catholics and those of foreign Protestants. Alamán’s solution was simple: when in Mexico, Protestants ought to behave like Catholics. Alamán wrote to Wilcocks: “at the same time, I bring to your attention, in order to avoid in the future the very disagreeable situations on account of such altercations as gave rise to this one, that it would be very opportune if it would be recommended to those individuals of your Nation who find themselves in this Republic, that whatever their own religious opinions might be, that they should conform to those of the people of this country in the public practice of the Religion that we profess.”10 Wilcocks responded with a politely worded appreciation of Alamán’s zeal in pursuing this case. At the same time, Wilcocks sought “to unburden” himself of a concern that Mexican justice was moving too slowly in another homicide case, one where religion was not at issue. Wilcocks suggested that he would like to help to make progress in pursuing Hayden’s murderer by offering a reward of 300 pesos of his own money to anyone who would identify the killer, if Alamán thought that such an inducement would be in conformity with the laws of Mexico. Wilcocks also acknowledged Alamán’s recommendation and agreed to carry it out; Wilcocks would advise US citizens that they “should act in conformity with the public practices” of the Catholic religion, “whatever their own religious opinions might be.”11 Among those whom Wilcocks cautioned were the first minister from the United States to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, and his personal secretary, Edward Thornton Tayloe, who arrived in Mexico the following year. After Poinsett and Tayloe passed through the principal plaza in Jalapa, Veracruz, on a fine Tuesday afternoon in May 1825, Tayloe described how he and Poinsett had acted on the warning they had received: Once to-day, we were compelled to kneel in the plaza, or principal open square, to the Host, which was passing with a small escort to the church, a boy preceding it jingling a small bell that gives notice of its approach. All good Christians advance to the windows of their houses to show

6

Chapter 1

their devotion to the real presence. Ridiculous as these ceremonies appear to us, it is proper to conform to them—indeed, non-compliance is dangerous—there have been instances of violence, even loss of life, to some who have been so imprudent as to neglect them.12 With Hayden’s death in mind, Tayloe and Poinsett promptly conformed to Catholic expectations. In Tayloe’s words, “Unwilling to be martyrs, we went down upon the hard pavement with a good grace, when we saw others do the same, but I confess, I was at a loss to know the reason, this being the first time I had met the Host.”13 In reflecting on his first encounter with the Host, Tayloe expressed his distaste for public displays of religious reverence, an opinion he believed was beginning to be shared by some Mexicans. Tayloe was optimistic that, in the future, Mexicans would be less demanding of outward conformity and more open to religious toleration: “This idolatrous worship which some even now ridicule, it is to be hoped, will not continue much longer. Great respect is shown to it by a large majority of the people. Religious tyranny is more oppressive than any other, and it is the most difficult to be overthrown. Independence of Spain is only one step towards the liberty of Mexico: freedom of conscience must be the other.”14 Tayloe was confident in his opinion despite his scant knowledge of Mexico; when he made this observation, he had been in the country for less than a week. Perhaps he was only repeating opinions he had heard from the more worldly Poinsett.15 Tayloe and Poinsett were able to hear and heed the warning Wilcocks provided only because they had access to the diplomatic dispatches that Wilcocks sent to the State Department in Washington, DC. But how would Wilcocks ever have been able to warn other travelers before, or even after, their arrival in Mexico? In fact, there is no evidence that Wilcocks ever followed through on his promise to warn his fellow citizens that they should follow Catholic religious practices in public while in Mexico. There is little to suggest that word of this warning spread by other means or that travelers to Mexico in the 1820s and 1830s had ever heard of Seth Hayden’s death before his murder was publicized in Mayer’s book nearly twenty years later.16 Only one other traveler, an Englishman named Mark Beaufoy, is known to have heard about the murder of the Yankee shoemaker, though he did not know Seth Hayden’s name. Beaufoy advised his readers to avoid religious processions, if at all possible.

Pomp and Pageantry, Impiety and Obscenity

7

In every part of this enlightened country, when the sound of a muffinbell, and then a monotonous dirge, is borne on the breeze, escape if you can; but if noticed by others, resolutely plump down on your knees in the softest dirt you can find. A poor American was stabbed, because he only knelt on the threshold of his shop in the city of Mexico; and of course the said shop was gutted. The foreigners subscribed a large reward for the discovery of the assassin, but he was never found out. It is astonishing how such little incidents make a man’s inclination to scoff at ceremonies waver.17 Beaufoy appears to have heard the story from an American rather than another Englishman, since British diplomats had recorded that Hayden had rested his knees on a cushion or a chair rather than on the threshold of his door.18 It was true that the British and American citizens resident in Mexico City raised $2,000 as a reward and that the murderer was never identified or arrested, but the detail that Hayden’s shop was looted or destroyed appears in no earlier source, so it may have been added as the gossip passed from mouth to mouth, with the gratuitous “of course” the only verification necessary. Nevertheless, Beaufoy reported that he had rarely felt himself to be in danger during his years in Mexico: The only time I met with the slightest molestation in the Republic, was the Sunday after I had arrived at the place of my destination, when two drunken Indians, with large knives, were scarcely kept from an attack by the flourishing of my heavy stick. The [parish priest] heard of the affair, and it being very much his interest to patronize the new comers, he sent for the chief inhabitants of each village to a considerable distance, and so terrified them with threats of excommunication and damnation, that I never heard of another similar fracas while I remained in the district.19 Beaufoy described no other threats to his safety, and in this singular circumstance, the parish clergyman protected Beaufoy despite his nonconforming religious beliefs. Even so, Beaufoy used his story to reinforce the common perception among Protestant visitors that the Mexican people were dominated by Catholic priests, or in the phrase they often used, the Mexicans were “priest-ridden.”

8

Chapter 1

Most other Protestants who traveled in Mexico during the 1820s and 1830s agreed on the fervent Catholicism of the Mexican people; but few of them felt that their lives were in danger for their Protestant religious beliefs. Most of these Protestant visitors encountered a Host procession soon after they arrived in Mexico. Edward Penny happened on one of those processions as soon as he reached the center of Mexico City: When I first entered Mexico [City], and had arrived thus far, filled with admiration, I was surprised at a sudden silence which in an instant pervaded every living object. The coaches of our party stopped; the horsemen checked their steeds, the dogs ceased their barking, and the children their crying; . . . all nature might have undergone a sudden revolution: I thought of an earthquake, but felt none, and I heard nothing but the tinkling of a night-bell; the effect was instantaneous.20 Penny asked a fellow traveler what was happening and received the sharp reply: “‘God, his Majesty, kneel, man, kneel!’ [as he was] descending at the same time from his horse and falling on his knees. I was startled at this, and on turning my head, saw all the world in the same posture, and almost trembling with fear I no longer hesitated to comply with the Spaniard’s injunction, and instantly was on my marrow bones.” 21 Penny observed the procession carefully, and afterward he asked questions to learn what was expected. “At all events, the mystery was explained, for the law of the church is, that so long as the bell is heard, hats must be off, all business and motion cease, and that, so long as the coach is in sight, every body must remain on their knees, and two soldiers follow the coach to enforce it. The English, or heretics, must do the same as the rest.” 22 Penny recalled that he was “almost trembling with fear,” and he noted the presence of two soldiers following the procession “to enforce” conformity, but he did not believe himself to be in mortal danger. He concluded: “Some who have imprudently refused to conform, have lost their hats, and had stones thrown at them: we are now, however, able to distinguish the awful bell at a distance, and we seldom allow ourselves to be caught by it.” 23 Other travelers learned to kneel when the Host passed by before they even left the ports. Stuart Donaldson, for example, was still in Tampico when he was surprised to learn that he was expected to dismount from his horse to show respect for a religious procession: “an idea exists among these bigoted fools that it is a sin to go on horseback past the church (a prejudice which I

Pomp and Pageantry, Impiety and Obscenity

9

respected so far as to yield to it, because, when at Tampico, during the procession of Corpus Christi, I was nearly knocked off my horse by the butt end of a soldier’s musket, for not paying due respect to one of their virgins which was passing, from ignorance of the deference due, besides being nearly other­ wise roughly handled).” 24 Donaldson admitted his “ignorance of the deference” that was expected from him on this occasion, but he also misunderstood the reason for it. The Feast of Corpus Christi commemorates the sacrament of Holy Communion, and the procession Donaldson observed would have featured a consecrated communion wafer displayed behind a transparent pane in a gold or silver vessel called a monstrance. Although he saw the procession, Donaldson did not recognize or understand the significance of the monstrance containing the Host. So it was Donaldson’s lack of respect for the Host, the actual Body of Christ (and the literal English translation of the Latin words Corpus Christi) and not “one of their virgins” that prompted a soldier to strike him with the butt of his rifle. In any case, Donaldson did not fall from his­ horse. He was not stabbed, and he did not die. He was bruised, but not murdered.25 George Francis Lyon described meeting a Host procession in the street three different times without ever feeling himself in danger, even in the most conservative areas: There are more kneelings and pulling off of hats at San Luis [Potosí] than at other places. No one passes the door of the Parroquia, or cathedral, without making a reverence bare-headed; and many good Christians perform the same marks of respect to the other churches. This obeisance is exacted from no one; but were a stranger to omit it, he would stand a very good chance of being insulted by the very bigoted populace, who still view with a jealous eye the heretical foreigners who have lately appeared among them.26 Henry George Ward was one of the first British diplomats in Mexico. Like many travel writers who visited Mexico in the first decades after independence, Ward was quite frank about his distaste for what he regarded as “the impropriety, or rather impiety” of popular Catholicism. Ward never commented on seeing the Host pass by in the street, but after viewing a religious procession on Christmas Eve in the northern state capital of Zacatecas, Ward described what he had seen as “disgusting exhibitions”

10

Chapter 1 Figure 1.2.  Santa Clara holding a monstrance. Unknown artist, Sta. Clara Fundadora. Saint Alphonso María de’Ligouri, La verdadera esposa de Jesucristo (Mexico City: J. M. Lara, 1845). © The British Library Board. General Reference Collection 3837.aaa.8.

and “disgraceful mummeries.” These were: Jesus dressed as an agricultural laborer and Mary wearing a “fashionable French hat” set at a jaunty angle. Ward reiterated a common Protestant prejudice against the Catholic practice of venerating images, saying that “these images the poor are taught to worship.” Like Tayloe, Ward believed that popular religiosity was the root of the problem and that the Mexican upper class was more open-minded, though pressured to adopt a superficial piety in public. “The rich, or rather the well-informed,” he wrote, “may bow the knee indeed, but they deride in private the superstition with which they are compelled outwardly to conform.” 27 Ward also predicted that eventually Mexico would permit greater religious freedom as open-mindedness spread from the elite to the popular classes. He thought that as economic conditions improved, Mexico would

Pomp and Pageantry, Impiety and Obscenity

11

open its economy to foreign investment and international markets. As foreign trade, investment, and cultural contacts increased, religious zealotry would inevitably decline. He saw the incipient signs of this process already underway and concluded that there had been a great deal of change in the previous three years. In his words, “Foreigners have penetrated into every part of the Republic; and, as they have been the means of giving a new existence to the mining and agricultural interests, the prejudices formerly entertained against them have subsided with wonderful rapidity.” 28 Even if we consider that Seth Hayden was murdered in the first years of social interactions between Protestants and Catholics in Mexico, these additional perspectives only make the circumstances of Seth Hayden’s death more puzzling. Many Protestant visitors to Mexico encountered a procession bearing the Host soon after their arrival, but no one else met with lethal violence for religious nonconformity. Although we do not know how long Hayden had been in Mexico when he was killed, he could not have been a recent arrival. He had had enough time to start up a business, and he had chosen a prominent location for his shop in the center of the city.29 Since his business was close by the principal parish church, he would have had frequent opportunities to respond, as the processions passed by there several times a day, taking the Host to parishioners who were near death. Several of the stories about his murder included the detail that his assailant wanted Hayden to leave his shop and kneel in the street, even though, as Tayloe remarked of those who were indoors, “all good Christians advance to the windows of their houses to show their devotion to the real presence.” Why was Hayden singled out? If, as Mayer said, another American was present in the shop to witness the murder, why was that individual exempted from the order to exit the shop and kneel in the street? Foreign visitors provide us with some evidence (however biased and incomplete) of religious practices and emotions, since they commented as outsiders on what otherwise might be taken for granted as mundane and unworthy of comment by insiders. Nevertheless, travelers are intrinsically problematic sources because their perspective was usually narrow and their reports, anecdotal. They were there one day and gone the next. Even the most articulate and well traveled, like Henry George Ward, spent only a few years in Mexico. For a view of Mexican religion that is deeper and more sensitive to local culture, we must look to the insiders who commented on popular practices.

12

Chapter 1 A Domestic Perspective

Carlos María de Bustamante was one of the most significant politicians of his time, a man who was frequently elected to the national Senate by his home state of Oaxaca. Bustamante was also one of Mexico’s most persistent and prolific writers as well as one of the century’s most diligent diarists, who kept up a regular routine of writing for more than twenty-five years. Between 1822 and 1848, Bustamante wrote nearly every day, even when he was sick in bed.30 Bustamante recorded his observations and opinions on a wide variety of subjects, including the death of Seth Hayden, the man from Connecticut who was said to have been killed for his casual obeisance when the consecrated Host passed by his shop. Bustamante’s version of what happened that evening differs in significant ways from the story as it was documented through United States and British diplomatic sources or published (eventually) from the oral tradition passed along by John Black and Seth Hayden’s family. On the same night that Hayden died, Bustamante wrote the following sentences in his journal: Tonight an evildoer has killed an English bootmaker who had his workshop on the street level of the state treasury office. He had used the pretext that he had not knelt when the Most Holy Sacrament was passing; the Englishman had knelt, but he demanded that he go down on his knees in the middle of the street; he resisted and then he was given the stab wound that killed him. He was a journeyman in his shop and ate his bread; the English are highly offended by this iniquity precisely because the deed has happened to a man who was honorable and useful to the republic.31 Bustamante wrote within hours of Hayden’s death, so his diary is a contemporary record of what happened, but the sources of his information remain a mystery to us. Bustamante’s journal is consistent with the diplomatic correspondence demonstrating that the British as well as the Americans were greatly troubled by the incident, but Bustamante recorded the victim as “English” (for English-speaking?) and a bootmaker rather than a shoemaker or a merchant.32 The motivation for the murder is a more significant difference. Bustamante named no names, and his repeated use of the same pronoun to refer to both the murderer and his victim might create some confusion. Nevertheless, Bustamante’s initial statement of the facts

Pomp and Pageantry, Impiety and Obscenity

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could not be clearer: “Tonight an evildoer has killed an English bootmaker.” Rather than being a devout but merciless soldier armed with a sword, the killer that Bustamante described was an employee of Hayden’s own shop, a man who could well have stabbed his boss with any one of the numerous sharp implements or pointed tools on hand. Bustamante regarded this murder as especially shocking since Hayden’s death came at the hands of his own journeyman, an individual who relied on the master craftsman for his employment, his income, even his daily bread. Bustamante used the idiomatic expression “le comía el pan” (literally, “he ate his bread”) to describe the intimacy of this dependent relationship. Like the “English” residents of Mexico, Bustamante was appalled by the insolence of the journeyman’s violence “precisely because the deed has happened to a man who was honorable and useful to the republic.” Bustamante provides a clue that leads to a more credible motivation for Hayden’s murder. Bustamante reported that the unfortunate victim was set upon by the enraged malefactor despite the fact that the shoemaker had, in fact, demonstrated the proper respect for the sacrament; Hayden had resisted only when his journeyman “demanded that he go down on his knees in the middle of the street.” The streets of any nineteenth-century city were dirty, and in Mexico the middle was considered especially foul, since the streets there commonly drained to the center rather than the sides.33 The killer intended to humiliate his victim. Bustamante concluded that the murderer had used the victim’s purported lack of respect for the Host only as a pretext for his violence. Bustamante was himself a devout Catholic, and he found this murder shocking and unsettling. Nevertheless, it did not convince him that Mexicans were superstitious. Allowing for minor discrepancies, we have two different versions of the story and two distinct conclusions about popular Mexican religiosity. Contemporary diplomatic notes, the Hayden family’s history, and the antiCatholic literature published before the Mexican-American War of 1846– 1848 accepted the interpretation that Hayden’s lack of respect for the holy sacrament was a credible motive that would impel a credulous Mexican to an impulsive murder. That is what Tayloe believed as he dropped to his knees when the Host passed through the plaza in Jalapa a few months after Hayden’s death. In contrast, Bustamante emphatically rejected that imagined religious rationale and described it as only a subterfuge for the public humiliation of an employer and social superior. Bustamante believed that the murderer had acted out of a perverse pride, a belligerent insubordination, and that the

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religious excuse was only a distraction. The journeyman had killed because he would not accept his inferior status in his master’s workshop. Protestant visitors and foreign diplomats were ready to believe that ordinary Mexicans were potentially lethal religious fanatics in public, though they would grant that Mexico’s literate and more worldly upper classes could be gracious and tolerant in private. Carlos Maria de Bustamante was a prominent member of that upper class who was also a devout Catholic. Like Protestant travelers, though, Bustamante was disturbed every so often by the behavior of some of his countrymen and -women, but he did not conclude that his fellow Mexicans were superstitious or “priest-ridden.” Instead, he remarked time and again that some Mexicans were less pious than they ought to be. In January 1824, Bustamante described the advertisements he had seen in the street for a theatrical production about the Virgin of Guadalupe. Like many Mexicans, Carlos María de Bustamante believed that in December 1531 the Virgin Mary had appeared at a place called Tepeyac, outside Mexico City, to an Indian named Juan Diego. As a result, a church had been built there, dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Bustamante was certain that the portrait venerated in that church had been produced as a miracle. The Virgin had told Juan Diego to wrap some roses in his cloak and to deliver them to Archbishop Juan de Zumárraga. When Juan Diego opened his cloak for the archbishop, the flowers fell to the floor, revealing an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe that had spontaneously appeared on his cloak. Bustamante was aware that there was no historical evidence that Zumárraga had ever seen the portrait of the Virgin or even heard about the apparition. Although there was no contemporary written documentation in any archive to support the story, Bustamante did not conclude that the apparition narrative was not history. Instead, he believed that the absence of evidence was a result of overwhelming power; the Spanish had destroyed the documents.34 For Bustamante, the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe was not only religious truth, it was historical fact. So when he saw the posters promoting a theatrical comedy about the Virgin of Guadalupe, Bustamante was irritated. The advertisements showed Archbishop Zumárraga performing a salacious dance (called the jarabe) in praise of the apparition. The production was an impertinent and irreverent misinterpretation of a sacred truth, and Bustamante was indignant: “This is a way to ridicule an event that has inspired the greatest confidence in the protection of Most Holy Mary and for that reason is an attack on Mexican piety.” 35

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Figure 1.3.  Portrait of Carlos María de

Bustamante. Manuel Rivera Cambas, Los gobernantes de México: Galería de biografías y retratos de los vireyes, emperadores, presidentes y otros gobernantes que ha tenido México, desde don Hernando Cortes hasta el C. Benito Juárez (Mexico City: J. M. Aguilar Ortiz, 1872–1873). Clare Sauro, curator of the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection at Drexel University, concluded that this portrait probably dates from the early 1820s (personal communication, 1 February 2018), which would be about the time Bustamante began keeping his diary.

Impiety and Obscenity Mexico was founded on the principles of political independence, social equality, and religious conformity. Soon after independence, the new nation declared itself to be a republic. Only a few years later, and almost without opposition, Congress abolished titles of nobility as vestiges of Spanish authority. In place of outmoded honorifics, many men used the title “citizen” to mark the significance of these political and social changes. Slavery, official discrimination, and even the use of racial categories in official documents (including the registration of baptisms, marriages, and burials) were abolished. In contrast, religion was not supposed to change. The Mexican republic’s exclusive religion was the same as that of the old kingdom of New Spain. The constitution of Mexico’s first republic proclaimed: “The religion of the Mexican nation is and will perpetually be Catholic, Apostolic, Roman. The nation will protect it with wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other.” 36 The emphatic language reflected the need to defend the church. Times were difficult for the faithful. The Catholic Church was weakened with Mexico’s independence when many of its highest officials abandoned their

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positions. Archbishop Pedro José Fonte y Hernández Miravete of Mexico City was among the first of the highest-level clergy to return to Spain. By 1829, there was not a single bishop presiding in any of the ten Mexican dioceses. Although cathedral chapters were empowered to act in the absence of a bishop, their members were aging. Many died and could not be replaced, and parish priests could be appointed only on an interim basis. As a result, some of their parishioners felt that these temporary priests lacked full authority. Those who confessed reluctantly, for example, could withhold details about their sins from an interim priest, if they regarded him as overly inquisitive, in the hope that whoever was named to the permanent post in the future would be more lenient with them.37 Bustamante was not alone in his concern that religious truth in Mexico was under assault. Acting in the absence of the archbishop, the cathedral chapter of Mexico City deplored the flood of indecent and unauthorized publications that had begun to appear in bookshops and markets once the Inquisition had been abolished. Referring to the New Testament Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat, the cathedral chapter announced that “the enemy is sowing the weeds of wicked doctrine in the fields of the Lord.” 38 The “wicked doctrine” was the heresy known as Protestantism. The evidence of its spread could be seen in “the multitude of Bibles in circulation that are truncated, without the necessary approvals and respective notes.” The Catholic Church hierarchy recognized in these editions “a sinister insistence on propagating the deplorable principle of the Protestant sects: that is that the only rule of faith is the Scripture, understood by each individual using his own judgment.” 39 To Mexico City’s cathedral chapter, the publication of sacred scriptures without notes and commentary was an act of intellectual vandalism, a desecration that discarded generations of academic achievements, including the meticulous study of ancient languages and the thoughtful interpretations of a long scholarly tradition. These Protestant Bibles not only brushed aside the wisdom of the saints, they encouraged the ignorant musings and insubstantial impressions of those who might be only tenuously literate in their own vernacular language. Instead, the Council of Trent had established that the “living voice of the Church” was to define and interpret the truth of scripture. The cathedral chapter explained that it was being also very alert against the seduction of those ignorant and voluble teachers who have appeared from time to time, and with their own

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interpretations adulterate the Scriptures with meanings that they do not have, tricking the simpleminded with their own dreams and deliriums. Hence, there has been no error or heresy that has not sought support in some misunderstood divine text, as Saint Augustine pointed out: it is known that bad translations into common languages corrupt the very source of the Doctrine, and taking advantage of that favorable circumstance, the great heretics of the West progressed through such unfaithful versions.40 The cathedral chapter blamed the decline in public morality on the increasing circulation of two distinct kinds of books: the false and the indecent. They explained at length that Protestant ideas were debased and dangerous, but the cathedral chapter required fewer words to define the associated problem of obscenity, and they expressed themselves obliquely: “And as for the other matter of the obscene illustrations and paintings that are also available for sale with too much publicity, we believe that we would offend the piety and honest sentiments of our diocesans if we were to hesitate to express to you the repugnance that such objects express toward all the rules of public and private morality, and divine and human laws.” 41 The cathedral chapter’s remedy was simple and direct: all such works must be handed over to the authorities. They ordered, first, “that no one in the territory of our Diocese may print, buy, sell, or retain, without the proper licenses, the holy Bible or any book of it in a vernacular language, without approved notes and explications”; second, “that no one may buy, sell, or retain obscene sculptures, pictures, or prints, whether bound in volumes or loose”; and third, that anyone in possession of these forbidden works must turn them over to the authorities within one week.42 The cathedral chapter’s edict of 1828 was clearly insufficient to stem the tide of error and indecency. Only a few years later, the cathedral chapter published a second edict deploring a tide of impiety and obscenity that had only continued to rise: In our wretched days, with the greatest pain, we sense that impiety has increased, the loosening of customs has grown due to and as a necessary consequence, among other things, of the reading of countless impious and obscene works, that beneath the most seductive appearances enclose and hide the most deadly poison. . . . As a torrent that floods and destroys everything, in these last days the loosening of morals has

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spilled over its dikes, making extraordinary efforts to drown the pious feelings of the Church and the multitude of her faithful children who weep for the blindness and misconduct of some others.43 The cathedral chapter continued to identify Protestants as “enemies of the Church,” but public morality had degenerated to the point that the Catholic Church hierarchy began to see that even the Protestant residents in Mexico City were behaving better than many Catholics. The problem was particularly evident on Sundays, “the days of the Lord, days that should be exclusively consecrated for sanctification; days when all material work is prohibited, to spend them in the exercise and practice of works of piety.” Instead, the cathedral chapter saw many Catholics “converting Sundays . . . into days of diversion, of greater scandals, of greater sensuality, and greater prostitution.” Yes, our brothers: with the most profound pain, with the greatest sadness in our hearts, we observe to be just and proven the scandal that is known and the criticism even by the Protestants residing in this city who are more orderly in this part of their beliefs and who behave in conformity with them. Yes, they are scandalized, and some privately and others in public have made known to us what they have seen, that is, they say that our Lent, and the Sundays of that period, are the days when licentiousness is most flamboyant, most resplendent in the sight of all, achieving the most disastrous triumphs over simple and ingenuous Christians, offending the holy law and even public morality that always condemns such excesses.44 Church leaders sought “to prevent the contagion to which the bad example leads,” but they found it difficult to identify the perpetrators of these outrages because the miscreants wore disguises. They were cavorting in costumes at masquerades. In response, the cathedral chapter announced that “masked balls and their dances” were “prohibited forever”: We prohibit them under the penalty of major excommunication ipso facto incurrenda: being as we will continue to be very diligent to know the names of those wretched instigators of such abominable diversions, in order to mark them publicly as excommunicated pariahs with whom it will not be permitted to interact, to whom we prohibit entry

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into our temples, who will be buried in profane places, weighted down with anathemas and all the rest that those include, in fitting punishment for their obstinacy and rebellion.45 No trial would be necessary; those who organized or attended such forbidden festivities were to be shunned by all good Christians. They were not to be allowed into churches while they lived, and they would not be buried in holy ground when they died. The fate of their souls was guaranteed. They were damned. The drastic penalty of immediate, automatic excommunication was no more successful than the previous edict had been in stemming the tide of impiety and obscenity. Little more than two years later, in May 1833, the cathedral chapter published a pastoral letter that, once again, returned to the familiar themes: “it is undeniable that philosophistry and impiety are advancing quickly in their conquests over the ruins of Catholicism. Books and texts that it is not permitted to read or to possess are sought after, are read, and are kept. Now things are seen, are heard, at times by negligence, or out of interest, or with pleasure that before could not be seen without scandal, could not be heard without horror.” 46 The year 1833 was a particularly stressful time for Mexicans. Some of Mexico’s more religiously tolerant politicians attempted to reduce the power of the Catholic Church. Led by acting president Valentín Gómez Farías, they appealed to the populace for support. Editorials in the daily newspaper El Telégrafo reminded readers that the higher ranks of the clergy and the Spanish aristocrats had opposed the popular heroes of the 1810 War of Independence. Carlos Maria de Bustamante had himself played an important role in the movement against Spanish domination of Mexico, and he admitted the historical accuracy of this assessment. It was true that the upper levels of the clergy had supported Spanish power. Yet Bustamante was skeptical of the ability of the liberals to motivate ordinary Mexicans to support restrictions on traditional ecclesiastical powers and prerogatives at a time when many people feared for their lives because of a cholera epidemic.47

The Cholera Epidemic of 1833 Mexico’s cholera epidemic of 1833 was part of a worldwide pandemic as the disease spread beyond Asia for the first time in the nineteenth century.48

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Cholera morbus, as it was known, wandered the globe for three generations, killing hundreds of thousands of people and terrorizing many more with the threat of sudden and painful death. The disease struck rapidly and killed without warning. An apparently healthy individual would experience abrupt, violent bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. Agony was quickly relieved by death, often within hours of the first symptoms. After the convulsions ceased, the disease left particularly horrifying corpses. Rapid and extreme dehydration twisted limbs and shrank flesh, leaving distorted, misshapen bodies turned black and blue from blood thickening under the skin. The new disease was deeply shocking because it killed the strong as well as the weak. Even vigorous and seemingly healthy individuals could be dead within a few hours. As one woman recorded, “Many go to bed alive and are dead by dawn.” 49 Cholera was a dramatic and frightening illness that attracted a great deal of attention, but what caused it, as well as how to prevent and to treat the disease, remained controversial for decades. Today, we understand cholera as a bacterial disease that is spread principally by contaminated water.50 In retrospect, it is easy to see how vulnerable nineteenth-century cities were to the disease, but in the 1830s the cause of cholera was disputed, and potential methods of treatment and prevention were debated throughout the nineteenth century. Epidemic cholera reached Mexico in 1833, but it was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that scientists and medical doctors even began to develop the germ theory, the understanding of contagious disease that we take for granted today. Louis Pasteur’s fundamental studies of fermentation would not be carried out until the 1850s, decades after Mexicans began dying from cholera. Twenty more years would pass before a German medical doctor named Robert Koch demonstrated scientifically for the first time a connection between a specific bacterium and a particular disease in the 1870s. Koch is also credited with discovering the cholera vibrio in 1884, but even then the germ theory did not catch on quickly. Contrary to much of what is written in medical history, John Snow’s discovery (and publication in 1854) of the correlation between contaminated drinking water and the incidence of cholera was not immediately accepted by the medical establishment.51 Correlation, after all, is not causation. When cholera reached Mexico for the first time in 1833, a variety of medical concepts were deployed to explain its spread. The lack of an authoritative consensus on the cause of the disease left many people with only questions, doubts, and fears. In this apprehensive atmosphere, the cathedral chapter published a pastoral letter explaining that the ultimate cause of the cholera

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epidemic, as well as all the rest of life’s tragedies, was human sin: “Yes, sin is the origin of all the calamities that plague the Earth: the vices, that abound in our homes flood into the streets and the plazas; the dissolution, that carries its lack of restraint up to the Sanctuary; the licentiousness, that unfurls its insolence up to the base of the altars; the impiety, that insults the Highest even on His own throne, cannot cease to provoke His wrath, cannot cease to ignite His choler.” 52 “Choler” is an old-fashioned synonym for “anger” or “rage.” The word is seldom used anymore because it is rooted in an outdated system of thought called the humoral system. The characteristic disposition of any individual was explained by a particular balance of four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and choler (which was also known as “yellow bile”). Illness was thought to result from a pathological imbalance of the humors. Hence, it was easy to see how the human disease known as “cholera” could be an expression of God’s wrath. If sinners believed that God was angry, they could connect his rage, his choler, to the cholera epidemic that was killing so many. Carlos María de Bustamante believed that this time the cathedral chapter’s rhetoric was much more effective than their previous attempts to curb impiety and obscenity. During the epidemic, many people changed their behavior, and the conduct of ordinary Mexicans improved. Bustamante described the changes that he saw: “It can be affirmed that this capital was in those days so changed that no one thought of anything other than making things right with God, to suffer his judgment. Enemies reconciled, separated husbands and wives reunited, some stolen property was returned using priests as intermediaries, and some notoriously disorderly individuals underwent a great change in behavior.” 53 If people were on their best behavior because they were terrified by the threat of imminent death, the time of cholera would be a high-water mark for proper deportment, a period of correct conduct that is unlikely to have been exceeded at any other time. Although it would be difficult to find historical evidence of the behavior that Bustamante described, there are other primary sources that can give us insight into the day-to-day practice of religion in Mexico. Parish records of baptisms, marriages, and burials document the regular interactions of parishioners and priests as they record the most important moments in the lives of everyone in their jurisdiction, from birth through sexual maturity to their last days on earth. Baptismal registers record the births of their children, the names they received, and whether their parents were married or not. The marriage registers document the names, ages, and

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social status of brides and grooms as well as how old they were when they married. In the same way, burial records describe when people died, how old they were, which sacraments they received, where they were buried, and, sometimes, what killed them. At the same time that Protestant visitors saw Mexicans as extreme Catholic fanatics, Catholic Church officials complained about their impiety and bad behavior. Both Protestants and Catholics were describing exceptional activities they regarded as deplorable. Parish records can give us a more consistent and broadly representative view of the day-to-day interactions between Mexicans and their clergy, the relationships between parishioners and their priests. These records provide us with evidence of what people thought and how they felt: they are the outward signs of inner states. By supplementing the parish registers with letters, memoirs, essays, fiction, and other historical studies, we can see how people lived their lives and practiced their religion as the kingdom of New Spain became the republic of Mexico, as well as how people modified their behavior when a cholera epidemic threatened each of them with sudden death. In order to understand how exceptional the epidemic period might be, we first need to understand the routine relationships between the clergy and their parishioners. We will look back years, decades, and centuries to understand how men and women made their choices about religious sacraments, how they imagined their present and their past, how priests and parishioners interacted from birth to death. The insights of one of the most celebrated foreign travelers ever to write about Mexico and the names that Mexican parents gave to their newborn babies are an appropriate place to begin.

Ch a p t er 2

Birthdays, Patron Saints, and Names for Newborns .

\  Fr ances Erskine Inglis was an intelligent, sophisticated,

and intrepid woman. Fanny, as she had been called since her childhood in Scotland, met a Spaniard in New York City and married him there. Not much more than a year after their wedding, she found herself on her way to Mexico, where her husband, don Ángel Calderón de la Barca, was to be Spain’s first diplomatic representative since Mexico’s independence. En route, they made a brief stop in Havana, where they attended a formal dinner party in honor of Spain’s Queen Isabel II. At the time, Fanny described the festivities as a birthday celebration for the queen of Spain. Sometime later, she realized that she had been mistaken. These festivities were always held on 19 November, the feast day of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Queen Isabel’s patron saint and namesake, rather than on the anniversary of the day the young monarch had been born, which was 10 October.1 The Spanish always celebrated Queen Isabel’s saint’s day rather than her birthday. One year later, in Mexico, Fanny complained of having to return to the city from her vacation in order to begin her own preparations for hosting a saint’s day celebration for the queen. Fanny found the preparations for the celebration, and the dinner itself, to be exhausting. By the time the Calderóns and their guests had returned to the drawing room after dining, she was already “dreadfully tired.” The day after her party, Fanny wrote that the banquet alone had lasted “three and a half mortal hours.” Nevertheless, she was 23

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relieved to say, “Our dinner has gone off as well as could be expected. . . . I believe no blunders in etiquette were committed.” For one thing, she no longer made the mistake of calling the celebration a “birthday.” 2 The differences between Catholic and Protestant traditions and practices were not trivial in a Catholic country that did not tolerate any other religion. The celebration of saints’ days functioned as a mechanism to define community, to exclude outsiders, and to identify heretics. In a letter to her friend, the famous historian William Hickling Prescott, Fanny described the fervent religious culture of Mexico. She told Prescott how her covert Protestantism had almost been detected because she was not prepared for questions about her own saint’s day when she visited a convent. The padres have still an overweening influence, and the superstition of all classes is perfectly astonishing in this 19th Century. I pass a great part of my time in Convents and churches, which are the buildings best worth visiting in Mexico. . . . They are some of them very rich, and I spent four hours rather pleasantly with the ladies of La Encarnación, they little dreaming that a heretic was profaning their sanctuary. I kept the conversation off England and on France most strenuously. They asked me who was my Saint. San Francisco, said I. But which?, said the Abbess, while they all made a circle around me to listen. Xaviera! said I with the inspiration of despair. “So the Señora Ministra’s name is Francisca Xaviera Calderón de la Barca!” 3 Howard T. Fisher and Marion Hall Fisher, the editors of the best annotated and most frequently cited collection of her letters, explained the significance of her selection: “Fanny was fortunate in her panicky choice of Saint Francis Xavier,” rather than another of the saints named Francis, because she would have had to explain how she had celebrated or, rather, why she had not allowed her friends to celebrate her saint’s day. “If she had, for example, chosen St. Francis de Sales, whose feast-day had been January 29, or St. Francis de Paul, whose feast-day had just passed on April 2, she would have been in hot water at once, with a need for excuses and explanations as to why she had not permitted her friends to share in her saint’s-day celebration. St. Francis Xavier’s day, however—December 3—she had spent safely on board [the ship from Havana], waiting out the norther off Veracruz.” 4 The following year, on Saint Francis Xavier’s feast day, Fanny spent a tiresome day at home receiving visitors, but she was careful not to refer to the day as her “birthday.” Later

Figure 2.1.  Unknown artist, Madame Calderon de la Barca: portrait oil painting on canvas. Houghton Library, Harvard University (MS Eng 1763, item 57). On the basis of the subject’s evening gown and hairstyle, Clare Sauro has dated this painting to circa 1840, not earlier than 1838 or later than 1845 (personal communication, 24 January 2018). So it appears that the portrait may have been painted in the first years of her marriage to Ángel Calderón de la Barca (24 September 1838 in New York) and possibly during their residence in Mexico (December 1839 to January 1842).

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that evening, she had only strength enough remaining to write three sentences: “Have had many visits today, this being my día de fiesta. Amongst others the Presidente was here. This custom of keeping people’s días gives one a great deal of trouble, but the omission is considered rather a breach of politeness.” 5

Birthdays and Saints’ Days Today, we take for granted a close connection between individuals and their birthdays. We routinely specify a birth date to differentiate ourselves from other individuals who might happen to have the same name. We provide birth dates as verification of who we are in doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and hospitals. Birth dates appear on drivers’ licenses and passports. They are required on credit card applications and when signing up for social media. We also assume that the date of one’s birth is a personal holiday that merits special celebration, a practice we imagine to be as old as births and calendars. Yet neither birthday celebrations nor the use of birth dates for identification were common practices until relatively recently. Howard Chudacoff has shown that birthday parties did not become popular in the United States until late in the nineteenth century and that until then birth dates were not even recorded systematically.6 The tradition of celebrating birthdays is not a very old one. In fact, rather than being common and recurring, birthday celebrations were relatively rare. As recounted in traditional Christian texts, birthdays were celebrated exclusively by oppressive and ungodly rulers who abused God’s people. The only birthday festivities mentioned in the Bible are those associated with disreputable monarchs (and unfortunate events), like the Egyptian Pharaoh (who had his chief baker impaled on the occasion), an unnamed king of Syria (who marked his birthday by forcing Jews to honor the pagan god Dionysus), and Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea (who ordered the decapitation of John the Baptist during his birthday party).7 In later centuries, there is evidence that monarchs continued to celebrate their own birthdays and those of their children. The birth of an heir to the throne was an important state occasion for celebration, and pretentious nobles were known to hold feasts on their own birthdays.8 Most people, though, did not know when they were born. Some educated and wealthy people might know their ages, but few others knew their birth dates.

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Newspapers reporting the deaths of former presidents Anastasio Bustamante and Antonio López de Santa Anna were not able to provide an accurate age for either man, despite their prominence.9 Birthdays were important to royal families and the nobility, but common people ignored birthdays; they celebrated their saints’ days instead. As we will see later, these practices changed over the centuries, but in their simplest form, a child at baptism would be given the name of a patron saint.10 Afterward, rather than celebrating the anniversary of the child’s birth or baptism, the family and community would commemorate the day associated with the saint whose name the child had been given. Christianity emphasized community cohesion, the emulation of saints, the sinfulness and imperfection of this transitory world, and the importance of eternal values rather than insignificant, temporal, and mundane pastimes. Celebration of a saint’s day was intended to link the baptized child to the eternal and exalted qualities the saint demonstrated in his or her life—or, more precisely, in his or her death. The saint’s day is not a birthday in our usual sense but a deathday. The Latin word natalitia was “used of the death-days of Christians, and especially of martyrs, in the sense of their birthday into eternal life.”11 Thus, the church hoped to shift the focus from the newborn child to the saint, or, more precisely, to the martyrdom or death of the saint. Observing a saint’s day rather than a birthday was thought essential to being human rather than an animal and a Christian rather than a heathen or a heretic. As he traveled around Mexico in the mid-1820s, Mark Beaufoy was routinely asked if he had a Christian name: “‘Have you really a baptismal name?’ was a question continually asked at a distance from the metropolis. ‘Now, don’t deceive us; because the priest tells us, that none but good Catholics have; and that to intrigue with a Christian is only a venal sin, whereas to do so with a heretic is a damnable one; and we might just as well converse with the devil.’”12 A saint’s name was given to each newborn at baptism, but birthdays were ignored, even though baptismal registers were required in Mexico as early as the sixteenth century. In 1585, the Third Mexican Provincial Council of bishops repeated the mandate that the essential facts about baptisms be written down, in the words of the council, “to avoid the inconveniences that originate when things are forgotten over the course of time.” The council was specific about what information must be recorded so that it would survive the passage of years. They did not include birth dates. Birthdays were not celebrated, and birth dates were not recorded.13

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The confusion of birthday and saint’s day is common today, even among scholars, but the distinction is important. The Spanish word cumpleaños is defined in modern dictionaries as a synonym for the English word “birthday,” but that was not the case in the past.14 Cumple años, written as two distinct words, as was common in nineteenth-century Mexico, traditionally referred to the saint’s name day rather than the anniversary of a birthday. When historians note a “birthday party” for President Vicente Guerrero at his country house, the festivities began on 4 April, the eve of Saint Vincent Ferrer’s day, rather than on the anniversary of Guerrero’s birth, which was probably in early August.15 When President Antonio López de Santa Anna invited Deputy Mariano Riva Palacio to join in the celebration of his “cumple años,”16 the party was held on 13 June, Saint Anthony of Padua’s day, rather than on the anniversary of Santa Anna’s birth, which was 22 February (and not one day earlier, as one of his biographers thought).17

Babies’ Names In its simplest form, the saint’s day or name day depends on the name a child is given at baptism. The naming process was a traditional concern of the Catholic Church that received increased emphasis after the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The council directed priests to encourage parents to give their children good Catholic names in order to facilitate, “by means of the similarity of the name, the desire to imitate his saintliness and virtue.” At the same time, the saint would also act as an “advocate and defender of one’s spiritual and corporal well-being.”18 Just as good names were believed to be beneficial, bad names were expected to be malignant. Clergy were exhorted to recommend the names of the saints and, when necessary, to impose them.19 The Fourth Mexican Provincial Council (1771) increased the pressure and narrowed the range of acceptable names; the council excluded the names of “heathen Indians” and even forbade names from the Old Testament, “in order not to confuse them with the Jews or to mistake the truth of the Law of Grace with its shadow, which was the Old [Testament].” 20 The impact of the Catholic Counter-Reformation can be read in the names given to the infants baptized in Mexico. Before the Council of Trent, baby names were simple and often referred to prominent relatives rather than saintly role models. Peter Boyd-Bowman found that names given to children

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of Spanish parents in sixteenth-century Mexico City were simpler and showed less variety than they demonstrated later.21 Criollos, as the Mexicanborn children of Spanish parents were called, almost invariably received single rather than compound names, and the range of names was quite narrow. Boyd-Bowman pointed out that the ten most common names were used for 60 to 75 percent of all criollo children and that there were “very few compound names such as Juan Bautista or María Luisa.” 22 In the early sixteenth century, many of the most common names (such as Beatriz and Leonor for girls and Alonso, Gaspar, Melchior, and Hernando for boys) were not associated with saints or their particular days. Hernán Cortés, for example, acknowledged Saint Peter as his patron saint because his nurse had chosen that saint for him, by lottery, during an illness in his infancy.23 Children’s names were often selected from a narrow range of names associated with their families, so that their names connected the newborn children to their own relatives and lineage rather than linking them to the heroic saints of the church. Cortés named each of his first two sons Martín, after his own father. (The first was born of his association with Malintzin, his indigenous interpreter and cultural guide; the second, of his Spanish legal wife, Juana de Zúñiga.) Names given at baptism were simple and referred to the earthly family rather than to heavenly inspirations or protectors. Over the centuries, that pattern changed as more children were given names that referred to the Holy Family: María, José, and Jesús. As early as 1540, María was consistently the single most popular name for Mexican girls of Spanish background. In the sixteenth century, most children’s names consisted of a single name, like María, rather than a compound name, like María del Carmen. As time passed, María remained the most widespread name for girls and even increased in popularity. As names at baptism grew longer during the seventeenth century, the name María increased in popularity. Up to one in four girls was named María, and their names became more specific as daughters were named for the particular images, mysteries, places, and events in the life of the Virgin Mary. Single names became increasingly rare, and by the end of the seventeenth century, they had virtually disappeared. Compound names like María Dolores, María del Carmen, María de la Soledad, María Guadalupe, and María de la Luz became more widely used in the eighteenth century. By 1760 to 1780, three of every four infant girls in Mexico City were given the name María, and the popularity of the name continued to increase into the nineteenth century.24

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As María was becoming increasingly popular as a name for girls, Joseph suddenly emerged as a favored name for boys. José had not been a traditional name for Spaniards or Mexicans. The name of Saint Mary’s husband was not among the ten most popular names for boys in 1540 and did not even appear on that list until 1620, when José suddenly showed up in third place. More and more boys were named José over the course of seventeenth century. José rose rapidly to first place, doubling in frequency between 1660 and 1700 and then doubling again between 1700 and 1740. José remained the most popular name for Mexican boys for more than 250 years.25 Naming daughters for Mary and sons for Joseph demonstrates compliance with the Catholic Church’s ideal of consistency between the sex of the child and the gender of the name given at baptism. Although levels of conformity were generally high, a smaller proportion of parents transgressed the gender boundary: they named their sons for Mary and their daughters for Joseph. In fact Josepha, the female variant of José, was a frequent name for girls beginning in 1620, at the same time that Joseph became one of the favorite names for boys.26 Parents were slower to name their sons María. A century after María began increasing rapidly as a name for girls, forms of the name Mary first appeared among the ten most popular names for boys in Mexico City’s central parish. The male variation Mariano was initially used much more frequently than María as a choice for boys. Mariano declined in popularity over the course of the eighteenth century, while the feminine form of Saint Mary’s name grew steadily in popularity as a second name for boys. María rose from tenth place in 1740, when Mariano was second, to sixth place in 1760, while Mariano dropped to third. By 1780, Mariano had fallen to sixth place, then to eighth in 1800, and finally dropped entirely off the list of top ten names for boys. At the same time, María rose to second place as a name for boys, behind only José in popularity, although María was never the first name and always followed one or another more masculine name when it was given to boys.27 The Catholic Church fought against the blurring of gender boundaries by attempting to restrict the use of the names of male saints to baby boys and those of female saints to infant girls.28 If the child was to emulate the saintly qualities of his or her namesake, the name and the saint ought to be consistent with the sex of the child. Nevertheless, feminine forms of male saints’ names (like Damiana, Antonia, and Jerónima) had proliferated in Spain by the late seventeenth century. Allyson Poska has pointed out that popular use of “feminized” forms of masculine names defied the church’s attempt to

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restrict baby girls’ names to the names of female saints as a way of reflecting women’s maternal nature, domestic roles, and subordinate position in the family. These were distinct qualities and values that the church sought to encourage, but the clergy were not successful in maintaining a gendered division in the stock of names.29 Boyd-Bowman provides us with evidence of a similar pattern in late seventeenth-century Mexico. Four of the five most popular names for girls in 1660 were feminized forms of masculine names: Antonia, Juana, Josepha, and Francisca.30 Boyd-Bowman concluded that children’s names were simple and lacking in variety during an initial period that lasted from 1540 to 1660. Afterward, during a second period lasting from 1675 to 1890, “religious fervor was shown consistently in the taste for long names full of advocations of the Virgin, various saints, and the Holy Family.” 31 Boyd-Bowman proposed that parents gave these longer names to their children for their protection, one of the same reasons that the Council of Trent encouraged the use of a single saint’s name; but if one name was good, more names were even better. As BoydBowman explained, “The propensity for multiple names, that is those with from three or four elements up to ten, twelve, and even more, is directly based on the desire to invoke divine or supernatural protection by entrusting the newborn to one or more of the saints or some member of the Holy Family.” 32 Although he took these increasingly long personal names as signs of religious devotion, Boyd-Bowman did not note that the proliferation of personal names was only tolerated rather than encouraged by the Catholic Church.33

Religious Enthusiasm and Longer Names There is a certain intuitive coherence and aesthetic appeal to this idea of baroque religious enthusiasm. We can imagine parents adding another saint’s name or two as a sculptor might add another detail to an intricate and capricious churrigueresque facade. Yet the implication that longer names were thought to provide improved prospects for heavenly assistance should not be accepted without question. In fact, there is no evidence of a connection between increasing religious motivations, longer children’s names, and the expectation of greater probability for intervention by the named saints. On the contrary, there is evidence that few people imagined such connections. Verónica Zárate Toscano found that most Mexican nobles made only

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perfunctory and formulaic references to “the saints of my name and devotion” as they pondered their own deaths. Only about one in one hundred made specific mention in their wills and testaments of their devotion to a saint with whom they shared a name.34 In moments of crisis, nineteenth-century Mexicans did not depend on their namesake saints to provide special protection and favors. For example, when Francisco Estrada confronted profound spiritual distress in the midst of the cholera epidemic, he did not appeal to any of the saints referenced in his name: José Mariano Francisco Javier Bibiano. Instead, he prayed and made a solemn vow to María Santísima del Carmen, whose image he happened to find painted nearby on a wall.35 When the young Concepción Lombardo had trouble in school, her first recourse was not to any of the saints of her name, which was María de la Concepción Josefa Ignacia Ramona Bernarda Francisca Vicenta. Instead, she asked everyone she knew which saint was “the most powerful.” She was told, by “a lady,” that it was San Antonio. So she prayed to San Antonio rather than to any of the saints of her name. Although she did not rely on the saints of her name when she needed spiritual guidance or special favors, she did acknowledge celestial intercession; Concepción Lombardo credited San Rafael Arcángel with her successful marriage and thanked the Virgen de los Remedios for other good fortune.36 There is little evidence that people used all these baptismal names to connect with multiple saints and other holy figures. At the same time, we have plenty of nineteenth-century evidence for the celebration of saints’ days, but all of that evidence is consistent with the proportion: one name, one saint, one day. The proliferation of children’s names at baptism remains to be explained. Few parents have left us explanations of why they chose particular names for their infants. Baptisms took place all the time, but seldom did anyone describe an individual ceremony or express an interest in the names that were chosen. There are two significant exceptions: one was the memoir written by Francisco Estrada and the other, a baptism described by Marcos Arróniz. Each of these men held fairly conservative social and political views. Their stories complement each other, though, and together they suggest that terrestrial ties to family and friends were more important than celestial influences and devotion to saints when names were chosen for children at baptism.

Figure 2.2.  The churrigueresque façade of Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish church.

Manuel Rivera Cambas, México pintoresco, artístico y monumental (Mexico City: Imprenta de la Reforma, 1880). General Research Division, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundations.

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Chapter 2 A Father’s Vow

Francisco Estrada was a young doctor in the medical corps of the Mexican army. In early June 1833, he celebrated the first anniversary of his marriage to Luisa Murguía by taking his young wife, her family, and some of their friends out for a day in the country. Their caravan of coaches and men on horseback left early on Sunday morning and stopped at Ixtacalco for the day. There, they walked in a garden before enjoying all the different dishes that the women had prepared for them. The young men and women flirted with each other, while their elders remembered the good times they had enjoyed when they were young. Some of the men proposed elaborate toasts, and everyone drank wine, cheered, and applauded. A small band of musicians played as the guests and their hosts danced quadrilles and waltzes for the rest of the day and into the night.37 On that same day, Colonel Mariano Arista left Mexico City with a brigade of troops to confront Colonel José Ignacio Durán, who had rebelled in favor of replacing Mexico’s elected government with a more conservative dictatorship. Within a few days it became clear that Arista had joined Durán rather than fighting against him. President Antonio López de Santa Anna decided to lead the army himself and left the national government in the hands of his vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías.38 As Santa Anna departed Mexico City in pursuit of the rebels, he realized that he had forgotten to take the medical corps with him. Francisco Estrada was named to take charge of what was then called the “sanitary brigade.” Estrada’s first thought was to ask for his back pay, because he had received only part of his salary for the last six months, and he had a wife and an infant daughter to support. No funds were forthcoming. Instead, Estrada’s commanding officer gave him four hours to leave Mexico City or face imprisonment. As Estrada recorded bitterly, “But that was one of the times of so-called liberal administration, and that was enough for there to be as much despotism as misery.”39 In the course of Estrada’s travels with the army during the summer of 1833, cholera was spreading through the army and the cities, towns, and villages of central Mexico. Estrada received orders to remain in the city of Celaya, Guanajuato, to care for the troops there who were incapacitated with the disease. He wrote, “I was very pleased with this contingency, since at least I remained in the shelter of a populated place and, if by some misfortune I were attacked by cholera, I was no longer exposed to be forsaken like many others, whose bodies were abandoned along the roads.” 40

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Estrada and his assistant (a man he referred to only by his surname, Malpica) moved into a vacant cell in the Carmelite convent and got to work. Estrada’s experience with the sick convinced him that cholera was not contagious, that it did not spread from one person to another. He even slept in the same room with his patients, in order to avoid what common knowledge of the time told him were the dangers of exposure to the night air. Once there were few convalescents to care for anymore, Estrada and Malpica decided to have dinner in a little restaurant. Subsequently, they began to experience the first symptoms of cholera. Like many others at the time, Estrada believed that cholera could be triggered by eating the wrong foods. “We were so imprudent as to eat a peach in syrup for dessert. That was enough that we were immediately attacked by the disease, so that we had only just arrived at our solitary lodgings when we began to have abundant, liquid diarrhea and incessant nausea.” 41 Estrada gave Malpica and himself the same medicines and foods he had used to treat the soldiers. By the following afternoon, he felt much better, but his assistant continued to suffer. Malpica decided to try to his own experimental treatment, a glass of sangria. Half an hour later, he collapsed in the street, and Estrada had to carry him back to their room in the convent.42 All that night that poor wretch endured the cramps that disease caused in its final stage. . . . Seeing later that his condition worsened, I brought him a priest to help him. The sick man, insistently refusing and blaspheming God and his saints, without wanting to confess, expired at three in the morning: when the Fathers retired to their cells, they left me alone to accompany the cadaver of that unfortunate man, and I was submerged in the most profound sadness. In my consternation and dejection on finding myself in that situation, I considered myself more isolated than before, having lost the only companion I had in that place where I was a complete stranger; in a state of weakness from the physical and emotional suffering of the previous days, and finally bereft of resources, without more clothes than those I had on, I believe I came to envy Malpica’s luck, if not in his final impenitence, at least in as much as he was no longer suffering. But some Christian thoughts helped me, and retrieving my poncho from underneath Malpica’s body where I had placed it when he was so ill, I prostrated myself before an image of María Santísima del Carmen that was painted on the wall of the cell,

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directing to her a tender and meek supplication for the soul of that wretch; I asked for her help and protection, and among other promises I made was one that if she allowed me to return to the bosom of my family, and in my marriage I had another daughter, she would have the name of Carmen, in remembrance of the image I had before me.43 The following day, Estrada was invited to treat one of the wealthiest men of the city, who had fallen ill with cholera. As a consequence, Estrada found himself sleeping in luxury that night, in a real bed with “sheets from Holland and covered with a canopy of silk, having been served at dinner and supper as might be supposed in an opulent home.” His patient was not as fortunate. He died the following day. Nevertheless, the deceased’s widow and children continued to care for the destitute Estrada. They provided him with new clothes and a hat, because his were in tatters. When he left Celaya a week later, the grateful family gave Estrada an additional assortment of clothes, a good horse, and sixty pesos. Estrada concluded: “Such a notable change and so quickly would not be a miracle because that is an occurrence out of the regular and natural order of things, but I believed then and I still believe today that it was a providential event caused, without the slightest doubt, by the powerful intervention of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, whom I had invoked with faith and with humility.” 44 A year later, when his wife gave birth to a daughter, Estrada remembered his promise to the Virgin, but he did not fulfill his vow. His daughter was named María de la Soledad instead of María del Carmen. As Estrada explained, “I agreed to [the name Soledad] because, even though the advocation is distinct, it is always the same Virgin Mary to whom it was directed.” 45 Despite his claim that the names Carmen and Soledad were really the same, Estrada had sacrificed his own strongly held conviction in a “providential event” that resulted from his dramatic vow during a real test of his religious faith. Instead, he yielded to the preference of his daughter’s madrina. In English, we call a madrina a “godmother,” and when a man is selected for this role, he is a padrino, a “godfather.” The Catholic Church intended these godparents to act as religious sponsors for the child, not only at the ceremony of baptism, but throughout their lives. The sponsors were “at all times [to] recollect that they are strictly bound to exercise a constant vigilance over their spiritual children, and carefully to instruct them in the maxims of a Christian life.” Yet in the sixteenth century the Council of Trent recognized

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that “such is the negligence with which the office of sponsor is treated in the Church, that its name only remains, whilst few, if any, have the least idea of its sanctity.”46 In one Castilian bishopric it had been customary for parents to invite four or five men to serve as padrinos and as many women to be an infant’s madrinas.47 For those reasons, among others, the bishops who assembled at Trent sought to reform baptism by weakening profane social connections and invigorating religious bonds. The Council of Trent severely limited the number of godparents to minimize the complicated spiritual relationships that resulted from multiple baptismal affinities. They proclaimed that a single sponsor was the ideal, but two would be permitted, provided that they were one man and one woman, not two women or two men.48 The woman Francisco Estrada selected as his daughter’s madrina, doña Guadalupe Rodríguez, was the mother of one of his old friends from medical school. When Estrada was beginning his private practice in the city of Guanajuato, doña Guadalupe had welcomed Estrada into her home, and her family had provided him with references that made it possible for him to earn a living as a medical doctor. At the time of his heartfelt promise to the Virgin of Carmen, Estrada had been thinking only of himself and his own spiritual impulses as an influence on naming his (then hypothetical) daughter. When he was faced with the real circumstances of the birth and baptism of his newborn child, Estrada found himself in a dilemma. He wanted to demonstrate his respect and gratitude to both the celestial María Santísima del Carmen and to the terrestrial doña Guadalupe. His deference to his daughter’s madrina demonstrates that, despite a person’s own strong religious motivation, a saint’s name might be more indicative of mundane social connections than of spiritual affinity. Clearly, Estrada was grateful to doña Guadalupe and to her family, but this obligation was also not as profound or as emotionally transcendent an experience as was his promise to the Virgin of Carmen.49 The experience of another of Estrada’s contemporaries will help to put his choices in perspective, by providing a godparent’s point of view.

The Padrino A poet, writer, and cavalry officer, Marcos Arróniz was known as an ultraromantic. Francisco Pimentel, who knew him well, described Arróniz as a “poet of doubt, of delirium, and desperation, in a word, a pessimist of the

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school of Byron and Leopardi.” Pimentel tells us that Arróniz had been passionately in love with a well-to-do young lady. At first, she seemed to return his affections, but later she spurned him. Pimentel believed that this episode and the disenchantment it provoked had a great influence on the tone of some of Arróniz’s compositions.50 Arróniz never married, but he wrote a detailed account of what it was like to be invited to serve as the padrino for an infant at a baptism. The relationship between a child’s natural parents and the child’s religious sponsors is called compadrazgo (literally, “coparenthood”) in Spanish, and each of the parties to it is a compadre or comadre (literally, “cofather” or “comother”). Arróniz suggested the principal difficulty with compadrazgo was that the ritual kinship created between the padrino (as spiritual parent) and the child’s biological parents involved tangible financial obligations for the padrino. Arróniz began by describing the lifelong obligations incurred when one agreed to become a child’s padrino. In his words: There is no worse plague in our times than to be invited to baptize some youngster; there is no worse calamity than having a compadre. The bachelor who flees matrimony to avoid taking on new obligations and to enjoy his freedom, suddenly finds himself assaulted by a traitor in his own home. From then on, if his godchild needs a suit of clothes, he has to provide it; he pays for school when the child is older; he has the obligation to find him a career, because (oh, wonder!) never does one have a rich godchild. At the same time, whenever the compadre finds himself in some pressing need, he looks for him, and harasses him, and makes him suffer until he gives in to what he asked for, just to get that parasite out of his pocket.51 These financial obligations began on the day of baptism, just as soon as the ceremony in the parish church had been performed. All is tranquil and solitary: the priest performs that simple ceremony, which has a certain enchantment. When it is time to depart, that’s another matter: an ambush of unruly and noisy children attacks, some hanging from your shirttails, others leaping at your throat; those who grab your legs prevent you from walking. With an infernal uproar they ask for el bolo. To get rid of them, you must toss some reales, and while they run, hunt, push, trample, and swipe the coins from each other, the

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padrino wisely makes use of the time, climbing quickly into the coach to avoid the second charge and departing at full speed. But the children pursue a long ways amidst the aforementioned shrill and discordant chorus. Only when they tire of running and pestering does this importunate and vexatious escort disappear. It is curious to note the sagacity with which they discover the padrino. In vain might one attempt to blend in with twenty other people; they will single him out instinctively.52 It is not only the roguish youngsters in the street who expect the padrino to hand over some cash. Everyone has a hand extended to accept monetary gifts from the padrino’s pocket. Once at home, there are congratulations, praises of the perfections of the child, and opinions about his prospects. The padrino has the obligation to give all in attendance el bolo: to serious persons in gold coins, and they do not ask in words because of their noble disinterest, but with their mute attitudes they appear at times to reproach him for his criminal forgetfulness; to those of less stature he gives smaller silver coins, with the requirement that they are new ones; and then to the servants of the house; and afterwards to the domestics from outside; and then subsequently to the hangers-on, and to more and more. In sum, the interpellation appears never to end: padrino, el bolo.53 After describing the day of baptism and specifying his pecuniary obligations, Arróniz assessed how much influence he had in choosing the child’s name. Then, he weighed this compensation in comparison to the financial obligations of being the child’s padrino. Did you know that after all these peripeteias and being the principal character in the comedy, in what way he has had some influence, now that he has been called on, compromised, betrayed, carried off, and pestered? The mother asked him before the departure what name he would like for the little one, and he believed without a doubt that was the one he would be given at baptism. And it even made him happy that he would bear his father’s name, which is the one he pronounced. But such was his painful disappointment, by the font of holy water hearing that of all the names given to the child, his was the eighth! The first had been

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chosen by the grandfather, the second the papa, the third the mama, the fourth the midwife, and so on with others of less importance until it was his own turn which was considered the termination of that register of saints. In the end, the padrino is the first in exigencies and the last in consideration. He is the most miserable one in the world.54 Instead of a single name, this child was given multiple names arranged in a hierarchy. Arróniz considered the names at the beginning to be more important than those that appeared subsequently, and the last was the least prestigious position. Rather than considering the qualities of the saints the names represented, Arróniz used his choice to honor his own father, but he was disappointed to find that others were given higher priority in the hierarchy. Arróniz believed, in consideration of his financial obligations as the child’s padrino, that he ought to have been given greater deference by the child’s parents. Marcos Arróniz was offended that his significance as padrino appeared to be disregarded and his role trivialized when his choice of a name was not mentioned until after seven other names had already been applied to the infant. Rather than indicating a celestial host of spiritual guardians and intercessors, Arróniz tells us that long personal names were the product of a family’s extended social network and material connections. Names were longer because they were assembled from the contributions of any number of friends and family members who were thought to be significant participants in the event. The personal names given to infants were not indications of their “religious fervor” or “desire to invoke divine or supernatural protection.”55

Five Times Francisco Marcos Arróniz wrote of his experience with baptism and godparenthood in a tone that suggests exaggeration for comical effect. In fact, though, he was right: having as many as eight personal names was beyond the limits of normal expectations in nineteenth-century Mexico. Of more than five thousand children baptized in the principal parishes of four Mexican cities in 1832, only about 1 percent were given eight or more names. Most of these children with exceptionally long names were baptized in the central parish of Mexico City.56 Personal names seemed to reach an apogee with the baptism of a child

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who was christened with a name that stretched out to thirty-four words, specifying sixteen distinct individuals, including five different saints named Francisco. The baby’s name was recorded in the baptismal register as “Ignacio, José, Joaquín de Jesús, Pedro Advincula, Francisco de Asís y de Gerónimo y de Sales y de Paula y de Solano, Luis Gonzaga, Antonio de Padua, Andrés Avelino, Magdaleno, Hipólito, Rafael, Juan Nepomuceno.” The tiny infant had a large and distinguished family and could trace his lineage back to the second viceroy of New Spain, Luis de Velasco (1550–1564). He shared his first given name, Ignacio, with his paternal grandfather (Ignacio Leonel Gómez de Cervantes y Padilla) and his padrino (José Ignacio Cervantes y Ozta) as well as his noble paternal grandmother (Ana María Magdalena Manuela Josefa Joaquina Francisca Luisa Ignacia Gerónima Gutiérrez de Altamirano de Velasco Urrutia Vergara y Ovando was the tenth Countess of Santiago Calimaya, the ninth Marquise of Salinas, and the sixth Marquise of Salvatierra).57 With such prolific, numerous, and prestigious relations, the child was consigned to bear a long series of Christian names, but supplying an infant with references to five different saints named Francis is in itself extraordinary. The motivation for such an extravagant application of the name Francisco is obscure, and the order of the names defies analysis. The first Francisco named was the oldest and most widely revered, Saint Francis of Assisi, the twelfth-century Italian who founded the Franciscan Order. The second, Saint Francis de Geronimo, was the last of these Franciscos to be born, in the early eighteenth century, and he was not canonized until this child was seven years old, in 1839. The list is not arranged in chronological order by dates of birth, death, canonization, or timing of their saints’ days during the year. There are three members of the Franciscan Order (the first, fourth, and fifth named), one Jesuit (the second), and the founder of the Order of the Visitation of Mary (the third). Three were natives of Italy, with one each from France and Spain. These five Franciscos are jumbled together in no particular order.58 Rather than indicating a baroque exuberance for saints named Francisco, this list may only indicate uncertainty or confusion about which Saint Francis the child should identify with and celebrate. After all, since the Catholic Church envisioned a standard of one name, one model saint, and one day to celebrate, the proliferation of saints’ names may be a sign of diffusion and disorder or an indication of promiscuous veneration rather than a precise target for identification and reverence, as the church intended.

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Chapter 2 “Decent People”

The infant with multiple noble ancestors and so many given names (Ignacio, José, Joaquín de Jesús, Pedro Advincula, Francisco de Asís, and so on) was born to a family at the apex of Mexican society. The length of his name and the elevation of his family’s social position suggest that there may be a direct relationship between social status and the length of names children were given at baptism. To see whether or not this correlation is consistent, we can examine a larger elite social group who called themselves the gente decente, literally the “decent people,” or those who were worthy of respect. In Mexico, the gente decente addressed each other with the honorific titles “don” and “doña,” which were always used before given names rather than surnames. The use of these titles was an essential sign of social status. As Ann Twinam has pointed out: “Embedded in a simple hello could be underlying codes that precisely located an individual’s rank within the social hierarchy.” 59 In Spain, the honorifics “don” and “doña” were restricted to use with the nobility, but in Mexico, as in the rest of Spanish America, “don” and “doña” were also accorded to those nonnobles who were considered to have honor. Much has been written about the concept of honor, but in general terms the gente decente thought themselves to be honorable because of their legitimate birth, their Catholic lineage (particularly the lack of ancestors who had been Moors, Jews, slaves, or anyone questioned by the Inquisition), and their ability to maintain public reputations for social and sexual propriety.60 In any nineteenth-century Mexican city, the most distinguished people attended Mass in a chapel adjacent to the cathedral or principal church. Both the central parish in each city and its chapel were called El Sagrario, a name that signified the place for sacred things. Along with all the other residents of the parish, the gente decente were required to register their baptisms, marriages, and burials with their parish priest. Although the fundamental conditions that defined them were similar, these parishes were distinctive. The proportion of high-status parishioners in each Sagrario Parish varied with the size and prestige of the city. Mexico City was the nation’s capital and the home of the country’s political, financial, commercial, cultural, religious, military, and social elite. As the largest and most important city in the country, it also attracted ambitious members of the provincial elites. These highstatus residents tended to live in the area near the central plaza that made up Sagrario Parish, but Mexico City was so large that there were also a dozen other parishes in the city.61 The concentration of elite families in this parish

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Map 2.1.  Four cities in Mexico. Engraving by Mathew Carey, Mexico or New Spain

(Philadelphia, 1814). Private collection. Detail of photograph by Peter Groesbeck with additional annotations.

was so great that nearly half of the baptisms in Sagrario Parish of Mexico City were the children of the gente decente. Puebla, Oaxaca, and San Luis Potosí were state capitals of different sizes and degrees of prosperity. Puebla was the second largest city in the country. As in Mexico City, Puebla’s Sagrario Parish church was located on the central plaza, adjacent to the cathedral, and drew its parishioners from the most prestigious area of the city. About half of Puebla’s population lived in Sagrario Parish, with the rest divided among four other parishes.62 In contrast to Mexico City and Puebla, the provincial cities of Oaxaca and San Luis Potosí were both less prosperous and less populous. Since fewer people resided in these two state capitals, each had only a single parish. Sagrario Parish in Oaxaca and Sagrario Parish San Luis Potosí, then, encompassed all of the people living in each city and some of the surrounding areas. The elite families who lived in the centers of these cities were less numerous than those in the larger cities, and they made up a smaller proportion of the population of each parish. Among all of the mothers who were considered doñas in Oaxaca and San Luis Potosí, a combined total of only one or two children were born each week on average, so Sagrario Parish priests in Oaxaca and San Luis Potosí baptized fewer elite children than did those of Puebla or Mexico City. In Puebla’s central parish, there were enough families who were considered

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gente decente to require two or three baptisms most weeks, or nearly as many as the combined total of the two smaller provincial parishes. Mexico City’s central parish was far wealthier than the others, and its palaces, mansions, and fine residences housed many more prominent families than all of the other three cities together. On average, each week the priests of Sagrario Parish in the national capital presided over the baptisms of twice as many children from prominent families as the priests of all three of the provincial parishes combined.63 The social differences between these parishes can also be seen in the names of babies baptized there. The length of children’s names varied directly with the prestige of their parish in the national hierarchy and the social class of their parents: the higher the status of parents and parish, the longer the list of personal names that an infant would be given at baptism. Nearly 90 percent of infants who were given eight or more personal names at baptism had parents who were called “don” and “doña”; most of these children were baptized in the central parish in Mexico City. About two-thirds of the babies baptized by elite parents in Puebla’s and Mexico City’s central parishes were given four or more names. In contrast, the same proportion of the social elite in Oaxaca and San Luis Potosí gave their children only two or three names. Almost all of the untitled parents in the cities of Oaxaca and San Luis Potosí gave their children no more than three names. Ordinary folks in the more prestigious parishes of Mexico City and Puebla were inclined to longer names, but even there only about a third of them extended their children’s names to four, five, or more names. Longer names increased the probability that infants would share a name with at least one of their parents or padrinos. When a child was christened with eight or more personal names, that probability increased to a near certainty. Roughly 80 percent of children with eight or more names shared at least one of them with a parent or godparent. Children with five to seven names were more likely to have a name that echoed a parent’s or padrino’s if their parents were considered gente decente. Roughly half of these children and one-fourth of those with untitled parents repeated a name from their parents’ generation. Even when infants were given shorter names, elite families were more likely to repeat names. When the children of dons and doñas were christened with only two names, they were more than four times more likely than ordinary folks to repeat a name used by a parent or padrino. For both classes, children’s names were more likely to match a parent or padrino of the same gender. Fathers’ and godfathers’ names were more likely to be

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passed on to infant boys than girls, and mothers’ and madrinas’ names were bestowed on baby girls.64

Short Names In the end, however many saints’ and family members’ names might resonate in a child’s baptismal entry, it remained customary for each individual to celebrate only a single saint’s day. At the same time, it seems that very few children received just one single name at baptism.65 Only in the northern city of San Luis Potosí do we find a substantial number of children who were given only one personal name when baptized. During the calendar year 1832, 192 infants were baptized with one name, or almost 14 percent of the total in that parish. Nearly all of these single-name children were the offspring of parents who were not accorded the honorifics “don” and “doña.” They began their lives in a small, distant provincial city at the other end of the social hierarchy from the multiply named descendants of the wealthiest and most prominent people in the sophisticated cities of Mexico and Puebla. The names assigned to these children seem to have been chosen by an entirely different system from that used for elite children in central urban parishes. Most of these provincial children were given the name of a saint who was celebrated on the day they were born. Relatively few were named for the saint of the day they were baptized, unless that was also the day they were born. When the birthday and baptismal day were distinct, the ratio of those named for their birthday to those named for their day of baptism was thirteen to one. Almost two out of every three of these children were named for a saint whose day was celebrated on their birthday. The system was not purely automatic. Since many days were shared by more than one saint, parents and padrinos made some choices. When we consult a contemporary calendar for 1832, for example, we find the names of three saints who were celebrated on 25 February: Matías, Cesario, and Sebastián. In the same manner, a girl born on 26 April might be christened Cleta or Marcelina and would celebrate the day in commemoration of either one of the two saints who died on that date. When there was only a single saint on the calendar for a particular day, such as January 13, there were fewer options. For this reason, two of these children went through life with the names Gumersindo and Gumersinda, in memory of a ninth-century Spanish

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saint beheaded by the Moors. A third child born on San Gumersindo’s day was luckier. He was baptized a day later, on San Hilario’s day, and was called Hilario rather than Gumersindo. Since his mother’s name was Hilaria, the baby’s name echoed her own and gave them a shared saint’s day to celebrate together.66 Comparatively few children were named for the saint of the day they were baptized. Only 8 of these 192 children with single names (a little more than 4 percent) were known by the name of their baptismal-day saint. As with the newborn named Hilario, there is little evidence to suggest that these children were named to commemorate the baptism. In some cases, the preference for a name linked to the day of baptism rather than the birthday may have been based on aesthetics rather than affection for a particular saint. For a daughter, Apolonia might have seemed more melodious than Cleofas, or Rita may have appeared less cumbersome than Bernardina; and Bernardino would sound more masculine than Tereso, Pudenciano, or Rito for a son.67 Very few names, though, were highly gender specific. Throughout Mexico, boys were named Susano or Brigido almost as often as girls were named Susana or Brigida, although Ritas outnumbered Ritos by a proportion of more than ten to one among all infant names in the four parishes. Direct evidence for the aesthetics of personal names is rare, but some authors described certain names as unattractive or inappropriate. Antonio García Cubas, for example, remembered the process of selecting a name for a newborn in this way: “if the day of birth falls on San Pancracio, everyone at the same time exclaims: ‘Oh, how ugly!’ Some old lady devoted to the saint of impossible causes suggests ‘Rito,’ but this is derided as ‘as ugly as Pancracio and that Rito is inappropriate for a man.’” 68 García Cubas also pointed to Ursulo as unsuitable for a man and to René, Arístides, and Godofredo as too European or affected. Manuel Payno left some hints about the aesthetics of names as well. He defended his unusual choice of Trinidad as the name for a beautiful young girl who was the main character in one of his early stories: “For me, Trinidad is a pretty name, full of enchantment and poetry, even if poetry and enchantment have a habit of disappearing at times . . . like the hope of love faced with the realities of life.” 69 Several factors, then, seem to have been considered in naming children, but most of this small group of children were named exclusively for a saint who was celebrated on the day they were born. This practice seems unremarkable, natural, and almost familiar to us, but it is quite peculiar in historical context, given that the Catholic Church had a long tradition of

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disparaging birthday celebrations and instead encouraged connecting each child with an individual saint as a spiritual exemplar. When we consider these historical precedents, these single-named children in San Luis Potosí seem paradoxical. Since each was christened with the single name of an individual saint, the process appears to be conventional, even antiquated; but most of these names appear subtly to undermine Catholic tradition in that the name points to the child’s birthday, infusing mundane physicality into the spiritual rebirth of baptism. When the calendar of saints was employed almost as a perfunctory instrument to assign names to newborn children, it required neither thought nor affection nor any sort of conviction to connect an infant to a name.70

A Most Unusual Name Yet if we consider only the names that were used, the degree of conformity to canonical standards is astonishing. The calendars of saints contained a great variety of names, from Abraham (16 March) and Abundio (11 July) to Zacarías (5 November), Zeferino (26 August), and Zenón (23 June). There were classical names like Antonio, Claudio, Dionisio, Helena, Narciso, Platón, Plutarco, and Rómulo, though not as references to pagans, of course. Their use by early Christians had purified, or rather sanctified, these names.71 In fact, names were chosen from the calendar of saints almost without exception. During all of the calendar year 1832 in four major parishes in Mexico, 5,406 infants were given personal names consisting of 16,536 names, places, adjectives, and titles punctuated with 3,503 articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, for a grand total of 20,039 words in their baptismal names. Of these 5,406 infants, only a tiny proportion received even a single name from outside the holy collection.72 There was only one name that clearly had a pagan provenance and that had not been sanctified by its use as a name for a saint or other holy figure. That name was Aurora, the Roman goddess of daybreak. Two infant girls were named Aurora; each was the child of parents with significant connections to the Mexico City elite. Aurora Dolores Francisca was the daughter of a colonel, don Pablo Víctor Unda Ricardos, and his wife, doña Carolina Eguía. Aurora’s padrino was a prominent politician and future president of the republic, don José Joaquín de Herrera.73 One other baby girl was given Aurora as an additional name. María Carolina Nicolasa Aurora Francisca

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was the daughter of a squadron commander, don Álvaro Muñoz, and doña María de Loreto Fonnegra.74 The most unusual name of all was given to a baby boy.75 When his madrina, doña Manuela Guerrero, told the priest what his name would be, she began with the most popular name for boys: José. To make the reference more emphatic, she made his name more specific: José de Jesús. He was not just another José, but the Joseph associated with Jesus. The man who was the Virgin Mary’s husband and who acted as Jesus’s foster father was celebrated as the “Most Chaste Patriarch.” The increasing veneration of Saint Joseph has been associated with patriarchy and obedience to fathers and husbands.76 Of course, the New Testament Joseph was not the biological father of the son he raised, and that had stimulated a lot of questions in the minds of the faithful. Centuries of speculation and debate about the marriage between Mary and Joseph were finally ended when the Council of Trent decreed that Joseph, too, was a virgin, that he had not fathered any children, and that he had not been married before he wed Mary. Under the watchful eyes of the Holy Inquisition, artists always portrayed Joseph as the perfect husband. He was even able to remain calm when he saw that Mary was pregnant and knew that he was not the father of her child. Joseph became the patron saint of marriage and was known for his intercession on behalf of women who wanted to marry.77 But after beginning with such an auspicious reference, the child’s name takes a dramatic turn. His full name was entered into the baptismal register, clearly and legibly, in elegant handwriting, as José de Jesús Perfidio. Now, there is a San Porfirio whose day was celebrated on 15 September, but there is no saint named Perfidio. Such a name would have been entirely inappropriate. Instead, this invented name is a bitter admonition, rooted in the Latin word perfidiosus: “deceitful, guilty of betrayal or a failure to live up to one’s promise.” This single, final adjective negates all of the promise of virtue and self-denial with which the boy’s name began. Like a sudden slap in the face, it delivers a dramatic message of disillusionment and reproach. Whether this baby’s name was contrived by his mother, his madrina, or both, the meaning is clear: the promise of honorable fatherhood has been betrayed. We know that the mother and father of this infant had not married, because José de Jesús Perfidio was inscribed in the baptismal register as an hijo natural, a “natural child.”

Ch a p t er 3

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\  Spanish law defined “natur al” children, like José de Jesús

Perfidio, as the offspring of an unmarried man and an unmarried woman, but such children were “natural” only as long as there would have been no impediment in canon law that would have prevented their parents from marrying each other. These monogamous relationships without marriage were sinful, but they were not as bad as sexual promiscuity, adultery, incest, or violating a vow of chastity. Men and women who were committing adultery, engaging in incest, or breaking a formal promise to remain celibate would not have been allowed to marry. Promiscuous sex threatened the social order in its own way because the existence of multiple sexual partners made it difficult to identify a specific father. Paternity would be dubious in the case of children of prostitutes or those of concubines who lived outside the father’s own household. The authorities regarded men and women involved in such prohibited liaisons as more serious threats to the social order than couples who had not married. Seen from this perspective, unmarried but potentially marriageable couples were not as contemptible as the others, so they were subject to less official disapproval. Their children were illegitimate, of course, but natural children were regarded as a better sort of illegitimate offspring than the sons and daughters of adulterers, prostitutes, clergy, and other sexual reprobates. As Woodrow Borah and Sherburne F. Cook phrased it, natural children were the “bastards with the least social stigma attached to them.”1 49

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Natural children were illegitimate, but they were close enough to being legitimate that they could achieve legitimacy if their parents did marry eventually. The wedding of doña Francisca Martel and don Juan Tomás Ortega legitimated their son, Gabriel José, who had been born and baptized eight years before his parents’ marriage. According to the laws, Gabriel José had been a natural child at the time he was baptized. Later, when his parents married, he became legitimate, and after a few years had passed, his baptismal record was updated to document that change.2 In the records of each parish, some infants were inscribed as natural children, but their numbers and their social backgrounds varied from one parish to another. The majority of the hijos naturales in Mexico City, for example, were the children of elite parents. Most of their mothers and fathers were accorded, at the minimum, the traditional titles “don” and “doña.” Eighteen of twenty-four natural children baptized in Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish during 1832 had parents and godparents who were given those honorifics. Some had loftier titles. They ranged upward to the highest levels of Mexican society, including one natural child whose padrino called himself the Count of the Valley of Orizaba. That aristocratic baptism records an affectionate practical joke, an example of unmitigated arrogance, or perhaps both at the same time. The padrino, don Agustín Suárez de Peredo, claimed to be the Conde del Valle de Orizaba, and his pretensions were not entirely vainglorious. The title dated back more than 200 years, and in that time his family had a long history of bearing children outside of wedlock. Don Agustín had been a natural child himself at birth, and he was later legitimated by his parents’ matrimony, “after a long legal process.” Before his own marriage in 1821 to doña María Loreto Paredes y Arrillaga (the sister of a future president of Mexico), don Agustín had fathered at least one natural child. As the oldest son and heir, don Agustín would have inherited the title when his own father, the eighth Conde del Valle, was murdered in 1828 on the stairway of his home, the Casa de los Azulejos.3 The only reason that don Agustín did not inherit the title, though, is that Congress had abolished all titles of nobility two years before his father died.4 In late December 1832, the pretentious count appeared in the parish church as the padrino of a two-week-old baby girl. He gave the infant’s name as María Guadalupe Espiridiona. Don Agustín declared her to be the natural child of parents he named as don Teodoro Nenona and doña Josefina Testulat. Those unusual names were written down along with the Count’s

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explanation that they were from France. It seems that don Agustín gave the mother’s name its French pronunciation, with a silent final t, since her family name was recorded as “Testula” in the parish register. The father’s supposed surname, though, is not French at all. Instead, it is an invented name, with its root in the Spanish word nena, an endearing term used for little girls. With the augmenting suffix -ona, nenona may be translated as “big baby girl.” The purported father’s given name was written down as “Teodoro,” but the name sounds like the expression “I adore you” (te adoro). In this combination, the two names are an expression of affection for the newborn child (“I adore you, big baby girl”). With its wordplay in Spanish, the name cannot be a joke planned by the French mother, nor by the Frenchman, don Alejandro Bellangé, who years later would have his name entered into the register as the child’s father. Unless the aristocratic padrino was himself the father of this baby girl, it is difficult to imagine why he would make up such an apparent bit of frivolity. Since he was married, don Agustín could not claim the child as his own, because that would be to admit adultery. In order to say that María Guadalupe was a natural child, he needed a name for the father, so the (supposed) Conde del Valle de Orizaba made a joke. That the parish priest recorded such a singularly arrogant performance also points to the continuing social power of Mexico’s aristocratic families even after their titles had been legally abolished.5 In the southern city of Oaxaca, natural children were much rarer. During all of calendar year 1832, there were only two infants in that city who were designated as natural children out of more than a thousand baptisms, and they were distinctive in yet another way. Each of these two was a child of parents who used the honorific title ciudadano, or “citizen,” in place of the traditional “don” for men and “doña” for women. The use of “citizen” as an honorific had been popularized at the time of the French Revolution of 1789 as a substitute for the old-fashioned titles “don” and “doña,” which were based on feudal domination. The title “don” is derived from the Latin dominus, “lord or master,” which is also the root of the verb “dominate” and the adjective “dominant.” The female counterpart, “doña,” is closely associated with dueña, denoting ownership.6 In contrast, “citizen” referred to a man who had rights in a city and, hence, who was not dominated by an aristocrat. Instead, citizens were participants in urban politics who were on an equal plane with others of the same city. This is evident in the root ciudad, or “city,” in the Spanish ciudadano. This revolutionary honorific was used by some members of the Mexican elite in the nineteenth century. So when an infant named Josefa

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Francisca de Paula was baptized in Oaxaca in August 1832, her madrina, María Josefa Armijo, said that the baby girl was a natural child, and she named the infant’s parents as “los Ciudadanos José Ma. Urriza y María Antonia Orozco.”7 The registration of the second natural child in Oaxaca was more complicated. Some padrinos were inclined to vacillation, uncertain how much to tell the priest about the baby’s parents. They would admit the truth, but in confidence, asking, implying, or only hoping that perhaps the information need not be written down in the baptismal register. That would explain the way a padrino who called himself ciudadano Andrés María Castañeda and a priest named don José María Romero fumbled the registration of one baptism in May 1832. The original entry in the baptismal register described the infant José Gregorio as the natural child of Citizen Diego Chávez and (with no title) Josefa Fonte. Then the parents’ names and the adjective “natural” were crossed out, and the infant was rerecorded as a child of unknown parents (padres desconocidos). Next, a sentence was appended to the end of the entry, asserting the validity of the interlinear addition that the child was of unknown parents. Sometime later, the designation “unknown parents” was also lined out. The final resolution was added in the same handwriting but using different ink; someone inserted the word “No” before the existing statement, so that it reversed the previous conclusion, and confirmed this decision by adding the words “really a natural child” (vale hijo natural) to the end of the registration.8 José Gregorio was ultimately described as a natural child, but he was nearly inscribed as a child whose parents were unknown. Padrinos in Oaxaca had a choice. Rather than naming the parents of an illegitimate child, the godparents could always say that they did not know who the parents were. Many people took advantage of that opportunity. In fact, in Oaxaca it was quite common for padrinos and madrinas to profess their ignorance of the names of their godchildren’s parents just at the moment that they themselves were promising to educate those children as good Christians. Almost 40 percent of all infants baptized in the city of Oaxaca and 45 percent of the children accompanied by upper-class padrinos were registered officially as the offspring of “unknown parents.” One padrino was more audacious. He signaled his goddaughter’s social status by giving her the elaborate name María Isabel Fermina Josefa Juana Nepomucena. He did not deny that he knew who her parents were, but at her baptism, he simply told the priest that the infant’s parents “would be named all in good time.” He knew who they were, but he was not going to tell the priest their names. At least, not just yet. That padrino, don José Ramón Armendáris, was

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an honorable man who was as good as his word. A few years later, don José Ramón was a witness when the child’s parents, don José María Bustamante and doña Rita Ramírez y Orosco, were married. In due course, the baptismal record was amended to include their names as the parents of a child who was, by that time, legitimate.9 If other godparents frequently told the priest they did not know the parents’ names, the evidence shows that they were not always being truthful. In November 1832, seventeen-year-old doña María Clara Mantecón y González presented an infant to be baptized as her goddaughter. She gave the baby girl the same name as her own mother, María Josefa. Doña Clara told the priest that she did not know who the child’s parents were, but the baby girl she held at the baptismal font that day was really her half sister, her own father’s illegitimate child. The father of both the infant and the madrina was don Agustín Mantecón, a member of one of the most distinguished families in Oaxaca and a younger brother of licenciado don Agustín’s Mantecón, who was, at that time, a prominent member of the cathedral chapter. The infant’s mother was Ignacia Avendaño, whose family was not distinguished. She and don Agustín had four children together. Each of don Agustín’s four legitimate children with his first wife served as godparents for his illegitimate children with Ignacia, in order of age.10 More than a decade after that first child had been baptized, don Agustín married Ignacia, the mother of his four natural children. In the marriage register, her name was recorded as doña Ignacia Avendaño. There are several indications, though, that doña Ignacia was not considered the social equal of her husband. While it is true that Ignacia had herself been baptized as a legitimate child, her parents had not been accorded any honorifics at her baptism. They were not called “don” and “doña” because they were not considered to be the social equals of honorable people. In her own marriage record, the word used to describe Ignacia’s marital status was libre (free) rather than doncella (virgin). Don Agustín was twenty years older than his second wife, and he was described as a widower in the marriage register.11 Otherwise, he would not have been allowed to remarry, but we cannot know for certain when his first wife died, because the parish registers do not include her burial.12 The circumstances of don Agustín’s marriage to doña Ignacia suggest that don Agustín gave in to pressure from his family to marry the mother of his children. Their marriage took place in secret at four o’clock in the morning by special permission of don Agustín’s older brother, licenciado don Antonio Mantecón, who was, by that time, dean of the

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cathedral of Oaxaca and acting in the absence of the bishop. A candidate for bishop of Oaxaca had been named, but he had not yet been consecrated when he died about a month before don Agustín’s marriage to doña Ignacia. Four months after his younger brother’s marriage, licenciado don Antonio Mantecón was himself named bishop of Oaxaca.13 They were not the only family in Oaxaca who were not naming parents. When don José Juan Ramírez arrived at the parish chapel in Oaxaca on 2 February 1832, he brought with him a baby boy who would be named José María Blas. Don José Juan told the officiating priest that he did not know who the child’s parents were, but he did tell him that doña Angela Cedeño would be taking care of the child. Years later, when doña Angela married, it became known that the child baptized that day was really the natural child of doña Angela and don Francisco Santaella. In all, the couple had seven children together prior to their marriage. In most cases, their godparents were close relatives of their father, four of whom shared the surname Santaella. The padrinos gave a variety of explanations about the infants’ parents. Twice, they told the truth: the infants were natural children of doña Angela and don Francisco. Two other times they reported that the children had been abandoned, and they specified that doña Angela had found them “in her doorway” (expuesto a las puertas). Three times, the godparents simply denied knowing who the parents were.14 Of course, sometimes it was true that a padrino or madrina had no idea who the parents were. Some parents had really abandoned their children. One day in April 1832, a woman whose name was recorded only as María Josefa found a baby beside the road to the Hacienda de Bocas, not far from the city of San Luis Potosí. She took the tiny boy to the parish church for baptism, promised to be his madrina, and named him León Francisco in honor of Saint Lionel, on whose day she found him and had him baptized (11 April). She also added the name of Saint Francis de Paul, whose day had been celebrated earlier in the month. Such a child would usually have been described in the baptismal register as “expuesto,” that is, exposed, revealed, discovered, or made obvious to someone. The old-fashioned English word “foundling” has something of the same sense. In English we might also say that the child had been abandoned, but that way of stating the matter puts more emphasis on those who left the child. Instead, the typical wording in nineteenth-century Mexican Spanish highlighted the act of finding the child and the responsibility accepted by the new godparents. Yet these were not ordinary circumstances, and the parish priest did not word little León

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Francisco’s baptismal registration in the usual way. Instead, he wrote that the infant “was found thrown away along the road.” By using the past participle tirado here, the priest emphasized the deplorable act of disposing of this child as if he were just another bit of garbage discarded by the side of the road. This was a situation that shocked the priest’s sensibilities. The circumstances so unusual in that parish that none of the customary categories seemed to fit. Instead, he wrote that the infant had been “thrown away” and emphasized the singularity of this treatment by adding the words “without knowing when he was born nor who his parents are.”15 His insistent wording stressed how completely ignorant everyone was about the child’s parents and the circumstances of his birth. In fact, this was the only baptism in the city of San Luis Potosí during all of the year 1832 that did not have a birth date associated with it. But given the unusual circumstances of León Francisco’s “discovery” and the priest’s expressions of concern about the child, why would the question of his birthday even come up?

The Significance of Birthdays The church and the state had their own reasons for insisting that the birth dates of all children should be recorded when they were baptized. Political authorities needed to know that each newborn was enumerated but was counted only once. The Catholic Church had its own interest in maintaining the uniqueness of each individual’s baptism, asserting the authority of the parish priest, and ensuring the accuracy and completeness of the parochial registers. To this end, the bishops required that baptisms take place shortly after birth, with the knowledge of the parish priest, who was required to include the day of birth in the baptismal record. A birth date, then, is not important in itself, but it is significant for what it can reveal about the interval between birth and baptism: whether or not the godparent knew enough about the infant’s caretakers from birth to baptism to assure the priest that no one had already baptized the child. Parish priests faced pressure from ecclesiastical and political authorities not only to document every baptism but to baptize each child only one time. Priests, in turn, pressed midwives and mothers for information about births. This pressure began to increase in the late eighteenth century. It started at the top of the political and ecclesiastical hierarchy and worked its way down in different ways to the local clergy and the mothers and fathers in their parishes.

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In 1771, the Fourth Mexican Provincial Council of bishops directed all parish priests to begin asking when a child had been born and to include that information consistently in the baptismal register. This new requirement to record birth dates did not come about because of any change in official attitudes toward birthdays as such. Instead, both political and ecclesiastical authorities were beginning to appreciate the utility of accurate parish records for producing better estimates of population growth and decline. This data, they understood, was necessary for formulating government economic and fiscal policies as well as for evaluating the effects of those same policies. A complete population census would have provided the most accurate count of the people in any territory, but the experts recognized that they could not conduct a census efficiently. Instead, they decided that royal officials would rely on priests in each parish to collect data about births, marriages, and deaths. Then, the king’s administrators could combine those local figures to estimate population growth or decline for larger administrative units.16 The church and the state concurred in their desire for accuracy and precision, but the Mexican bishops expressed their ideas in traditional religious language. The Fourth Mexican Provincial Council was uneasy about the apparent decline in the authority of parish priests. They were apprehensive about what they saw as a deterioration in the respect and veneration for parochial churches. The bishops articulated their concern that parents and priests delayed baptisms too long. They worried that parents bypassed the parish churches and preferred to see their children baptized in other chapels. To correct these faults, the council mandated a series of changes in the registration of baptisms. Parish priests were not to allow baptisms of newborns to be delayed for more than one week. Those infants who had to be baptized in other places were required to have additional ceremonies in the parish church. Parents were even ordered to take their sick children to the parish church for baptism within two weeks of birth; those who would not comply were to be deprived of the sacraments. The bishops required that birth dates be recorded in the registers so that parental compliance could be measured.17 The Catholic Church had long maintained that baptism may only properly be performed one time for each individual. Catholic leaders consistently held that baptism may not be repeated, basing their doctrine on Saint Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews.18 In the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent explicitly affirmed that baptism “imprinted in the soul a character, that is, a certain spiritual and indelible Sign,” and for that reason could not be repeated.19

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The Catholic Church regarded baptism as specific and unique in its effectiveness, but the variety of people who might potentially perform the ceremony was extensive. In the most urgent cases, where baptism had to be performed quickly because the infant might die, the scope was particularly expansive. Nevertheless, The Roman Ritual emphasized that this assortment of potential baptizers was to be regarded as a hierarchy; the lowest levels were to be activated only in the most dire and exceptional circumstances, if no one of higher status was available: “A priest if available should be preferred to a deacon, a deacon to a subdeacon, a cleric to a laic, a man to a woman, unless for the sake of modesty it is more fitting that the woman baptize rather than the man, or because the woman might know the form better than the man. Father or mother are not permitted to baptize their child, except when in danger of death no one else can be had who could baptize.” 20 Since childbirth is inherently risky, clergy were told to educate the laity so they would be ready for emergency baptisms. The Roman Ritual stipulated that priests should instruct parishioners in performing baptisms, especially those who were midwives, doctors, or surgeons.21 Midwives were to receive special instruction in performing proper baptisms so that they would be ready for critical conditions when propriety might discourage the presence of a man or the parish priest would not be able to arrive in time.22 In every parish, there would be any number of laypeople who had been instructed and were authorized to perform emergency baptisms, but neither authorization or instruction were necessary: in a crisis, baptism may be performed by absolutely anyone. If properly administered in exceptional situations, baptism is considered valid if performed by non-Catholics, by heretics, and by pagans.23 Since baptism may not be repeated, before the parish priest could perform a valid baptism it was crucial to know whether or not an infant had already been baptized. When there was reason to doubt the chain of custody of an infant from birth to baptism, the child would be baptized conditionally; that is to say, the baptism would be valid only if the child had not been previously baptized. To this end, the ritual employed the words: “If you are baptized, I do not baptize you. If you are not baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” 24 The Catechism of the Council of Trent warned priests they must be diligent in their inquiries when a child was brought to them for baptism. They could not employ the conditional form of baptism unless they first conducted a scrupulous investigation into the circumstances of the child’s birth. Priests were admonished “to use particular caution” when they found themselves in

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such circumstances, not to lapse into theological irregularities that amounted to the sin of sacrilege. The Catechism stated the matter clearly: There are those who think that they commit no sin by the indiscriminate administration of conditional baptism: if a child is brought before them, they imagine that inquiry as to its previous baptism is unnecessary, and accordingly proceed, without delay, to administer the Sacrament. . . . It has been authoritatively decided by pope Alexander, that the conditional form of baptism is to be used only when, after due inquiry, doubts are entertained of the validity of the previous baptism; and in no other case can it ever be lawful to administer baptism a second time, even conditionally.25 The Roman Ritual further directs that “foundlings should be baptized conditionally, unless there is a certainty from due investigation that they have already been baptized.” 26 It is significant that it was only the discovery of a valid baptism that prevented a foundling from receiving a conditional baptism. In all cases where it could not be known whether or not a child had already been baptized, foundlings had to be baptized conditionally. Such baptisms were described in the parochial registers as conditional by the words bajo condición or sub conditione. In Mexico City, for example, an infant was found in a garbage heap (muladar) in February 1832. No birth date could be recorded, because no one knew when he had been born nor who his parents were. Since no one could be certain that he had not already been baptized, he was baptized conditionally and named Felipe de Jesús.27 In Puebla, a girl who was thought to be about two months old was named María Guadalupe del Sacramento on 12 December 1832. Her padrinos, José María Castillo and María Guadalupe Rojas, said she was a foundling who had been left at their house. They did not know who her parents were or when she had been born, so she, too, was baptized conditionally.28 Birth dates are significant as part of an investigation into whether a valid baptism had been performed, since baptism cannot take place before birth. The baptismal water must actually flow against the infant’s head, so a child must be at least partially emerged from the birth canal to be baptized.29 It is not the date of birth itself that is significant but information about the interval between birth and baptism. Knowing when a child had been born provided a gauge for the priest to measure how confident he could be that his

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informant knew who had been taking care of the infant during the crucial period from birth to baptism. If a godparent did not know when a child had been born, he or she could not really be relied on to assure the priest that the infant had not already been baptized. In Sagrario Parish, Mexico City, most of the time when padrinos said that they did not know the names of a child’s parents, they were still able to provide another piece of significant information: nearly all were able to tell the priest when the child had been born. In contrast, when a child in that parish was recorded as “expuesto,” that is, abandoned, most of the time the padrinos did not know when the child had been born. Information about birthdays is an important clue in differentiating between the two different kinds of children with “unknown parents” and distinguishing between padrinos who were lying to protect the reputations of unmarried parents from those who genuinely did not know the names of the mothers and fathers of their godchildren.30 Knowledge about parents’ names and the specific time of any birth were inextricably tied together for both practical and religious reasons. The answer to the question “When was this child born?” could provide an important clue to the identities of a child’s parents. As a practical matter, when priests sought accurate information about the parents of any child, they could do no better than to ask someone who was there when the baby was born. Fathers rarely attended the baptisms of their illegitimate children, so they could not be reliable informants. Mothers were not expected to attend baptisms either, even when their children were legitimate. In past centuries in many Catholic countries, mothers remained secluded after childbirth, staying at home for a period of forty days before making a formal return to attending Mass, an event that was marked by a special ceremonial blessing.31 Since mothers and fathers of illegitimate children were unlikely to be present at baptisms, midwives and other women who attended mothers in childbirth would be the most direct sources of information about newborn babies and their hidden parents. The midwife had an important role to play in most baptisms; she typically carried the infant to the parish church for the ceremony. The midwife had helped to bring the child into the world, and she was present as the infant was symbolically brought into the Catholic Church as a child of God.32 Midwives and priests had many reasons for frequent interaction. Priests were required to instruct midwives in the proper administration of baptism. It was also the priest’s responsibility to see that midwives knew how to

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perform a cesarean operation, in case the mother should die before her child was born. Priests controlled access to licenses for midwifery, since a candidate was required to have both a statement of good conduct from her own parish priest and a certificate attesting to her own baptism and family background. Although most midwives were unlicensed, baptisms provided parish priests and midwives with frequent occasions to see and speak with one another. In any city, town, or village, there were a limited number of midwives, whose names were known to parish priests. Each time a midwife accompanied an infant to the parish church for baptism, the priest had another opportunity to ask about her practice and her patients. Baptisms also gave him the chance to ask about her competition, that is, the other midwives who might be working in the community. Especially in the provincial capitals and smaller communities, the midwife would also be a resident of his parish and would be susceptible to interrogation when she went to confession. Some parochial clergy were known to force unmarried mothers to name the fathers of their children by withholding absolution.33 Parish priests could use the same pressure on midwives, but they did not always do so. An unusual baptismal entry from Oaxaca demonstrates a missed opportunity for clerical interrogation of one midwife. In April 1832, the parish priest of Oaxaca registered the baptism of a baby girl named María Manuela. The baby’s godmother, Narcisa Pacheco, said that the child was “of unknown parents.” She also reported that because the life of the child had been in danger, the infant had already been baptized by the midwife “in her own house.” 34 The idea of a mother delivering a baby in a midwife’s house might seem peculiar to us, since most births we know about were those of married upper-class women who gave birth in their own substantial residences. This situation is clearly different; the godmother, Narcisa Pacheco, was not accorded the title “doña,” and it is not likely that the mother would have been either. This mother had moved in with the midwife in the last few months of her pregnancy, as did many poorer unmarried women in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. Married women, especially those from well-off families, might summon midwives to their homes to deliver a baby, but poorer unmarried women often had longer and more familiar relationships with their midwives; they lived with the midwife to hide their pregnancies from their neighbors.35 Midwives were likely to know the names of the mothers they attended, especially when those expectant mothers had been living with them for several months. Midwives might also have heard the names of fathers of these

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children, if the mothers were inclined to talk. In rural New England, where fathers were required to pay the costs of raising their out-of-wedlock children, many unmarried mothers told the attending midwife the names of their babies’ fathers while in labor.36 Such a formal procedure was unlikely in Mexico; there people placed great emphasis on honor, which required shielding mothers and their families from public disgrace for pregnancies out of wedlock. Such “private pregnancies,” as Ann Twinam has called them, had the effect of providing greater obscurity for the fathers of these children as well.37 However, hiding a pregnancy worked only if the priests asked no questions, if the padrinos responded with a believable lie, or if the priest colluded with the padrinos. By reporting that the infant had been baptized by a midwife “in her own house,” this godmother indicated that she knew a good deal more about the child than she told the priest. The midwife was a real person, and although her name was not included in the record, the madrina would have known the midwife’s name and the location of her house. If the priest had asked, the madrina could have told him who she was and where she lived. Perhaps he already knew. With a few more questions to the midwife, the priest could learn the mother’s name. In any case, the priests in Oaxaca seldom asked questions when godparents told them they did not know the names of a child’s parents. And they almost never asked when the child had been born. The formal parish registers in Oaxaca from 1829 to 1844 seldom contained dates of birth. This lapse in compliance with the episcopal mandate that required birth dates be recorded coincided with an interruption in episcopal supervision. Bishop Antonio Isidoro Pérez Suárez, a conservative Spaniard, had abandoned his diocese and returned to Spain in 1828, where he died. No successor was named for more than a decade, until late in December 1839, but that candidate died before he received the news of his appointment. Two further clerics were also ill-fated: one died after ten months as bishop, and the other, before he could take up his position. The parish priests in Oaxaca began to record birth dates again when it became clear that their new bishop would be don Antonio Mantecón (the aforementioned older brother of don Agustín Mantecón). He was nominated for the episcopal see in late January 1844. Even before the new bishop was consecrated, things began to change in the parish. A new priest, Antonino de Arango, took charge of the parish and its registers, and birth dates began to be systematically recorded once more in the baptismal register late in May, just a few weeks before Antonio Mantecón took up his position as Oaxaca’s bishop.38

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Parish priests in San Luis Potosí were much more inquisitive than their counterparts in Oaxaca. The clergy were nearly always able to ascertain the names of mothers when children were born out of wedlock in San Luis Potosí. The priests there recorded the names of mothers for 98 percent of illegitimate children baptized in 1832. These infants, identified as hijos naturales, were almost entirely the children of common folk. More than 20 percent of all the infants baptized in San Luis Potosí were designated hijos naturales, but only 4 out of the total of 285 natural children were the offspring of doñas. The baptismal registers in San Luis Potosí are peculiar in another way: only the mother’s name appears in all 285 cases of natural children recorded in San Luis Potosí that year.39 The names of the fathers were never recorded when children were illegitimate, and without knowing who the father was, no one could be certain if the infant was really “natural” or whether the child belonged in one of the other, more reprehensible categories of illegitimate offspring: those who were consequences of adultery, incest, or other prohibited relationships. Padrinos and madrinas for baptisms in San Luis Potosí were subjected to greater pressure to name the child’s mother, especially if she did not have important social connections. Only a tiny fraction of a percentage of illegitimate offspring were registered as children of “unknown parents”; each of these was sponsored by godparents and guardians from the small provincial social elite. An additional total of three children who were declared “foundlings” were all registered with godparents and guardians of no apparent distinction. Only the infant found by the roadside on the way to the Hacienda de Bocas had no birth date, and he was the only one who was baptized conditionally.40 In the central parish of Puebla, the parish priests were also relatively strict. Almost 97 percent of children baptized there in 1832 were registered with at least one parent, and 90 percent were recorded as legitimate. Of eighty-three natural children baptized in Puebla’s central parish, only one infant was born to a mother designated “doña.”41 All of the other parents of the eighty-two natural children baptized in that parish were recorded without titles of any sort, but parish priests there obtained the names of fathers as well for one of every five of these natural children. Only a little more than 3 percent were registered by guardians who could not, or would not, name the parents. Priests in Puebla were never willing to accept the excuse that sponsored children were of “unknown parents.” All were declared to have been foundlings of one sort or another. This evidence shows that the parish priests of San Luis Potosí and Puebla

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were more rigorous; they required their parishioners to conform to established moral guidelines that demanded the restriction of sexual activity to couples legally married within the church. Clergy in those two parishes also stifled what they would have seen as gratuitous political statements by their parishioners; in Puebla and San Luis Potosí, priests were unwilling to record anyone as using the title “citizen.” In these two parishes, priests were painstaking in their reporting, demanding and obtaining the names of most mothers of illegitimate children. The quality of clerical authority is distinct in these parishes. Some priests were attempting to be diligent, and they were relatively successful in eliciting compliance from their parishioners. Their efforts stand in sharp contrast to the relatively high percentages of children of “unknown parents” in Oaxaca and Mexico City. In the cathedral parish of Mexico City and especially in Oaxaca, standards were evidently more lax, and some parishioners were allowed to use the revolutionary title “citizen.” These responses tell us something important about resistance to clerical authority and about the quality of that clerical authority itself. Marginal notations, altered entries, and lined-out names provide clues to the prevarications of padrinos who were obscuring the private pregnancies of hidden parents. In some other, flawlessly fluid entries, there is no clue that anything has been misstated. Yet some of these entries only demonstrate more elaborate deceptions. When a baby girl named Magdalena Prajedis was baptized in July 1833, she was registered as a legitimate child, with don Ramón Monroy and doña María Mateos Díaz de Villamil named as her parents. More than three decades later, that infant had matured into a adult woman and was married. After a few years, her husband, don Miguel Malo, petitioned to have his wife’s baptismal record corrected. Doña Magdalena was not a legitimate child after all; she had actually been a natural child. Her real mother, doña Ramona Monroy, was the daughter of the couple who had been listed in the original report of her baptism as the baby’s parents.42 Because doña Ramona was unmarried at the time, her own parents (that is to say, her daughter’s grandparents) had claimed that their illegitimate infant granddaughter was their legitimate daughter. This was an elaborate deception, since for it to be believable, not only the daughter who was actually pregnant but the grandmother who was pretending to be the mother would have had to remain out of public view for some months before the birth. There were other ways to disguise illegitimate children. Some involved much bolder deceptions. In his memoir, Francisco Estrada confessed to a lie that he had told a parish priest in early 1830. At the time, Estrada was engaged

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to be married to a young woman named Anita Jimeno. Her sister, Guadalupe, had just given birth, and Estrada agreed to serve as her daughter’s padrino. At the baptismal font in Santa Veracruz Parish in Mexico City on 7 January 1830, he gave the child the name María Josefa del Rosario Telesfora. Estrada told the priest that she was “the legitimate daughter of the legitimate marriage of Captain Don José María Arrieta and Doña Guadalupe Jimeno.” In his memoir, Estrada confessed that he knew that none of this was true. Anita’s sister and her “husband” were not married to each other, because Captain Arrieta was already married to someone else. As a result, their child was not legitimate, but an hija adulterina. Estrada’s lie to the parish priest resulted in an illegitimate child, the offspring of an adulterous affair, being permanently recorded as the legitimate daughter of a legitimate marriage that had never existed.43 Baptismal registers tell us more about the parents who were married than they do about those who conceived children without marrying. We only know about this particular inaccuracy because Francisco Estrada chose to confess his misrepresentation to posterity. He had kept other secrets as well. There are three memoirs from this period of Mexico’s history that describe their authors’ intimate thoughts and emotions as they contemplated matrimony. The most remarkable and perceptive was written by María de la Concepción Lombardo.

Ch a p t er 4

But If You Do Not Love Him? .

\  In María de la Concepción Lombardo’s family, it had been

something of a tradition to arrange marriages for young women with older men. When Concepción’s grandmother, Guadalupe Miñón, had reached the age of fourteen, she was married to a much older man.1 In the next generation, that same grandmother also selected an older man to marry her own daughter, Concepción’s mother, Germana. Concepción described the circumstances this way: “My poor mother, a timid and innocent girl, brought up under the Spanish regime of strict obedience to her parents, bowed her head and submitted to the choice that was imposed on her. . . . They introduced her to her prospective husband at home on Ash Wednesday, and they were married on Holy Saturday of the same season of Lent.”2 In other words, Concepción’s mother and father were married forty-six days after they first met.

First Love Although her mother and her maternal grandmother had been married with little choice in the matter, Concepción’s parents allowed her more time and more latitude to make her own choices. At the same time, her parents retained some traditional ideas about courtship. When Concha, as they called her, was fifteen years old, her mother and father invited a man named Agustín Franco to their house to play cards. Agustín was a little more than 65

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ten years older than Concha, about the right age for a suitor, they thought, since Concepción’s father, Francisco Lombardo, was a decade older than her mother. Agustín was strikingly handsome, with “the most beautiful dark eyes, meticulously-coiffed, jet-black hair, the whitest teeth,” and perfect manners. He had studied assiduously and spoke flawless English, French, Latin, and Italian. Concha described his mustache as “funny,” and she was amused that he thought himself such a stylish dresser.3 Concha found herself attracted to Agustín, but her behavior at first was childish. Agustín was lame in his right leg, and Concha would hide Agustín’s elegant ivory-inlaid crutch as a practical joke. She also became jealous when he turned his attention from her to play tresillo, a card game for three people, with her parents. Concha was eager for Agustín’s attention, so she quickly agreed when he proposed to teach her English. Concha regarded Agustín as “a man of the world” and described him as someone “who understood the human heart and knew how to conquer mine without saying a single word of love.” She began to cherish the time they spent together. “The night when he did not come, I felt myself alone, sad, frustrated and my heart seemed to leave my chest when after a day of absence I heard the sound of his crutch crossing the spacious patio of my house.” Gradually, she felt her admiration for Agustín turn into love.4 Agustín began to write poems for her. Then, he wrote a letter. Eventually, he was writing to Concha every day. On waking in the morning, I would find beneath my pillow a small note that had been placed there by one of the housemaids; I rushed to reply, and, that night, he would bring my letter back and would point out the errors in spelling that there were in it. When I made a phenomenal blunder, he would frown and demonstrate his displeasure; then, he would say, “This is this way, or this is the other way.” In this manner, he taught me some of the rules of spelling that my good teachers had not shown me.5 Concha first loved Agustín as her teacher; rather than being displeased when he corrected her, she was amused and eager to learn. Concha’s early education had been unsatisfying. Her mother initially enrolled her in a small, strict primary school for girls. Concha remembered that the academic curriculum consisted only of reading the catechism and religious history, then repeating them from memory. “I do not know why they sent me there; probably because I was the most mischievous one in the

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house and they thought that the rigor those ladies employed would be able to straighten me out.” Only expected to memorize her lessons, Concha reported that she had learned “little or nothing” there. Since the teachers “didn’t give us the slightest explanation, we could not easily remember anything.” When Concha faltered and was unable to recite the lesson, her teacher’s face would turn red, her eyes bulged, and she screamed the words that Concha ought to have repeated right into Concha’s face. “Not content with the shouts that frightened us, she accompanied them with a rain of knuckles on our poor heads.” Repeatedly deficient students were forced to wear donkey’s ears as a humiliating, though less violent, penalty. Concha later recalled that when she was about thirteen years old she did not know how to write, she could read only a little, and she hated school.6 Sitting still in school was difficult for Concha because she was a child who took great pleasure in physical activity. She wrote that she “detested playing with dolls and all the games that were natural to my gender and age.” Concha preferred to play with boys, especially running, swimming, and swinging. She learned to dance, to ride horses, and to shoot a pistol, taking target practice for hours every afternoon with her grandmother’s second husband on the roof of their house. Her parents thought that singing lessons might be more appropriate for their daughter, and Concha enjoyed belting out her lessons at home, but even more, she loved to perform.7 For an active adolescent like Concha, the sedentary Agustín Franco was not a good match. Agustín did not like parties or dances, but he would accept invitations when Concha’s parents asked that he accompany them on social occasions. At first, he did not seem displeased when Concha enjoyed herself, but their fundamental incompatibility became more obvious one evening when Agustín saw Concha dancing at a party. “From that night on, he became so jealous that he would not let me live. Prohibition of dances, prohibition of singing, prohibition of horseback riding, displeasure if I laughed, anger if I was with my girlfriends, scenes if I went out on the balcony! . . . My God, that was not a life! . . . And nevertheless, I continued loving and loved in such a way that I gave in to all his whims and accepted with pleasure all of his ridiculous demands.” 8 Concha’s parents could see their incompatibility and no longer approved of Agustín Franco as a suitor for their daughter. They became cold to him. Her mother made Concha return all his presents, but Concha felt she still loved him. Although the return of a suitor’s gifts was a traditional signal of the end of a romantic relationship, Agustín seemed not to comprehend her

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parents’ changed attitude toward him. Even before asking them for her hand in marriage, Agustín began preparing the house where he imagined they would live after he and Concha were married. Because he took it for granted that her parents would approve of their marriage, he was surprised when he finally understood that they did not.9 When Concha had just turned seventeen years old, Agustín insisted that she should abandon her parents and marry him anyway. Concha was upset by her parents’ opposition to Agustín, but she was not sure enough of herself to defy them. Concha’s whole relationship with Agustín had taken place while she was fifteen and sixteen. Her emotional immaturity prolonged and deepened her suffering. She was inconsolable: “I cried day and night, I didn’t want to go anywhere, I didn’t eat, and my health deteriorated.”10 Concha’s confessor was no help to her. He had approved of Franco as her suitor, but he would not give Concha his opinion of what to do when the circumstances changed. So Concha consulted another priest, her sister Lupe’s confessor, who told Concha that she should sacrifice her love for Franco for the love of those who gave her life and that God’s blessings would fill her if she did so. Concha returned home and wrote a letter to Franco ending her relationship with him. Franco did not respond to Concha. Instead, he wrote her father a caustic letter, “filling it with offenses.”11 Concha’s mother, doña Germana, could not bear to see her daughter crying anymore. She asked her own confessor, Padre Pinzón, to intercede and tell Franco that she would relent and allow him to marry Concha. But Padre Pinzón told her that would be a mistake, for if Franco truly loved Concha, he would have been patient and would have appealed to her and to her parents; he would not be making her suffer. This perspective made a lot of sense to Concha (who had been eavesdropping), and she felt she could not make her mother suffer anymore. Concha resolved to hide her tears from her mother.12 When doña Germana began to feel feverish on the Saturday before Easter, no one was worried at first, but six days later, the doctor who was treating her recommended that they call a priest to take her last confession. After lingering in pain for another five days, Concha’s mother died of meningitis at the age of forty-three. Concha was devastated: “Just as my heart had opened itself to love with such intensity, so too the first great sorrow of my life was also intense. I thought I would die from losing someone I so loved. I remained with her corpse until they took her away, and I believe that I cried out for more than 24 hours without being able to shed a single tear.”13

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A few days later, Agustín began writing letters to Concha again, and she answered him. After several months, Concha insisted that Agustín come into the house and talk to her father with her, believing that don Francisco might approve of their marriage, but Franco adamantly refused to visit or speak to him.14 Concha sought the advice of her confessor, who told her that she should give up on Agustín because he was going to Europe. Concha was shocked and quickly wrote to ask Agustín if it was true. He replied that he was only going to the United States for a few months. He promised he would return soon, and then they would be married. A few days later, in saying good-bye, he told her that he was leaving on a secret mission for the government. It is not clear if Concha regarded his latest excuse as a ridiculous fabrication, but she confessed to being greatly displeased with this explanation for his absence. She wrote to tell Agustín that if he did not return in six months, then she would be through with him forever. When the time limit had passed, Concha did write to Agustín that it was all over, but his reply softened her heart. “His answer arrived, a letter full of tenderness, of promises. I believed it all and I told him my heart was the same and that I would wait for him twenty years.”15 Agustín had been both dishonest and manipulative; his response to Concha’s renewed passion was cold and vindictive: “Your resolution seems to me quite strange; first you do not want to wait for me, then you would wait for me twenty years. That’s how women are! Well, I tell you that the heart that used to beat for you, now belongs to another.”16 Concha was furious. “Such was my rage that it was greater than my pain.” She did not respond to his letter, and when Agustín wrote her again, she returned that letter unopened. “Thus, ended forever my first love; but it left my heart so sick that I could not think of loving anyone, and with such hatred for the masculine sex, I would have had men appear out of thin air just so I could scorn them and mock them.”17

Unsuitable Suitors One month after her mother’s death, Concha’s father experienced an attack of pneumonia, from which he never fully recovered. He continued to be ill for the next two years, and most of that time he was unable to work. While don Francisco worried about what would happen to his daughters when he

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died, his faltering health made a previously unsuitable suitor more acceptable to him. Vicente Vidal Pontones asked for permission to marry Ángela, Concha’s older sister, eight months after the death of their mother. Doña Germana had been a shrewd judge of character, and she had not been willing to permit Vicente to visit their home as Ángela’s suitor, but circumstances had changed since her death. The girls’ father, “seeing that we were alone, [and] that young man was honorable and industrious agreed to the proposal and allowed the suitor to visit our home and set the wedding date for February 1854 when ten months would have passed since our mother’s death.” But the wedding was “sad and without any party because of the recent death of our mother.”18 After the wedding, Ángela and Vicente moved in with his mother, a wealthy widow. Doña Martina Pontones already had two married sons and their wives living in her immense house. Doña Martina’s brother, don Fernando Pontones, began to take an interest in Concha. He invited her to go riding, to spend days in the country, and to attend dinners in doña Martina’s house. Concha showed little interest in him, and her description of don Fernando avoids any mention of his physical features, except for his age: “a man of about 45 years old, a widower with three children. He was in business with his sister and had a fortune of half a million pesos.” Other sources confirm that don Fernando was very wealthy, but his money did not make him attractive to Concha. She had just turned eighteen years old a few months earlier, and she was not inclined to consider marriage to a man several decades older than she was. Concha wrote that she could not imagine what such a man could want with her.19 Don Fernando was a man who was not easily discouraged. His first wife, doña Josefa Giral, had given birth to six children in their marriage before she died at the age of twenty-eight, after suffering for more than four months from the complications of childbirth.20 Don Fernando waited about a year after his wife’s death before he sent a priest to Concha’s home. As Concha recalled, her father explained to her: “My dear daughter, Padre Becerril has been to see me on behalf of Don Fernando Pontones to ask for your hand. Do you want to marry him? I am very ill and soon will leave you and I do not want you to be all alone. Don Fernando is a rich and honorable man and I believe that he will make you happy.” With that unaffected simplicity that I had then, I replied: “My dear Papí, if you wish, I’ll marry him, but it won’t be four

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days before I put horns on him,” and I assure my readers that I didn’t know what I was saying and I did not understand the true meaning of those words. My father smiled and said to me: “No, no, my dear child, notice that I didn’t say anything.” 21 Concha’s rejection of don Fernando’s proposal did not dissuade him; it only made him a more ardent suitor. Concha’s sister Ángela joined in to try to convince Concha of the advantages of marrying her husband’s uncle, don Fernando: “[Ángela] tormented me by continually talking about him, and making thousands of explanations regarding the happiness and advantages that the marriage would bring to me, but I heard all that with the greatest indifference and I laughed at her advice.” And Concha laughed for a good reason. After all, Ángela had not chosen that kind of husband for herself; she had married a young man her own age, not a widower who was nearly thirty years older. One moonlit night, knowing that don Fernando was eavesdropping, Concha told her sister of her abhorrence of widowers and old men and ended by saying, “My dear husband has to be young and handsome, and if not, I won’t marry.” 22 Even hearing these words from Concha’s own lips did not stop don Fernando. He tried one more stratagem. Knowing that Concha would like to travel, don Fernando offered to take her to see Europe. When she refused, he left Mexico by himself, and she never saw him again. But when Concha did meet a handsome young man, she was no more inclined to accept his impetuous proposals of marriage. Captain Miguel Miramón was brought into Concha’s home in a rather unfortunate manner. Miguel was a friend of Romualdo Fagoaga, the brother of Concha’s sister-inlaw Nabora, who had married Concha’s older brother Francisco. In Concha’s description of Romualdo, we can see the reasons for her father’s concern about Romualdo’s influence on their family. Concha wrote that Romualdo was “an intelligent and congenial young man, but he had very bad judgment and loved gambling; for that reason, my father did not appreciate his visits; but since he was almost one of the family and out of consideration for our sister-in-law, the doors of our house were not closed to him, and our dear Papa was content with scowling at him.” 23 Since their father would not accept him as a formal suitor for Concha’s sister Lupe, Romualdo was stalled in the status of pretendiente, a “pretender”; as a result, he was always looking for someone to accompany him on visits to the Lombardo home. It was typical of Romualdo’s misbehavior that he took his friend Miguel to visit at an inappropriate hour. Lupe and Concha were surprised one day

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to see the young men arrive while their father was at work. They knew that they should not permit men to visit when they were home alone. When they reproached him for his faux pas, Romualdo only joked about it. Since he had known Miguel since childhood, he told Lupe and Concha amusing stories about their pranks and mischief. In contrast to her actuarial account of don Fernando’s age and wealth, Concha’s depiction of Miguel makes it clear that she considered him attractive: “he seemed to be about 20 or 21 years old, of medium height, slender, a dark complexion, beautiful black eyes, a large mouth, and just the beginnings of a mustache.” 24 Miguel never took his eyes off Concha for the whole visit. Romualdo, who was certainly not subtle, made the point explicit: “Did you know, dear sisterin-law, that this brave captain is madly in love with you?” Concha tried to change the conversation, but Miguel interrupted, saying, “Yes, señorita, it’s true, and don’t think that I only want a good time, but to marry you.” Concha laughed and answered, “You want to marry me to take me to war on horseback with a child in my arms and a parakeet on my shoulder? Now you are a captain, if you are ever a general, then we’ll be married.” As soon as he heard someone enter the house, Romualdo knew it was time to go. Lupe and Concha wanted to get out of the parlor, but Miguel would not leave and calmly waited for their father to come into the room. He did not receive a cordial welcome. Don Francisco was surprised to find a stranger in his home. “Señor Capitán, how may I help you?” he said. Miguel did not respond. “Do you have anything to say to me?” Miguel remained silent, wondering how he should respond. Then Concha’s father said: “Come on, you have a nice sword. Is it your ceremonial sword, or the one for everyday?” We do not know what happened next, because that was the moment when Concha and Lupe scurried away, laughing about what they began to call “the adventure of the officer and Romualdo.” Later, don Francisco gently reminded his daughters that they were not to receive men as visitors when he was not at home.25 As it happened, Concha’s father spent more and more time at home as his health continued to deteriorate. He had another bout of pneumonia in March and died the following month, two years after his wife. He left three unmarried daughters: Lupe, aged twenty-three; Concha, nineteen; and Merced, sixteen. He had died believing that he was bequeathing his daughters enough money to live on, but Concha and her sisters were unable to locate the bank book that their father’s will said was in his desk. In their desperation, they even had a carpenter take the desk apart to look for a hidden compartment.

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They wrote to his bank in London, only to receive a reply saying that without the appropriate documentation, no one could help them. So the three orphaned sisters were left with only the tangible property: three houses, a garden, two coaches, furniture, their mother’s jewelry, and their father’s library. These were substantial assets, but they were not sufficient to cover the family’s debts and at the same time to give them enough income to maintain their standard of living. Family members advised the sisters to keep up appearances and conceal their difficult circumstances or they would not be able to marry well, but Concha and her sisters decided they had no choice but to reduce their expenditures and move into a smaller house.26 They rented space across the street from their childhood home to sort through their father’s library before selling it. One day, Miguel stopped by to express his condolences. Since she was alone, Concha asked him to leave immediately. Miguel replied: “I will not leave unless you give me a kiss.” Concha was furious and told him in strong language to go away, but Miguel drew his sword, saying, “If you won’t kiss me, I will kill you.” Concha leaned against the wall, extended her arms, and replied, “Then kill me.” Miguel calmly put away his sword and left. Concha remembered, “I felt more dead than alive and trembling like a leaf, in the midst of my fake valor, I peeked out the window to see if he had left, and when I saw him at a distance, I ran home and told my sisters about my adventure, and we all understood that the guilty one was Romualdo.” 27 When Miguel was assigned to a post in southern Mexico, Concha did not see him for months. Lupe, Concha, and Merced first settled in a small house on Chiconautla Street, north of the center of the city, but they did not feel safe there. So they decided to move to the village of Tacubaya, about eight kilometers southwest of the central plaza. There they rented a house with a garden from Merced’s godmother, doña Juana Castilla, the widow of don Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza. They were old friends of Concha’s family and had lived next door when Concha was a child. The family had once been at the apex of Mexican society. Now, they were ruined and had to rent out parts of the property. Still, Tacubaya was a place where many people from the city preferred to pass the hot months of summer, and some very wealthy people, such as the Barron, Frisac, Mackintosh, Martínez del Río, and Escandón families, had property there as well.28 A few weeks after settling in Tacubaya, Concha’s sister Merced visited their grandmother in Mexico City. One of her grandmother’s guests during

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that time was an Englishman named Edward Perry, who also happened to reside in Tacubaya. Merced thought he was very nice, so she responded positively when the Englishman asked if he could call on the three sisters at home. A few days later, Merced introduced him to her sisters. Concha, who usually referred to him as “Perry,” described the Englishman as “about 40 years old, tall, thin bordering on skinny, blue eyes with blond hair, light skin, regular features, and beautiful teeth, and a blond mustache.” He spoke proper Spanish with an English accent, was jovial, and made pleasant conversation. He began to visit regularly and sent gifts of flowers and fruit from his garden. Concha was polite, but she did nothing to encourage him. “Little by little, he began to insinuate himself with me and to pay court to me, but I was indifferent to him and did not pay any attention to him.” 29 Lupe’s pretender, Romualdo, continued to visit, and he regularly reminded Concha of the great passion she had inspired in Miguel, but Concha ignored him as well.30 A few months later, Romualdo told Concha the news that Miguel had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and had returned to the city.31 When Miguel appeared one day on a beautiful horse, Concha did not recognize him at first: “his mustache had grown so that it covered his large mouth, his assignment in the capital had whitened his skin that had been darkened by the burning Sun of the South [where he had been posted], and his eyes were more beautiful and brilliant than the last time I saw him.” 32 Concha had been going for regular horseback rides with her childhood friend, Juan Espinosa, who lived next door. They decided to organize a larger group to go riding together, but they lacked horses. Miguel volunteered to provide them. Since Concha was an experienced rider, she ceded her wellbehaved horse to a less proficient friend and instead took one of the mounts that Miguel had supplied. As she rode along a narrow path between a high stone wall and a large body of water, her horse became frightened, pricked up its ears, and reared up on its back legs. Miguel leapt from his horse and rushed to her rescue: “he took me by the waist and lowered me from the horse as if I were a feather. The animal, feeling itself free, took off at a gallop, and I, recovered from the fright, had to return to Tacubaya in a coach.” 33 After that adventure, Miguel wrote to Concha regularly, but she ignored his letters, treated him with indifference when he visited, and sometimes would refuse to receive him. Concha thought that “all of this, as was natural, increased the feelings that he had for me.” 34 The Englishman that Concha called Perry also continued to visit and became more attentive to Concha without speaking directly about his emotions. “To my way of thinking that

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is the most dangerous method and the one that gains the best results for a man to conquer the heart of a woman; unfortunately, I was the victim on that occasion and I found myself noticeably more interested in him.” 35 Concha was not a romantic who was given to sudden infatuations. Instead, she noticed how her feelings of attachment and affection for her suitors grew a little at a time, as she gradually got to know them. This was the same process of spending time together and slowly becoming better acquainted with each other that had resulted in Concha’s love for Agustín Franco. Concha did not appreciate Miguel’s brash enthusiasm and dramatic gestures. She had been as embarrassed as she was grateful when he saved her from the unruly horse. In any case, Concha was feeling herself more involved with the Englishman when she and her sisters began to hear rumors that Perry was a dangerous man. They were advised that they would need to be careful of him. They heard that he had spent a few years in a relationship with a young lady of one of the principal families in the city without trying to marry her. These vague rumors were substantiated before long. Concha soon found out that Perry had been courting Margarita, a friend of Concha’s sister-in-law Nabora. When Perry stopped by to visit Concha that same evening, she was very cold to him and said almost nothing, until Perry asked her what was wrong. Then Concha told him that people were saying he was courting her at the same time that he was engaged to be married to Margarita; that today her sisterin-law had asked her a thousand questions while having Margarita covertly listen in; that he was compromising her reputation; and that for these reasons she never wanted to see him again. Then she got up and left the room. That was the fatal blow that I gave him; the next day he wrote to me making his formal declaration and a few days later, he gave me proof that he had broken it off with Margarita. Having in my heart feelings for him, I let him know, and we entered into a romantic relationship that lasted a year and a half.36

Perry Concha embarked on her romantic relationship with Perry just about the same time that she and her sisters ended their formal period of mourning for their father. The timing could not have been worse. For more than a year and

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a half since their father’s death, they had not, as Concha phrased it, “received friends.” Certainly, we know that some people would stop by the house for a little conversation. Concha tells us that Perry had been doing this, as had Romualdo, and Miguel, when he was in town. During their period of mourning the sisters might even emerge from the house to visit friends or go horseback riding with their neighbors. What Concha meant by “receiving friends” was entertaining, having parties, putting on small concerts. Concha and her sisters invited friends to perform on the piano, violin, or vihuela (an instrument like a guitar), and, of course, Concha sang. “Two times a week we used to have those little concerts, that were brightened by some periods of conversation and which made those nights pass pleasantly for us.” 37 Such festivities, after a long period of relative social isolation, made Concha and her sisters happy. But Perry, who had thrived during their period of mourning, was not pleased with the increased socializing. Perry did not like sharing Concha with a larger gathering. He was apprehensive about the attention that Concha received when she sang, and, suspicious of potential rivals, he began to demand that Concha curb her entertaining: “Everything displeased him,” she wrote, “he did not allow me to sing, he was angry if I laughed, he put himself in a bad mood if I went out in the street and he asked me a lot of questions if any of my friends visited me. I was well aware of all this, remembering the tyranny in which my first pretender Franco had held me.” 38 At the same time Concha and her sisters were concerned about Perry’s restrictions, they also wondered why he was not moving forward with plans to marry Concha. “Nothing stood in the way of the Englishman marrying me; he had some wealth, a good position in one of the best banks in the capital, he was free . . . Why wasn’t he talking about marriage?” 39 Concha and her sisters were asking themselves these questions. We can be sure that Concha’s sister-in-law Nabora and her jilted friend Margarita were also asking their friends the same questions. Concha began to fear that she would have the same experience with Perry that Margarita had, and she felt that her reputation was being damaged by the things her family and friends were saying about her. Concha spoke to Padre Pinzón, the confessor she and her family considered “our advisor and best friend.” Padre Pinzón was also concerned about Perry’s behavior, even though he approved of the Englishman as a potential husband for Concha. The priest suggested Lupe speak with Perry, because she was the older sister, or he would do so himself, if that was what Concha

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thought best. Concha opposed both of those options because she felt either action “would be like forcing” Perry to marry her. Instead, she decided to break off their relationship and retreat to a convent so that she could avoid any direct contact with Perry. Since she and her sisters had two cousins in the Encarnación convent, that seemed to be the best choice. Padre Pinzón agreed. His support was crucial, since he would need to ask the archbishop’s approval before Concha could enter the convent. While Lupe waited at home with a letter from Concha for Perry, Merced accompanied Concha to La Encarnación. But the nuns could not admit Concha until Padre Pinzón showed them the archbishop’s permission. As Merced and Concha waited, Lupe arrived “in a most agitated state” to tell her sisters that Perry had turned up to visit Concha at home and had read her letter. He had immediately begun protesting that his intentions were honorable and that he would soon marry Concha. Then Padre Pinzón appeared with the archbishop’s letter. Once he had heard the latest news and spoken quietly with Concha, Lupe, and Merced, Padre Pinzón explained to the nuns that Concha’s entry would be postponed because of some family business. Padre Pinzón returned with the Lombardo sisters to their home, where he spoke sternly with Perry. The Englishman defended himself by pointing out that he was moving ahead with plans to marry Concha; because he was not a Catholic, he had already petitioned Rome for permission to marry her. Everyone calmed down, and, in Concha’s words, “from that moment on, the Englishman was now an official ‘pretendiente,’ so to speak.” 40 The way that Concha worded this expression is both revealing and obfuscating; she did not describe Perry as her novio, perhaps because there was still no definite date for a wedding. The Spanish noun “novio” has no single, precise counterpart in English. “Novio” was defined in a Spanish dictionary of the time in a way that would correspond to the English word “groom,” that is, “One who is recently married, or immediately about to be married.” 41 Yet in nineteenth-century Mexico, a couple could be described as novios for years before a wedding date was set. The status of “official pretender,” though, is oxymoronic, and Concha showed further hesitation by qualifying it with the phrase “so to speak.” Perry, for his part, had a convenient excuse for further delays: he could always say he was still waiting for permission from the pope. After Concha nearly entered the convent, Perry mitigated his controlling behavior for a few weeks. Soon, however, he returned to his habit of making demands. He insisted that Concha turn down multiple social invitations

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from the Quijano family, and Concha feared that if she declined again, the Quijanos would take offense and would stop asking her. Perry threatened to break up with Concha if she accepted their invitation to the theater. She defied him. He waited in the street in front of her house to watch her leave, and armed with this direct evidence, he carried out his threat the following day. Perry wrote Concha a letter ending their relationship and returned the letters she had written to him. Concha was first enraged, then embarrassed and sad. For two weeks, she waited and hoped that Perry would change his mind. She was determined not to beg him to return.42 Even though he ended their engagement, Perry did not stop trying to control Concha. He haunted the margins of Concha’s life, a silent presence stalking her. When Concha began rehearsals in her grandmother’s house for a Spanish zarzuela that would be performed there, Perry sat quietly in his coach in front of the house, listening to her sing. Concha ignored him. On the evening of the scheduled performance, though, Perry stopped Concha as she was leaving her own house in costume. She remained calm and asked him coldly what he wanted. “No, Concha,” he answered, “you are not going to sing tonight.” Concha asked what right he had to speak to her that way. She told him to leave her alone. “He wanted to take my hand and to start in explaining; but my fellow cast members, the director, my grandmother, and the esteemed public were waiting for me. I armed myself with valor and giving him a great big shove, I went past him, ran down the stairs, and flew into the coach that was waiting for me.” 43 She arrived at her grandmother’s just in time. After some minor adjustments to her costume, the curtain went up. When it came down for the last time, it was clear that the performance was a success, but Concha did not let the applause go to her head. She was able to keep everything in perspective: “Most of the audience was composed of friends and family who amiably excused all of the mistakes I am sure were made by our small amateur group; but as no one looks a gift horse in the mouth, the larger part of the audience went away satisfied.” 44 After the performance, Concha’s grandmother provided supper, and they all danced until two o’clock in the morning. As soon as she awoke the next day, Concha decided she would stay with her grandmother for a while to avoid Perry. “His unjust jealousy, his sustained anger, as well as the peace that I had enjoyed being freed of him, made a reconciliation with him repugnant to me.” Perry did not intend to be avoided. He went looking for Concha and stopped at her home several times that day. In the evening, Lupe and Merced tried to convince Concha to talk

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with Perry, but Concha refused to leave her grandmother’s house. When her sisters returned home, Perry saw that Concha was not with them. He became furious and said he would go by himself to remove Concha from her grandmother’s house. Lupe and Merced managed to calm Perry down before they set out again to fetch Concha. This time the sisters were more emphatic and convinced Concha that she had to return with them to face Perry. “They made me think about the situation and they made me so afraid, that there was nothing else I could do but to go with them.” 45 Concha was no more explicit about her fears, but it seems clear enough she believed that if Perry were to attempt to drag her from her grandmother’s house, the resulting scandal would damage her reputation. The conversation Concha had with Perry might have appeared to be a reconciliation to Lupe and Merced, but from Concha’s point of view, it was only a temporary truce in a continuing struggle. “I was cold in my interview with Perry, because my heart did not feel the same affection for him as before; nevertheless, thinking of breaking it off definitively and not marrying him would be the reason for a lot of criticism of me, so, I agreed to his pleas and imposed my own conditions on him.” Concha insisted that she would continue to perform and to visit her grandmother’s house. Perry relented. “He agreed to everything and that tyrant who had tormented me without reason was converted into a little lamb.” 46 For a few weeks, everything appeared to be calm and pleasant. Perry seemed to have changed. Permission arrived from Rome for him to marry Concha. He was even organizing the house where they would live when they were married, but Concha was still unhappy. When she decided that she needed to go on a spiritual retreat, her problem with Perry surged into the open again. Perry immediately denied her permission, but Concha reminded him that he had promised to allow her freedom to practice her own religion. After some discussion, Perry relented, though “with distinct displeasure.” 47 Concha spent nine days in isolation and in silence, which she broke only by talking to a new confessor, Padre Abolafia, the priest who had organized the retreat. When she asked for his advice on marrying a Protestant, Padre Abolafia urged Concha to think about the children she would have; her husband would want them educated in England, and they would come back Protestants. Concha gave this matter some thought, but she remained concerned primarily about her reputation. She told Padre Abolafia that she was one of three orphan sisters without money, that she had promised to marry him, and that everyone would talk about her if she did not marry. He replied,

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“And how would that matter to you if you offered this sacrifice to God to save your faith and the souls of your children?” Concha was aware that she was answering his questions about spiritual matters with “purely temporal” concerns. Padre Abolafia urged her to break off with this man, for heaven’s sake, and promised her that God would send her a Catholic who would make her happy. Suddenly, Concha made up her mind and ran from the confessional to the chapel of the Virgen de los Dolores, where she vowed that she would only marry a Catholic.48 Concha’s vow, however, did not mean that she would break up with Perry. Instead, she tried to convince him to convert. When she told Perry of her resolution, he laughed, saying that it was just foolishness, but two days later, when she persisted and repeated her pledge that she would not marry him unless he converted to Catholicism, he became angry. Once again, Concha’s sisters were unhappy with her. Padre Pinzón did not know what to think or whose side to support. So Concha consulted Padre Abolafia once more. He urged her to escape. Concha packed up some clothes and headed for the Encarnación convent, this time with the archbishop’s letter of admission already in hand.49 Perry was enraged when Concha withdrew to the convent. “When he saw the nuns and understood that I was not leaving, he became truly furious; he wanted to break the grating in the locutorio, to force the nuns to make me leave there, on the grounds that I had promised to marry and that he would use the courts to oblige me to do so.” Finally, Perry had to leave without Concha, which gave her some relief, but Concha remembered that the worst thing about this dispute was that her sisters took Perry’s side. Lupe and Merced would not visit her in the convent and refused to send Concha the money she needed to pay for her room and board there.50 Faced with this lack of funds, Concha was inspired to ask the abbess to admit her as a member of the choir so that she might use her salary to pay her expenses. The abbess immediately accepted. When Lupe and Merced heard about the arrangement, they quickly sent Concha the money she needed, but Concha lived up to her part of the bargain and sang in the choir. When Concha tried to return her salary and offered to perform for free, the abbess insisted that Concha keep the money. Concha was quite happy in the convent. She felt at home and got along well with the young novices. One had a piano in her cell, where they sang and danced. Concha braided her hair and altered her clothes so that she fit in better. She even considered becoming a nun, but the abbess only laughed at the idea.51

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All the while, Perry had been writing to Concha. His letters were delivered by Lupe and Merced, who continued to press Concha to marry him. Padre Pinzón also argued that this was a good solution. When Perry promised in writing to become Catholic, she relented, returning home after six months in the convent. But when she met with him face to face and he complained about how much she had made him suffer, she knew that she did not really care about him at all. Her longtime confessor and advisor, Padre Pinzón, insisted the marriage was a good idea, but Concha found herself wavering. “Nevertheless, what to do? My promise, the hope of saving his soul, the idea of my being established, and the insistence of Padre Pinzón, made me hesitate about whether to marry, or to break up with him for good.” 52 Concha decided to move forward with the wedding and see if Perry would really change his religion. Perry told her that “he would accept some parts of Catholicism, but that he considered confession to be ‘immoral’ and that he would never acknowledge it.” Concha asked Perry to speak with another educated, pious, and sophisticated priest she knew, but after a few interchanges with Perry, that padre grew exasperated with him and told Concha: “My daughter, nothing can be done with that man.” 53

“But If You Do Not Love Him . . .” Even as Concha struggled with the idea of marrying Perry, Miguel came to mind from time to time. Lupe and Romualdo continued to speak well of him, and Merced passed along news about Miguel when she returned from seeing her music teacher, who also taught Miguel’s younger sister. Concha heard about Miguel’s military victories and how he was received in the cities where his forces had defeated the liberals. “I listened to all that and something inside me said, with pride: ‘To think that he wanted to marry me.’” 54 When Miguel returned to Mexico City, he made one of his intermittent and unexpected appearances at Concha’s home. This time he arrived in an elegant coach with liveried servants. At first, Concha did not recognize him and she was not thinking about the time, years before, that she had facetiously told Miramón, “If you are ever a general, then we’ll be married.” But Miramón remembered. He said, “You don’t recognize me? I’m Miramón and I’m here to show you I’m a general.” Concha attempted to cut him off, saying that it was no time for joking and that she had made the remark without thinking. Miguel countered that he had taken her seriously, and as if to prove

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it, he formally asked her older sister Lupe for Concha’s hand in marriage. Lupe assumed it was all in good fun as well and encouraged him to talk about his battles instead. Miguel parried by saying that had already been in all the newspapers and he was only interested in conquering Concha. His visit lasted half an hour, and even if Lupe and Concha did succeed in getting him to talk about how hard it was to pacify the country, in the end, Miguel said he would return the next day for Concha’s answer.55 The following evening, Miguel arrived at eight o’clock and had a quiet conversation with Concha, without her sisters present. As she wrote, “I opened my heart, I told him about going into the convent, my engagement to Perry, and how difficult it was to break up with him.” “I know all about it,” he said. “But if you do not love him now, what difficulty can there be in marrying me?” 56 She asked for more time to think, and once again Miguel said that he would return the following day. Concha considered the matter carefully and decided it would not be dignified to accept Miguel’s marriage proposal. Her public reputation was her paramount consideration. In any case, when Miguel failed to come back the next day, she wondered if it had all been in jest. Another day was passing when Concha received a note from Miguel explaining that he had been required to leave for Guanajuato at two o’clock in the morning. He apologized for not saying good-bye to her. He hoped that she would write to him and that when he returned, she would be his forever. He signed that note “General Miramón,” perhaps to remind her of his new rank and her old promise, but subsequent letters he signed less formally, as “Miguel.” 57 In the midst of all her uncertainty about Perry, Miguel’s impetuous marriage proposal made her feel even more disoriented. At the same time, Concha found Miguel’s confidence attractive. Much later, Concha was able to analyze and describe Miguel’s successful strategy of wooing her. She wrote: “As my readers will see, Miramón addressed me as if I were conquered territory, and as though there were complete agreement between us; this is the method he followed thereafter and it was the way I agreed to communicate with him.” Once again, Concha recognized that her own affections had grown slowly over time: “so much fidelity, so much love, so much generosity awakened in my soul a holy feeling, that based on admiration, enthusiasm, and gratitude, grew day by day and was transformed into love.” 58 Concha found Miguel’s assured conviction attractive, but his certainty that he loved Concha was beginning to undermine his own confidence in his

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professional goals and abilities. Miguel wrote to Concha that his love for her made him tired of chasing the liberal forces around the country and that he feared he might have to go into exile. This would not have happened to me before; but since I saw you again, and since I see from your letters that you love me, I long for the happy moment when I can call you my wife, and that is the cause of my annoyance and turmoil. If there is no cure for this, I beg you to send me letters more frequently and that you keep repeating what will make me happy, knowing that you love me and that you will never be anyone else’s but mine.59 Concha was not pleased to receive this letter. Her response to Miguel’s eloquence and passion was terse and detached. She remembered writing him “a somewhat cold letter that raised doubts about his love.” She also advised Miguel that if the bloody war continued, he should forget about her and go into exile.60 Concha resisted Miguel’s emotional appeals, and she continued to be apprehensive about her own reputation. She grew more irritated with Miguel. “I told him that I was displeased to know that he was telling all of his friends that he loved me and wanted to marry me, since this was imprudent on his part, since if our marriage did not take place, my reputation would be compromised.” 61 Miguel answered her in a letter he sent from San Luis Potosí: Concha, you are unfair and, more than unfair, cruel. . . . What does it matter that in Mexico, and in the world, if everyone knew that you and I have a relationship and that you are my betrothed? I am proud to say so, and I would wish that each and every one would congratulate me for this because it makes me happy. I love you, Concha, with all the power to love that is in the human heart, and that I cannot hide for one moment from your comprehension, that gives you sufficient assurance that sooner or later you will be mine; I say that with pride and I repeat that I wish everyone in the world knew it. Your fears and the doubts that assail you, in this respect, offend me, and if it is true that you love me, you should disregard them because I cannot understand love without faith. . . .

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Have faith in me, Concha, faith in the love that I profess for you and you will be able to calm the anxiety that mortifies you so, and fills you with doubts.62 Ten days later, Miguel returned to Mexico City. Early on a Wednesday morning, Miguel made a point of stopping to see Concha before he called on the president. He promised Concha that he would return in the evening for a serious talk with her. At eight o’clock that evening, Miguel kept his word, and though he spoke in earnest, once again Concha did not take him seriously. Miguel, as impetuous and confident as ever, proposed that if she loved him, they could marry before he had to leave the capital again. “Impossible!” I answered. “And when would we marry?” “Tomorrow, if you wish,” he said. “I can arrange it all in 24 hours.” “My God!” I exclaimed, laughing. “Get married tomorrow! Not even if it were Sunday!” . . . “Well, then,” he answered, “we’ll be married on Sunday.” 63 Once again Miguel had shocked Concha into speaking before she had carefully considered her words. Although she thought he was trifling and she defended herself by acting as though it were all a joke, he pressed her forward by taking her replies seriously. He immediately stood up and rang the bell, summoning her sisters: “Lupe, we’re marrying on Sunday. I’m off to inform my parents.” “That isn’t possible, Miramón,” said my sister. “There are so many things to arrange!”. . . “Do not be concerned, Lupe. Everything will be arranged.” And without listening to any other reasons that I and my sisters wanted to give him, he took his hat and departed, leaving all three of us astonished, asking ourselves if that had been a dream or reality.64 Lupe, Concha, and Merced stayed up late that night talking over Miguel’s proposal. They were concerned that there was not enough time to prepare for a wedding, but they never questioned whether Concha should marry Miguel.

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Eventually, they found themselves in agreement on a fact and a plan: it was impossible to be ready for a wedding in three days, and they intended to convince Miguel of that fact the following day. This resolution left the sisters feeling calmer, so they went to bed. While Concha and her sisters recovered from their shock, Miguel was already putting his own plan into operation. In fact, his assurance that he could have everything ready in twenty-four hours indicates that he had already discussed his intention to marry Concha with the president, Félix Zuloaga, during their meeting earlier that day. As a military officer, Miguel needed permission to marry; as the conservative government’s foremost general, that permission had to come from President Zuloaga. Miguel would also need a dispensation because in the course of his military career he had lived in many parishes in the country and it was not practical to seek written verification that he had not married, promised to marry, or taken a religious vow in every one of them. Such a procedure would certainly delay his wedding, and we know that Miguel was confident he could have everything arranged right away. To make that happen, President Zuloaga’s permission and his assistance were crucial. Zuloaga asked the archbishop to dispense with the requirement for verification that Miguel had taken no previous vows that would prevent his marriage and to dispense with the public announcements of the wedding (known as “the reading of the banns”) on the grounds that Miramón needed to leave the capital and return to his troops as soon as possible.65 The next morning, a Thursday, events quickly overtook Concha as she attempted to maintain her dignity. At ten o’clock in the morning, a parish priest arrived to take her statement as part of the premarital investigation. In her memoir, Concha stated that it was “the Priest of our Parish” who appeared at her door. That would have been the normal procedure, since weddings were usually held in the bride’s parish, but it is unlikely to be true in this case. Concha knew the priests of her own parish, San Sebastián, very well; one was her own confessor, Padre Pinzón. Concha would have remembered the name of the priest who called on her that morning if she knew him. And a priest from her own parish was more likely to know about Concha’s unfulfilled promise to marry Edward Perry. It is possible that Miguel asked one of the Sagrario Parish priests to go to Concha’s house to take her statement. President Zuloaga had promised that he would be the padrino for Miguel’s wedding, and both Zuloaga and Miramón were planning to hold the ceremony in the National Palace, across

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the street from the Sagrario Parish church. Sagrario was also the parish church for Miguel and his parents, so he may have begun the formal marital investigation by making his own declaration to one of the priests there. Whichever parish the priest was from, the procedure would have been the same, and the wording of the investigation forms in each parish was nearly identical. The bride’s section of the form began with a printed statement that she had promised before “God our Lord and the sign of the holy Cross to tell the truth in everything asked, that she had never used any other personal or family name, was a Roman Catholic and had been baptized according to the rites of the Holy Mother Church.” There were blank spaces following that where the priest would fill in her age, birthplace, the names of her parents, whether they were alive or dead, and how long she had lived in the parish. These handwritten entries were followed by a printed paragraph listing of all the reasons the church would not allow her to marry, including the existence of “a pending promise to marry some other person.” If the prospective bride could swear that none of these impediments existed, she signed the statement, or the priest would sign for her if she did not know how to write.66 Concha did not mention her promise to marry Edward Perry. She had tried to tell Perry that it was over and to return his ring, but he would neither accept his ring nor release Concha from her promise to marry him. His visits had become infrequent, though, and Concha had not seen Perry for some time. Concha wanted to believe that she was free from her promise to marry him, since Perry had not kept his promise to become Catholic. That Thursday morning, when she was confronted by a parish priest who asked if she could swear that she had no existing promise to marry anyone other than Miguel, Concha signed the statement. At least, that is the way she told the story in her memoir. She dispensed with the matter quickly, saying only, “I signed in a book he put before me, promising in that act to be the wife of General don Miguel Miramón.” 67 Even if Concha believed that she was free from her obligation to marry Edward Perry, she and her sisters were still concerned that Perry would find out about Miguel’s plan to marry Concha. We have Concha’s own words to assure us that Perry was on their minds: “Amid the many worries that my sisters and I had in those days, Perry was not a small concern.” That Thursday morning, neither Concha nor her sisters knew where Perry was. They thought he did not know about Concha’s impending marriage, but they were sure that he would create a scandal if he were to find out.68 Even though Concha and her sisters had resolved the night before to

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convince Miguel that there was not enough time to organize a wedding for Sunday, Concha quickly began to act as though there might be. She sent for the city’s finest dressmaker and asked her to make her two dresses, including a white gown for the ceremony. Concha was pleased when Mme. Celine promised to have both dresses ready by Sunday. Messengers arrived at Concha’s house with money and jewels that Miguel sent as the donas, the groom’s wedding presents to the bride.69 On Thursday evening Miguel called with his friend Nicolás Icaza to discuss wedding plans. Although Concha, Lupe, and Merced had agreed that Sunday was too soon, they found themselves discussing the location of the ceremony instead of a change of date. Miguel began with the assumption that their wedding would take place in the National Palace, because President Félix Zuloaga and his wife, doña Guadalupe Palafox, had offered to be the padrinos of the wedding. Concha replied that the National Palace was not an appropriate location. Public perception of her actions was always on her mind, and Concha did not want to go to the palace unaccompanied. Since she was an orphan, she had no father or mother to escort her there; people would think that she was going to the palace to look for her husband. Concha insisted that they had to marry either in her parish church or in her home.70 Miguel’s friend Nicolás scoffed, saying that the president could not come to her house. Concha replied, “Well, then he won’t come. He won’t be my padrino. Certainly our house is modest, but that’s all the more reason that my sisters and I should protect our dignity.” Nicolás said that she would be insulting the president, but Concha was not intimidated. “Well, then, I will not concede. Miramón will take me out of the church or my home when I am his wife, but not before.” 71 Miguel remained uncharacteristically quiet, but Concha remembered that “in his face could be seen the satisfaction that resulted from having chosen for his life’s companion a woman who had strength and will. So, turning toward me, with a sweet smile he said, ‘Well, then, we won’t go to the Palace to get married.’” They agreed to a quiet wedding in Concha’s house with no guests. Afterward, they would go to the palace for the formal celebration of Mass and the marital blessing. With the question of where to hold the wedding resolved, they had only to agree on when. They scheduled the ceremony for eight o’clock Sunday morning.72 Although Miguel and Concha resolved their differences, each still faced problems within their own families. Some of their closest relatives and friends disapproved of their plans. Concha was not the only one who was put

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off by Miguel’s insistence that they marry right away. Most of his own family felt that he was impetuously rushing into marriage without due respect either for them or for the sacrament of holy matrimony. They did not see his passion as romantic but as disorderly and even “violent.” 73 At the age of twenty-seven, Miguel did not need his father’s permission to marry. When he left Concha on Thursday night, Miguel said that he was going to “inform” his parents, not to ask their permission. On Friday evening, Miguel’s father accompanied him on a brief visit to Concha’s house to be introduced to his son’s novia. Miguel was particularly close to his mother, but neither she nor any of his siblings nor any other members of his family would agree to meet Concha before the wedding.74 Nicolás Icaza was also certain that Miguel was making a mistake. Late into the night, his friend tried to convince Miguel not to marry Concha. We do not have any record of his reasons, only that he kept Miguel awake until two o’clock in the morning trying to change his mind.75 If Nicolás had said anything negative about Concha’s character, Miguel would have taken offense, so it is likely that Nicolás focused his criticism on the abrupt timing of the wedding and perhaps also on Concha’s insistence on controlling the location of the ceremony. It was not until Saturday, the day before her wedding, that Concha finally learned why she had not seen Perry for some time. He had been detained on President Zuloaga’s orders, which alleged that Perry had hidden silver that liberals had appropriated from the cathedral in Morelia, Michoacán. When she heard the news of Perry’s arrest, Concha contacted a friend of Perry’s, a Spanish doctor named Ignacio Ameller, and asked him to take a message to Perry. Concha’s note told Perry that she was marrying “the man that heaven had destined for my husband” and that she was sorry if she had caused him pain. She also returned the ring Perry had given her. Concha credited this stroke of luck to celestial intervention. The three sisters had been worrying about Perry finding out about the wedding and causing trouble. “But as the saints themselves usually have their tricks, they locked up my Englishman, and I was able to marry in total tranquility.” 76 Later on Saturday, Concha went to her grandmother’s house to ask for her blessing and to invite her to the wedding that would take place the next morning. Her grandmother and aunts were surprised by the news of Concha’s sudden marriage. At first, they assumed that Concha had finally given in to Perry and offered consolation: “Poor girl!” They were even more shocked to learn that Concha was planning to marry a general, and a high-ranking

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conservative at that. Concha’s grandmother and aunts were all liberals, “fierce enemies of the conservatives,” so they declined her wedding invitation, but they wished her well. Since her grandmother would not attend, Concha asked her favorite teacher, doña Joaquina Bezares, the widow of the liberal former president Melchor Múzquiz, and don Francisco Elguero, an old friend of her family, to stand in for her parents at the wedding.77 Concepción Lombardo and Miguel Miramón were married that Sunday morning at eight o’clock in the house she shared with her sisters on Chiconautla Street. Bishop Joaquín Fernández de Madrid y Canal presided. President Félix Zuloaga and his wife, doña Guadalupe Palafox, stood beside the novios as their padrino and madrina. After the couple had said their vows, the entire wedding party rode in opulent coaches to the National Palace for the blessing of their marriage.78

Ch a p t er 5

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\  It was not easy for Francisco Estrada to leave his home to

pursue an education far away in the national capital. When he first traveled to Mexico City from the northern provincial city of San Luis Potosí, the trip took him ten days by coach. Francisco admitted to a degree of homesickness: “There was only one thing I missed, and that was my home, my family, my friends and relations and loved ones that I had left behind in San Luis.”1 Once he decided on a career as a medical doctor, Francisco rarely thought about what might have been. Rather than returning home during periods of vacation from classes, he chose to remain in Mexico City to keep up with his studies. Although he was away from home for long periods of time, Francisco was in the habit of writing every week to his mother and to his novia. María de Jesús Ontañón, or “Jesusita,” as he called her, was the older sister of one of his friends, and they had known each other since they were children. Francisco Estrada was not a romantic, and he did not describe what he felt for Jesusita as love. Instead, he wrote that he “had cherished for some time before such a close affinity, that had circumstances permitted, instead of going off to Mexico City to study, I would have been married.” 2 Estrada provides us with only a few clues to Jesusita’s character, but she may have been ambitious for him. In 1821, with the arrival of pro-independence forces in San Luis Potosí, the young Francisco had been moved to write some 91

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verses in favor of the cause. He showed them to Jesusita in strictest confidence, but she passed them along to General José Antonio de Echávarri, the commander of independence forces there. In a subsequent interview, General Echávarri offered to make Francisco an officer and to support his career. But when his mother disapproved, Francisco backed away from joining the army.3 Francisco’s mother played an important role in his plans for the future. His long-distance relationship with Jesusita was open to his mother’s scrutiny, since she was able to read his letters to her as well as her letters to him. Francisco thought it was appropriate that both of their mothers knew what he and Jesusita were writing to each other, so that everyone understood the two of them “had not passed the limits of decorum,” as Estrada put it.4 The letters themselves were considered prendas, tokens that expressed their serious intentions. Both his mother and her mother seemed pleased with their relationship, until the sudden death of Jesusita’s father led to a crisis. One day, hearing three women call to him from across the Plaza de Loreto, Francisco was initially surprised, pleased, and flattered to think that his mother, his novia Jesusita, and her mother had all made the long trip to Mexico City to see him. But they soon told him of the tragedy that forced them to travel. Jesusita’s mother said that her husband had died, leaving her with nothing. She had no other choice than to move in with one of her brothers, who was the priest of Tlayacapan, a village about sixty miles south of Mexico City. She and Jesusita were going there to live in order to avoid being a burden to her young sons and to escape the poverty in which her husband’s death had left her. Francisco was saddened, of course, to hear the news. Since he had never known his own father, he may have underestimated the emotional loss and financial stress that Jesusita and her mother were experiencing. In any case, the change in circumstances did not affect his own resolve to complete his education before marrying.5 Jesusita may have felt differently about the delay. She was a little more than three years older than he was, nearing the age of thirty.6 Circumstances would later indicate that she felt that time was running out for her. Jesusita and her mother departed for Tlayacapan a few days later, but Francisco’s mother stayed on with him in Mexico City for several months. She wanted to keep an eye on him and to satisfy herself that he was behaving as he ought. Since he was not returning home during term breaks, she wanted to be there for advice and consolation if the death of Jesusita’s father were to precipitate a change in Francisco’s career plans, such as postponing or

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abandoning his medical education in order to marry Jesusita. Before she left him, she persuaded her son to move into the home of someone she knew.7 Estrada wrote that he had a strong desire to be able to support those he loved, but he still had at least two years before he would complete his education. Although it seemed a long time to wait, Francisco was not willing to set aside medical school to marry Jesusita. Later on, though, he did consider suspending his studies and taking a job in a store or as a scribe in a lawyer’s office for a different reason. In his new lodgings with his mother’s friend, he was provided with food and shelter, but he still depended on money from home, which arrived only at irregular intervals. At times, he was short of cash for necessary expenditures. He began to lack money for “clothing, shoes, and even cigarettes,” as well as for the books he needed for his classes. So he began selling a few things: his watch, some silverware, other personal items. When those were gone, Francisco began to pawn his clothing, like many others in his time.8 When vacation from classes came around again, the magnificent sum of thirty pesos arrived from his mother, who hoped he would use the money to make the trip home to San Luis Potosí; but Francisco preferred to get his clothes out of hock. Then, he bought himself some boots and a new hat, while remaining in Mexico to maintain his internship in a hospital and to continue studying.9 Although he considered San Luis Potosí too far away to visit, Francisco was willing to take a few days off to see Jesusita again. As classes were about to begin again in October, Francisco received an invitation from Jesusita’s mother and uncle to visit them in Tlayacapan. Francisco welcomed the idea of a short trip to spend the last few days of vacation there. He traveled by canoe to Chalco, where he was met by a boy with a horse who showed him the way to Tlayacapan. On his arrival, Jesusita’s mother and uncle made him feel welcome, but Francisco was disappointed to find that Jesusita herself had greatly changed. Jesusita appeared unable to hide the fact that she was involved with another suitor. Francisco quickly invented the pretext of visiting Cuernavaca, which was only a few hours away. Francisco described Cuernavaca as a “paradise,” and he remained there for several days. On his return to Mexico City, he passed through Tlayacapan again to say good-bye to the family and to make sure that Jesusita understood their former relationship was ended, leaving them “just friends.”10 It may be that her mother and uncle hoped that seeing him again would rekindle their romance. Perhaps Jesusita preferred

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to break up with him in person. Or was she feigning interest in someone else to make Francisco jealous enough to marry her? In any case, Estrada remembered only disappointment and not enough of that to spoil his vacation in Cuernavaca. Years later, after he had finished his medical degree, Francisco learned from one of Jesusita’s brothers that she had married and given birth to a son, but that both her mother and her husband had died. To compound the tragedy, Jesusita’s uncle refused to support her any longer. Perhaps he had objected to her marriage, or it may be that after his sister’s death, he no longer felt that he needed to support his widowed niece and her child on a provincial cleric’s salary. In any case, Jesusita and her son made their way to Mexico City, where her three brothers were living. Hearing that Jesusita was sick with dysentery, Francisco went to see her and found her emaciated as a result of her illness. Francisco arranged for a colleague to treat her and invited her to move into his house, which he was already sharing with two of her brothers. She lived only two weeks longer. During that time she told Francisco that she regretted rejecting him. She wanted Francisco to take care of her son, even though she might have asked her own brothers. After seeing that Jesusita was properly buried, Francisco allowed the family of her late husband—the boy’s father—to take charge of Jesusita’s son. In these tragic circumstances, Francisco Estrada did not indulge in melancholic reflections on the transitory nature of life and love. Instead, he saw the situation as an opportunity that permitted him to demonstrate his generosity. Estrada even credited his good behavior for a subsequent run of good luck in gambling during the festivities that traditionally took place during the late spring in San Agustín de las Cuevas. “Experience,” he wrote, “has demonstrated that a good deed is followed by a recompense and that which I obtained this time was undoubtedly determined by Divine Providence.”11 While he was fond of Jesusita, Francisco never seemed to be in love with her. He never described her face, her thoughts, her physical appearance, or her emotions, even when her feelings apparently had turned to another suitor. As a young man, Francisco confessed to a certain amount of loneliness. He admitted that he had “cherished a close affinity” with Jesusita and that she had “special place in [his] heart” comparable to that occupied by his mother.12 Francisco might have married Jesusita if it had not been for his determination to finish his medical education. From his point of view, her father’s death did not provoke a crisis in their relationship. He was able to enjoy a pleasant visit with Jesusita and her mother as they passed through

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Mexico City. The experience appears to have changed Jesusita, though. Her mother and uncle made an effort to get the two together again. Whether Jesusita was only feigning interest in another suitor to induce Francisco to marry her we cannot tell, but Francisco’s reaction was revealing. Rather than lamenting the loss of his beloved, he hied himself off to Cuernavaca, where he enjoyed a few days in “paradise.” Then, he made sure to pass by Tlayacapan again (which is not the most direct route to Mexico City from Cuernavaca) in order to be certain that Jesusita understood that their relationship was over. That she turned to him again later, after the death of her husband and her mother, as well as her desire that he, rather than her husband’s family or her own brothers, should take charge of her young son, seem to indicate she had a long-standing emotional attachment to Francisco, one that he apparently did not share.

Time to Marry If his relationship with Jesusita had been comfortable, lacking in passion, and ultimately tragic, Francisco’s next novia provoked emotional fireworks and a muddled turmoil of quite a different sort. That was not because Francisco had become a romantic who allowed his ardor to overwhelm his reason. Instead, he was roused to attempt matrimony by the civic virtues of “the only government of ours, before or after, that ever merited the titles of enlightened, patriotic, and intelligent. That government was during the presidency of the worthy General don Anastasio Bustamante.”13 After enduring the privations of his days as a medical student and subsequent years of partial pay as an officer in the army’s medical corps, Francisco appreciated being paid his full salary, on time, by Bustamante’s government. He made some investments and earned some more income. He bought low and sold high, earning profits of 30 percent or more on maize bought in Chalco and sold in Mexico City.14 The connection between good government, regular salaries, and his prospects for marriage were closely related in Francisco’s mind. He received his pay punctually every two weeks. The government seemed stable and appeared to function well. As he neared thirty years of age, Francisco began to consider marriage again. He concluded that the financial and political signs were all auspicious, so, in his words, “I fixed my choice on a young lady, whom I got to know because I was introduced to her household by one of the officers in my brigade.”15

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Her name was Anita, but Estrada does not tell us much about her. Rather than articulating what it was that had initially attracted him to her, Estrada only described her family, which consisted of her mother, an uncle who was a friar in the Order of San Diego, two sisters, and a brother who was seven years old. His proposal was not an impulsive act but a sensible, carefully deliberated and planned action. Francisco weighed the costs and benefits of matrimony. He thought about the future. He decided to act. “After having questioned myself on the advantages and disadvantages of matrimony, after having premeditated the consequences of that determination, finally I resolved to take up this new way of living, and I proceeded to ask for the novia.”16 It was customary to say that her mother and (in this case) her uncle would think it over. After about two weeks, they gave their consent. Estrada described these proceedings as entirely rational, thoughtful, and methodical. He had little to say about courtship and provided only the most minimal evidence of his emotions at the time, and that was limited to his motive for changing his residence. Since he wanted to spend some time with his novia every day, Francisco moved in with a friend who lived closer to her home.17 Prior to deciding to marry Anita, the only variable that Francisco had not fully considered was his own mother. She had known a great deal about his relationship with his older novia, Jesusita. In fact, his mother had known Jesusita since she was a child. Francisco’s relationship with Jesusita had been long-standing and met with his mother’s approval, but Francisco seems to have kept his mother entirely in the dark about Anita. He continued writing home to his mother in San Luis Potosí, but somehow he had not gotten around to telling her about his plans to marry. When a rumor of his impending marriage reached her by some other means, she set off to find out the truth for herself—and transformed the story of his engagement from a textbook essay on home economics into a domestic soap opera. It all began one day when his mother abruptly appeared in Mexico City. She told Francisco that word of his forthcoming marriage had reached her at home, and she was upset he had not had the decency to tell her himself. Estrada tried to apologize. He temporized by saying that it was not yet an entirely resolved business, that he would not have continued, and that, in fact, he certainly would not now proceed without asking her permission. His mother was not mollified. “‘Well then,’ my respected mother said to me, ‘I am here with the object of becoming acquainted with she who would be my daughter-in-law, attending your wedding, and saying a final goodbye

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to you, since I think that once you have your career and your marriage in Mexico City, you will never return to San Luis.’” 18 Her mood was not improved the next day. As she was trying to tidy up his guest room and, in the process, moving the furniture around, she opened a trunk to find a disarticulated human skeleton that Francisco had studied as part of his medical education. She ran from the room frightened and in tears to tell him that she was leaving. Francisco proposed that he could remove the box of old bones instead, but she paid no attention to his supplications. She left in a rage. Francisco found himself alone and full of regret. He tried to improve the situation with a bit of deception; he suggested to Anita and her mother that his mother would pay them a visit and that it was his mother’s idea. They respond with appropriate pleasantries, but his mother would not go along with this arrangement because, since he had done the inviting, she maintained that they should come to visit her. He tried to avoid this conundrum by making excuses to each mother that the other was ill. Both women knew Francisco was lying. Meanwhile, the news reached Francisco’s mother that her son had already served as godfather to the illegitimate son of one of Anita’s sisters. Francisco admitted this was “an undeniable fact,” but he insisted that those who were repeating the gossip had added other, untrue stories that created a bad impression of Anita. His mother reminded him that he was old enough to marry without her permission but that she was opposed to this marriage, and if he did marry Anita, he should do her the favor of never bringing his wife near her.19 Estrada described himself as “indecisive and vacillating” about whether to respect his mother’s wishes or to follow his own inclination to marry Anita, to whom he had given his promise. His mother relented somewhat, and as she prepared to return to San Luis Potosí, she softened her attitude: “Her departure was as might be expected of a mother who loved me so much, reproving my marriage without denying me her permission and giving me advice and benedictions. Unfortunately, I lacked the backbone to tell her that I would refrain from my intention, because I did not yet have the strength to make such a resolution.” 20 Francisco remained “sad and pensive” for some time after his mother’s departure, and in the end, it was Anita’s mother who resolved the situation. Meeting alone with Francisco, she reproached him with such vehemence that he could not repress his emotions; he responded so emphatically to her criticism that she told him he no longer had her permission to marry Anita.

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Furthermore, he must stop visiting her to avoid giving the neighbors something to gossip about. Francisco picked up his hat and got out of there. He was angry and ashamed; but he tried to console himself with the thought that at least the issue was now resolved. That didn’t work. His thoughts and emotions continued to torment him. “It was a struggle between reason and passion; between judgment and self esteem; between the head and the heart.”21 Francisco gradually recovered from his encounter with these two tempestuous mothers. He calmed down and began to enjoy going to parties and dances with his friends again. Then, one day, he saw Anita with another officer, and he admitted to feeling jealous and agitated all over again.22 His treatments of choice were distance, time, and his mother’s affection. Francisco asked for an extended leave of absence to go home to San Luis Potosí, and since the Bustamante administration was so orderly, he had to wait only four days for the approval. “My family did not even remotely expect to see me, they were surprised, and my mother was very pleased when I told her that I had decided not to go through with my plans because I did not want to displease her by marrying against her will. A lie!!” 23

A Whirlwind Courtship After several months at home with his mother in San Luis Potosí, Francisco returned to Mexico City, where he took up residence in the Ciudadela, the fortress in the southwestern part of the city where his brigade was posted. As an officer, he was permitted to live in one of the apartments there with his captain, his wife, and their young son. Francisco had given up on the idea of marrying Anita, but he was still committed to the concept of matrimony. His previous reasoning was still compelling. The government was stable; he had a good job and steady income. All he was lacking was a suitable candidate for the role of his bride. As he put it: “My heart was empty, and marriage was for me more than a simple desire, but a necessity for reasons of conscience and convenience.” 24 Estrada had elaborated on what he meant by convenience; his motivations of conscience may become clearer as we examine the outline of his third, final, and ultimately successful attempt to commit matrimony. Francisco met his future wife, María Luisa Murguía, when she, her mother, and her sister paid a visit to the household where Francisco was living. Over the next few months, as calls were made back and forth between the Murguías and Francisco’s captain’s family, Francisco and Luisita were

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able to spend some time together. It was not long before Francisco told Luisa of his desire to marry her, and when she consented, he proceeded to ask her parents for permission through the mediation of his captain and another friend of Luisa’s father.25 Theirs was a whirlwind courtship. Francisco had met Luisa during the holiday festivities in December 1831, and he asked her to marry him about three months later, in March 1832. This time, his mother was most notable by her absence. In his autobiography Estrada made no reference at all to his mother during this period. He did not say that he informed her of his plans nor that he asked her permission. It is probable that he was more careful about his mother’s feelings this time. Since his mother did not appear in his recollections as one of the obstacles delaying this marriage, we can assume that he managed to avoid further affronts to and confrontations with her. She apparently did not attend the wedding, but she was warm and welcoming when Francisco finally took his wife home to visit her in San Luis Potosí almost two years later.26 Although their plans moved quickly, Estrada’s recollections of their engagement focus on the obstacles to their marriage. Some of the delays were procedural; they involved regulations of both the army and the church. Soldiers were required to have permission before they could marry. His superior officer, in whose home he met his novia, may also have helped to expedite the paper work. The church normally required that prospective marriages be announced on three successive Sundays or feast days, so that anyone who knew of reasons why the marriage should not take place would have time to inform the parish priest of their objections. If both the bride and the groom were residents of the same parish, this was a relatively simple matter. It became more complicated when either of the novios was not a longterm resident or had moved about prior to the promise of marriage. Parish clergy were required to verify that nonresident novios had not taken a vow of celibacy or had not married, or promised to marry, someone else in any of the parishes where they had resided in the past.27 Estrada commented on the complication of these regulations and the expenditures they made necessary, but these were not the principal source of his concern. Indeed, the parish archive indicates that in this case the regulations were avoided rather than strictly enforced. Although his original baptismal registration in San Luis Potosí listed him as the child of unknown parents, the wedding register recorded him as the son of don Ignacio Estrada and doña María Josefa Agosti. Furthermore, the marital register described

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him as originally “from San Luis Potosí and a resident of this parish [that is, San José in Mexico City] since childhood,” even though he was twenty-three years old when he arrived in Mexico City for the first time. Francisco had lived most of his life, and all of his childhood, with his mother in San Luis Potosí. In addition, he had lived independently for a while in the city of Zacatecas.28 Francisco largely avoided the complications of ecclesiastical requirements, but his occupation in the military threatened to derail his plans in two ways: through the ordinary operations of military discipline and as the consequence of his own high jinks. With only a week left before the wedding, Francisco was ordered to depart for Veracruz as part of a government operation directed against Antonio López de Santa Anna, who had rebelled earlier in the year. Francisco knew that if he obeyed the order, his wedding could not take place, so he asked that his deployment be delayed. The director of the medical corps agreed to relieve him on the condition that Francisco, once he was married, promise to go wherever he was sent. Francisco readily agreed, and that particular difficulty was quickly resolved.29 The other complication was more protracted. During Carnival earlier that year, Francisco and his friends had attended a costume party. They were all disguised as Moors, wearing robes, turbans, and masks. On returning from the party after two o’clock in the morning, they found themselves locked out of the Ciudadela. The gates were closed every night at ten, and the government had given orders to be on guard against a potential revolt in the city in support of Santa Anna’s movement in Veracruz, so the fortress was being carefully watched. When they were refused entrance at the gate, one of the more intrepid (or inebriated) among them decided to sneak in by scaling the parapets, and the rest followed, still wearing their robes, turbans, and masks. They were discovered, arrested, and charged “on suspicion of the crime of assaulting the fortress surreptitiously and at such an improper hour.” However comical the situation might have appeared in retrospect, Francisco feared that he and his friends could be sent to the military prison in Perote for a long time. Yet the threat of that potential punishment was not sufficient to convince Francisco to exercise more self-control. Instead, he tried to conceal his arrest from Luisita and her family. Although he had been confined to quarters, he would sneak out to see her, concerned that they would begin to ask questions if he stopped visiting. In the end, the commanding general was convinced that there was nothing serious about the alleged “assault,” and the charges were dropped.30

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Francisco Javier Estrada and María Luisa Murguía were married in the parish church of San José in Mexico City on 2 June 1832, with Captain don Atilano Carrera and the bride’s mother, doña Guadalupe Mojica de Murguía, as their padrino and madrina. Francisco was thirty years old, and Luisa was sixteen, according to the parish register.31 After the ceremony, they spent the day in a garden in San Cosme. Soon afterward, Francisco moved into his wife’s family home “because her parents recommended it, thus beginning my new life as a married man in the company of family.” 32 Like many of their contemporaries, Francisco and Luisita may have regarded a promise to marry as license to initiate their sexual relationship. Prior to the wedding, Francisco passed some anxious moments, fearing that his marriage to Luisita might be delayed by bureaucratic requirements or the consequences of his own carousing at Carnival time. Perhaps this explains what Estrada meant when he wrote that “marriage was for me more than a simple desire, but a necessity for reasons of conscience and convenience.”33 That her pregnancy would soon become evident explains Francisco’s anxiety about the delays in his plans to marry her, despite the fact that the courtship was really rather rapid. They met in December, were formally engaged in March, married in June, and welcomed their first child into the world seven months later, only a little more than a year after their first meeting.34

Love at First Sight Guillermo Prieto fell in love while strolling through Mexico City on a holiday in May 1834. He wandered through streets that were filled with people of all sorts: parents and their children carrying kites and popcorn; ambulatory vendors of tamales, toasted garbanzos, candy, and other snacks; strolling musicians with guitars and concertinas; and any number of other young men, like Guillermo, who were wearing their best clothes and on the lookout for pretty girls. Rambling down a street just south of the Alameda Central, Guillermo was gawking and looking all around when his eyes were drawn to one of the balconies above a bakery. There a girl was watching the merriment in the street and describing it to a large doll she held in her arms. Guillermo couldn’t stop looking at her. As he continued to walk forward, not looking where he was going, he swayed, lost his balance, threw his arms up, and fell down in the

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street as the loose pages of his French grammar text drifted down around him. Embarrassed and irritated, he looked up and saw the girl on the balcony laughing with what he remembered as such innocent pleasure that he could not be angry. With the greatest composure he could manage, he gathered the leaves of his book and put them in order, all to the girl’s amusement. As he continued on his way, Guillermo recalled, he felt profoundly transformed and sincerely happy.35 More than half a century later, Prieto remembered the first time he ever saw the girl who would become his wife: In that year of 1834 I met my idolized María, the María of my soul. . . . It was like a vision for me; I saw her like that star above the sea that calmed the wind above the rocks, that Victor Hugo speaks of. Everything I felt in my soul that was luminous, tender, fragrant and holy found form in the physiognomy of that girl. . . . on whose name now after fifty years fall my tears, my benedictions, and my kisses.36 In the following days, the young Guillermo attempted to get María’s attention a second time, but in a less spectacular manner. His efforts were frustrated by the employees of her father’s bakery, whom he described as “jealous dogs guarding the door.” Guillermo soon abandoned the attempt to speak to María in person. He came to the conclusion that the best way to tell her all that he needed to say would be to write a letter. Prieto later described his adolescent style as highly romantic and ornate: “My readings in the Bible, my naive admiration for the mystics, my passion for the style of [José María de] Heredia, made my own writing so parabolic, so exaggerated and conspicuous, that I am embarrassed to remember that first letter.”37 Once it was written, he waited until the bakery closed. Then, standing beneath her balcony, he asked that she drop him a string so he could send up his letter. His courtship of María had begun. As soon as her father noticed Guillermo, he took the family away to the countryside to live on their hacienda, calling Prieto “a ragged little poet who would die in a hospital with a plate on his stomach.” 38 It was natural that María’s father disapproved. His daughter was fourteen years old, and his description of Guillermo’s condition was accurate, even if his prognosis for the location and circumstances

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Figure 5.1.  Corpus Christi Street on the southern side of the Alameda, where Guillermo Prieto fell in love with María de los Ángeles Caso when he saw her standing on the balcony above her father’s bakery. Manuel Rivera Cambas, México pintoresco, artístico y monumental (Mexico City: Imprenta de la Reforma, 1880). General Research Division, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundations.

of his eventual demise was not. Guillermo was an unsuitable suitor: unknown, orphaned, poor, without prospects, and only sixteen years old. At birth, Guillermo Prieto’s future had appeared more promising. His own father, don José María Prieto Gamboa, had been the administrator of the Molino del Rey (the King’s Mill) and its bakery. He had seen to it that his son had a good education, but Guillermo’s school days had ended at about the age of thirteen, when his father died. His mother soon lost her wits, unable to bear the strain of her husband’s death, leaving the young Guillermo Prieto functionally orphaned. He worked for a while as a clerk in a clothing store but found the job dull. Looking for intellectual stimulation, he discovered that he could write sonnets. Guillermo’s talent as a poet gave him great satisfaction but no income. Unable to support himself, his mother, and a younger brother on his paltry earnings from the store, Guillermo took the first of several extravagant steps that engaged his facility with language to improve his finances and advance his career.

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At the age of fourteen, Guillermo found his way to the home of don Andrés Quintana Roo, the illustrious hero of Mexico’s independence era. By pretending to have business there, Guillermo slipped up the stairs and knocked on the door of the study. When Quintana Roo asked why he was there, Guillermo described his desperate circumstances. Quintana Roo responded in the same way that any charitable gentleman of his time would have: he put some money in young Guillermo’s hands. But Guillermo was anything but the typical pauper. Disdaining Quintana Roo’s charity, Prieto recalled that he had dropped that handful of coins on the floor, with the words “Señor, do not do this to me. I was looking for a father; I wanted a protector who would guide me, and would assist me, and would make me appreciated, wise, and loved as you are. And you treat me like a beggar. Are you a bad man?” 39 Evidently Quintana Roo was not a bad man; he found Guillermo a job in a government office and enrolled him at his own expense in the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán. Two years later Guillermo first saw María standing on her balcony. Although he was still working to take care of his mother and his brother while going to school, he also found time to compose love letters and poems for María. After his first conspicuous delivery using a string dropped from her balcony, Guillermo employed a method that was more subtle and less likely to be noticed. He applied what small sums he could afford to bribing water carriers to sneak his missives into her house, where they were delivered by a maid who was willing to keep María’s correspondence a secret from her father.40 In this way, Guillermo was able to evade her father, elude the suspicious employees of the bakery, and avoid their nosy neighbors. María’s father regarded Guillermo as a nuisance who threatened his daughter’s reputation. Since the neighbors were always eager for gossip and hints of a scandal, her father and his employees tried to keep Guillermo away from María. Guillermo kept writing letters and poems, and he felt encouraged when María gazed at him meaningfully from her balcony. “Who can express the magic / that is hidden in your sadness?” he wrote.41 Two poems inspired by his love for María were published in a periodical entitled El Recreo de las Familias (Family Recreation).42 Prieto’s poetry seems to have pleased María; to be able publicly, though discretely, to express his love for her must have given Guillermo a great deal of satisfaction. Up to this time, Guillermo had only been able to admire María from afar, and he never mentioned receiving a written response from her. It seems unlikely that she was able to reply to his messages in words that were as

Figure 5.2.  Portrait of Andrés Quintana Roo. Manuel Rivera Cambas, Los gobernantes

de México: Galería de biografías y retratos de los vireyes, emperadores, presidentes y otros gobernantes que ha tenido México, desde don Hernando Cortes hasta el C. Benito Juárez (Mexico City: J. M. Aguilar Ortiz, 1872–1873). On the basis of the style of his jacket and hair, Clare Sauro has dated this portrait to ca. 1818 and not later than 1825 (personal communication 24 January 2018). That would be at least seven years before Guillermo Prieto met him.

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expressive and articulate as his. Guillermo was a literary prodigy, but María’s ability to express herself in writing was certainly more cursory.43 As the daughter of a wealthy man, María had been instructed at home by tutors who imparted the rudiments of reading and writing and especially those skills considered suitable to young ladies. She learned to embroider and to play the piano, though not well. Much later, Prieto wrote that when María and her sisters sat down at the piano, the result was a “tunelessness that imitated the sound of gargling with exquisite precision.” 44 After three years dedicated to his work and his studies at the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán, Guillermo earned an invitation to speak at the school’s annual academic honors ceremony, which was always attended by numerous distinguished guests. Prieto remembered that he gave a scandalous speech attacking the government, the administration, the clergy, and anyone else who came to mind while waving his arms about and moving back and forth on the podium like a madman.45 The “Ode” that Prieto wrote for the occasion and recited that day was published in a volume commemorating the event. It is an exuberant lyric poem extolling Mexico, praising science, castigating Spanish colonial rule as an abyss of three hundred years of ignorance under an abominable throne, and so on. Prieto’s final lines called on the government to support scholarship and exhorted the students to achieve enduring brilliance for their country and their school.46 Prieto described his audience as curious at first, but by the time he was finished, some were hostile and others were barely able to suppress their laughter, while his teachers were dumbfounded. Shortly after he stepped away from the rostrum, Mexico City’s chief of police approached Guillermo with a message: he was ordered to see Mexico’s president the next day at dusk. Rather than taking this as an ominous gesture, Guillermo was thrilled that the president had noticed him, but he quickly turned his thoughts to his beloved and the problem of her father’s persistent refusal to recognize him as María’s suitor. As it turned out, Guillermo’s optimism was warranted. Despite President Anastasio Bustamante’s reputation as a conservative authoritarian, he took a personal interest in Guillermo Prieto and arranged for him to start a better job as an editor of the government’s official newspaper.47 Prieto was eventually to distinguish himself as a one of the century’s most important liberal statesmen, but during his adolescence he was not much interested in politics. Prieto’s first patron, Andrés Quintana Roo, was a hero of the independence movement against Spain, but Guillermo was also able,

Men Remembering Romance (and Other Reasons to Marry) 107 Figure 5.3.  Portrait of Anastasio Bustamante. Manuel Rivera Cambas, Los gobernantes de México: Galería de biografías y retratos de los vireyes, emperadores, presidentes y otros gobernantes que ha tenido México, desde don Hernando Cortes hasta el C. Benito Juárez (Mexico City: J. M. Aguilar Ortiz, 1872–1873). On the basis of the style of his hair, Clare Sauro dates this portrait from the 1830s, about the time Guillermo Prieto met him (personal communication, 24 January 2018).

with effortless ease, to accept the patronage of Anastasio Bustamante, a man who had despised the insurgents, had fought against them, and had risen to power through his position in the military. Guillermo set politics aside and drew a distinction between Anastasio Bustamante the president and Anastasio Bustamante the gentleman. The president, Prieto said, had no political convictions but admired the Spanish. President Bustamante was unable to comprehend moral questions and only followed the advice of those around him, overlooking real atrocities while thinking he could use military force to attain peace and the rule of law. In Prieto’s words: “This is why the Bustamante administration was bloody and justifiably hated, while examining the private man, he was friendly, straightforward, without hatreds or bastard aspirations, without cruel instincts, and without the desire to hurt anyone personally.” 48 As he became better acquainted with Anastasio Bustamante the gentleman, the young Guillermo confided his secrets to him; he described his love for María and his years of humiliation by her father and his employees.

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Speaking casually with Bustamante one day, Guillermo told him how he had worn out the pavement pacing back and forth in front of the bakery through all sorts of weather, putting up with the mockery of cashiers and shopkeepers and enduring the nosy and discourteous neighbors, and how, for pittances, he had wheedled favors from water carriers to smuggle his messages into María’s house. Guillermo vented that he wanted to show them all: he imagined arriving at the bakery in the presidential coach; he would stand face-toface with María’s father; he would threaten to kill the man if he would not consent to let him marry his daughter. Bustamante appreciated the extravagance of Guillermo’s adolescent fantasy. Smiling broadly and rising from his chair, the president told Guillermo that first thing the next morning, the presidential coach would be ready for him.49 The opulent coach, with its uniformed driver and liveried attendants, did transport the young Guillermo to María’s home the next morning, but lacking the nerve to confront her father in person, Guillermo instead sent one of the footmen in to give him a brusque note he had written in pencil on a scrap of paper: “Señor Caso: I wish to marry your daughter as soon as possible. Advise me whether or not you continue in your opposition so that I may take appropriate measures.” 50 Prieto recalled that María’s father appeared dumbfounded and that she had smiled at him from behind her father’s back. María’s father asked for time to consider the matter, and Prieto described what seemed to him like a succession of scenes from Juan de Grimaldi’s popular contemporary romantic comedy, Love Conquers All.51 Her father consulted the priest and sought advice from respectable friends and sympathetic elders. They considered sending María to a convent or on a spiritual retreat. Finally, they decided that Guillermo would be allowed to visit the house once a week.52 Parental permission to visit the house marked a significant concession for the young man: Guillermo was no longer a pretendiente, a “pretender,” whom María’s father tried to keep at a distance, but was now officially designated as María’s novio. With formal access to his novia’s home, Guillermo would need new clothes to call on his beloved. He consulted the dandies he knew for suggestions on how to improve his appearance on his constrained budget. He purchased a fancy dickey, a sham shirt that consisted of only a collar and shirtfront made of fine linen; this was fastened about the waist with a cord and worn under a jacket to give the impression that he was wearing an expensive shirt. Guillermo had always been careful with his money, so he saved this concession to what he called “imitation elegance” only for those

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moments when he was actually in María’s house. On his way there, walking through Mexico City’s dirty and congested streets, he carried his dickey in his hat, along with his handkerchief. As he neared her house, he would duck into a doorway to don his elegant collar and shirtfront. Prieto regarded the whole exercise in creating a better appearance as a betrayal of his own character: “For me, everything that is false, everything artificial, everything affected and pretentious has been not only repellant, but impossible.”53 The household that Guillermo visited was quiet and well ordered. He described María as “modest, timid, and someone who was alarmed by the fall of a rose petal.” In contrast, he regarded himself as a disruptive influence, a disputatious and willful character with ungovernable manners who chattered about literature and the trivia of political life. His visits to her home were exercises in ceremony interrupted by his frequently embarrassing attempts at self-control. Guillermo sensed that María’s father regarded him with “surpassing antipathy that he concealed with perfect decorum.” 54 But through his persistence and his willingness to endure these exceedingly awkward social situations just to be near his beloved, Guillermo gradually gained the concession of a visit every third night. The pattern repeated itself week after week for years. His arrival at eight o’clock in the evening was customary, as was the table where he sat with María, her father, and their other guests to play cards, to drink anisette or wine, and to make conversation about whom Fortune was favoring and who was playing badly. Prieto never liked card games; he did not understand the rules, and he was unlucky, but he said that he would have endured torture for a smile, a few words, or a glance from his María. One night, he experienced one of his typical bouts of absent-mindedness: he had forgotten to put on his sham shirt and had entered the house wearing only his regular, everyday garb, but this mistake had attracted no comment from the family. Those playing cards and those watching them had fallen silent, pending the outcome of the hand, when Guillermo felt himself about to sneeze. He reached for his handkerchief, but it was not there. He ran for his hat and returned to the table clearing his nose on his sham shirt, thinking it was his handkerchief. He noticed that everyone was looking at him, but he continued blowing his nose into his shirtfront. He observed that María’s face had turned bright red, and he did not know why. Then he found something like a cord, and a puzzled expression came over his face. The others erupted in laughter.

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Suddenly understanding his situation, Guillermo announced that he would recite a bit of verse that he had learned from a Spanish grocer in a similar situation: The cause of this and other ills, I tell you with all confidence, Is not a lack of intelligence: It’s a deficiency of currency. When Guillermo completed his recitation, María’s father threw his arms around him in a surprising demonstration of paternal affection, while the others applauded and María hid her face in her hands.55 From that moment on, Prieto’s relationship with María—and with her father—proceeded smoothly. One Tuesday morning in October 1840, Guillermo Prieto and María de los Ángeles Caso were married. According to the parochial register, Guillermo was twenty-two years old, and María was twenty. They said their vows in her father’s house above the bakery on Corpus Christi Street, where Prieto had first seen María on the balcony a little more than six years before.56 Guillermo Prieto wrote his memoirs when he was an old man, but he wrote love stories when he was young. Decades after the first time he saw her, Prieto wrote down how he had fallen in love with María. He recalled how he had courted her patiently until her father finally consented to their marriage. So it appears that his love story had a happy ending. Yet the fiction that Guillermo wrote during the first years of his marriage to María told stories that were not as optimistic about the prospects for marital happiness after similar experiences of falling in love. Not one of his fictional narratives of love at first sight ended in a happy marriage. Was Guillermo Prieto telling the truth when he wrote his memoirs later in life, or were the stories he wrote when he was just married closer to the truth?

Figure 5.4.  Portrait of Guillermo Prieto, circa 1857. Library of Congress. If the dating of this portrait is correct, this would be about twenty years after Prieto published his first romantic fiction and poetry. Given Prieto’s proclivity not to care about his appearance, though, the photograph may actually have been taken some years later (Clare Sauro, personal communication, 7 July 2017).

Ch a p t er 6

Inventing Love Stories An artist is usually a damned liar, but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day. And that is all that matters. . . . Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. —D. H. Lawrence

.

\  “Love’s a Farce” was one of the first stories that Guillermo

Prieto published. It appeared in the daily newspaper El Siglo Diez y Nueve when Prieto had just turned twenty-four years old and had been married for only sixteen months.1 The narrative drew on Prieto’s own experiences as an impoverished young man who needed to present a good appearance without spending a lot of money. The main character was Alejandro, a poor office worker who wanted to appear to be a fine young gentleman. Although Prieto remembered his own aversion to what he called “imitation elegance,” he may have employed some of these same techniques himself to hide defects in his clothing and accessories: “The office supplied him with the ink to refurbish his boots and the paper for his love letters; an iron was the remedy for his hat; a brush and turpentine rejuvenated his trousers and frock coat, and half a dozen collars and cuffs for false shirts covered his interior.” 2 Alejandro fell in love with Juliana instantly. When he first saw her at a party, Juliana agreed to dance with him, and after some persuasion, she consented to meet him the next morning. She suggested the eight o’clock Mass in the church of San Francisco, because it was shorter. There, Alejandro gave

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Juliana the letter he had written expressing his love for her. Like the first note that Guillermo Prieto wrote to his María, Alejandro’s message was a mixture of clumsy enthusiasm and romantic clichés: Beautiful Young Lady: I love you because Cupid threw a harpoon at me, and a terrible panic has taken hold of me. My intentions are pure, and on these three letters my destiny depends: yes, a yes from your lips would make me blessed, and moreover happy. No, señorita, no, dear Julianita, do not reply no, that would be so bitter; and don’t return to San Francisco; and tell me your address: my hand trembles; I feel cold sweat on my forehead and my eyes are clouded with tears . . . Meet me in the Alameda; by the fountain in the middle seems better to me. Do I take a big risk in demanding a lock of your delicate hair? . . . Send it in your reply . . . Goodbye. Yours until death and with all due respect, I kiss your feet. . . . You know who.3 Alejandro did not realize that Juliana was also deceiving him; she was not who she pretended to be, either. One day, Alejandro and Juliana happened upon a mutual acquaintance who knew each of them as they really were, rather than as who they were pretending to be. He destroyed their illusions about each other in an instant. Alejandro was bitterly disappointed to discover that Juliana was not the shy young lady he had imagined. Instead, she was a chorus girl who had borrowed her fine dresses. She had misled him, but he had been posing as a young gentleman when he was only an intern who worked in an office. Their common acquaintance remarked: “What a pair, the chorus girl and the office boy! You ought to thank me; it’s better this way. I’ve seen wretched marriages, those of convenience, in which each partner is seduced solely by appearances, and they have had nothing afterwards but misery, disillusionment, and kids who curse the farce that gave them life.” 4 Their friend walked away muttering, ending the story with the aphorism “Caras vemos, corazones no conocemos” (Faces we can see, but hearts we don’t understand).5 About the same time, Guillermo Prieto wrote several other stories that explored what happens when a young man falls in love at first sight. The best of these, called “Manuelita,” is a magnificent melodrama that combines infatuation, romance, courtship, insanity, marriage, and finally, of course,

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death.6 As the story began, the author and a group of friends were sitting around smoking and talking while awaiting a traveler named Miguel Enríquez. When he arrived, Miguel was uncharacteristically melancholic; from time to time, he mentioned the name Manuelita. Eventually, his friends persuaded Miguel Enríquez to tell them his story. Miguel confessed that he was always on the lookout for a pretty girl, but before he even saw her face, Miguel was profoundly affected by Manuelita’s presence. His first fleeting glimpse of her was like something out of a fantasy or a dream. He tried to follow, to speak to her, but he could see only her shadow on the wall, and he was thwarted by “the energetic sound of some boots that were connected to some feet that served as the base for a large man,” whom he assumed to be her husband.7 The next morning at dawn, when he finally saw Manuelita’s face for the first time, Miguel was transfixed and awed. He quoted two lines from a romantic poem that his group of friends would have recognized: Bella como el lucero refulgente, fin de la noche y precursor del alba8 (Beautiful as the radiant morning star, end of the night and precursor of the dawn) Decades later, while writing his memoir, Prieto employed a similar verse from Victor Hugo to describe his own reaction to seeing his beloved María for the first time. Here Prieto had his main character, Miguel, quote from a poem by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, one of the first authors to introduce romanticism to Spanish literature.9 As Miguel continued his story, he related his thoughts and emotions at that moment: “She was the realization of the ideas about beauty that Raphael would have had before producing his virgins. How beautiful she was! Her face was as peaceful as those of the angels they paint contemplating the newborn Jesus, her large eyes with extremely long lashes whose shadow fell on her cheeks like the willow above the crystal stream, . . . I was immobilized, as in the ecstasy of a saint who sees God from the Earth.”10 She was accompanied by the same large man, who on closer examination appeared to be English. When she and the Englishman departed in a coach, Miguel rode off rapidly in pursuit. He thought that he saw her waving a handkerchief out the window and imagined that it was her signal to him. His horse was unable to keep up the pace, but Miguel refused to slow down.

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When that horse died of exhaustion, he bought another and continued his pursuit. Miguel arrived in San Juan del Río to find that the coach had gone on to Querétaro. He followed and asked everywhere but was frustrated in his attempts to find signs of her in the larger town. He kept traveling north, asking everyone he met if they had seen a beautiful girl with an ugly foreigner. One night, he stopped in an out-of-the-way inn where none of the better accommodations on the upper floors were available; he had to accept a miserable ground-floor room that had “an exquisite collection of insects for those who love natural history and those who do not.” When he spotted the Englishman eating alone in the dining room, Miguel began to search the floors above. “I went up the stairs: the night was very dark, a ray of light came from one of the rooms; it was her room, and I saw her . . . alone leaning on her table, as lovely as an effigy of an angel that guards the tombs, white as the lily of the forest, melancholic as the mountain iris.” 11 Miguel quickly invented an excuse to speak to her. Kneeling, he said, “Here at your feet, I swear we should unite our fates. You are unfortunate; I want misfortune, death, hell.”12 Then they heard her husband’s footsteps approaching. She begged him to leave. The next morning, as the melancholic angel and the ugly Englishman departed, she dropped a scrap of paper on which was written in faint handwriting only the words “Road to Aguascalientes.” So he followed, out of sight. When he arrived in that city, there was no sign of them; they had disappeared in the crowds. He walked all over, looking for her. Later, on entering the Alameda Park, he heard: “In the morning, at four, road to Zacatecas.” It was her sad voice, but Miguel did not see her. She met him outside the city on the road to Zacatecas early in the morning. After a few preliminary pleasantries about the weather and the ruggedness of the road, she was eager to tell him her story: “There is no time to lose,” she said. “I am going to disillusion you of your self-centered mistake, because I am determined to do so. You only fool yourself if you think that our conversation is amorous . . .” Miguel interrupted to ask, “Who is that man? What is your name?” But she continued: “You are going to know everything; you will abhor me, and in spite of that, if I didn’t tell you my secret, it would aggravate my adversity like a hair that impedes the closing of a wound.”13 She said her name was Manuela, and she had been born to poor parents in a town near Guadalajara. She was approaching adulthood and was in love with Julio when her father died. Her mother had agreed to respect Manuela’s

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and Julio’s love for each another, but her mother feared that like her husband she, too, would die soon. So the mother told Julio that it was time for him to step up and take responsibility for Manuela. But Julio refused to marry Manuela, not because he didn’t love her, but because he was too poor. Manuelita’s mother would not allow Julio to see her anymore, saying that to do so would damage Manuelita’s reputation. Julio answered with a long, ardent speech on why marriage must be based, not on passion, but on a sound economic base. Many think that love will be enough to sustain them, he said, when “a wretched woman and a hungry generation curse them afterwards.”14 Soon afterward, Manuela and her mother moved to the city of Guadalajara, where Manuela sewed to earn money. One day, an Englishman named Kildar asked her to make him two shirts. When she had done so, he overpaid her with two ounces of gold. Manuela wanted to refuse his gift, but her mother insisted that they needed the money for the medicine that would prolong her life a little longer. Manuela hated the kindness of Kildar, and she knew that he was gaining power over her: “He was one of those men who, with his sacrifices, with his mastery, with his favors, provokes a sterile gratitude that makes the mind try hard to love him; but the heart hates him, and then the favors are annoying, the thoughtfulness is harassment, every benefit is an insult, every connection is an unbearable chain; there are caresses that sicken and do damage. . . . “Little by little this silent man, this insuperable character, was making himself superior to me. I hated his orders, but I obeyed them. His gaze was as fascinating as a serpent’s; it made me submit to his will. “My mother was dying, he watched over her, he paid for her doctors, he took care of the most minute matters scrupulously. I abhorred him.”15 Manuela’s mother was grateful to the Englishman, and when he asked to marry Manuela, she gave Kildar her permission. Kildar never asked Manuela herself if she wanted to marry him. He simply gave her a bundle of clothes and told her to get ready. Once they were married, he immediately went away on what was expected to be a long business trip. That same evening Manuela heard Julio’s voice as he passed by in

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the street, humming his favorite song. Her mother received Julio’s note the following morning: he was ready to marry Manuela. Manuela was horrified, but her mother reminded her of her duty. Manuela said, “To fool myself, I resorted to religion and my hypocritical lips mixed into my prayers a criminal name.” When Julio went to work in Kildar’s business, Manuelita treated him with apparent disdain whenever he visited the house, so her mother suspected nothing. Neither did Kildar’s agent, who also stopped by frequently to check on Manuela and her mother. Manuela begged Julio to stay away, but he refused, saying that “if God would not bless their union, Hell will.”16 While Kildar was still traveling, Manuela gave birth to Julio’s son, but their child did not live long. In a terrible storm, Manuela hallucinated: she saw Kildar’s face outside her window. Believing she was shielding her baby from Kildar, she accidentally suffocated the infant in her delirium. Two days later, she received a note from Kildar telling her to prepare to depart for Mexico City. Since then, they had been on the road, and he had never said a word to her. When she ended her story, she galloped off, leaving Miguel stunned. After a moment of silence, Miguel’s friends asked why he didn’t continue the story. Because there was nothing more to tell, he responded. Did he learn anything about Manuela’s mother in Guadalajara? “Nothing, absolutely nothing.” “Well, señor, let’s talk about something else, because we’ve wasted enough time.”17 In the epilogue to the story, the original narrator told his readers of his own experience traveling to some remote mountains to inspect a mining operation. In casual conversation, he heard of a recent tragedy and realized that Kildar, Julio, and Manuela had all died there after a violent struggle.

Home Economics Of the dozens of love stories that were published during this period, only a few suppose that love at first sight might lead, if not to lasting happiness, then at least to a tolerable marriage. One of them is “The Thrifty Wife,” by an unknown author.18 The first chapter begins with a conversation between two men: Juan

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and his friend, the story’s narrator. Juan could not imagine why his friend had not found a suitable mate: after all, he was a good-looking young man, thirty years old, with a seat in Congress and a salary of 3,000 pesos a year. The narrator was a practical character, a man who seemed unlikely to be taken to extravagant flights of emotional excess by a woman’s physical appearance. He answered each of Juan’s questions about his love life with reflections on his own financial situation and consumer preferences. Congressional deputies were on half salaries because of the government’s fiscal problems. If he were no longer in Congress, he would make only about that much as a lawyer. Even if he could find a rich girl who was Mexican rather than Spanish, he wouldn’t want people to gossip that he had married for money, as they were prone to do. He said that he had met plenty of pretty and pleasant girls, but he didn’t like the way they presented themselves; too much flouncing and sashaying for this practical man. He was beginning to lose hope that he would ever find someone to his liking, even in a city of 200,000 people, especially when he considered the way women waste money every day: “Even the wives of artisans present themselves in public with astonishing extravagance that makes me suspect that either their husbands are not very suspicious, or that they necessarily find themselves so overwhelmed by debts and frauds that they will end up in prison.”19 Then Juan suddenly remembered “the precious Julia,” who was just the right combination of qualities and characteristics that should appeal to his friend. Juan promised to introduce them. They agreed to meet again at eight in the evening, the appropriate time to visit the family.20 When the two men arrived at Julia’s house, her mother answered the door. Since middle- and upper-class families lived in the upper stories of urban buildings, they typically employed a portero, or doorman, to respond to most callers. Etiquette required, though, that higher status visitors be greeted on the threshold by the host.21 Julia’s mother presented herself as a model of domestic economy, explaining that she always answered the door herself rather than spending money to employ a portero. As a poor widow, she had a small income, and “it is necessary that everyone limit themselves to what their income permits.” 22 The narrator regarded this as an auspicious beginning to their visit: While I was engaged in these thoughts [about the lack of a doorman], my friend Juan continued his conversation with the mother and told her that I had requested the honor of paying my respects to her and her

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daughter; and that he had taken the liberty of introducing me, confident in the friendship that had been granted to him and certain of my good upbringing and honorable conduct. He continued with my employment, my situation as yet unmarried, and he slipped in a word or two about my intentions to marry, without yet having found the right candidate, and the lady seemed pleased with this news, and told me to make myself at home with the utmost urbanity and courtesy.23 Meanwhile, the narrator himself noticed Julia and immediately found that she completely conformed to his ideal: “in her dress the utmost simplicity was united with the best taste; and if you keep in mind my idea that my wife should not be excessively extravagant, I might be forgiven for the prolonged ecstasy in which I found myself enraptured.” 24 When he came out of his reverie, the conversation concerned houseplants. Then it turned to fashion. Julia’s mother explained that rather than paying extravagant sums to foreign dressmakers, Julia made her own clothes, and she altered them according to changing styles rather than making new dresses all the time. In addition, she took good care of her clothing so that her dresses lasted a long time. Julia was embarrassed by what her mother was saying, but she went on to explain that Julia was so economical she could make satin shoes last two months. “Mamá, for God’s sake! Please don’t say any more.” 25 From there, the conversation turned to love. It turned out that, despite her domestic practicality, Julia was also something of a romantic. She said, “I am convinced that grand passions are only found when two people are attracted to each other on first sight, and that is so difficult.” 26 The narrator quickly confessed, “To see you was to adore you, all at once.” 27 Julia replied that men say that all the time. He asked if she was in love with someone else? Julia accused him of being very curious, and she speculated that he might not sleep tonight if she did not tell him. He conceded that she was right. “Laugh at me all you want, señorita, but nothing is more certain than that sleep will evade my eyes, if you will not end this painful uncertainty.” 28 Julia admitted then that her heart was free, but Juan interrupted with the news that it was now ten o’clock and time for them to go. The narrator resolved to return until he gained Julia’s hand in marriage, as he found himself completely in love with her. In the final chapter, the narrator addressed his readers directly. He and Julia had been married for some time. He found that after marriage, it was difficult

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to live up to his earlier principles of domestic economy: “The desire to please Julia, who seemed more a lover than a spouse, as happens to everyone during the first months of marriage, made it so that I didn’t dare to establish in my household the order and economy that my judgment demanded, and the coach for paseos, the theater, and other expenditures to satisfy some little whims combined with the usual expenses and absorbed sums much greater than I received for my salary.” 29 Moreover, he found it challenging to behave like the man of the house: “I knew how to put an end to this, it would be to put on my pants and to say determinedly, ‘I want it, I order it’; but it was always repugnant to me to make my wife feel the weight of my authority; and I preferred to adopt persuasion as my method.” 30 He began to see that perhaps he had not been skeptical enough of Julia’s initial appearance as a practical woman whose dresses and satin shoes lasted a long time: “And the meticulous Julia, for whom shoes used to last two months, sometimes needed more than three pairs in a week; and she frequently asked for money to make new dresses assuring me that the ones she had could not be worn since they were no longer in style.” 31 (At least she was still making her own dresses, rather than buying them from those expensive foreign dressmakers!) Married life was difficult, too, because her mother lived with them, and she was not the frugal woman that she had pretended to be either. She and Julia’s friends scolded him for neglecting Julia, since he was not allowing his wife to go to the theater like everyone else. They gave him examples of neighbors who had coaches and who went out to enjoy themselves. He responded that one of them had money because he was a professional gambler. “And why don’t you gamble?” my mother-in-law asked. “That way nobody is deprived of anything and many times you can obtain what we need.” “Yes,” said my wife, “I’ve always liked games of chance. It must be lovely to win a lot of money to use for so many things!” 32 But when he finally decided to give gambling a try, he had only bad luck. The money he lost on wagers made their economic circumstances more pressing and increased conflict in the household. To make matters worse, gossip spread all over the city that he was a rogue who did nothing more than gamble. Misfortunes multiplied. In one of the frequent changes in government, he lost his position in Congress, which reduced his income. His prospects as a

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lawyer in private practice were lessened because his party was out of power. There was no alternative but to try to convince Julia that they must curb their spending. The narrator continued to use persuasion rather than attempting to order his wife around. Nonetheless, since he was well aware of his authority as the husband, he employed patriarchal language. In his attempts to convince Julia to economize, he addressed his wife as “my daughter.” Julia responded with the appropriate rhetoric, although she continued to insist that he ought to provide more income: “Well, my master, I don’t understand how to perform miracles, and for that reason you will do me the favor, as of today, of keeping up with expenses.” 33 The narrator sought consolation from his old friend Juan, who told him it was not the women who were at fault, but the men who see to it that their daughters are taught “sewing and embroidery more or less, but never a single word about what is most important, that is, domestic economy.” 34 In the end, his mother-in-law moved out, he exercised patience with his wife, and he resolved to teach his daughter what was important: to distinguish between what was necessary and what was superfluous and, furthermore, to accommodate expenditures to income whatever the amount, so that something might even be saved for a time of illness or any other accident. Happy endings would result in the future when fathers educated their daughters to be good wives, who would exercise proper domestic economy.

Authority versus Affection Conflict between an older man and a younger woman was portrayed more starkly in a story that Ignacio Rodríguez Galván published anonymously.35 The title character in “The Visitor,” don Alonso Muñoz, was based on a historical figure who had been sent from Spain to root out the conspiracy associated with Martín Cortés in the mid-sixteenth century. In Rodríguez Galván’s story, Muñoz’s arrogance and cruelty knew no bounds. He happened to see a perfectly beautiful and honorable young woman from a noble Spanish family. Ana Cervantes was also somewhat old (already twenty): “she had lost her girlish charm, the more so her face sparkled with the splendor of youth and health, and her eyes exposed all of the liveliness of her soul and the sensibility of her heart.” 36 Ana was betrothed to don Baltasar Quesada, who was also about twenty years old. Ana and Baltasar had grown up

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together, and harmony rather than money or authority was the basis of their relationship. The night before Baltasar and Ana were to be married, Muñoz had Baltasar arrested on a charge of treason and confined to one of his already overcrowded prisons. Muñoz delayed Ana’s father and bribed the family’s servants to allow him a private conversation with Ana in her home. Without giving his name, he introduced himself to Ana: “And well, I am an admirer of your qualities; I have seen you and I know how impossible it is not to love you.”37 Muñoz told Ana that her novio, Baltasar, stood accused of treason, but he offered to set Baltasar free the very next day and to allow him to leave for Spain if Ana would renounce her “crazy love, the passion that she professes for him.” When she asked him who he was that he could make such promises, he told her his name, and he removed his cape to show off his magnificent clothing as proof of his status.38 Ana replied that it would be impossible for her to love him, but Muñoz insisted: “That will come later, for now promise me that you will not see him again, that I will be received in this house as a visitor, that you will not avoid me. That will be enough for now; time and my love will do the rest.”39 Correctly believing that Baltasar had already been released from jail by other means, Ana agreed to Muñoz’s terms, confident that she would not have to carry out her promise to allow Muñoz to court her. But through a fatal combination of misunderstanding and bad timing, Baltasar arrived just in time to find Muñoz holding Ana’s hand and to hear only the last part of her promise, that she would not see Baltasar again. “The loud voice of her lover shouted: ‘Die, faithless one’; and he drove his dagger into the bosom of the unfortunate young woman.” 40 Muñoz had Baltasar arrested, tried, convicted, and condemned to death by decapitation for the crime of treason, rather than having him judged and punished for a crime of passion. Lest anyone miss the point, Rodríguez Galván ended the story with these words: “There are monsters that history condemns to an immortal reputation. One of these was Muñoz.” 41

Authority versus Affection, II Manuel Payno attacked aristocratic values and idealized the mutual, and more egalitarian, affection of young people who grew up together in his “Trinidad de Juárez: A Legend from the Year 1648.” 42 In Payno’s story,

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Trinidad and Arturo were children who struggled against the attempt of an older man to impose a paternalistic relationship on Trinidad. Trinidad lived with her parents, doña Guadalupe and don Claudio de Ávila. They raised Trinidad together with Arturo Almazán, an orphan whom the family had taken in when his father, a merchant, had died in Veracruz of a tropical disease. Don Claudio was also a merchant, and when he was killed on a business trip to Asia, he left doña Guadalupe and the two children with little money. Don Claudio’s old friend don Pedro de Juárez had watched Trinidad and Arturo grow up together. Don Pedro had never married, but when he saw the unhappy family without money, he gave some thought to marrying Trinidad, for she was turning into a beautiful young woman: “Trinidad had just reached fifteen years old. The nature of women of this age manifests all of their graces, all of their attractions, all of their magnificent colors like the Sun in the first hours of day. Youth is the morning of life; so, for this reason, poets have compared beauty with dawn and springtime. With regard to Trinidad, Nature had been generous in giving her attractions with both hands.” 43 But despite Trinidad’s charms, don Pedro hesitated to raise the subject of marriage. As the author explained: “I do not know for certain why that marriage did not take place for a long time. It might have been because little Trinidad was not so inclined, or because Don Pedro, as a man of judgment, would have thought that matrimonial happiness would not be possible when there were three or four decades of difference in the age of the bride and groom.” 44 Don Pedro was content to help the family with expenses; he waited until he was near death to ask that Trinidad marry him, in exchange for a legacy of 30,000 pesos. So Trinidad married don Pedro, and when he died a short while later, she became a widow—while still a virgin. Don Pedro’s brother, don Hernando de Juárez, sent Trinidad the stipulated sum of money, and he wrote to tell her that he would move to Mexico City, as required by his late brother’s will. The news made Trinidad and her mother sincerely happy, but it turned out that don Hernando was not at all like his deceased brother, don Pedro. Rather than wise and generous, don Hernando was ugly and mean: “Don Hernando was so rich that he had piles of money, as if it were maize; he was a lawyer, he was old, and he was hypocritical and fanatical: in the times of this true story these were sufficient titles to garner the esteem of the Mexican aristocracy.” 45

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Don Hernando was also observant. He realized that Trinidad and Arturo must love each other, because they had been raised together and because they were beautiful. To break them up, don Hernando decided to send Arturo away so that Trinidad would never see him again. He arranged for Arturo to be given an official post in Oaxaca, and when Arturo declined to accept, don Hernando produced orders from the viceroy compelling Arturo to go there. In their youthful innocence, Trinidad and Arturo did not realize that they loved each other; they only knew that they did not want to be separated. Arturo was being conveyed to Oaxaca by an armed escort when he learned that don Hernando intended to coerce Trinidad to marry him. Unless Trinidad agreed to be his wife, he would force her into a convent and would have her mother jailed by the Inquisition. Desperate to return to Trinidad, Arturo drugged one of his attendants and bribed the other to go back to Mexico City with him. Meanwhile, Trinidad asked don Hernando to bring Arturo back or she would go to him. Her mother supported Trinidad, saying she would return the legacy if don Hernando would only leave them alone. Don Hernando declined. He told them that they were both under his control and that his marriage to Trinidad would take place in two days. Trinidad insisted that she would not marry him and had no interest in sharing his noble title. “When the priest asks me if I want you for my spouse, I will tell him, ‘NO.’” 46 Eventually, don Hernando had to take Trinidad’s stubbornness and Arturo’s resistance into account. Given that she did not love him, he agreed that Trinidad could marry Arturo. The wedding was held in the grand style of the time. The ceremony took place at five in the morning, with dinner at midday and a grand ball at night. Trinidad wore a dress of white silk and silver, with a crown of gold roses on her head and a cross of diamonds on her chest. The color had returned to her cheeks; her pretty blue eyes were animated with a sweet innocence and the pleasure of a blessed future. Her delicate lips, the color of rose petals, opened to smile with jubilation and contentment. Her hair fell in a confusion of curls over her swan’s neck and shined like the golden wings of butterflies in the light of the candles. Trinidad was, without exaggeration, one of those angels that God sends from time to time to this world of wickedness and of tears.47

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The festivities did not end until four the following morning. All the while, don Hernando was watching Trinidad “like a falcon watches a dove.” After the guests left, three men in black suits and masks took Arturo away to the Inquisition’s jail. There were three charges against him. First, Arturo was using a heretic’s name. No saint was ever named Arturo, so that name was not on the approved list, and moreover, Arthur was a common name among English heretics. Second, Arturo had had illicit relations with his sister. And third, he had scourged a holy image of Christ every night. Arturo proclaimed his innocence, but after torture, he confessed these heresies and stipulated that he had repented.48 Don Hernando arranged with the archbishop to have Trinidad’s mother taken to a convent as “a very respectable señora who had lost her mind.” Trinidad never saw her mother again. There was no one else left to defend Trinidad, but she continued to resist don Hernando. She refused to eat until he promised that the Inquisition would soon release Arturo. When don Hernando attempted to rape Trinidad, she fought back and knocked the old man unconscious. Once don Hernando regained his senses, he arranged for the Inquisition to take Trinidad away as well.49 Both Trinidad and Arturo suffered in prison, until eventually the Inquisition sent them into exile in the Philippines. The captain of the ship transporting them to Asia recognized that Trinidad and Arturo were actually good people who had been persecuted by an aristocrat. He helped them make new lives in the Philippines. After a few years, Arturo had earned a small fortune and planned to return to Mexico with Trinidad and their two daughters. Just then, don Hernando arrived in Manila on a ship from Acapulco. But Arturo tricked don Hernando and sent him to his likely death in a small sailboat moving rapidly out to sea. Arturo told Trinidad that he did not feel guilty, since he had left the fate of don Hernando up to God and God might choose to save him. Like the good Christian she was, Trinidad prayed for don Hernando. Their story ends with Trinidad falling to her knees to ask God for don Hernando’s salvation.50

A Rank Romance amidst the Ersatz Aristocrats While the liberal Manuel Payno denounced aristocratic power indirectly, the conservative Ramón Isaac Alcaraz began his story “The Countess of PeñaAranda” with a vituperative direct assault on Mexico’s own so-called

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aristocracy. Alcaraz regarded Mexico’s upper class as insufficiently dignified; they were flagrant frauds who were utterly permeated with decadent commercial values. Before he began his narrative, Alcaraz described the setting for his story in this way: “It was the year 1807, a time when Mexico was still a colonial court: a cheap court, a burlesque sham of royal courts with its semi-king and with its farce of a nobility. The offspring of wealth rather than the achievements of a hundred honorable and aggressive ancestors, this court was perhaps the most ignorant and, at the same time, the most foolish of all our social classes at that time.” 51 The decadence of the Mexican nobility and the contrast between irresponsible wealth and abject privation lies at the heart Alcaraz’s story. The title character, María, was born into poverty. Her mother died while María was still an infant, so she lived with her father, who was imprisoned for reasons that Alcaraz never explained. When María was eighteen years old, her father died. Inexperienced in the ways of the world, María was left on her own. In her ragged clothes, she played a guitar in the streets for whatever coins passersby would give her. María’s life changed when she happened to encounter the Count of Peña-Aranda, a wealthy old widower, “and in his heart a love for her would be born that he could not hide. . . . a passion conceived almost in his decrepitude.” 52 María agreed to marry the count, and he introduced her to a life of luxury. At first, the Mexican aristocracy disdained the new countess because of her humble background, but they soon accepted her, “since for that class, there are no other bonds of friendship than those that money makes possible. . . . Her amiability, her charms, and above all, her husband’s wealth, attracted a circle of young people to her, and among them she was the queen.” 53 María’s motivations were not difficult to understand; she married for money and security. She told Julián, a young man who was smitten with her, that she loved the count “as one can love a father, but not as one loves a lover.” 54 One evening, as María and her husband looked toward the western sky at the end of the day, the count compared himself to the setting sun, saying he was “like the twilight, without force and without heat.” He told María that she sustained his weakened energy, that she gladdened the last moments of his life. “For that I love you so, because, when I lie on your breast, I seem to be young, and that I still have many days to live.” He also recognized that his advanced age made him like a father to her, though he believed that he was more than that as well, that he was also her husband and her lover. “I am your father, your spouse, and despite my age . . . the one you want.” 55

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Her husband was old, and she did not love him, but the new Countess of Peña-Aranda resisted the attractive young men who surrounded her, some of whom were eager to seduce her. Alcaraz described one of those rejected suitors, Alfonso, as “worm-eaten with vengeance.” 56 Determined to strike back at María for spurning him, Alfonso patiently advised Julián (who was naïve, but attractive) on how to seduce María. At the same time, Alfonso had been subtly insinuating doubt into the count’s mind about whether María might ever be unfaithful to him. One evening, Alfonso arranged a rendezvous for Julián and María by the garden gate. He and the count hid themselves nearby until they saw the pair embracing. When Alfonso and the count emerged from hiding; Julián simply ran away. The count was enraged. He forced María through the gate and locked her out. The smugly satisfied Alfonso told María that this was his revenge. In the final chapter, María was once again reduced to living in the street. The count, riding in his coach, recognized María dressed in rags. He ordered his driver to speed up. When María encountered Julián, he claimed he did not know her and told her that she should beg from someone else. Alfonso reminded María of his vengeance, and she cursed him. The story ends with the words “Poor woman, plaything of luck! Poor woman!” 57

Ardor and Irony among the Aristocracy Not all of the stories of older men and young women ended in tragedy. Another of Manuel Payno’s stories, “The Mother-of-Pearl Rosary,” set in Spain during the 1820s, featured a complex web of amorous relationships stretching between two generations.58 The central character, María Paquita, was a graceful fifteen-year-old orphan who made her living as a dancer. Don Fernando Garcés, an elegant and well-born young man, had abandoned court society in Madrid to follow María to Granada. There he stayed in the finest hotels, and she danced in the theater to wild applause. Fernando told María that he loved her, and he promised to marry her. María knew better: Fernando’s family would never permit this. As a test of his love, María told Fernando about her life. Listening to her story, Fernando realized that he was himself the man who had anonymously “seduced” María in an inn several years ago. He begged her forgiveness and was more determined than ever to marry her in order to atone for his casual violence. María, though, knew that his parents would surely disown him, and Fernando

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would be unable (and probably unwilling) to abandon his elevated social position and start earning a living on his own. Fernando’s parents had other plans for his marriage. They insisted that he regularly visit an older woman, doña Luisa Eleonora de Viveros, the Countess of Peña-Negra. Fernando’s parents believed Fernando’s love for the countess would grow over time if he continued to fulfill the mechanics of courtship. They knew that a marriage between the older noblewoman and their young son would result in social advantages and financial gain for Fernando as well as for themselves. The countess had an old friend, General Bernardes, but he too had his eye on María Paquita. The general met María for the first time when her adoptive mother had attempted to sell her to him. The general took pity on María. He gave her money and sent her away, after making her swear that she would return to him when she heard he was a widower so that he could marry her. Eventually, though, he tired of waiting for his wife to die. The general convinced the countess to help him to kidnap María. The countess was eager to cooperate with him in order to eliminate her rival for Fernando’s attentions. After they locked María in a room, the general attempted, at first, to beguile María with words. When she resisted him, he assaulted her, tearing her blouse open in the process. Suddenly he recognized the unique mother-ofpearl rosary she had always worn under her clothing. The general stopped short and backed off. This is where the happy ending emerges: the distinctive rosary told the general that María was his own abandoned daughter and that the countess was her mother. Now that María was acknowledged (in the general’s words) as “the daughter of a valiant soldier and a noble lady,” Fernando’s family would not object to their marriage.59 In any case, that need not matter. As the general said, “the countess and I are rich, and everything, everything is for the happiness of our daughter.” The generations were sorted out, and they all lived happily ever after. Payno ended the story with: “God made all of them, from that time on, the happiest family on earth.” 60 All right, so the happy ending was meant to be ironic. María’s life was tragic. The violence, arrogance, and emptiness of aristocratic life included rape and threats of murder. When he failed to persuade his son to marry the countess, Fernando’s father promised violence: “You know my character, Fernando; you know that I don’t retreat, that I would take a pistol and blow your brains out before breaking the engagement that we have made with Countess Eleonora.” 61 María’s father was stopped short of rape and incest only by the

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fortuitous intervention of a rosary. María’s marriage to the careless, vacuous young man who had raped her in an inn officially repaired her honor.62 María forgave her mother and father for abandoning her, even as she was standing there trying to hold her torn blouse together. The countess asked, “Can you forget that because of me, you have suffered hunger, shame, and nakedness?” María threw herself into her mother’s arms, saying, “I only remember that I have you in my arms; that my tears are mixed with yours; that I am happy to be able to pronounce the sublime and sweetest name of mother.” 63

An Infamous Seduction The most treacherous Lothario of all was the invention of an anonymous author, in a work entitled “Disgraceful Effects of a Seduction: Letter from a Remorseful Libertine to His Wife.” As the title indicates, the story was written in the first person as a letter from a husband to his wife, repenting of his treachery. The use of the first-person voice brings an immediacy to the narrator’s thinking as he meticulously describes his seduction of an innocent girl while pretending to court her.64 While riding horses in the countryside one afternoon, the narrator and his servant took shelter from a sudden storm in the entrance to a hacienda. There they found a man and three women waiting for the storm to subside. The narrator noticed that one of the women was young and pretty. That was enough for him to decide to seduce her. He began to talk about the weather. Gradually, he learned that the others were a married couple in their fifties, their daughter (who appeared to be over twenty), and their attractive goddaughter, Luisa, who was seventeen. The narrator sent his servant out in the storm to bring back a coach, but he specified that it must a public coach, not his own personal vehicle; and he told his servant to call him by a false name. When the coach arrived, the narrator took the family to their home. In gratitude, the parents invited him in. “Even though this was the first visit, and that good manners suggested that it should have been short, I remained there for some time.” He said all the right things to convince them that he was unmarried, well-off, and interested in Luisa. He did not leave until nine o’clock, when Luisa’s padrinos invited him to return on Sunday.65 As he gained the confidence of her godparents, the narrator gradually began to try to increase his physical contact with Luisa. Her guardians were

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naïve, but they had raised Luisa well, and she resisted his attempts: “Her parents, believing me to be a man of honor, gave me the most imprudent trust, and on the various excursions we made to towns around the capital, I had occasion to take a few liberties with Luisa; but I was severely rebuked, since in this regard she was really adamant. She always showed me the greatest affection, but she fended off my attempts with a firmness that did no more than incite my impure desires.” 66 After about a month, the narrator decided to announce that he would be able to marry Luisa within a few weeks, since he had won an important lawsuit. He invited Luisa’s family to celebrate his good fortune with a dinner in the countryside. She was transported with joy at this news, and when we were seated at the table, I made her drink of all the wines in celebration of my judicial triumph, obliging her to imbibe to excess by pleading, pestering, and even becoming angry. After the meal was over, and finding that girl in a state of near inebriation, I took her for a walk under the pretext of taking the air, and in the middle of the solitude there in one of the fields, I increased my efforts and multiplied my promises and vows. She had almost lost consciousness, her energy was ebbing as the result of her continuing resistance, and seeing no one around to help her, the unfortunate girl could not prevent my consummation of her downfall.67 When Luisa recovered her senses, she cried inconsolably. After a few months passed, Luisa told him it would soon become apparent that she was pregnant. He arranged to have her move to a hidden location he had prepared. Then he blamed Luisa’s godparents for hiding her so that they could not marry. He had been growing tired of her. After their son was born, just as he was preparing to abandon Luisa, he was recognized by an old woman who had once been a servant to his own family. She called him by his true name and named his wife and children. Luisa abandoned her apartment that same night, leaving the key and all the things he had given her, along with a note saying that she wanted nothing more to do with him, since he would be a bad influence on their child. Some years had gone by when a blond boy crying in the street evoked his pity. He learned that the child was Luisa’s son and that she was dying. He got her a doctor, hired a nurse, and paid for her care. When Luisa died, he spent more money on her burial and bought an inscribed tombstone for her grave.

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He arranged for a new home for their son and paid for his education. All this did little to lessen his guilt. Haunted by memories of Luisa, he addressed his wife in his letter: Here you have the cause of my profound sadness, that with such persistence you have wanted me to reveal. Luisa seems to me to be everywhere in different forms: her shadow pursues me everywhere and my dreams are lugubrious and horrifying. I understand that such painful sensations are produced by my regrets. These are the offspring of my crime: unleashed against me, they break my soul into pieces with bitter and continual reproaches; before my eyes, they develop the portrait of my evils, and they oblige me to meditate on every line of that horrible picture; responsible for my punishment, they are armed with sharpened steel points that penetrate my heart in a thousand ways, and they weigh on me day and night with the avenging scourges of the Furies never giving me a moment of rest.68 Then the anonymous author underlined the moral of his story and addressed other men like himself: Oh, libertines! Heed this lesson. . . . They who allow themselves to seduce for those fleeting pleasures will not enjoy them for long. Disgust, depression, stupefaction, and remorse will assault them without a doubt and they will not live except to grieve over the excesses that they have given in to. Those pleasures weaken as they multiply and together they destroy themselves. . . . But such is their nature that they soon drag us on to excesses that suffocate rational thought, obstruct even the organs of sentiment, and produce satiation, disgust, and bitterness.69

A Child Bride If parents could be disastrously naïve about a suitor’s character and intentions, they might also shepherd their daughters into unhappy marriages. Manuel Payno wrote such a story, about a young woman who had followed her parents’ direction to marry an older man.70 The first chapter, ironically entitled “Domestic Happiness,” began on the two-year anniversary of

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Clarencia and Ricardo. They reminisced about their wedding, which had taken place when Clarencia was fourteen years old; her husband, Ricardo, was a colonel in the military and nearly thirty years older. From their conversation, Clarencia and Ricardo initially appeared to be happy together, but then Payno subtly undermined that impression. Clarencia sighed almost silently, and the author asked us: “How much did that tenuous and melancholic voice of her soul mean to say?” 71 Ricardo recalled that when they married, Clarencia was only a child: “‘Your hand,’ continued the gentleman, ‘trembled in mine, your cheeks had a bluish tinge, your voice was so weak, almost imperceptible, that you could scarcely be heard; and yet, you loved me. Isn’t that true, Clarencia?’” 72 Ricardo knew that her father had “ordered” Clarencia to marry and that her family supported the marriage, but Ricardo believed that he himself had been perceptive and interested in Clarencia’s own consent. Payno chose words that chipped away at the image Ricardo tried to create of himself as a sensitive man. Ricardo said, “I always consulted your will, I spied the smallest movements of your soul, and I sought in the end to obtain your heart, not your hand.” 73 From his powerful position, Ricardo only deigned to “consult” her will. His claim to have scrutinized her innermost feelings used the past tense of the verb espiar, “to spy.” With its military overtones of ocular penetration, he asserted that she had nothing that was hidden from him. Like several other older suitors and husbands in this romantic age, Ricardo wanted more than the consent of his bride: he insisted that she must love him as well. Clarencia agreed with him and thanked him from the bottom of her soul, because, as she said, “You must have been thinking that it is a terrible transition for a young girl to pass from the life of a child to the life of a wife. . . . since it would have been insupportable to pass quickly into the control of a man without knowing him, without perhaps even having heard the sound of his voice, . . . as so many other girls are married.” 74 Ricardo turned these melancholic reflections into another indication of his benevolence and attentiveness to his young wife: “As for all that, Clarencia, and even if you had only met me on the day of our wedding, you would have had no reason to repent of it, because I have been eager to satisfy even your most hidden desires, to brighten your life, to love you.” Clarencia agreed. The first chapter ended with the pair embracing and Ricardo asserting that he would happily die in her arms.75 The story does not have a happy ending; Ricardo’s continuing surveillance and scrutiny uncovered Clarencia’s memories of her first love, Antonio, a boy

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closer to her own age. Ricardo’s mistrust and paranoia drove him to emotional tyranny and manipulation. Ricardo secretly arranged a meeting between Antonio and Clarencia, then hid himself behind a curtain to spy on them. As Ricardo listened in, Clarencia told Antonio clearly that she was married and no longer wanted to see or to communicate with him. That ought to have convinced Ricardo that his wife had been faithful to him in the past and would continue to be so in the future. Nevertheless he was consumed by jealousy. He feared that Clarencia still cherished the love she had felt for Antonio when they both were children. As time passed, however, Clarencia’s exemplary adherence to her marital vow to Ricardo, in thought as well as in deed, gradually convinced him that she loved only him. After a series of tragic circumstances at the time of the Acordada Revolt in 1828, Clarencia happened upon Antonio for the last time, just at the moment when Antonio was dying from the wounds he received in that conflict. Overwhelmed by her grief, Clarencia lost her sanity. Her own death soon followed. \ The stories written in this period give us insight into ideas about love and marriage. They consider the balance of financial considerations and passion, the proper age difference between brides and grooms, and whether parents or their children should choose whom the children will marry. Other sources can help us determine how exceptional or widespread some of these situations were. Parish registers tell us how often parents died before their children married, how many brides and grooms chose partners who were nearer to their own age, and how many young girls were married to much older men.

Ch a p t er 7

True Wedding Portraits .

\  On the day she was married, doña María Magdalena de la

Rosa was a little more than twelve years old. The registration of her marriage on the first day of July 1832 specified that she was “twelve years, two months of age.” Someone must have thought that those extra two months were significant, since the recorded ages of other brides were not as precise; they were always written down in the parish register in whole numbers of years. When doña María Magdalena was married, her saint’s day, 22 July, was still three weeks in the future, so it would have been easy to wonder if she had not reached the required minimum age for marriage. Perhaps someone had asked if she was not yet twelve years old? In fact, this María Magdalena had not been born on Saint Mary Magdalene’s Day. Her name did not refer to the saint’s day but, rather, honored her mother, who was also called María Magdalena. Then, because she was born and baptized on the feast day of Saint Alexander (24 April), that saint’s name was appended. So doña María Magdalena Alejandra was exactly twelve years, two months, and seven days old on the day she was married.1 Doña María Magdalena’s new husband was don Manuel Mariano Alencaster Martínez, a retired army captain who was currently earning a living as a merchant. He was also a mature man, forty-five years old, and a widower. Don Manuel had married his first wife, doña María Josefa Niño de Rivera, nearly twenty years earlier, when don Manuel was twenty-seven and his novia was twenty-two.2 Their marriage lasted for almost seventeen years, 135

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until doña Josefa died in September 1830, at the age of thirty-nine.3 Don Manuel was left with their three children: two girls and a boy. When he remarried in the summer of 1832, each of his children was older than his new bride: María del Carmen, the eldest, was seventeen years old; the middle child and only son, Manuel Ramón, had recently turned fifteen; and María de la Luz, the youngest, was twelve years and seven months old, five months older than her new stepmother.4 The marriage record for don Manuel and doña Magdalena also includes the notation that they had received an episcopal dispensation for the impediment of consanguinity. They needed the bishop’s permission to marry because don Manuel was doña Magdalena’s uncle, the older brother of her mother.5 Puebla’s bishop, the Most Illustrious Señor Doctor Don Francisco Pablo Vázquez, had committed his decision to paper on 7 June, but the provisor, who was encharged with communicating the dispensation to the parish priest, did not carry out that obligation until more than three weeks had passed, waiting until the last day of the month. Once that was done, however, things moved quickly, and the marriage took place the next day. Had the provisor acted sooner, the marriage register might have recorded that doña Magdalena had been married at twelve years and one month of age. Don Manuel and his niece, doña Magdalena, needed the bishop’s approval to marry, but marriage between an uncle and his niece was not among the relationships that had been specifically prohibited by ancient biblical injunctions. The eighteenth chapter of the Old Testament book of Leviticus described most of the forbidden sexual relationships from the male point of view. For example: “You shall not have intercourse with your father’s sister since she is your father’s relative. You shall not have intercourse with your mother’s sister, since she is your mother’s relative. You shall not disgrace your father’s brother by having sexual relations with his wife, since she, too, is your aunt.” 6 Leviticus expressly prohibits intercourse with an aunt, whether a mother’s sister or a father’s sister, and furthermore the text specifically designates a father’s brother’s wife as forbidden, “since she, too, is your aunt.” In fact, the explanatory principle is that “she is your father’s [or mother’s or father’s brother’s] relative.” Yet the dictum does not specifically condemn intercourse with a sister’s daughter or a mother’s brother, although it might appear to be a logical extension of the rules that if nephews are forbidden to have sex with their aunts, then so too should uncles not marry their nieces.

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In practice, uncle-niece marriages were common for ancient Jewish aristocrats and in upper-class Athenian families. Nevertheless, neither Judaic nor Hellenic precedents mattered very much to the Catholic Church because canon law was based on Roman law, and the Romans had been inconsistent on the question of marriage between uncles and nieces.7 Facing the challenges of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent had reasserted the essential right of the Catholic Church to expand on the ancient prohibitions to include relationships that could be analogous to those that were directly stated in Leviticus. The Council of Trent anathematized those who would deny the church hierarchy’s right to expand the compass of these restrictions and at the same time condemned those who held that the church had no right to permit exceptions to those prohibitions.8 Marriages between close relatives served to keep accumulated fortunes within a family. Concepción Lombardo de Miramón recalled that her Spanish grandmother, doña Guadalupe Miñón, was married by proxy at age fourteen to her father’s uncle, who had made “a big, fat fortune” in Mexico. That uncle, don José Gil de Partearroyo, was a younger brother of the Marqués de San Felipe, and doña Guadalupe’s father had promised the girl in marriage as soon as she was born.9 Dispensations that allowed marriages between uncles and nieces, between aunts and nephews, and between first cousins have an extensive and well-studied history in Spain. Demographers have demonstrated that consanguineous marriages became more common in Spain during the nineteenth century, continued to increase in the first decades of the twentieth century, and began declining after 1920.10 Marriages between close relatives were more common in nineteenth-century Europe than we might imagine. Charles Darwin himself married his first cousin (his mother’s sister’s daughter), Emma Wedgwood, in 1839. Darwin’s marriage to his cousin was, in the words of one cultural historian, “entirely unexceptional for a man of his social position in England at that time.”11 If marriage to a close relative required ecclesiastical dispensation for Catholics, marriage to a twelve-year-old girl did not. The Catholic Church recognized the onset of puberty as a requisite condition for marriage. This was usually understood to mean that girls as young as twelve and boys who had reached the age of fourteen could marry.12 Nineteenth-century concepts of maturity differed in significant ways from our own. Girls and boys as young as seven years old were regarded as having reason and were described as “adult” in church records. The Catechism of the Council of Trent set the minimum age for the sacrament of confirmation as at least seven years old,

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describing that age as the moment “when children shall have reached the use of reason.”13 We can also see this distinction in the parish burial registers. Children below the age of seven were categorized consistently as parvulos, from the Latin word parvulum, “a very small thing.”14 Beginning at seven, they were classified as adultos, from the Latin adultus, which is also the root of the English word “adult,” denoting that they were no longer little children: they were capable of reason. This is not to say that all adults were alike. The word “adolescent” is also rooted in the Latin adultus. Mexican records sometimes use the diminutive form adultito to clarify that sometimes “adults” were very young. Once they reached puberty, though, individuals were categorized by their marital status: single, married, widow, or widower.15 Sexual development was a more significant concern than chronological age. Modern biometric studies have demonstrated that the age of puberty has changed over time and varies with society and geography. Henri Leridon noted that mean age at menarche was higher in the middle of the nineteenth century and declined by the middle of the twentieth. Differences in nutrition explain historical, geographical, and social variations in the onset of puberty. Poverty and food insecurity delay the onset of puberty. Increased relative wealth ensures that children in upper-class families are better fed, resulting in a lower age at menarche. Based on a review of existing studies, Leridon concluded that by the middle of the twentieth century, mean age at menarche was “approximately 13 years in most developed countries and probably above 14 years in most other countries.” If Leridon was correct, mean age at puberty had declined after the middle of the nineteenth century, by two years in the United States and three years in Europe.16 Mean age at puberty could have been several years higher at the time doña María Magdalena was married, in the range of fifteen to sixteen years. Leridon stressed that there was considerable variability around the mean, depending on geography and social rank. These same sources of differentiation existed in Mexico during the first half of the nineteenth century. Undernourished girls whose families suffered from unreliable food supplies would have had a higher age at puberty; the daughters of wealthier parents, with better nutrition and food security, would have reached puberty sooner. We know that doña Magdalena’s family was part of the prosperous social elite who considered themselves “decent people,” so she was likely to have been well nourished. Given the signs of hesitation that are evident in the official record of her marriage, though, doña Magdalena may have met only a minimal visual standard of sexual maturity, in addition to barely having

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attained the pertinent chronological norm. Leridon pointed out that “most women” would not be able to conceive as soon as they reached puberty and would attain “the ‘normal’ level of fecundity only several years later.”17 This observation provides us with a less ambiguous evidentiary standard. Doña Magdalena apparently reached menarche relatively early. She was married at twelve, became pregnant at thirteen, and at the age of fourteen gave birth to a son.18

Age at Marriage How unusual was it for a twelve-year-old girl to be married? The marriage of doña María Magdalena Alejandra was certainly exceptional. She was the only bride to marry at the age of twelve of more than six hundred first-time brides whose ages were recorded in the central parishes in four major cities during 1832. Thirteen-year-old brides were nearly as rare: there were only two. Doña María Rafaela Anastasia Sánchez was married in Mexico City to don Agustín Alcantara; at twenty-three years of age, he was ten years older than she was. In Puebla, doña Josefa Eugenia Camú, a thirteen-year-old Paris-born French girl, married a twenty-nine-year-old French hatmaker named don Germán Bastón, a native of the Department of Drôme, in southwestern France.19 So of the three youngest brides, one marriage involved only French-born partners, two couples were married in Puebla, and all three of the brides were from the gente decente.20 Fourteen-year-old brides were more numerous, but they were still far from commonplace. There were only fifteen, about 2 percent of all first marriages for brides in the four parishes. But if marriage in early adolescence was rare, weddings became increasingly common for Mexican girls when they were fifteen years old. Four times more girls married at age fifteen than at fourteen. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds also married in large numbers. Together, brides who were fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen years old made up more than a quarter of all women marrying for the first time. In all, brides below the age of eighteen comprised 31 percent of the total, nearly one out of every three. The most common age for brides in first marriages was eighteen, with about one in ten first-time brides marrying at that age. After the age of eighteen, there were relatively fewer brides in each age cohort. Where more than a quarter of all first-time brides were fifteen through eighteen, those who

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were nineteen, twenty, or twenty-one made up less than 20 percent of the total. Half of all first-time brides were married by the time they were 20, and nearly three-quarters were married before they reached the age of twentyfour. Among women past twenty-five, there were fewer and fewer marriages. Those who were twenty-seven, twenty-eight, or twenty-nine years old all together made up less than 7 percent of the total. First-time marriages of women older than thirty were relatively rare, another 7 percent of the total, and above thirty-five, rarer still, less than 1 percent. Thus, when she reached the age of thirty, Jesusita Ontañón had good reason to fear that she had waited too long for Francisco Estrada to marry her. In fact, in her home parish in San Luis Potosí, more brides were married by the time they were seventeen years old than in the other parishes.21 In contrast, few young men married before the age of eighteen. The church required that grooms be at least fourteen years of age, so when Roque Sánchez married María Perfilia Hernández, he was the youngest groom, and the only fourteen-year-old male, to marry in any of these four parishes during all of 1832.22 In addition to the one fourteen-year-old groom, there were a total of four fifteen-year-olds, plus thirteen young novios who were sixteen years of age. Together this set of the youngest grooms made up only 3 percent of the males who married for the first time in 1832.23 It was at the age of eighteen that larger numbers of men began to take a wife. Four times as many single men married at eighteen as married at seventeen. Marriages became even more frequent when men were in their early twenties. Bachelors between the ages of twenty and twenty-two made up more than 30 percent of the total. More men married at twenty-two than at any other age, and they alone made up almost 12 percent of all single men who married during that year. Half of all the bachelors who married in 1832 were wed by the time they were twentytwo. The pace of marriage slackened somewhat after that. The five-year cohort of novios between the ages of twenty-three and twenty-seven made up another 30 percent of all marriages that year, and the incidence of marriage after age twenty-eight was even lower: only about 15 percent of bachelors were men who delayed their first marriages until they were in their thirties, forties, fifties, or sixties. Age at first marriage varied with social class as well. More of the grooms from the popular class married when they were younger, and more of the social elite married in their mid- to late twenties or even later. Among the larger group who were not accorded any titles, half were married by the age of twenty-two, and more were married at twenty than at any other age. For

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those grooms who were recognized as part of the gente decente, the median age at marriage was twenty-five, and the mode was twenty-two. Since there were many more commoners who married, the proportions of each group marrying in each age range are more meaningful. For example, among the youngest group, that is, those marrying from the ages of fourteen to seventeen, the proportion of grooms from the lower social positions was about four times greater than the proportion from privileged backgrounds.24 The ratio drops to about three to one from ages eighteen to twenty: about a third of novios from the popular class married then, along with only about 10 percent of the elite. For those in their early twenties, the two groups reached a rough level of parity, with about one in four of each rank marrying: 22 percent of the elite and 26 percent of the populace. After their early twenties, the balance shifted toward the elite. The ratio of elite to popular grooms was about five to four in the midtwenties (ages twenty-four to twenty-six); it increases to two to one by the late twenties (ages twenty-seven to twentynine); and reaches more than three to one for men marrying in their thirties.25 Age at marriage varied with the social rank of brides just as it did with grooms, but not always in a direct way. Daughters of the social elite were overrepresented among both the youngest of brides and the older ones. For the most part, the upper class tended to marry off their daughters when they were a little bit older than those who were lower on the social scale. Between the ages of twenty-seven and twenty-nine, more than 10 percent of brides called “doña” married for the first time, while those who were not so entitled accounted for only about 4 percent of all marriages in their social group. In their mid- to late twenties, the preponderance of elite young women marrying was larger than the proportion of brides of lower social status.26 More elite brides were married in their early twenties, but the proportions of higher and lower status brides were closer in this age group. Between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-three, nearly 20 percent of the elite brides married, compared with about 16 percent of those without titles. Most brides who were not considered gente decente were married before they turned twenty years old. Between the ages of fifteen and twenty, a substantial portion of the señoritas from elite families were married, but an even greater proportion of young women from the popular classes married at the same ages. About 40 percent of elite brides were between the ages of fifteen and twenty, while among the general population the proportion of brides who married in that age span was nearly half again as large, at more than 60 percent. The

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youngest brides were most often from elite families. Marriages of girls between the ages of twelve and fourteen represented 4 percent of all marriages for daughters of Mexico’s gente decente but only about half that for daughters whose parents were not entitled to be called “don” or “doña.” 27

Marriage of Orphans When María Perfilia Hernández and Roque Sánchez took their marital vows to each other, as in a romantic story, the bride was an orphan. Both of María Perfilia’s parents, José Hernández and Petra Soto, were listed as deceased in the record of her marriage.28 Nevertheless, the fact that María Perfilia’s parents were dead was not representative of the majority of young girls who married. María Perfilia was the only one of these young brides who was orphaned of both parents. When young brides married, only a few of them were orphans. Although two of the youngest brides married much older men after the deaths of their fathers, they were not typical. Most of the young brides whose fathers had died, in contrast, married young men who were close to their own ages. María Perfilia Hernández and Roque Sánchez were both fourteen years old when they married. María Prudencia Gallegos was also more typical of the majority. At age fourteen, she married José Simon López, an eighteen-year-old weaver, on Saint Valentine’s Day in Oaxaca.29 There is little evidence for the romantic idea that young girls were likely to be forced into marriage at an early age when the death of her parents left her unprotected. Certainly there were some cases like this, but most girls who married in early adolescence had parents who were still alive. Nearly 70 percent of the fathers of fourteen-year-old brides were alive when their daughters married, and nearly 90 percent of the girls had living mothers. Rather than being defenseless orphaned daughters, they may have been more like the adolescent bride in Manuel Payno’s story, in which fourteenyear-old Clarencia married a much older man because that is what her parents wanted her to do.30 As each year passed, the older the children grew, the older the parents were; and the older the parents were, the more likely fathers and mothers were to die before a son or daughter married. The majority of children who married before age twenty-one had a living father, while the proportion dropped to less than half for brides and grooms marrying between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-three. By the time they were in their midtwenties,

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two-thirds of brides and grooms had already seen their fathers buried before they exchanged their wedding vows. Mothers were more likely than fathers to survive to see their sons and daughters marry; and, as with fathers, it was the youngest brides who were the most likely to have living mothers. Most of the mothers whose daughters married between the ages of twelve and fourteen were alive on their daughter’s wedding day, but as older sons and daughters married, the percentage of those with living mothers was reduced. Among brides who married between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, 80 percent of their mothers were alive. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty, 71 percent had living mothers. Even a bride in her late twenties had a better than fifty-fifty chance that her mother would live to see her married.31 Naturally, then, older men and women who married were more likely to have lost their parents than the youngest brides and grooms were. The majority of girls who married before the age of fifteen had two living parents, and they are the only cohort who had that distinction. Even among those brides as young as fifteen to seventeen years old, fewer than half still had both a mother and father who were still alive. The proportion of brides with two living parents declined to less than 40 percent for those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three. Roughly three-fourths of women who married from the ages of twenty-four to twenty-nine had lost at least one parent, and of those who married at thirty or later, the majority had already seen both of their parents buried. Don Francisco Estrada and his novia, doña Jesusita Ontañón, were more typical of this pattern. When Francisco persisted in his plan to complete his medical education before he would marry her, Jesusita recognized that her chances for marriage were declining with each passing year. Jesusita was thirty years old when her father died, and she soon married someone else. When Francisco Estrada finally decided, at the age of thirtyone, that the time was right for him to marry, he chose to marry someone who was half his age.32

Patriarchal Marriages Marriages of older men to much younger women were part of a traditional pattern in Mexico. During the late colonial period, husbands and wives agreed on the proper model for marriage even as they accused one another of not living up to that standard. Both men and women thought that

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husbands should provide money and wives ought to take care the household. Husbands and wives argued their legal cases in court within that patriarchal framework. Men complained that their wives lacked proper respect and did not cook and clean for them. Women protested that their husbands did not provide them with what they needed to buy food, to prepare meals, and to care for their homes and children. Despite their differences, they agreed on how partners in marriage ought to behave.33 In a traditional marriage, the husband was the head of household, the man who made decisions, while the wife was to be subordinate: she was to take care of the family while respecting her husband’s judgment. Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza admonished wives, saying, “A woman should yield graciously to her husband and follow his way of thinking: . . . his right of authority.” 34 In patriarchal marriages, there was a great deal of overlap between the husband’s authority over his wife and his control over his children. This was especially true when he was decades older than his wife. In many cases, the wife was young enough to be his child, and she might even be younger than her husband’s children from previous marriages. When a husband wanted to emphasize his authority over his wife, he addressed her as “my daughter.” 35 Historians have suggested that there was a direct relationship between such patriarchal values and the age differences between husbands and wives: “It is not by chance that wherever there were deeply implanted patriarchal structures, the husband was much older than the wife.” 36 Many young adolescent girls married men who were substantially older. Doña María Magdalena’s husband would have been the oldest spouse in this group. At forty-five years of age, he was thirty-three years older than she was. Another adolescent bride also married a man who was old enough to be her father: there was a twenty-four-year gap between doña María de la Luz Arruti, age fourteen, and her husband, don José María Vázquez, who was thirty-eight.37 Men of elevated social status were often considerably older than their young brides. For marriages of dons and doñas, grooms were fifteen years older on average when their brides were fourteen years of age or younger. Adolescent girls almost without exception married men who were older, but the youngest girls from the upper class were more likely to marry men who were much older than they were. Age differences could still be substantial even when older men married women who were not so young. Don Dionicio Avilés was already over seventy years old when his second wife, doña Ana María Rodríguez, died. He waited three and a half years after her burial; then, at the age of seventy-four,

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he married a woman almost fifty years younger than he was. His new wife, doña María Roque Asís, was twenty-six. She had lived most of her life on her father’s hacienda near the small city of Armadillo de los Infante, across the sierra east of San Luis Potosí. The registration of their marriage includes a notation that doña María Roque had been a resident of the state capital only for the two months prior to her wedding. This might seem a brief time to become acquainted with the man she was to marry, but the courtship might have been even shorter. Consider the fact that the banns had been read at Mass on three successive feast days beginning two weeks prior to their wedding. Reading the banns did not take place until after the matrimonial investigation had been completed. That process began with formal signed statements from the groom and the bride that they wished to marry each other and that they were not being compelled, induced, or rewarded by anyone else to marry. The investigation also required formal statements, usually by four witnesses, that the novios were honest and had no impediments to marriage. The investigation and signing of statements usually took at least a few days to complete and might well have taken longer. In the end, the two months that doña María Roque was resident in the city of San Luis Potosí did not coincide with the period of time she had to consider marriage to don Dionicio. The decision to marry was required before beginning the matrimonial investigation weeks earlier. Since doña María Roque’s mother was no longer living, it would have been her father, don Agustín Asís, who guided her in making this decision.38 Her new husband may have been a kind old man, like Manuel Payno’s character don Pedro de Juárez, or a hypocritical tyrant, like his fictional brother, don Hernando. In any case, a woman of twenty-six years of age was surely more likely to know her own mind better than a girl who was only twelve. Age differences between brides and grooms were rarely as large as the forty-eight years that separated don Dionicio from doña María Roque, but they could still be considerable when older men married. Some of these marriages manifest affiliations with the highest levels of Mexican society and the old titles of nobility that had been abolished only a few years earlier. Don Bernardo Miramón Lafita, the grandfather of the conservative general don Miguel de Miramón, had two daughters who were married off to much older men during the first half of 1832. In February, doña María Josefa de la Cruz Miramón, twenty-two, was married to a man who was both elderly and distinguished. Her husband, don Gregorio de Arriscorreta y Garro, having reached sixty-two years of age without ever marrying, was unusually old for

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a bachelor who finally committed matrimony. The marriage of don Gregorio and doña María Josefa was also notable for their social ties to the antiquated Mexican aristocracy. The padrino and madrina for their wedding were General don José María Cervantes, who had once been the eleventh Conde de Santiago Calimaya, and his wife, doña Ana Rivascacho, who was a daughter of the third Marquesa de Rivascacho.39 A few months later, a younger sister, doña María de Jesús Miramón, was married to an old and trusted friend of the family, a fifty-three-year-old widower named don Ramón Díaz.40 At the age of eighteen, doña María de Jesús Miramón was one of the four youngest brides to marry a husband over the age of forty-five. There were only three other brides as young or younger when they were married to much older men. The first, doña Manuela Castro, was also eighteen when she married a forty-seven-year-old retired military officer named don Francisco Montes de Oca.41 The second, doña María Dionicia Argumosa, was sixteen years old when she married don Diego Miguel de Arias. He had been born in Spain forty-five years earlier but had been taken to Mexico as a child when he was ten. Don Miguel had been a resident of Mexico City since 1798, but he had never married before his wedding to doña María Dionicia. Although both her parents had died, the influence of her extended family and their approval of her wedding plans is clear. The padrino and madrina for her wedding, don Juan Argumosa de Rodríguez and doña María Concepción de Argumosa, both share the same unusual last name with her.42 The ultimate of these young brides, doña María Magdalena Alejandra de la Rosa, was the only one under the age of sixteen to marry a man over the age of forty-five. Twelve years old when she was married to her uncle, doña María Magdalena was significantly younger than any of the other young brides who married much older men. Yet these four brides shared the same social niche. First, they all married within the superior social class that considered themselves to be the gente decente. Second, these brides and grooms demonstrated social connections to the most conservative segments of that upper class: to Spain, to the military, to the obsolete aristocracy. Third, all four of these marriages took place in the most prestigious parishes in the two largest cities in the country: Mexico City and Puebla. Marriages that united much older men to younger women were more frequent among the upper class in Mexico City and Puebla. Marriages where the husband was ten or more years older than his wife made up 30 percent of all marriages among the country’s social elite. Half of these elite couples were

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married in Mexico City and another third, in Puebla. Fewer marriages of older dons to young doñas took place in the provincial capitals: there were only three in Oaxaca and another two in San Luis Potosí, simply because there were fewer members of the social elite who married there. Overall, nearly one in every three marriages among the social elite had a groom who was at least ten years older than his bride, and one in seven grooms was at least eighteen years older.43 There were also older grooms among the more popular social ranks, but they were much less common: only about one in ten marriages had a groom who was older than his bride by ten or more years. José Tomás Solís, for example, was a fifty-five-year-old coachman in Oaxaca. He had been a widower for six years when he married Juana Teodora Lizardi, who was thirtytwo. Or consider the example of José Ciriaco Bravo, a resident of San Luis Potosí who did not marry until he was fifty; then he took as his wife a woman who was less than half his age, María Irinea Gallegos, twenty-two.44 The age gaps between older men and younger women were also smaller among the majority of the population than they were among the social elite. There are two reasons for this. First, fewer lower-class men married when they were very old. Only two of these men were over the age of fifty-six. The oldest was a seventy-year-old widowed weaver named Trinidad Jiménez, who married a twenty-eight-year-old woman named María Zeferina Lima.45 Their forty-two-year age difference was the largest between novios from the popular class. José Antonio González, the only other lower-class man over the age of fifty-six to marry, was a widowed sixty-year-old farmer who married María Guadalupe Jiménez, a fifty-year-old widow.46 In this case, of course, José Antonio’s bride was only relatively younger, since María Guadalupe was, in fact, also one of the oldest women to marry. These two brides illustrate the second reason why age differences were smaller among the lower class: old men from the popular class did not marry very young girls. The youngest nonelite brides who married much older men were María Irinea Gallegos and Estefana Chávez. Each of these “youngest” brides was twenty-two years old.47 María Irinea married José Ciriaco Bravo, a single man who was fifty, while Estefana’s husband was a fifty-five-year-old widower named Pablo Ramos. The age differences in these cases, twentyeight and thirty-three years, were among the largest (after the forty-two-year gap mentioned above) for older men from the popular segments of society, but their age differences were smaller than the most extreme cases among the titled class.48

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When older men from the popular classes married or remarried, they often married women decades younger than themselves, but they never married teenage or preteen girls like doña Magdalena. Instead, most these older men chose to marry more mature women in their twenties. The rest married single women who were even older. Few elite older men married women who were already over the age thirty, but nearly half of the brides of older untitled men were between the ages of thirty-one and thirty-seven. Thirteen of the oldest men actually married thirteen of the oldest women, brides who were between the ages of thirty-two and fifty.

Egalitarian Marriages The patriarchal paradigm began to deteriorate after Mexican independence, as expectations for marital relationships were changing. Testimony in legal disputes between husbands and wives in the 1830s shows that wives and husbands began to expect marriage to be emotionally fulfilling for both men and women. The husbands and wives pressing claims against each other for violations of their marriage contracts, as well as the authorities who judged their cases, were all using different language than they had in the past. They used words like “equality” and “justice” more often and defined the ideal relationship between husbands and wives in terms of mutual affection and personal happiness. Love mattered in marriage.49 The new standard for marital satisfaction was intimately tied to the ages of husbands and wives. Rather than an older patriarch, the ideal husband was closer in age to his wife. As we have seen, romantic authors extolled the marriages of age mates, brides and grooms who were contemporaries and had similar life experience. Writers idealized the marriages of men and women who had been known each other since childhood. Since they had been young at the same time, they were expected to treat each other with greater love and respect once they were married.50 Marriages of age mates were more common among the popular class than they were among the elite. Overall, half of marriages of brides and grooms who were not considered gente decente united novios who were about the same age, with a groom who was no more than three years older or younger than the bride. In the central parish of Mexico City, the proportion was even higher: nearly 60 percent of all marriages of untitled brides and grooms were between contemporaries. There were also a substantial number of such

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marriages among the social elite, but they were a smaller proportion, only about one-third. Even among the elite, though, age-mate marriages were usually a larger proportion of the total than were the most highly patriarchal marriages.51 Patriarchal marriages were more frequent among the elite, but age-mate marriages were a larger proportion of all marriages. Added together, those two types of marriages made up about 62 percent of all marriages. Many marriages did not fit either of these two patterns.52

Other Patterns The romantic fiction of this period highlighted the role of financial considerations and parental interference in patriarchal marriages. At the same time, authors extolled the ideal of marriage between brides and grooms who had grown up together and were closer in age. When real Mexican men and women married, they made choices that fit both of these patterns as well as a variety of others. Some of the oldest men might marry some of the youngest women, at the same time that some of the oldest women might marry men half their age. When death brought an early end to a marriage, some widows and widowers remarried at very young ages. The majority of marriages between widowers and single women or between widows and single men involved substantial differences in age between the novios. Don Antonio Castro married doña Anna Mexia about an hour after sunset on Saturday, 20 October 1832, in the parish church on Mexico City’s central plaza. It was not unusual for a sixty-four-year-old widower like don Antonio to remarry, but his choice of a bride was unconventional. Most older men chose to marry first-time brides who were several decades younger than themselves. In contrast, doña Anna was a widow who said she was fifty years old, only fourteen years younger than don Antonio.53 Their marriage was also remarkable for two other reasons. First, because doña Anna, at fifty, was one of the oldest women to remarry. None of the women who married in these four parishes was any older than she was. Second, her decision to marry an elderly widower like don Antonio was also eccentric. Most of the older widows who remarried did not choose to marry widowers. Instead, they usually married bachelors who were younger than their widowed brides, not older men like don Antonio. Of the twelve oldest widows who married

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bachelors, only two chose to marry men who were older than they were themselves.54 If doña Anna Mexia was unusual because she married an older man, María Irinea Martínez was more typical. Although she was also fifty and a widow, María Irinea’s new husband was a younger man: José Rosalio Rodríguez, who was forty years old and had never been married before.55 María Gertrudis Medrano was another older widow who wed a much younger man, a teenager who was only about half her age. She was thirtyseven when she married a nineteen-year-old tinsmith named Doroteo Vázquez, who went by the name Negrete.56 Doña María de Jesús Garcite, age thirty-two, married don Francisco Sánchez, who was seven years younger than she was. The prominent witnesses to her wedding included licenciado don Luis Guzmán, a deputy of the Congress of San Luis Potosí, and, as a padrino, don Pablo del Quadrillo, a professor of medicine and a former member of the city’s ayuntamiento, or city council.57 Concepción Lombardo’s grandmother was another widow who married a younger man when she had the chance to make her own choice. Doña Guadalupe Miñon’s first husband had been chosen by her parents long before she had any chance to express her own opinion. As she told her daughter: “When I was born, I found that I was already married.” That first marriage was formalized when doña Guadalupe was fourteen and her husband, don José Gil de Partearroyo, was fifty-two. They were married for twenty-four years, during which time doña Guadalupe gave birth to fourteen children. Those children objected when, only a little more than a year after her first husband was buried, doña Guadalupe wanted to marry a “young man” named don José Francisco Ocampo. She went ahead despite their opposition because, as she said, “this time I’ll marry the man I love.” 58 The majority of older women who married were not widows; more of these older women were marrying for the first time than were remarrying after the death of the first husbands. These single older women often married men who had been married before. Doña María Guadalupe Tello de Meneses was the oldest previously unmarried woman to marry. She was forty-four when she wed a fifty-six-year-old widower, a cavalry officer named don Juan Hurtado.59 Most of the older single women were not as old as doña Guadalupe. Of the eleven never-married women who wed widowers, ten were between the ages of thirty-two and thirty-four. The widowers they married could be several decades older, as was the case with don José Ignacio Paredes, a fiftyfive-year-old landowner who married thirty-two-year-old doña María

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Joaquina de Biana.60 Widowers might also be young men, and substantial age differences might also be created when older women married youthful widowers. Margarita Parra, age thirty-two, for example, married a widower who was only twenty years old, a carpenter named Plácido Pacheco.61 The older first-time brides might be much older or much younger than their husbands. A thirty-five-year-old woman named Marina Barranco married for the first time to a young bachelor guitarist named Leandro Martínez, who was only about half her age.62 Likewise, doña Ana Vicenta Salgado, age forty-two, married don Felipe Santiago Arango, a merchant who was fourteen years her junior.63 In contrast, María Guadalupe Briseño, age thirty-six, married Justo López, a fifty-six-year-old chair maker.64 Overall, few older women married men who were close to their own age. The majority of older women married men who were either more than five years older or more than five years younger. According to the marriage registers, there was little intermarriage between, or even on the margins of, the two distinctive social classes. Men who were accorded the title “don” always married women who were doñas. When the parents of the bride and groom were named, their social status was almost invariably the same as their child’s. Of more than seven hundred marriages in these four parishes, fewer than one in one hundred falls near or across the class demarcation. In most of these cases, the bride was accepted as a doña, while the groom was not conceded an honorific; he did not deserve to be addressed as “don.” Doña Clara Gandarillas, for example, married a lawyer’s assistant named José Inés Sandoval. His father’s name was also listed without any title, though his mother was named as doña Jacinta Escalante. In another example from the same parish, a tailor named José María Lascares married doña María de Jesús Rodríguez, the legitimate child of parents who were also named as “don” and “doña,” although his own parents were named without the honorifics. Of this handful of examples, only one is the case of a groom who was named with a title at the same time his parents, his bride, and her family were not. That single exception was ciudadano (Citizen) Ignacio Varas de Valdés, who married María Mónica Rodea. Most of the time, though, marriages did not cross, or even come close to crossing, the demarcation between the gente decente and the rest of the people. One-third of the marriages united brides considered “doñas” to grooms who were at least entitled to be called “don,” and many of whom might be listed with higher titles, such as “licenciado” (usually a lawyer) or a military rank. Twothirds of the marriages celebrated were between brides and grooms without

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any social distinction. All together, more than 99 percent of the marriages in these four parishes were endogamous: they were marriages within the same social rank.65 If we look deeper into some of these cases, though, the apparent endogamy in the records appears to be an artificial creation, the product of priests and scribes assuming that a don would only marry a doña, for example. When we compare the social status of brides and grooms with earlier and later records, the strict division in the marriage registers between the “decent people” and the rest of the population becomes less distinct. The honorifics “don” and “doña” were not granted to men and women who had deserved them a few years earlier or else were granted to brides and grooms who were subsequently denied them even a day or two later. When María de la Concepción Hernández married don José Guadalupe Velasco, she was described as a doña in the matrimonial investigation and in the marriage register. Their marriage fit the upper-class, patriarchal model; he was twenty-six years old, twice her age. But don José Guadalupe was not a healthy man. He died of a lung disease after only four months of marriage, and his body was interred in an old-fashioned, dignified grave just outside his parish church. Thus doña María de la Concepción was already a widow at the age of thirteen. After mourning her husband for a little more than a year, doña María de la Concepción remarried. Her first marriage to don José Guadalupe had fit the patriarchal model, but her second marriage was more romantic. At the same time, she was no longer considered part of the upper class, and neither she nor her second husband was granted an honorific. María de la Concepción married just-plain Justo Rodríguez, who made boxes for a butcher shop. She was fifteen; he was sixteen. They had known each other since they were children.66 Doña Dolores Crespo lived alone in a single room on a busy thoroughfare not far from Mexico City’s eastern San Lázaro gate. Her room was on the ground floor and faced outward onto the street rather than inward to a private patio. Such rooms were called accesorias. They were frequently used for workshops or small stores, since the spaces were inexpensive and accessible to the public. For the same reasons, an accesoria was not considered a suitable residence for a woman of doña Dolores’s social status. In Mexico, multiple-story residences reflected the social structure, with the lower class inhabiting the lower floors and dons and doñas dwelling in the upper stories. The gente decente resided in apartments that faced interior courtyards away from the noise and the bustle of the streets, where the air would have been

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cleaner and drier and there was more natural light. Rooms like the one doña Dolores inhabited, on the ground floors of urban buildings, were usually dim and frequently damp. Only plebeian people inhabited such base places, because they could not afford something better. It was not just a question of comfort and expense but of honor; women who spent too much time in such places would have sullied their reputations. Doña Dolores’s ground-floor room not only implied low social status, it carried with it intimations of immorality and might have made her vulnerable to sexual harassment and even violence.67 For the same reasons, doña Dolores’s room would not normally have been considered an appropriate place for a wedding, but that is where she married don Diego Bulnes at nightfall on a warm Tuesday evening at the end of May 1832. They were in a hurry. They had begun the prenuptial investigation three days before with the parish priest, don José María Santiago, but there was no time for three announcements at Sunday Mass of the couple’s intention to marry, each one asking the traditional question of whether anyone in the parish knew of any reason that don Diego and doña Dolores should not be married. Instead, they had summoned a priest, bachiller don Pedro de Legorreta, to doña Dolores’s humble room because doña Dolores was “gravely ill in bed” and she might die at any moment. The padre included in the registration of their marriage the formal justification en articulo de muerte, a principle of canon law that permitted such accelerated inquiries and immediate marriages when either the bride or the groom was in danger of dying before the usual process could be carried out.68 The evidence tells us that doña Dolores was indeed very ill: married at sunset on Tuesday evening, she died late Wednesday during the night or early Thursday before dawn. She was buried before nightfall in the San Lázaro cemetery just inside the eastern gate of the city. The parish register does not record how much her husband paid for her burial, but it could not have been very much. In life, doña Dolores had lived in a simple room on the edge of respectability, but when she died, she was buried as just-plain María Dolores Crespo. The priest who buried her did not concede to her the honorific “doña,” a final indignity at the end of a short and difficult life.69

Ch a p t er 8

Where Their Bodies Were Buried I believe that San Lázaro and Santa María la Redonda were the first, but the pressure of time has impeded my investigation, and if in this matter I am mistaken, I will be pleased to make a correction. —Manuel Payno

.

\  There is always a deadline. When Manuel Payno wrote about

cemeteries in the autumn of 1843, he had to finish his research so that his article could be in press well before the Day of the Dead on 2 November. Then, as now, no one ever has enough time for investigation, time to pursue what one scholar has called “the diabolical proliferation of papers.”1 Payno confessed that pressure to publish might have led him to a premature conclusion that was not historically accurate. In this instance, Payno wrote tentatively, but the concern he expressed was justified. In fact, he had made an error by relying on sources that were themselves inaccurate. Mexico City’s first suburban burial ground had been devised more than sixty years earlier. By the time Payno wrote, much had already been forgotten or had been misunderstood over the course of time. That legacy of error has continued to the present. We can trace the mistaken idea, that San Lázaro was the first cemetery outside Mexico City, to sources that appeared at least two decades before Payno wrote his history. In 1820, an unsigned article correctly identified the year 1779 as the beginning 155

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of planning for suburban cemeteries but incorrectly named the location as the church of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles.2 A few months later, Juan Francisco Azcárate wrote a report for the city’s ayuntamiento that described San Lázaro as the “primer cementerio de México.” Alzcárate meant to say that San Lázaro was then the city’s principal cemetery, but his ambiguous wording has been misinterpreted to mean that San Lázaro was the first, or oldest, cemetery and that it had been inaugurated more than four decades earlier, in 1779.3 In any case, most of the existing histories of cemeteries in Mexico have relied heavily on manuscripts in civil archives as well as other printed sources, such as legislation, proclamations, and edicts. Such sources can tell us only part of the story. They record what officials thought and what they intended, so additional sources are essential. Parish burial registers can tell us what actually happened, that is, where the bodies were buried.4

A Tradition of Church Burials When the newly wed Dolores Crespo was buried in the San Lázaro cemetery, it was both an indication of her marginal social status and a sign of changing times. Historians explain that for hundreds of years most Mexicans had preferred to be buried inside their churches. Like their residences, their graves reflected the social status that each individual had occupied in life. The clergy and their parishioners of high social status and political importance were interred beneath the floor near the altar or in other chapels of special significance to them. Those who were less important, less wealthy, or simply more humble might be buried nearer to the entrance or outside in the courtyard, which was then a cemetery adjacent to the church. The hierarchy of burial places reflected earthly social stratification and emphasized the links between that community and heaven. The faithful believed that it was important to be buried in or near a church to receive the intercession of those who were of higher rank, including the saints to whom chapels and churches were dedicated. Burials in or near churches served as a reminder to the living that they, too, would die and that they had an obligation to pray for the souls of the departed. At the same time, there was also a clear line between holy and unconsecrated ground. To be buried in holy ground was to be located in the proper, safe space, while an unconsecrated grave was unholy, dangerous, and disorderly.5 When doña Dolores Crespo died shortly after her wedding in 1832, she was not buried in her parish church, but in a suburban cemetery. To call it

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“suburban” is technically correct, but it may be misleading. To many modern readers, the word “suburban” may conjure up images of spacious green lawns, low-density housing, and plenty of parking, in contrast to the crowded, cramped, and high-rise environment of the city. In nineteenth-century Mexico, however, prestige, power, and wealth were all associated with the center of the city, and the suburbs were regarded as dangerous, unhealthy, impoverished, and dirty. In fact, the city was surrounded by suburban garbage dumps. Josefina Muriel described the approach to San Lázaro this way: “The site where it was located was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the place where the city’s trash was dumped, so that one got there by passing through heaps of garbage.” 6 The San Lázaro cemetery was called a camposanto, “holy field,” to emphasize that the cemetery was sanctified space. The cemetery was located on the grounds of the San Lázaro Hospital, which had its own substantial chapel. San Lázaro owed its peripheral location to its original purpose: it had been founded as a hospital for those with leprosy in 1571. In the late 1700s, the hospital faced a series of administrative and financial tribulations, as revenues were declining at the same time that the number of patients was increasing. With the ensuing financial crisis, the Spanish monarch, King Charles III, made it a royal hospital in 1784. The reorganization was not successful, and the administrative disorder and financial difficulties continued.7 About the same time, some educated people began to be concerned that the practice of burying the dead in churches was a threat to the health of the living. This idea emerged in Mexico during a smallpox epidemic in the autumn of 1779. Up to that time, most of those who died in Mexico City’s central parish had been buried under the floors of their parish church. During the first seven months of 1779, for example, more than 70 percent of all those who died in Sagrario Parish were buried inside the parish church. Only a few were specifically consigned to the parish cemetery outside.8 Most of those who were relegated to graves in the adjacent cemetery were forsaken children who were listed as “orphans.” 9 Throughout the colonial period, the priests in Mexico City’s central parish had maintained separate sets of burial registers: one series for parishioners who were regarded as Spanish and another series for all others who were of Indian, African, or mixed descent. The separate burial registers reflected the reality of the way burials differed between these groups, so that we can say more precisely that in the first seven months of 1779, more than twothirds of the Spaniards were buried in the church along with more than

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90 percent of a smaller resident population of mestizos, mulatos, castas, and indios. Only four of these non-Spanish individuals were buried in other locations. Three had been prisoners condemned to capital punishment in the central plaza. As each waited for death on the scaffold, one of the last things they saw was a religious statue known as the Cristo de las Misericordias, which was customarily brought out to the scaffold to witness public executions. Afterward, the lifeless bodies of the condemned prisoners accompanied the Cristo as he returned to the Casa de la Misericordia. There the prisoners’ corpses were buried, and the Cristo was restored to his customary position in the chapel.10 Criminal convictions and social marginalization explain only a few of the burials in locations apart from the parish church. Instead, such burials were usually an indication of wealth and elevated social status. There was only one other non-Spanish burial away from this parish church. Nicolasa Dorotea Patiño, a mestiza, represented the upper end of the social scale for those who were not considered gente decente but who were not poor, either. Her husband, José Calixto Pineda, honored his wife by having her buried in the church of the Mercedarian convent, despite the additional expenses he incurred.11 He paid the normal burial fees to Sagrario Parish, as well as added sums for transportation of her body and further payments to the convent for her interment there. Such extra expenses meant that burials in locations other than the parish church were more frequent among the wealthier Spanish population and particularly among the nobility.12 The titled nobles, and those Spaniards who were merely wealthy, frequently preferred to be buried beneath the floors of the churches and chapels of various convents, monasteries, schools, and hospitals in the city. The Franciscan and Dominican orders attracted the largest numbers of elite burials, but many other options were available.13 During the first seven months of 1779, about one-fifth of the Spanish parishioners were buried in two dozen different locations in addition to the parish church, its cemetery, and the Casa de la Misericordia.14 Elaborate processions added to the expenses for funerals, and the greater the distance a funeral procession traveled, the higher the cost, since each parish the body passed through was entitled to collect fees.15 The most extravagant funeral during this period was that of Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa, who died in early April 1779. Funeral services were held for him in the convent of San Francisco before his body was carried to the shrine of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe for

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burial. There, at his request, he was laid to rest below the floor near the entrance he had used when he went to the shrine to pray.16

Public Health and the Archbishop of Mexico, 1779 The first suburban cemetery for Mexico City was created during an epidemic in the fall of 1779. During the first seven months of that year, there had been about two burials per day, with most of the bodies interred inside the Sagrario Parish church. A few cases of smallpox had been reported in August, but no one appeared to be very worried at first. From August through September the burial rate in Sagrario Parish remained almost unchanged. It was not long, though, before there were more infections, more deaths, and more burials. In October, burials in the parish church multiplied quickly. Before the epidemic, an average of about fifteen parishioners had been buried each week, but in October and early November, there were often as many burials on a single day as there had been during any of the prior weeks. In all, there were more burials in those 38 days than in the first 200 days of the year. The parish church did not have room for all the graves that were needed; more and more families had to send the bodies of their loved ones out for burial elsewhere. Once the epidemic began in earnest, the proportion buried in the church declined from 72 percent to less than 62 percent. At the same time, other locations began to take in more of the dead. Parish interments at the Casa de la Misericordia, for example, increased from about 1 percent to 10 percent.17 It was then that Archbishop Alonso Núñez de Haro y Peralta and the new viceroy, don Martín de Mayorga, agreed to establish a new general cemetery behind San Salvador el Seco, a chapel located on what was then the southern edge of the city. The viceroy had asked the archbishop “to send the corresponding orders to all priests and their vicars so that all of the dead shall be buried in that campo santo and not in the churches and their cemeteries in order to avoid the notorious damage that results from the contamination spread in this city.”18 In his preamble to these orders, Archbishop Núñez de Haro explained that it was necessary to bury the dead outside the city “to prevent the dangerous consequences of the fetid emanations given off by the multitude of cadavers buried in the churches and cemeteries, especially in Sagrario, and to preserve public health.”19

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Núñez de Haro’s concerns about public health were thoroughly permeated with religious and spiritual considerations. Burying the dead inside churches was a threat to the corporeal health of his flock, and at the same time, the practice endangered their souls because it also undermined the practice of religion. The archbishop feared that parishioners might avoid congregating in their churches because they thought that the overwhelming stench of rotting corpses would harm them. Núñez de Haro acted to protect both the physical and spiritual well-being of his “beloved people.” He was fulfilling his “pastoral ministry,” he wrote, by “dictating such preparations as we believe most opportune and effective in order to maintain and augment the decorum and majesty” of the church buildings themselves.20 To support his thesis that corpses should be buried outside the city in cemeteries rather than inside the city in churches, Núñez de Haro cited both ancient and modern precedents: burial practices during the early years of Christianity and contemporaneous episcopal dispositions in Europe, particularly in some bishoprics in France and Italy. He explained that prayers for the dead would still be effective even if their bodies were not buried close by beneath the floor and that burials in cemeteries outside the city “would not reduce the devotion that connects the faithful to the souls of the dead.” Núñez de Haro asserted that church buildings were not appropriate places to inter the dead; cemeteries were the proper place for burials. As proof of this generalization, the archbishop pointed out that when church buildings were dedicated, the prayers and blessings said nothing about having burials inside them. At the same time, the rituals for consecrating and blessing cemeteries did specify that their purpose was to receive the bodies of the faithful. Núñez de Haro noted that he had blessed the new cemetery himself.21 Having provided this background and explained the reasons for his orders, Archbishop Núñez de Haro commanded, first, that during the epidemic, all the dead should be sent for burial “in the aforementioned Cemetery, or Campo santo, and not in the Parish churches and their cemeteries.” Then, after four more commands concerning funeral and burial procedures, he ordered that as soon as anyone died, the parish priest be advised in order to arrange where the body would be buried and how the body would be transported there; prohibiting, as we expressly prohibit, and under penalty of major excommunication, that any person of any class and quality whatsoever intrude in this process to direct or arrange this conveyance














Map 8.1.  Burial locations in Mexico City, 1779. Map drawn by the author.




  



  

 
   




 

             


       

  

  

 










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to the parish churches, their cemeteries, the churches of regular orders of both sexes, or their burial grounds; and under the same penalty we prohibit that any bodies be taken for burial without the notification and approval of the respective parish priest.22 Finally, in order that his edict would be “known to all and that no one could plead ignorance,” the archbishop directed that copies of his edict should be printed, posted in the usual places, and read aloud at Mass “in every parish, in the churches of the orders of both sexes, and in the colleges.” 23 Archbishop Núñez de Haro’s intention was clear: all of the dead were to be interred outside the city in a new cemetery behind the chapel of San Salvador el Seco. No one, no matter how wealthy or important, was to interfere in this process and redirect bodies to the parish churches, or to the churches of the regular orders of either sex, or to their burial grounds, “under penalty of major excommunication.” 24 Yet that is not what happened. Burials inside the Sagrario Parish church did decline precipitously after Archbishop Núñez de Haro’s edict was published, but they did not stop completely. His edict was dated 8 November 1779, which was a Monday. On that same day, fourteen bodies were buried inside the Sagrario Parish church. The next day, there were only four new graves inside the parish church, followed by one more each day on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. After that, burials in the church stopped, but only for a few days at a time. The parish church seldom went more than three or four days without a new grave being added under the floor.25 There were twenty-one burials inside the Sagrario Parish church after Archbishop Núñez de Haro issued his edict and before the epidemic declined at the end of the year. Most of those entombed in the church were children who likely died of smallpox. These parish registers seldom included attributed causes for deaths, but the circumstantial evidence is strong. The oldest among this group was doña Anna Gertrudis de la Peña. At the age of nineteen, she was the only one of these parishioners known to have been alive during the previous smallpox epidemic in 1761–1762, but she would have been an infant then and may not have been exposed to the disease. There is no direct information in the parish register indicating why, out of the hundreds who died, these particular children were allowed burials in the church despite the archbishop’s explicit prohibition. The signs of privilege are ambiguous. Most of these children were Spanish, but only in the same proportion as were the majority of

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those who lived in the parish. The gender bias is clearer. Boys outnumbered girls by eleven to six among Spaniards and twelve to nine overall. Only about half of the children were given the honorific “don” or “doña.” Clearly, not all of these children were the offspring of the parish’s most prestigious families. One castiza named María Michaela appears to be particularly marginal; both her surname and her age were unknown. She was old enough to have been considered an adult and to have received the sacraments before she died, but the term used to describe her marital status was not particularly complimentary. Rather than doncella (maiden or virgin), she was described as suelta de matrimonio, or “unattached.” 26 Archbishop Núñez de Haro’s attempt to halt all burials in the city’s churches was only a partial success. Many fewer graves were dug inside the Sagrario Parish church after his edict. Burials in the church declined substantially from about 72 percent of all those who died in the parish during the months before the epidemic to only 1 percent after his edict was published. In the city’s principal parish, priests often ignored Archbishop Núñez de Haro’s requirement that all of the dead be buried in the new suburban cemetery. According to the burial register, only 47 percent of the dead from Sagrario Parish were interred in the new cemetery behind the chapel of San Salvador el Seco.27 Instead of being buried in the archbishop’s suburban cemetery, many of those who died during the epidemic in New Spain’s most prestigious parish went to their graves in the same urban convents, monasteries, hospitals, and schools that had been the preferred burial sites for the elite prior to the epidemic. The Dominican Order proved especially flexible in accommodating large numbers of burials: a total of 445 bodies were buried by the Dominicans, whose convent and church were only a few blocks northwest of the Sagrario Parish church. In any case, the epidemic was only a temporary lull in parochial burials. By April 1780, when the epidemic was officially over, regular burials in the Sagrario Parish church resumed.

The Archbishop’s Hospital and His Next Cemetery Project Archbishop Núñez de Haro’s first attempt to alter Mexico City’s burial practices did not succeed, but suburban cemeteries were not the only public health innovation he had on his mind during the smallpox epidemic of 1779.

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Núñez de Haro was also busy trying to make health care more accessible for the living by creating Mexico’s first general hospital. Until that time, all hospitals had been dedicated to specific purposes: the San Lázaro Hospital was for lepers, the Hospital de Jesús for Indians, the Hospital Real del Amor de Dios for venereal diseases, the Hospital de la Santísima Trinidad for priests, and so on. One historian remarked that patients had “to make real pilgrimages from one hospital to another until they found the appropriate one for their illness.” 28 Only a few years earlier, Viceroy Bucareli had developed an ambitious plan for a general hospital, but he had been unable to allocate sufficient funds to carry it through. When Bucareli died in 1779, his plan was left without its strongest advocate, but in October of that year, at the same time that he began planning his first suburban cemetery, Archbishop Núñez de Haro wrote to Viceroy Martín de Mayorga, who had succeeded Bucareli, to ask that the former Jesuit College of San Andrés be turned over to him to be outfitted as the new general hospital. The archbishop described the available ecclesiastical funds and offered to augment them with his own personal subsidy to ensure that there would be enough money to get the project started. Apparently moved by the urgent need for medical attention as smallpox ravaged the city’s population, the new viceroy approved the archbishop’s project almost immediately.29 Three days later, Núñez de Haro had already inspected the property. He wrote again to the viceroy to describe the state of the building.30 It was not an encouraging sight: Yesterday afternoon I went to inspect the hospital, and I can assure Your Excellency that it filled me with discomfort and sadness to find it so dirty, run down, and neglected. This building, which the soldiers have used, is like a stable, and there is even a blacksmith’s shop in the cemetery. The water pipes are clogged, and the lower parts of the college are under water. . . . The upstairs rooms are full of leaks, and since some of the windows have been left open there is even grass growing in several of them. . . . In a word, I’ve never seen any habitation so filthy and forsaken.31 The viceroy ordered that the building be cleaned out and fixed up, while the archbishop hired carpenters to make 300 beds. The new hospital was soon ready.32

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Figure 8.1.  The Hospital of San Andrés. Manuel Rivera Cambas, México pintoresco,

artístico y monumental (Mexico City: Imprenta de la Reforma, 1880). General Research Division, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundations.

After the smallpox epidemic declined, Núñez de Haro wrote to the viceroy again; this time, the archbishop offered to continue his personal subsidy for six months longer, in order to give the viceregal government time to make its own arrangements to keep the hospital functioning. Then he waited for a reply. Nearly a year later, the viceroy still had not responded. Núñez de Haro wrote to Mayorga one more time to propose that if the government would cede the building to him officially, he would continue to subsidize the hospital. A few months later, the viceroy gave his consent, on condition that the king agreed. Royal approval was delayed for two more years, but eventually the plan was approved in the summer of 1783.33 Since he was using his own money to keep the hospital in operation, Archbishop Núñez de Haro continued to play an active role in its administration. As might be expected, Núñez de Haro insisted that the Hospital of San Andrés should have its own cemetery situated outside the city, rather than continuing to use the former Jesuit college’s burial ground on the property. The archbishop designated land for the hospital’s new cemetery in the

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parish of Santa María la Redonda on what was then the far northwest fringe of the city. Burials began there in 1784, and Archbishop Núñez de Haro personally consecrated the cemetery’s chapel when it was completed in 1786.34

Viceroy Revillagigedo The following year King Charles III issued his first decree pointing out the dangers of burials in urban churches, convents, and schools and encouraging the construction of cemeteries outside inhabited areas. This decree was extended to Mexico in 1789, about the same time that another new viceroy arrived there.35 Don Juan Vicente Güémez Pacheco de Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, the second Count of Revillagigedo, is well known for the reforms he initiated in government and the cultural, educational, and public infrastructure projects he fostered. Revillagigedo has been called “the greatest of the eighteenth-century Mexican viceroys” 36 and “the epitome of an enlightened Bourbon administrator.” 37 Naturally, the promotion of suburban cemeteries was among his interests. When Revillagigedo arrived in the port city of Veracruz, he found a conflict already in progress between traditionalists, who wanted to retain church burials, and the “rising enlightened class,” who sought to create a suburban cemetery that would exemplify equality and individuality without distinctions of wealth and class. Revillagigedo forced a compromise that allowed the construction of elaborate burial vaults in the new cemetery to appease the traditionalists. Nevertheless, he was overruled by another royal decree that said the viceroy had gone too far and had acted without due respect for the religious orders and others with existing burial privileges.38 Archbishop Núñez de Haro wrote to the new viceroy soon after Revillagigedo arrived in Mexico City. Núñez de Haro proposed that they cooperate to create a new general cemetery outside of Mexico City that would be a model for other cities in New Spain. Although the archbishop and the viceroy continued to correspond, the archbishop’s proposal languished. Now, one would think that the combination of an archbishop and a viceroy, each of whom was opposed to burial inside parish churches, would have reduced the incidence of such burials.39 In fact, burials in the Sagrario Parish church became more frequent during the years when Revillagigedo was viceroy.40 Perhaps the possibility that burials in the church would be forbidden increased

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the likelihood that such burials would be perceived as prestigious and that parishioners would want to be buried there. The available historical evidence suggests that the principal obstacle to cooperation emanated from the new viceroy’s attitudes and actions. When Archbishop Núñez de Haro initiated their correspondence about a model cemetery for Mexico City, Viceroy Revillagigedo was not interested in cooperation, because he believed that he could demand subordination. Revillagigedo insisted on his own preeminence as “the image of the king.” Even before he first met the archbishop, the viceroy had ordered his palace guard not to receive the archbishop with the honors that Núñez de Haro had a right to expect, not only as Mexico’s archbishop but as a former viceroy himself.41 It was not long before King Charles IV became concerned about the evident tension between his viceroy and the archbishop. In August 1791, the king asked each of them to send him a confidential report on their troubled relationship. Núñez de Haro replied that in his twenty years of experience as archbishop, he never had problems with the previous viceroys, but Revillagigedo had been rude and disrespectful to him from the beginning. He added that Revillagigedo also lacked respect for the judges of the Audiencia Real and spied on everyone. On the basis of his own experience as viceroy, Núñez de Haro questioned many of Revillagigedo’s decisions and reported that the viceroy had even ignored the king’s own directives. Revillagigedo had also behaved scandalously: he had interfered with the clergy; he favored a prisoner of the Inquisition; he consorted in public with a married woman, whom he insisted should be accorded honors as though she were his own wife. In his cover letter to the Count of Floridablanca (who was Revillagigedo’s patron), Núñez de Haro was even less restrained; he described Revillagigedo as “effeminate . . . arrogant, superficial and fickle.” 42 If Revillagigedo ever responded to the king’s request for information, his report has not been found in the archive, but we do have his “secret instructions” to his successor as viceroy, the Marquis of Branciforte.43 In that report Revillagigedo claimed credit for supporting the creation of a suburban burial ground for a hospital in Puebla. In fact, in an interesting slip, Revillagigedo mistakenly wrote that the cemetery outside Puebla was created for the hospital real y general de San Andrés when the hospital in Puebla was really named for San Pedro. It might seem to be a minor mistake, until one considers that San Andrés was actually the name of hospital and cemetery his rival Archbishop Núñez de Haro had created in Mexico City not only without his help but before

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Revillagigedo had arrived in Mexico.44 Despite his reputation, Viceroy Revillagigedo was not notably successful in promoting suburban cemeteries. His only real success, the cemetery for the city of Veracruz, owed more to local efforts that were underway well before his own arrival from Spain.45 Although Viceroy Revillagigedo and Archbishop Núñez de Haro were unable to work together, it seems more likely that the real obstacle to a new cemetery outside Mexico City was the lack of popular and clerical support for a suburban cemetery there. Revillagigedo returned to Spain in 1794 and was replaced as viceroy by don Miguel de la Grúa Talamanca, the Marquis of Branciforte. Although the new viceroy and the old archbishop were able to collaborate, it still took another twenty years and two more major epidemics before burials in suburban cemeteries would become common in Mexico’s major cities.

The Smallpox Epidemic of 1797 Smallpox was a periodic scourge. The epidemic of 1779 was followed by another one eighteen years later, in 1797. When Viceroy Branciforte wrote to provincial officials in July 1796 asking for information about the disease, only one of forty-six replies confirmed a recent death from smallpox. Nevertheless, other historical records show that smallpox may already have been present as early as 1793 in the state of Veracruz. From there it spread to Tabasco and across the isthmus to Tehuantepec; by December 1796, the epidemic was in its early stages in the city of Oaxaca.46 Viceroy Branciforte issued an edict on 28 February 1797 with thirteen provisions explaining his plan of action to mitigate the epidemic. The first five numbered paragraphs outlined procedures for the isolation of infected individuals and the quarantine of their villages, towns, and cities. The next four paragraphs described the necessity of bonfires for purifying the air, provided directions for the fumigation of correspondence, and explained the benefits of inoculation, as well as how to organize charitable societies. The tenth paragraph concerned where the bodies of those who died ought to be buried: “Of no less concern is the burial of those who succumb to the contagion, for of such a quality is its activity and penetration that in order to avoid its noxious effects it is necessary that the corpses be buried outside of the churches and their regular cemeteries, in places removed from all contact.” 47

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The years of tension between the archbishop and the viceroy were over. Archbishop Núñez de Haro corresponded regularly with Viceroy Branciforte (who was away from Mexico City, in Orizaba) and with the senior judge of the audiencia, don Cosme de Mier y Trespalacios, among others. Since Mier was also in control of the city government’s expenditures, he was an important participant in the planning process.48 Mier initially suggested to Archbishop Núñez de Haro that the grounds of the former Jesuit College of San Pedro and San Pablo could be used to bury the victims of the expected epidemic. From his experience with the smallpox epidemic nearly twenty years earlier, Núñez y Haro knew that the burial ground there was too small, and, what is more important, the archbishop considered that site too close to the center of the city, as it was located only a few blocks northeast of the central plaza. Instead, Núñez de Haro proposed that most of those who died of smallpox should be interred in the new cemetery that he had ordered to be built for the Hospital of San Andrés. That cemetery was located near the parish church of Santa María la Redonda on the northwestern periphery of the city.49 Upon further consideration, Núñez de Haro realized that it was not wise to transport numerous cadavers from the eastern parishes all the way through the city to the designated cemetery in the far northwest. Not only would burials be delayed and transportation costly, but more people would be exposed to what he believed to be dangerous emanations from the corpses as they were carted across the city. Instead, Núñez de Haro thought that it would make more sense to bury the dead from these parishes in the cemetery next to the Hospital of San Lázaro. Like all hospitals of that era, the San Lázaro Hospital had always had its own chapel and a burial ground for patients who died there. So when the archbishop first proposed the expansion of the cemetery at San Lázaro in 1797, it was not intended as a replacement for burials in Sagrario Parish. Instead, the archbishop planned San Lázaro to be the final resting place for smallpox victims from the parishes of San Sebastián, Santa Cruz y Soledad, Santo Tomás la Palma, San Pablo, and Santa Cruz Acatlán, all of which were further to the east.50 Even before the epidemic took hold, the priests in Sagrario Parish began sending more bodies for burial in the San Lázaro cemetery. They started with the poorest and most marginal of the dead: two prisoners who had died in the royal jail, a mixed-race woman named María Dolores Escalona and a native of Manila in the Philippines who was known only as Bernardo. They

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were followed a week later by a Spanish infant, a little more than a year old, named José María Albarrán, who had died in the orphanage.51 By the time the epidemic was well underway in October, the corpses of Spaniards as well as of mixed-race people were regularly dispatched for burial in the cemetery at San Lázaro. From October through the end of December, 38 percent of all Spaniards and almost two-thirds of all mixedrace people who died in Sagrario Parish were buried in the San Lázaro cemetery. In contrast, almost no one was buried in the archbishop’s cemetery for the Hospital of San Andrés. There were only two burials there of the dead from Sagrario Parish. One was a young Spanish woman named Romana Romadiega, who died in the Hospital of San Andrés and was buried in the hospital’s cemetery on 25 November. The other was a fourteen-year old “Indio” named Juan Paulino, who died at home on a street near the San Lorenzo convent. This was on the far northwestern fringe of the parish and closer to the hospital’s cemetery than it was to the parish church.52 Archbishop Núñez de Haro had designated that cemetery near the parish church of Santa María la Redonda for the patients who died in the Hospital de San Andrés. Yet even those who died in that hospital were only rarely buried in the hospital’s cemetery. Twenty-nine residents of Sagrario Parish died in the San Andrés Hospital between August and December 1797. Romana Romadiega was the only one of these who was buried in the hospital’s suburban cemetery. Most of the rest were interred inside the Sagrario Parish church.53 Núñez de Haro had learned during the previous epidemic that deadly disease and his threats of excommunication were not sufficient reasons for the city’s social elite to waive their privileged burials inside churches. Nor could he rely on his own parish priests to enforce his edict that all corpses were to be buried in the suburban cemeteries he designated. In 1797, Núñez de Haro attempted a compromise. Recognizing that the social elite would refuse to bury their dead in the suburban cemeteries, at least the deceased dons and doñas could be buried in convents, schools, and hospitals that were located away from the center of the city. At first, Núñez de Haro proposed that the gente decente were to be buried in the convent of San Hipólito (located near the western edge of the city) or the convent of San Cosme (beyond the city to the west). Viceroy Branciforte approved the archbishop’s plan, and the prior of San Hipólito agreed to bury smallpox victims in that convent’s atrium as long as the corpses had been what he called “respectable persons.” 54

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Archbishop Núñez de Haro wrote to Branciforte again a few days later, on 4 September, to propose additional churches that might receive the bodies of such “respectable persons:” Santiago Tlatelolco (outside the city to the north), San Antonio Tomatlán (on the northeastern periphery), and the church of the Colegio de San Pablo, which was near the parish church of the same name in the southeastern corner of the city.55 In his classic monograph on epidemics in colonial Mexico City, Donald B. Cooper wrote about the 1797 smallpox epidemic as though Archbishop Núñez de Haro had been coordinating the flow of information between the upper levels of colonial administration (the viceroy, the audiencia, and himself) and the lower levels (the parish priests and the regular orders) who controlled most of the burial sites. As with the proposals for burials of ordinary people, the relevant administrative documentation in the national archive put the archbishop at the center of communications about elite burials. For example, Cooper wrote: “Núñez de Haro reported on November 6 that more than 200 bodies of ‘respectable persons’ had been buried at San Hipólito. Since no more could be accommodated, the Archbishop advised the parish priests not to schedule any more burials at this site.” 56 In contrast to these official communications in the national archive, the parish burial registers tell quite a different story. The Sagrario Parish priests did not need to hear from the archbishop that San Hipólito was unable to accept any more bodies for burial; they already knew that. Two days before the archbishop wrote to them, that is, on 4 November, the Sagrario Parish priests had already stopped sending the dead to San Hipólito. The next day, they began to direct the cadavers from their parish to the Colegio de San Pablo instead. When that church reached its capacity about ten days later, they switched to the convent of Monserrat. A week or so later, they also began to send bodies for burial to the church of the Santísima Trinidad. La Santísima was only a few blocks east of the parish church and about half as far away as Monserrat. For that reason, Archbishop Núñez de Haro had not approved La Santísima for burials during the epidemic.57 Nonetheless, because transportation costs were lower, burials continued at La Santísima. The expense of moving a corpse was a more significant consideration than the archbishop’s strict instructions about their final destinations. In 1797, Archbishop Núñez de Haro was, paradoxically, both more successful and less successful than he had been during the earlier epidemic. Consider the fact that nearly twenty years earlier only 47 percent of the dead from Sagrario Parish had been buried in the archbishop’s suburban cemetery

















  







 








  


 

        














Map 8.2.  Approved burial locations in Mexico City, 1797. Map drawn by the author.








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behind the church of San Salvador el Seco and nearly all of the rest were buried in convents, hospitals, and schools in the center of the city. At the same time, fewer than 1 percent of these were interred in institutions that Núñez de Haro would later approve as peripheral and suitable for burials during an epidemic.58 Núñez de Haro did not do better in 1797, since there were more burials in the parish church. During the smallpox epidemic of 1797, 171 corpses were buried in the Sagrario Parish church, more than 11 percent of all who died during the three months of the epidemic. This is substantially more than the 21 children, or 1 percent of the total, who were buried there during the previous smallpox epidemic. In addition, those who were buried outside in the parish courtyard brought the total up to 253, or nearly 17 percent of all deaths in Sagrario Parish during the three months of the later epidemic. By that metric, the archbishop did not do better in preventing burials in or near the parish church than he had eighteen years before. In contrast, during the 1797 epidemic a larger percentage of the dead were buried in locations the archbishop had designated on the periphery or beyond the limits of the city. Nearly half of the dead from Sagrario Parish were buried in the suburban cemetery at San Lázaro. Although Núñez de Haro had planned to use that cemetery for the dead from other parishes that were further east than Sagrario, the archbishop most likely did not mind when the priests in the central parish began to send a large portion of the Spanish and most of their mixed-race corpses to San Lázaro. At least their bodies were out of the city center. The archbishop’s attempt to direct the corpses of the gente decente to peripheral churches was a marked improvement over the record during the earlier epidemic. Burials in locations he approved outnumbered those in more central convents, hospitals, and churches by about two to one. In the end, the final totals of bodies buried in the suburban cemeteries and peripheral convents outnumbered those buried in the center of the city by about the same ratio. More than 70 percent of Spaniards and more than 76 percent of the castas were interred either in suburban cemeteries or peripheral convents. After the smallpox epidemic of 1797–1798 was over, burials inside the parish church resumed, but they were dramatically reduced from the level that had prevailed prior to that epidemic. The proportion of Spaniards interred under the floors in Sagrario Parish church and the cathedral declined by almost half over the next fifteen years, from about 76 percent before the smallpox epidemic of 1797 to only 40 percent in the years between 1798 and 1812. In contrast, burials in convents, monasteries, schools, and hospitals

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increased after the epidemic of 1797. In Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish, even more bodies were interred in such locations, raising their share of Spanish burials in the parish from 24 percent before the epidemic to nearly 60 percent in the next fifteen years.59 Don Alonso Núñez de Haro y Peralta had served as Mexico’s archbishop for nearly thirty years when he died in late May 1800. Funeral orators lauded the archbishop’s good works and referred specifically to his wisdom and generosity in creating the Hospital of San Andrés and his charity during the smallpox epidemic of 1797. In contrast, his efforts to move burials out of the center of the city went unmentioned. And in the end, it is ironic that Archbishop Alonso Núñez de Haro’s mortal remains were interred below the floor of the cathedral, in the vault reserved for dignitaries of his rank.60 When Mexico City faced its next major epidemic, its highest-ranking religious leader would be a man who bore little resemblance to the enlightened late archbishop.

The Mysterious Epidemic of 1813 Mexico City’s new archbishop-elect was Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, a native of Jaca, a municipality in northeastern Spain, not far from the border with France. He had studied at the University of Salamanca and received a doctorate from the University of Valencia in 1774. By August 1779 he was in Mexico City, where he served more than twenty years as a prosecutor in the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Those two decades as inquisitor overlapped with Alonso Núñez de Haro’s nearly thirty years as archbishop of Mexico City. Bergosa began his work in the Inquisition only a few weeks before the smallpox epidemic of 1779 erupted in Mexico City; he still held the same post during the epidemic of 1797. Bergosa would have known about Archbishop Núñez de Haro’s efforts to use his position to improve Mexico City’s public health, but when Bergosa left the Inquisition to take up the position of bishop of Oaxaca, his approach to administering his new diocese proved to be more consistent with his own inquisitorial experience than it was with Núñez de Haro’s enlightened example of concern for public health. After a decade in Oaxaca, Bergosa was named archbishop-elect of Mexico. When he returned to Mexico City to take up his new position, he arrived with a lot of metaphorical baggage and a long history of antipathy to those who advocated independence for Mexico.61

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Félix María Calleja del Rey, another implacable enemy of Mexican independence, had also recently returned to the viceregal capital to take up his own new appointment at the apex of Spanish power. Calleja was to be the new viceroy. He had been born in Spain and first arrived in Mexico City when his patron, the Count of Revillagigedo, became viceroy in 1789. After Revillagigedo returned home to the Iberian peninsula, Calleja remained behind in New Spain to pursue his career in the Spanish military. It was Calleja who had organized and commanded the army that had defeated the pro-independence forces led by Miguel Hidalgo in 1810–1811. After that, Calleja and his troops continued the war in southern Mexico, where the insurrection was headed by José María Morelos. When Calleja took office as viceroy on 4 March 1813, Morelos and his army were at the peak of their strength, having taken the city of Oaxaca the previous November.62 Soon after he assumed office, the new viceroy permitted the completion of elections for the city’s cabildo (city council), a multiple-staged process that had begun the previous November. The new councilmen, the first chosen by popular election under the Spanish Constitution of 1812, were elected in April 1813. All of the European candidates were defeated, and the Spanish judges complained that of the twenty criollos who won, “there was not a single individual of proven patriotism.” 63 Calleja’s animosity towards the new city council was evident immediately; he saw them as Spain’s, and his own, enemies. With these changes in the city’s government, all of the individuals holding the highest offices in municipal, ecclesiastical, and viceregal government had been replaced within a few weeks before the mysterious epidemic began. In the late spring of 1813, thousands of people in Mexico City began suffering from an unusual combination of complaints: “Persons of both sexes and all ages reported symptoms of high fevers, severe headaches, sharp pains in the shoulders and legs, bitterness of the tongue, decreased appetite, occasional vomiting, and general malaise.” People were worried and confused. The frightful death rate compounded the uncertainty; many thousands died, and no one knew what was killing them. Even after the epidemic was over, New Spain’s most distinguished physicians hesitated to name a single disease as its cause.64 Viceroy Calleja’s first priority was to fund the royalist army and defeat Morelos, but public health crossed Calleja’s mind from time to time. On 21 April 1813, the new viceroy announced that there was an epidemic in Mexico City. He asked the city’s ayuntamiento to take appropriate action and

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to keep him informed. Given the difficult fiscal constraints he confronted and his priority for military expenditures, Calleja spared little funding on the city council’s efforts to control the epidemic and to alleviate the suffering of the sick. On 11 May, Archbishop-Elect Bergosa issued a decree soliciting charitable donations, but he had little success. Before the month was out, the city council had run short of funds to relieve the suffering. It was not until September that Viceroy Calleja considered creating his own organization to solicit and distribute charity, but the ayuntamiento rejected the viceroy’s plan as competition for their own existing efforts.65 The city’s medical doctors proposed the usual sanitary measures: fumigation, cleaning, and the burning of rubbish as well as of all articles of clothing and bedding that had been in contact with the diseased. They also recommended that there be no burials in churches and that everyone who died of the epidemic should be interred outside of the city.66 But they had no power to enforce their recommendations, since burials were managed by the church. The ayuntamiento asked Archbishop-Elect Bergosa several times to issue an edict prohibiting burials inside churches, but he seems to have had other things on his mind at the time.67 Archbishop-Elect Bergosa shared Viceroy Calleja’s priorities: defeating Morelos and the insurgents was at the top of the list. Bergosa spoke and wrote tirelessly in support of Spain, and he anathematized the insurgents, in his own words, “in various pastoral letters, proclamations, and many more edicts with all the energy that my talents allowed, and carrying out the same task unceasingly in private letters, verbal exhortations, and continuous conversations, oportuné, et importuné, publice, et per domos [convenient, or inconvenient, in public, and in your homes], exactly as the Apostle [Paul] tells us.” 68 The acting archbishop spoke out in favor of the election of Spaniards as delegates to the new Cortes. Bergosa published two letters calling on Mexico’s voters to elect men born in Spain as well as those born in the New World. When the Cortes in Spain abolished the Holy Office of the Inquisition, Bergosa let everyone know that the previously banned books were still prohibited, even though the Inquisition no longer existed. In addition to his broadside against the philosophes, Bergosa continued his barrage of parables, metaphors, and biblical citations against the Mexican “enemy rebels of la patria.” Despite his own leadership in encouraging Oaxacan priests and friars to take up arms in defense of that city, Archbishop-Elect Bergosa published a twenty-two-page excoriation of the rebels’ leadership in which he

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contended that men of violence could not be priests. Bergosa soon returned to another familiar, if equally hypocritical, theme: he wanted to make a difference, “even at the cost of my own blood, in the pacification of this most noble part of the Spanish Monarchy.” 69 During the 1813 epidemic, both the viceroy and the archbishop were more interested in combating the anti-Spanish insurgents than they were in ameliorating the effects of the mysterious epidemic. Historians have concluded that the administrative response to the 1813 epidemic was deficient and that, as a result, the efforts to promote public health were not as successful as they had been during the smallpox epidemic of 1797. At the close of the eighteenth century, the viceroy, the archbishop, and the municipal authorities had cooperated; they had coordinated their efforts to provide food and medical care for the sick and to see that the dead were buried in cemeteries outside the city. In contrast, as Cooper noted, “In 1813 little is heard about the Viceroy, and almost nothing about the activities of the Archbishop.” 70 During all the months of the mysterious epidemic between May and November, it appears that Archbishop-Elect Bergosa mentioned the epidemic only twice. The first time was in May, when he encouraged charitable donations for the victims of the epidemic. The second was in September, when Bergosa returned to his characteristic form and described the epidemic as “a devastating plague [that] carries away thousands of victims in punishment for our sins.” 71 The newly elected members of Mexico City’s cabildo did the best they could within the limits of their budget and their authority. They asked the acting archbishop to forbid church burials during the epidemic, but when Bergosa ignored their request, they acted on their own. The ayuntamiento ordered that those who died of the mysterious disease were to be buried in the cemetery at Santiago Tlatelolco or in another of the suburban burial grounds. As the epidemic worsened, the city council knew that burials continued in churches in the city, so they appealed once again to Archbishop-Elect Bergosa for an edict prohibiting church burials. The ayuntamiento expressed its frustration that so many people preferred to be buried in the city’s churches despite the risks to public health. They even asked the viceroy for permission to burn, rather than bury, the bodies. In the absence of cooperation from the highest levels of church and state, the council felt that they had failed. A royal decree from Spain prohibiting burials in cities arrived too late to be of any help in Mexico City during the epidemic, and reports of burials inside the city’s churches continued. As one of the principal historians of the 1813 epidemic concluded, “In spite of multiple similar orders, on the basis of

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documents from the succeeding years, we know that they continued burying inside the city, adducing a thousand and one justifications.”72 Once again, parish records of burials tell a different story. Just as the importance of the viceroy and the archbishop was overstated in the histories of previous epidemics, the absence of their efforts and attentions was not decisive during the 1813 epidemic. Rather than being an administrative disappointment, the effort to move burials outside the city in 1813 actually demonstrated notable improvements over the levels attained when the viceroy, archbishop, and city council had cooperated in 1797. Fewer than 3 percent of those Spaniards who died during the epidemic of 1813 were buried in the Sagrario Parish church or the adjacent cathedral. This was a substantial decline from the 15 percent who had been buried there during the previous epidemic or the more than 40 percent who had been interred there during the years between the epidemics. What is more, the epidemic of 1813 marked a permanent reduction in church burials in the parish. Despite the historical references to a return to the status quo ante in the years after the epidemic, burials of Spaniards in the cathedral and Sagrario Parish church never again returned to the levels seen during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, burials in the convents, schools, hospitals, and other properties controlled by religious orders in Mexico City also declined during the epidemic of 1813 and remained low forever afterward. These places had been the final resting place of more than half of the bodies of Spaniards during the years between the epidemics of 1797 and 1813, but the number dropped to only about 10 percent during the 1813 epidemic. Even more remarkable is the fact that the decline in city burials was much greater in 1813 than it had been in 1797 under the energetic and enlightened leadership of Archbishop Núñez de Haro. Even though Archbishop-Elect Bergosa ignored contemporary concepts of public health, the parish priests made great progress during the epidemic of 1813 in moving burials away from the churches in the city and into the suburban cemetery. The cemetery of San Lázaro was the final destination for most of the Spaniards who died in Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish during the epidemic of 1813. Nearly 86 percent were interred in that suburban camposanto, where fewer than 40 percent had been buried during the smallpox epidemic of 1797. We know that some people continued to prefer burials en sagrado, and from time to time they were able to suborn a sexton to arrange a secret burial inside a church, but these undocumented burials left no trace in the official records.73 The historical reports that traditional burial practices resumed at

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the previous level after the epidemic of 1813 are wrong, at least for Sagrario Parish in Mexico City. The percentage of the dead who were sent to the cemetery at San Lázaro from the city’s central parish did not decline substantially once the epidemic of 1813 was over.74

Burial Trends in Oaxaca, Puebla, and San Luis Potosí Mexico City’s parish records demonstrate that the leadership of viceroys and archbishops has been overemphasized as burials shifted from churches to suburban cemeteries. Since historians have focused on administrative records at the center of the country, parish records in other cities can tell us more about when enlightened ideas about burials spread to other areas of the viceroyalty. Burials in the parish church were not a tradition everywhere. In the city of Oaxaca, very few people were buried in the Sagrario Parish chapel or anywhere in the cathedral. Instead, in the late eighteenth century, nearly everyone was interred in the churches and chapels controlled by religious orders. The church of the Mercedarian convent received the greatest number, about 20 percent, and the church of Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, about 10 percent. The remainder were dispersed among more than a dozen distinct chapels, churches, convents, schools, and hospitals.75 The smallpox epidemic of 1797 did not change that pattern. Burials continued uninterrupted in the churches and chapels of the regular orders throughout the epidemic. There are two reasons why almost nothing changed in Oaxaca. First of all, the smallpox epidemic began in the south, so many people had died in Oaxaca and were already buried by the time Viceroy Branciforte issued his edict on 28 February 1797. His viceregal instructions arrived well after the smallpox epidemic reached its peak in the city of Oaxaca. Yet even if Branciforte had managed to issue his decree sooner, nothing would have changed in Oaxaca. The second reason for inertia is more fundamental: the intransigence and antimodern outlook of the bishop of Oaxaca, Gregorio José de Omaña, who was resistant to the emerging ideas of public health. Historian Sherburne F. Cook described the letters that Omaña wrote at the time as revealing “an amazing bitterness of heart and an exceedingly obstinate resolution to oppose with the full power of the church everything that was done or proposed by the secular government in the way of smallpox prevention.” 76 Nothing changed when Bishop Omaña died in

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1799, either. He was replaced by none other than Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, who shared Omaña’s resistance to the reform of burial practices and other modern approaches to public health. During Bishop Bergosa’s years in Oaxaca, burials continued in the city’s convents. By the time the 1813 epidemic of mysterious fevers reached Oaxaca, Bergosa was already in Mexico City as archbishop-elect, so the dead in Oaxaca continued to be interred in the churches and convents controlled by the regular orders. After the 1813 epidemic and continuing into the 1820s, The pattern of burials in the city of Oaxaca remained largely unchanged from the late eighteenth century to the early 1830s.77 The burial registers for Puebla’s central parish show a pattern that is similar to Oaxaca’s. During the late eighteenth century, there were relatively few burials of Spaniards and mestizos in Puebla’s cathedral or the Sagrario Parish church, which was a relatively small chapel attached to the cathedral. Most of the dead in Puebla’s central parish, more than 80 percent, were buried in the city’s convents and the chapels of other religious organizations. During the 1797 smallpox epidemic, most of the children who died there were buried in the atrium of the parish church of Santo Ángel Custodio, across the river in Analco, so the proportion of the dead buried in the cathedral, Sagrario chapel, and the convents of the central city declined. After the 1797 epidemic, burials in the cathedral and Sagrario chapel were reduced even further, to about half the previous level. At the same time, burials in convents and other properties of the regular orders increased to make up the difference. During the 1813 epidemic, nearly 60 percent of the dead Spaniards and mestizos were interred in the suburban San Javier cemetery. After the epidemic, burials resumed in the chapels, convents, and schools of the regular orders, but regular burials in cemetery continued as well. During the 1820s, as many as three in ten of the dead were buried in the suburban cemetery, although the trend was toward fewer cemetery burials rather than more. In 1832, only 13 percent of the burials were in that camposanto, while the majority, more than three-quarters of the total, were still interred in convents, schools, and chapels that belonged to religious orders.78 San Luis Potosí was an outlier in more than one way. The city was much smaller, less important, and further from the centers of political and ecclesiastical power than were Oaxaca and Puebla. When Francisco Estrada first left his home there to go to Mexico City, the trip took him ten days of travel by coach.79 San Luis Potosí was nearly as far away from its bishop, who resided in the city of Valladolid (renamed Morelia in 1828). Since San Luis

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Potosí was not the see of a bishop, there was no cathedral, but the parish church was large enough to accommodate more that two-thirds of the burials there during the late eighteenth century. Most Spaniards were buried in the Sagrario Parish church, with the remaining 30 percent interred in the chapels and churches of religious orders. Of these, the most popular choice was the cemetery and chapel of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, with the convents of Mercedarians, Franciscans, and Augustinians also taking in substantial numbers of the dead. Since San Luis Potosí was so far away, the so-called smallpox epidemic of 1797 did not actually reach the city until the beginning of 1798. For the first month, burials continued in the parish church, but there were so many bodies to be buried that more had to be sent out to the regular orders. All that changed, though, once the parish opened a suburban cemetery on 3 February 1798. After the new camposanto extramuros was inaugurated, most of the bodies that would have been buried in the parish church were diverted to the cemetery for the rest of that month, while the proportion of burials in convents remained steady. Once the worst of the smallpox epidemic was over, burials resumed in the parish church at nearly the same frequency as prior to the epidemic: about two-thirds of the Spanish corpses were buried in the parish church. In the aftermath of the smallpox epidemic, burials in convents were reduced by half from their previous level. While the new suburban cemetery was used regularly, it was almost exclusively for charity burials. When the epidemic of mysterious fevers reached San Luis Potosí in December 1813, burials in the parish church and in clerical institutions inside the city virtually halted. Nearly all burials were in the camposanto. During the period of the epidemic, most of the dead were buried in the suburban cemetery, with a few dozen buried in the cemetery adjacent to the village church in Soledad de los Ranchos. The only body interred in the parish church itself was that of a priest named don Vicente Longoria, who was interred in the crypt reserved for men of the cloth near the main altar. It is clear from the burial records that the camposanto now included spaces to accommodate the graves of the more prosperous, with the result that the wealthy were willing to pay for burials there. Some of the burials in the suburban cemetery were quite deluxe. Doña María Francisca Maltos, the widow of don Casimiro Martínez, a medical doctor, was interred in the most expensive area of the cemetery with all pomp and three tolls of the bells.80 After the epidemic of 1813–1814 was over, burials resumed in San Luis Potosí’s Sagrario Parish church, but only until 1820, when burials in the

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church appear to have stopped definitively and all subsequent interments conducted in the camposanto extramuros. A few years later, burials in other places inside the city ended, too.81 Progress in creating modern cemeteries was uneven. Some of the clergy continued to bury the dead inside churches, defying threats of excommunication from the archbishop as well as the repeated edicts from kings and viceroys. Other parish priests went ahead without leadership from their bishops to move burials out of the church buildings and into the cemeteries. Despite being far from the centers of ecclesiastical and political power, San Luis Potosí was the most advanced in moving cemeteries out of the city. Not only was that northern parish a long ways from its bishop’s palace in Valladolid, but there was no bishop in the diocese for more than twenty years after Bishop Marcos de Moriana y Zafrilla died in 1809.82 In the absence of a bishop, civil authorities in Valladolid exhorted the clergy there to explain to their parishioners the importance of burying the dead in suburban cemeteries, but without success. Since the city government in Valladolid had been unable to move burials out of the city, we know that the successful cemetery reform in San Luis Potosí was clearly a local development.83 San Luis Potosí was also the first major city in the interior of Mexico to experience a cholera epidemic in 1833.

Ch a p t er 9

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\  In early June 1833, six friends escaped from the Mexican Gulf

port of Tampico. They had been eager to get out of town since the cholera epidemic had begun a few days before. As soon as they put the city behind them and were heading west toward the mountains, their anxiety dissipated. They felt relieved and exhilarated. As they rode along, two of the men began to feel a little less merry than the others. When they noticed some tingling in their fingers and numbness in their feet, they went on without saying much about it. Later, they started to feel queasy, but they kept going until they reached a place along the road called Chapa, a good distance from the port on the road to Río Verde. There the two men could no longer hide their reactions to the sharp pains they felt in their stomachs. They began vomiting and lost control of their bowels. Before long, both men were dead.1 The symptoms of cholera followed a predictable course. At first, there might be no more than a general sense of malaise, perhaps a little prickling in the extremities or weakness in the muscles of the arms and legs. Some people reported headaches and a lack of interest in food. Eventually, they had gas and pressure in the belly. These symptoms might last only a few hours before the vomiting and diarrhea began. As Dr. José María Marín explained, those who fell ill with cholera first expelled “what the stomach and bowel contain, and afterwards, yellowish liquid matter, in which are swimming little gelatinous filaments or strings.” These abrupt evacuations were accompanied by sharp pains. The muscles of the abdomen contracted 183

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repeatedly and the bowels spasmed. Eventually, those symptoms would subside, though the copious flow of liquid from the intestines continued without the sufferer even being aware of it. Debility increased, thirst intensified, and breathing became difficult. Sweat broke out even though the skin felt cold and tacky. Wearing clothing became a burden. Faces were distorted and haggard, as though the disease had been endured much longer than a few hours.2 Carlos María de Bustamante remarked on how quickly cholera killed its victims. He heard that a woman who sold vegetables in the market had died within two hours and that two Indians who sold caged birds had gone to bed well and were dead before dawn.3 The end was not far away, Dr. Marín reported, when “the tongue becomes pallid and limp; the area around the eyes sinks and darkens. The nose becomes sharp; inhaling and exhaling become perceptible in the nostrils. In the beginning, the pulse is fast and irregular, and in the end, is almost imperceptible. The sick person feels cramps in the extremities that make him cry out. And finally the skin becomes as cold as ice, and loses its natural color, taking on a bluish, bruised color that announces now the cessation of life.”4 Dr. Marín marked the moment of death rhetorically with the word “now,” but his account of the transition from living to dead was not so clearly defined. He described the gradual changes in color, the “almost imperceptible” pulse, and the falling temperature of the body, all matters of degree rather than a simple dichotomous indicator that could provide a single unambiguous answer to the critical question: Dead or alive? In the last stages of cholera, those still alive and suffering were indistinguishable from the dead. The medical authorities of the time called such a state “catalepsy,” when respiration, body temperature, and pulse dropped so low that their patients might appear to have died, even though they were still living. Everyone knew a story about someone who had been so cold and cadaverous that they were nearly buried alive. Bustamante had heard of several such incidents. In the early days of the epidemic in Mexico City, he wrote in his diary about a man who was being carried down Tacuba Street on the way to the cemetery when he called out in loud voice that he wanted water. They stopped in the entryway to number 5 on that street and got him something to drink. Bustamante also knew that some bodies had been waiting for burial in the parish cemetery of Santo Tomás la Palma. Two of them were found to be alive when they unexpectedly sat up. “How many have gone to the tomb before their time!” he wondered.5

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If those who were still living were sometimes mistaken for the dead, corpses might also appear to be alive. Some of those who died of cholera were observed to move after death when the spasms that characterized the final stages of the disease continued even after the body was no longer living. A Mexico City newspaper reported that medical authorities had observed “spasmodic movements very similar to the effects of galvanism, in some parts of the body, principally in the fingers, hands, and feet, many hours after death.” 6 Civil authorities tried to prevent the horror of premature burial by requiring waiting periods before the dead could be sent to the cemetery. During the epidemic, governments in Puebla and Mexico City issued decrees ordering that twenty-four hours must have passed before any body could be buried.7 Such concerns and requirements were not limited to the time of cholera. Fear of premature burial was a common anxiety in Western culture well into the nineteenth century.8 Six years before the cholera epidemic, Dr. Luis Blaquier of Oaxaca asserted that a twenty-four-hour waiting period was not sufficient to prevent the burial of living people. These premature burials happened too often, he maintained, so that in addition to the waiting period, it would be better to require that a recognized medical expert examine the body and sign a death certificate before allowing the cadaver to be buried.9 In the city of San Luis Potosí, block captains and their assistants were supposed to have a report from a medical doctor confirming that the patient had died before calling the carter to remove the body. But the mandate could be satisfied with a verbal report rather than a signed declaration, and there was no requirement for a waiting period before burial. Instead, San Luis Potosí’s governor had decreed that corpses were to be buried promptly and were not to be touched, on penalty of fines from 100 to 1,000 pesos.10 As a result, some people were carted away for burial while they were still alive. One man mistaken for dead was a French tailor who had his shop in central San Luis Potosí. When don Enrique Androis was officially declared dead of cholera, his body was sent along with many others to be buried in the mass grave at Tequisquiapan. The workers removed the bodies from their carts and deposited them in the excavation they had dug, but they did not cover the corpses with earth. Since it was already after dark, they left that task for the next day. When don Enrique regained consciousness and found himself among the dead, he disentangled himself, climbed out of the grave, and walked home. He knocked at his door. No one answered. He found a window his chambermaid had opened several hours earlier, after don Enrique’s body

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had been taken away from his sickbed, so that the contaminated air would dissipate. Don Enrique was able to climb in, but finding his bedroom door locked, he began to bang on it as hard as he could. Hearing the knocking from the dead man’s room, the maid and manservant were too frightened to open it. Instead, they ran out of the house to find the parish priest. The cleric sought the help of the police, and they all returned to the house. There they spoke to the tailor through the window and asked him a series of questions. After considering don Enrique’s answers, the priest decided it was safe to unlock the door, whereupon they found the exhausted man sitting on his bed.11 Certification by a medical doctor did not provide certainty that a cholera victim was really dead. Witnesses reported that doctors would avoid examining bodies when the family members said that they were no longer alive. Tears in the eyes of the deceased’s relatives were apparently enough evidence: “When a doctor arrived at the house of a sick person and found a bereaved family crying, and they greeted him with the news that the patient was already dead, he would only look at the patient from a distance, say goodbye to the family, and advise the delegate for that street that he could have that dead body removed.”12 If medical experts found it difficult to define the moment of death, ecclesiastical authorities could provide no clear answers either. Many religious people believed that human beings were not simply animals who died when they stopped breathing or their hearts stopped beating. From the traditional point of view, the objection to a corporeal definition of death was simple. Humans had souls, after all; so they died when the soul left the body.13 This understanding is clear in the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary’s definition of muerte (death), which distinguished between the death of a human being, “the division and separation of the body and soul in the human composite,” and the death of an animal, “the end of life, or cessation of the movement of the spirits and of the blood in brutes.”14 But to know when the soul had left the body was also a matter that required judgment, and even for the clergy, that judgment could not be entirely separated from medical knowledge. A few years before cholera reached Mexico, the acting secretary of Mexico City’s cathedral cabildo had issued a circular that instructed priests to exercise great care in determining when someone had died. Don Juan Manuel Irizarri was concerned with the uncertainty about when an individual had died in “the case of illnesses in which there could be some doubt.” Irizarri ordered priests “to investigate with the greatest scrupulosity, the illnesses

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[the patients] have suffered, in order that with circumspection and prudence, [the priests] might judge whether they no longer exist.”15 Whether death was to be declared by a priest or a medical doctor, authorities were troubled by the possibility that an expert might misread the signs of death. Medical doctors and priests were specialists with distinct areas of expertise, but both the medical establishment and the church were troubled by the uncertainty in regard to death. If the one was to observe and to treat the body and the other to examine and to minister to the soul, each was regarded as an authority who was qualified to determine when an individual had crossed the unsettled boundary between the living and the dead. Historians have relied on medical doctors to diagnose, name, and record the date of death for each of the first victims of the cholera epidemic. In Mexico City, a widow named María Catarina Zavala was diagnosed with cholera by Dr. Ignacio José de Acevedo and died within three hours on 6 August; she was buried the following day in the San Lázaro cemetery.16 In Oaxaca, the unfortunate distinction of being the first official death from cholera belonged to Isidora Díaz, a thirty-five-year-old single woman who worked as a cook for one of the wealthiest men in the city. She had the best medical care available because her employer had the money to pay Dr. Juan Nepomuceno Bolaños when his servant became ill, but she died quickly and was buried on 3 October.17 Historians agree that the first official death from cholera in the city of San Luis Potosí was a woman named Regina Miranda, who was diagnosed by Dr. Pascual Aranda on 28 June.18 I suspect that the first actual victims of cholera never received the attentions of a doctor, because the burial rate began to rise before the first official victim was diagnosed. Circumstantial evidence suggests that a man named Joaquín Pérez was among the first to die of cholera in San Luis Potosí. He was married and in the prime of life, only twenty-nine years old, when he died on 22 June. His wife, María Estefana Rodríguez, had been a widow for only a matter of hours when she, too, fell ill. The burial record indicates that her priest arrived just moments before she died. Her husband’s death had left her alone, and no one called the priest soon enough to hear her confession before she died. Cholera killed too quickly.19 The most reliable way to recognize the beginning of the epidemic is to look at the rapid increase in burials in each parish, rather than at the official diagnosis and designation of a specific individual by the medical authorities. Toward the end of June, the parish priests in San Luis Potosí began to be

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called more frequently as more people sickened and many died. Before the epidemic began, the burial rate for adults in that parish had been about the same as the annual average during the prior year, that is, one or two per day. Then, in late June, the burial rate suddenly tripled. As many adults were buried in the camposanto of San Luis Potosí during the last few days of June as had died during the first three weeks of the month. As July began, the burial totals in San Luis Potosí increased even more rapidly. By 6 July there were more burials recorded in a single day than there had been during a normal month before the epidemic. On 14 July, the count of bodies buried was nearly sixty times normal; eighty-one adults went into the grave that day, as many as would have been buried in two months during normal times.20 So many deaths increased the burdens on medical doctors and priests. They needed not only to certify that the dead were really dead but to treat the sick and minister to them. Both physicians and clergy faced a problem of triage, having to decide whether to provide sacraments or medical treatment to people who were still conscious at the expense of those who were perhaps too far gone to save or who might be already dead. Should their efforts be directed to trying to comfort and heal patients who were still suffering or to adjudicate whether those who were unresponsive had definitively died? We have only sparse and anecdotal documentation about what medical doctors were doing during the epidemic. Francisco J. Estrada, the physician from San Luis Potosí, described the horror and despair he felt as he treated patients during the cholera epidemic. We know that he was able to cure himself and uncounted others who had contracted the disease, but he did not systematically document the numbers and types of patients he saw or the outcomes of the treatments he provided. However, although there is no centralized collection of data from the multitude of medical professionals, we do have extensive and detailed documentation of the day-to-day activities of the clergy. Parish archives provide a record of the sacraments that the priests afforded to those who were sick or dying. Collectively called “last rites,” there were three distinct rituals: penance, the viaticum, and extreme unction. All, some, or none might be carried out, depending on the circumstances, but the order of the rites was consistent. First was penance, from the Latin word poena, or “punishment.” The Catholic Church maintains that sins committed after baptism can be atoned for in this world to mitigate punishment in the next, after death. Fundamental to this concept is the belief that the church has the power to absolve sins when the sinner makes a confession, asks for absolution, and follows up with

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an act of contrition. When the sinner was near death, this act usually consisted of a prayer but might also be a reading of a psalm or recitation of a litany of saints. Second came the sacred viaticum, or sagrado viático, from the Latin meaning “provision for a journey” This was Holy Communion given to the dying to strengthen them spiritually as they made their way from this world to the next. Finally, anointing the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands. and feet with consecrated oil is called “extreme unction.” Until the Middle Ages, this sacrament was believed to have healing properties. After that, the sacrament was usually postponed until the penitent was dying. It was “extreme” because it was administered to those in extremis, or near death. Although the documentation is extensive, it is important to remember that these are burial records, so they record only sacraments provided to those who subsequently died and were buried. Sacraments were not entered into the permanent register if they were given to someone who later recovered, so we know that the priests were really much busier than these records show. Contemporaries estimated that for every individual who died of cholera, two more had been ill but recuperated. If these proportions were correct, then only one-third of the sacraments were recorded, and priests were visiting three times as many sick people as the burial registers would indicate.21 As the priests in Sagrario Parish of San Luis Potosí became much busier, they adjusted the sacraments they provided. In May and June, two-thirds of the dying received all three of the last rites; by the end of June, the same proportion received only penance and extreme unction, and fewer than one in five received all three of the last rites. As more people sickened and died, the priests in this parish consistently omitted Holy Communion from the last rites. No one who died in the parish received the viaticum for nearly a month, between 8 July and 3 August. It makes sense that the clergy would omit that sacrament. The elaborate processions and preparations, the careful attention to cleanliness and respect for the Host were difficult to maintain when so many people were dying. The Catholic Church’s rules for administration of the sacraments admonished priests that “great care is to be exercised lest [the viaticum] be administered in a case where there might be fear of some irreverence to this sublime Sacrament, such as delirium, incessant coughing or the like.” 22 Those who were dying of cholera were profoundly dehydrated, so that swallowing the Host was difficult; that symptom alone might have made the sacrament

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unmanageable. The filth, the painful spasms of the afflicted, the copious vomiting, and the pervasive, persistent diarrhea that characterized the disease only made matters worse. During the grimmest days of the epidemic in San Luis Potosí, most of the dying received only two sacraments: they confessed and were anointed. Yet a few parishioners died without being given any sacraments at all. About 4 percent of all those who were buried in the parish did not receive the attentions of a priest before they died. Most of these unfortunate people had lived in a village called Soledad de los Ranchos, in the eastern portion of the parish. One in every four of those who died in Soledad de los Ranchos during the worst days of the cholera epidemic did not receive any of the sacraments. The burial registrations were explicit that each one had not received the sacraments because their deaths were so sudden.23 From San Luis Potosí, cholera spread to Guanajuato and Querétaro. Then, a few weeks later, the epidemic reached Mexico City. As burial rates began to rise in the capital during the first week of August, fewer of the dying received Holy Communion with their last rites. The majority of those who died in Sagrario Parish in Mexico City, a little more than half, received only the sacrament of penance. They confessed but did not receive the viaticum or extreme unction. Yet at the same time, priests in central Mexico City continued to administer the viaticum to many of their dying parishioners. A substantial number of the dying, nearly one-quarter overall, received all three of the last rites, despite the obstacles to providing Holy Communion to those who were suffering with cholera. Since the disease was afflicting so many people, there were many processions bearing the Host through the streets of central Mexico City.24 In the early days of the epidemic, government authorities in Mexico City prohibited the ringing of bells, including the campanilla that had always preceded processions bearing the Host to those who were dying. The civil authorities justified their ban on bells by explaining that the sound of so many processions would instill “terror and fright in the population,” which would make people more susceptible to the disease.25 Medical experts agreed that fear was an important factor that made people more likely to come down with cholera and predisposed them to die from the disease. Dr. Benito Hordas y Balbuena, who had observed the cholera epidemic in London in 1832, identified fear as “one of the most fatal” causes of cholera. Dr. Ángel Binaghi, who had been sent by Mexico’s federal government to study the disease in Tampico, also described fear as “one of the principal causes” of the

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disease. Medical experts, civil authorities, and the press urged people to remain calm, despite the horrifying news that was being reported about the disease. One newspaper summarized the advice as “When there is less fear, there is less risk” and reported that not giving in to fear was “the best preservative.” A few weeks later, the same paper suggested, without apparent irony, that one way to avoid fear was to stop reading news reports about cholera.26 Medical and civil authorities wanted to mitigate fear, but political conservatives resisted. They considered the government’s prohibition of bell ringing to be an attack on the Catholic Church and an attempt to remove religion from public spaces. Bustamante, for example, remarked that the civil authorities were trying “gradually to introduce . . . the same ideas as the Protestant Reform in England.” Some parish priests were defiant and continued to send out the Host with processions led by the ringing bell. At the same time, not all of the clergy objected to the government’s injunction. The principal priest of Sagrario Parish, José María Santiago, complied with the government’s directive and issued his own instructions temporarily banning the use of the campanilla in his parish. Instead, he instructed that the Host processions were to be preceded by members of religious brotherhoods who would sing prayers to warn those in the streets that they should kneel as the Body of Christ was approaching.27 The city’s government was not satisfied with the compromise. The ayuntamiento issued another proclamation decrying the “pathetic and frightful voices that spread fear and terror principally during very late hours at night.” Since these dreadful musical performances were worse than the bell ringing they had prohibited, the city council banned the ambulatory choirs as well. They instructed the parish priests that the processions accompanying the Host must do so “in silence, without singing aloud and disturbing the tranquility of spirit that today is so necessary,” as had been recommended by “all of the authorities who have written about the current epidemic.” 28 If physicians and government officials hoped to banish fear, conservative clergymen were inspired to encourage it instead. Early in June, just before the news reached central Mexico that cholera had been reported in Tampico, Bishop Francisco Pablo Vázquez of Puebla wrote a seventeen-page pastoral letter. He explicitly criticized the civil authorities and the periodicals that had urged people to face the disease calmly. Bishop Vázquez thought that “newspapers ought to be precious vehicles to communicate a healthy morality and beneficial enlightenment to the people; but unfortunately some have been converted into mortiferous channels that spread impiety, and along

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with that, immorality, and anarchy.” He castigated the newspapers that “asserted against the express authority of eternal truth, that the road to heaven is not narrow, that the fear of God is not the source of wisdom, and that the wrath of God is not to be feared.” Vázquez stressed that his principal motivation was precisely to instill fear, but not a fear that “blocks understanding and weakens the powers of the soul.” That sort of fear was appropriate only to “blind atheists” or “inconsequential deists who suppose that the world is governed by an agent who does not care about our happiness.” Such fear was conducive only to confusion, consternation, and dismay or could even cause people to “reach the extreme of falling headlong into desperation.” Instead, Vázquez sought to provoke what he called “that holy and healthful fear, that is the beginning, the completion, and the crown of understanding.” 29 Bishop Vázquez used arguments much like those that Bishop Antonio Bergosa y Jordán had employed earlier in the century when he was archbishop-elect of Mexico during the epidemic of 1813. Both clergymen emphasized the fundamental significance of God’s wrath in producing epidemic disease. The bishop of Puebla agreed that cholera was a natural phenomenon and part of God’s creation. As such, the disease, like all of nature, depended on “the supreme and universal cause, that is God.” Vázquez quoted multiple verses from the Bible as evidence that plagues and epidemics were sent by God “to punish the wicked.” But it was not God’s plan to single out and punish only those who were wicked. Bishop Vázquez saw the epidemic as a social crisis, not as a death threat targeting the worst sinners. He affirmed that there was no relationship between the relative immorality of any individual and that person’s probability of dying from cholera. Sacred scriptures contained many examples of intense suffering unrelated to the specific sins of any individual. For example, “Job, being most innocent and full of virtue, was subjected to evils and sufferings to exercise his heroic patience.” The Virgin Mary was without sin, and yet she suffered terribly. No, epidemics were a shared, collective punishment for society’s sins.30 Bishop Vázquez described society’s sins as a fatal farrago of impiety, immorality, and inebriation. He spelled out the depraved and profligate activities that had incurred God’s wrath. Young people, “and even women,” were reading “heretical and obscene books and newspapers.” Reprobates were joking about chastity and ridiculing virginity. They were drinking to excess in public, but what was even worse was that they were spoiling holy days with their impudent behavior: “Also resulting from drunkenness, and

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precisely what motivates divine justice to prepare to strike us, are dances accompanied with lewd movements, the obscene songs that drive out modesty and inflame passions, and the shameless language completely unworthy of Christians that is heard in the busiest streets and places.” 31 Vázquez was particularly concerned that the sacraments were being neglected. The bishop knew that many people would die during the epidemic, that resources were lacking to care for the sick, that many of the poor did not have enough food even when they were healthy, and that there were not enough priests to administer all the sacraments that would be needed all at once since cholera killed so quickly. But what worried him the most was the neglect of regular confession, penance, and Holy Communion. Vázquez explained that deathbed confessions were not sufficient to make up for a lifetime of sin. If it was too much trouble to confess regularly in normal times, he wrote, confession only became more difficult when death was near, due to the difficulty in thinking clearly at that time. When a long time had elapsed since one’s previous confession, then remembering and accounting for the large number of sins that had accumulated also increased the burden of a final confession. In addition, there was not enough time for meaningful penance for all the accumulated sins. Bishop Vázquez noted that “confessions that are made at the hour of death are generally a slight consolation for relatives and relations that remain in this world; but they do not save those who pass on to the next.” 32 Given that the situation was so dire, Bishop Vázquez recommended appropriate measures to placate the wrath of God: penance, prayer, and sexual abnegation. He announced two special series of religious services that would highlight prayers to the Virgin Mary: a novena for the Virgen de la Soledad and a triduo for the Virgen de Guadalupe. Vázquez wrote that the supplications of nuns were especially meaningful because the sisters’ chastity gave them special powers that increased the efficacy of their prayers to limit the scourge of cholera. “The chaste spouses of Jesus Christ,” he continued, “have many times removed the weapon from the hand of an irritated God, freeing the populations in which they lived from the punishment that their crimes and blunderings deserved.” 33 Vázquez also urged everyone to engage in private religious reflection, penance, and prayer in their own homes. He asked adults to gather all the children and servants in their households to pray together every day. Carlos María de Bustamante described Bishop Vázquez’s letter as a “dreadful sounding trumpet announcing desolation as well as mercy.” He

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followed the bishop’s advice and called together his own relatives and servants every day at noon to say prayers. They usually ended in tears. Bustamante believed that the bishop’s exhortations and the fear of God that the epidemic produced were having “marvelous effects.” In his house, everyone behaved “like a prisoner in chapel,” and he saw that many other people were repenting their sins and contemplating divine justice, that they forgave their enemies, returned to the spouses they had abandoned, gave back stolen property, and handed over a great number of prohibited books to their confessors. Even some of the most degenerate were improving their comportment. At the same time, Bustamante knew that not everyone was behaving better. He continued to denounce what he saw as the anticlerical activities of Vice President Valentín Gómez Farías and his political allies. Bustamante also recorded the rumors he had heard about the continuing immoral escapades of his enemies. He wrote in his diary that many of Santa Anna’s soldiers had died of cholera while fornicating, including an army colonel who had been found dead in his bed alongside the body of his concubine.34 If some people were inspired by the epidemic to fear God, to pray, to repent their sins, and to marry, others kept right on sinning. Historians have rarely mentioned the relationship between cholera and religious activity. In his study of the 1832 epidemic in Britain, R. J. Morris noted a reported upsurge in religious behavior that included greater respect for the Sabbath, a decline in bull baiting, larger attendance at chapel, and Methodist revivalism, especially among the rural poor. Most of these activities would be difficult to document, but in passing, Morris also mentioned that there were more marriages during the cholera epidemic. “Cupid did not arrive with the miasma,” he wrote, “but the sickness and fear aroused by cholera roused the conscience of many who had long lived together unmarried and induced them to conform to the moral standards of the church.” 35 Lilia Oliver also noticed that there were more marriages during the time of the cholera epidemic in Guadalajara, Mexico. Rather than concluding that this rise in marriages was motivated by moral or religious considerations, Oliver suggested that remarriages accounted for the difference, as widowers and widows replaced wives and husbands who died during the epidemic.36 Each of these explanations suggests motivations for increased matrimony, but neither the spiritual considerations of introspective morality nor the rational calculations of domestic economy ensure that there will always be more marriages during cholera epidemics. In fact, weddings were not more frequent everywhere during the time of cholera.37 In San Luis Potosí, there

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were fewer marriages during the cholera epidemic than there had been during the same period one year before. Instead of becoming more frequent, weddings in San Luis Potosí were postponed. There were only half as many marriages in the epidemic period, the first four weeks of July, as there were on the same days during the previous year.38 None of the brides who married during the epidemic was a widow, and there were no weddings at all during some of the worst days of the epidemic. When the burial rate reached its peak from 11 to 23 July, no one married. One bride who married on 10 July was described as “gravely ill,” but her marriage was not urgent. The first banns for her wedding had been announced almost two weeks earlier, and there was a three-day interval after the third and final announcement before the marriage took place.39 There are good reasons to suppose that Mexicans would not remarry very soon after the death of a spouse. We know that some people would have felt that it was inappropriate for anyone to marry too quickly after the death of a close family member. Concepción Lombardo’s sister waited ten months after their mother’s funeral before she married. Even then, Concha described her sister’s wedding as “sad and without any party because of the recent death of our mother.” 40 The marriage registers in San Luis Potosí provide systematic evidence that death would delay rather than accelerate marriages. The priests there kept meticulous records and wrote in the marriage register just how long it had been since each widow’s husband or widower’s wife had died. They even went so far as to name the cemetery or church where the deceased’s body had been buried. These records demonstrate that men whose wives had died remarried sooner than the widows of deceased husbands, but nearly all of them waited for years, rather than weeks or months, before remarrying.41 The marriage registers in San Luis Potosí also include the specific dates when the banns were read, so we know that few couples announced their plans to marry during the time of cholera. Even after the epidemic was over and the burial rate had returned to normal, there was a gap of nearly three weeks between the end of July and the middle of August when no new weddings were announced. When the reading of initial marriage banns resumed on Sunday, 18 August, there were six couples whose plans to marry were announced. All of these brides and grooms were single. None were widows or widowers. In contrast, a different pattern prevailed in Mexico City’s central parish, where weddings stopped before the epidemic began. No one married in the last week before the epidemic, but once cholera began to ravage the families

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of Mexico City’s central district and the burial rate rose quickly, the number of weddings also increased dramatically. During the worst period of the epidemic in that parish, the frequency of matrimony increased to more than double what it had been during the same period the year before. In Puebla and Oaxaca, marriages increased even more rapidly during the height of the cholera epidemic. In Puebla’s central parish, there were nearly four times as many marriages as during the same period in the previous year, and in Oaxaca there were more than five times as many weddings.42 Most of the marriages during the epidemic united brides and grooms who had not been married before. They were not replacing a spouse who had died but, rather, marrying a partner who seemed about to die. Many of the marriages that were sanctified during the worst of the cholera epidemic in Mexico City joined partners who were on their deathbeds suffering from cholera. During the epidemic, nearly half of all the marriages in Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish took place while at least one of the partners was sick or near death.43 In a few cases, both the bride and the groom were so indisposed they could not leave their beds. When don Eustaquio Noval, a widower, married doña Juana Ferveta, a widow, both were described in the parish register as “gravely ill in bed.” 44 Marriages were often performed in private homes rather than in chapels and churches, but for both the bride and the groom to be in bed when they took their vows was rather unusual. More often it was only one or the other who was bedridden during the ceremony. Usually, it was the woman: sick brides outnumbered ailing grooms by almost three to one.45 Parish registers provide further evidence that morality was on the minds of brides and grooms in Mexico City. Since confession was required before marriage, parish priests had up-to-date information on the sins of men and women who married. Parish priests were accustomed to identifying previously unmarried brides and categorizing them in the marriage register on the basis of their respectability. As cholera began killing large numbers of people, more nonvirgins married. In the central parish of Mexico City, the overall proportion of brides who were inscribed as “doncella” declined precipitously. More than 77 percent of brides before the epidemic had been described as doncellas, but only about one-third of the women who married during the epidemic were considered virgins. Previously unmarried women of more dubious virtue made up a substantially larger portion of those who married there during the epidemic; their proportion of the total tripled from 13 percent in the year prior to the

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epidemic to more than 40 percent during the weeks of greatest devastation. In the city of Oaxaca, the change in how brides were described was even more marked: none of the brides who married during the epidemic was considered a doncella.46 Since men were expected to be virile rather than chaste, marriage records give us no direct information about the sexual reputations of men at the time of their marriage. The officiating priests recorded only whether the grooms had married previously or not. In contrast to the prevailing pattern among brides, the cholera epidemic had little discernible impact on the only obvious indication of sexual experience for grooms who married during the time of cholera: single men and widowers married in the same proportions before and during the epidemic. Age is also an important clue to the motivations of those who married during the epidemic. Single men and women who married in the time of cholera were not only less likely to be considered virgins, they were more likely to be older than usual. The median age for doncellas marrying in Mexico City’s central parish was twenty before and twenty-three during the epidemic. The median ages of solteras (never-married women) and others of more questionable reputations increased from twenty-three years before to twenty-seven during the epidemic. In Puebla’s central parish, the median age for single women rose from twenty-one to twenty-five years, while in Oaxaca, it rose from twenty-three to thirty. Single men who married for the first time during the epidemic were also more likely to be older. During the previous year, these bachelors had a median age between twenty-two and twenty-four years. During the epidemic, the median age for first-time grooms increased by five or more years. A similar trend is evident for widows and widowers in the central parishes of Mexico City and Oaxaca. Widowers who remarried during the epidemic had a median age ten years higher in central Mexico City and seven years higher in Oaxaca than those who remarried before cholera began killing large numbers of people.47 Widows who married during the epidemic were also much older than normal. The median age for widows who remarried increased from about thirty before to roughly forty during the epidemic.48 Widows in particular seem to have delayed marriage until their sexual indiscretions appeared to provoke the fury of a lethal deity. More widows remarried during the epidemic. Six times as many widows remarried during the epidemic in Mexico City, eight times as many in Oaxaca, and ten times more in Puebla.49

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This surprising profusion of widows returning to wedlock stands in contrast to the comparatively low probability of second marriages for Mexican widows prior to the epidemic. Traditionally, Mexican men who survived the deaths of their spouses remarried more frequently than did widows. For a long time, the number of widows had far surpassed the total of widowers for two reasons; men tended to die younger than women, and even older, widowed grooms tended to choose younger women as brides. As a result, widows outnumbered widowers in Mexican cities by about three or four to one. The large numbers of widows who seldom remarried has suggested to a few historians that some of these were “fictitious widows.” Women who had borne children out of wedlock might have preferred to be considered widows than to be thought immoral. A successful, if simulated, transformation from unmarried mother to “widow” removed the suspicion of illegitimacy from their children and the appearance of promiscuity from themselves. Whether or not widows were more likely to engage in sexual liaisons outside the bounds of marriage, most were simply older women with few resources. As a result, they were not as successful in the “subjective, individual, and fluid bargaining between man and woman” that Robert McCaa has called the “marriage fair.” 50 If widows were less likely to remarry during normal times, the cholera epidemic somehow improved their marriage prospects. Here the evidence is direct, if initially somewhat peculiar. Most of the widows who remarried during the epidemic were already ill with cholera, and many apparently married on their deathbeds. It is clear that succumbing to this dreadful disease did not increase the desirability of women as marriage partners in the usual sense. It was not the calm consideration of domestic advantage that induced couples to marry during the epidemic. Instead, it was a profound fear of a vengeful God’s wrath. Imminent death from cholera was a powerful motivator that impelled both men and women to seek immediate ecclesiastical approval of their existing but previously unsanctioned sexual relationships. When Bishop Vázquez explained the cholera epidemic, he asserted that God’s wrath had been provoked by immoral behavior and affirmed that the chastity of nuns made their prayers especially effective in appeasing God’s anger. Bishop Vázquez had criticized the Mexico City newspaper El Demócrata for making fun of the “self-abnegation” that had been advocated not only by the apostles and holy fathers of the church but by Jesus Christ himself. Indeed, the editors of that newspaper had challenged the Catholic Church for disparaging human sexuality. In their inaugural issue, which

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they had published only a little more than a month before Bishop Vázquez drafted his pastoral letter, the editors wrote: “To describe man as a being destined only to suffer; to make virtue consist of self-abnegation, and the renunciation of the pleasures and enjoyments of life, is not to understand the nature of man, and at the same time to insult nature’s creator. If pains and privations have to be the steps we ascend to eternal, unlimited happiness, then why create humans as social beings? In society, we find not only the alleviation of our suffering but, what is more, the source of our pleasures.” 51 The editors denied that they were heretics and said that they were not motivated by anger or, even less, by a desire “to imitate those over-excited individuals who blaspheme in order to appear enlightened.” At the same time, they were openly defiant, and they asserted that no one was born with the right to rule. They drew attention to the connections between two kinds of repression, sexual asceticism and political absolutism. They regarded both as “enemies of the people, who fight constantly to recover their losses, to snatch back the progress that the people have made toward their liberties.” 52 Sexual relationships were also a source of anxiety for some liberals and materialists. Immoral and excessive sexuality was explicitly condemned as contributing to cholera from Paris to New York to Mexico. Prostitutes, who combined the defects of sexual libertinism with lower-class status, poor diet, and excessive consumption of alcohol, were thought to be especially susceptible to dying from the disease. Paris was regarded as a particularly appropriate setting for many of the morality tales tying commercial sexual intercourse to death from cholera. The prominent French physician François Joseph Victor Broussais seems to have been among the first to clearly articulate the ideas that sexual transgressions alone were sufficient to provoke fatal attacks of cholera and to threaten the male clients as well as the female prostitutes. During the 1832 epidemic in Paris, Broussais recorded an anecdote based on the purported observation of a colleague who claimed that a large group of students were all attacked by cholera immediately on leaving a house of prostitution. Broussais emphasized that those who had studied earlier epidemics in Poland, Russia, and other places had recounted similar facts.53 Indeed they had, but their accounts appear to have depended on the multiple causes of drunkenness, on filth, and on vaguely described “Bacchanalian festivities,” drunken orgies, and “other irregularities” where accusations of alcohol abuse were directly stated and sexual indiscretions merely implied.54 Euphemism was particularly common in Mexican publications, which extended the idea that sex was dangerous to include vague warnings to avoid “excess” and

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“abuses of Venus.” One Mexico City newspaper went so far as to suggest that “sensual pleasures” were dangerous even when couples were legitimately married.55 How much sex was too much? The parochial registers offer us a way to measure sexual activity: did the cholera epidemic change the birth rate nine months later? We would expect that fertility would be depressed more where the mortality from cholera was greater. Death, after all, had not been evenly distributed during the epidemic. Cholera killed more people in the cities of San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca, where the daily burial rate during the epidemic was about thirty times normal. In the central parish of Mexico City, the death rate was about half that, and in Puebla’s Sagrario Parish, the burial rate was half the rate in Mexico City.56 Cholera left a distinct demographic mark in each parish, but changes in sexual activity did not vary directly with how lethal the epidemic was. Decreased fertility did not result from the biological phenomena of pestilence and death. Instead, the decline in conceptions resulted from variations in religious sentiment and changes in behavior. Cholera was not nearly as bad in the city of Puebla as it was in other places, but the bishop of Puebla was the most insistent and explicit in stating that abstaining from sex would increase the effectiveness of prayer and would appease an angry God. His cathedral parish saw the largest reduction in sexual activity during the epidemic. Nine months after the epidemic, births of legitimate children in Puebla’s central parish were reduced by 77 percent. The parish baptismal registers indicate that parents who conformed to the religious regulation of sexuality, that is to say, those who married in religious ceremonies, were precisely those who more severely restricted their sexual activity during the cholera epidemic. Those men and women who lived their private lives without ecclesiastical approval were more likely to ignore clerical suggestions that they abstain from sex. Nine months after the epidemic, the births of illegitimate children in the parish were reduced by only half. Parish clergy in Oaxaca had been unusually lax in supervising the sexual relationships of their parishioners. They permitted many godparents to withhold the names of parents who had illegitimate children. Since there were relatively fewer marriages in the city compared to the number of babies who were born, we know that many people had sexual relationships without the benefit of marriage.57 When the cholera epidemic reached Oaxaca, some of those men and women got married, and many married people abstained from sex during the epidemic. Births of legitimate children there nine

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months later were reduced by 62 percent. In contrast, those men and women who were having sex outside marriage were less responsive to clerical and medical admonitions that sex was dangerous. The births of illegitimate children were reduced by only 32 percent. In Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish, there was much less difference in the birthrates for legitimate and illegitimate children nine months after the epidemic. Conceptions of legitimate children were reduced by 43 percent in Mexico City’s central parish. At the same time, the reduction in sex outside marriage was a little greater, at 55 percent, making it comparable to the change in Puebla and larger than the reduction in Oaxaca. The change in sexual activity in San Luis Potosí was the most remarkable of the four parishes, and that is, paradoxically, because almost nothing changed. The epidemic in San Luis Potosí killed a greater proportion of the population than it did in Mexico City or Puebla, but men and women in San Luis Potosí did not stop having sex. If anything, they had sex more frequently during the epidemic. Births of legitimate children were 5 percent higher nine months later, while the birth rate for children who were conceived outside marriage increased by nearly 15 percent.58 Changes in marriage and sexual activity varied dramatically during the epidemic, but not because the disease was worse in some parishes than others. These variations were not “natural” reactions. Instead, parishioners responded differently because “normal” was not the same everywhere before the epidemic.

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At first, the four parishes whose archives are at the heart of this work would seem to have a lot in common. Each was at the center of an important city. A high proportion of elite families lived in these parishes, including large numbers of Mexico’s most important politicians. Although substantial numbers of more humble people made their homes there as well, these parishes were not representative of the country as a whole. They were urban parishes in a nation whose population was primarily rural. At the same time, such cities produced Mexico’s most prominent political leaders in the decades after independence. Mexico’s political elite came from a variety of backgrounds and regions, but above all, they were born in the national capital and major cities around the country.1 The families in these four parishes shared a preference for bestowing long strings of personal names on their children at baptism. Babies’ names were almost invariably those of saints and other celestial figures. Yet the proliferation of these baptismal names did not reflect religious enthusiasm or even strict compliance with Catholic orthodoxy. The church preferred a system in which each child was named for a single saint of the same gender: a boy would be named for a male saint and a girl, for a female. By that means the child was expected to identify with the namesake saint and to take that saint as a role model, a special protector, and an advocate in times of trouble or when in need of a special favor. Rather than celebrating one’s own birthday, each individual would mark the anniversary of a namesake saint’s triumphal entry into eternal life (the day of the saint’s death). As time passed, the clergy lost control over the naming of newborns. In each of these parishes, priests were unable to prevent parents and godparents from selecting many more names than the Catholic Church would have preferred. The families that had been part of the titled aristocracy were

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particularly inclined to accumulate long lists of names for their progeny. They used their children’s baptismal names to honor their friends and family members, as a measure of the span of their social circle, the length of their lineage, and another prerogative of their exalted status. Parents and godparents blurred the boundary between genders as they adapted the names of male saints like Juan, Francisco, Antonio, and José for use by girls as Juana, Francisca, Antonia, and Josefa. They moved the names of saints who were women in the other direction as well when they named boys Susano, Margarito, and Brígido. Even in the rare cases when children were given a single name, mothers and fathers were more likely use that name to mark the child’s own day of birth rather than to memorialize a long-dead martyr. At the same time that naming practices for newborns were so similar, the clergy in these parishes were remarkably different in their approaches to naming the parents of infants they baptized. In some parishes, priests were better at scrutinizing the sex lives of their parishioners than in others. Inquisitive priests in San Luis Potosí discovered and recorded the names of almost every unmarried woman who gave birth in their parish, even though they did not pursue the identities of those who fathered illegitimate children with the same diligence. Consistent with their surveillance of their parishioners’ sex lives, priests in the city of San Luis Potosí were able to persuade a higher proportion of their sexually active parishioners to marry, and to marry at a younger age, than their contemporaries in the other parishes. In contrast, clerical supervision was more lax in Oaxaca. Many couples delayed marriage or never married at all, while most unmarried parents there were able to keep their own names out of the parish registers when their illegitimate children were baptized. Padrinos and madrinas in Oaxaca regularly denied knowing the names of the mothers and fathers who had conceived children out of wedlock. Withholding the truth from the clergy was routine. When we turn to evidence for how men and women made their choices about when and whom to marry, we find a dense network of considerations and relative weights: emotional and financial factors, parental and family preferences, and children’s own choices. Memoirs and fiction help to illustrate how priests and parishioners shaped choices about sex and marriage. Concepción Lombardo had frequent interactions with priests during the years leading up to her marriage. She lived in the most populous city in Mexico, which had a large number of priests, so she had a lot of options. Whenever Concha didn’t like the advice her confessor gave her, she would

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ask another priest to counsel her. Over the seven-year period that culminated in her marriage, Concha described her interactions with five different priests. When she was troubled by her first suitor, Concha gave up on her initial confessor and began to confide in the Jesuit priest who confessed her older sister Lupe. Then, after Concha eavesdropped on her mother’s confession and found that priest’s advice made a lot of sense to her, she began to tell him her sins and to ask for his guidance. Concha had a longer association with this third priest, Padre Pinzón, who helped her through the end of her first serious romance with Agustín Franco, the deaths of her mother and father, and much of her vexatious relationship with the Englishman Edward Perry. Concha found her religion to be a haven during times of distress. With Padre Pinzón’s help, she escaped to a convent to avoid Perry, who had become aggravating. Seeking refuge in a convent was an expensive way to handle romantic troubles, and Concha’s sisters tried to push her into marriage with Perry by withholding the funds she needed to remain among the nuns. All of the evidence indicates that Concha was not using religion to avoid her problems. She was a sincere believer for whom religion was a consolation in troubling times. Nevertheless, she did not petition any of the saints whose names were given to her at baptism. When she sought celestial intervention, she chose to direct her prayers to other saints instead. Concha’s parents had allowed her the latitude to take her time and to express her preferences, even as men began courting her when she was fifteen years old. Most of her suitors conformed to a single type: they were established, prosperous men whom she met because they were connected to her family. Agustín Franco had been invited into their home by her parents. Fernando Pontones (who abruptly sent a priest to ask Concha’s father for his consent to marry her) was her sister’s uncle-in-law. Concha was introduced to Edward Perry by her sister Merced, who had met him in her grandmother’s home. Each of these men was at least ten years older than Concha. The only suitor who did not fit this pattern was Miguel Miramón. He was about the same age as Concha, and Miguel was brought to her house by a peer; Miguel was a childhood friend of her sister Lupe’s suitor. Concha was an astute analyst of her own emotions. She knew that her affection grew slowly over time as she became better acquainted with a suitor. Agustín Franco she found attractive for all that he knew about the world and for his willingness to teach her what her own schooling had not. (If she had not been eager to learn and open to his instruction as they wrote love letters to each other, she might never have written her memoir.) Edward

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Perry, the English Protestant, was also worldly, as well as attractive, jovial, and generous, at least at first. Each of these suitors gradually got to know Concha and waited for indications that she reciprocated before they spoke of love or marriage. Once they were more sure of themselves and felt her affection for them was strong enough, both Agustín Franco and Edward Perry tried to control Concha, to restrict her social life, and to put an end to the musical performances she so enjoyed. Padre Pinzón helped Concha through the emotional turbulence of her breakup with Franco and the deaths of her parents, but when that priest became befuddled about her prospective marriage to Perry, Concha went on a spiritual retreat directed by yet another priest, Padre Abolafia. When Concha described her jumble of thoughts and emotions, Padre Abolafia was simple and direct: he advised her to marry a Catholic. It may seem surprising to us that Concha did not understand his advice to mean that she should end her engagement to the Protestant Perry. From our perspective, Concha and Perry would not to have been a good match. She was energetic and animated, while he had become determined to dominate her and would not allow her the freedom to be herself. Concha was a woman of her times, though, and always kept in mind what others would say about her. So instead of ending her relationship with Perry, she tried to convince him to convert to Catholicism. She considered how her own reputation might be damaged if she broke off their engagement, but she also saw Perry’s conversion as an opportunity to save his soul, and that potentially positive outcome was enough to shift the balance away from other considerations: that she did not love him, that he did not love her, and that he was stifling her. In that delicate moment, Concha turned to a fifth priest, a man she described as well educated and sophisticated as well as pious. Concha asked that cleric to intercede in support of her effort to convince Perry to become a Catholic. Yet even when the erudite priest admitted in exasperation that he could do nothing with Perry, Concha did not end their engagement. What other people would say about her always weighed heavily on her mind. For the same reason, she resisted and resented Miguel Miramón’s romantic overtures. Only weeks before she consented to marry him, Concha had been distressed because she thought that Miguel was damaging her reputation with his brazen public proclamations of his love for her. Concha eventually realized that her affection for Miguel had grown over time and that, rather than trying to dominate her, Miguel appreciated her strength of character. Miguel had been telling Concha for years that he loved

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her and wanted to marry her. Their marriage combined his impetuous passion and her evolving love, but it also depended on practical considerations. Without Miramón’s political influence, their wedding would have been impossible. At the same time, marriage to Miguel extracted Concha from her seemingly intractable relationship with Perry. In those trying times, Concha was willing to bend the truth in order to escape a difficult situation. When she finally agreed to marry Miguel Miramón, Concha glossed over her existing promise to marry Edward Perry, and she swore to the investigating priest that she had not promised to marry anyone else, even though she did not return Perry’s engagement ring and tell him that she would not marry him until two days later. Although Francisco Estrada knew plenty of priests, he never mentioned confessing or asking a clergyman for premarital advice. Estrada had never known his own father, but he had taken it for granted that his letters to his sweetheart, Jesusita, would be read by both of their mothers. Francisco wrote that he had “long cherished” a relationship with María de Jesús Ontañón, whom he had known since they were children. He might have married her, but Francisco never appeared to be in love with Jesusita. Francisco had dedicated himself to completing his medical education before he would marry, and Jesusita had waited patiently. Yet he was scarcely thrown off balance when her father’s death precipitated Jesusita’s marriage to someone else. Once Francisco had finished his education, he recognized that the time was right. The government was stable, he was making a good living, and all he was missing was a wife so that he could take up “this new way of living.” He considered only young women who were half his age as potential brides. Even though Francisco was old enough that he was not legally required to have parental permission to marry, he was in emotional turmoil when his mother opposed his plan to marry his new novia, Anita. Estrada did not rely on priests for romantic counsel, but he confessed to posterity in his memoir. He had lied to a priest. As a favor to his new girlfriend, Estrada told a parish priest that her sister’s newborn baby was legitimate, instead of telling the truth: the infant’s mother and father could not have married because they were committing adultery. Later, during the clerical investigation before his own marriage, Estrada helped to create the false impression that he had been a longtime resident of the parish where he was to be married, in order to prevent a delay in his plans to wed his novia, who was already pregnant. Priests as confessors were also conspicuously absent from Guillermo Prieto’s memoir. Prieto recalled confessing his sins only one time. (He related

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an amusing anecdote about telling a parish priest how he and his favorite cousin, Lolita, had stolen some cheeses that had been given to his father as a gift.) In Prieto’s romantic life, priests appeared only as marginal characters. He mentioned that María Caso’s family had consulted her confessor and considered ensconcing her among the nuns for a while, in much the same way that Concha Lombardo taken refuge in a convent. In the fiction Prieto wrote, though, a convent was more likely to serve as a place of unjust imprisonment than as a refuge from an unsuitable suitor. A religious service might be a convenient place to meet a novio away from parental supervision, especially if the Mass there was shorter than the services in other churches. Priests were stock characters to perform marriages, to provide last rites for the dying, or sometimes to do both in close succession. The fiction that Prieto and others wrote during these years tells us almost nothing about the role of priests in romantic life. At the same time, Prieto and other authors described falling in love in religious language: transfixions “as in the ecstasy of a saint who sees God from the Earth,” raptures at the sight of angelic faces, “the realization of the ideas about beauty that Raphael would have had before producing his virgins.” 2 Love at first sight was a common theme in the stories of this period, but authors were skeptical about the prospects for lasting happiness on the basis of that initial instant flash of attraction. Although Prieto used his own experiences as the raw materials for the love stories he wrote in the early years of his marriage, all of his fiction about love at first sight ended unhappily: appearances were deceptive. In his darkest story, the title character, Manuelita, initially provoked an ecstatic vision for the narrator, Miguel, but she later disillusioned him by describing her loveless marriage and the death of her infant son. In other stories, love at first sight was characteristic of a novio’s disordered mind or led to his insanity when the wife he adored betrayed him with someone wealthier and more powerful. Conservative authors were no less pessimistic about love at first sight than were liberals like Prieto. José Gómez de la Cortina described the tragic life of a woman whose beauty inspired men to kill themselves in despair when they were unable to control her. Ramón Isaac Alcaraz denounced the commercial values of Mexico’s decadent aristocracy in a story he composed about a count who fell in love with a beautiful, destitute girl who busked to support herself. Guillermo Prieto and Miguel Miramón were far apart politically. Miramón was a conservative military officer; Prieto was a liberal and a poet who was most comfortable wielding a pen. Yet each believed that he had

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fallen in love at first sight. At the same time, neither could rush into marriage the way Francisco Estrada did. It was the practical man who jumped into matrimony quickly, once he decided that the political and economic signs were auspicious. In contrast, those who fell in love instantly were tested for years before they could marry their beloveds. Both Prieto and Miramón made only slow, incremental progress, day after day, month after month, over a period of four to six years. Each had to take the time to accumulate political connections, and each had to advance in his career as he gradually got to know his novia and her family before he could marry the woman he had fallen in love with years before. Parents were able to exert a lot of influence over potential marriage partners because they controlled access to the principal place for courtship, the home. Just as Concha’s mother and father had invited Agustín Franco into their home, other parents asked men they considered appropriate suitors to call on them and to spend time with their daughters under their own watchful eyes. Parents also closed their doors to less suitable suitors. María Caso’s father had kept the impertinent teenaged Guillermo Prieto away from her by moving his family to the countryside and obstructing Guillermo’s attempts to communicate with his daughter. When Prieto flaunted his political connections to pressure him, María’s father allowed Guillermo to see her under the same restricted circumstances that other parents of the time allowed. Guillermo could visit with María only at scheduled times, in her own home, and under her father’s direct supervision. Fictional parents were often decisive in shaping the marriage options of their children. They might arrange a marriage with little or no participation by their child; exert pressure to entertain or exclude a particular suitor; or, more rarely, allow their children to make their own decisions about courtship and marriage. Manuel Payno created two of the most extreme examples of bad mothers from opposite ends of the social hierarchy: the despicable Gregoria (who tried to sell her innocent daughter Pepita to a wealthy and lecherous hacendado) and the aristocratic countess Eleonora (who first chose to abandon her illegitimate daughter, María Paquita, and later, without recognizing her, abetted her kidnapping and attempted rape). Other mothers and fathers merely failed to recognize the dangers posed by deceptive suitors who seduced the parents first before turning their nefarious charms on their innocent daughters. The most scandalous example, the anonymously authored “Disgraceful Effects of a Seduction,” portrayed the seduction of an adolescent girl by a man who was already married.3

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Less dreadful or naïve parents might be merely insensitive and materialistic, arranging marriages for their children with economic prospects foremost in their minds and with little consideration for the thoughts or the feelings of the younger generation. In one of José Ramón Pacheco’s stories, a father died, leaving his fortune to his nephew along with his daughter’s hand in marriage. Her mother embodied the older generation’s values: “The señora had married without having either experienced love or becoming acquainted with her husband. She was faithful to him without ever having any risk of not being so, and, without any idea either of passion or of its turbulence, she guarded her virtue, such as it was, inert, without pretense, and without danger.” She told her daughter that love was not important and that it was not appropriate for a good girl. “Love is no more than madness, good for novels, and neither your confessor nor I have allowed you to read those books.” 4 The authors of fiction in these years knew that appearances were deceptive and that older men were inclined to disguise their lust at first sight as love. Romantic stories consistently portrayed instant attraction as a charming trap that disguised its danger, so that was not the sort of love that antiliterate mothers worried about. Instead, romantic authors idealized the love of children who had grown up together. Since they were more equal in age and had been friends before they reached adulthood, their experience made for happier marriages. The stories from Mexico’s early romantic period portray such childhood friendships, and affection that had been allowed to grow slowly over a long period of time, as an alternative basis for marital love. Children who had grown up to love each other made for ideal marriages, like that of Arturo and Trinidad, whose love triumphed over aristocratic tyranny, the Inquisition, and exile. More often, though, such egalitarian love was defeated by fate and patriarchy: Ana and Baltasar, Julio and Manuelita, Clarencia and Antonio were never able to marry and died tragic deaths. Parental preferences weighed heavily on the minds of their sons and daughters, and the children were thought to be motivated as much by love for their parents as by their duty to obey them. In Juan Navarro’s “Margarita,” a father arranged his daughter’s marriage, not knowing that his friend don Carlos was marrying Margarita only for the money he would receive. Margarita’s father would not even allow her a week’s delay so that she might become acquainted with her soon-to-be husband before the wedding. Yet in the end, even as she prepared to kill herself, Margarita still loved her father. Another fictional daughter, Laura, ended her relationship with Ricardo, the man she loved, because her father opposed their marriage. Laura told Ricardo

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that she had resisted as much as possible for two years. Although her mother agreed with Laura, her support only made it more untenable for Laura to continue in opposition to her father. Since she loved both her parents, she could not bear to see them at odds. “I was resolved to suffer even the impossible to keep myself free, but my mother, Ricardo, dear Ricardo, ought I to sacrifice her?” 5 These portrayals seem realistic when we consider that even such a singular, assertive, and self-aware young woman as Concepción Lombardo said she was willing to marry a much older man when she assumed that was what her father wanted her to do. Concha was young and naïve. She remembered thinking that she couldn’t imagine what such a man would want with her, but Concha’s father knew. Another parent might well have come to the conclusion that such a match was a good idea. After all, Fernando Pontones was a wealthy man who had assumed that the best way to arrange a marriage was to open the discussion with his peer, her father, by having his priest speak for him. If Concha’s father had insisted on the marriage, she might have complied. Manuel Payno wrote a sensitive description of Clarencia, a dutiful daughter who, at the age of only fourteen, obeyed her father’s instructions to marry a man who was decades older, despite her own love for Antonio, a boy her own age. Payno enhanced the dramatic effect when he had Clarencia’s husband reminisce about the day of their marriage. He reminded Clarencia how her hand had trembled, how her face “had a bluish tinge,” and her voice “was so weak, almost imperceptible, that you could scarcely be heard.” 6 Such fictional marriages reflected the reality of the times. Some brides were as young as or even younger than Clarencia. Marriages of very young girls were rare, but they were more frequent among the upper class. Weddings became more probable for girls after the age of fifteen: one-quarter of brides were fifteen to seventeen years old, with more brides married before seventeen in San Luis Potosí than any of the other parishes. The largest cohort married at eighteen, and half of all first-time brides were wed by the age of twenty, three-quarters by the age of twenty-four. A large proportion of these marriages united brides and grooms who were about the same age. There were more egalitarian marriages where the financial stakes were lower: among the people who were not considered gente decente and in the provincial capitals. Parochial archives do not tell us how parental authority and financial considerations were balanced with the individual inclinations of brides and grooms, but we can see the disparity in their ages with the clarity

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of simple arithmetic. Age differences of a decade or more were more routine among the daughters of dons and doñas in the centers of large cities such as Mexico and Puebla, where girls in their teens were married off to men a decade or more older than they were. Adult men sometimes married girls as young as twelve years of age. Although these marriages always had the approval of her parents, the bride’s own consent might be in doubt. When timid and obedient daughters did not have the fortitude to resist an imposed marriage, the church applied a minimal standard to assess the bride’s acceptance of her marriage. It was not necessary for the bride to say the words “I do.” The Catechism of the Council of Trent stipulated that, “instead of words, . . . it may be sufficient for the validity of the marriage contract to substitute a nod or other unequivocal sign of tacit consent: even silence, when the result of female modesty, may be sufficient, provided the parents answer for their daughter.” 7 The phrase “unequivocal sign of tacit consent” is oxymoronic; it degrades what ought to be an explicit expression of agreement, and it allows a nonvocal indication, a nonresponse, or even an ambiguous silence to be reinterpreted as “unequivocal.” When a bride’s reticence could be interpreted as timidity or “female modesty,” then her parents were empowered to speak for her. If the bride’s parents favored the marriage, that was enough to constitute an “unequivocal sign.” Anything short of the fictional Trinidad de Juárez’s emphatic “NO” was likely to be interpreted as “tacit consent.” By the 1830s, many Mexicans considered parental control of children’s marriages to be a Spanish tradition. Concepción Lombardo knew that her parents were allowing her much more autonomy than her mother and her grandmother had been permitted by their parents. Both her mother and her grandmother had been married in their teens, with relatively little time to become acquainted with their prospective spouses. Nevertheless, history shows us that this “tradition” was not a very old one. We know that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spanish Catholic Church had protected the right of children to marry for love. Ecclesiastical courts in Mexico would even send armed guards to take children out of their parents’ homes so that they could marry on their own volition without parental interference.8 The Spanish church’s determination to protect the rights of children to marry for love deteriorated in the eighteenth century. When the Spanish crown shifted the weight of its authority to the side of parents, the ecclesiastical official who was charged with directing the clergy in how to understand

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and carry out the royal order was Archbishop Alonso Núñez de Haro. That enlightened cleric knew that he could not directly oppose the king, so he announced that parish priests should carry out the king’s order to require parental consent for marriages. As would be expected, Núñez de Haro cited the commandment that children should honor and obey their parents. At the same time, the archbishop also maintained the Spanish church’s traditional emphasis on the importance of children’s marriage choices. Núñez de Haro pointed out that the Council of Trent had not required parental consent for marriage, even though the council might have done so, just as it had required the presence of a priest and two witnesses for a marriage to be valid. Furthermore, the bishops assembled at Trent had specifically condemned the proposition that parents could invalidate marriages undertaken without their consent. Núñez de Haro clarified that, in fact, it was heretics like Lutherans and Calvinists who held marriage without parental consent to be invalid, and he cited examples of marriages in the Bible that had been contracted without parental consent but that were nonetheless valid. Núñez de Haro told parents there were limits to their parental authority and that they were not to surpass them. To withhold their approval from “honest marriages” was sinful. For the same reason, parents were not to force their daughters and sons into marriages the children did not want, since “without the mutual love of the bride and groom, what can be expected but continual discord, hatred, lawsuits, adulteries, and other most unfortunate outcomes, as is proven by unhappy experience every day?” 9 It was only a few weeks later that Archbishop Núñez de Haro issued another edict and begin his campaign to move burials out of the cities. His efforts to create suburban cemeteries were only partially, and temporarily, successful. The parish priests in his archdiocese regularly ignored his threats of excommunication so that they could bury their parishioners where they wanted to be buried: in churches, convents, and chapels in the center of the city. Archbishop Núñez de Haro’s leadership during the smallpox epidemics in 1779 and 1797 has been overstated, but it was important nevertheless. Núñez de Haro helped to disseminate the idea that cemeteries ought to be located outside cities, in well-ventilated areas, to prevent the diseases caused by bad air. Enlightened concepts of public health were of no concern to ArchbishopElect Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, but his lack of leadership did not matter either. During the epidemic of mysterious fevers in 1813, Bergosa’s failure was less consequential, because change was already well underway. Parish priests

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made the important decisions about where the bodies were buried, and they continued to make progress in moving the cemeteries out of Mexico City, not only during the 1813 epidemic but during the years that followed as well. The significance of Archbishop Núñez de Haro’s leadership becomes clearer when we consider the much slower pace of change in Puebla and the absence of cemetery reform in Oaxaca during this period. Yet even in Mexico City, it took decades before burials in suburban cemeteries became the regular practice, because the innovation depended on changing the attitudes of priests as well as of parishioners. It is paradoxical that it was in San Luis Potosí where priests and parishioners acted quickly and decisively to move all burials into their suburban cemetery, even though they were far from the center of political and ecclesiastical power and had no bishop at all when they created their suburban cemetery. Clergy in these four parishes demonstrated different attitudes toward then-contemporary ideas about public health on the eve of Mexico’s first cholera epidemic. Cholera was particularly terrifying. The disease killed many people, it killed quickly, and it killed in painful and disgusting ways. Death was not the worst thing that could happen. What if you were not yet dead but were only mistaken for dead, and you were still alive when you were carted away to wake up in your grave? The horror was all too imaginable. And what is worse, the experts said that being afraid—a natural reaction—made you more susceptible to the disease. Many people were afraid that God was angry and that his wrath was their own fault. For years, some of Mexico’s highest clergy had been denouncing rampant impiety, obscenity, inebriation, prostitution, licentiousness, and other scandalous thoughts and misbehaviors. The cathedral chapter in Mexico City and the bishop of Puebla were certain that all of these sins were more than enough motivation for God to send the cholera epidemic to punish Mexico. Not everyone agreed with them. Other voices contested that religious interpretation and defended popular practices and pleasures. Rather than fearing God, they countered that people needed to understand there was a direct connection between sexual repression and political absolutism, both of which were unnatural and oppressive. When cholera reached San Luis Potosí, the parish clergy reacted calmly. Faced with a pervasive, disgusting, and deadly disease, the priests limited last rites. By withholding the viaticum, they were able to forego the elaborate preparations, processions, and attention to cleanliness and respect for the Host that the sacrament required. By providing only penance and extreme

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unction, they comforted as many of their dying parishioners as they could reach without undue delay. In Mexico City and Puebla, civil authorities banned the ringing of bells on the grounds that the sound would create fear. Although the bishop of Puebla complied, parochial clergy in Mexico City sometimes ignored the government restrictions on the bell ringing that preceded Host processions and protested that the civil authorities were trying to eliminate religion from public spaces. Religion in private spaces was another matter. It is paradoxical that parish records actually tell us so much about the intimate decisions that men and women made during the time of cholera. There was a great deal of variation from one parish to another in how likely parishioners were to marry or abstain from sexual relations during the epidemic. Many people appear to have been motivated by illness and fear of death to wed partners they had been living with but had not married. In Mexico City, Puebla, and Oaxaca, the number of marriages increased dramatically, especially among those who had postponed or avoided marriage before the cholera epidemic. Many people who had been sexually active chose to abstain from sex during the epidemic. Yet neither the increase in marriage nor the prevalence of sexual abnegation was correlated with the relative severity of the epidemic itself. These choices were not the direct results of sickness and death. Instead of being directly proportional to how bad the epidemic was, choices about sex and marriage were shaped by how priests and parishioners interpreted the epidemic and how bad they felt about their previous lives. We know that the epidemic was much worse in some parishes than others. Fewer people died in Puebla’s central parish than in the corresponding parish in Mexico City, and cholera was much worse in San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca. Yet the popular reactions in these cities were completely different. In Oaxaca, many more people married and abstained from sex, while in San Luis Potosí, few marriages were carried out, no new marriages were planned, and at the same time, amid the oppressive atmosphere of death and disease, both married and unmarried couples continued to engage in sexual relations. The relationship between the clergy and their parishioners in San Luis Potosí was distinct. Their bishop would have been far away in the city of Morelia, except that the episcopal see had been vacant for a long time. There was no bishop at all in this diocese between 1809 and 1831. Even in the absence of leadership from the highest levels of the church, the local clergy produced one of the earliest successes in public health; most of their parishioners were buried in a suburban cemetery by 1820. At the same time, the

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priests in San Luis Potosí were stricter in monitoring the sexual behavior of their parishioners than the clergy in Mexico City, Puebla, and Oaxaca. Although as many as one in five of the children they baptized was illegitimate, the parish priests in San Luis Potosí knew the names of the mothers of almost every one of those children. The clergy in that parish were far more likely to obtain the names of mothers of illegitimate children because they almost never accepted excuses that those infants were the offspring of “unknown” parents. At the same time, it was extremely rare for infants to be abandoned there. The parochial clergy also married more of their parishioners in comparison to the number of children who were being born, so we know that there were not as many unsanctioned sexual relationships in San Luis Potosí as there were in Oaxaca. During the cholera epidemic, bell ringing was not controversial because the clergy in San Luis Potosí voluntarily stopped trying to give the viaticum to those who were dying of cholera, so there were no processions to increase fear. In the end, there is no simple answer to the question of how seriously the Mexican people took their religion. Foreign travelers were inclined to see strict performance of public religious obligations at the same time that Mexican clergy were denouncing rampant impiety and obscenity. Both were sometimes correct. The Catholic Church itself included a wide array of highlevel leaders, from Alonso Núñez de Haro, the archbishop of Mexico who advocated marriage for love and promoted public health, to the reactionary former inquisitor Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, bishop of Oaxaca, and his likeminded colleague Francisco Pablo Vázquez, bishop of Puebla. In much the same way, the political factionalism of the years after independence has been resistant to a simple narrative. The complicated political controversies of the time have led to the proliferation of explanations that the conflicts were idiosyncratic and personal. Guillermo Prieto was one of the men who most explicitly endorsed the idea that postcolonial political conflicts were motivated by individual prospects for personal gain.10 It was certainly true in his case. When he was a poor young man looking for a decent job, he was willing to accept anyone’s patronage. His two principal benefactors, Andrés Quintana Roo and Anastasio Bustamante, could not have been more different in their politics. Nevertheless, Mexico’s postcolonial political conflicts made more sense than that.11 Despite the reputation for political instability, Mexico moved comparatively quickly to establish a republic and to disestablish the Catholic Church. The Reform Laws of 1859 inaugurated civil registration of births, marriages,

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and deaths at the same time that they removed all burial places from the control of the church. These laws were promulgated only thirty-five years after Mexicans first put an end to monarchy and formally established a Mexican republic. It is true that reaction to the Reform Laws led conservatives, and some liberals, into an alliance with the French to revive a Mexican monarchy. They elevated Maximilian to the throne in 1864, but that resurgence of monarchism was only temporarily successful in reintroducing a hereditary head of state and a titled aristocracy. After three years of resistance by militant republicans, liberals, and nationalists, Mexico’s second empire ended with the execution of Maximilian in 1867. Mexico’s transition from monarchy to republic took forty-four years. In contrast, the transition from monarchy to republic in France was not only twice as long, but the French consistently resorted to monarchy during most of the intervening years and experienced only brief interludes of republicanism. French revolutionaries first declared a republic in 1792 as the fledgling nation faced the combined armies of Europe’s monarchies. After a decade of republican experience that can be fairly characterized as politically unstable, Napoleon Bonaparte revived the French monarchy, crowning himself emperor in 1804. Foreign military forces removed Napoleon and restored the Bourbon dynasty to the throne in 1814 and again in 1815. The July Revolution in 1830 replaced the reactionary King Charles X with LouisPhilippe I, “the Citizen King,” who in turn was overthrown in the revolution of 1848. The French monarchy as an institution survived these dramatic changes. Although frequently ailing, the monarchy was not yet mortally wounded. After a brief flirtation with republican government, President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte dismissed the National Assembly in a coup d’etat in 1851 and restored the French monarchy the following year, calling himself Napoleon III. That Second Empire endured some eighteen years. In 1870, after another defeat in war and with foreign troops outside Paris, France finally became a republic. Yet the Catholic Church continued to retain its special relationship with the French state. It was not until the first years of the twentieth century that France finally separated church and state, 113 years after it first declared itself a republic.12 Nineteenth-century conservatives argued that Mexico’s weakness resulted from independence and republicanism; they lamented that the Mexican state would have been both stronger and more stable had the Spanish monarchy continued to govern Mexico. That proposition specifies an unreasonable counterfactual condition, for Spain was not more stable than Mexico in the

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nineteenth century but less. Such arguments ignore the history of Spain’s oscillations between monarchy and republic since that time. Despite all the bloodshed, the fratricidal Carlist Wars of the nineteenth century, the Civil War of the 1930s, and the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, Spain today is still a monarchy. The relationship between the Catholic Church and the Spanish state was resistant to change. It endured even after the Second Vatican Council recommended separation in 1965. It was not until 1978 that Spain began the process of disestablishing the Catholic Church, nearly 120 years after the church was disestablished in Mexico.13 Independence in Mexico and instability in Spain did depend in part on the decisions made by French people and French governments, but this does not indicate that Mexicans merely responded to crises in Europe. Mexico’s independence came, not in 1808, when Napoleon created a crisis of legitimacy and provoked instability in Spain, but in 1821, when Mexicans rejected those currents of instability from Europe. France was not immune to foreign armies either, but the effects of international military competition in each country were distinct. Defeat in foreign wars pushed France to reluctant republicanism, while the United States invasion of Mexico impelled a minority of Mexicans to resuscitate monarchism. In contrast, republicans were in the minority in France. Radicals in Paris declared a republic from time to time, but the end of French monarchy came, not as an autonomous result of social revolution in Paris, but in the aftermath of French military defeat in Europe and Mexico. In reciprocal fashion, the triumph of republicanism in Mexico contributed to the end of monarchy in France. The wave of revolution that enabled Mexicans to establish a republic in the 1820s rebounded to help destroy monarchy in France half a century later. If Mexico seems merely weak and unstable after independence, this perception is due in part to the fact that we so seldom explicitly compare “unstable” Mexico to “revolutionary” France.14 Comparison of the histories of nineteenth-century Spain, France, and Mexico points up some of the biases built into the dichotomy between revolution and instability. If Mexico has appeared to be merely unstable rather than truly revolutionary, that judgment rested on definitions of revolution that sought to measure other nations using the French Revolution of 1789 as the standard while employing an abbreviated reading of the historical record as well. Although France has been considered more autonomous and revolutionary than Mexico, both states were subject to international military competition. Yet the transition from monarchy to republic took almost twice as long in France as it did in

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Mexico, and the separation of church and state took France and Spain many additional decades. When the political crisis of the nineteenth century is viewed from this perspective, Mexico no longer appears to be less revolutionary than France or less stable than Spain. Historians have frequently noted the incongruity between European liberalism and Mexican reality in the nineteenth century, but our relative neglect of republicanism is paradoxical given the evident and widespread success of republican governments in nineteenth-century Latin America. Adequate attention to republican theory remains one of the defects in nineteenth-­ century Mexican historiography. Mexican liberalism has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, but Mexican republicanism has been ignored and belittled.15 Nineteenth-century liberalism and republicanism overlapped in some significant ways, but they did not coincide exactly. The fundamental propositions of classic liberalism are familiar. Liberalism demanded an end to arbitrary authority, but it did not require a republican form of government. Indeed, liberalism developed from a limited demand (for traditional rights and guarantees) to a positive theory (of political and economic organization) in Britain, where limited monarchy persists to this day. Liberals needed only resist arbitrary monarchs. They could support a monarch with liberal inclinations, like Maximilian, and many of them did. For republicans, every monarch was inevitably arbitrary. Indeed, in the republican view, all executives, whether hereditary rulers or not, would tend to monopolize power and become monocrats. Republicans saw history as a cyclical process: republics are founded, become corrupt, and decline into monarchies. “Corruption” in the republican lexicon covered a lot of ground: aristocracy, luxury, nepotism, greed, wealthy speculators, corporate monopolies, professional militaries, established ecclesiastical hierarchies, and executives who mismanaged the government and misinformed the people.16 The United States has not been immune to this corruption and was not behaving like a republic when it attacked Mexico in 1846. Those who would later call themselves “Republicans” knew that the United States had no legitimate claim to land beyond the Nueces River but had begun an “unjust” and “wicked” war to take the territory. Ulysses S. Grant made the comparison to European monarchism explicit in his memoir: “It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.”17 Nineteenth-century republicans knew that monarchy would emerge and prosper in the presence

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of civil conflict, the threats of foreign enemies, and the decline of public order. Republicans tended to favor legislative authority and to view executives, even elected governors and presidents, with suspicion, if not outright hostility.18 Mexican predilection for various schemes to share power among several individuals, attempts to weaken executive power in favor of the legislatures, and suspicions of executives’ abuses of power are all typical of republican thinking in the nineteenth century. Republicans assumed not only the inevitable threat of monarchism, but the eventual renewal of republicanism. Every leader would be tempted to trample the rights of citizens. In both Mexico and the United States, large-scale republics were an innovative, untested form of government, and their long-term survival was uncertain. Republicans needed to be on guard to resist the tyrannical tendencies of their presidents for the republic to endure. That is why, when asked what form of government had been chosen in 1787, Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.”19

Afterword

.

Cholera returned to Latin America abruptly in 1991. Since no one in this hemisphere had been infected for so long, news reports described it as a nineteenth-century disease.1 I thought: I’m a nineteenth-century historian; why don’t I know anything about cholera? It turned out that I was not the only historian of Mexico who did not know much about cholera. Prior to 1991, only Lilia V. Oliver had published a book about the 1833 epidemic in Guadalajara, Jalisco.2 There was much less in English: a single article, published in 1958, in which C. A. Hutchinson had come to the conclusion that the epidemic of 1833 had undermined the government of Valentín Gómez Farías because credulous Mexicans feared the wrath of God and blamed the government for provoking the epidemic. Hutchinson’s interpretation had become part of the standard narrative.3 I was already skeptical about characterizations of Mexicans as uniformly religious (and I am always suspicious when I see an ellipsis in a quotation), so I read Hutchinson’s sources. I did not find solid evidence for a widespread belief that the government was to blame for the epidemic. It seemed to me that Bishop Francisco Pablo Vázquez’s public statements, in particular, were more concerned with the immoral behavior of ordinary people than with the liberal reforms proposed by the Gómez Farías government. I wrote a chapter exploring the ways I thought Hutchinson misunderstood what was going on in 1833. I have not included it here, because it appeared to me that responding to Hutchinson would be a digression in the context of this book, but the chapter was published in a collection of essays edited by Will Fowler and Humberto Morales Moreno. Another early chapter appeared about the same time in a collection of essays edited by Brian Connaughton, Carlos Illades, and Sonia Pérez Toledo.4

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As I read the existing histories of cholera epidemics in Europe and the United States, I learned that cholera could be, as Charles Rosenberg and others have demonstrated, an effective way to analyze social change and to gauge the gradual development of scientific understanding about the connections between the disease, poor sanitation, germs, and poverty. When I began my research in Mexican civil archives, I quickly found that Mexican experts followed these medical and scientific debates about the causes of cholera, and the range of ideas in Mexico was much like that in Europe and the United States. Mexican scholars had begun publishing about those aspects of the disease. Parish archives, in contrast, told other stories. They revealed popular reactions that varied in different parts of Mexico. Memoirs of the cholera years revealed a society overwhelmed by death. Cholera killed people so rapidly and in such great numbers that the dead were found abandoned along the sides of roads and buried in mass graves. My colleagues were skeptical that the church’s burial records could be considered complete, because, they said, so many people died so quickly that the priests were unable to keep up. If that was the case, the total number of deaths might not be as accurate as I had thought. Reading the parish burial records, though, I found many entries for people who had died among strangers and whose bodies could not be identified. When a corpse was not recognized, the priest would add as much information as was known to the register. That might be only a description of the gender and approximate age of the deceased, but it showed that the clergy were trying to be comprehensive and that the dead could be enumerated even if they could not be named. And because Catholicism was the only religion permitted under Mexican law, there were no other records of burials that described the individuals who had died. It occurred to me to wonder if there might be additional evidence that the clergy were overwhelmed. If the priests were so busy administering last rites and burying the dead, maybe sacraments like marriage and baptism might have been postponed? So I began to read the parish registers of christenings and weddings. I found that baptisms of newborn children continued during the epidemic, and that the number of marriages increased dramatically in some places at the same time that so many people were dying. The evidence suggested that some men and women were marrying on their deathbeds because they were afraid of dying when they had been living in sin. The archives of many Mexican parishes had been microfilmed by the Academia Mexicana de Genealogía y Heráldica, and copies are held by the

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Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City and the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. In Mexico, José Luís Soberanes and Roberto Vélez Pliego provided introductions to clergy who facilitated my research in parish and cathedral archives. Eric Dorn Brose approved departmental funds that enabled me to make exploratory trips to assess whether my research plan was feasible. On the basis of those preliminary studies, I wrote grant proposals. In 1993, my research was assisted by a grant from the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies, with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. A few years later, the National Endowment for the Humanities gave me additional support through their Fellowships for College Teachers program. I am grateful to John H. Coatsworth, Eric Van Young, and Timothy Anna, who wrote letters of support for me, and to Dean Thomas L. Canavan, who allowed me to stretch the second grant into a full year. I thought I would be able to finish writing this book then. I had described my research and heard scholars’ critiques at the University of Texas at Austin, Fordham University, the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana–Iztapalapa, and Harvard University. I had presented papers to the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies; the Conference of Mexican, United States, and Canadian Historians; the International Congress of Historical Sciences; the Congreso Europeo de Latinoamericanistas; the Society for Latin American Studies; and the International Congress of Americanists. By some measures, 1997 was a successful year. My faculty annual report looked good. I presented five papers in four countries on three continents, and I had become the book review editor for The Americas. Yet the conference papers did not add up to a book. The pieces did not fit together, and I still had too many unanswered questions. Why did some babies have so many personal names and others have parents who were not named at all? Who decided when to marry, to whom, and why? When were their bodies buried in suburban cemeteries rather than under the church floors? Why were the clergy so concerned about impiety and immorality at the same time that foreigners saw Mexicans as superstitious and “priest-ridden”? When I accepted additional editorial and administrative responsibilities, progress on the book slowed to the point where it could not be quantified on my faculty annual reports. I had stopped gadding about so much and did not present any conference papers for the next six years. Research progress was slow, but it never stopped.

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To know how things had changed during the epidemic, I had to understand what life was like in the absence of epidemic disease. As I read through and compared the parochial registers, I saw how these documents provided an intimate, day-by-day record of interactions between the clergy and everyone in the parish. I found that I could document the lives of the ordinary people who lived in those extraordinary times, not just the prominent politicians, the generals, and the soldiers who used to inhabit history books, but the mothers and fathers, the brides and grooms, the babies who were named and claimed by their parents, and those who were not. “Normal” became fascinating. Demographers might consider it to be a problem when priests kept their records differently in comparable parishes, because the inconsistencies make it difficult to measure and compare. I see that same lack of uniformity as a revelation: it tells us that there were differences in the way priests and parishioners interacted with one another. I was excited to think that I could answer one of the fundamental questions in Mexican history: how Catholic were the Mexican people? The appropriate place for the church in Mexican life was one of the most divisive internal conflicts during the decades after independence. In addition, anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States during the 1830s and 1840s had been important in whipping up support for the United States’ invasion of Mexico. That legacy continued. In the twentieth century, even prominent anglophone academics like Hugh Hamill and Lesley Byrd Simpson had seen the cholera epidemic of 1833 as evidence of the religious credulity of the Mexican people. When I found my intellectual home in the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies in 2004, I began to present portions of chapters regularly at annual conferences. I owe my colleagues in RMCLAS a great deal, and I am particularly grateful to whomever it was who opined that historians ought to read more fiction. When I decided to take that advice, I was surprised to discover that there were so many stories and novels published in the 1830s and early 1840s. Only a few of these have appeared in recent anthologies, and even fewer were ever translated into English. Many have not been reprinted since the early twentieth century. I had to resurrect a few from the original periodicals of the 1830s and 1840s. I am grateful to Michael O. Hironymous of the Nettie Lee Benson Collection at the University of Texas at Austin and John Pollack, curator of research services at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania. The members of the interlibrary loan staff at Drexel University Libraries have been indispensable.

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When the Family History Library digitized their microfilm of the parish archives, it was a mixed blessing. Simultaneously, they made research much easier and they further delayed publication, as I was unable to resist the temptation to keep looking for a few more essential documents. In the early stages of this project, Pamela Voekel, Richard Salvucci, Robert McCaa, Walter Brem, and Silvia Arrom gave me valuable bibliographic citations and suggestions. Barbara Tenenbaum, for many years the Mexican specialist in the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, helped me locate rare publications and even gave me her own notes on cholera. Linda Arnold told me a lot about research and shared her immense collection of digital resources. Carlton Mosley, Gabriel de Aviles Rocha, and the incomparable Catherine Tracy Goode obtained copies of obscure, crucial sources for me. Some of the ideas in this book were first worked out in journal articles published in Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos and the Catholic Historical Review. Where my original language remains, it is used by permission.5 Three of my colleagues at Drexel University stand out for their generosity and patience. Douglas Porpora explained how to manipulate my data in SPSS and how to interpret the statistics that came out. Clare Sauro, curator of the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection, shared her knowledge of nineteenth-century clothing and hair styles, so that I could more precisely date the portraits in this book (as well as those that I decided not to use). Maríadelaluz Matus-Mendoza not only helped me interpret some of Guillermo Prieto’s more periphrastic poesy, she graciously assisted me in what eventually turned out to be a fruitless search for a photograph of Concepción Lombardo as a young woman. I am grateful to Scott Gabriel Knowles, interim head of the history department at Drexel, for insisting that I send the manuscript out (even though it was not finished) as well as for the flexibility in scheduling my classes that made it possible, at last, to conclude this book. Eric Van Young, Richard Warren, Nathaniel Stevens, John F. Schwaller, and Douglas Porpora read chapters for me. Susan Deeds, Michael Ducey, Guiomar Dueñas Vargas, Kris Lane, Diana Rico, and Barbara Tenenbaum critiqued the whole manuscript and recommended improvements. I am grateful and forever indebted to each of them. Judy Silver listened to my daily reports of progress and frustration. She enabled my extended absences for research. She read chapters over and over as I struggled to put the pieces of this story together. No one has ever had a more patient editor and attentive reader. This book is for her.

Notes

.

Abbreviations AGN

Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City

Bapt.

Baptismal register

Bur.

Burial register

DoS

Department of State

Mar.

Marriage register

Mat. Inf.

Matrimonial information dossiers

MexRCP

Regina Coeli Parish, Mexico City

MexSCSP

Santa Cruz y Soledad Parish, Mexico City

MexSMAP

San Miguel Arcángel Parish, Mexico City

MexSP

Sagrario Metropolitano Parish, Mexico City

MexSSMP

San Sebastián Mártir Parish, Mexico City

MexSVP

Santa Veracruz Parish, Mexico City

NARS

National Archives and Records Service, College Park, Maryland

OaxHLSP

Sagrario Parish, Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca

OaxSP

Sagrario Parish, Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca

PueSP

Sagrario Parish, Puebla de Zaragosa, Puebla

RG

Record Group

SLPSP

Sagrario Parish, San Luis Potosí

VerCICP

Inmaculada Concepción Parish, Córdoba, Veracruz

Chapter 1

1. Jabez Haskell Hayden, Records of the Connecticut Line of the Hayden Family (Windsor Locks, CT: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1888), 145–46. According to

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Notes to pages 1–5

his family history, Seth Hayden was born on 19 January 1780 in Torringford, Connecticut. He had moved to western New York State and married before opening a shoe store in Mexico City. This source provides only a year for the date of his murder, but the primary sources cited below all agree on 29 August 1824. 2. Waddy Thompson, Recollections of Mexico (New York, London: Wiley and Putnam, 1846), vi. 3. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), s.v. “Host.” 4. Brantz Mayer, Mexico as It Was and as It Is (New York: J. Winchester, 1844), 140–41; William Preston Stapp, The Prisoners of Perote, Containing a Journal Kept by the Author, Who Was Captured at Mier, December 25, 1842, and Released from Perote May 16, 1844 (Philadelphia: G. B. Zieber, 1845), 139–40. Hayden’s death was also mentioned, though only briefly, in Thompson, Recollections, 102. 5. John C. Pinheiro, Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-­American War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 15–32, 72, 125. Pinheiro described Mayer’s Mexico as It Was and as It Is and Thompson’s Recollections of Mexico as “the most popular.” 6. Mayer, Mexico as It Was, 141. I have made minor changes to standardize spelling and punctuation. 7. Wilcocks arrived in Tampico, Mexico, on 30 July 1822. His appointment as the first US consul in Mexico City was confirmed by the United States Senate on 28 January 1823, although he did not receive the news until sometime later. On 29 January 1823, he began signing his name “Santiago Smith Wilcocks.” He consistently used that Spanish version of his first name thereafter. Introduction to “Despatches [sic] from United States Consuls in Mexico City, Mexico, 1822– 1906,” ii, microcopy no. 296, roll 1, vol. 1, General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, National Archives and Records Service, College Park, MD (hereafter cited as NARS, DoS, RG59, Dispatches); and Wilcocks to Department of State, 30 July 1822 and 29 January 1823, NARS, DoS, RG59, Dispatches. 8. Wilcocks to Juez de Letras D. Francisco Ruano, 30 August 1824, manuscript copy, appendix 2 to Wilcocks to Department of State, 10 September 1824, NARS, DoS, RG59, Dispatches. 9. Alamán to Wilcocks, 30 August 1824, manuscript copy, appendix 3 to Wilcocks to Department of State, 10 September 1824, NARS, DoS, RG59, Dispatches. A few days later, Alamán also sent Wilcocks copies of the circular he had addressed to local authorities all over Mexico telling them they were expected to understand that foreigners were also entitled to the protection of the laws and that no one should be allowed to usurp the government’s authority to arrest, try, and punish those who broke the law. The printed circular is appendix 6 to Wilcocks to Department of State, 10 September 1824, NARS, DoS, RG59, Dispatches; it can be found, out of order, between Wilcocks’s letters of 8 January and 15 January 1824.

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A manuscript copy of Alamán’s cover letter to accompany the printed circular is appendix 5 to Wilcocks to Department of State, 10 September 1824. 10. Alamán to Wilcocks, 30 August 1824, manuscript copy, appendix 3 to Wilcocks to Department of State, 10 September 1824, NARS, DoS, RG59, Dispatches. 11. Wilcocks to Alamán, 31 August 1824, appendix 4 to Wilcocks to Department of State, 10 September 1824, NARS, DoS, RG59, Dispatches. Alamán formally declined to endorse the reward, but the British and Americans offered 2,000 pesos for information anyway. See Alamán to Wilcocks, 6 September 1824, appendix 8, and “Aviso,” 4 September 1824, appendix 11 to Wilcocks to Department of State, 10 September 1824, NARS, DoS, RG59, Dispatches. At the time, the Mexican peso was equivalent to a United States dollar; see Robert Arthur Humphreys, ed., British Consular Reports on the Trade and Politics of Latin America, 1824–1826, Camden Third Series (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1940), xxi. 12. Edward Thornton Tayloe, Mexico, 1825–1828: The Journal and Correspondence of Edward Thornton Tayloe, ed. C. Harvey Gardiner (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 30. 13. Ibid., 30. It was not the first time for Poinsett, who had already encountered a Host procession on his earlier trip to Mexico in 1822. At that time, Poinsett commented on the piety of the people in the street as he knelt with them; he gave no hint that violence might be threatened on such an occasion. Joel Roberts Poinsett, Notes on Mexico, Made in the Autumn of 1822, Accompanied by an Historical Sketch of the Revolution, and Translations of Official Reports on the Present State of That Country (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1824), 77–78. Poinsett had also traveled previously in Europe and South America. See Dorothy M. Parton, The Diplomatic Career of Joel Roberts Poinsett (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1934), 3–45, and J. Fred Rippy, Joel Roberts Poinsett, Versatile American (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1935), 35–60. 14. Tayloe, Mexico, 1825–1828, 31. 15. Tayloe’s ship had anchored at Veracruz on 3 May 1825, and he left the ship on 5 May. Tayloe dated this incident in Jalapa as 10 May of the same year. Tayloe, Mexico, 1825–1828, 17–18, 28–31. 16. Tayloe’s journal was not published until 1959. Many travelers visited Mexico without commenting on Host processions: for example, Basil Hall, Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, in the Years 1820, 1821, 1822, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: A. Constable, 1824); William Bullock, Six Months’ Residence and Travels in Mexico, Containing Remarks on the Present State of New Spain, Its Natural Productions, State of Society, Manufactures, Trade, Agriculture, and Antiquities, Etc. (London: John Murray, 1824); Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, Le Mexique, 2 vols. (Paris: Crevot, 1830); Robert William Hale Hardy, Travels in the Interior of Mexico, in 1825, 1826, 1827, & 1828 (London: H. Colburn & R. Bentley, 1829); Carl Wilhelm Koppe, Cartas a la patria: Dos cartas alemanas sobre el México de 1830, ed. and trans. Juan A. Ortega y Medina (Mexico City:

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Notes to pages 7–8

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1955); Mathieu de Fossey, Viaje a México (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994); David B. Edward, The History of Texas; or, The Emigrant’s, Farmer’s, and Politician’s Guide to the Character, Climate, Soil, and Productions of That Country, Geographically Arranged from Personal Observation and Experience (Cincinnati: J. A. James, 1836); and Eduard Harkort, In Mexican Prisons: The Journal of Eduard Harkort, 1832–34, ed. and trans. Louis E. Brister (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1985). In contrast, Henry Tudor was moved to reverent reflection by a Host procession, and Carl Christian Becher (an immigrant rather than a traveler) lamented that respect for the processions had declined. See Henry Tudor, Narrative of a Tour in North America Comprising Mexico, the Mines of Real del Monte, the United States, and the British Colonies, with an Excursion to the Island of Cuba, in a Series of Letters Written in the Years 1831–32 (London: J. Duncan, 1834), 2:238–39; Carl Christian Becher, Cartas sobre México: La República mexicana durante los años decisivos de 1832 y 1833, ed. and trans. Juan A. Ortega y Medina (Mexico City: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1959), 155. 17. Mark Beaufoy, Mexican Illustrations, Founded upon Facts: Indicative of the Present Condition of Society, Manners, Religion, and Morals, among the Spanish and Native Inhabitants of Mexico, with Observations upon the Government and Resources of the Republic of Mexico, as They Appeared during Part of the Years 1825, 1826, and 1827, Interspersed with Occasional Remarks upon the Climate, Produce, and Antiquities of the Country, Mode of Working the Mines, &c. (London: Carpenter and Son, 1828), 141–42. British diplomatic correspondence confirms the organization of a reward for the killer’s identification, but not the looting of his shop. See Henry McKenzie Johnston, Missions to Mexico: A Tale of British Diplomacy in the 1820s (London: British Academic Press, 1992), 82. 18. Stanley C. Green, The Mexican Republic: The First Decade, 1823–1832 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987), 81. Green concluded, “The religious problem was more a matter of popular prejudice than official intransigence.” His details of Hayden’s death are culled from contemporary newspaper reports and British diplomatic records. 19. Beaufoy, Mexican Illustrations, 149. Beaufoy used the Spanish word cura, or “curate,” for “parish priest.” 20. Edward B. Penny, A Sketch of the Customs and Society of Mexico, in a Series of Familiar Letters and a Journal of Travels in the Interior, during the Years 1824, 1825, 1826 (London: Longman, 1828), 52–53. 21. Penny, A Sketch of the Customs, 53–54. 22. Ibid., 54–55. 23. Ibid., 55. Penny recounted this experience in a letter dated 10 June 1824, more than two months prior to Hayden’s death. About a week before, on 4 June 1824, Penny had knelt for a procession honoring Saint Anthony, and at that time,

Notes to pages 9–14













231

because of stories he had heard, he feared that the crowd might stone him to death as a heretic. 24. Stuart Alexander Donaldson, Mexico Thirty Years Ago, as Described in a Series of Private Letters, by a Youth (London: W. R. Gray, 1865), 72. 25. Donaldson apparently learned his lesson. He wrote of three more encounters with religious processions without violence: Donaldson, Mexico Thirty Years Ago, 80, 93, 192. 26. George Francis Lyon, Journal of a Residence and Tour in the Republic of Mexico in the Year 1826, with Some Account of the Mines of That Country (London: J. Murray, 1828), 1:167–68 for the first instance and for this quotation. Lyon also described host processions later, on 1:170 and 1:175–76. 27. Henry G. Ward, Mexico in 1827 (London: Henry Colburn, 1828), 2: 660–61. 28. Ibid., 1:354 for quotation and 1:355–56 for prediction. 29. The location of Hayden’s shop and the movement of the Host procession were described in an untitled article about the murder in El Sol, 31 August 1824, 4. 30. Carlos María de Bustamante, Diario histórico de México, 1822–1848, del licenciado Carlos María de Bustamante, ed. Josefina Zoraida Vázquez and Héctor Cuauhtémoc Hernández Silva (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2001), 3–9 September 1833. 31. Ibid., 29 August 1824. 32. The United States had no diplomat resident in Mexico at the time of Hayden’s death. Joel Roberts Poinsett had visited Mexico in an unofficial capacity between September and November 1822 and returned to present his credentials as the first United States ambassador to Mexico on 1 June 1825. See Poinsett, Notes on Mexico; William R. Manning, Early Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Mexico (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1916), 52; and Parton, Poinsett, 49–74. 33. In a letter written from Mexico City about a month before Hayden’s death, Edward Penny said: “Both sides of the streets are well flagged; and under these flags run the common sewers. In the centre of the street there is also an open sewer or drain, but they are now about covering this with flags.” Penny, A Sketch of the Customs, 56. For similar observations, see Lyon, Journal of a Residence, 2:126, and Tayloe, Mexico, 1825–1828, 51. 34. Stafford Poole has demonstrated: that the earliest publications of the apparition story date back only to the middle of the seventeenth century (more than a hundred years after 1531), that earlier historical documentation does not exist, and that Zumárraga was in fact bishop, rather than archbishop, at the time. See Stafford Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995). Bustamante knew that “there is no reference in the writings of Señor Zumárraga.” This quoted phrase is Poole’s translation of Bustamante. See Stafford Poole, The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 23–24.

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Notes to pages 14–19

35. Bustamante, Diario histórico, 19 January 1824. I first learned of this incident from Green, Mexican Republic, 217–18. See also Sergio Rivera Ayala, “Lewd Songs and Dances from the Streets of Eighteenth-Century New Spain,” in Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico, ed. William H. Beezley, Cheryl English Martin, and William E. French (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 1994), 27–46. 36. Titles of nobility were abolished on 2 May 1826 “without either great interest or debate, by a congressional vote of forty to one.” Doris M. Ladd, The Mexican Nobility at Independence, 1780–1826 (Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1976), 160. I have quoted the third article of the Constitution of 1824 (4 October 1824) and the fourth article of the Acta Constitutiva de la Federación (31 January 1824), which are identical. The wording of the next article in each document establishes the form of government in language that is much less fervent. Felipe Tena Ramírez, ed., Leyes fundamentales de México, 1808–1971, 4th ed. (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1971), 154, 168. 37. Anne Staples, La iglesia en la primera república federal mexicana (Mexico City: SepSetentas, 1976), 18–31; Karl M. Schmitt, “The Clergy and the Independence of New Spain,” Hispanic American Historical Review 34, no. 3 (August 1954): 310. 38. Mexico City Cathedral, Cabildo Metropolitano, “Velar, trabajar, desempeñar el cargo de Evangelista eran los deberes de aquel ministerio” [edict, 17 June 1828]. (Mexico City: N.p., 1828), 1. The Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat is in Matthew 13:24–30. 39. Mexico City Cathedral, Cabildo Metropolitano, “Velar, trabajar, desempeñar,” 2. 40. Ibid., 1–2. 41. Ibid., 2. 42. Ibid., 3. 43. Mexico City Cathedral, Cabildo Metropolitano, “Aunque en todo tiempo la obligación de santificar las fiestas exija un escrupuloso empeño” [edict, 5 March 1831],” in Colección de documentos eclesiásticos de México, o sea antigua y moderna legislación de la Iglesia mexicana, ed. Fortino Hipólito Vera (Amecameca, Mexico: Imprenta del Colegio Católico, 1887), 663–64. 44. Mexico City Cathedral, Cabildo Metropolitano, “Aunque en todo tiempo,” 663. Two years later, the bishop of Puebla made similar observations. See Francisco Pablo Vázquez, Pastoral que el Illmo. Sr. Dr. D. Francisco Pablo Vázquez, Obispo de la Puebla de los Ángeles, dirige a sus diocesanos con motivo de la peste que amenaza (Puebla: Imprenta del Hospital de S. Pedro, a cargo del C. Manuel Buen-Abad, 1833), 12–14. 45. Mexico City Cathedral, Cabildo Metropolitano, “Aunque en todo tiempo,” 664. 46. Mexico City Cathedral, Cabildo Metropolitano, Amenazado el feliz Territorio Mejicano de una cruel y violenta enfermedad, que se aproxima a nuestras costas

Notes to pages 19–21

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[pastoral letter, 14 May 1833] (Mexico City: Imprenta de Galvan, a cargo de Mariano Arévalo, 1833), 9. 47. Bustamante, Diario histórico, 10 September 1833. For a more detailed discussion of this quotation in its historiographical context, see Donald F. Stevens, “Temerse la ira del cielo: Los conservadores y la religiosidad popular en los tiempos del cólera,” in El conservadurismo mexicano en el siglo XIX, ed. Will Fowler and Humberto Morales Moreno (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1999), 87–91. 48. The classic work on Mexico’s cholera epidemic of 1833 is C. A. Hutchinson, “The Asiatic Cholera Epidemic of 1833 in Mexico,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 32, no. 1 (January–February 1958): 1–23, 152–63. Recently a new generation of historians has shown interest in cholera in nineteenth-century Mexico. The principal publications include: Lilia V. Oliver, Un verano mortal: Análisis demográfico y social de una epidemia de cólera, Guadalajara, 1833 (Guadalajara: Gobierno de Jalisco, 1986); Miguel Ángel Cuenya et al., El cólera de 1833: Una nueva patología en México; Causas y efectos (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología é Historia, 1992); and Lourdes Márquez and Leticia Reina Aoyama, “El cólera en Oaxaca en el siglo XIX,” Cuadernos del Sur 1 (1992): 71–98. 49. Ma. Josefa Rangel to Mariano Gómez, 24 August 1833, San Juan del Rio. Valentín Gómez Farías Collection, 1770-1909, GF, 175, F 44B, 186, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin. 50. Cholera may also be spread through direct contact with the vomit and excrement of victims or by indirect contact when flies or cockroaches contaminate food. See Robert Pollitzer, Cholera, Monograph Series (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1959). Sanitary conditions in Mexico were probably no worse than typical conditions in New York, Paris, or London. See Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); François Delaporte, Disease and Civilization: The Cholera in Paris, 1832, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986); and Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (New York: Riverhead Books, 2006). 51. Norman Howard-Jones, “Choleranomalies: The Unhistory of Medicine as Exemplified by Cholera,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 15 (Spring 1972): 422–33. 52. Mexico City Cathedral. Cabildo Metropolitano, Amenazado el feliz Territorio Mejicano, 2–3. 53. Carlos María de Bustamante, “Historia del cholera morbus de México del año 1833, y los estragos de la guerra civil de aquella época, muy mas terribles que los de esta epidemia asoladora,” in Efemérides histórico-político literarias de México (Mexico City: Imprenta de la Testamentaria de Valdés, a cargo de José María Gallegos, 1835), 2:12.

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Notes to pages 23–27 Chapter 2















1. Frances Erskine Inglis Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico: The Letters of Fanny Calderón de la Barca, ed. Howard T. Fisher and Marion Hall Fisher (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1966), xxiii, xxv, 3, 32–33, 672 (n. 33). 2. Ibid., 354, 355, 747 (n. 9). 3. Fanny Calderón de la Barca to William Hickling Prescott, 5 June 1840, in Roger Wolcott, ed., The Correspondence of William Hickling Prescott, 1833–1847 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1925), 130. 4. Howard T. Fisher and Marion Hall Fisher, in Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico, 712 (n. 4). 5. She and her husband had also celebrated what she called his “fête day” two months earlier, on 2 October 1840, since his given name was Ángel, though she consistently referred to him as Calderón. Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico, 339, 359. 6. For example, Chudacoff notes that diaries and memoirs devote little attention to birthdays and “no special observation of them.” Howard Chudacoff, How Old Are You? Age Consciousness in American Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 129. 7. The celebration of Pharaoh’s birthday appears in Genesis 40:20–22; the unnamed king of Syria’s birthday sacrifices and the procession for Dionysus, in 2 Maccabees 6:7; and Herod Antipas’s birthday party, in Matthew 14:6–12 and Mark 6:21– 29. (The books of the Maccabees are regarded as canonical by Catholics but not by Protestants.) I have used The New American Bible: Translated from the Original Languages with Critical Use of All the Ancient Sources, rev. ed. (Wichita: World Catholic Press, 2010). 8. Ralph Linton and Adelin Linton, The Lore of Birthdays (New York: Henry Schuman, 1952), 43, mentions the custom of nobles feasting on their birthdays. 9. Verónica Zárate Toscano, “Los testamentos de los presidentes del siglo XIX,” in Historia y nación: Actas del congreso en homenaje a Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, ed. Luis Jáuregui and José Antonio Serrano Ortega (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1998), 2:249. 10. In the Catholic Church, baptism is the sacrament of initiation into membership in the church; newborn children are usually baptized shortly after birth with the sponsorship of ritual parents (called “godparents” in English and padrinos in Spanish). Naming is only one important aspect of the ceremony. Indeed, the guide for priests prepared in accordance with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) lists seventy-four important considerations regarding the ritual prior to explaining how names were to be chosen. Catholic Church, Catecismo del Santo Concilio de Trento para los párrocos, ordenado por disposición de San Pío V.; Traducido en lengua castellana por el P. fr. Agustín Zorita, según la impresión que de órden del

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papa Clemente XIII se hizo en Roma, año 1761 (Cuenca, Spain: Imprenta de don Fernando de la Madrid, 1803), 144–79. 11. Cross and Livingstone, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, s.v. “Natalitia.” “In the later Christian usage the word sometimes meant no more than ‘anniversary,’ the Gelasian Sacramentary, e.g., employing it of the anniversary of a bishop’s consecration.” 12. Mark Beaufoy, Mexican Illustrations, 147. 13. Morin says that the parish registers for births and marriages were required by the First Mexican Provincial Council in 1555. Claude Morin, Santa Inés Zacatelco (1646–1812): Contribución a la demografía histórica del México colonial (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, SEP, Departamento de Investigaciones Históricas, 1973), 91. Priests were required to record the date of baptism, the name of the baptized, the parents, the godparents, and the name of whoever performed the baptism. Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Concilio Provincial (3rd 1585), Concilio III provincial mexicano, celebrado en México el año de 1585 (Mexico City: Eugenio Maillefert, 1859), 202–3. 14. “Aniversario del nacimiento de una persona”: website of the Real Academia Española, s.v. “cumpleaños,” http://lema.rae.es/drae/. “Día en que se celebra el aniversario del nacimiento de una persona”: Diccionario Larousse usual (Mexico City: Ediciones Larousse, 1974), s.v. “cumpleaños.” “Aniversario de nacimiento”: Diccionario práctico de la lengua Española (Barcelona: Ediciones Grijálbo, 1988), s.v. “cumpleaños.” 15. William Forrest Sprague, Vicente Guerrero, Mexican Liberator: A Study in Patriotism (Chicago: [printed by R. R. Donnelley], 1939), 1, erroneously affirms that Guerrero was born 4 April 1782, on the basis of newspaper and manuscript sources that indicate celebrations of his “birthday” in the period 1826–1830. For other historians on Vicente Guerrero’s “birthday,” see Green, The Mexican Republic, 164, and Theodore G. Vincent, The Legacy of Vicente Guerrero, Mexico’s First Black Indian President (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001), 178– 79. For a contemporary report dating the celebration of Guerrero’s “cumple años” to 4 April 1829, see “Historia de la Presidencia de D. Vicente Guerrero: Abril de 1829,” Voz de la Patria 4, no. 1 (7 September 1830): 7. The baptismal register in San Martín Parish, Tixtla, Guerrero, records his baptism on 10 August 1782, but it does not indicate his day of birth. 16. An autographed invitation to Santa Anna’s party is in the Mariano Riva Palacio Collection, 2291, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin. The archival guide refers to this item as “Invitation to birthday party.” See Jack Autry Dabbs, The Mariano Riva Palacio Archives: A Guide, Independent Mexico in Documents: Independence, Empire, and Republic (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1967), 2:175.

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Notes to pages 28–30

17. Will Fowler, Santa Anna of Mexico (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 369, gives Santa Anna’s birth date as 21 February 1794. The baptismal register for Sagrario Parish, Jalapa, Veracruz, on 22 February 1794 records his name as “Antonio de Padua María Severino” and states that he was “de un dia nacido” (one day old). I understand this to mean that 22 February was his day of birth, since days were (and are) commonly counted starting from one rather than from zero. Hence, “ocho dias” (eight days) means a week and “quince dias” (fifteen days) means two weeks, for example. It was common practice in baptismal records to record births the same day as “one day old.” Furthermore, Santa Anna knew when he was born; he waited until 22 February 1847 to begin his attack at Angostura (called Buena Vista in the United States), hoping that the victory he expected to result would be celebrated and conflated with his birthday. Fowler believes that the attack came on the day after Santa Anna’s birthday. See Fowler, Santa Anna, 262. 18. Catholic Church, Catecismo del Santo Concilio de Trento, 178. 19. “A pastor should see to it that the person baptized is given a Christian name. If he does not succeed in this, he must add the name of a saint to the one chosen by the parents, and inscribe both in the baptismal register.” Catholic Church, “The Right Order of Administering the Sacrament of Baptism,” in The Sacraments and Processions, vol. 1 of The Roman Ritual in Latin and English with Rubrics and Planechant [sic] Notation, trans. and ed. Philip T. Weller (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1950), 29. 20. Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Concilio Provincial (4th 1771), Concilio provincial mexicano IV, celebrado en México el año de 1771 (Querétaro, Mexico: Imprenta de la Escuela de Artes, 1898), 162–63; the Third Mexican Provincial Council (1585) had limited this restriction to Indian parishes. See Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Concilio Provincial (3rd 1585), Concilio III provincial, book III, title XVI, 315. 21. Peter Boyd-Bowman, “Los nombres de pila en México desde 1540 hasta 1950,” Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 19, no. 1 (1970): 12–48. 22. In 1580, for example, fewer than 3 percent of babies’ names were doubled, and there were no longer combinations. Only 11 of 400 boys’ names and 12 of 400 girls’ names were doubled. See Boyd-Bowman, “Los nombres de pila,” 16, 18–19. 23. Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary, ed. and trans. Lesley Byrd Simpson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), 8. 24. Boyd-Bowman, “Los nombres de pila,” 19–22 and table IIIb. 25. Ibid., table Ia, table IIIa, and appendix IV. 26. Ibid., tables Ia and Ib. Eventually Josefa became the standard spelling. “José” was often spelled “Joseph” until late in the eighteenth century. 27. Ibid., tables Ia and IIIa.

Notes to pages 30–34

237

28. Jacques Gélis, History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy, and Birth in Early Modern Europe, trans. Rosemary Morris (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991), 207–8. 29. Allyson M. Poska, Regulating the People: The Catholic Reformation in Seventeenth-Century Spain (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 1998), 88. Poska concluded that the use of cross-gender names for girls “reveals the basic inability of the Church to firmly control its flock.” See also Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “Constitution et variations temporelles des stocks de prénoms,” in Le prénom, mode et histoire, comp. Jacques Dupâquier, Alain Bideau, and Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux (Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1984), 37–47. 30. Boyd-Bowman, “Los nombres de pila,” 15, table Ib. Boys’ names show no tendency to include masculinized forms of feminine names until the eighteenthcentury popularity of Mariano and María. 31. Ibid., 35. Also, on p. 13, he refers to the long personal names given two children in 1820 as demonstrating the “extraordinario fervor religioso de su época.” For similar conclusions, see Juan Javier Pescador, De bautizados a fieles difuntos: Familia y mentalidades en una parroquia urbana, Santa Catarina de México, 1568–1820 (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1992), 255–59. 32. Boyd-Bowman, ‟Los nombres de pila,” 23–24. 33. Ibid., 13, 23–24. See also Pescador, De bautizados, 256–57, and Claudio Lomnitz, Death and the Idea of Mexico (New York: Zone Books, 2005), 230. 34. Verónica Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte en México: Actitudes, ceremonias y memoria, 1750–1850 (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, Instituto Mora, 2000), 154. 35. Indeed, Estrada appeared to be unaware that José and Mariano were even part of his name. See Rafael Montejano y Aguiñaga, “Introducción,” in Recuerdos de mi vida, by Francisco J. Estrada (San Luis Potosí: Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, 1954), 8, and Estrada, Recuerdos, 29. A transcription of Estrada’s baptismal entry appears on p. 277. His original baptismal registration is in SLPSPBapt. 5 December 1801. 36. Concepción Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias de Concepción Lombardo de Miramón, foreword by Felipe Teixidor, Biblioteca Porrúa, vol. 74 (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1980), 12, 43, 111–13, 144. Her full name is found in her baptismal record in MexSP-Bapt. 12 November 1835, #1207. 37. Estrada, Recuerdos, 148. For contemporary descriptions of the día de campo, see Marcos Arróniz, Manual del viajero en Méjico; ó, Compendio de la historia de la ciudad de Méjico con la descripcion é historia de sus templos, conventos, edificios públicos, las costumbres de sus habitantes, etc., y con el plan de dicha ciudad (Mexico City: Librería de Rosa y Bouret, 1858), 169–71; Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico, 169–71; and Waddy Thompson, Recollections of Mexico (New York and London: Wiley and Putnam, 1846), 165. 38. Estrada, Recuerdos, 148–9.

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Notes to pages 34–40

39. Ibid., 149. 40. Ibid., 155. 41. Ibid., 157. 42. Ibid., 156–7. 43. Ibid., 158. 44. Ibid., 159–61, with quotations from p. 160. His patient was don José María de Herrera, whose burial is documented in the burial records of Sagrario Parish, Celaya, Guanajuato, 29 August 1833. 45. Estrada, Recuerdos, 169. 46. Catholic Church, Catechism of the Council of Trent, Published by Command of Pope Pius the Fifth, trans. J. Donovan (New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1829), 122. 47. Francisco Chacón Jiménez, “Identidad y parentescos ficticios en la organización social castellana de los siglos XVI y XVII: El ejemplo de Murcia,” in Les parentés fictives en Espagne (XVI–XVIIe siècles): Colloque international, Sorbonne 15, 16 et 17 mai 1986, ed. Augustin Redondo (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1988), 42. 48. See Council of Trent, Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent: Original Text with English Translation, trans. H. J. Schroeder (Saint Louis: B. Herder, 1960), “Twenty-fourth Session,” chap. 2, 185; and Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Concilio Provincial (3rd 1585), Concilio III provincial, 201. 49. Naming his sons may have been more important to Estrada than naming his daughters, but again mundane considerations seem to have predominated. When it came time to baptize his first son, Estrada gave the baby his own name, Francisco Javier. His next male child was christened Luis, primarily to honor his wife, Luisa, according to Estrada, who also allowed that he had “a particular fondness for that saint.” Estrada and his wife also named a subsequent son José Gregorio Francisco Javier and a later daughter María Josefa Luisa. In addition, they had twin granddaughters, both of whom were named María Luisa. Religion seems to have been a secondary consideration; when christening sons, Estrada asserted more of his own preferences and perpetuated his own and his wife’s names rather than conceding the choice to the child’s godparents. Estrada, Recuerdos, 180, 181, 219, 238, 267, and SLPSP-Bapt. 24 May 1865. 50. Francisco Pimentel, Historia crítica de la poesía en México: Nueva edición corregida y muy aumentada (Mexico City: Oficina Tip. de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1892), 828–30. See also Diccionario Porrúa de historia, biografía y geografía de México, 5th ed. (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1986), s.v. “Arróniz, Marcos.” 51. Arróniz, Manual del viajero, 148–49. 52. Ibid., 149–50. 53. Ibid., 150. 54. Ibid., 150–51. 55. Boyd-Bowman, “Los nombres de pila,” 13, 23, 35.

Notes to pages 40–43

239

56. Fifty of 5,406 single-birth children in the four parishes whose parents were identified comprised 0.9 percent of the total. Most (42 of 50, or 84 percent) were baptized in Sagrario Parish, Mexico City. The rest were from Puebla (7, or 14 percent) and San Luis Potosí (1, or 2 percent). 57. His paternal grandfather was a nephew of the third Marquis of Guardiola. The newborn’s mother was the daughter of parents who were only slightly less distinguished. Although María Manuela Severa Ozta de la Cotera’s father was not of noble birth, her mother was the tenth child of third Marquise of Rivascacho. MexSP-Bapt. 2 August 1832, #695, also lists his grandparents’ names and their titles. For additional details of his genealogy, see Ladd, The Mexican Nobility, 209–10, 212–13, 215–17; and Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte, 428–30, 437–41, 446–53. 58. The organizing principle may be, not who is included, but who has been excluded. There were more saints named Francis that appeared in the calendar published in Mexico City by the prominent publisher Mariano Galván. The only two who were not included in this child’s name were Francisco de Borja (1510–1572, celebrated on 10 October) and Francisco Xavier (1506–1552, celebrated on 3 December). Despite their individual prominence and popularity, they shared a background and religious affinity that may have been the reason for their exclusion: both were Spanish Jesuits. See Charles G. Herbermann et al., eds., The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1913); Cross and Livingstone, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church; and Mariano Galván, comp. and ed., Calendario manual para el año de 1832, bisiesto arreglado al meridiano de Méjico (Mexico City: Arévalo, n.d.). 59. Ann Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 4. 60. The best collection of essays on the subject of honor is Lyman L. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, eds., The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998). 61. For the boundaries of Sagrario Parish in Mexico City, see Celia Maldonado López, Estadísticas vitales de la Ciudad de México (Siglo XIX), Colección Científica, Fuentes (Mexico City: Departamento de Investigaciones Históricas, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1976), 19. For maps of the residences of nobles in Mexico City (which were primarily to the west and south of the Zócalo), see Ladd, The Mexican Nobility, 66; Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte, 61. 62. Miguel Ángel Cuenya, “Evolución demográfica de una parroquia de la Puebla de los Ángeles, 1660–1800,” Historia Mexicana 36, no. 3 (1987): 448; José Luis Aranda Romero and Agustín Grajales Porras, “Niños expósitos de la parroquia del Sagrario de la Ciudad de Puebla, México, a medios del siglo XVIII,” Anuario IEHS 6 (1991): 171–72.

240

Notes to pages 44–47

63. In 1832, Mexico City’s central parish had 639 baptisms of legitimate children whose parents’ names were inscribed with titles (don and doña, at least), at a rate of 1.7 per day, or 12.3 per week. Puebla had 143, or 2.7 per week; Oaxaca, 83, or 1.6 per week; San Luis Potosí, 72, or 1.4 per week. 64. Two names were so nearly universal as to preclude regarding them as a match in the absence of a second matching name. The names José for boys and María for girls were not counted as a match unless an additional name matched as well. For example, María del Carmen was not considered a match with María de la Soledad, nor was José Ignacio with José de Jesús. Database comprises all children baptized in four parishes in 1832 whose parents were named. 65. There were fewer than three dozen in Oaxaca, only nine infants in Mexico City’s central parish, and none at all in Puebla’s principal parish who were christened with such simple personal names. 66. Galván, Calendario. From SLPSP-Bapt. records: Gumersinda, 15 January 1832, #67; Gumersindo, 17 January 1832, #72. Both children were born on 13 January. For identification of San Gumersindo, see Richard Donovan Woods, Hispanic First Names: A Comprehensive Dictionary of 250 Years of Mexican-American Usage (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), s.v. “Gumersindo.” SLPSP-Bapt. Hilario, baptized 14 January 1832, born 13 January, #73. 67. From SLPSP-Bapt. records: Apolonia, baptized 10 April 1832, #428, born 9 April = Santa María Cleofas; Rita, baptized 22 May 1832, #614, born 20 May = San Bernardino de Sena; Bernardino, baptized 20 May 1832, #602, born 19 May = Renovación del Señor de Santa Teresa and Santa Pudenciana. Saints’ days from Galván, Calendario. 68. Antonio García Cubas, El libro de mis recuerdos. Narraciones históricas, anecdóticas y de costumbres mexicanas anteriores al actual estado social, ilustradas con más de trescientos fotograbados (Mexico City: Arturo García Cubas, 1904), 183–84. 69. Manuel Payno, “Trinidad de Juárez: Leyenda del año de 1648,” in Obras de don Manuel Payno 1: Novelas cortas, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 36 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 480. Trinidad was the second most popular name for girls baptized in San Luis Potosí in 1832, but it was only the ninth in Mexico City, was the tenth in Puebla, and was tied for sixteenth (with Luz) in Oaxaca. 70. Naming babies for their birthdays may seem inappropriate and incongruous, but it masks an even more interesting question: When and why did clerics begin to record birthdays systematically in the baptismal register? That is a question to be answered in the next chapter. 71. All appear in both Galván, Calendario, and Donald Attwater, comp., A Dictionary of Saints: Based on Butler’s “Lives of the Saints” (New York: P. J. Kennedy & Sons, 1958). 72. Some names were ambiguous cases. For example, Leonor had been among the ten most popular names for girls in 1540. After the Council of Trent, the

Notes to pages 47–50





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popularity of the name declined because there was no saint named Leonor in the calendar. In 1832, only 1 of more than 2,600 girls received the name Leonor. That irregularity may have been accepted as a reference to San Leonardo, who was celebrated about the time of Leonor Rosalia’s birth. There were also 2 girls named Leonora, one in Oaxaca and the other in San Luis Potosí, who were born near Saint Leon’s day (11 April). In any case, Leonarda and Leona, the standard feminine variations of the names Leonardo and León, were much more common. There were 6 Leonas and 10 Leonardas baptized in these four parishes in 1832. MexSP-Bapt. 9 November 1832, #1108, for Leonor Rosalia. OaxSP-Bapt. 12 April 1832, #293, for Juana Leonora. SLPSP-Bapt. 14 April 1832, #439, for María Leonora de la Trinidad. 73. MexSP-Bapt., 30 January 1832, #104. 74. Her maternal grandfather was also an officer: Brigadier Don Ignacio Fonnegra. MexSP-Bapt. 13 September 1832, #875. 75. MexSP-Bapt. 17 September 1832, #894. 76. Mario Góngora, “Sondeos en la antroponimia de Santiago de Chile,” in Estudios de historia de las ideas y de historia social (Valparaíso: Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso; Universidad Católica de Valparaiso, 1980), 299. 77. Charlene Villaseñor Black, Creating the Cult of St. Joseph: Art and Gender in the Spanish Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 22, 41, 55.

Chapter 3

1. Woodrow Borah and Sherburne F. Cook, “Marriage and Legitimacy in Mexican Culture: Mexico and California,” California Law Review 54 (1966): 948–52, with the quoted phrase on 950. See also Guillermo F. Margadant, “La familia en el derecho novohispano,” in Familias novohispanas, siglos XVI al XIX, ed. Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1991), 47–49. For a brief survey of impediments to marriage, see Richard E. Boyer, Lives of the Bigamists: Marriage, Family, and Community in Colonial Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), 64. 2. OaxSP-Bapt. 19 March 1832, #222, Gabriel José. A separate notation, pasted in the margin, contains the information about the marriage of his parents in 1840 that was provided in an official document dated 20 January 1849. Their marriage is recorded in OaxSP-Mar. 28 January 1840, #8. 3. The “House of Tiles” is well-known today as the site of a Sanborns restaurant in the historic center of Mexico City. On his marriage to doña María Loreto Paredes y Arrillaga, don Agustín Suárez de Peredo was described in the record as “hijo primogenito de los Señores Condes del Valle de Orizava D. Andrés Suárez de Peredo y de D. María Dolores Caballero de los Olivos.” See MexSP-Mar. 24 August 1821, #157. Ladd, The Mexican Nobility, 199, 224–25, 234–35 (n. 24);

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Notes to pages 50–53

Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte, 467–71 (quotation and his natural child on 471); and Torsten Dahl, ed., Linajes en México (Mexico City: Casa Editora de Genealogía Ibero Americana, 1967), 1:258–63. 4. Ladd, The Mexican Nobility, 160. 5. MexSP-Bapt. (legitimate): the original baptismal record is 27 December 1832, #1295. Changes dated 22 August 1846 are found at the end of the bound volume (on f. 391), and include expansion of the mother’s name to doña Josefa Victoria Flavia Testulat. Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la lengua castellana compuesto por la Real Academia Española, reducido a un tomo para su mas fácil uso (Madrid: Viuda de J. Ibarra, impresora de la Real Academia, 1791), s.v. “nene.” Don Agustín Suárez Peredo’s wife, doña María Loreto Paredes Arrillaga de Suárez, outlived him and died in 1865. MexSP-Bur. 9 January 1865, #32. 6. E.g., Diccionario práctico de la lengua española, s.v. “don”; Diccionario Larousse usual, s.v. “doña.” See also Enrique de Gandía, Del origen de los nombres y apellidos y de la ciencia genealógica (Buenos Aires: Librería y Editorial “La Facultad,” 1930). 7. OaxSP-Bapt. 19 August 1832, #617. 8. OaxSP-Bapt. 10 May 1832, #369, José Gregorio. San Gregorio’s (Gregory of Nazianzus) day was 9 May. 9. OaxSP-Bapt. 8 July 1827, #625. The marriage took place two and a half years later: OaxSP-Mar. 3 January 1830, #6. Their names were added to the baptismal register as the parents of their daughter on 2 May 1835. 10. The title “licenciado” indicates that don Antonio Mantecón had a university education that was approximately equal to a master’s degree. María Josefa Santiago, of unknown parents: OaxSP-Bapt. 27 November 1832, #954. She was legitimated after the marriage of her parents: OaxSP-Mar. 25 September 1843. OaxSP-Bapt. 26 January 1813, #71, Ignacia Avendaño. The three additional children of Ignacia Avendaño and Agustín Mantecón were María Manuela Isidora Ignacia Vicenta, 6 April 1831, #179; Santiago Mariano, 27 July 1835, #469; and María Soledad Teodora Francisca de Paula, 2 April 1838, #250. The children of Agustín Mantecón and María Josefa González Salazar were all baptized in Sagrario Parish, Oaxaca: José Mariano Christino Agustín Francisco de Paula, 25 July 1814, #557; María Clara Josepha Guadalupe, 13 August 1815, #687; María de la Luz Agustina Luisa Gonzaga Perfecta Oracia, 19 April 1817, #450; María Guadalupe Gregoria Josepha, 13 March 1822, #187. For the career of licenciado don Antonio Mantecón, see Eulogio G. Gillow, “Apéndice segundo (2a parte): La Provincia Metropolitana de México; Serie de los obispos de Oaxaca,” in Apuntes históricos (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1978), 116–17, and Fortino Hipólito Vera, Catecismo geográfico-histórico-estadístico de la Iglesia mexicana (Amecameca, Mexico: Imprenta del Colegio Católico, 1881), 76. 11. Marriage of don Agustín Mantecón and doña Ignacia Avendaño, OaxSP-Mar. 25 September 1843, #98; baptism of María Ignacia Timotea Josefa Avendaño,

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OaxSP-Bapt. 26 January 1813; baptism of Agustín Bacilio Luis Gonzaga Mantecón, OaxSP-Bapt. 15 June 1793; baptism of Antonio Joseph Mariano Mantecón, OaxSP-Bapt. 5 January 1784. 12. Between the birth of her last child in their marriage in March 1822 and Agustín Mantecón’s second marriage in September 1843, there were five burials of women named Josefa or Josepha González in Oaxaca. None was described as having been married to don Agustín Mantecon, as would be expected, but four include identifying details that exclude them. (Two were not married, one was a widow, and the fourth was married to someone else.) In the only possible case, the age is approximately correct (she was given an age of forty, when Agustín Mantecón’s wife would have been about forty-three), but the record did not include the deceased’s marital status, and this Josepha González was not described as a doña, so she may have been a different Josepha González. See OaxSP-Bur. 5 August 1826, #474. The other cases are: 7 May 1835, #123; 23 January 1838, #23; 11 March 1840, #146; and 7 June 1840, #310. 13. Don Ángel Mariano Morales was named bishop of Oaxaca on 1 March 1841 but did not arrive until 27 May 1842, and he died less than a year later, on 27 March 1843. His designated successor, Dr. José Mariano Irigoyen y Muñoz Cano, died on 20 August 1843. Don Agustín married doña Ignacia on 25 September 1843. Don Antonio Mantecón was named bishop of Oaxaca on 25 January 1844. For the episcopal dates, the best source is Vera, Catecismo geográfico-históricoestadístico, 76, because Gillow, “Serie de los obispos de Oaxaca,” 116–17, does not include Irigoyen and Muñoz Cano (who never took office). For the date and circumstances of the marriage of don Agustín Mantecón and doña Ignacia Avendaño, see OaxSP-Mar. 25 September 1843. 14. Six of these children were baptized in Oaxaca’s Sagrario Parish: Francisco Ignacio de los Angeles, 28 November 1831, #1109; José María Blas, 2 February 1832, #75; Manuel Cipriano, 27 September 1833, #842; Luis Gonzaga María Tomás, 20 September 1835, #663; Matilde Gregoria Rodrigo, 13 March 1839, #200; and Juana Estefana, 27 December 1840, #1096. One was baptized in San Matías Parish, Jalatlaco, Oaxaca: María Cleofas del Carmen, 9 April 1837, #17. The marriage of Francisco Santaella to Angela Cedeño is recorded in OaxSP-Mar. 19 July 1841, #41. 15. SLPSP-Bapt. 11 April 1832, #429, León Francisco. In another such case, a parishioner found the corpse of a baby girl, apparently about three days old, that had been thrown in a well. SLPSP-Bur. 7 September 1833. 16. Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Concilio Provincial (4th 1771), Concilio provincial mexicano IV, 115, 162–63. The Spanish colonial medical establishment took renewed interest in the cesarean operation as a result of this combined ecclesiastical and political pressure. See John Tate Lanning, The Royal Protomedicato: The Regulation of the Medical Professions in the Spanish Empire, ed. John Jay TePaske (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985), 309–18. For the historical context of this concern, see Andrea Rusnock, “Quantification,

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Notes to pages 56–58

Precision, and Accuracy: Determinants of Population in the Ancien Régime,” in The Values of Precision, ed. M. Norton Wise (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 17–38. 17. Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Concilio Provincial (4th 1771), Concilio provincial mexicano IV, 115, 162–63. 18. Fanning, “Baptism,” cites Hebrews 6:4–8: “For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God, and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned.” 19. Council of Trent, Canons and Decrees, sess. vii, canon ix. 20. Catholic Church, “The Right Order,” 25. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid.; Fanning, “Baptism”; Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Catecismo para uso de los parrocos, hecho por el IV. Concilio Provincial Mexicano, celebrado año de M.DCC.LXXI (Mexico City: Imprenta de Lic. D. Josef de Jaúregui, 1772), 63. Examples of baptisms attributed to the midwives include: OaxSP-Bapt. 18 April 1832, #307, María Manuela; OaxSP-Bapt. 7 November 1832, #874, Carlos Daniel, baptized “caso de necesidad” by the midwife Nicolasa Romero; MexSPBapt. 26 April 1832, Basilio de Jesús Cleto Marcelino, who was baptized by the midwife Toribia Zambrano. 23. “In case of necessity, however, not only a priest or deacon, but even a layman or woman, nay, even a pagan or heretic can baptize, provided he observes the form used by the Church, and intends to perform what the Church performs.” Fanning, “Baptism.” In contrast, most official representatives of the church are barred from performing baptisms in ordinary circumstances. When the life of the newborn is not in jeopardy, jurisdiction is ordinarily vested in the parish priest, unless the bishop is present. Other priests, friars, deacons, or additional members of the ecclesiastical establishment may not baptize unless they have the permission of the appropriate parish priest. For the same reason, parents may take their child only to their own parish priest or to someone to whom that priest has granted permission to perform the baptism; otherwise they are held to have committed a sin. 24. Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Catecismo para uso, 66: “Si es baptizatus, no te baptizo; si nondum es baptizatus. Ego te baptizo en nomine Patris, et Filij, et Spiritus Sancti.” 25. Catholic Church, Catechism of the Council of Trent, 132. 26. Catholic Church, “The Right Order,” 27.

Notes to pages 58–59

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27. MexSP-Bapt. (illegitimates) 7 February 1832, #21. See also the conditional baptisms of Anastasia Soledad, apparently more than a year old, 10 May 1832, #103 and José de Jesús, 25 August 1832, #181. 28. PueSP-Bapt. 12 December 1832, #1197, María Guadalupe del Sacramento. The only other case of an approximate birth date during 1832 in this parish is 27 January 1832, #85, María de los Dolores Asunción Antonia Sebastiana, whose age was estimated at two days. 29. If only some other portion of the infant emerges, it may be baptized, and a subsequent baptism of the head would need to be conditional. For the licitness of this and other rare cases, see Fanning, “Baptism.” 30. In Sagrario Parish of Mexico City during 1832, 83.7 percent of children baptized were registered with the names of their parents listed. Legitimate children and natural children all had parents who were named, so they were recorded in the same volume. All those children whose parents would not or could not be named were registered in another book. In the largest number of such cases, guardians and godparents said they didn’t know who the infants’ parents were (189, or 11 percent of the total); 99 percent of these godparents knew when the child had been born. Godparents who claimed not to know who the parents were but who knew when the baby was born were not telling the whole truth. Those who claimed to have “found” the babies were about 5 percent of the total, and 85 percent of the time they also did not know when the child had been born. The difference between knowing and not knowing the birth dates shows that these categories were distinct. “Expuesto” and “padres no conocidos” reflect two different realities. About two-thirds of these children had parents who were known to the padrinos (although they said they didn’t know them); one-third were really unknown, or at least their stories were consistent. 31. “Bendicion de la muger, que sale á Missa después del parto,” in Miguel Venegas, Manual de párrocos, para administrar los santos sacramentos y exercer otras funciones ecclesiásticas conforme al Ritual Romano (Mexico City: Joseph Bernardo de Hogal, 1731), 124–26; an English translation is available in Catholic Church, “Blessing of a Mother after Childbirth,” in The Blessings, vol. 3 of The Roman Ritual, 127. Although it has since been replaced by a special blessing for mothers at the end of the baptismal ceremony, in nineteenth-century Mexico this was a separate ceremony, prescribed by the Third Mexican Council: Concilio Provincial (3rd 1585), Concilio III provincial mexicano, 271. See also Nadia Maria Filippini, “The Church, the State, and Childbirth: The Midwife in Italy during the Eighteenth Century,” in The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe, ed. Hilary Marland (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 157–58; Susan C. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany (New York: Routledge, 1997), 72-84; Walter von Arx, “The Churching of Women after Childbirth: History and Significance,” Concilium 112 (1979): 63–72; Adrian Wilson, “The Ceremony of Childbirth and Its

246













Notes to pages 59–61

Interpretation,” in Women as Mothers in Pre-Industrial England: Essays in Memory of Dorothy McLaren, ed. Valerie Fildes (London: Routledge, 1990), 79–80; David Cressy, “Purification, Thanksgiving, and the Churching of Women in Post-Reformation England,” Past and Present 141 (November 1993): 106–46; Cross and Livingstone, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, s.v., “Churching of Women.” 32. Arróniz, Manual del viajero, 149, notes that the midwife was present in the entourage, carrying the newborn, and that both she and the baby were dressed in their best clothes. 33. Miguel Eugenio Muñoz, Recopilación de las leyes, pragmáticas, reales decretos y acucuerdos del Real Proto-Medicato [1751] (Valencia: Librerias “Paris-Valencia,” 1991), 314; Ana María Carrillo, “Nacimiento y muerte de una profesión: Parteras tituladas en México,” Dynamis 19 (1999): 168; Filippini, “The Church, the State, and Childbirth,” 158–59; Lanning, The Royal Protomedicato, 300, 311; Lee M. Penyak, “Obstetrics and the Emergence of Women in Mexico’s Medical Establishment,” The Americas 60, no. 1 (July 2003): 59–85; Nora E. Jaffary, Reproduction and Its Discontents in Mexico: Childbirth and Contraception from 1750 to 1905 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 184–87; William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 224. 34. OaxSP-Bapt. 18 April 1832, #307, María Manuela. Similar cases include: Pantaleona, an infant “who had just been born” to a mother named María Rumualda, but whose surname was unknown because she was a forastera (that is, she did not live around there), SLPSP-Bapt. 28 July 1832, #899; and a boy named Hipolito, two days old, whose mother was Margarita, “cuyo appellido no se sabe” (whose surname is unknown), SLPSP-Bapt. 14 August 1832, #965. 35. In Italy, for example, “it was common for unmarried, rural women to leave their hometown[s] in the last two months of pregnancy and take up residence with a midwife. The city provided anonymity, and many urban midwives ran boarding homes for unwed pregnant women.” David Kertzer, Sacrificed for Honor: Italian Infant Abandonment and the Politics of Reproductive Control (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 41. 36. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812 (New York: Knopf, 1990), 147–60. Ulrich concluded, “All of this argues that the mothers, rather than Martha, initiated the confession at delivery, and that it was part of the process of suing for maintenance” (152). 37. Ann Twinam first used this expression in “Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America,” in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, ed. Asunción Lavrin, Latin America Studies (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 118–55. See also Ann Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).

Notes to pages 61–66

247

38. Dates for the appointment of Antonino de Arango and for the suspension and resumption of recording birth dates are from the parish baptismal register for Oaxaca. The dates of appointments, travel, terms, and deaths of Oaxacan bishops are from Gillow, “Serie de los obispos de Oaxaca,” 115–16, and Vera, Catecismo geográfico-histórico-estadístico, 76 (N.b., Vera records Pérez Suárez’s first name as Antonio rather than Manuel.) On Bishop Pérez Suárez’s participation in postindependence politics in Oaxaca, see Peter F. Guardino, The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750–1850 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 181–82, 187. 39. Almost all of these entries include not only her given name but her family name as well. Just 2 of the 286 entries for “natural” children in 1832 have only given names for the mother. One entry explains that the mother’s surname is unknown because she is from somewhere else (SLP-Bapt. 27 July 1832, #899, Pantaleona). The other entry provides no explanation why there is only a given name for the mother (SLP-Bapt. 14 August 1832, #965, Hipolito). 40. More than 99 percent of the 1,381 children baptized during 1832 in San Luis Potosí’s Sagrario Parish had at least one parent named. Only 3 out of 1381 baptisms, or 0.2 percent, were registered as children of unknown parents, and 3 more were foundlings. 41. PueSP-Bapt. 1 October 1832, María Micaela Amalia Rita. 42. MexSP-Bapt. 22 July 1833, #779, and entry and correspondence dated 16 May 1866 at the end of the bound volume. 43. MexSVP-Bapt. 7 January 1830, #5. Estrada, Recuerdos, 113–17.

Chapter 4 1. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 94. Concepción reported that the marriage was by proxy, with her grandmother in Spain and her grandfather in Mexico, but the marriage register for Sagrario Parish in Mexico City was written as though both the bride and the groom were present in person. See MexSP-Mar. 27 April 1806, D. José Gil de Partearroyo to Da. María Guadalupe Miñón. 2. Circumstances of these marriages from Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 2, 94. Parish records confirm that Concepción’s mother, Germana Gil de Partearroyo, was married on Holy Saturday in 1824 at the age of sixteen years and almost eight months. MexSMAP-Bapt. 22 August 1807 [born 21 August]; MexSP-Mar. 17 April 1824, #89. 3. Concepción Lombardo was born on 8 November 1835 and baptized MexSP-Bapt. 12 November 1835, #1207. Agustín A. Franco was eleven years older, born 28 August 1824 and baptized MexSVP-Bapt. 29 August 1824, #268. Concepción Lombardo and Guillermo Prieto describe Agustín Franco in remarkably similar terms: compare Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 39–40, with Guillermo



248

Notes to pages 66–70

Prieto, Memorias de mis tiempos (Mexico City: Viuda de C. Bouret, 1906), 2:186– 87. Prieto also regarded Franco as arrogant and vain, with ambitions that surpassed his abilities. The only published work that I was able to find by Franco appears to confirm Prieto’s assessment of his talent. See Agustín A. Franco, “El incognito: Cuento imitado del inglés,” El Museo Mexicano 1 (1843): 345–51. 4. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 39–40. 5. Ibid., 40. 6. Ibid., 3–5, 30. 7. Ibid., 6–8, 13, 29, 35–36, 38. 8. Ibid., 40. All ellipses as in original. 9. Ibid., 42. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., 42–43. 13. Ibid., 48. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., 49. 16. Quoted in Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 49. 17. Years later, in Rome, Concha learned that Agustín Franco had died in poverty, leaving two daughters in a charity home for poor orphans while their mother was singing in a theater in Spain. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 49. 18. Ibid., 51. Vicente Antonio Vidal married María de los Ángeles Lombardo on 25 February 1854, MexSP-Mar. #58. The register says he was twenty-six and she was thirty-six, although her age, spelled out in words, appears to have been written over. Nevertheless, her correct age was twenty-six. Her baptism was recorded in MexSP-Bapt. 30 November 1828, #1430, with her full name as María de los Ángeles Sostenes Andrea (Lombardo Gil de Partearroyo) and a notation “nacio antier,” which would be 28 November (San Sostenes’s feast day). 19. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 51–52. On Fernando Pontones’s properties and business, see Shanti Oyarzábal Salcedo, “Gregorio Mier y Terán en el país de los especuladores, 1830–1869,” in Formación y desarrollo de la burguesía en México, siglo XIX, ed. Ciro F. S. Cardoso (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1978), 150, and Manuel Payno, Memoria sobre el maguey mexicano y sus diversos productos (Mexico City: Imprenta de A. Boix, a cargo de Miguel Zornoza, 1864), 87, 88, 99, 106–7, 121. 20. Parish records show that his first wife gave birth to at least six children before her death: José María Andrés Vicente Felipe Fernando, MexSP-Bapt. 4 February 1843, #136; José Fernando Manuel Tranquilino Ramón Fermín, MexSP-Bapt. 7 July 1844, #658; José Manuel Antonio Saturnino Esteban Agustín, MexSCSPBapt. 29 November 1846, unnumbered; María Lucía Fernanda Maura Cecilia Fausta Josefa de Jesús, MexSP-Bapt. 22 November 1849, #108; Fernando María Antonio Ignacio Petronilo Manuel, MexSP-Bapt. 31 May 1851, #540; and Vicente

Notes to pages 71–79

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Antonio José Zacarías, MexSP-Bapt. 5 November 1852, #1200. The burial record of Josefa Giral Urrutia specified that she died of the complications of childbirth, was twenty-eight years old, and had been given last rites on 20 February 1853; MexSP-Bur. 26 March 1853, #276. She gave birth to her last child on 5 November 1852, four months and three weeks before her death. 21. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 52. 22. Ibid., 52–53. 23. Ibid., 56. 24. Ibid., 55. Concha had first seen Miguel a few days earlier, during a visit to the military academy at Chapultepec. 25. Ibid., 57. 26. Ibid., 61–62. 27. Years later, Miguel Miramón told Concha that was the day he swore he would marry her. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 63–64. 28. Ibid., 66–67, 69. Don Manuel Eduardo Gorostiza and his wife, doña Juana Castilla, were her padrinos when Merced was baptized. MexSP-Bapt. 24 September 1838. 29. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 68. According to David W. Walker, Edward Perry “was brought to Mexico in August 1841 as a clerk for Martínez del Río Hermanos,” a nominally British firm. Perry’s obituary in the Times of London says that he was sixty when he died, making him about eighteen when he arrived in Mexico and about thirty-two (rather than forty) when he met Concha. See David W. Walker, Kinship, Business, and Politics: The Martínez del Río Family in Mexico, 1824–1867, Latin American Monographs (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), 76; Times (London), 5 March 1883. 30. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 57. 31. Ibid., 572, 63. 32. Ibid., 68. 33. Ibid., 69. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 71. 36. Ibid., 72. 37. Ibid., 81. 38. Ibid., 82. 39. Ibid. Ellipsis in original. 40. Ibid., 84–85. 41. Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la lengua castellana, s.v. “novio.” 42. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 93–94. 43. Ibid., 98. 44. Ibid., 99. 45. Ibid., 99, 100. 46. Ibid., 100.

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Notes to pages 79–88

47. Ibid., 102–3. 48. Ibid., 103–5. 49. Ibid., 105. 50. Ibid., 108. 51. Ibid., 108, 110–11. 52. Ibid., 120–21. 53. Ibid., 121. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 122–23. 56. Ibid., 123. 57. Ibid., 123–24. 58. Ibid., 124. 59. Quoted by Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 128. 60. Ibid., 128. 61. Ibid., 139. 62. Quoted by Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 139–40. 63. Ibid., 141. Ellipsis in original. 64. Ibid. 65. Extractos matrimoniales, book 6, pp. 78–79, 23 October 1858, Archivo de la Curia, Arzobispado de México, Mexico City. 66. I have not been able to locate the marital investigation forms for this wedding in either parish, but the format and wording used in each is almost identical. See the volumes dedicated to “Información matrimonial” in Sagrario Parish and San Sebastián Parish archives. 67. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 141. See also 137, 142. 68. Ibid., 145. 69. Ibid., 141–42. 70. Ibid., 143. 71. Ibid. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid., 160. 76. Concha reported that malicious gossip said Miramón was behind this arrest, but she contended that Miramón had not even arrived in the capital yet when Perry was arrested and that Miramón did not know about “what had happened.” Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 142. Later, as of 20 December 1858, the French representative in Mexico, Viscount Jean Alexis de Gabriac, reported that Perry had been expelled “recently.” Lilia Díaz López, ed. and trans., Versión francesa de México: Informes diplomáticos (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1963), 2:48– 50. Perry later returned to Mexico, where he was the official agent for the British Committee of Mexican Bondholders until his death in 1883. See Richard J.

Notes to pages 89–99

251

Salvucci, Politics, Markets, and Mexico’s “London Debt,” 1823–1887 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 256–59. 77. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 144. 78. Ibid., 145.

Chapter 5 1. Estrada, Recuerdos, 81, 85. 2. Ibid., 85–86. 3. Ibid., 72. 4. Ibid., 86. 5. Ibid., 87–88. 6. According to SLPSP-Bapt. 5 December 1801, José Mariano Francisco Javier Biviano, described as a child of unknown parents, was four days old when he was baptized. Jesusita was at least thirty-eight months older than he was. There is no notation of her exact day of birth, but she was baptized in the same parish and named María de Jesús Mauricia Nicolasa Ontañón Mendizábal on 23 September 1798. See also the editorial notations by Rafael Montejano y Aguiñada in Estrada, Recuerdos, 8–9, 277. 7. Ibid., 88. 8. Ibid., 89. See also Marie Eileen Francois, A Culture of Everyday Credit: Housekeeping, Pawnbroking, and Governance in Mexico City, 1750–1920 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006). 9. Estrada, Recuerdos, 89. 10. Ibid., 89–90. 11. Ibid., 102. 12. Ibid., 85–86. 13. Ibid., 110. 14. Ibid., 111. 15. Ibid., 112. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 114. 19. Ibid., 115. 20. Ibid., 116. 21. Ibid., 116–17. 22. Ibid., 118–19. 23. Ibid., 123. 24. Ibid., 124. 25. Ibid., 124–25. 26. Ibid., 168.



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Notes to pages 99–104

27. Catholic Church, Province of Mexico City, Concilio Provincial (3rd 1585), Concilio III provincial, 72–73. 28. Montejano y Aguiñaga, “Introducción,” in Estrada, Recuerdos, 8. Estrada’s baptism was recorded in SLPSP on 5 December 1801. Their marriage was recorded in Señor San José y Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Parish, Mexico City, on 2 June 1832, #143. On Estrada’s previous residence in Zacatecas, see Estrada, Recuerdos, 74–77. In the same way, Luisa’s family seems to have presented her childhood in the most favorable possible light. The marriage register reported that she had been born sixteen years earlier in Tepeapulco, Hidalgo, and had lived in San José Parish in Mexico City since she was little. Nevertheless, the only child named Luisa who was born in Tepeapulco at that time was listed at birth as a daughter of unknown parents. San Francisco Parish, Tepeapulco, Hidalgo, baptismal registration of Luisa Paulina al parecer mestiza, 23 June 1815, f. 153. 29. Estrada, Recuerdos, 125–26, 128. 30. Ibid., 125–28. The quoted phrase appears on p. 127. 31. MexSJP-Mar. 2 June 1832. 32. Estrada, Recuerdos, 128–29. 33. Ibid., 124. 34. Their first child was a daughter named María Antonia de Abad. Francisco wrote that she was “very small and weak, as though it was not yet time. That is to say, she was premature [sietemesina].” It had been only seven and a half months since their wedding in early June 1833, so it is significant that Estrada described his daughter using the adjective sietemesina (derived from siete meses, “seven months”). He chose to describe his daughter as a child who had been conceived after the marriage had taken place and had been properly blessed by the church. María Antonia Abad’s baptismal record noted that her parents were married and that she was a legitimate child of their marriage. That would have been the case, though, even if their child had been conceived before their marriage. Estrada, Recuerdos, 148; MexSP-Bapt. 18 January 1833. 35. Prieto, Memorias, 1:119–22, is the source of all of the details and descriptions in the previous three paragraphs, except for María’s age and the location of her home. María’s address is given in the matrimonial investigation as “facing the Alameda no. 4" and in their marriage record as “number 4 on Corpus Christi Street”; MexSP–Inf. Mat. 1840, #174; MexSP-Mar. 20 October 1840, #202. 36. Prieto, Memorias, 1:118–19. All ellipses are in the original text and do not represent omissions. Prieto seems to be referring to Victor Hugo, “Stella,” in Selected Poetry, trans. Steven Monte (New York: Routledge, 2002), 86–89, which was first published in 1853. 37. Prieto, Memorias, 1:124. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., 1:66.

Notes to pages 104–113

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40. Ibid., 2:35. Water carriers were known as “the trusted friend of the cooks and maids, the intermediary of those in love,” according to Cubas, El libro de mis recuerdos, 207. 41. Guillermo Prieto, “A M.,” in María del Carmen Ruíz Castañeda, ed., El Recreo de las Familias: Edición facsimilar (Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1995), 385. 42. Guillermo Prieto, “La sonrisa del pudor” (2 October 1837) and “A M.” (1 April 1838) in Ruíz Castañeda, El Recreo de las Familias, 28–29, 384–85. 43. María was able to sign her name in the matrimonial investigation, but her signature was shaky, either from the lack of practice or as a consequence of the emotion she felt that day. MexSP–Inf. Mat. 1840, #174. On the standards and practices in education for women, see Anne Staples, Recuento de una batalla inconclusa: La educación mexicana de Iturbide a Juárez (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2005), 379–99. 44. Prieto, Memorias, 2:40. 45. Ibid., 2:18–19. 46. Guillermo Prieto, “Oda,” in Distribución de premios hecha el día 27 de agosto de 1837, entre los alumnos del Colegio de San Juan de Letrán en la Nacional y Pontificia Universidad por mano del Exmo. Sr. Presidente de la República, General D. Anastasio Bustamante (Mexico City: Impreso por Juan Ojeda, 1837), 30–32. 47. Prieto, Memorias, 2:14–21. 48. Ibid., 2:33. 49. Ibid., 2:35. 50. Ibid., 2:37. 51. Todo lo vence amor; o, La pata de cabra “became the most popular play in Spain in the first half of the nineteenth century.” It was a “magical, silly farce [that] brought enormous fame and substantial wealth to Grimaldi, and a newfound life to the Spanish theatre.” David Thatcher Gies, Theatre and Politics in NineteenthCentury Spain: Juan de Grimaldi as Impresario and Government Agent (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 63. 52. Prieto, Memorias, 2:37. 53. Ibid., 2:38, 43. 54. Ibid., 2:41, 42. 55. Ibid., 2:42–44. 56. MexSP-Mar. 20 October 1840, #202.

Chapter 6

1. Guillermo Prieto, “Amoríos de farsa,” in Miscelánea, ed. Boris Rosen Jélomer, Obras completas, vol. 30 (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2001), 105–12. This story was first published in El Siglo Diez y Nueve on

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Notes to pages 113–115

21 February 1842. All of the stories mentioned in this chapter date from the first decade of romantic narratives in Mexico. In each case, I have tried to cite the most accessible version of the story, but a few are available only in the original periodicals. Mexico’s first true short novel was José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi’s Vida y hechos del famoso caballero don Catrín de la Fachenda, written by 1820, although it was not published until 1832. I have considered the first decade of romantic stories to begin with the publication of José Justo Gómez de la Cortina’s story “La calle de don Juan Manuel” in 1835. At least twenty authors contributed original fiction to eleven different periodicals between 1835 and 1844. The most prolific were Manuel Payno (fourteen), Guillermo Prieto (ten), and Ignacio Rodríguez Galván (seven). It is not a coincidence that these three were also the most important editors who supported this new genre of literature in their periodical publications, especially El Año Nuevo (twelve) and El Calendario de las Señoritas Mejicanas (six), edited by Rodríguez Galván between 1837 and 1841, and El Museo Mexicano (twenty-four), edited by Payno and Prieto between 1843 and 1844. 2. Prieto, “Amoríos de farsa,” 109. 3. Ibid., 108. All emphasis and ellipses as in original. 4. Ibid., 111–12. 5. Ibid., 112. Prieto later repeated the same phrase in “Amor de verano,” in Cuadros de costumbres, vol. 1, ed. Boris Rosen Jélomer, Obras completas, vol. 2 (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1993), 366–67, first published in 1844 in El Museo Mexicano 3:418–27. 6. Guillermo Prieto, “Manuelita,” in La novela corta en el primer romanticismo mexicano, ed. Celia Miranda Cárabes, Nueva Biblioteca Mexicana, vol. 96 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998), 153–74 (first published in El Siglo Diez y Nueve in 1843). The prospect of love at first sight fared no better in two more of Prieto’s stories from this period. Instant love was a sign of incipient insanity in Guillermo Prieto, “Un estudiante,” in Crónicas de teatro y variedades literarias, ed. Boris Rosen Jélomer, Obras completas, vol. 10 (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1993), 329–36 (first published in 1842 in El Siglo Diez y Nueve). A tragic outcome also awaited the protagonist in a story that Prieto set in the colonial past. Captain Nicolás José Camacho had “vehemently adored” his wife from the first moment that he saw her. They married, but she succumbed to seduction by the viceroy. In the end, Camacho was driven insane and finally strangled his unfaithful wife. Guillermo Prieto, “El marqués de Valero,” in Cuentos románticos, ed. David Huerta (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1973), 100–17 (first published in 1843 in El Museo Mexicano). Guillermo Prieto wrote more stories about love at first sight than anyone else in this period, but he was not the only author to identify instant passionate attraction as a form of insanity. See, for example, Manuel Payno, “Amor secreto,” in Cuentos románticos, ed. David Huerta (Mexico City:

Notes to pages 115–122

255

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1973), 58–64 (first published in 1842 in El Museo Mexicano). See also Anonymous, “Un recuerdo de amor,” El Museo Mexicano 1 (1843): 525–26, and José Gómez de la Cortina, “Eucléa; o, La griega de Trieste,” in La novela corta en el primer romanticismo mexicano, ed. Celia Miranda Cárabes, Nueva Biblioteca Mexicana, vol. 96 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998), 189–205. 7. Prieto, “Manuelita,” 156. 8. Ibid. 9. Ángel de Saavedra, Duque de Rivas, El moro expósito; o, Córdoba y Burgos en el siglo décimo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1982), 1:42, lines 105–06 of the “Romance Primero” (originally published in 1834). 10. Prieto, “Manuelita,” 156–57. 11. Ibid., 160. Ellipsis in original. 12. Ibid., 161. 13. Ibid., 162. 14. Ibid., 165. 15. Ibid., 165, 166. 16. Ibid., 167. 17. Ibid., 170. 18. Anonymous, “La mujer económica,” in Novelas cortas de varios autores, vol. 2, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 37 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 451–74. First published in 1843 in El Museo Mexicano. 19. Ibid., 454–55. 20. Ibid., 455. 21. Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, Gender and the Negotiation of Daily Life in Mexico, 1750– 1856 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012), 55–57. 22. Anonymous, “La mujer económica,” 456, 23. Ibid., 457. 24. Ibid., 457–58. 25. Ibid., 460. 26. Ibid., 462. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 463. 29. Ibid., 465. 30. Ibid., 467. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 468. 33. Ibid., 470. 34. Ibid., 472. 35. Ignacio Rodríguez Galván, “El visitador,” in Novelas cortas de varios autores, vol. 1, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 33 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 413–33. The story was originally published anonymously in Calendario de las

256





Notes to pages 122–127

Señoritas Mexicanas (which Rodríguez Galván edited) in 1838. A slightly different version appeared as a play in verse, which opened later the same year, on 27 September: Ignacio Rodríguez Galván, Muñoz, visitador de México, 2d ed., Biblioteca del Estudiante Universitario (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1995). Oscar Mata noted that Ignacio Rodríguez Galván is “considered [Mexico’s] first romantic poet.” Mata believed that Rodríguez Galván wrote the story before his play. See Oscar Mata, La novela corta mexicana en el siglo XIX (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1999), 40. For more stories of older Spanish officials who lusted after young Mexican women, see Mariano Navarro, “Ángela: Acontecimiento histórico,” in Novelas cortas de varios autores, vol. 1, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 33 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 309–35, and Juan N. Navarro, “La hija del ciego,” El Liceo Mexicano 1 (1844): 79–83. 36. Rodríguez Galván, “El visitador,” 418. 37. Ibid., 425. 38. Ibid., 427. 39. Ibid., 428. 40. Ibid., 429. 41. Ibid., 433. 42. Payno, “Trinidad de Juárez.” This story was first published in 1844 in El Museo Mexicano. Other stories that idealized the love between children who had grown up together (or should have) include Guillermo Prieto, “¡Pobres amantes!,” in Cuadros de costumbres, vol. 1, ed. Boris Rosen Jélomer, Obras completas, vol. 2 (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1993), 219–26; Ignacio Rodríguez Galván, “La procesión,” in La novela corta en el primer romanticismo mexicano, 2d. ed., ed. Celia Miranda Cárabes, Nueva Biblioteca Mexicana, vol. 96 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998), 299–329; and Rodríguez Galván, “El visitador.” 43. Payno, “Trinidad de Juárez,” 483. 44. Ibid., 487. 45. Ibid., 498. 46. Ibid., 513. 47. Ibid., 518–19. 48. Ibid., 520, 523–24. 49. Ibid., 524–34. 50. Ibid., 534–40. 51. Ramón Isaac Alcaraz, “La condesa de Peña-Aranda,” in La novela corta en el primer romanticismo mexicano, ed. Celia Miranda Cárabes, Nueva Biblioteca Mexicana, vol. 96 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998), 393 (first published in 1844 in El Liceo Mexicano). In addition to his long preamble on the defects of Mexico’s aristocracy, Alcaraz also indulged in a prolonged digression on the mysterious nature of women.

Notes to pages 127–133

257

52. Ibid., 401. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid., 397–98. 55. Ibid., 403. Ellipsis in original. 56. Ibid., 402. 57. Ibid., 408. 58. Manuel Payno, “El rosario de concha nácar,” in La novela corta en el primer romanticismo mexicano, ed. Celia Miranda Cárabes, Nueva Biblioteca Mexicana, vol. 96 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998), 73–103 (first published in 1843 in El Museo Mexicano). He also wrote a rare sympathetic portrayal of an older man married to a younger woman, though that story still had a tragic ending: Manuel Payno, “Pepita,” in Obras de don Manuel Payno 1: Novelas cortas, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 36 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 163–97. 59. Payno, “El rosario de concha nácar,” 102. 60. Ibid., 103. 61. Ibid., 96. 62. See Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, “The Intersection of Rape and Marriage in Late-Colonial and Early-National Mexico,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 6, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 559–90. 63. Payno, “El rosario de concha nácar,” 102. 64. Anonymous, “Desgraciados efectos de una seducción: Carta de un libertino arrepentido, a su esposa,” El Museo Mexicano 2 (1843): 546–52. Other stories about parents who fail to protect their daughters from dangerous or deceitful suitors include Rosario Bosero, “El amor filial,” in Museo literario tres, ed. Fernando Tola de Habich (Mexico City: Premià, 1990), 175–84; Juan N. Navarro, “Margarita,” in La novela corta en el primer romanticismo mexicano, ed. Celia Miranda Cárabes, Nueva Biblioteca Mexicana, vol. 96 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998), 409–19; and Ignacio Rodríguez Galván, “La hija del oidor,” in Novelas cortas de varios autores, vol. 1, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 33 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 91–114. 65. Anonymous, “Desgraciados efectos de una seducción,” 547. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid., 548. 68. Ibid., 552. 69. Ibid., 552. 70. Manuel Payno, “¡¡¡Loca!!!” in Obras de don Manuel Payno 1: Novelas cortas, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 36 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 89–128. This story was first published in 1843 in El Museo Mexicano. 71. Ibid., 91. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid., 92.

258

Notes to pages 133–137

74. Ibid. 75. Ibid., 92–93.

Chapter 7 1. PueSP-Bapt. 24 April 1820; PueSP-Mar., 1 July 1832. 2. OaxHLSP-Mar. 24 November 1813, don Manuel de Alencaster and doña María Josefa Niño de Rivera. Their marriage was not entered into the parish register until several years had passed; it can be found between entries dated 28 May and 10 July 1817. 3. OaxHLSP-Bur. 25 September 1830. Doña María Josefa Niño de Rivera had been baptized in the same parish, a week after her birth: OaxHLSP-Bapt. 5 April 1791. 4. Their children’s baptisms: OaxHLSP-Bapt. 3 May 1815 (María del Carmen Juana de la Cruz Alencaster), 20 April 1817 (Manuel Ramón Alencaster), and 1 December 1819 (María de la Luz Micaela Andrea Alencaster). 5. Manuel Mariano (Alencaster y Martínez) was baptized as the legitimate son of don Joseph Antonio Alencaster and doña Anna Martínez de Frade: VerCICPBapt. 10 December 1786. Doña María Magdalena Alencaster (Martínez), married at age eighteen, was described as “the legitimate daughter of D. José Alencaster . . . and D.a Ana Martínez Frade” in VerCICP-Mar. 12 May 1809. 6. Leviticus 18:12–14, New American Bible. 7. Adam Kuper, Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 58–59; Michael L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 143– 44. 8. Council of Trent, Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent: Original Text with English Translation, trans. H. J. Schroeder (Saint Louis: B. Herder, 1960), 181. Kuper points out that some, but not all, Protestants regarded Catholic prohibition of marriage to close relatives as “a trick to extort cash for dispensations” (Kuper, Incest, 62). 9. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 94. Concepción Lombardo’s baptismal registration in MexSP-Bapt. 12 November 1835 confirms the names of her maternal grandparents. 10. Vicente Fuster and Sonia E. Colantonio, “Consanguinity in Spain: Socioeconomic, Demographic, and Geographic Influences,” Human Biology 74, no. 2 (2002): 301–15; María José Blanco Villegas et al., “Inbreeding Patterns in La Cabrera, Spain: Dispensations, Multiple Consanguinity Analysis, and Isonymy,” Human Biology 76, no. 2 (2004): 191–210; Vicente Fuster and Sonia E. Colantonio, “Socioeconomic, Demographic, and Geographic Variables Affecting the Diverse Degrees of Consanguineous Marriages in Spain,” Human Biology 76, no. 1 (2004): 1–14.

Notes to pages 137–138

259

11. Gowan Dawson, “All in the Family,” review of Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England, by Adam Kuper, American Scientist 98, no. 1 (January–­February 2010): 80. In his study of hundreds of marriages between 1790 and 1880, Kuper concluded that “among people born into the great bourgeois clans of nineteenth-century England, like the Darwin-Wedgwoods, more than one marriage in ten was with a first or second cousin” (Kuper, Incest, 18). Later in his marriage, Darwin worried if his consanguineous marriage was responsible for the poor health of their children. See Tim M. Berra, Gonzalo Alvarez, and Francisco C. Ceballos, “Was the Darwin/Wedgwood Dynasty Adversely Affected by Consanguinity?,” BioScience 60, no. 5 (May 2010): 376– 83, and Tim M. Berra, Darwin and His Children: His Other Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 12. One authority, though, points out that these numerical age limits “were normally treated as approximate.” See Christopher N. L. Brooke, “Marriage and Society in the Central Middle Ages,” in Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage, ed. R. B. Outhwaite (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 20. In Mexico, the legal minimum age for marriage was changed by the Ley sobre Relaciones (decreed April 1917), which raised the legal age for marriage to fourteen for women and sixteen for men. Ann S. Blum, Domestic Economies: Family, Work, and Welfare in Mexico City, 1884–1943 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 115–16. 13. See Catholic Church, Catechism of the Council of Trent, 143, or Catholic Church, Catecismo del Santo Concilio de Trento, 188. The English-language Catechism also states: “It is to be observed, that the Sacrament of Confirmation may be administered to all, as soon as they have been baptized, but, until children shall have reached the age of reason, its administration is inexpedient. If not postponed to the age of twelve, it should therefore be deferred until at least that of seven. . . . No one will consider children, not yet arrived at the use of reason, fit subjects.” The Spanish-language version uses the word niños for “children.” 14. A late eighteenth-century dictionary defines párvulo as a synonym for pequeño (small), as well as metaphorically: “innocent, who knows little, or is easy to fool.” See Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la lengua castellana, s.v. “párvulo.” 15. Adultita and adultito were commonly used in the Sagrario Parish, Mexico City, burial register for 1832. 16. Henri Leridon, Human Fertility: The Basic Components, trans. Judith F. Helzner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 9–10, cites a national survey in the United States that resulted in a mean age at menarche of 12.8 years in the 1960s. Thirty years later, an extensive national sample of pediatric practices in the United States found a mean age at menarche of 12.88 years for white girls and of 12.16 for African American girls. This same study also found that secondary sexual characteristics frequently appeared years earlier. See Marcia E. Herman-­ Giddens et al., “Secondary Sexual Characteristics and Menses in Young Girls

260

Notes to pages 139–144

Seen in Office Practice: A Study from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings Network,” Pediatrics 99, no. 4 (May 1997): 505–12. 17. Leridon, Human Fertility, 10. 18. OaxHLSP-Bapt. 30 August 1834: Agustín Rosa de la Trinidad is described as “the legitimate son of D. Manuel Alencaster and D.a Magdalena Rosa de Alencaster.” 19. MexSP-Mar. 1 August 1832; PueSP-Mar. 12 March 1832. 20. Together, these 3 brides who married before age fourteen represented only 0.5 percent of 641 first-time brides. All calculations and statistics in this chapter are based on analysis of a data set consisting of all marriages during 1832 in Sagrario Parishes in four cities: Mexico (N = 219), Oaxaca (N = 98), Puebla (N = 159), and San Luis Potosí (N = 206), or a grand total of 682. 21. In San Luis Potosí, 31 percent of first-time brides were married between fourteen and sixteen years of age, compared with 20 percent in Oaxaca and fewer than that in the central parishes of Mexico City (18 percent) and Puebla (15 percent). 22. MexSP-Mar. 5 February 1832, #24. 23. Eighteen of 622 who married for the first time. 24. Of the popular-class grooms, 6.5 percent were married between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, compared to only 1.7 percent of those from the elite class. 25. Analysis of variance indicates that the difference between group means is significant at the 0.001 level. 26. After age thirty, the proportions were more equal: about 8 percent of the brides who were doñas and 7 percent of the brides who were not. 27. The median age at marriage was twenty-one for brides who were doñas and nineteen for those who were not. The mode was seventeen for doñas and fifteen for nonelite brides. 28. MexSP-Mar. 5 February 1832, #24. 29. OaxSP-Mar. 14 February 1832, #14. 30. Payno, “¡¡¡Loca!!!” 31. Mothers were more likely to be living when their daughters married, because daughters tended to marry at a younger age than sons did. Mothers of brides were less likely to have died for each age cohort compared with mothers of grooms of the same ages between fifteen and twenty-six. 32. See chapter 4. 33. Historians have studied trial records that document domestic disputes between husbands and wives: Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, “Marriage and Family Relations in Mexico during the Transition from Colony to Nation,” in State and Society in Spanish America during the Age of Revolution, ed. Victor M. Uribe-Uran (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001), 121–48; Lee M. Penyak and Verónica Vallejo, “Expectations of Love in Troubled Mexican Marriages during the Late Colonial and Early National Periods,” The Historian 65, no. 3 (Spring 2003): 563–86.

Notes to pages 144–147

261

34. Palafox y Mendoza was bishop of Puebla from 1640 to 1655, but his guide for priests was still in use in the nineteenth century. For example, this quotation is from Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Manual para la precisa, pronta y fácil administración de los Santos Sacramentos, arreglada al ritual de Nuestro Santísimo Padre Paulo Quinto (de feliz recordación) (Puebla: Atenógenes Castillero, 1847), 120. 35. Anonymous, “La mujer económica,” 470. 36. Michael Mitterauer and Reinhard Sieder, The European Family: Patriarchy to Partnership from the Middle Ages to the Present, trans. Karla Ooserveen and Manfred Horzinger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 67. 37. PueSP-Mar. 1 July 1832; PueSP-Mar. 5 March 1832. 38. SLPSP-Mar. 25 June 1832. It is regrettable that the matrimonial investigations in San Luis Potosí between April and August 1832 appear to be missing, so we cannot know exactly when their process started or whether doña María Roque was able to sign her name. 39. MexSP-Mar. 4 February 1832. María de Jesús Miramón David and María de Josefa Miramón David were half sisters of Miguel de Miramón’s father, Bernardo Miramón Arrequivar. See Geneanet, “Bernardo Miramón Laffite,” https:// gw.geneanet.org/sanchiz?n=miramon+laffite&oc=0&p=bernardo, consulted on 3 August 2018. For the nobility of doña María Josefa’s padrinos, see Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte, 428–29, 452–53. Titles of nobility were formally abolished by the Mexican Congress on 2 May 1826, though one expert speculates that “within the charmed circle of high society,” some continued to use the old titles. See Ladd, The Mexican Nobility, 160–61. 40. MexSP-Mar. 10 June 1832. Don Ramón Díaz had been the padrino for his wife’s older sister’s first child. Doña María Josefa Miramón, at the age of seventeen, married don Antonio Barreda, age twenty-nine, on 6 June 1826, MexSP-Mar. #156. Their ages are documented in MexSP–Inf. Mat. 1826, #26, which granted them an exemption from the reading of the banns for reasons that were deemed “sufficient” and were kept secret. The bride was clearly pregnant at the time; their child was born two months and fourteen days later, on 20 August 1826, and baptized the following day, with don Ramón Díaz serving as padrino. Baptism of María Joaquina Bernarda de Jesús: MexSP-Bapt. 21 August 1826, #927. 41. PueSP-Mar. 19 January 1832. He had been an officer in the ninth infantry battalion of Veracruz and had been born in Mexico City. 42. MexSP-Mar. 18 March 1832, #70. 43. In 1832, 62 of 208 elite grooms in these four parishes were ten or more years older than their brides. Of these, 31 were married in Mexico City, 20 in Puebla, 7 in San Luis Potosí, and 4 in Oaxaca. There were 28 elite grooms who were eighteen years of age or older: 11 in Mexico City, 12 in Puebla, 3 in Oaxaca, and 2 in San Luis Potosí.

262

Notes to pages 147–150

44. In 1832, 53 of 462 untitled grooms in the four parishes were ten or more years older than their brides (11.5 percent). OaxSP-Mar. 19 January 1832, #5; SLPSPMar. 13 February 1832, #36. 45. PueSP-Mar. 14 November 1832. 46. PueSP-Mar. 13 October 1832. 47. OaxSP-Mar. 17 January, #4; SLPSP-Mar. 13 February 1832, #36. 48. Among those marriages of titled brides and grooms, there were six examples of age differences (groom’s age minus bride’s age) of more than thirty-three years: thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-seven (twice), forty, and forty-eight years. The mean age difference was twenty-seven years between the oldest dons and their brides; the mean difference between the oldest untitled grooms and their brides was twenty-two years. 49. Penyak and Vallejo, “Expectations of Love,” 564. 50. See chapter 5. See also Silvia Marina Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, 1790– 1857 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), 117, who suggested that marriages between husbands and wives who were close in age “may well have been more egalitarian than [those] where the man was much older than his wife.” 51. Among marriages of those without titles in 1832, 227 of 462 marriages were of grooms who were no more than three years older or younger than their brides, with 56 of 95 marriages in this category taking place in the central parish of Mexico City. Among dons and doñas, 71 of 208 marriages were in this category. 52. Among all marriages in these four parishes in 1832, 115 were of grooms at least ten years older than their brides, and 298 were between novios whose ages were no more than three years apart (out of a total of 670 where both ages were listed). 53. MexSP-Mar. 20 October 1832, #207. 54. Women over the age of thirty-two made up only 6.3 percent (43 of 682 whose ages were known) of all the women who married in these four parishes in 1832. Sixteen of these 43 (37 percent) were widows. Most of them married single men (12 out of 16 equals 75 percent) and 10 of the 12 (83 percent) previously unmarried grooms who married older widows were younger than the bride. 55. SLPSP-Mar. 10 May 1832. 56. PueSP-Mar. 29 April 1832. 57. SLPSP-Mar. 29 June 1832. Don Luís Guzmán was probably a relative of her first husband, don Cristino Guzmán, who had died more than three years earlier. 58. As she told her daughter Mariquita, as quoted by Lombardo: “Cuando nací, me encontré que me habían casado, esta vez me caso yo con el hombre que amo, y tú serás quien lo presentará a tus hermanas” (Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 95). The marriage of Francisco Ocampo to Guadalupe Miñon was recorded in MexSMAP-Mar. 7 April 1832. The marriage of José Gil de Partearroyo to Guadalupe Miñon (MexSP-Mar. 27 April 1806) does not give the age of either the bride or the groom, but Lombardo, said that her age was fourteen (Memorias, 94).

Notes to pages 150–153









263

Partearroyo’s age at burial in 1830 was given as seventy-six, implying an age of fifty-two at marriage in 1806. See MexSMAP-Bur. 17 October 1830. The martrimonial investigation in San Miguel Arcángel parish for the Ocampo-Miñon marriage was complete by 31 December 1831, less than fifteen months after the burial of her first husband. See MexSMAP–Mat. Inf. 1831, #66. It is interesting to note that Guadalupe Miñon’s age was given as thirty-seven in the record of her marriage to Francisco Ocampo, whose age was given as thirty-two. Her age was understated, since to have been thirty-seven in 1832, she would have been only eleven on her first marriage, in 1806. Her correct age was probably forty, which is also consistent with the age implied by the record of her burial in 1871, at the age of seventy-nine: MexSP-Bur. 14 February 1871. 59. MexSP-Mar. 1 June 1832, #102. 60. PueSP-Mar. 17 Sept 1832. They also received a dispensation for consanguinity. Her father and his mother shared the same last name: Biana. 61. OaxSP-Mar. 31 Jan 1832, #8. 62. OaxSP-Mar. 12 Jun 1832, #44. 63. OaxSP-Mar. 7 Jul 1832, #49. 64. PueSP-Mar. 8 August 1832. 65. Examples are from OaxSP-Mar. 18 August 1832, #60; OaxSP-Mar. 9 April 1832, #32; and MexSP-Mar. 1 December 1832, #223. On the political significance of the title “citizen” in records of this period, see Donald F. Stevens, “Lo revelado y lo oscurecido: La política popular desde los archivos parroquiales,” in Construcción de la legitimidad política en México en el siglo XIX, ed. Brian Connaughton, Carlos Illades, and Sonia Pérez Toledo (Mexico City: Colegio de Michoacán; Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 1999), 207–26. 66. Marriage of don Guadalupe Velsasco to doña María de la Asunción [sic] Hernández, MexSSMP-Mar. 26 November 1830, #3; MexSSMP-Mar. 8 December 1830, #79. Burial of José Guadalupe Velasco, who had been married to María de la Concepción Hernández, MexSSMP-Bur. 31 March 1831, #81. Matrimonial information for Justo Rodríguez and María de la Concepción Hernández, MexSPMar. 19 June 1832, #112; MexSP-Mar. 1 July 1832, #132. 67. Doña Dolores’s residence is described in the record of her marriage as “accesoria letra A junto al numero tres en la Calle del Puente de Jesús María,” which was the block south of the Jesús María convent, not far from the embarcadero. MexSPMar. 29 May 1832, #100. For the social and moral implications of such a residence, see Lipsett-Rivera, Gender and Negotiation, 49–55, 77–79. 68. James Joseph Donovan, The Pastor’s Obligation in Pre-Nuptial Investigation: An Historical Synopsis and Commentary (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1938), 264–68. Donovan points out that “the canon uses the phrase ‘in periculo mortis,’ which is not to be confounded with the phrase ‘in articulo mortis.’ The words ‘in articulo mortis’ refer to the very moment of death or at least to the time when death is imminent. The words ‘in periculo mortis’ are of wider

264

Notes to pages 153–157

comprehension. They refer to those circumstances in which it is reasonably probable that a person may die” (264). 69. MexSP-Mar. 29 May 1832, #100; MexSP-Bur. 31 May 1832, #418.

Chapter 8













1. Christopher Domínguez Michael, “Introducción,” in Antología de la narrativa mexicana del siglo XX, vol. 1, ed. Christopher Domínguez Michael (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultural Económica, 1989), 27. 2. “Policía de salubridad: Rleflexiones [sic] sobre los cementerios y el abuso de enterrar en las iglesias,” Semanario Político y Literario de Méjico 2, no. 19 (22 November 1820): 49–56, with the information cited on p. 54. 3. Azcárate’s report is dated 12 February 1821 and may be found in AGN Ayuntamientos, vol. 2, exp. 13, ff. 180–96. Azcárate described San Lázaro as the “primer cementerio de México” on f. 181v. He subsequently correctly identified the San Salvador el Seco location, later known as “el Caballete,” as inaugurated in 1779 (ff. 186v–87). For a misunderstanding of this document, see Pamela Voekel, Alone before God: The Religious Origins of Modernity in Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 297, n. 27. 4. Three exceptional studies demonstrate the value of such an approach, using both civil and ecclesiastical records: Pamela Voekel, “Piety and Public Space: The Cemetery Campaign in Veracruz, 1789–1810,” in Latin American Popular Culture: An Introduction, ed. William H. Beezley and Linda Curcio-Nagy (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000), 1–25; Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte; and María Elena Stefanón López, “La catedral como espacio funerario (1694–1724),” in El mundo de las catedrales novohispanas, ed. Montserrat Galí Boadella (Puebla: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2002), 265–91. 5. The best explanation of this traditional system, and the only study I know that connects actual burials to their costs and specific locations, is Stefanón López, “La catedral como espacio funerario,” 265–91. She found that reality is more complicated than this simple association of status, cost, and proximity to the altar. 6. Josefina Muriel, Hospitales de la Nueva España (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1956– 1960), 2:242. See also map 3 in Marcela Dávalos, Basura e ilustración: La limpieza de la Ciudad de México a fines del siglo XVIII (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia; Departamento del Distrito Federal, 1997), 151. 7. The Cortes de Cádiz turned the hospital over to the Mexico City Ayuntamiento in 1820. Muriel, Hospitales de la Nueva España, 1:234–41. The ruins of the chapel are still standing but are on private property, so there are no plans for restoration. See Abida Ventura, “Ex templo de San Lázaro, en el olvido,” El Universal, 29 July

Notes to pages 157–159













265

2014, http://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/cultura/2014/ex-templo-de-san-lazaroen-el-olvido-1026434.html. 8. MexSP-Bur. of castas and españoles: between 1 January and 31 July 1779, 322 of 449 burials were inside the parish church (71.7 percent). 9. Yet it was not merely that their parents had not acknowledged them; these deserted children were social outcasts whose own names were not even listed in the burial register. See, for example, the entries for multiple unnamed orphans in MexSP-Bur. of españoles on 9 January 1779; 16 January 1779; and 24 January 1779. 10. MexSP-Bur. of castas: Juan del Carmen, indio, 28 January 1779; Lorenzo Martín, indio, 13 May 1779; Ysidro de la Cruz, indio, 8 July 1779. One Spanish soldier was also executed during this period: José Phelipe Campuchano, MexSP-Bur. of españoles 28 May 1779. On the Cristo de Misericordia, see Diccionario Porrúa de historia, biografía y geografía de México, 5th ed. (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1986), s.v. “Misericordia, Casa de.” 11. MexSP-Bur. of castas, Nicolasa Dorotea Patiño, mestiza, 4 Jan 1779, #3. 12. Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte, 271–72. 13. Of 110 burials of nobles who died in Mexico City between 1721 and 1864, 33 percent were buried in the Franciscan convent and 13 percent, in the Dominican. Calculated from tables 6.2 and 6.3 in Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte, 254–55, 257–58. 14. MexSP-Bur. of castas and españoles, 1 January 1779 through 31 July 1779: N = 89 of 449, or 19.8 percent. 15. Zárate Toscano, Los nobles ante la muerte, 251. 16. MexSP-Bur. of españoles, 9 April 1779; Bernard E. Bobb, The Viceregency of Antonio María Bucareli in New Spain, 1771–1779 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962), 37. 17. Bodies sent to the cemetery were not enumerated in the usual Sagrario Parish burial registers but were separately listed in a San Salvador el Seco register that included the daily summaries from Sagrario’s priests. MexSP-Bur. of castas and españoles: from January to July 1779 (212 days) there were 449 burials, or 2.1 per day, with 71.7 percent buried in the parish church; in August and September (61 days) there were 128 burials, or 2.1 per day, with 72.7 percent buried in the parish church; from October 1 to November 7 (38 days) there were 455 burials, or 12.0 per day, with 61.5 percent buried in the parish church; from November 9 through December 31 there were 1,988 burials, or 37.5 per day, with only 21, or 1.1 percent, buried in the parish church. 18. Eventually, I discovered that there had been two original printings, one a broadside and the other a six-page pamphlet. An original example of each of these is held by the Wellcome Library in London. I was never able to find in Mexico any examples of this edict that were actually printed in 1779, but there is a later transcription in AGN Gobernación, leg. 2154, exp. 9, ff. 6–9v. The most convenient

266

Notes to pages 159–163

transcription (with modernized orthography and some differences in capitalization and punctuation), and the version that I will cite here and in the following notes, was published as Alonso Núñez de Haro y Peralta, “Edicto [8 November 1779],” in Colección de documentos eclesiásticos de México, o sea antigua y moderna legislación de la Iglesia mexicana, ed. Fortino Hipólito Vera (Amecameca, Mexico: Imprenta del Colegio Católico, 1887), 1:183. 19. Núñez de Haro y Peralta, “Edicto,” 1:183. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 1:183–84. 22. Ibid., 1:184. 23. Ibid., 1:184–85. In between these measures, the archbishop included detailed clauses about the transportation of corpses, how the parish priests should keep records, and procedures for dividing the burial fees, as well as other matters of traditional ritual, such as the carrying out of vigils and masses with the body present. 24. Núñez de Haro y Peralta, “Edicto,” 1:184. 25. The longest lull in church burials fell during a week when the epidemic was declining at the end of December. The next longest lasted for six days, from 2 through 7 December; it ended with four new burials inside the church on 8 December. 26. MexSP-Bur. for the following dates in 1779: 9 November (four), 10 November (one), 11 November (one), 12 November (one), 17 November (two), 21 November (one); 22 November (one), 26 November (one), 1 December (one), 8 December (four), 11 December (one), 16 December (one), 19 December (one), and 24 December (one). 27. MexSP-Bur. January to July 1779 (71.7 percent in the parish church); 9 November to 31 December 1779 (1.1 percent in the parish church, 47.2 percent in the cemetery behind San Salvador el Seco, with the remaining 51.7 percent buried in other churches). Clergy were a little more compliant in some of the city’s less prestigious parishes. In the parish of Regina Coeli (informally known as Salto de Agua, for the large water fountain nearby) compliance with the archbishop’s decree of 8 November was higher. Overall, 59 percent of all the dead in Regina Coeli Parish were buried behind the chapel of San Salvador el Seco after the archbishop’s decree. In part, this was because Regina Coeli Parish was the closest of the city’s parishes to that cemetery, so transportation costs for burials there were lower. Regina Coeli Parish was also less prosperous, serving fewer of the wealthy Spaniards who could afford the extra fees for burials in the churches of religious orders. The proportion of burials for Spaniards in the designated cemetery was 48.5 percent; castizos, 53.3 percent; mestizos, 59.3 percent; and indios, 63.9 percent. In this parish, Spaniards did not have much prestige; only about 10 percent of Spaniards were considered gente decente, about 1 percent of the population in the parish. Above percentages calculated from MexRCP-Bur. from 9 November to 31 December 1779.

Notes to pages 164–167

267

28. Muriel, Hospitales de la Nueva España, 2:186. 29. Ibid., 2:187–89; Alba Dolores Morales Cosme, El Hospital General de San Andrés: La modernización de la medicina novohispana (1770–1833) (Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2002), 44. 30. Núñez de Haro’s first letter to the viceroy was dated 18 October 1779 and the second, 21 October 1779. Muriel, Hospitales de la Nueva España, 2:189; Morales Cosme, El Hospital General de San Andrés, 44–45. 31. Núñez de Haro’s letter quoted, translated, and abbreviated by Donald B. Cooper, Epidemic Disease in Mexico City, 1761–1813: An Administrative, Social, and Medical Study (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965), 58. See also Morales Cosme, El Hospital General de San Andrés, 45. 32. We do not know the exact date the hospital opened, but Muriel estimated that it was only a matter of weeks before the hospital was in operation. Muriel, Hospitales de la Nueva España, 2:189–90. 33. Ibid., 2:190–91; Morales Cosme, El Hospital General de San Andrés, 45–48. 34. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 77; María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Álvarez, Usos y costumbres funerarias en la Nueva España (Zamora: Colegio de Michoacán, 2001), 230. This burial ground became the general cemetery for Mexico City in 1836, when it was renamed Panteón de Santa Paula. This was the cemetery that Manuel Payno visited for inspiration in 1843. 35. Rodríguez Álvarez, Usos y costumbres funerarias, 232–36. 36. D. A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763–1810 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 81. 37. R. Douglas Cope, “Revillagigedo, Conde de,” in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, ed. B. A. Tenenbaum (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1996), 4:554. 38. Voekel, “Piety and Public Space,” 1–25. The quoted phrase appears on p. 8. 39. Revillagigedo is credited by some historians with ending burials in Sagrario and the cathedral in Mexico City. See, for example, Miguel Ángel Cuenya, “Los espacios de la muerte: De panteones, camposantos y cementerios en la ciudad de Puebla, de la Colonia a la Revolución,” Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, 3 January 2008, n. 14, doi:10.4000/nuevomund0.15202. 40. MexSP-Bur. of españoles. Based on a systematic sample of 5 percent of all Spanish burials in these periods (every tenth recto page): from January 1790, a few months after Revillagigedo arrived in Mexico City, until May of 1794, just before he departed for Spain, 78.8 percent of Spanish burials were in the Sagrario Parish church. For the five years prior to his arrival, 68.5 percent of Spanish burials were in the parish church. Overall for the period 1781–1796, 70.6 percent of Spanish burials were in Sagrario. 41. Brading, Miners and Merchants, 81–82. 42. Roberto Moreno, “El arzobispo Núñez de Haro contra el virrey Revillagigedo II,” Tempus: Revista de Historia de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM 2

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Notes to pages 167–171

(Winter 1993–1994): 147–63, with the quotation on p. 150. In context, Núñez de Haro’s words were: “salta a la vista que es efeminado en su compostura, en la cual gasta casi toda la mañana, soberbio, ligero e inconstante.” 43. Ibid., 147. 44. Conde de (Juan Vicente Güémez Pacheco de Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo) Revillagigedo, “Instrucción reservada al marqués de Branciforte, 1794,” in Informe sobre misiones, 1793; e, Instrucción reservada al marqués de Branciforte, 1794 (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1966), 163. The hospital in Puebla and its cemetery were named for San Pedro. See Salvador de Biempica y Sotomayor, “Decreto” [12 May 1791], in Gazetas de México: Compendio de noticias de Nueva España que comprehenden los años de 1790 y 1791, comp. Manuel Antonio Valdés (Mexico City: Imprenta de don Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1791), 4:321–22. 45. Voekel, “Piety and Public Space,” 2–25. 46. S. F. Cook, “The Smallpox Epidemic of 1797 in Mexico,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 7 (October 1939): 944, 948, and the map on 945. 47. Translated and quoted by S. F. Cook, “Smallpox in Spanish and Mexican California, 1770–1845,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 7, no. 2 (February 1939): 162. Branciforte’s full decree appears on pp. 158–63. The final provisions promoted the efficacy of prayer, directed “that the urgent and unavoidable . . . expenditures be made with the most rigid economy and with due process of municipal law,” and requested suggestions for improving the procedures. 48. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 104, 114. 49. Ibid., 110. 50. Ibid., 125. 51. MexSP-Bur. of castas 17 September 1797 and 20 September 1797; MexSP-Bur. of españoles 28 September 1797. 52. MexSP-Bur. of españoles 25 November 1797; MexSP-Bur. of castas 14 December 1797. Juan Paulino died on the street where the Casa de la Misericordia once stood. It had recently been torn down. 53. A few were buried in other locations that the archbishop had approved: three in San Hipólito, one in the convent of Monserrat, and one in the cemetery of San Lázaro, while twenty-three were buried in the Sagrario Parish church. In records for 1797: MexSP-Bur. of castas 24 August, 8 September, 13 September, and 19 September; MexSP-Bur. of españoles 9 August, 10 August, 13 August, 16 August, 24 August, 12 September, 14 September, 6 October, 12 October (two), 21 October (two), 26 October, 29 October, 31 October, 2 November, 4 November, 13 November (two), 18 November, 25 November, 4 December, 9 December, 24 December, and 27 December. 54. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 110–11, 117; quoted and translated by Cooper, 122. 55. Branciforte agreed to all these changes. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 126–27. See also Diccionario Porrúa, s.v. “Colegio de San Pablo.” 56. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 141.

Notes to pages 171–174

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57. According to the MexSP-Bur. registers, there were seventy-three Spanish and twenty-four casta burials at San Hipólito beginning on 8 October, the number dropping sharply after 4 November: there were only five additional burials there between 8 November and 21 December. San Pablo burials all date from 5 to 15 November. Montserrat burials began 15 November and Santisima Trinidad, on 22 November. 58. According to the MexSP-Bur. records, during the epidemic of 1779, there were 9 burials in San Diego, 6 in San Fernando, 2 in Monserrat, 1 in San Cosme, and none in any of the other locations that Núñez de Haro later would designate as appropriate for burials during the epidemic in 1797. These 18 were 0.9 percent of the total of 1,988 who were buried after the archbishop’s edict of 8 November 1779. 59. From a 5 percent systematic sample of burials in MexSP-Bur. of españoles, 1798– 1812. Many of these bodies were buried in the abandoned Jesuit college of San Pedro and San Pablo. This location was still within the city, only a few blocks northeast of the parish church. Burials increased in convents and chapels in the center of the city, rising from nearly 21 percent before and 14 percent during the epidemic to more than 56 percent over the next decade and a half. Burials in peripheral parishes declined dramatically, from almost a third during the epidemic to about 3 percent afterward. The decline in burials in the cemetery at San Lázaro was even more dramatic, to less than 1 percent. 60. Details of the death and funeral arrangements for Núñez de Haro are from MexSP-Bur. of españoles 29 May 1800. Funeral orations that mention his general hospital and generosity in 1797 include Ramón Casaus Torres y las Plazas, Oración fúnebre del Exmo. y Ilmo. Señor Doctor Don Alonso Nuñez de Haro y Peralta (Mexico City: Mariano Joseph de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1800), 33–35; Gaspar González de Candamo, Sermón de honras, predicado en las solemnes que celebró la Santa Iglesia Metropolitana de México el día 24 de Noviembre del año de 1800 á la buena memoria de su difunto arzobispo el Excelentisimo é Ilustrisimo Señor D. Alonso Nuñez de Haro y Peralta (Mexico City: N.p., 1800), xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxvii; and Juan Luis Maneiro, Relación de la fúnebre ceremonia y exéquias del Ilustrisimo y excelentisimo Señor Doctor Don Ildefonso [sic] Nuñez de Haro y Peralta, arzobispo que fue de esta Santa Iglesia Metropolitana de México, Virrey y Capitán General de esta Nueva España, Caballero Gran Cruz de la Real y Distinguida Órden Española de Carlos III, &c. &c. (Mexico City: D. Mariano Joseph de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1802), 4, 61. 61. Brian R. Hamnett, Politics and Trade in Southern Mexico, 1750–1821 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 164. See also Francisco Sosa, El episcopado mexicano: Galería biográfica ilustrada de los illmos. señores arzobispos desde la época colonial hasta nuestros dias (Mexico City: H. Iriarte y S. Hernández, 1879), 214–15. Sosa misstates Bergosa’s starting date as inquisitor as 1799 in the text, but the correct date appears in the summary beneath his portrait on the facing page. Apparently, Bergosa created his own archive and took it with him when he

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Notes to pages 175–17 7

returned to Spain. He may have been in Mexico as early as 1776. See Jesús F. Sala­ franca O., María Carmen López Ramírez, and Babil Tobajas Bonilla, “La Colegiata novohispana de Guadalupe a finales del siglo XVIII,” Nuestra América, no. 20 (May–August 1987): 89–90. More recently, Brian R. Hamnett has suggested that the evidence (as to whether Bergosa was enlightened or reactionary) is ambiguous. I do not agree and plan to present additional documentation for my conclusions in a future publication. Meanwhile, see Brian R. Hamnett, “Antonio Bergosa y Jordán (1748–1819), obispo de México: ¿ilustrado? ¿reaccionario? ¿contemporizador y oportunista?” Historia Mexicana 59, no. 1 (July–September 2009): 117–36. 62. Christon I. Archer, The Army in Bourbon Mexico, 1760–1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), 202–3; Manuel García Purón, México indígena, la conquista, el virreinato, vol. 1 of México y sus gobernantes (Mexico City: Joaquín Porrúa, 1984), 148; Gillow, “Serie de los obispos de Oaxaca,” 114. 63. Quoted and translated by Timothy E. Anna, The Fall of the Royal Government in Mexico City (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 116. 64. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, quotation on p. 169. On the medical establishment’s intellectual struggle with the disease, see also pp. 157–58, 168–70, and 178–80. Cooper proposed that the epidemic of 1813 was a combination of more than one disease that afflicted the population at the same time. He believed that typhus was likely to have been a major contributor to the high death rate. See Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 157–58. 65. Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 170. 66. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 170. 67. Ibid., 160–69, 175, 182. 68. Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, Desde que el año diez de este desgraciado (Mexico City: N.p., 1813), 1. The Latin phrases oportuné, et importuné and publice, et per domos are from 2 Timothy 4:2 and Acts 20:20. Both translations from New American Bible. 69. Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, Jamás quiso el Apostol San Pablo admitir ante Dios distinción alguna entre el Griego y el Judio (Mexico: N.p., 1813); Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, Si mi débil voz y escasa eloquencia y energía igualasen hoy la grandeza del asunto (Mexico City: N.p., 1813), 1–12; and Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, La malignidad de algunos sugetos, y el entusiasmo literario de otros, olvidados de la doctrina de San Pablo (Mexico City: N.p., 1813). First quotation from Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, ¡Qué felizes fueramos todos, amados Diocesanos mios, si a la grandiosidad de esta Capital correspondiese la piedad, y devoción de todos sus habitantes! (Mexico City: N.p., 1813), 12. Second quotation from Bergosa y Jordán, Desde que el año diez, 2. 70. Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 182. 71. For the first decree, see Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 166. For the second decree and the quotation, see Antonio Bergosa y Jordán, Los repetidos y casi

Notes to pages 178–181

271

incesantes clamores de los pueblos en solicitud de ministros (Mexico City: N.p., 1813), 1. 72. Anna, Fall of the Royal Government, 164–70; Cooper, Epidemic Disease, 27, 167– 82, 191–92; Lourdes Márquez Morfín, La desigualdad ante la muerte en la Ciudad de México: El tifo y el cólera (1813 y 1833) (Mexico City: Siglo Ventiuno Editores, 1994), 232–36, with the quotation on p. 234; María Dolores Morales, “Cambios en las practicas funerarias: Los lugares de sepultura en la ciudad de México, 1784– 1857,” Historias 27 (October 1991–March 1992): 99. See also Martina Will de Chaparro, Death and Dying in New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007), 152–53. 73. Francisco Estrada described arranging for the burials of two of his children this way in 1854. See Estrada, Recuerdos, 223–25. 74. MexSP-Bur. of españoles registers indicate that from 85.8 percent during the 1813 epidemic, the proportion of Spaniards who were buried in San Lázaro declined afterward only to about 81.2 percent over the next eight years. Burials in San Lázaro had been 38 percent of the dead during the 1797 epidemic. Calculations based on all Spanish burials between October and December 1797; a systematic sample of 50 percent of Spanish burials in Sagrario Parish, Mexico City, from April to November 1813; and a 5 percent systematic sample from January 1814 to February 1822, when caste was no longer recorded in this parish. 75. Based on a systematic sample of 5 percent of OaxSP burials of between 1785 and 1796, burials in properties belonging to religious orders were 98 percent of all burials in Oaxaca. 76. Cook, “Smallpox Epidemic of 1797,” 965. 77. Systematic samples of 5 percent of burials of Spaniards during nonepidemic periods: January 1785 to December 1796; January 1798 to November 1812; January 1814 to February 1822, when caste ceased to be recorded in this parish; and 5 percent of all burials March 1822 to December 1831. During epidemic periods: all Spanish burials October to December 1797; systematic sample of 50 percent of Spanish burials April to November 1813. 78. PueSP-Bur. 1785–1831. Systematic samples of 10 percent of the burials of Spaniard and mestizo adults during nonepidemic periods: January 1785 to November 1796; January 1798 to December 1812; March 1814 to 11 October 1822 (when caste stopped being recorded); systematic sample of burials of all adults 15 October 1822 to December 1831. Systematic samples of 50 percent of burials during epidemic periods: November 1797 to February 1798 (including párvulos); December 1812 to June 1813. 79. Estrada, Recuerdos, 81. 80. During the epidemic period, December 1813 to September 1814, 93 percent of SLPSP- Bur. of españoles were in the camposanto extramuros. Burial of don Vicente Longorria, 22 April 1814; burial of doña María Francisca Maltos, 24 June 1814.

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Notes to pages 182–185

81. From SLPSP-Bur. records: Systematic sample of 17 percent (one-sixth) of burials of Spaniards January 1785 to August 1797 and July 1798 to September 1812; all Spaniards with titles January 1815 to December 1819 and January 1820 to December 1831. Epidemic periods: all Spaniards January to March 1798; December 1813 to September 1814. Some burial registers were missing, so it is impossible to be certain; and because I took samples of nonepidemic periods, there is a chance that cases might be rare. 82. José A. Romero and Juan Alvarez Mejía, Directorio de la Iglesia en México (Mexico City: Buena Prensa, 1952), 104. 83. Sonia Alcaraz Hernández, Los espacios de la muerte en Morelia, 1808–1895 (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 2008), 45.

Chapter 9

1. José Almon to Sr. Prefecto de este Departmento, dated Río Verde, 13 June 1833, Secretaria General de Gobierno, Junio 1833 2.1, Archivo Histórico del Estado de San Luis Potosí. 2. José María Marín and Puebla (State) Dirección de Sanidad, Avisos sobre los métodos de preservarse y curarse de la enfermedad llamada cholera morbus epidémica (Puebla: Imprenta del Gobierno, dirigida por el C. José Mariano Grijalva, 1833), 12–15, with quoted phrase on 13–14; see also Enrique Juan Palacios, Puebla, su territorio y sus habitantes, Memorias de la Sociedad Científica “Antonio Alzate” (Mexico: Departamento de Talleres Gráficos de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1917), 699. 3. Bustamante, Diario histórico, 8 August 1833. See also Ma. Josefa Rangel to Mariano Gomez, 24 August 1833, San Juan del Río, GF175, Valentín Gómez Farías Collection, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin. 4. Marín and Puebla (State) Dirección de Sanidad, Avisos sobre los métodos, 15–16. 5. Bustamante, Diario histórico, 14 August 1833. 6. El Telégrafo, 23 July 1833, p. 4. 7. Decree of Patricio Furlong, 14 August 1833, article 12, Archivo General Municipal (del Ayuntamiento) de Puebla, Leyes y Decretos; broadside from Ciudadano Ignacio Martínez, general de brigada y gobernador del Distrito Federal, leg. 3676, exp. 2, f. 77r., dated 7 August 1833, printed 8 August 1833, Policía: Salubridad, cólera morbus, Archivo Histórico del Distrito Federal. See also El Telégrafo, 20 August 1833, p. 1. 8. Jan Bondeson, Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001). See also Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Premature Burial,” first published in 1844. 9. Anne Staples, “La lucha por los muertos,” Diálogos 13, no. 5 (September–October 1977): 19.

Notes to pages 185–189

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10. Manuel Muro, Historia de San Luis Potosí (San Luis Potosí: M. Esquivel, 1910), 2:72; circular, 2 June 1833, Colección de decretos, 1832–34, Archivo Histórico del Estado de San Luis Potosí, Ayuntamiento. 11. Muro, Historia, 2:73–74, also includes the account of another man who was nearly buried prematurely. 12. Muro, Historia, 2:72. 13. Martina Will de Chaparro, Death and Dying in New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007), 106–07. 14. Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la lengua castellana, s.v. “muerte.” 15. Juan Manuel Irizarri, “Circular (October 1830),” in Colección de documentos eclesiásticos de México, o sea antigua y moderna legislación de la Iglesia mexicana, ed. Fortino Hipólito Vera (Amecameca, Mexico: Imprenta del Colegio Católico, 1887), 1:529. 16. MexSP-Bur. 7 August 1833, #637; Bustamante, Diario histórico, 6 August 1833. See also Enrique de Olavarría y Ferrari, México independiente, 1821–1855, vol. 4 of México a través de los siglos: Historia general y completa del desenvolvimiento social, político, religioso, militar, artístico, científico y literario de México desde la antigüedad más remota hasta la época actual, ed. Vicente Riva Palacio (Mexico City: Editorial Cumbre, 1958), 330. 17. OaxSP-Bur. 3 Oct 1833, #355. See also Lourdes Márquez and Leticia Reina Aoyama, “El cólera en Oaxaca en el siglo XIX,” Cuadernos del Sur 1 (1992): 76. 18. See Muro, Historia, 2:69; Primo Feliciano Velázquez, Historia de San Luis Potosí (Mexico City: Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística, 1946), 3:179. 19. SLPSP-Bur. 22 June 1833, Joaquín Pérez; 24 June 1833, María Estefana Rodríguez. Her burial record says that she “only received the sacrament of extreme unction because there was no time for more.” 20. According to SLPSP-Bur., between 26 May and 22 June 1833, a period of 28 days, there were 44 adult burials, or 11 per week, compared with the overall rate for 1832, when there were 9.6 per week, or a total of 501 adult burials in a 366-day leap year. Two-thirds of all adults who died then had received all three of the last rites. In most of the remaining cases, the viaticum had been omitted. About 20 percent of the adults who died then received only penance and extreme unction. Only a few died without the benefit of clergy. 21. I found few statistical reports of mortality. One of the better ones was published in El Telégrafo (Mexico City), 15 August 1833, p. 2. José María Gomez, prefect of Tuxpan, Mexico, in a report dated 21 July 1833, stated that during the period from 21 June to 21 July 1833, “Fueron atacadaos del mal, Varones 420, Hembras 396, total 816; Adultos que han fallecido, Varones 110, Hembras 151, Total 261; Quedan convalecientes Varones 310, Hembras 245, Total 555.” His overall rate is 32 percent, with 26 percent for men and 38 percent for women. 22. This translation from the Latin is from Catholic Church, The Sacraments and Processions, vol. 1 of The Roman Ritual, 263. The Spanish translation in use

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Notes to pages 190–192

between the middle of the seventeenth century and the nineteenth century was very similar. See Palafox y Mendoza, Manual para la precisa administración, 72. 23. For the parish as a whole, 93 percent (1,022 of 1,110) received the sacraments of penance and extreme unction. For burials registered in Soledad, 30 of 118, or 25.4 percent, were explicitly designated as having received no sacraments, usually with the notation “por haber muerto violentamente.” SLPSP-Bur. 30 June to 27 July 1833. 24. Over the worst four weeks of the epidemic, about 77 percent of the adults who died in Sagrario Parish in Mexico City were registered as having received none or only some of the sacraments. An average of seven per day were listed as having received the “santos sacramentos,” which would be four times as many Host processions than was usual. If there were three times as many people ill as there were dying and four times as many receving the viaticum than was usual, then there would have been twelve times as many Host processions in the parish. In the central parishes in Puebla and in Oaxaca, priests used vague formulaic language (such as “received the Holy Sacraments”) consistently, so we cannot be sure which specific sacraments they provided. 25. El Telégrafo. 9 August 1833, p. 1, began with a decree from Vice President Valentín Gómez Farías dated 7 August 1833 and containing twenty articles in preparation for the cholera epidemic that appeared to be imminent. Most concerned sanitation and medical care for the poor. Number 16 prohibited bell ringing and public mourning to prevent instilling “terror y espanto en la poblacion.” The same decree also appeared in El Fenix de la Libertad, 11 August 1833, p. 1. 26. Benito Hordas y Balbuena, Dictamen sobre la cholera-morbus (Mexico City: Arévalo, 1832), 11; “Cholera Morbus,” El Telégrafo 1 August, 1833, 3; “CholeraMorbus: Instrucciones sobre dicho mal por los médicos de Paris Esquirol, Degennettes, Leroux, Juge, Chevallier, Pariest, Legrand y Mare: sacadas de la Gaceta de Francia,” El Fénix de la Libertad, 26 May 1833, 2–3; El Fénix de la Libertad, 14 July 1833, 2. See also, Junta de Sanidad de San Luis Potosí, Método preservativo y curativo de la cólera morbus epidemica que la Junta de Sanidad erigada al intento en la capital del estado, eleva al gobierno del mismo para su publicación (San Luis Potosí: Imprenta del Estado en Palacio, a cargo del Ciudadano José María Infante, 1833), 2; Pedro Escobedo, Método claro y sencillo para la precaución y curación de la epidemia del chólera-morbus, arreglado a las circunstancias del país (Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1833), 5; Marín and Puebla (State) Dirección de Sanidad, Avisos sobre los métodos de preservarse y curarse, 2. 27. Bustamante, Diario histórico, 14–15 August 1833. 28. El Telégrafo, 20 August 1833, p. 1. 29. Vázquez, Pastoral, 2, 8, 9. All the same, Bishop Vázquez agreed to observe the civil government’s restriction on bell ringing during the epidemic. See Libros de Cabildo, 6 September 1833, Archivo de la Catedral (Puebla). 30. Vázquez, Pastoral, 5–7, 14.

Notes to pages 193–196











275

31. Ibid., 10–12. 32. Ibid., 10–11. 33. Vázquez, Pastoral, 16–17. 34. Carlos María de Bustamante, “Historia del cholera morbus de México del año 1833, y los estragos de la guerra civil de aquella época, muy mas terribles que los de esta epidemia asoladora,” in Efemérides histórico-político literarias de México (Mexico City: Imprenta de la Testamentaria de Valdés, a cargo de José María Gallegos, 1835), 2:2, 12; Bustamante, Diario histórico, 20 August 1833, 22 August 1833. 35. R. J. Morris, Cholera, 1832: The Social Response to an Epidemic (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1976), 144. For a similar observation, see Katherine Holt, “Marriage Choices in a Plantation Society: Bahia, Brazil,” in Marriage Choices and Class Boundaries: Social Endogamy in History, ed. Marco H. D. van Leeuwen, Ineke Maas, and Andrew Miles, Supplement 13, International Review of Social History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 39–40. 36. Lilia V. Oliver, Un verano mortal: Análisis demográfico y social de una epidemia de cólera: Guadalajara, 1833 (Guadalajara: Gobierno de Jalisco, 1986), 137–46. She also notes that the remarriages increased from 23 percent of all marriages to 40 percent. 37. There were very few marriages in the Catholic parish of Montreal, Quebec, during the cholera epidemic there in 1832. See Donald F. Stevens, “Eating, Drinking, and Being Married: Epidemic Cholera and the Celebration of Marriage in Montreal and Mexico City, 1832–1833,” Catholic Historical Review 92, no. 1 (January 2006): 81. 38. SLPSP-Mar. There were sixteen marriages between 30 June and 27 July in 1832; eight during the same days in 1833. 39. SLPSP-Mar. José Jorge Villaseñor and María Catharina Villa, 10 July 1833. She seems to have survived; I searched the burial records between 9 July and the end of the month of July and did not find her name. 40. Lombardo de Miramón, Memorias, 51. 41. SLPSP-Mar. The median delay for remarriage was three years for widowers and five years for widows for those who remarried in 1832. 42. In Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish, there were twenty-one marriages between 11 August and 7 September 1832 and fifty-five between the same dates in 1833. In Puebla’s Sagrario Parish, there were twelve marriages between 22 September and 19 October 1832 and forty-seven between the same dates in 1833. In Oaxaca’s Sagrario Parish, there were five marriages between 14 October and 10 November 1832 and twenty-eight between the same dates in 1833. The torrent of marriages in Mexico City, Puebla, and Oaxaca did include a substantial number of remarriages; yet the simple desire to replace a deceased partner does not explain much of the rush. Before the epidemic, weddings of widows or widowers had made up about one-fifth of all marriages; during the epidemic, the proportion of remarriages did rise to about one-third, an increase of roughly 50 percent.

276

Notes to pages 196–199

43. Of the fifty-five marriages in this period, 25 (or 45.5 percent) include a notation that one or both of the contracting individuals was gravely ill or near death, but it is not always possible to distinguish whether it was the bride or the groom who was sick. 44. MexSP-Mar. 20 August 1833, #156. 45. Eighteen of twenty-five individuals in this parish who can be identified as marrying while sick or near death were brides. 46. During 1832 in Mexico City’s Sagrario Parish, 185 of 239 brides were doncellas (77.4 percent). Eleven brides were described as “solteras,” 7 with the phrase “estado honesto,” and 7 others as “libre,” with another 6 previously unwed by implication, for a total of 31 out of 239, or 13 percent. During the four weeks of the epidemic, there were 23 single women who were not called doncellas, out of a total of 55, or 41.8 percent. In Oaxaca’s Sagrario Parish, 59 percent of the brides in 1832 were doncellas. In the central parish of Puebla, the priests had consistently avoided any descriptive terms for single women; they only explicitly designated widows. 47. Median age at marriage for first-time grooms increased during the epidemic by 5.5 years in Mexico City, 4 years in Puebla, and 6 years in Oaxaca. For widowers, the increases were 10.5 years in Mexico City and Oaxaca, while there was a decrease of 4 years in the median age of widowers in the central parish of Puebla. 48. The median age for widows rose from twenty-eight to over thirty-eight in Sagrario Parish in Mexico City; from thirty-two to forty in the central parish of Puebla; and from thirty to thirty-nine in the city of Oaxaca. 49. Remarriages by widows were compared to the monthly average for the year 1832. 50. Arrom, Women of Mexico City, 111–21; Robert McCaa, “La viuda viva del México borbónico: Sus voces, variedades y vejaciones,” in Familias novohispanas, siglos XVI al XIX, ed. Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1991), 299–324, discusses the reputation of widows and concludes (on p. 317) that perhaps 15 percent of the so-called widows were unwed mothers in disguise. The quoted phrase appears on p. 300. 51. Editorial, El Demócrata, 25 April 1833, 3. 52. Ibid., 4. 53. François Joseph Victor Broussais, Lecciones sobre la enfermedad cólera-morbus y su método curativo (Mexico City: Imprenta de Martín Rivera, dirigida por Tomás Guiol, 1832), 10; John Bell and D. Francis Condie, All the Material Facts in the History of Epidemic Cholera: Being a Report of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, to the Board of Health, and a Full Account of the Causes, Post Mortem Appearances, and Treatment of the Disease (Philadelphia: Thomas Desilver, 1832), 24. 54. Bell and Condie, All the Material Facts, 24, 28. Newspapers in the United States reported that such women were likely to be struck down by the disease. “Of

Notes to pages 200–201









277

‘fourteen hundred lewd’ women in one street in Paris, . . . thirteen hundred had died of cholera.” Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 41. Health reformer Sylvester Graham used the same wording, apparently from the same source. See Stephen Nissenbaum, Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 100. Graham was most specific in delineating the role of sexual excess as a principal cause of cholera. Although he recognized that nearly all prostitutes also drank to excess, Graham concluded that “the debility induced by excessive lewdness, is always far more the result of excessive excitement and irritation than of any other cause; . . . and not infrequently, the very worst of gastritis and enteritis are induced by excesses of this kind.” 55. Hordas y Balbuena, Dictamen, 11; Pedro del Villar, Consejos al pueblo mexicano sobre los medios más sencillos y fáciles de precaver y curar el cholera-morbus epidémico, puesto del modo más acomodado a sus usos y costumbres, de orden del supremo gobierno (Mexico City: Imprenta del Águila, 1833), 6; El Fénix de la Libertad (Mexico City), 28 June 1833, 3. 56. For each parish, I added up the number of burials during the worst twenty-eight consecutive days of the epidemic, then divided by twenty-eight, and divided again by the average daily burial rate during all of 1832. The result is a standardized burial rate that takes into account the size of the parish and mortality before the epidemic: Oaxaca, thirty; San Luis Potosí, twenty-nine; Mexico City, seventeen; and Puebla, nine. These calculations are consistent with most qualitative evaluations of the relative virulence of the epidemic in Puebla. Carlos Contreras Cruz and Juan Carlos Grosso, “La estructura ocupacional y productiva de la ciudad de Puebla en la primera mitad del siglo XIX,” in Puebla en el siglo XIX: Contribución al estudio de su historia, ed. Michele Misser (Puebla: Centro de Investigaciones Históricas y Sociales, Instituto de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1983), 121. Contreras Cruz and Grosso quote an evaluation of the epidemic in Puebla as “muy benigna,” but their citation does not make it clear what their source is. At the same time, they contend that the epidemic in Puebla was worse than that. In contrast, Guy P. C. Thomson concludes that the 1833 cholera epidemic was “more lightly felt in Puebla” in Puebla de los Ángeles: Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700–1850, Dellplain Latin American Studies (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), 158. 57. One way to compare the relative prevalence of marriage between parishes is to divide the number of baptisms (as a measure of the sexually active population) by the number of marriages in the same year. The results for 1832 in these four parishes are: Oaxaca, 11.0; Puebla, 7.9; Mexico City, 7.0; and San Luis Potosí, 6.7. Oaxaca is clearly an outlier, with a much higher proportion of baptisms to marriages, that is to say, more people having sex without marrying. 58. If the two categories are combined, the increase is 6 percent.

278

Notes to pages 203–217 Conclusion















1. More than 83 percent of the political elite were born in cities. At the same time, 55 percent were born in either the national capital or one of the state capitals. Donald Fithian Stevens, Origins of Instability in Early Republican Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 85. There was little circulation of parochial clergy. Most clergy were recruited from and educated in the same diocese. See Brian F. Connaughton, “La larga cuesta del conservadurismo mexicano, del disgusto resentido a la propuesta partidaria, 1789–1854,” in El conservadurismo mexicano en el siglo XIX, ed. Will Fowler and Humberto Morales Moreno (Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 1999), 173. 2. These quotations are from Prieto, “Manuelita,” 156–57, but there are many other examples, such as Gómez de la Cortina, “Eucléa; o, La griega de Trieste,” and Alcaraz, “La condesa de Peña-Aranda.” 3. Payno, “Pepita”; Payno, “El rosario de concha nácar”; Anonymous, “Desgraciados efectos de una seducción.” 4. José Ramón Pacheco, “El criollo,” in Novelas cortas de varios autores, vol. 1, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 33 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 346, 348. 5. Anonymous, “Ricardo y Laura,” in Novelas cortas de varios autores, vol. 1, Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, vol. 33 (Mexico City: Imprenta de V. Agüeros, 1901), 467–88; quotation on 476. 6. Payno, “¡¡¡Loca!!!,” 91. 7. Catholic Church, Catechism of the Council of Trent, 227; Catholic Church, Catecismo del Santo Concilio de Trento, 309. The Spanish text uses the word empacho, implying bashfulness, where the English translation uses the phrase “female modesty.” 8. Patricia Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988). 9. Alonso Núñez de Haro y Peralta, Edicto que el Illmo. Señor Doctor Don Alonso Núñez de Haro y Peralta del Consejo de su Magestad expide para que se publiquen y tengan efecto en este Arzobispado la Real Pragmática y Cédula de S. M. y Vando de S. A. á fin de que los hijos de familia no contraigan Esponsales ni Matrimonios sin el consentimiento de sus Padres, Parientes o Tutores, en los términos que se expresa [23 August 1779] (Mexico City: Imprenta Nueva Madrileña de D. Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1779), 22–25. 10. He used the adage “Quítate tú para ponerme yo” (Get out so I can take your place) three times in his memoir: Prieto, Memorias, 1:358, 2:46, 2:182. 11. For my summary, see Stevens, Origins of Instability. 12. Othon Guerlac, “The Separation of Church and State in France,” Political Science Quarterly 23, no. 2 (June 1908): 259–96. The first French Republic was founded on 22 September 1792; the separation of church and state was legally

Notes to pages 218–219









279

established on 9 December 1905 and was to take effect in 1907, when the law was revised. 13. King Juan Carlos de Borbón declined to name bishops in 1976. See Robert P. Clark, “The Society and Its Environment,” in Spain: A Country Study, 2nd ed., ed. Eric Solsten and Sandra W. Meditz (Washington, DC: Superintendant of Documents, US Government Publishing Office, 1990), 111–12. 14. For insightful exceptions to this generalization, see Eric Van Young, “Islands in the Storm: Quiet Cities and Violent Countrysides in the Mexican Independence Era,” Past and Present 118 (1988): 130–55, and Jaime E. Rodríguez O., “Two Revolutions: France 1789 and Mexico 1810,” The Americas 47, no. 2 (October 1990): 161–76. 15. As Timothy Anna has noted, “Historians must somehow overcome their tendency to assume that creation of a republic was an inevitable and immediate consequence of separation from Spain (in Mexico or anywhere else in Latin America).” Timothy E. Anna, “The Iturbide Interregnum,” in The Independence of Mexico and the Creation of the New Nation, ed. Jaime E. Rodríguez O. (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, University of California, 1989), 188–89. Three exceptional works that do take republicanism seriously are Annick Lempérière, “De la república corporativa a la nación moderna: México (1821–1860),” in Inventando la nación: Iberoamérica, siglo XIX, ed. Antonio Annino and François-Xavier Guerra, 316–46 (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultural Económica, 2003); Hilda Sábato, “La reacción de América: La construcción de las repúblicas en el siglo XIX,” in Europa, América y el mundo: Tiempos históricos, ed. Roger Chartier and Antonio Feros, 263–79 (Madrid: Fundación Rafael del Pino, 2006); and James E. Sanders, The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Latin America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014). Republicanism has been overshadowed by liberalism in other contexts as well. See J. G. A. Pocock, “The Myth of John Locke and the Obsession with Liberalism,” in John Locke: Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, ed. J. G. A. Pocock and Richard Ashcraft (Los Angeles: Clark Memorial Library, 1980), 1–24; J. G. A. Pocock, “The Machiavellian Moment Revisited: A Study in History and Ideology,” Journal of Modern History 53, no. 1 (March 1981): 49–72; William R. Everdell, The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicanism, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 16. Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 94–143; Lance Banning, “Jeffersonian Ideology Revisited: Liberal and Classical Ideas in the New American Republic,” William and Mary Quarterly 43, no. 1 (January 1986): 3–19; William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 4; Michael Fitzgibbon Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York: Wiley, 1978), 5–18; Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 48;

280

Notes to pages 219–225

and Donald K. Pickens and G. L. Seligmann, “‘Unworthy Motives’: Property, the Historian, and the Federal Constitution; A Historiographic Speculation,” Social Science Quarterly 68, no. 4 (December 1987): 847–56. 17. Ulysses S. Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters: Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Selected Letters, 1839–1865, Library of America, vol. 50 (New York: Library of America, 1990), 41. For Grant’s characterization of the war as “wicked” and his regret that he “had not moral courage enough to resign,” see John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant: A Narrative of the Visit of General U. S. Grant, Ex-President of the United States, to Various Countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa in 1877, 1878, 1879, to Which Are Added Certain Conversations with General Grant on Questions Connected with American Politics and History (New York: American News, 1879), 2:447–48. Amy S. Greenberg, A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 Invasion of Mexico (New York: Vintage Books, 2012) led me to these sources and provides the historical context for opposition to the war in the United States. 18. Michael Lienesch, “Historical Theory and Political Reform: Two Perspectives on Confederation Politics,” Review of Politics 45, no. 1 (January 1983): 95–99. 19. Quoted by James McHenry in Luther Martin, ed., “Papers of Dr. James McHenry on the Federal Convention of 1787,” American Historical Review 11, no. 4 (April 1906): 618.

Afterword



1. E.g., James Brooke, “Feeding on 19th Century Conditions, Cholera Spreads in Latin America,” New York Times, 21 April 1991. 2. Oliver, Un verano mortal. 3. C. A. Hutchinson, “The Asiatic Cholera Epidemic of 1833 in Mexico,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 32, no. 1 (January–February 1958): 163. Hutchinson’s interpretation was anticipated as early as 1941 by Lesley Byrd Simpson, Many Mexicos (New York: Putnam, 1941), 232, who wrote: “The superstitious populace was told that [the cholera epidemic] was a sign of divine wrath against the impiety of Gómez Farías and the liberals.” The idea gained such currency that Hugh M. Hamill Jr. criticized Jan Bazant for omitting such a “vital consideration” as the cholera epidemic from his book. See Hugh M. Hamill Jr., review of A Concise History of Mexico: From Hidalgo to Cárdenas, 1805–1940, by Jan Bazant, Canadian Journal of History 13, no. 2 (1978): 299–301. 4. Stevens, “Temerse la ira del cielo”; Stevens, “Lo revelado y lo oscurecido.” 5. Donald F. Stevens, “Autonomists, Nativists, Republicans, and Monarchists: Conspiracy and Political History in Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” Mexican Studies/ Estudios Mexicanos 10, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 247–66; Stevens, “Eating, Drinking, and Being Married.”

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Index

.

Page numbers in italic text indicate illustrations. Androis, Enrique, 186 anti-Catholic publications: Hayden murder in, 2, 4; Mexican War and, 2 Arango, Antonino de, 61, 247n38 Argumosa, María Dionicia, 146 Arias, Diego Miguel de, 146 Arista, Mariano, 34 aristocracy: Alcaraz on, 126–27; in “The Mother-of-Pearl Rosary,” 128–29; Payno on, 126, 128–29; titles abolished, 50 Arriscorreta y Garro, Gregorio de, 145–46 Arróniz, Marcos, 32; as padrino, 38–40; romanticism of, 37 Asís, María Roque, 145 Aurora (name), 47–48 Avendaño, Ignacia, 53, 54 Avilés, Dionicio: Asís marrying, 145; first wife of, 144 Azcárate, Francisco, 156

accesoria (room type), 152, 153 Acordada Revolt, 134 adultery, 49, 51, 64; illegitimate children and, 63–64, 207; in “Manuelita,” 118 adulthood. See puberty age at first marriage: cholera epidemic and, 197; de la Rosa and, 135–36, 139, 144, 146; gente decente and, 139, 140– 42; of girls, 135–36, 139–40, 141, 197, 211–12, 260n20; legal, 259n12; of men, 140–41, 197, 260n24; Miñón and, 150; for orphans, 142–43; single older women and, 150, 151; social class and, 139, 140–42, 260n24, 260n27, 261n43, 262n48, 262nn51–52 age at second marriage: cholera epidemic and, 197; for Miñón, 150; for widowers, 149, 150–51, 197; for widows, 149–50, 197–98, 262n54 Alamán, Lucas: on Catholic and Protestant contention, 5; Hayden and, 4–5 Alcaraz, Ramón Isaac, 208; on aristocracy, 126–27; “The Countess of PeñaAranda,” 126–28 Alencaster Martínez, Manuel Mariano: consanguineous marriage and, 136; first wife of, 135–36 Ameller, Ignacio, 88

baby names, 55; aesthetics of, 46; Aurora as, 47–48; Council of Trent and, 28–29, 31; for criollos, 29; Estrada and, 238n49; expuesto children and, 54; gender and, 30–31, 46, 204, 237n29; Holy Family and, 29;

305

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baby names (continued) Joseph as, 30, 48; long, 31–32, 40–42, 44–45, 203–4, 223; María as, 29–30; in Oaxaca, 44; padrino and, 39–40; Perfidio as, 48; popular, 29–31, 48, 240n69, 240n72; religious enthusiasm and, 31–32; saints and, 25, 27, 41, 45–46, 54, 239n58; in San Luis Potosí, 44, 45–47, 62, 204; short, 45–47; social status and length of, 42, 44–45, 203–4; unusual, 47–48. See also natural children baptism, 21, 50, 234n10, 235n13, 245n30; birthday and, 56, 58–59, 61; in cholera epidemic, 222; Council of Trent and, 16, 28, 56–58; emergency, 57; of expuesto children, 58; Fourth Mexican Provincial Council and registration of, 56; madrino and, 59; midwife and, 59–60, 61; in Oaxaca, 60, 61; padrino and, 38, 39, 59; in parish church, 56, 57; in Puebla, 43–44, 58, 62; recording, 27; Sagrario Parish and, 43–44; saint name on day of, 45–46; in San Luis Potosí, 43, 55; timing of, 55. See also baby names Beaufoy, Mark: Hayden murder and, 6–7; safety threats for, 7; saint’s name for, 27 Bergosa y Jordán, Antonio, 180, 216; epidemic (1813) and, 177, 192; in Oaxaca, 174, 176; public health and, 178, 213 Bible: birthdays in, 26; Protestant, 16–17; rules governing, 17 birthday: baptism and, 56, 58–59, 61; in Bible, 26; celebrations and Catholic Church, 46–47; cumpleaños confused with, 28; of expuesto children, 59; of Guerrero, 28, 235n15; as identification, 26; ignorance of, 26–27; nobility and, 27; origins of, 28; parish records and, 61; parties in US, 26;

saint’s day and, 25, 27, 203; saints of, 45–46; of Santa Anna, 27, 28, 236n17; tradition of celebrating, 26 Black, John, 12; Mayer and, 4 Blaquier, Luis, 85 Blas, José María, 54 Borah, Woodrow, 49 Boyd-Bowman, Peter, 28–29, 31 Branciforte, Marqués de (Grúa Talamanca y Branciforte, Miguel de la): Núñez de Haro and, 169, 171; smallpox and, 168, 170, 179 Broussais, François Joseph Victor, 199 Bucareli y Ursúa, Antonio María de, 158–59, 164 Bulnes, Diego, 153 burials, 22; of living people, 184–86, 214; in Oaxaca, 179–80, 214; progress for modern, 182; in Puebla, 167, 180, 185, 200; in San Luis Potosí, 180–82, 185, 188, 214 burials, in Mexico City, 161; blessing of cemeteries for, 160; of children, 162–63; in churches, 156, 159, 160, 161–63; of Crespo, 156–57; Dominican Order and, 163; epidemic (1813) and, 176, 177; ethnicity and, 157–58, 169–70; first suburban cemetery for, 155–56, 159; funeral procession and, 158; gender bias and, 163; of gente decente, 170, 173; Mexico City locations for, 172; Payno on suburban, 155; public health and, 159; Revillagigedo and, 166–68, 267n39; in Sagrario Parish, 158, 159, 162, 170, 174, 178, 180; San Andrés cemetery, 165–66, 169, 170; at San Hipólito, 170, 171; San Lázaro cemetery for, 155–57, 169–70, 178, 271n74; at La Santísima, 171; smallpox epidemic (1779) and, 157; smallpox epidemic (1797) and, 168–74; social status and,

index 158. See also Núñez de Haro y Peralta, Alonso Bustamante, Anastasio, 27, 95, 107; personality of, 107; Prieto and, 106–8, 216 Bustamante, Carlos María de, 15; cholera epidemic and, 21, 184, 191; on Hayden murder, 12–14; on Vázquez, 193–94; Virgin of Guadalupe and, 14; War of Independence and, 19; writing of, 12 cabildo (city council), 175, 176, 177, 190–91 Calderón de la Barca, Ángel, 23 Calderón de la Barca, Frances Erskine Inglis “Fanny,” 25; Catholic and Protestant contention and, 24; Queen Isabel II celebration by, 23–24; Saint’s day celebrated by, 24, 26 Calleja del Rey, Félix María: epidemic (1813) and, 175–76; Mexican Independence and, 175 Caso, María de los Ángeles, 101; father of, 102, 104, 108, 109–10, 209; marriage of, 110; Prieto courting, 102, 103, 104, 108–9, 208, 209; writing of, 104, 106, 253n43 Castilla, Juana, 73 Castro, Antonio, 149 Catechism of the Council of Trent, 57–58 Catholic and Protestant contention, 18, 22; Alamán on, 5; Bibles and, 16–17; danger and, 8–9; Hayden murder and, 1, 2, 4–7, 11, 12–14, 227n1; Holy Communion as, 2; Inglis and, 24; Ward on, 9–11; wicked doctrine and, 16 Catholic Church: age of adulthood in, 137–38; anti-Catholic publications, 2, 4; birthday celebrations and, 46–47;

307

on cholera epidemic, 20–21; dis­ establishing, 216–17; excommunication by, 18–19; France and, 217; gender and baby names and, 30–31, 46, 204, 237n29; on godparents, 36; independence of Mexico and, 15–16; masquerades banned by, 18; Poinsett and expectations of, 5–6, 10; politicians reducing power (1833) of, 19; rituals and, 1; saint’s day celebrations of, 25, 26; Tayloe and expectations of, 5–6, 10; temporary priests and, 16. See also specific topics Catholic Counter-Reformation, 28 Catholic Historical Review, 225 Cervantes, José María, 146 Charles III (king), 157, 166 Charles IV (king), 167 childhood love, 148, 210; romantic fiction and, 123–26, 256n42; “Trinidad de Juárez: A Legend from the Year 1648” and, 123–26 cholera (1991), 221 cholera epidemic (1833): Androis and, 186; baptism in, 222; beginning of, 187–88; bell ringing prohibition during, 190–91; burial of living people in, 184–86, 214; Bustamante, C. M., and, 21, 184; catalepsy during, 184; Catholic Church on, 20–21; causes of, 35, 233n50; death rate by city in, 200; Estrada and, 34–35, 188; fear and, 190–92; first official deaths from, 187; Host procession and, 190; humoral system and, 21; illegitimate children and, 200–201; last rites in, 188–90, 193, 214–15, 274nn23–24; marriage during, 194–98, 215, 275n42, 276nn46–48, 277n56; in Mexico City, 187, 200, 215; in Oaxaca, 187, 196, 197, 200, 215; origins of, 19; priests during, 187–89; in Puebla,

308

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cholera epidemic (continued) 196, 200, 201, 215; rapid onset of, 184–85, 187, 222; religious activity and, 194; sanitary brigade and, 34; San Luis Potosí, 182, 187–88, 190, 194–95, 200, 201, 214–15; sexual relationships and, 199–201, 215; spread of, 190; symptoms of, 20, 183–85; triage during, 188; wrath of God and, 192–94, 198, 214, 221 Chudacoff, Howard, 26 citizen (ciudadano), 51–52, 63, 151 city council (cabildo): bells banned by, 190–91; Calleja del Rey and, 175; epidemic (1813) and, 175, 176, 177 ciudadano (citizen), 51–52, 63, 151 compadrazgo (coparenthood), 38. See also padrino; madrina consanguineous marriage, 259n11; of Alencaster Martínez and de la Rosa, 136; Council of Trent on, 137; Miñón and, 137; uncle-niece marriages as, 136–37 Cook, Sherburne F., 49, 179 Cooper, Donald B., 171 coparenthood (compadrazgo), 38. See also padrino; madrina Cortés, Hernán, 29 Cortés, Martín, 29, 122 Council of Trent: baby names and, 28–29, 31; on baptism, 16, 28, 56–58; Catechism of the Council of Trent, 57–58; on consanguineous marriage, 137; godparents and, 36–37; on Joseph, 48; on parental consent for marriage, 213 “The Countess of Peña-Aranda” (Alcaraz), 126, 128; marriage motivations in, 127 Crespo, Dolores: accelerated marriage of, 153; accesoria of, 152, 153; burial of, 156–57

criollos (Mexican-born children of Spanish parents), 29 cumpleaños. See birthday; saint’s day celebrations Darwin, Charles, 137 death: cholera epidemic and, 187, 200; of human compared to animal, 186; last rites for, 188–90, 193, 214–15, 274nn23–24; of Lombardo, G., 68; of Malpica, 35; marriage delayed by, 195; of Núñez de Haro, 174; Ontañón and, 92, 94; priests determining, 187; second marriage and, 195. See also burial; public health decent people. See gente decente de la Rosa, María Magdalena: age at marriage for, 135–36, 139, 144, 146; consanguineous marriage of, 136; saint’s day celebration of, 135 El Demócrata, 198–99 “Disgraceful Effects of a Seduction: Letter from a Remorseful Libertine to His Wife” (Anonymous), 130, 132, 209, 257n64; rape in, 131 Donaldson, Stuart, 8–9 Durán, José Ignacio, 34 economy, 10–11; domestic, 119, 120–21, 122 egalitarian marriage, 148; proportion of, 149 Elizabeth of Hungary (saint), 23–24 Encarnación convent, 24, 77, 80, 205 epidemic (1779). See smallpox epidemic epidemic (1797). See smallpox epidemic epidemic (1813), 270n64; Bergosa y Jordán and, 177, 192; burials for, 176, 177; Calleja del Rey and, 175–76; city council during, 175, 176, 177; in Oaxaca, 179–80; in Puebla, 180; in San Luis Potosí, 181

index epidemic (1833). See cholera epidemic Estrada, Francisco, 32, 180; arrest of, 100; baby names for, 238n49; children of, 252n34; cholera epidemic and, 34–35, 188; courtship of Jimeno, 63–64, 96–97; courtship of Murguía and, 98; education of, 91, 92–93; finances of, 93, 95; Malpica and, 35; María Santísima del Carmen and, 35–36; marriage of Murguía and, 99–100, 101, 252n28; military occupation of, 100; mother of, 91, 92–93, 96–97, 98, 99, 207; Ontañón and, 91–95, 140, 141, 207; as padrino, 64, 97; Rodríguez and, 37; sanitary brigade led by, 34; in San Luis Potosí, 91–92, 93, 98, 99–100 expuesto children (abandoned children), 54–55, 62; baby names for, 54; birthday of, 59; burials of, 157; conditional baptism of, 58 Fagoaga, Romualdo, 71–72, 73, 74 Feast of Corpus Christi, 9 Fisher, Howard T., 24 Fisher, Marion Hall, 24 Fonte y Hernández Miravete, Pedro José, 16 foundling children. See expuesto children Fourth Mexican Provincial Council (1771), 28, 56 France: Catholic Church and, 217; French Revolution, 217–19; Mexican Independence and, 218 Francis de Geronimo (saint), 41 Francis de Paul (saint), 24, 41 Francis de Sales (saint), 24, 41 Francis of Assisi (saint), 41 Francis Xavier (saint), 24, 26 Franco, Agustín: as author, 247n3; jealousy of, 67; Lombardo, C., and, 65–69, 205, 206, 209; travels of, 69

309

Franklin, Benjamin, 220 gente decente (decent people), 148; age at marriage for, 139, 140–42; burial of, 170, 173; residence of, 152–53; Sagrario Parish and, 42–43 germ theory, 20 Gil de Lombardo, Germana, 65, 70; death of, 68 Giral, Josefa, 70 godfather. See padrino godmother. See madrina Gómez Farías, Valentín, 19, 34 Grant, Ulysses S., 219 Grúa Talamanca y Branciforte, Miguel. See Branciforte, Marqués de Güémez Pacheco de Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, Juan Vicente: burials and, 166–68, 267n39; Núñez de Haro and, 166–68. See Revillagigedo, conde de Guerrero, Vicente, 28, 235n15 Hayden, Seth, murder of, 1, 2, 4–6, 11, 227n1; Alamán and, 4–5; antiCatholic publications and, 2, 4; Beaufoy on, 6–7; Bustamante, C. M., on, 12–14; funeral for, 4; Mayer on, 2, 4; perpetrator of, 13; shop looting and, 4; versions of, 13; Wilcocks on, 4, 5 Hernández, María de la Concepción, 152 Hernández, María Perfilia, 142 hijos naturales. See natural children Holy Communion: Catholic and Protestant contention of, 2; Feast of Corpus Christi and, 9; Host in, 2, 3, 189; last rites and, 189; transubstantiation and, 2 Holy Family, 29 Hospital of San Andrés, 165; cemetery for, 165–66, 169, 170; Mayorga and, 164–65; Núñez de Haro and, 164–66

310

index

Host: in Holy Communion, 2, 189; Tayloe and, 6 Host procession, 3; ban on bells in, 190; cholera epidemic and, 190; Donaldson and, 8–9; Hayden murder during, 1, 2, 4–7, 11, 12–14, 227n1; laws of, 8; Lyon and, 9; Penny and, 8 Hugo, Victor, 115 Hutchinson, C. A., 221 Icaza, Nicolás, 87, 88 illegitimate children: adultery and, 63–64, 207; cholera epidemic and, 200–201; disguising, 51–54, 63–64; midwives and, 60–61; in Oaxaca, 51–54; in San Luis Potosí, 247n40; social status and, 240n63; varieties of, 49, 62. See also adultery; expuesto children; natural children; promiscuous sex; prostitutes independence, of Mexico, 217; Calleja del Rey and, 175; Catholic church and, 15–16; constitution after, 15; France and, 218; War of Independence and, 19 Inquisition, 48, 167, 174, 176 Irizarri, Juan Manuel, 186–87 Isabel II (queen), 23 Jimeno, Anita: Estrada courting, 63–64, 96–97; mother of, 97–98 José (name), 29–30 Joseph (Saint), 48 Koch, Robert, 20 last rites, 274nn23–24; extreme unction as, 189, 190; Holy Communion and, 189; limiting, 214–15; punishment as, 188–89, 190; sacred viaticum as, 189; Vázquez on, 193 Lawrence, D. H., 113 laws, of Catholic Church: Bibles and, 17;

Host procession and, 8; masquerades and, 18–19 Leridon, Henri, 138–39 “¡¡¡Loca!!!” (Payno), 132, 142; jealousy in, 133–34 Lombardo, Ángela, 70, 71 Lombardo, Concepción “Concha,” 32, 64, 137, 195; activities of, 67; confessors of, 68, 69, 76–77, 79–80, 81, 204– 5, 206; education of, 66–67; at Encarnación convent, 77, 80, 205; end of first love of, 69; Fagoaga and, 71–72, 73, 74; Franco and, 65–69, 205, 206; Miramón, Miguel, and, 71–72, 73, 74, 81–87, 205, 206–7; mourning period for, 75–76; moving of, 73; Palafox as madrina for, 87, 89; parental interference in marriage of, 211, 212; performance of, 78; Perry and, 74–80, 81, 85, 86, 88, 205–6, 207; politics and, 88–89; Pontones, F., and, 70–71; premarital investigation for, 85, 86; promise to marry Perry, 79, 85, 86, 88; religion and marriage vow of, 80; reputation of, 76, 79, 82, 83; wedding of, 89; wedding preparations for, 86–89 Lombardo, Francisco, 66; health of, 69–70, 72; Miramón, Miguel, and, 72; will of, 72–73 love at first sight: in “Manuelita,” 115; for Miramón, Miguel, 208–9; for Prieto, 101–2, 114, 115, 208–9, 254n6; in romantic fiction, 115, 120, 208, 210; in “The Thrifty Wife,” 120 “Love’s a Farce” (Prieto), 113–14 love stories. See romantic fiction Lyon, George Francis, 9 madrina (godmother), 36, 59, 146; compadrazgo and, 38; Pacheco as, 60; Palafox as, 87, 89; Rodríguez as, 37

index Malpica (assistant of Estrada), 35 Mantecón, Agustín, 53, 54, 243n12 Mantecón, Antonio, 53–54, 61 “Manuelita” (Prieto): adultery in, 118; love at first sight in, 115; marriage in, 116–17; as melodrama, 114–15 María (name), 29–30 María Santísima del Carmen (saint), 35 Marín, José María, 183, 184 marriage, 21–22; accelerated, 153; age at second, 149–51, 197–98, 262n54; of Caso, 110; childhood love and, 148, 210; cholera epidemic and, 194–98, 215, 275n42, 276nn46–48, 277n56; consanguineous, 136–37, 259n11; consent of bride for, 212; death delaying, 195; egalitarian, 148–49; endogamous, 151–52; matrimonial investigation for, 85, 86, 145, 152; in Mexico City, 196; Núñez de Haro on, 213; in Oaxaca, 147, 196, 197, 204, 215; of older men to younger women, 65, 70, 122, 123–24, 128, 132– 33, 135–36, 142, 144, 146–48, 149; of Ontañón, 94; of orphans, 142–43; parental influence on, 102, 104, 108, 109–10, 209, 211, 212, 213; parents alive for, 260n31; patriarchal, 143– 49; of Prieto, 110; in Puebla, 139, 146–47, 196, 197, 212, 215; in San Luis Potosí, 140, 147, 194–95, 211; second, 149–51, 195, 197–98; of virgins, 196; wrath of God and, 198. See also age at first marriage; Estrada, Francisco; Lombardo, Concepción “Concha”; Prieto, Guillermo masquerades, 18–19 Mayer, Brantz: Black and, 4; on Hayden murder, 2, 4 Mayorga, Martín de, 164 Mexia, Anna, 149, 150 Mexican-American War, 13, 219, 224; anti-Catholic publications and, 2

311

Mexican-born children of Spanish parents (criollos), 29 Mexican Independence, 217, 279n15; Calleja del Rey and, 175; Catholic church and, 15–16; constitution after, 15; France and, 218; separation of church and state and, 218–19; War of Independence, 19 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 225 Mexico City, 43, 148; cholera epidemic in, 187, 200, 215; Sagrario Parish in, 42–43, 44, 63, 158, 159, 162, 170, 174, 178, 180, 196, 201, 245n30, 275n42; sexual relationships in, 201. See also specific topics Mexico City cathedral chapter: on morality, 17–18; on Protestant Bibles, 16–17 midwife: baptism and, 40, 59–60, 61; clerical interrogation of, 60; illegitimate children and, 60–61; license for, 60; private pregnancies and, 61 Mier y Trespalacios, Cosme de, 169 Miñón, Guadalupe, 65; age at first and second marriage for, 150; consanguineous marriage of, 137; Perry and, 73–74; politics of, 88–89 Miramón, María de Jesús, 146 Miramón, María Josefa de la Cruz, 145–46 Miramón, Miguel de: appearance of, 72; faith of, 83–84; as General, 81–82; Icaza and, 87, 88; as lieutenant colonel, 74; Lombardo, C., and, 71–72, 73, 74, 81–87, 205, 206–7; Lombardo, F., and, 72; love at first sight for, 208–9; permission to marry for, 85; proposal of, 81, 84; successful wooing of, 82; threats of, 73; wedding preparations of, 84, 85–88; Zuloaga as padrino for, 85–86, 87, 89 Morelos, José María, 175 Morris, R. J., 194

312

index

“The Mother-of-Pearl Rosary” (Payno): aristocracy in, 128–29; rape in, 128, 129–30 Murguía, María Luisa, 34; Estrada courtship of, 98; Estrada marriage to, 99–100, 101, 252n28 Muriel, Josefina, 157 natural children: become legitimate, 50; definition of, 49; in Mexico City, 50–51; in Oaxaca, 51–52; in Puebla, 62–63; in San Luis Potosí, 62–63; social status and, 50–51, 62–63; Suárez de Peredo and, 50–51 Núñez de Haro y Peralta, Alonso, 216; Branciforte and, 169, 171; coordination of burials by, 171; death of, 174; Hospital of San Andrés and, 164– 66; on marriage, 213; Mier y Trespalacios and, 169; Revillagigedo and, 166–68; suburban cemeteries and, 159–63, 166–68, 213; success of, 171, 173 Oaxaca, 43; baby names in, 44; baptism in, 60, 61; Bergosa y Jordán in, 174, 176; burials in, 179–80, 214; Bustamante, C. M., in, 12; cholera epidemic in, 187, 196, 197, 200, 215; Mantecón, Antonio, in, 53–54, 61; marriage in, 147, 196, 197, 204, 215; Morelos in, 175; natural children in, 51–52; Sagrario Parish in, 43; sexual relationships in, 200–201, 204, 215– 16; smallpox epidemic (1779) in, 168; unknown parents in, 52–54, 60–61, 63, 204 older men with younger women, 65, 70, 142; Alencaster Martínez and de la Rosa, 135–36; Avilés and Asís as, 145; patriarchal marriages and, 144; records over age forty-five of, 146; in

romantic fiction, 122, 123–24, 128, 132–33; social status and, 144, 146– 48, 149 Old Testament, 136 Oliver, Lilia V., 221 Omaña, Gregorio José de, 179–80 Ontañón, María de Jesús “Jesusita”: death of, 94; death of father of, 92; Estrada and, 91–95, 140, 141, 143, 207; marriage of, 94; suitor for, 93 orphans, and marriage: age at first marriage for, 142–43; Hernández, María Perfilia, and, 142 Pacheco, Narcisa, 60 padrino (godfather), 36, 146, 150; Arróniz as, 38–40; baby names and, 39–40; baptism and, 38, 39, 59; compadrazgo and, 38; Estrada as, 64, 97; financial obligations for, 38–39, 40; natural children and, 52–54, 204; Zuloaga as, 85–86, 87, 89 Palafox, Guadalupe, 87, 89 Pasteur, Louis, 20 patriarchal marriages, 143, 145, 146–47; deterioration of, 148; legal cases and, 144; parental interference in, 149. See also older men with younger women Payno, Manuel, 257n58; on aristocratic power, 126, 128–29; “¡¡¡Loca!!!” by, 132–34, 142; “The Mother-of-Pearl Rosary” by, 128–30; on suburban burial, 155; “Trinidad de Juárez: A Legend from the Year 1648,” 123–26 Penny, Edward, 8, 230n23, 231n33 Pérez Suárez, Antonio Isidoro, 61 Perfidio (name), 48 Perry, Edward, 249n29; arrest of, 88, 250n76; control of, 76, 77–79; conversion request for, 80; Lombardo, C., promise to marry, 79, 85, 86, 88; Lombardo C., and, 74–80, 81, 85, 86,

index 88, 205–6, 207; marriage intentions of, 77, 79, 80; Miñón and, 73–74; reputation of, 75 Pimentel, Francisco, 37 Poinsett, Joel Roberts, 229n13; Catholic expectations and, 5–6, 10 politics: Catholic Church and, 19; Liberalism, 219; Lombardo, C., and, 88–89; of Miñón, 88–89; political elite, 203; Prieto on, 216; Reform Laws, 216–17; Republicanism, 219–20 Pontones, Fernando, 70–71, 205 Pontones, Martina, 70 Poska, Allyson, 30–31 Prescott, William Hickling, 24 Prieto, Guillermo, 111; absentmindedness of, 109–10; appearance of, 108–9, 113; Bustamante, A., and, 106–8; Caso and, 102, 103, 104, 108–9, 208, 209; education of, 105, 106; fall of, 101–2; father of, 103; as liberal statesmen, 106; love at first sight for, 101–2, 114, 115, 208–9, 254n6; love letters of, 102, 104, 114; “Love’s a Farce,” 113–14; “Manuelita,” 114–18; marriage of, 110; on politics, 216; priests and, 207–8; prospects of, 103; Quintana Roo and, 104, 106, 216; writing of, 103, 106, 110, 113–15 Prieto Gamboa, José María, 103 private pregnancies, 61 promiscuous sex, 49, 51, 62. See also adultery prostitutes, 199, 276n54 Protestants: Bibles of, 16–17. See also Catholic and Protestant contention puberty: adulthood and, 137; age over time of, 138, 259n16; conception and, 139; poverty and, 138; in US, 138 public health: Bergosa y Jordán and, 178, 213; burial and, 159; epidemic (1813) and, 175–77, 181, 192, 270n64;

313

Hospital of San Andrés and, 164–66, 165, 169, 170; wrath of God and, 192– 94. See also cholera epidemic (1833); Núñez de Haro y Peralta, Alonso; smallpox epidemic Puebla, 43, 45, 214; baptism in, 43–44, 58, 62; burials in, 167, 180, 185, 200; cholera epidemic in, 196, 200, 201, 215; marriage in, 139, 146–47, 196, 197, 212, 215; natural children in, 62–63; Sagrario Parish in, 43–44; sexual relationships in, 200; Vázquez in, 136, 191–92. See also baby names Quintana Roo, Andrés, 105; Prieto and, 104, 106, 216 Ramírez, José Juan, 54 rape: in “Disgraceful Effects of a Seduction: Letter from a Remorseful Libertine to His Wife,” 131; in “The Mother-of-Pearl Rosary,” 128, 129–30 Reform Laws (1859), 216–17 residence: accesoria as, 152, 153; social status and, 152–53 Revillagigedo, conde de (Güémez Pacheco de Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, Juan Vicente), 175; burials and, 164–65, 267n39; Núnez de Haro and, 166–68 Riva Palacio, Mariano, 28 Rivascacho, Ana, 146 Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies, 224 Rodríguez, Guadalupe, 37 Rodríguez Galván, Ignacio, 122–23, 255n35 The Roman Ritual, 57, 58 romantic fiction, 253n1; childhood love and, 123–26, 256n42; “The Countess of Peña-Aranda,” 126–28;

314

index

romantic fiction (continued) “Disgraceful Effects of a Seduction: Letter from a Remorseful Libertine to His Wife,” 130–32, 209, 257n64; financial considerations in, 117, 119, 120–22, 124, 127, 129; “¡¡¡Loca!!!,” 132–34, 142; love at first sight in, 115, 120, 208, 210; “Love’s a Farce,” 113– 14; “Manuelita,” 114–18; “The Mother-of-Pearl Rosary,” 128–30; of older men with younger women, 122, 123–24, 128, 132–33; parental interference in, 149, 209–11; rape in, 128, 129–30, 131; “The Thrifty Wife,” 118–22; “Trinidad de Juárez: A Legend from the Year 1648,” 123–26; “The Visitor,” 122–23, 255n35 Rosenberg, Charles, 222 Saavedra, Ángel de, 115 El Sagrario, 42 Sagrario Parish, 33; baptism in, 43–44; burials in, 158, 159, 162, 170, 173, 174, 178, 180; gente decente in, 42–43; in Mexico City, 42–43, 44, 158, 159, 162, 170, 174, 178, 180, 196, 201, 245n30, 275n42; neighborhoods and, 43–44; in Oaxaca, 43; in Puebla, 43–44; in San Luis Potosí, 43; smallpox epidemic of 1797 and, 173; social status and, 42–43 saints: baby names and, 25, 27, 41, 45–46, 54, 239n58; of birthday, 45–46 saint’s day celebrations: birthday and, 25, 27, 203; de la Rosa and, 135; Elizabeth of Hungary and, 23–24; Francis Xavier and, 24, 26 Sánchez, Roque, 142 San Hipólito convent, 170, 171 sanitary brigade, 34 San Lázaro cemetery, 155–56, 178, 271n74; location of, 157, 161; race and ethnicity and, 169–70

San Luis Potosí, 43; baby names in, 44, 45–47, 62, 204; baptisms in, 43, 55; burials in, 180–82, 185, 188, 214; cholera epidemic in, 182, 187–88, 190, 194–95, 200, 201, 214–15; clergy in, 215–16; epidemic (1813) in, 181; Estrada in, 91–92, 93, 98, 99–100; marriage in, 140, 147, 194–95, 211; natural children in, 62–63, 216, 247n40; Sagrario Parish in, 43; sexual relationships in, 201, 204, 215–16. See also baby names San Salvador el Seco cemetery, 159, 161, 163, 173 Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 34; birthday of, 27, 28, 236n17; rebellion of, 100 Santa Clara, 10 La Santísima burials, 171 second marriage: age at, 149–51, 197–98, 262n54; after death of spouse, 195 sexual relationships: cholera epidemic and, 199–201, 215; measuring, 200– 201; in Mexico City, 201; in Oaxaca, 200–201, 204, 215–16; in Puebla, 200; in San Luis Potosí, 201, 204, 215–16. See also natural children short baby name, 47; baptism day and, 46; saint of birthday as, 45 smallpox epidemic: Branciforte and, 168, 170, 179; Sagrario Parish and 1797, 173; of 1797, 168–74, 179–81; of 1779, 157, 159, 163, 164, 168. See also Núñez de Haro y Peralta, Alonso Snow, John, 20 social status: age at first marriage and, 139, 140–42, 260n24, 260n27, 261n43, 262n48, 262nn51–52; baby name length and, 42, 44–45, 203–4; burial and, 158; endogamous marriage and, 151–52; older men with younger women and, 144, 146–48, 149; residences and, 152–53; Sagrario Parish

index and, 42–43; of Suárez de Peredo, 51; titles of nobility, 51, 232n36. See also aristocracy; gente decente Spain: monarchy of, 218; stability of, 217 Suárez de Peredo, Agustín, 241n3; natural children and, 50–51; social status of, 51 Tayloe, Edward Thornton, 229n16; Catholic expectations and, 5–6, 10; Host and, 6 “The Thrifty Wife” (Anonymous), 118; domestic economy in, 119, 120–21, 122; doorman reference in, 119; love at first sight in, 120; marriage in, 120–21; misfortune in, 121–22; narrator of, 119–20 titles: ciudadano as, 51–52, 63, 151; don and doña as, 42; natural children and, 51–52, 63, 240n63; of nobility, 50, 51, 232n36 transubstantiation, 2 “Trinidad de Juárez: A Legend from the Year 1648” (Payno), 125; arrest in, 126; wealth in, 124; wedding in, 123 Twinam, Ann, 42, 61 uncle-niece marriages: as common, 137; in Old Testament, 136 United States (US), 69, 222, 231n32; antiCatholic sentiment in, 2, 224; birthday parties in, 26; Mexican-American

315

War, 2, 13, 219, 224; puberty in, 138; Wilcocks warning for, 5, 6. See also Catholic and Protestant contention unknown parents, 52–54, 59, 60–63, 216 US. See United States Vázquez, Francisco Pablo, 216, 221; Bustamante, C. M., on, 193–94; on El Demócrata, 198–99; fear and, 191–92; on last rites, 193; in Puebla, 136, 191– 92; on wrath of God, 192–94, 198 Velasco, José Guadalupe, 152 Virgin of Guadalupe, 14 “The Visitor” (Rodríguez Galván), 122, 255n35; murder in, 123 Ward, Henry George: Catholic and Protestant contention and, 9–10; on Mexican economy, 10–11 War of Independence, 19 Wilcocks, James Smith, 228n7, 228n9; Hayden murder and, 4, 5; warning for US citizens by, 5, 6 wrath of God: cholera epidemic and, 192–94, 198, 214, 221; marriage and, 198 Zárate Toscano, Verónica, 31–32 Zuloaga, Félix, 85–86, 87, 89 Zumárraga, Juan de, 14, 231n34