The Capital of Free Women: Race, Legitimacy, and Liberty in Colonial Mexico 9780300265644

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The Capital of Free Women

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The Capital of Free Women Race, Legitimacy, and Liberty in Colonial Mexico DANIELLE TERRAZAS WILLIAMS

New Haven and London

Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of James Wesley Cooper of the Class of 1865, Yale College. Copyright © 2022 by Danielle Terrazas Williams. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Set in Minion type by Integrated Publishing Solutions. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2021942694 ISBN 978-0-300-25806-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my family and friends, near and far

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Contents

Acknowledgments  ix Introduction 1 on e. A Nexus of Worlds  19 t wo. Defending Family  50 th ree. Owning Slaves  85 f ou r. One Generation  119 f ive. Capitalizing Status  148 six. Preserving Legacies  181 Epilogue 214 Notes  221 Index  269

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Acknowledgments

I wrote this book to express my deep appreciation for the grace and resiliency of African-descended women in the world. Many cherished educators, collaborators, and friends have enriched this endeavor to share the history of women of African descent. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude for my editor, Jaya Chatterjee, and her assistant, Eva Skewes. Thank you for advocating for me and understanding my vision. My longtime mentor María Cristina Garcia witnessed this project’s infancy when I was an undergraduate at Cornell University and encouraged me to pursue these rich stories. She has inspired me for two decades with her scholarship, and I will always be grateful for her support. My heartfelt appreciation goes to Adriana Naveda for the generosity she has extended me over the years and for the innovation she has modeled as a scholar. I first met my dear friend Reena Goldthree when we were both at Duke University as graduate students. She has guided me through this profession and continues to be the consummate Soror and a testament to the power of sisterhood in the academy. My colleagues at Oberlin College in the History Department, the Latin American Studies Program, and the Compar-

x Acknowledgments

ative American Studies Program have been invaluable in my growth as a scholar. I am especially grateful to Pablo Mitchell for his unwavering encouragement, to Karl Offen for his willingness to share his bountiful expertise, to Shelley Lee for her always grounding perspectives, and to Len Smith for his leadership. During our many walks, Wendy Kozol’s feedback on this work propelled me forward and helped me see the bigger picture. I thank her for her friendship and counsel. I extend my gratitude to Gina Perez for seeing the potential in my ideas and for being a community leader, a selfless colleague, and my favorite tennis rival. Tamika Nunley’s friendship during our time as assistant professors at Oberlin meant the world to me. Sharing the light of her integrity and fortitude made me a better professor. I have also had the great fortune of knowing and learning from a group of historians whose work I deeply respect and whose support was invaluable in this process, including Pete Sigal, Kathryn Burns, Rachel Sarah O’Toole, Ben Vinson III, Adrienne Davis, Kia Lilly Caldwell, Michelle McKinley, Nicole von Germeten, Manuel Barcia, Michele Reid-Vazquez, María Elisa Velázquez, Ursula Camba Ludlow, Georgina Flores, Randy J. Sparks, and Sophie White. Thank you for being pillars in the field and for offering stepping-stones for a whole generation of new scholars. I am thankful to you all for your groundbreaking scholarship and for the wisdom you continue to bestow. In critical moments of this project’s life, colleagues near and far helped to mold and sustain this work. I am especially grateful for Zeb Tortorici, Cal Biruk, Wendy Beth Hyman, ­Zeinab Abul-Magd, Ellen Wurtzel, Baron Piñeda, Imani Owens, Larissa Brewer-García, Citlalli Domínguez-Domínguez, Mary Pat Brady, Mustafa Minowi, and Ananda Cohen Aponte. To my Oberlin writing partners Erika Hoffman-Dilloway, Gabe

Acknowledgments xi

Cooper, and Megan Long, thank you for your company, which motivated me to write in such tenuous times. As a Long-Term Fellow at the Huntington Library, I could not have hoped for a more scholarly environment. The researchers I met truly represent the richness of such intellectual communities. I am especially indebted to Marjoleine Kars, Kristen Block, Naomi Tadmor, Jessica Rosenberg, Manuel Covo, Gregory Nobles, Katherine Adams, Lori Anne Ferrell, Seth LeJacq, Andrea Denny-Brown, Louis S. Warren, Katherine Cox, Rachel St. John, Gary Gallagher, Michael Vorenberg, Carla Mazzio, and Daniela Bleichmar for their willingness to engage with drafts as well as offer their resources and guidance. My appreciation goes to my colleagues in the School of History at the University of Leeds. Their collegiality and flexibility were priceless as I finalized the book. Thank you for welcoming me into your community. Many of my dear friends also encouraged me while I completed this project, including Kathleen Cheatham, Rebecca Johnson, Algernon Cargill Jr., Angela Brizant, Sven Honigbaum, Lola Thompson, Chris Marx, Rebecca Whelan, RaShelle Peck, Bonnie Cheng, Greg Ristow, Sylvan Long, David Kazimir, Juan Rivera, Lyndsey Beutin, Wacey Turner, and Mark R. Villegas. Thank you for the much-needed moments of levity. I also offer my heartfelt appreciation to all of the members of the Mendoza family of Yanga, Veracruz, for every way they helped this book come to life. And to my late friend and Duke sister Helen Bailitz, I wish you were here to see the work come to fruition. My gratitude for you is endless. Fellowships and grants from Princeton University, Cornell University, Oberlin College, the Huntington Library, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation generously funded this project at various stages of both research and writing. I extend my thanks to The Americas for allowing me

xii Acknowledgments

to reproduce a portion of my article published with them entitled, “ ‘My Conscience is Free and Clear’: African-Descended Women, Status, and Slave Owning in Mid-Colonial Mexico,” from the July 2018 edition. This book would not have been possible without the commitment of archivists and librarians in Mexico, the United States, Spain, and Italy. I am indebted to the archival staff at the Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico City), Archivo General de las Indias (Seville), Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (Rome), Archivo Eclesiástico de la Parroquia of the Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón (Xalapa), and La Unidad de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información of the Universidad Veracruzana (Xalapa). The librarians at Duke University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, Cornell University, The Huntington, Oberlin College, and the University of Leeds helped me access much-needed materials and introduced to me a wealth of sources. I thank them all for their assistance and for the devotion they have for their craft. I am especially grateful to Mauro Brunello at the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, whose patience helped me navigate the trove of materials there over the past eight years. I offer a special acknowledgment to the guardians of the archives of Veracruz. For nearly two decades I have witnessed them work tirelessly as they confronted budgetary constraints in Xalapa, flooding in the port of Veracruz, and understaffing in Córdoba. They care deeply about history and have worked diligently to ensure that the public continues to have access to precious materials. My thanks to Sister Aurora, who served as the encargada of the archives of the Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción in Córdoba, for her humor and for allowing me to bombard her with questions about convent life in between reviewing countless parish records. I also extend my deep appreciation for the dedication of archivist Alfonsa Sequera of

Acknowledgments xiii

La Unidad de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, whose expertise allowed this book to flourish in its earliest days and whose passion for the archive will continue to benefit historians for generations. This book is the product of a legacy of countless scholars too numerous to properly thank in this space, but I am grateful to you all for centering the contributions of African-­descended women, past and present. To the Mexican activists and scholars who have tirelessly organized conferences, programs, and community events for decades, your work has changed how Mexico and the world understand the diversity of the African diaspora in the Americas. Les agradezco mucho. Finally, to my parents, godparents, and brothers, thank you for your patience and your love. You are amazing.

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Introduction

The young, beautiful Soledad stood alone in a jail cell in the massive structure meant to inspire fear and exhibit strength: the island fortress of San Juan de Ulúa. Imprisoned just a few hundred yards from the shores of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz, Soledad could probably hear if not actually see ships docking across the water or militia members and slaves hard at work repairing the behemoth that held her captive. Accused of witchcraft, she awaited her fate. Rumors of Soledad’s otherworldly powers had flared before her arrest. People in her town of Córdoba had long believed she had made a pact with the devil because the mulata’s youth never appeared to dim even as the years progressed. Still, nothing had ever come of the murmurings about her preternatural appearance. While she caught the eye of many a suitor only to disappoint them, her life in that small agricultural town changed when the alcalde of Córdoba began to pursue her. Soledad rejected the powerful man’s advances, and feeling affronted by the free mulata he retaliated by reporting her to one of the most unforgiving colonial institutions, the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Condemned for demonic communication, Soledad anticipated her punishment in the darkness of a damp chamber inside the fort. As dawn began to break she found a piece of coal on the floor of her cell

La Mulata de Córdoba. Illustration by Ada Maruri

Introduction 3

and set about drawing a small mural. When the guards finally checked in on Soledad, she was long gone. All that remained was her masterpiece: a charcoal image of herself sailing far away from San Juan de Ulúa and those who sought to control her. The Mulata de Córdoba, the most famous free woman of African descent in the history of central Veracruz, may not have existed at all. And yet multiple variations of her legend live on in the region. In one, Soledad’s triumphant and mysterious story concludes with an animated mural of her waving as the guards encounter it. In another, she is in the cell when the guards enter but after she asks them what is missing from her drawing, she disembodies then mysteriously reappears in the mural and sails away on the ship. The story of Soledad’s life, unjust treatment, and eventual escape has been memorialized in books, paintings, statues, movies, and even an opera. And yet the lives of actual African-descended women in Veracruz have not garnered the renown that the Mulata de Córdoba has inspired. While none of the free women of African descent examined here made quite as dramatic an entry and exit on the archival stage as Soledad, they nonetheless made history and shaped central Veracruz through their mobilization of capital. Ana de Arriaga boldly defended her status. Manuela Mar­ tín defied legal expectations. Petrona de Arauz guarded her finances. What could they do to ensure that they too would not be disregarded as Soledad had been? How could they protect their interests? Who would believe them if they had tried? Wisely not trusting verbal agreements or informal promissory notes, free African-descended women in the central Veracruz region sought out the legitimizing apparatus embodied by the notary public. Some women likely marched confidently into the office, eager to sit across from a notarial assistant to affirm a purchase or sale. Others perhaps slowed their pace as they walked down the Camino Real (Royal Road) to document their

4 Introduction

family’s fissures and misfortunes. Over and over notaries scribbled near the conclusion of their documents that these women “did not sign their names because they did not know how.” Perhaps not fluent in Spanish prose, free African-descended women nonetheless knew to turn to the power of the notarial office to produce the documents that legally acknowledged their truths. Once the notary graced the papers with his signature and signo (a seal-like emblem specific to that notary), which officially declared that he believed the statements therein to be true, so it was. Who would believe free women of African descent? If the notary did, few others would matter. The notarial archive represents a specific slice of colonial life in that one could experience a lifetime of lawful activities without the need for the notary’s workshop of document drafters, record keepers, and signatories. Kathryn Burns argues, “For most people . . . a close encounter with a notary was unusual and bound up with a major turning point of some kind. . . . Putting people’s important, even intimate, business in legal language was the notary’s everyday job, his bread and butter.” Notaries provided a fairly routinized service of selecting the correct forms for the particular business, soliciting the particulars (name, familial ties, titles, residency, and so forth) and determining the veracity of statements before authenticating it with a grand flourish of a quill. Yet notarizing inevitably entailed learning about and archiving personal matters. Notarized contracts also allowed for the allusion of finality. However, they sometimes included inaccuracies or were improperly executed, which led to disputes. Though the notarial office was an imperfect institution, the colony’s wealthy and powerful by and large trusted its work. And perhaps because of this, free women of African descent also entrusted their business to notaries. If a discrepancy arose, a document produced by a Crown representative offered African-descended women ac-

Introduction 5

cess to an  institution that elites respected and upheld as the arbiter of truth.1 An archival truth was often only a “kind of truth.” It was not unheard of for elite members of Spanish America to forge documents and provide false witnesses to alter their life stories.2 Free women of African descent also recognized the pliability of this venue and constructed notarial lives that best suited them at the moment. Some of the women’s stories chronicled the more seemingly truthful happenings, such as when they purchased a slave or leased a property. Other narratives appear to be embellished. The difference between the two is not always clear. The Spanish Crown tasked notaries with creating order, but even these lauded scribes could not always discern their clients’ notarial truths from their actual lives.3 While prominently discussed as an elite phenomenon, free women might have felt the societal pressure to present and have chronicled the narratives that best served their interests as they navigated the world of seventeenth-century central Veracruz. The majority of African-descended people taken by force to Mexico disembarked at the port of Veracruz and confronted the realities of the colony along the Camino Real. Historical geographer Peter Rees argues that the Royal Road between Veracruz and Mexico City was the colony’s (and later the country’s) “most important transport link,” facilitating contact between the viceregal interior, regional nuclei, and the greater Atlantic.4 The Crown-sponsored roads intertwined the legacies of the central Veracruz region, principally defined as the port of Veracruz and the towns of Xalapa, Córdoba, and Orizaba. This region relied on Indigenous workers and both free and enslaved African labor to bolster the economy through agricultural development and transoceanic commerce. These two industries battled bouts of retraction and experienced occasional expansion during the early- and mid-colonial periods,

6 Introduction

Map of Central Veracruz and the Camino Real. Credit: Daniel P. Huffman, somethingaboutmaps

which offered material advantages and challenges to the towns located on the Camino Real. Owing to its strategic location on the Royal Road and its temperate climate, Xalapa developed into a favored way station. It also served as a principal site of transit for most slaves of African descent as negreros (slave sellers) transported them from the port to high-demand slave markets like Puebla de los Ángeles and Mexico City. Nonetheless, the demand for slaves remained robust in central Veracruz, especially as both Córdoba and Orizaba transformed into two of the largest sugar-­ growing towns in the region. As the major point of entry for transatlantic travel and trade, the port of Veracruz (first established in La Antigua and then moved with the founding of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz) played an essential role in the

Introduction 7

development of the entire colony. In addition to facilitating the entry of greater economic traffic, the port city served as a strategic site of military defense, often supported by militiamen of African descent.5 While African-descended people lived throughout central Veracruz, Xalapa had the most well-­ documented free population in the region. Even as many free women created their legacies in Xalapa, they continued to foster connections in the greater orbit of central Veracruz through family, friends, and business associates, especially those living in the port. Midcolonial Mexico is often characterized by its economic, political, and social instability—although it is debatable whether the colony ever experienced sustained marked stability on any of those fronts. Free women in central Veracruz, especially those in the town of Xalapa, witnessed the ebbs and flows of empire in ways most of the colony did not, situated as they were in occupations and classed positions that offered a cross section of colonial life. African-descended women who owned boardinghouses, for example, would have prepared meals for transiting merchants still calculating the costs of precious cargo from a newly arrived fleet. As free women sought out employment opportunities, they might have witnessed with disdain soldiers drinking away the day in the town square, anxiously awaiting deployment orders. As slave owners, these women would have listened with interest as negreros called out to potential buyers, inviting them to inspect enslaved women and men from places like Angola, the Canary Islands, and Guinea. They would have also likely observed such scenes and more as they traversed the town and reached the threshold of the notarial office, looking to pay for what notaries did best—protect interests, both economic and personal. To African-descended women of means, the notarial workshop was a legitimating apparatus to defend themselves

8 Introduction

and their families. Unlike the more guarded and abstract Iberian notion of honor that Spaniards mobilized, I propose that free women instead strove for something we might consider “social legitimacy,” a constellation of socioreligious and economic markers available to African-descended people. Iberian customs crafted honor as a highly classed and racialized category of status, most often assigned to, recognized by, and validated through elite Spanish subjects and institutions. In the colonies, Spaniards asserted honor to differentiate themselves among an increasingly diverse population. As such, honor could also be weaponized.6 Spaniards generally did not attribute honor to free African-descended people, regardless of their behavior or capital.7 While Spaniards imagined people of African descent as being devoid of honor, African-descended people freed themselves from the stifling circumscriptions of the Spanish ideal. Reenvisioning their capital, free African-descended women in seventeenth-century Mexico turned to practices of social legitimacy, rather than to honor, by valuing approximations of elite expectations when confronted with racialized and gendered vulnerabilities. The notarial traces of free women underscore the importance of strategic proximity to wealth, people, places, and even sensibilities. Far from a deficiency model, these choices offer insight into how free women negotiated social and religious expectations by establishing their own standards of legitimate subjecthood. Their assemblages of social legitimacy offered an alternative for women of African descent who might have had some but never all of the trappings of Iberian honor because of racial hierarchies that relied on inaccessible criteria of wealth, religious orthodoxy, and racial purity. African-descended women mobilized social legitimacy by achieving socioreligious benchmarks, such as marriage, but also by baptizing and confirming their children, carefully man-

Introduction 9

aging their finances, and guarding a public reputation that invoked responsibility. And unlike honor, proof of one’s social legitimacy could be physically carried into offices by way of marriage, baptismal, and confirmation records along with notarized bills of sale and documentation of financial solvency. Honor, in addition to being exclusionary, was also highly volatile and could be diminished or destroyed with a single incidence of impropriety. Even elite Spanish families understood how tenuous honor could be as they continuously monitored and cultivated it. An untoward affair made public or a child born out of wedlock could easily cast an elite family as dishonorable. Religious legitimacy, on the other hand, was inheritable when parents were married before the birth of a child. Even when unions were legitimatized after the birth of a child, the hijo natural (natural child) could become an hijo legítimo (legitimate child). Religious legitimacy served as a more stable investment as compared with honor, and it was theoretically accessible to all those who could afford the attendant fees for marriage.8 Not only was this path more widely accessible, but also the Catholic Church encouraged religious legitimacy (and often was willing to accept its approximation). Thus while elite Spaniards aimed to protect similar status indicators, free African-­ descended women called upon a collection of secular and religious markers that emphasized social legitimacy to assert their own sense of status—one that was not so rigidly policed as that associated with Iberian honor. Through a dynamic group of cases, free women of African descent demonstrated their awareness of what was available to them via social legitimacy. However, the incompleteness of the archives of Veracruz has left us with unresolved histories, obscuring rich narratives due to destroyed, lost, or now-illegible documents. Generally, people in colonial Mexico sought a diverse group of friends, acquaintances, business part-

10 Introduction

ners, and patrons as they made successful strides toward economic sustainability. However, owing to the scarcity of sources on free women of African descent in the early colonial period, notions of women’s access to social and financial viability have not always received a nuanced treatment, especially if their networks included wealthy, well-connected men. By and large, free women of African descent had less opportunity to reveal their economic histories in archival sources, leading to assumptions about free women based on master–slave relations, even if these women had been free for multiple generations. This framing limits the histories of African-descended women and robs us and them of the realms of possibility they considered as women of means. Free mulatas, pardas, morenas, and negras did not always have the same access to economic capital, but most who appeared before the notary had deftly mobilized social and cultural capital to defend their resources, their families, and their status in society—making them all women of means. Drawing from Pierre Bourdieu’s interconnected definitions, The Capital of Free Women employs the term in a way that similarly “re­introduces capital in all its forms and not solely in the one form recognized by economic theory.”9 The social capital of seventeenth-century free women manifested in networks of local, regional, and even colony-wide power brokers, such as influential landowners, regional slave sellers, parish priests, and judges. They amply demonstrated their cultural capital— their know-how—by documenting how deftly they navigated legal processes, rhetorical devices, and the importance of a public identity that centered religion and family. The breadth of their economic capital varied, which is why I use the term “women of means” rather than the more delineating category “women with wealth.” In Xalapa African-descended women of means included

Introduction 11

slave owners, landholders, business owners, and close friends and associates of prominent families. And while the archival documents attest to cases of intergenerational wealth among free women of African descent, how many women became women of means is not always clear from their notarial footprint. Some women were born free and accumulated an array of capital from their free family members. For most of the free women of African descent in the archives, how or when they gained their freedom is made invisible by the business they most centrally wanted to transact and document. However, the decision to be rooted in the notarial archives allowed for the identification of women who had the occasion, resources, and legal acumen to interact with notaries. In this way, “women of means” serves as a status placeholder materially, culturally, and socially. Xalapa was home to women who were indisputably wealthy, to those who were firmly of the middling economic sector, and to those whose lives barely appeared on the his­ torical radar because of their limited financial capital. But, as Bourdieu argues, one was never without some form of capital, as one could acquire cultural capital “in the absence of any deliberate inculcation, and therefore quite unconsciously.” In addition to the passive accrual of cultural capital, free women in Veracruz also had ample and varied social capital represented by their patrons, associates, and friends that likely generated more knowledge and connections that they could pass on to their children.10 The inclusive category of women of means provides the necessary breadth to survey this demographic as a whole by acknowledging the disparate capital of free women of African descent in colonial Mexico. The period between the late 1580s and the 1730s frames this book as the beginning of the Iberian Union to the impact of early Bourbon economic reforms, both of which had con-

12 Introduction

sequences for African-descended women in central Veracruz. With the unification of the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns in 1580, slave traders forced tens of thousands of people to the shores of Veracruz. Mexico maintained this economically advantageous position until the dissolution of the unified Crowns in 1640. By the dawn of the eighteenth century the ascendancy of the Bourbons to the Spanish throne after the War of Spanish Succession (1701–13) had wide-ranging effects on the remaining Spanish territories, including Mexico. In what follows I propose some of the potential consequences of the earliest Bourbon political and economic policies that had more targeted regional consequences than previously considered.11 The first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V, transformed the scale of economies in central Veracruz as never before with the implementation of the ferias (regional market fairs). In 1720 Xalapa served as host to the first of the Bourbon-backed ferias in New Spain. The event attracted new subjects and power brokers to the town, including people who took more extended sojourns than those who used to view Xalapa only as a transitory stop on the Camino Real. The new commercial zone was not the only change introduced by Bourbon rule. The redirection of resources by new transatlantic politics distinguished most of the eighteenth century from the previous 150 years. The early Bourbon reforms caused far-reaching reverberations, and its economic policies aimed at greater royal extraction increasingly impacted the lives of everyday people in the colonies, even those in more supposedly peripheral towns like Xalapa. These more colony-focused decisions from the metropole also meant that colonists of all backgrounds began to experience greater economic displacement, including perhaps free African-descended women in Xalapa. Moving away from the actual viceregal capital of Mexico City, I foreground the central Veracruz region and the richness

Introduction 13

of regional variability. Regional studies continue to reveal histories of flexible, and sometimes outlier, social hierarchies as people, at times hundreds of miles away from Crown and Church authorities, reconsidered legal culture and societal expectations to accommodate local conditions.12 Free women of African descent in central Veracruz thus may have had very different ideas about their social place than they might have had if they had lived in Spanish viceregal capitals in the midcolonial period. By focusing on the town of Xalapa, its connection to Veracruz Port, and the impact of the Camino Real, this book highlights the importance of capital as it literally and figuratively moved through and within the region. Tracking this movement and piecing together the history of African-descended women in early- and midcolonial Mexico is no easy task. There were no diaries. Not a single personal letter to review. No painting of Petrona standing on the land she owned or of Beatriz in front of the business she managed. But in Xalapa’s town square in a room filled with ledgers, a central table, and an overworked notarial assistant, free African-­descended women etched out incomplete stories of their lives. Completeness, however, is not the goal. It is not even a luxury one can entertain when researching the lives of African-­descended women. Sometimes all they could aspire to was proximity. We too will have only approximations of their lives, in the best of cases. Most women generated only fleeting glimpses into their worlds as discouraging as the illegible script of the shaky-handed apprentice charged with drafting notarial truth. The notarial archive serves as a base for this work because, in theory, anyone who could pay the fees could request the services of the notary. However, there is some inferential evidence that only certain types of free women of African descent did. Throughout the 1600s free women who employed

14 Introduction

the services of the notary public were most often noted as mulatas or pardas rather than as morenas or negras.13 However, the terms “negra” and “morena” had decreased in the parish archives too, which possibly indicates that the terms “mulata” and “parda” had become the most commonly used terms and not necessarily that women labeled as such were more privileged. From 1600 to 1700 free women of African descent primarily documented six types of notarial business: the issuance of a poder (power of attorney), the sale or purchase of real estate, the sale or purchase of slaves, and the manumission of a slave. Hardly ever did they register a last will and testament, but they were sometimes mentioned in the wills and codicils of others. Most of these women were unmarried, but the latter half of the seventeenth century witnessed an uptick in married women notarizing business matters. In earlier decades married women might have deferred to their husbands to conduct official business but, by the second half of the 1600s, perhaps this dynamic had changed enough that more married women began to represent themselves or in tandem with their husbands. While most of these patterns persisted throughout the early 1700s, the number of cases by or related to free women declined sharply when the eighteenth is examined as a whole. Between 1700 and 1710 free women of African descent registered thirteen cases in the notarial office of Xalapa. Between 1711 and 1720 the number had decreased to eleven. For every subsequent decade of the eighteenth century there were no more than four cases each per decade. The last twenty years of the century had a solitary case for the 1780s and just a single case for the 1790s. The decline of cases becomes more pronounced when the eighteenth century is divided at midcentury. Approximately 78 percent of all cases relating to free women of African descent during the entirety of the eighteenth century took place between 1700 and 1750. Free women had robust rep-

Introduction 15

resentation in the seventeenth century that had faded by the close of the eighteenth century, perhaps reflecting their waning business activity or perhaps even their diminishing investment in the notarial office as a legitimizing space. While it is unclear why free women progressively dis­ appeared from the public record, why had they turned to the notary at all when so many arrangements and agreements could be handled informally? Free women’s notarial and religious activities portray a striking panorama of their choices and interpersonal relationships in seventeenth-century Mexico that provide some clues to the answer. Some entries archive mundane transactions, while others reveal scandal, rumor, and tragedy. And yet, there are clear limitations to such records. Notarial records were mere slivers of some people’s lives, but ones that shed light on how they understood the importance of the notary public for free African-descended women of means in seventeenth-century Mexico. Even when their cases often went unresolved or documented only in brief, free women influenced the world around them—economically, socially, and culturally. Free women rarely went unnoticed in colonial Spanish American societies. Others observed them as they crisscrossed avenues and alleys, sold goods, provided housing, attended church, acted as godmothers, served as loan officers, married vecinos (recognized householders) or slaves, and cared for their young or elderly family members. They might not have left many records written in their own hand, perhaps only ever having their interests mediated by official documents, but their mere presence on the colonial landscape restructures how historians understand the ways others interacted on the same plane.14 The focus on free women of African descent deepens and complicates notions of race and gender in colonial Spanish America. Capital, age, social connections, free or enslaved sta-

16 Introduction

tus, occupation, and acculturation all opened up or closed off what was possible for these women, but none more significantly than race and gender. The experiences of African-­descended women serve as a vehicle for this book, but free men of African descent were present in women’s narratives as sons, husbands, grandparents, in-laws, friends, patrons, clients, and associates. At times their stories serve as necessary complements or counterpoints to the experiences free women had and the options available to them, emphasizing the importance of a gendered lens of analysis. In the same way, other groups are mobilized here to highlight comparative notes, usually around status, familial configurations, and race. While this book began with the notarial archive, it evolved to include sources from across the secular and religious gamut. The notarial lives of free African-descended women led to the examination of the histories of individuals, families, and communities recounted or merely implied in parish archives—­ including baptismal, confirmation, marriage, and death rec­ ords. Church registers give texture to the lives of free women and their families outside of notarial business, including offering a fuller picture of the African-descended population and their interpersonal relationships in seventeenth-century central Veracruz. The archives of Veracruz’s religious communities have proven equally valuable, most notably those of the Jesuits who diligently reported their observations and experiences with the region’s diverse populace. Nearly a hundred years before the now-familiar history of African-descended women in other areas of the Americas and the Caribbean during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, free women of means in seventeenth-century Xalapa accomplished similar feats.15 Ultimately, however, the progressive Crown interest in Atlantic trade and Xalapa as an epicenter via the ferias may have also resulted in the undermining of

Introduction 17

these previously highly visible women by the end of the eighteenth century. Part of what makes this history so fascinating is this conspicuous eighteenth-century archival disappearance after their near meteoric rise throughout the seventeenth century. I begin the exploration of this dynamic group by first outlining the history of the central Veracruz region in chapter 1 before moving on to examine the challenges and triumphs of women and their families in chapter 2. Chapter 3 surveys the notarial lives of a number of African-descended women who owned slaves throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, while chapter 4 narrows this investigation to the life of one woman who owned slaves, including her own siblings. Chapter 5 more specifically addresses the history of enterprising African-descended women who dared to be public actors as businesswomen and landowners in a region still reliant on slavery. In chapter 6 questions of legacy, agency, and gendered strategies of survival converge in the cases of two women who mobilized their capital to combat accusations of illegitimacy— the first through powerful family connections while the second asserted her right to belong to a collective by calling upon a regional trauma involving piracy. Free women of African descent knew that their position in society relied on their ability to develop, diversify, and document their capital. They employed strategies similar to those of other colonial subjects, but they also had uniquely gendered and racialized experiences, such as having their marriages questioned or having enslaved family members. Through the mobilization of capital, free African-descended women reconfigured what it meant to be a woman of means. Although free African-descended people lived throughout the Spanish colonies as early as the conquest era, the seventeenth century witnessed tremendous growth in their representation among the greater population and their presence in the archive.16 For more

18 Introduction

than 150 years free women of African descent challenged and negotiated their place in central Veracruz. While we know less about the everyday choices and experiences of free women, quite a bit is known about the world of central Veracruz, where free and enslaved people of African descent lived among established Indigenous communities, Spanish elites, and Spaniards and other castas from more humble beginnings. As a crucial entrepôt of the colonial economy, both the port and the Camino Real bolstered the development of the region, creating some of the circumstances that facilitated the prevalence of free African-descended women of means in Xalapa. Unlike the persecuted and mythical Mulata de Córdoba, free women of African descent actively documented matters related to their experiences as mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives. They also notarized their choices as slave owners, real estate investors, and entrepreneurs. The concern for intergenerational well-­being, and not only for wealth, permeates their files. Thus in the late sixteenth century at the “nexus of worlds” people of African descent began to shape the contours of Veracruz, inaugurating a legacy that lasted for centuries.

1 A Nexus of Worlds

T

hese were troubled times. Throughout the earlyand midcolonial periods central Veracruz struggled with epidemics, poor infrastructure, crime, vagrancy, and inconsistent Atlantic trade. People in the region also witnessed or experienced the brutal realities of slavery and other forms of exploitive labor. For women of African descent, their ingenuity and legal savoir faire allowed some to survive and others to thrive in the nexus of worlds that central Veracruz became over the course of the seventeenth century. Colonial Veracruz has been described as having a global economy rivaled by few other sites in New Spain. On purely commercial measures, the preeminence of early colonial Veracruz is indisputable. As historian Antonio García de León notes, for nearly a century (1561 to 1650) “Veracruz absorbed nine-tenths of the maritime movement of New Spain, representing 40 to 43 [percent] of the Sevillian monopoly and 36 [percent] of global transatlantic traffic.” While a boom period characterized the first half of the seventeenth century, the era as a whole experienced more limited dynamism due to the region’s reliance on favorable climates and seafaring calendars.1 Given this relative vitality, colonial Mexico attracted peo-

20

A Nexus of Worlds

Map of Mexico and the Circum-Caribbean. Credit: Daniel P. Huffman, somethingaboutmaps

ple from the vast reaches of the Spanish empire. Most of them entered the colony by first experiencing the sights, sounds, and heat of the port of Veracruz. Moving west from the coast, the Camino Real led merchants, slaves, free people, and Atlantic goods to the seat of viceregal power in Mexico City. Along the 430-kilometer stretch of the Royal Road and more than 1,300 meters above sea level lay the town of Xalapa. The port of Veracruz was the principal point of entry, but it did not serve as the favored hub of regional activity. For centuries Xalapa endured as the preferred site of permanent, periodic, and temporary living, making the town far more cosmopolitan and Atlantic than one might expect.2 Free African-descended women of means had long lived in this worldly crossroads. Yet for most of the sixteenth century

A Nexus of Worlds 21

the dearth of documentation in the parish, notarial, viceregal, and royal records obscures their existence, experiences, and contributions. Some of these early records reference slaves and allude to the free African-descended population, but rarely are women mentioned. Here, I want to build out the greater world in which African-descended women lived—the prospects they would have considered, the people they would have encountered, and the streets through which they would have strolled. In fact, a road helped free African-descended women become women of means. The Camino Real united the port of Veracruz and the smaller towns in the region that, in turn, transformed Xalapa from a historically provincial site into one that reflected and reacted to both local and imperial realities. Providing its residents and visitors new opportunities, the town of Xalapa linked the interior of the colony to the Atlantic for those traveling on the Royal Road. One eighteenth-century chronicler described Xalapa as a pueblo capital, which might perfectly characterize a site never as large as Puebla de los Ángeles or Mexico City during the colonial period but that operated as a strategic center for many and a place of capital gain for others.3 Beyond its economic importance, Xalapa presented those transiting the Camino Real a safer, cooler, and healthier stopover before their journey onward to the viceregal capital or to ships destined for the Caribbean or the Iberian Peninsula. Two roads initially emerged seeking the preeminent position as the Camino Real in central Veracruz. The northern route passed through Xalapa and a southern one ran through Orizaba in the south, both of which originated in the port of Veracruz and ended in Mexico City. The path through Xalapa became the favored route for east–west travel, but this fact did not render it a better-equipped thoroughfare to handle the traffic it began to experience. With its oft-neglected trails, poorly

22

A Nexus of Worlds

constructed bridges, and flood-prone roads, the Camino Real lacked the royalty its name deigned to convey. While not especially comfortable or safe, it mostly served its function.4 Given the imperative to ensure continual access from the interior to the Gulf Coast and back to Mexico City, viceroys ordered towns along the Camino Real to invest in its improvement. Initially, Spanish authorities believed they could charge those in the transportation industry for the cost of the repairs to the roads, arguing that they used them most frequently. However, by the 1530s this plan had failed, and the Mexico City cabildo made an agreement with the council of Veracruz Port to jointly pay for the costs. In 1551 and 1552 Viceroy Luis de Velasco mandated that Indigenous towns located closest to the Royal Road would be forced to maintain it. Members of Xalapa’s greater community also played an active role in sustaining this central transit artery. In February of 1584, by order of the Real Audiencia, the Xalapa resident Hernán Pérez de Castañeda took on the charge of repairing and bricking a section of the town’s Camino Real. The following year another Xalapa resident, Juan Pérez Ponce, requested payment for similar work.5 The colony’s interest in greater volumes of imported and exported goods in the seventeenth century exacerbated the necessity for much-needed fortification of the Royal Road. In 1633 the corregidor of Orizaba, Don Francisco de Luna y Arellano, complained that while the town had made considerable financial investments in improving the Camino Real in their section, the arrieros (muleteers) thwarted the town’s efforts to maintain the roads. The official accused the transporters of wreaking havoc on the established routes with the increased weight and frequency of their travel loads and showing little regard for those who attempted to ensure the Camino Real’s continued use. Owners of the transiting cargo feared for the

A Nexus of Worlds 23

endangerment of their goods on such precarious pathways, but few in the industry concerned themselves with the abuse suffered by Indigenous people in the transportation business. The new demands made of Indigenous workers regularly led to extreme exhaustion and even death for some. Nearly foretelling their fate, a 1531 Spanish official warned King Charles I of the dangers of establishing the Camino Real so closely to Indigenous communities, noting that it would end poorly since “the travelers mistreat the indios.”6 Given the burden of financial expenditures required for the reinforcement of the Camino Real and its historically advantageous route, very little was likely done to protect Indigenous laborers and their communities from such exploitative demands. In the minds of merchants, planters, and arrieros, too much was at stake to jeopardize their plans to expand trade. Unlike some of the Spanish settlements in the central Veracruz region, Indigenous communities had populated Xalapa long before the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés encountered the town in 1519. Indigenous groups resided in three principal communities in the area, Xallapan, Techacapan, and Xallitic, that later constituted the town of Xalapa. While Cortés and others recognized the region’s potential as an attractive rest stop for Spanish travelers and traders, Indigenous people continued to reside in the three neighborhoods and remained the majority population in the region throughout the colonial period. These communities materially contributed to the development of the town by constructing many of the major religious and governmental buildings in the sixteenth century, including the Monastery of San Francisco and the Royal House of Spanish Justice (La Casa Real de la Justicia Española). Indigenous people lived in the town and throughout the greater jurisdiction, but newly arrived Spanish colonists preferred the historical zone of Xallapan. In the early 1600s Spanish officials

24

A Nexus of Worlds

selected Xallapan as the location for the main plaza and the central housing district for Spanish residents and christened the entire town “Xalapa,” an Indigenous term meaning “place of water and sand.”7 Xalapa’s population eventually consisted of its founding Indigenous groups, Spanish criollos who were born in the colonies and peninsulares from the metropole, mestizos, and both free and enslaved Africans and people of African descent, along with the sporadic appearance of subjects from Spain’s global network. Most of the principal economic players in the region preferred the mountainous climate of Xalapa to the sweltering heat of the port. For fear of risking their perishable goods, commercial businessmen from Veracruz often stored their shipments in warehouses in Xalapa because of its more moderate weather. Throughout the early colonial period even new viceroys rested in Xalapa on their journey to Mexico City, often staying with a wealthy resident while enjoying the temperate seasons of the hilly way station. In 1640, when viceroy Don Diego López Pacheco arrived to take his place as chief administrator of New Spain, he traveled the Camino Real and extended his sojourn in Xalapa. Having endured the heat of the port, the viceroy and his entourage enjoyed eight days at Xalapa’s Convent of San Francisco because it was “very fresh, with nice waters and well maintained.”8 In addition to viceregal caravans, soldiers traveling from the interior of Mexico to the coast on expeditions stopped in Xalapa for some respite before reaching the port of Veracruz. Non-Spanish Europeans could also be found in Xalapa. In 1602 an Italian traveler sought work in town, and in 1618 a Portuguese man was employed as a manager in a packtrain business. In addition to merchants, soldiers, and dignitaries, Xalapa counted Europeans from more humble beginnings, including

A Nexus of Worlds 25

farmers and ranchers from Spain who saw the region as an ideal place to start anew.9 Determining the preconquest population of Xalapa is a challenge, the numbers being based on unreliable figures. Historian Gilberto Bermúdez Gorrochotegui has estimated that in 1519, under the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma’s control of the Triple Alliance, the areas of Xallapan, Techacapan, and Xallitic had 51,609 Indigenous residents. He also estimated that nearly 88 percent of Indigenous people in the jurisdiction of Xalapa had perished within half a century, with just 6,268 remaining in 1569. Eleven years later, nearly 1,000 more Indigenous people had lost their lives, bringing the population down to just 5,431 in 1580. Xalapa’s purported first official alcalde mayor (judge and regional administrator), Constantino Bravo de Lagunas, reported in 1580 that the jurisdiction had suffered cocolistes (pestilences) that had profoundly affected Indigenous communities. He also posited that Indigenous people died when they traveled to Veracruz because the weather in the port city was far too warm for people from the colder environs of Xalapa.10 By the late sixteenth century the greater jurisdiction of Xalapa had grown to include nineteen smaller dependent towns, populated mostly by Indigenous people. However, the majority of non-Indigenous people continued to reside in the principal town of Xalapa. The region’s population size grew and its demographics shifted significantly at the turn of the century, which marked the start of the mass importation of African slaves to Mexico and an increased Spanish presence in central Veracruz. While Xalapa experienced such population trends, a reliable accounting of the town’s non-Indigenous population is equally unclear. Rough estimates of the town’s demography in the late sixteenth century are that Indigenous people remained a majority of the town’s population, even as new demographics

26

A Nexus of Worlds

called Xalapa home. By 1580 Xalapa is believed to have had approximately 2,665 Indigenous inhabitants and 250 españoles. A little more than forty years later Thomas Gage noted that Xalapa had approximately 2,000 residents “between Indians and Spaniards,” although the total population was likely greater. On the basis of parish sources Bermúdez Gorrochotegui compiled estimates for Xalapa’s five primary demographic groups (indios, españoles, mestizos, mulatos, and negros) over most of the seventeenth century.11 The general pattern conveys a gradual recuperation of the Indigenous population, as both the Spanish and African-descended populations experienced notable growth, as did Xalapa’s economy, resulting in the increase in its slave population. Xalapa, like other towns devastated by population decline in the sixteenth century, needed labor for its diversified industries, and Africans partially filled this demand starting in the late 1500s. Enslaved Africans in Xalapa consisted of a broad representation of people mostly cited as being from West and West Central Africa and the Atlantic islands. Although most documents noted Angola as a place of origin, Xalapa’s notarial archive documented more than two dozen other locations (table 1). A few documents cited people as being from “the rivers of Guinea.” Others were described with specific ethnic identifiers, such as Carabalí, Berbesi, and Mina. By the second half of the seventeenth century, notarial records cited far fewer enslaved people with any ethnic, kingdom, or geographic designation, and those that did used the designation of Angola. However, “Angola” might have become a default location of origin when referring to bozales, or Africans who were believed to be unacculturated to Iberian customs.12 Entries specifically related to free people rarely had ethnic or origin identifications in their notarial or ecclesiastical records, although a few did. In 1658 Francisco Camacho, a free

A Nexus of Worlds 27

Table 1. Noted Locations/Ethnic Backgrounds of Slaves Sold in Xalapa, 17th c. “the nation of Angola” “the nation or land of Arará”

“the land of Lagos” “the land of Mandinga”

“the nation of Angico/ Anxico” “Arda nation”

“Cocana”

“the land of Bran” “the land of Folupa/Fulupa” “the land of Guinea” “the rivers of Guinea”

“the nation of Zape” “Jolofo land” “Los Rios” “the land of Cazanga” “the land of Bañón/Bañu”

“the land of Biafara” “the land of Lucoma/ Locume/ Locomi” “the land of Viojo”

Mozambique

“the nation of Cabo Verde” “the land of San Thomé” Santo Domingo

Berbesi

Canary Islands

Palm Islands

Mina Carabalí

La Margarita The Congo

Source: ANX, 1600–1700

negro, visited the notarial offices to initiate a poder to sell a piece of property owned jointly by him and his free negra wife, Juana de la Cruz. While her ethnic background was not documented, Francisco was cited as being originally from “La Isla de la Palma” in the Canary Islands. The surnames of some made reference to actual or claimed ancestry. For example, on June 19, 1645, a free negro named Juan Biafara from La Nueva Veracruz purchased an enslaved thirty-year-old negra from the nation of Angola named Magdalena. Whether Juan actually hailed from the Bight of Biafara in West Africa is unknown.

28

A Nexus of Worlds

According to a study based on sources from 1600 to 1800, less than 0.25 percent of all people who were forced to embark from the Bight of Biafara disembarked in the Spanish mainland territories, accounting for 1,717 people. Nearly 5 percent, however, were disembarked in Cuba, which meant that some percentage of this group of more than 35,000 could have later been displaced to other areas of the Spanish American dominion.13 However, “Biafara,” like “Angola,” might have also served as a generic proxy for a diverse spectrum of sites and cultures in West and West Central Africa. Why most free people no longer documented ties to African kingdoms and cultures is unclear, but they may have preferred a more diasporic identity rather than one grounded in more specific African ethnic categories. The notary public may have also decided to omit this information for free people as the seventeenth century progressed. Xalapa’s population largely consisted of African, Indigenous, and Spanish groups along with their multiracial progeny. However, a few notable exceptions represented Spain’s aspirations to advance the kingdom’s interest in Asian trade, the enslavement of Asians, and just how intertwined both were with Xalapa’s Atlantic character. Chinos, a term used to designate people of varying Asian ancestry, did not represent a significant demographic in Xalapa, but they played a role in the town’s history from at least the early seventeenth century. Free chinos may have experienced some social mobility in Xalapa, although to what degree is uncertain given the scarce references. One notarial case highlighted that a man named Antonio Bravo, who spoke Spanish and was identified as “de nación chino,” worked for the alcalde mayor of Xalapa in 1615. Whether this was a prominent position or not is unclear. Most chinos documented in the town were enslaved, including women. In 1617 an enslaved woman named Antonia was cited as a china from

A Nexus of Worlds 29

Goa. Portugal had held a presence in Goa since 1510 when Afonso de Albuquerque conquered the region, and Africans had been in India as early as the fourteenth century.14 Given this early presence of African captives in western India, the ethnic background of slaves in Goa is ambiguous, even with the supposed clarification of the term “chino.” The same was true of Xalapa’s population “from Macau.” In 1616, when a sugar ingenio owner purchased a number of enslaved laborers, two men coincidentally both named Antonio were cited as Macanese. Macau served as Portugal’s Chinese trading post, but “being from Macau” could signal any number of ethnicities outside of China. During the era of Portuguese Macau, the population included servants and slaves from Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and multiple sites in Africa along with people denoted by the ambiguous category of genta da terra (literally “people from the land”). While not a numerical majority in colonial Mexico, Asians from China, India, the Philippines, and other Pacific Islands were enslaved and transported to the Spanish colonies, primarily to work in domestic service.15 As there are only threadbare indications of their lives in Xalapa’s notarial archive, it is difficult to discern if chino slaves were targeted to fill specific labor demands or were forced into a broad array of occupations like African-­ descended slaves in the region. Most others designated by the term “chino” lacked further identifying information and likely came from a broader range of areas in Asia and not China alone. For example, a girl in Xalapa named María received a carta de libertad (freedom card) in 1617 from her two slave owners. Her mother, Isabel, was cited as an esclava china while her father, Juan de Cabrera, was noted only as a carpenter with no caste designation.16 Another enslaved china named Marcela was sold from Xalapa to Puebla in 1736. Later that year an enslaved chino named Nicolás

30

A Nexus of Worlds

de Guesera was sold away to Mexico. In 1738, in Xalapa’s neighboring town of Naolinco, a Spanish woman sought a poder to sell an unnamed enslaved woman designated as a china and a criolla (someone born in the colonies), demonstrating that even after a generation in Mexico people of purported Asian ancestry were seen as distinct in the region.17 While limited, a few references mention African-descended women who sought affective and formal relationships with chino men. In June of 1656 an enslaved negra named Andrea “from Angola” was noted as being married to an enslaved chino named Gonzalo. And in 1670 an enslaved negro named Juan de Castro was noted as the legitimate child of a negra criolla named Teresa and a chino named Antonio de Castro.18 Most African-descended women found partners with origins closer to home, although some spouses arrived from distant locales in Mexico, demonstrating how extensive free women’s connections were across the colony. According to Xalapa’s seventeenth-century parish rec­ords, the Camino Real facilitated geographic mobility for people of African descent seeking partnership. This migratory group included people from sites one might have expected, such as Puebla de los Ángeles, La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz, La Antigua Ciudad de Veracruz, and Mexico City. However, one case noted that a free mulato named Miguel de la Cruz, who was originally from Guatemala, had moved to Xalapa, where he married a mulata slave named Cathalina Martín on February 20, 1642. Unfortunately, by the early eighteenth century few marriage records stated where the applicants had been born, usually noting only that they were vecinos or residentes of Xalapa or lived nearby within its jurisdiction (unlike a vecina/o, a resident was considered a less permanent member of a town or city). Between 1724 and 1736 fewer spouses of African descent were born outside the jurisdiction of Xalapa. However, the

A Nexus of Worlds 31

number of places spouses hailed from had increased. A few still came from Mexico City, Puebla de los Ángeles, La Nueva Veracruz, La Antigua Veracruz, and Guatemala, but eighteen transplants stated that they had relocated from La Ciudad de Oaxaca, Perote, Tepeaca, Teziutlán, Jilotepec, and Hualingo (contemporary location unclear).19 The occurrence of such a relatively high number of spouses from outside the jurisdiction highlights Xalapa’s reputation as a site that attracted a diverse group of colonial subjects, including people of African descent. For free women and men who came from all over the region and from towns and cities further afield, Xalapa might have appeared as the land of opportunity, a place where profits could be earned in the packtrain business, sugar production, and various other trading markets. Some African-descended people likely stayed for economic opportunities. A few probably settled in town because of the lure of an attractive spouse and a relatively more open society that would allow for greater interracial networks and African-descended social and economic advancement. The economically turbulent midcolonial period and the actual storms that disrupted Atlantic trade demanded that residents of the area diversify their assets. On April 8, 1600, a member of the Jesuit residence in La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz reported stark conditions in the port, writing that it received hundreds of Spain’s most destitute people without enough in their pockets to pay for a meal, adding, “like the people of this city.” Emphasizing the poverty of the population, he added that in the span of one month alone Jesuits helped to feed more than 280 people in the port city.20 Searching for more sustainable work beyond the periodic labor provided by the arrival of ships, many of these desperate people looked inland. The Camino Real and the town of Xalapa afforded prospects for both skilled and unskilled workers, especially with the advent of the ferias in the eighteenth century.

32

A Nexus of Worlds

For the entire colonial period the location and potential of Xalapa drew the attention of both Crown and Church. However, as the seventeenth century entered its final days, Xalapa became a site of competition and tension, especially among Spanish criollos and peninsulares. Peter Rees argues that the economic conflicts between comerciantes from Spain and those from Mexico resulted in a push to establish a “ ‘neutral place’ on the road between Mexico and Veracruz.” Discussions between the most powerful commercial players resulted in intervention by the Spanish monarch. On August 20, 1718, King Philip V named Xalapa as the center of New Spain’s trans­ atlantic trade by declaring that the town would host the first Bourbon-backed feria in 1720 and all subsequent ferias, temporarily ostracizing the viceregal capital.21 The choice of Xalapa once again underscored the vitality of the town, serving as it did as a negotiating site for politically and economically commanding forces challenging one another for supremacy. Historian Manuel Carrera Stampa contends that the ferias of Xalapa were undoubtedly the most important in New Spain. With their introduction, Xalapa received visitors in numbers it had never before experienced as well as people who stayed for longer than others generally ever had. Residents and travelers alike might have even felt like they were experiencing a new convergence of worlds during the era of royal market fairs. From 1720 to 1778 Xalapa celebrated eleven of the thirteen scheduled ferias. Merchants flooded the streets with silks, linens, soaps, knives, chisels, cheeses, wines, vinegar, and almonds. The first shipments destined for Xalapa arrived in Veracruz Port on October 26, 1720, carrying nearly forty-five hundred tons of merchandise. The imported haul was so extensive that it took more than two months (until January 7, 1721) to fully disembark all of the goods.22 Xalapa’s residents eagerly awaited the commodities that

A Nexus of Worlds 33

eventually poured into the town. Others strategized to gain early access in order to procure the most desirable items before they even reached the Camino Real. Just two weeks after the first flota’s arrival, the Spanish vecino of Xalapa Don Francisco Marcos López de Villamil ordered his legal proxy to travel to the port to purchase some of the newly landed Iberian goods. Unsurprisingly, muleteers reaped the rewards of their critical services as commercial buyers contracted transporters to safely usher in valuable freight from the port to Xalapa and onward to the interior. So convinced were the townspeople of the feria’s success that even the butcher shops in Xalapa rushed to stock up on their supplies in order to attend to their newly expanded customer base while the ferias carried on.23 On average, ferias lasted between two to three months. They could sometimes last longer if vendors squabbled over prices, delaying the opening of the market. A key feature of the ferias was that merchants agreed to fix all prices before they made products available to the public, which allowed for a lively theater of regional competitors. Among comerciantes españoles, the interests of wealthy merchants from Mexico City wielded influence by virtue of their greater wealth and connections as compared to more modest purveyors. Commercial sellers from the viceregal capital likely saw this transition to ferias as their opportunity to edge out local businesspeople, including free African-descended women of means. As the eighteenth century marched on, free women who had chronicled their expertise in financial management, business ownership, and real estate negotiation throughout the seventeenth century became less and less visible in the archives. This economic isolation likely deepened as the town celebrated ferias until the Crown dismantled the flota system nearly sixty years later.24 Before the introduction of the ferias, locals and permanent transplants alike served as owners and administrators of

34

A Nexus of Worlds

most of Xalapa’s industries. Many had long taken an interest in hospitality-centered businesses like owning a venta (inn). Within a few years after the crippling of the Aztec Empire in 1521, Cortés ordered the establishment of ventas in towns along the Camino Real, including in Xalapa. One of the first was the Venta de Aguilar, established in 1525 and located near Xalapa in the town of Chapultepeque. Even Xalapa’s Indigenous governing council sought to benefit from the town’s transient culture. In the early 1600s they owned a boardinghouse in the town square that they often leased to Spaniards. In one es­ pecially fruitful deal finalized in January of 1640, the council rented the inn to the vecino Luis Her­nández for a period of three years at 150 pesos annually. A free negra named Felipa was noted as having worked at the inn later that year. Felipa was not the first African-descended woman in this line of work. In 1584 Beatriz de Porras, “de color negra,” signed on to a yearlong contract to work for Xacome Garrido at his establishment, the Venta de Plan del Río. In the early 1600s a free African-­ descended woman actually owned the Venta del Rio while another woman of African descent appeared to manage the Venta de la Rinconada.25 These cases may have been rare given the predominance of Spanish and Indigenous venta owners. In her examination of venta licenses granted before 1565, historian Elisabeth K. Butzer did not find a single woman who owned a boardinghouse, maintaining that inn keeping was too precarious for women proprietors. Running a venta may have been dangerous, but free women of African descent in the early 1600s likely assessed the long-term viability of offering housing to the steady stream of travelers passing through Xalapa and made the calculated risk to join the industry. While these ventas provided lodging and some even had resting areas for pack ani-

A Nexus of Worlds 35

mals, the free women who owned them also helped to reinscribe the Camino Real as the principal road in New Spain.26 African-descended women perhaps would have invested in ventas and real estate in greater numbers had they not been impeded from opportunities to own the largest privately held tracks in Xalapa, which Spanish elites owned nearly exclusively. Between 1560 and 1600 Spanish settlers received land grants from New Spain’s viceroy to develop pastures for the maintenance of both large and small ranch animals, such as oxen and mules. One Puebla de los Ángeles vecino, Francisco de Orduña Loyando, took full advantage of the viceroy’s plans for regional growth and relocated to Xalapa. From at least the 1580s onward Francisco and his family were among the largest land and slave owners in the jurisdiction at the turn of the century. However, sometimes viceroys were too generous and granted the same land to multiple parties, resulting in a number of awkward admissions in the notarial archive as people came forward and admitted that the land allotted to them was actually owned by another vecino. Others fought back against such claims. In 1596 Francisco de Orduña Loyando sent his sons as emissaries to petition the viceroy personally for a resolution of his own land dispute.27 These early endowments instigated inheritance trusts of large swaths of agrarian land that remained under Spanish ownership for the entire seventeenth century. However, in-­ demand mules, oxen, horses, and cattle for farming and sugar cultivation afforded people of African descent comparatively more profitable ventures. Many of the arrieros working for recuas (transportation businesses) were African-descended or Indigenous men, and their backbreaking labor moved cargo and people with trains of pack animals along the Camino Real to Mexico City, Puebla, Orizaba, and back to the port of Vera-

36

A Nexus of Worlds

cruz.28 Both venta and recua owners were instrumental members of Xalapa’s development as an agricultural region and a commerce-friendly town equipped to welcome and accommodate the business of travelers who brought greater economic opportunities to this regional hub. While free women and men of African descent had a long legacy in Xalapa so too did the institution of slavery. Opening the notarial books of the earliest days of the seventeenth century, one is immediately struck by the number of entries related to the purchase or sale of slaves, most of whom were designated as having been born in Africa. Case after case foretells the town’s imminent legacy as a center of the movement of the transatlantic slave trade in Mexico. In Xalapa, enslaved Africans supplemented some economic activities, while a few enterprises in central Veracruz depended on slavery. The height of the slave trade in Veracruz closely corresponded to the ­influx of enslaved Africans to the greater Spanish dominion, specifically the era of the Iberian Union (1580–1640). In fact, slavery in the central Veracruz region mirrored patterns found throughout New Spain, including the diversity of industries in which slaves labored. Enslaved Africans cultivated sugar cane, pressed and prepared it for market, toiled as porters and muleteers, constructed buildings, served in religious institutions, and provided domestic service for households of various backgrounds.29 In Veracruz Port during the arrival of the flotas and other ships, enslaved stevedores and sailors proved indispensable. However, it was in the agricultural sector, and specifically that of sugar cane, where enslaved Africans had the greatest nu­ merical representation throughout the central Veracruz region. While commerce dominated the economic landscape of Xalapa, farming operated as an important secondary industry. Throughout most of the seventeenth century, the towns of Xalapa, Córdoba, and Orizaba comprised the heartland trifecta

A Nexus of Worlds 37

of sugar production for all of New Spain. Between 1540 and 1600 the price of sugar rose steeply, handsomely benefiting those who put early stock in cane sugar’s potential to attract a  global market. Both free and enslaved people lived on or worked at these ingenios and a few of these sugar-producing complexes appeared in the narratives of free African-­descended women. Due in part to Crown gifts of land, the first haciendas in the jurisdiction of Xalapa were built between 1580 and 1620. This development created a greater dependency on Indigenous labor and an increased demand for enslaved Africans in the region. In the first decade of the seventeenth century more than three hundred enslaved Africans were sold in Xalapa, of whom very few were resold to other regions. Many of them were purchased specifically for the backbreaking labor of cane cutting, pressing, and storage of the perishable good.30 Most of Xalapa’s earliest and largest haciendas focused on sugar cultivation and cattle ranching, with a lesser investment in growing corn. Maíz remained an important staple crop not only for consumption but also for currency in Indigenous communities. Some farms also cultivated chilies while others grew beans and squash. And although wheat does not appear to have been cultivated in Xalapa, it was imported into town to fulfill the desires of residents with a more Spanish diet. Xalapa’s offerings were so impressive that in 1622 the Carmelite missionary Fray Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa poetically described the bounty of Xalapa’s soil-rich lands, writing, “This town near the Camino Real of Veracruz to Mexico and Puebla; all of the land has many lush groves, with streams of sweet and crystalline waters, with great freshness—a gift of earthly paradise, which always has good weather. There is a district of the town where the village breeds livestock, [such as] mares, horses, pigs, and poultry in large pastures. There are also oranges, limes, ciders, grapefruit, precious and esteemed woods (like ce-

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dars, ebony, cypress, liquidambar with other roots, gums, liquors and medicinal fruits).”31 To early visitors Xalapa signaled a providential welcome, but investors also recognized the region’s economic potential as commerce, transportation, and husbandry all expanded in the seventeenth century. In addition to being a regional nucleus of business ventures, the town had the reputation of being a site for respite and repose. In Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa’s 1622 account, the friar described Xalapa as an ideal Spanish town with all the trappings needed to accommodate guests of all kinds: “The town of [Xalapa was] founded on a marvelous site, with a pleasing view, spring-like weather, good skies, healthy air, fertile and abundant countryside, in which corn, wheat, and other fruits of Spain and this land grow well. The town has about 200 Spanish vecinos, a good central church, a convent named San Francisco, a hospital to cure the poor sick people, and other churches and hermitages.” While the Spanish population size was larger than estimated by Fray Vázquez de Espinosa, others corroborated his account of Xalapa as bountiful, healing, and Christian. One eighteenth-century chronicler referred to the town as a “sanctuary” with “corn, fruits, and some fish that they get from the banks of the river.”32 And as noted, it had the advantage of a hospital to treat ill residents and weary trav­ elers. During the long seventeenth century, a site of care was much in demand in the greater central Veracruz region, a need often filled by this seeming land of plenty. Xalapa was not a town of regional movement and local concerns alone. As early as the mid-sixteenth century officials in Mexico City conceived of Xalapa as a site of transatlantic importance. A 1555 council request sent to King Charles I included an entreaty to the monarch to approve resources to build a royal hospital on the Camino Real either in Xalapa or Lencero (a nearby town), detailing that the hospital was neces-

A Nexus of Worlds 39

sary “to cure the sick who come to and from Spain.” In the 1560s Fray Juan de Mancilla founded the Hospital de la Inmaculada Concepción, centrally located in Xalapa’s town square. Throughout the seventeenth century the hospital attended to the medical needs of visitors and residents of all backgrounds. Even when the hospital lacked trained physicians, such as was reported in 1609, the friars of the town tended to the sick with the limited supplies and medicine available to them. Still, some were more than happy to receive treatment in Xalapa. One eighteenth-century chronicler amusingly implied that some travelers claimed that they had suffered accidents that allowed them to stay in town longer as they recovered.33 Travel and commerce intertwined the histories of Xalapa and Veracruz, and so did epidemics. Many residents of the port retreated to Xalapa to escape declining conditions in the city.34 Virulent outbreaks occurred in La Nueva Veracruz in the mid-seventeenth century, where people of African descent numbered among the many victims. Those who passed away in Xalapa may have died of completely unrelated causes, but the rhetoric of the clergy makes it clear that some believed that arrieros brought the dangers of the supposedly disease-prone port to the sanctuary of the mountainous town. While the cause of the spread likely included women and men outside of the transportation business, the fear of epidemics was well grounded. Some witnesses of these contagions chronicled their experiences in excruciating detail. In 1699 the arrival of an English ship with enslaved Africans was blamed for an outbreak of the “vómito prieto” (black vomit), which was likely yellow fever. The description of the symptoms of the disease was horrifying: “It begins with a fiery fever, the eyes appear to breathe fire and blood; on the second or third day, the whole body releases a pestilent stench; a rabid delirium follows, excruciating

40

A Nexus of Worlds

stomach knots, a bloody vomit—[appearing to be] burned and black, that ends one’s life.” The disease filled the streets of Veracruz with “terror and confusion” as it was believed to be incurable. The vómito prieto had become so infamous that “during the start of [the eighteenth] century, it made foreigners fearful of the port of Veracruz.”35 Others in the city reported on the social pressures that illness placed on the affected communities. In one late-­sixteenth-­ century Jesuit residence, members found themselves catering to the spiritual and medical needs of the area, noting that “outside of their continuous work in the city and the neighboring farms, two fathers dedicated themselves to the [fortress] island of San Juan de Ulúa, for the assistance and care of the many sick people whom [the chief magistrate], because of his malice, did not give permission to continue on to the continent.” The rise in diseases ravaging the region prompted both secular and religious officials to attempt to identify the responsible parties for the city’s health crises. The bishop of Puebla Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1640–55), who briefly served also as the viceroy of New Spain (June to November of 1642), targeted the Jesuits in Veracruz. During a sermon he gave in the port on September 6, 1648, the bishop supposedly railed against the Society, “attributing the pestilence of Veracruz to decomposed bodies, to the confessions and the sacrilegious confessors, adamantly insisting on this and on the heresies started by arguments, things that were well understood to having been said about the society [of Jesus].”36 The Jesuits, however, had long believed that other elements were at play. A joint letter written on May 1, 1600, from “the convents of the religious of Veracruz” to King Philip III blamed the region’s notorious mosquitos. These most unrelenting culprits transformed into vectors for both yellow fever and malaria, resulting in devastating death tolls in the region.

A Nexus of Worlds 41

Panorama view of Xalapa and the surrounding mountains (1848). John Phillips (ca. 1800–1868), Jalapa (1848). Toned lithograph with applied watercolor, 10 1/2 x 15 3/8 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, 1979.10.4

When the principal port of Veracruz was moved from La Antigua to its permanent site at La Nueva Veracruz in 1599, the religious community was not so keen on following its flock to the new location, writing, “it will not be possible to move the residence to the said port because there are no priests [there] and because of the risk to one’s health and life because that site is so unhealthy, [and we] want to avoid the heat and the continuous plague of mosquitos that they experience every day, which is the cause of deaths that have happened this year and that still happen.” In the same letter Jesuits in Veracruz nearly begged to not be sentenced to the same fate, reporting that one thousand Indigenous tributaries had died due to the move to the new site of the port. Given how quickly epidemics spread in

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A Nexus of Worlds

the region via the constant flow of travelers on the Camino Real and the periodic landings of transatlantic fleets, religious communities feared that the new mosquito-infested locale would ravage the population before they could be brought into the Catholic fold. Even as late as the mid-seventeenth century the conditions in the port had become so untenable for one visiting priest that his doctors specifically ordered him to convalesce in Xalapa.37 The English traveler John Chilton described the conditions in Veracruz in 1568. Noting the circumstances faced by the mercantile class, he wrote, “They are in number about four hundred, who only remain there during the time that the Spanish fleet dischargeth, and is loaded again, which is from the end of August to the beginning of April following. And then for the unwholesomness of the place they depart thence sixteen leagues further up within the country, to a town called Xalapa, a very healthful soil.” He added that women also fled the port and traveled to the interior as soon as they knew they were pregnant in order to “avoid the perill of the infected aire.” Others echoed Chilton’s assessment. In 1584 Fray Alonso Ponce said of the port (at that time located in La Antigua Veracruz), “It is a town of Spaniards, five leagues from the Port of San Juan de Ulúa where everything that goes to Spain from Mexico and nearly everything from New Spain [in general]. It is a very hot and sickly city where mosquitos reign and where even the large number of African-descended people have the liberty that they want. Very few children are raised in this city and the older ones ordinarily walk around sickly and discolored. And many of them and the ones that come from Spain die there, especially when the flotas arrive.” While less contagious illnesses had affected the communities in the region since Fray Ponce’s time, a particularly lethal plague spread like wildfire

A Nexus of Worlds 43

throughout the city in 1651, similar to one that had hit La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz just two years prior. As a result shipmates and travelers preferred to stay on board their vessels, risking the dangers of the violent northerly and easterly winds and unprotected bays rather than to dock and be exposed to the port’s rampant maladies.38 Free African-descended women and men could not completely escape this path of deadly viruses, but some may have believed they would be nominally safer in Xalapa. In the summer of 1650, three free mulatos were buried within days of each other in town. The parish record keeper noted that the men had died of the “mal pestilente de Veracruz” (the bad pestilence of Veracruz). The first man, Juan Alonso, a vecino of Mexico City, died on July 24, 1650. The second man, Lorenso Martín, from Puebla de los Ángeles, died five days later. On August 2, 1650, a man named Diego de Perea from Mexico City passed away from the same “bad pestilence” from the port of Veracruz.39 The men did not appear to know one another, but they all worked in the same business. The records noted that both Juan and Lorenso were arrieros (but not for the same company), and Diego was a recua employee. A number of more casual travelers died in Xalapa due to illness as they journeyed to or from the port. In 1648 a negro criollo named Diego from La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz passed away in the Hospital de la Inmaculada Concepción as a result of the “pestilence of Veracruz.” María Balera, a free mulata blanca originally from La Antigua Veracruz but a vecina of La Nueva Veracruz also died unexpectedly while on a trip to Xalapa with her husband, Agustín de Espinosa Dorante, a Spanish criollo and barber. While neither was from Xalapa, Agustín interred María in the convent of San Francisco. Most significantly about this case, her husband’s profession as a bar-

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A Nexus of Worlds

ber demonstrates that the illnesses in the region rendered helpless even those with medical training as they attempted to assist family members battling for their lives.40 It appears that every few years there was another unexplained illness that reached Xalapa. For example, in 1644 a free mulata blanca named Jacinta López from La Antigua Veracruz died while in Xalapa with her husband. In August of 1655 a castizo man (someone of purported mestizo and Spanish parentage) named Christoval de Espinosa from La Antigua Veracruz died of unknown causes in Xalapa, leaving behind his free mulata wife Antonia Ruis to grieve his passing. In November of 1655 Nicolás Garsia, a mulato and vecino of Veracruz, was visiting Xalapa with his wife (no caste designated) when he unexpectedly fell ill and died, perhaps contracting an illness on the Camino Real. In 1706 a married free parda named Nicolasa Pacheco from La Antigua Veracruz died in Xalapa while visiting the town with her husband.41 The cause of death of these free African-descended people is not specified in their entries, but it would not be surprising if they, like many others from the shores of Veracruz, had attempted to fend off a deadly disease by traveling the Camino Real to Xalapa. Near-seasonal epidemics, suffocating humidity, and noxious mosquitos were not the only challenges port residents faced: Veracruz perpetually suffered the consequences of extreme weather patterns. In 1552 a devastating hurricane slammed into the seaside city, presaging a long history of climatological disasters. While the port had experienced flooding previously, a 1665 norte that ripped through La Nueva Veracruz left most of the streets submerged in water and destroyed nearly all of the docked vessels of the flota. Notably in 1721, when the region hosted its first feria, Xalapa was chosen over the city of Veracruz because the merchants believed that “the weather [in the port] was so deadly.”42

A Nexus of Worlds 45

Often beaten down by meteorological conditions, the port also had to contend with deadly fires in the early seventeenth century. One conflagration in 1607 was so devastating that Jesuits in Veracruz reported back to Rome that “we have given thanks to God that [the fire] did not arrive to our house.” Eleven years later another blaze ravaged the city, destroying at least two convents and one church. The damage must have been extensive because in 1619 a member of the Jesuit residence in the port acknowledged that they had heard that “the better part of the city of Veracruz [had burned down] together with our church and house.” In a letter from Rome on February 21, 1622, the Father General of the Society of Jesus stated, “I have not forgotten to charge the Provincial Father [of New Spain] with helping with the construction of the house and church.” The dispatch suggested that the fire had rendered these properties unsalvageable and in desperate need of resources for their reconstruction, perhaps indicating the slow recovery process of other houses and buildings damaged in the blaze.43 One can almost imagine the residents of Xalapa taking pity on their port neighbors as they arrived crestfallen from the many tragedies that threatened their city. Free women of African descent who owned businesses or held labor contracts in town also likely saw greater opportunities as waves of new clientele periodically resettled in Xalapa. African-descended women did not spend all of their time navigating and monopolizing Xalapa’s changing economic dynamics. Religious expression and Catholic institutions oriented many of their life experiences. Free women baptized and confirmed their children, sought godparents for their offspring’s spiritual edification, contracted marriages, and joined confraternities (religious lay organizations) with fellow parishioners. In central Veracruz—quite literally the land of the True Cross— the Catholic Church actively sought to evangelize the port, its

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A Nexus of Worlds

agricultural peripheries, and the towns along the Camino Real, paying special attention to the ministry of African-descended people. While earlier scholarship focuses on some of the difficulties with these efforts, both Crown and Church demonstrated a clear commitment to overcoming them. Franciscans arrived first in May of 1524, followed by the Jesuits in 1572. Debates over who could most effectively take on the mission of proselytization arose. Hernán Cortés, for example, held a particular aversion to the seculares (secular clergy), ordained ministers who have not taken vows of a religious institute. Cortés derided the seculares for “practicing vanities” and “falling into vice,” maintaining that such behavior “would bring our Faith into contempt and the natives would hold it as a mockery; and this would do such mischief that I do not believe any amount of preaching would be of any avail.”44 Cortés “begged [Charles V] to send us bishops and other prelates,” but Spanish officials in Xalapa actually preferred the secular clergy. The monastery of San Francisco, a structure that resembled a fortress, served as the religious headquarters of the greater jurisdiction. After Xalapa established its own parish in 1641 the monastery lost oversight of sacred rites, including being able to bury people at the convent without special dispensation. When Bishop Palafox ordered the secularization of Xalapa’s parish, authority passed from the Franciscans to the secular clergy, diminishing the influence of the friars who had taken care of the region’s religious needs for nearly a century.45 Free women sought members of both the monastery and the parish for expected requests, such as the officiation of nuptials, the offering of last rites, and the baptism of their children. Importantly, African-descended women called upon these religious connections and communities to bolster their notarial claims, especially around questions of social legitimacy.

A Nexus of Worlds 47

Xalapa was indeed a nexus of worlds. People from Africa, Asia, and Europe lived in the town. Slaves cut sugar cane, importers brought wine, and arrieros transported prized parcels. Dawdling viceroys and duplicitous soldiers (who happened to injure themselves) both found pretexts to avoid their duties with an extended stay in the town on the hill. Given the halcyon descriptions and reports of clean air and fresh food, it is not hard to understand why so many longed to spend more time in Xalapa. Far enough removed from the chaos of the port and pressures of the capital, it was a gateway in more ways than one. And by virtue of the Camino Real, it was not a world away—even if a journey on the road was not particularly smooth. The town offered opportunities for some, but it was not edenic for all, and freedom took many forms. Various maroon communities took advantage of the mountainous valleys along the Camino Real to avoid capture by slave patrols. In the sixteenth century, Mexico witnessed major revolts by people of African descent in 1537, 1546, and 1570 along with a number of smaller uprisings. In 1606 alone, reports of re­bellions in central Veracruz, including incidents in Villa Rica, Veracruz, Antón Lizardo, and Río Blanco, struck fear in a region dependent on both Indigenous and enslaved African labor. In addition to these uprisings, maroons established clandestine settlements or more temporary camps throughout central Veracruz, including in or near Orizaba, Córdoba, Huatusco, Alvarado, Rinconada, Medellín, Tlacotalpan, Zongolica, Río Blanco, Antón Lizardo, Villa Rica, Maltrata, Acultzingo, Actopan, La Antigua, La Nueva Veracruz, and other mountainous areas near the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Pico de Orizaba.46 The serenity of Xalapa’s landscape did not make it im-

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A Nexus of Worlds

mune to slave revolt. Given that Cortés included enslaved people in his retinue when he landed in Veracruz in 1519, there may have been maroons in the town and greater jurisdiction as early as the 1520s, including those abandoning the conquistador’s march toward the Aztec capital. However, few sources actually note maroon activity in or near Xalapa during the midcolonial period. On June 10, 1725, however, the town’s notary documented an uprising that occurred in the jurisdiction of Xalapa at the ingenio San Miguel Almolonga.47 According to a legal motion recorded a month later, on July 3, two Spanish vecinos from nearby Naolinco had been gravely injured in an insurrection. The documents identified “negros and other aggressors” as the instigators, underscoring that enslaved African-­ descended people rebelled against the repressive colonial system but so too did others. Free African-descended women and their families witnessed it all—the prospects, challenges, and tragedies. Their experiences in Xalapa throughout the seventeenth century were not always representative of the lives of African-descended people in the greater central Veracruz region. More broadly, free women in Xalapa were not experiencing life in the wake of Tacky’s Rebellion of 1760 in Jamaica, the triumph of the Haitian Revolution in 1804, or the 1878 labor rebellion known as Fireburn led by three Black women known as Queen Mary, Queen Agnes, and Queen Mathilda, who organized the destruction of fifty plantations in Danish St. Croix.48 Free African-descended women in seventeenth-century Xalapa did not live in a region on the verge of becoming free. Slavery was having a resurgence just 140 kilometers away in the newly minted town of Córdoba. Its founding in 1618 as an antimaroon Spanish settlement contrasted sharply with the clandestine communities of those who declared their own freedom as maroons throughout central Veracruz. Slave revolts,

A Nexus of Worlds 49

the growth in maroon communities, and the expansion of slavery in the region offer critical context for understanding the life choices and chances of free African-descended women of means in Xalapa. As they looked to places like Córdoba, they witnessed virtually no free women like them. However, very much like enslaved women, free women of African descent in the region employed an array of defensive and offensive strategies to fight for a better life in this nexus of worlds.

2 Defending Family

I

n 1681 the free mulata María García and her free mulato husband, Juan Godínez, purchased a house and a plot of land that measured 50 square varas (a “Spanish yard”) for thirty-five pesos. That a wife and a husband jointly purchased property was not unusual in Xalapa or elsewhere in the Spanish dominion, as such rights were entrenched in Iberian legal culture.1 The scarcity of more personal details for this couple was unfortunately equally common. The bills of sale generated by free African-descended women, in particular, rarely included even the most rudimentary information often found in the documents of Spaniards, such as their occupations and birthplaces. In María’s and Juan’s specific case, the property and the price were not particularly noteworthy either since both were about average during the late seventeenth century. The only seemingly notable fact about the case is that the two buyers were people of African descent. While the forced displacement of Africans to central Veracruz had slowed considerably by the late seventeenth century, the slave trade had not ceased nor had the institution of slavery been wholly supplanted by free labor systems. In response, free women fortified themselves and their families with

Defending Family 51

the protective shield of the Spanish administration. Even a cursory examination of records as threadbare as María García’s makes plain that notarial business was largely a family affair for women of African descent. Most centrally, the diversity of experiences and the multiple configurations of their relationships offer insight into the milieu in which they lived, raised their families, and attempted to sustain multigenerational capital— economic, social, and cultural. How women chose to present themselves and their family underscores their awareness of the tenuousness of their positions but also opens a window into their multigenerational strategies of survival in a region where slavery still loomed large. Slavery alienated children from their families, sold husbands to distant haciendas, and paralyzed mothers with fear as their daughters matured to become young adults. For African-­ descended women, freedom did not free them of these experiences. How did free women understand their liberty when their children were still enslaved, their husbands risked limbs at sugar mills, and they themselves had to actively distance themselves from the racialized expectations of sexual impropriety? People may have thought of African-descended women as licentious and disorderly, but their investment in fulfilling or approximating socioreligious expectations and their insistence that their families—however they defined and formed them—were legitimate reveals the extent to which women of African descent served as guardians of their lineages. The centrality of these ties reverberates no more loudly than when African-­ descended women sought to free their families. A few detailed notarial cases documented the journeys toward manumission that some free African-descended women and their families endured in mid-seventeenth-century Xalapa. How some of these same women who attempted to free their loved ones from the yoke of bondage gained their own freedom

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Defending Family

is often obscured. However, they all had assembled enough cultural capital to negotiate the institutional apparatus of the notarial office, aware that trusting verbal promises of manumission was far too dangerous. Two pages of carefully worded script with a flurry of signatures below the concluding notes held the power to change lives—to offer African-descended women and their families a chance to survive, and even thrive, in freedom. On January 17, 1657, Bernarda received just that—the carta de libertad she had been waiting for.2 The twenty-fouror twenty-five-year-old mulata criolla had spent her entire life as the slave of two generations of the same family. Don Antonio de Orduña Loyando, who had inherited Bernarda from his parents, remarkably granted her a noncompensatory manumission, writing in the standard rhetoric of such documents, “For just causes that move me and the good service that she has done for me, I have promised to give her freedom in return and [I do this] for the love I have for her.” Not only had Bernarda secured her freedom with this declaration, but she was not burdened by the nearly insurmountable debt of paying Don Antonio for her market value, which would have likely amounted to 350 to 400 pesos. Awaiting to greet Bernarda as she changed legal statuses was her free negra mother Micaela. At some unspecified time Micaela also secured her freedom from Don Antonio de Orduña Loyando, the alcalde mayor of Xalapa and the owner of the sugar ingenio San Pedro de Buenavista.3 Since Micaela did not leave her own mark on the notarial landscape, it is unclear whether she had to compensate the business owner and provincial magistrate for her freedom. Bernarda’s carta de libertad, on the other hand, offers something of her and her mother’s journey. Bernarda was born in the home of Don Antonio’s parents, Ana de Castillo y Guadalajara and Diego de Orduña Loyando. Don Antonio

Defending Family 53

eventually inherited her from them, though at what point is unknown. Although he freed one woman of African descent (and perhaps even two, mother and daughter), Don Antonio remained steadfast in his continued oppression of other African-­ descended people. Don Antonio de Orduña Loyando was the great-grandson of the Spanish conquistador Francisco Orduña Barriga, who claimed to have accompanied Hernán Cortés in his conquests. The conquistador’s son Francisco Orduña Loyando founded the sugar ingenio San Pedro de Buenavista, and by the early 1600s he owned more than sixty slaves, who helped produce the tremendous wealth the Orduña Loyando family enjoyed for much of the seventeenth century. In 1626 Francisco bequeathed to his son Diego de Orduña Loyando a mayorazgo that ensured the indivisibility of the ingenio. Sixteen years later Diego transferred the management of San Pedro de Buenavista to his son, Antonio de Orduña Loyando, who was twenty-five at the time. Four years later Don Antonio owned eighty slaves, and his collective properties were valued at a quarter of a million pesos. At the time of Bernarda’s manumission in 1657, the ingenio was still productive but barely keeping up with rising debts and the extravagant spending of the Orduña Loyando family. Around this time Antonio was spending less time in Xalapa as he set his sights on gaining public office in Mexico City. Perhaps before he left he decided to manumit long-serving household slaves, such as Bernarda.4 Don Antonio may have actually seen the carta as a gesture of appreciation, but importantly, Bernarda’s manumission was likely economically inconsequential. In years prior to freeing the African-descended woman, Don Antonio had consistently purchased other slaves, including a thirty-year-old Congo man named Andrés in 1642 and a forty-five-year-old married Angolan woman named Andrea in 1656. And if his notarial

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Defending Family

life is any indication of the scope of his wealth, Don Antonio was also one of the wealthiest men in mid-seventeenth-century Xalapa. Perhaps he saw it as his regular duty to free a person or two, thereby opening the pressure valve of slavery through strategic manumission. While that might have been the case, he did not let all of his slaves go so easily. In 1660, just three years after freeing Bernarda, Don Antonio freed a one-yearold mulata named Micaela, who was described as being “muy blanca,” but only after her enslaved mother, Isabel de Orduña, paid him 130 pesos, roughly the standard market price for a child so young.5 That Isabel’s daughter was noted as having particularly light skin or more Spanish features may imply that Don Antonio or someone in his household had paternal ties to Micaela; perhaps she was even the product of sexual assault. If this was the case, then even a discreet recognition of paternity did not guarantee a noncompensatory manumission. Isabel was still forced to pay for the freedom of her “very white” enslaved baby, demonstrating the limits of Don Antonio’s magnanimity. He likely did not need the 130 pesos, but he did require them from an enslaved mother who likely had to call on a strong network of supporters to help free her one-year-old child. Quite differently, Don Antonio’s 1967 noncompensatory carta de libertad to Bernarda likely offered relief to her and her free mother because the freedom card would not burden the two with crushing annual payments. Such an expenditure would drain some African-descended families of every spare peso and every last hope of being quickly rid of the connections to their previous lives. African-descended women understood that manumission required capital—economic, cultural, or social. A 1661 case tested the acumen of one mother’s ability to navigate estate law to rescue her children from continued enslavement. Catalina de Morales was a free mulata, vecina of Xalapa, and

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mother of two enslaved mulata daughters named Lucia de Vergara and Juana Moran Betancourt.6 Catalina’s documents cited her as the “madre legítima” (legitimate mother) of Lucia and Juana, but the name of her husband or the girls’ father was not documented nor was Catalina ever described as a viuda (widow). However, from the proceedings that she initiated, it does not appear that she needed to call upon a sanctioned male relationship, rhetorically or actually, in order to traverse the contentious landscape of the colonial legal system. On December 29, 1661, Catalina de Morales appeared before the aforementioned Alcalde Mayor Don Antonio de Orduña Loyando to affirm an arrangement she made with Licenciado Juan de Bera Betancourt, a former beneficiado of the town of Tlacolulan in the jurisdiction of Xalapa. Before Juan died, he included a specific clause in his will that ordered his executors to place Catalina’s two daughters as enslaved servants in a convent of the discalced nuns in Puebla de los Ángeles—a bequest that was likely meant to serve as his final act of piety. Among the elite in late seventeenth-century Xalapa, it was not the only such donation to a religious group in Puebla. In 1693 the slave owner Doña María de la O. Palacios offered a sevenyear-old negro slave to the cofradía Nuestra Señora del Rosario in Puebla, so that he would serve in perpetuity in the confraternity’s capilla (chapel).7 However, in his last will and testament Licenciado Juan de Bera Betancourt insisted that in the event that the nuns did not want to receive them, Catalina’s children should be granted their freedom. As it turned out, the convent rejected the girls, and Catalina pursued the authentication of his provisional manumission. The petition does not cite the name of the convent, but it may have been the discalced Carmelite convent of San José in Puebla de los Ángeles that was founded in 1604. The convent was no stranger to women of African descent, as it was once

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home to the esteemed African-descended nun Juana Esperanza de San Alberto, whose exceptional piousness was praised by people both inside and far beyond the confines of the convent. Juana Esperanza’s owners had bequeathed her to the convent as a child, where she labored for sixty-eight years before she fell ill in 1678.8 Her chronology establishes that when the licenciado offered up Catalina’s two mulata daughters as slaves to the religious institution, it had already had at least one highly lauded woman of African descent in residence for more than half a century. However, the convent may not have been so welcoming to more women of African descent, even those who arrived as slaves and servants. Historian Joan Cameron Bristol notes that early religious chroniclers of the life of Juana Esperanza couched her in “the language of exceptionalism [which] allowed her biographers to assert that Esperanza was not rep­ resentative of the spiritual potential of black women.” Instead, these writers described her as a woman who succeeded in overcoming the “base qualities” of her African heritage to achieve remarkable piety.9 As one religious biography of Juana Esperanza suggests, her contemporaries believed it was truly extraordinary for women of African descent to prevail over such perceived innate hurdles to join a religious community. Perhaps such discrimination also included the choice of domestic slaves donated to the convent. If this was the case, it was all the better for Catalina and her two enslaved daughters as she made their case for manumission. Catalina’s defense of her daughters’ liberty did not rest on their rejection from the convent alone. She called upon the memory of her children’s slave owner and the legal right he had to dictate the life chances of his slaves. Catalina argued that her daughters should, per the final wishes of the licenciado, “enjoy the aforementioned liberty as they should enjoy the will

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of their aforementioned slave owner.” In the petition Catalina stated that she also had in her possession an edict by the bishop and procedural documents from the vicar of the convent. With her daughters’ liberty weighing in the balance, Catalina de Morales arrived before the alcalde mayor well prepared not only with the physical documentation to secure her family’s freedom but also with the language to make her case, even if it meant reifying the supremacy of a slave owner—freedom had its costs. Yet most families of African descent needed more than rhetoric and transcribed documents to secure the liberty of their loved ones. Many people in colonial Xalapa owed money to one another but not for all of the same reasons as some African-­ descended families. On January 27, 1713, Juana Pasquala, a free mulata, and her two brothers, Christóbal Romero y Gregorio Romero, took on considerable debt in order to free their mother, Antonia de Sarate.10 It is unclear where her brothers lived, but Juana Pasquala was a vecina of Xalapa. All were at least twenty-­ five years of age. And while Christóbal and Gregorio could sign their own names, Juana Pasquala was the primary initiator of the notarial case even though her name does not appear at the bottom of the four-page file along with those of her brothers. The contract stipulated that all three siblings owed the vecino of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz Juan Guerrero Basques the sum of 252 pesos. Their mother Antonia had been the slave of Juan Bravo de Alarcón, a vecino of Xalapa, but as he was by then deceased, Juan Guerrero Basques served as the executor of his estate. Juana, Christóbal, and Gregorio arranged for a nine-year plan to pay for their mother’s liberty card. These were extraordinary terms. No other case in seventeenth- or early-­ eighteenth-century Xalapa allowed manumitted parties or their families such a lenient grace period to pay for a carta de libertad, perhaps implying Antonia’s status as a valued slave in Juan

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Bravo de Alarcón’s household. The extended time frame for the settlement of the 252-peso debt and the free status of Antonia’s three adult children provided optimal circumstances to gradually accumulate funds to make the payment installments. While it was more common in the notarial records to witness how mothers fought to attain freedom for their children, daughters and sons also made tremendous sacrifices to liberate their mothers. Antonia de Sarate and her children had been offered some of the most promising possible conditions for a compensatory manumission. Even so, this free African-descended family must have worried about their ability to come up with that sum of money. Unfortunately for Juana Pasquala, Christóbal, and Gregorio, they were living in a generation of considerable economic instability. When Antonia’s three children finalized the manumission agreement, Spain was technically still at war. In an order issued on January 19, 1713, King Philip V reiterated to his colonial leadership that the four-month armistice he had initiated in August 1712 “prohibiting all varieties of hostility” between the Crowns of Spain, France, and England would be maintained during the prolonged peace talks.11 However, it would still be months before Philip V signed the first Treaty of Utrecht with Britain and Savoy, which he did on July 13, 1713. A little more than a year later, the Treaty of Rastatt (March 7, 1714) between Austria and France and the Treaty of Baden (September 7, 1714) between the Holy Roman Empire and France officially ended the War of the Spanish Succession. Although the negotiation of imperial accords continued in Europe, Veracruz again served as a critical nexus. As guardians of the coastline, officials in the port city affirmed in January 1713 that they understood the order and its stakes. They noted that an African-descended man named Juan Pasqual Guerrero (no cited relation to the executor Juan Guerrero

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Basques) was the official messenger from “the companies of the presidio of this city, acted as town crier, and publicized the order in the public plaza and other areas where royal orders of your Majesty are posted announcing the suspension of arms.”12 Due to their proximity to colonial defense, the interconnected communities in the central Veracruz region knew the particulars of colonial management and imperial administration as part of their everyday lived experience. Juan Pasqual may even have had African-descended family, friends, or fellow militiamen in Xalapa who could have spread the word he was charged with circulating, ensuring that people in the greater region heard of the Crown’s affairs. Perhaps the nine-year repayment plan offered by the executor Juan Guerrero Basques acknowledged that times were tough given more than a decade of a contested Spanish throne and the interrupted trade that followed. Until the establishment of Xalapa’s ferias in 1720, Antonia de Sarate and her children likely found few new opportunities to earn money. Did Christóbal and Gregorio already have a trade to generate income? Did Juana Pasquala own a long-running business? Could Antonia still work to help pay off the debt? With news circulating that peace was on the horizon and nearly a decade to make arrangements, the family of four had time to consider their labor options and perhaps even await the Bourbon-­ backed ferias that helped reinvigorate the region’s economy. By comparison, many more people of African descent encountered unforgiving conditions when they attempted to free their families from bondage. Slave owners in the early 1600s likely cared little about the financial constraints of African-­ descended people as the dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640 consequently reduced ingenio owners’ ability to acquire slaves from West and West Central Africa. On November 7, 1641, the free morena Juana de la Cruz and her moreno hus-

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band Francisco Camacho stated that they owed one hundred pesos to Juan Martín de Abreo for Francisco’s carta de libertad.13 The timeline for repayment was striking. The notary verified the agreement on November 7, 1641. The deadline for repayment was April 7, 1642, giving the couple less than six months to raise the money. If Juana and Francisco had not yet tapped into greater familial or kin connections in Xalapa, they needed to quickly activate whatever social capital they had cultivated over the years. Both Juana and Francisco were vecinos and given that Francisco’s age is noted as fifty, the couple’s connections to the region may have run deep and over decades. Relatively nothing is known about Juana—not her age, her occupation, whether she was born free or manumitted later in life, or if she identified with a specific ethnic background—details that could have been included in such notarial documents. On the other hand, Francisco is noted as being originally from Palm Island in the Canary Islands, an archipelago located near the northwest coast of mainland Africa.14 Xalapa was home to other enslaved people from the Canary Islands, and Juana might have called upon her husband’s community connections to begin amassing the one hundred pesos to attain his eventual freedom. At first this might appear to be an insurmountable feat for Juana and the newly freed Francisco, given the five-month timeline. However, one hundred pesos was significantly below market value for an enslaved adult man, barring sustained injuries, advanced age, or noted “delinquency.” Assuming Francisco had no perceived defects, the decidedly low cost might indicate a more personal relationship with the slave owner Juan Martín de Abreo and his wife, María Rodrígues. Juan had worked as a merchant in Xalapa from at least the 1620s and consequently had business ties to many members of the jurisdiction’s elite. And although he owned slaves,

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Juan Martín primarily was involved in the trade of highly desired foodstuffs, such as wine and oil. In 1621 he rented space for a store from the religious brotherhood that ran the Hospital de Nuestra Señora de Convalescientes, conveniently located just one street away from the hospital.15 Perhaps he hoped he could lighten the purses of family and friends who might indulge in a few select sundries from his shop on their way to visiting recovering patients—an astute businessman indeed. Likely owing to his work in selling high-end products, Juan Martín de Abreo also owned a recua by at least 1638, cutting out the middleman costs of having to hire arrieros when his shipments of goods arrived from the port of Veracruz or Mexico City. In November 1641, the same month and year as Francisco Camacho’s manumission, Juan Martín’s wife, María Rodrígues, appeared in his notarial records. By June 5, 1644, María was a widow.16 Juan Martín de Abreo’s original manumission declaration for Francisco Camacho was not located, precluding an examination of the language used when he agreed to allow Francisco to purchase his freedom. Perhaps the 1641 notarial appearance of María, which coincided with Francisco’s case, moved Juan Martín to allow his slave to live freely with his own wife, the free morena Juana de la Cruz. Fortunately, the recorded narrative of this couple did not end with their indebtedness to the slave owner, shopkeeper, and transport boss Juan Martín de Abreo. They might not have been the wealthiest couple of African descent in seventeenth-century central Veracruz, but they soon demonstrated an impressive financial aptitude, a key marker of social legitimacy. Seventeen years after notarizing the one-hundred-peso debt owed to Juan Martín de Abreo, Juana de la Cruz and Francisco Camacho reappeared in the notarial record as a family who had gained notable upward mobility. But some of their identifiers had changed too. In 1658 the records described them

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as free negros, instead of morenos, as the earlier notarial entry designated them. Robert McCaa categorizes these disagreements in racial classifications across archives as “racial drift.” The discrepancies in notarial and parish records indicate that racial drift was not an uncommon occurrence across the archives of Xalapa. However, there did not appear to be a significant social or economic difference between negros and morenos in Xalapa, but the shift in their caste assignation underscores the inconsistency among notarial assistants charged with being precise. As Kathryn Burns asserts, “Notaries knew people’s intimate business, as well as the formulae in which to set down their transactions; they kept the archival paper trail.”17 Record keepers had ideals, but they also sometimes faltered in their execution. In addition to being labeled differently, Juana and Francisco, by 1658, lived closer to the coast as vecinos of La Antigua Ciudad de Veracruz, likely accounting for why they notarized a poder for someone to manage their affairs in Xalapa. They might also have required an agent because of their advanced years. Although Juana’s age is unknown, Francisco Camacho would have been approximately sixty-seven years old when he tapped the Xalapa vecino Bartolomé de Oliveros to act as his apoderado in selling a plot of land that belonged to him and Juana. They eventually sold the property for twenty pesos, perhaps indicating a smaller, less practical piece of real estate, but it was substantial enough to warrant their acquisition of a legal intermediary. After Francisco attained a notarized manumission, the couple may have believed more strongly in the importance of legally secured business agents, even if the property was not grand or the profit considerable. One encounter with the notary public could shape how people understood the value of the office for all future endeavors. Juana de la Cruz and Francisco Camacho, whether morenos

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or negros, began their notarial life as a number of other people of African descent in the colonies did, that is, with the purchase of the freedom of family members. Francisco’s path to freedom resulted in the couple’s being responsible for a debt five times greater than the house they would later sell. How they paid off the debt or how long it took to do so are left unresolved. What is known is that Juana and Francisco actively invested in themselves over the next decade and a half. They managed their debt, purchased real estate, eventually moved to a new city, perhaps rented the land in Xalapa while away, and maintained business relationships. The couple always appeared together in notarial transactions, and they always expressed their property as being jointly owned, which was not the notarial default even for married couples. For free African-­ descended women and men, marshaling all available capital, including the social capital of familial unity, proved invaluable in good times and in bad. While some women had the economic resources to assist in the manumission of their husbands, other women benefited from the social capital garnered through advantageous patron–­ client relationships as they negotiated life with their enslaved spouses. We first learn of the free mulata Antonia Hernándes and her enslaved negro husband Lorenzo Hernándes not because she was on the verge of freeing him but because she was the victim of a crime.18 Sometime in 1678 an indio ladino (an “acculturated” Indigenous person) and vaquero (cowboy) named Diego Martín had stolen something from Antonia. What exactly was not cited, but the theft was substantial enough to warrant intervention by the authorities. Diego was apprehended and sentenced for the robbery, which offers a fascinating allusion to Antonia’s resources. Did Antonia own cattle and was therefore targeted by the vaquero? Had she carelessly left a silver rosary on a table that the sly passerby noticed from the

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doorway? More tragically, could Diego Martín have stolen a satchel of pesos that Juana had been saving to pay for the manumission of her enslaved husband? The implied property value hovers like a specter as one attempts to piece together a free woman’s life with her enslaved spouse. Unfortunately, Lorenzo Hernándes was only ever incidentally mentioned as Antonia’s husband, and the criminal case accounted for his sole reference in the notarial archives. However, the entry on the theft specifies that Lorenzo was the slave of Licenciado Don Juan de Bañuelos Cabessa de Vaca, a cura beneficiado (secular priest) and ecclesiastic judge in Xalapa. Perhaps Diego Martín was pursued and prosecuted because the victim’s husband was owned by a prominent figure in town. Given early modern Iberian expectations of patriarchal dominion, it is possible that Don Juan may even have seen the theft as a personal affront in that the enslaved Lorenzo and, by proxy, the freed Antonia could have been perceived as an extension of his household.19 Or perhaps Antonia and Don Juan had closer ties than initially presented. A notarized document fourteen years later reveals that while Don Juan de Bañuelos Cabessa de Vaca was her husband’s slave owner, he also acted as Antonia’s committed patron.20 On February 17, 1692, Licenciado Don Juan registered a five-page codicil that included twelve new clauses to his will. The first addendum reads in standard notarial language, “Firstly, I want, and it is my will, that Antonia Hernándes, parda libre who has served [me] and lives in my company, be given 30 pesos each year over the course of her lifetime.” Interestingly enough, Antonia was not the only beneficiary of African descent in the amended will. A free pardo named Miguel Bañuelos received a onetime gift of twenty pesos. The priest also instructed his executors to distribute thirty pesos to share among a free negra named Juana Rodríguez Bañuelos and her

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two mulato sons, Francisco and Juan. However, since Antonia Hernándes was named first and received the largest amount, Don Juan’s commitment to her lifelong financial support certainly implies a much more invested relationship than that of the other three beneficiaries. Don Juan de Bañuelos Cabessa de Vaca’s addendum did not include any reference to Antonia’s husband, and it is unclear whether Lorenzo was free by that time and living and working with his wife while she was “in the company” of the cura beneficiado. Or perhaps he was still enslaved or even already deceased since the last time he appeared in the archive was fourteen years prior. If he were still alive and not yet freed, Antonia’s yearly stipend from Don Juan could have helped finance Lorenzo’s eventual carta de libertad. And still, questions linger. Did Antonia urge her benefactor to free her husband? Or did she devise a plan to pay for Lorenzo’s freedom because she knew she would inherit an annual lump sum? Whatever circumstances and choices Antonia faced, the slave owner of her husband had undertaken measures to establish an economic buffer for her for the rest of her days. Even if she never found another job, was too sick to work, or too old to labor, knowing that Don Juan’s estate would distribute thirty pesos to her every year must have comforted Antonia immeasurably and improved her, and possibly her husband’s, prospects as elderly people of African descent. Not all enslaved husbands had such capital-rich women in their lives. A free mulata named Getrudis witnessed what many would have to experience during the colonial era, the uncertainty of having an enslaved spouse owned by a powerful and wealthy Spanish slave owner who showed little care for African-descended familial ties. Getrudis’s thirty-three-yearold mulato husband Nicolas was the slave of the alcalde mayor of Xalapa, Capitán Don Juan Francisco de Herrera. On No-

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vember 23, 1694, Capitán Don Juan Francisco sold Nicolas for three hundred pesos to Capitán Don Juan de Santiago, a vecino of Puebla de los Ángeles. And with a simple purchase agreement between the two men, Getrudis had to consider what she would do when her enslaved husband was forced to relocate to his new owner’s household in Puebla. Would this free mulata petition the Church to intervene on her behalf? If Getrudis had been an active member in the religious community, she might have called upon a cleric to protect her right to a conjugal life with her enslaved husband.21 However, since she was a free woman, the priest might have advised her to relocate to preserve the sanctity of her marriage, which would provide a well-meaning ecclesiastic with the means to uphold the church’s stance on protecting the sacrament of marriage and sidestep the possibility of offending powerful Spaniards who viewed their own authority as absolute. As a relatively young man with no cited disfigurements, Nicolas would likely serve many years before his new slave owner would consider a noncompensatory manumission. If Capitán Don Juan de Santiago insisted on Nicolas’s recent valuation of three hundred pesos, it would likely take Getrudis years to amass that amount if she did not own a business or have property to sell. Given that the notarial entry did not document last names for either her or her husband, Getrudis was likely not in a position economically to purchase Nicolas’s liberty immediately. Nor did Getrudis appear to have the social capital to call upon a wealthy patron or patroness to intervene on her behalf. Lacking any noted resources or any further notarial entries documenting her life, Getrudis may have believed that she had little recourse to challenge the decisions of the alcalde mayor of Xalapa or a capitán from Puebla. The uncertainty of having enslaved family members is a recurring chronicle in Xalapa’s notarial archive. As was the

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case with Getrudis, some women of African descent did not have families whom they could rely on to purchase their freedom or altruistic benefactors to intercede with a substantial financial contribution. Sometimes assistance came from seemingly unexpected places when social capital was sustained over great distances. On February 10, 1620, a recua owner named Jerónimo de la Vega from Puebla de los Ángeles notarized that he owed a debt of five hundred pesos to a regidor (councilman) from Mexico City named Luis Pacho Mexía. Jerónimo had borrowed the money to pay the Crown treasury official, Contador Alonso de Villanueva, and his wife, Doña María de Zavala, for the liberty of an enslaved morena named Ana Zavala and her six- or seven-year-old mulata daughter, Ananina. Two days later Ana Zavala registered her first entry as a free woman with the notary public.22 But given the Xalapa-based family, how did it come to pass that a recua owner from Puebla paid for Ana’s and her daughter’s freedom? The first clarification offered by Ana establishes that Je­ rónimo’s gesture was actually a loan—she had to make the first payment of 125 pesos in exactly one year’s time with additional 125-peso payments due on the same date over the next three successive years. As a newly free woman with a young child to care for, Ana Zavala would very likely not have had the resources to piece together the first payment. Ana’s February 12 entry noted that Jerónimo made the loan because of their amistad, or friendship. As to how they knew each other, Ana might have met the recua owner from Puebla while he conducted transportation business in Xalapa, which was often. Jerónimo de la Vega maintained a commanding and persistent presence in early-seventeenth-century Xalapa, lending money to and contracting deals with many others. Ana was also the slave of two high-profile slave owners and lived at a well-known ingenio, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios in the

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jurisdiction of Xalapa, so it is possible that Jerónimo either had a contract with Contador Alonso and Doña María or conducted other business at Nuestra Señora de los Remedios and had the opportunity to meet Ana. Whatever the terms of their friendship, it was likely not as intimate or affective as one might surmise. A 500-peso debt with a four-year deadline was a hardship that would test the amistad of even two great Shakespearean lovers. Nevertheless, borrowing money from Jerónimo might have been Ana’s only option to free her daughter. Given average salaries and Ananina’s young age, it would have been virtually impossible for Ana and her daughter to earn enough money alone in time without outside intervention. However, Ana likely preferred Jerónimo’s unfavorable loan to witnessing the continued enslavement of her child, even if it meant that freedom resulted in financial imprisonment.23 Living in such precarity, many free women in Xalapa sought relief from the town’s robust spiritual community. Exhibiting one’s proximity to religion came in many forms, but most people first documented their affiliation through a Catholic rite of passage, usually a baptismal record soon after birth. This document also affirmed one’s initial religious identity, including whether a child had been born in or out of wedlock—whether one’s parents had ensured religious legitimacy. Importantly, just as religious legitimacy did not intrinsically mean social and economic well-being, illegitimacy did not necessarily denote poverty or life as a social pariah. Parish archives most prominently and consistently attested to Catholic legitimacy, but they often omitted details of the lives of those who had one or more of the sacraments documented by clergy. Identifying markers such as the occupations or even the approximate ages of entrants were not provided in the records. The majority of the files merely stated the date, name of the person (sometimes just the given name but not the surname), one’s legitimacy status,

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a caste designation, “associative actors” (for example, god­ parents or witnesses), and whether the principal or associative actors were vecinos or not. Some baptismal records cited godparents specifically as feligreses (parishioners). At times the entries noted if people lived at a specific ingenio but did not indicate the person’s social or economic status with the ex­ ception of one’s slave or free status, although even this was not consistently denoted. Religious legitimacy symbolized cultural integration but did not always correlate to elite status, wealth, or freedom. More generally, families in colonial Mexico rarely managed intergenerational wealth well regardless of the legitimacy of their births. Social legitimacy, on the other hand, was a site negotiated through a more broadly defined spectrum of capital, including the degree of one’s religious acculturation. The more fluid space of social legitimacy allowed elites and nonelites alike to mobilize it. However, in the popular imagination of some colonists, religious legitimacy was racially coded. While illegitimacy may have become “synonymous for being racially mixed” in other areas of the colony, women and men of African descent in Xalapa appeared to strive for the currency of religious legitimacy. A sign of this was the trend toward high percentages of legitimately born children as well as legitimately born people marrying one another. The significance of religious legitimacy among elite families is well documented, but it was not exclusively a concern of Spanish subjects.24 In the case of midcolonial Xalapa, African-descended people demonstrated their investment in it through attempts at preserving religious legitimacy intergenerationally. In the 1642 book of confirmations for Xalapa, nearly half (47.22 percent) of all African-descended children were born to legitimately married parents. An additional 14.82 percent of children were not specifically classified as hijos legítimos but

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had both parents listed in the record. By collapsing the legitimate category with the category of children with both parents cited, the number of African-descended children with two parents accounts for 62.04 percent of the confirmations in 1642. While the 47 percent of legitimately born children is a significant number, so too was the percentage of united but unmarried parents who confirmed their African-­descended children. Distinctively for Xalapa, the 1642 legitimacy rate of 47 percent among confirmed children was only a starting point for people of African descent as more legitimately married couples appeared in the parish archives.25 The historiography posits that nonelite subjects commonly engaged in “consensual unions” and that such arrangements appealed to some women who wanted to exercise greater personal or economic autonomy. The financial burden of contracting marriage may have also influenced lower rates of sanctioned unions. Other communities avoided formal unions because they believed it was yet another form of monetary exploitation. The lack of a religiously sanctioned relationship did not always brand people as those of ill repute, so those who decided to avoid church-sanctioned relationships weighed both economic and cultural considerations.26 And thus, while family remained important, not all communities placed the same value (or any value at all) on a Catholic union. Many bigamy cases, for example, reveal that those prosecuted by the Inquisition did not always defiantly subvert the Catholic Church’s mandates. Instead, they had simply decided to live quietly on their own terms. People established bigamous relationships because of long-term separations from their families, unsatisfying lawful marriages, or coercion. The bigamous marriage, then, was an approximation of the ideal of a lawfully united couple. Had the offending parties remained unmarried

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the inquisitorial courts would not have prosecuted them as bigamists, although they might have been accused of barraganía, “a long-term and stable arrangement .  .  . an informal union deeply rooted in Hispanic popular culture and accepted to a degree in the Siete Partidas.” This sociocultural landscape that permitted the tempered allowance of informal relationships like barraganía also tolerated other forms of religious approximation.27 An unmarried couple could not offer legitimate birth to their children (at least not until they married), but they made them as socially legitimate as possible by ensuring that they had other markers of religious devotion. Those “guilty” of barraganía raised families together, baptized and confirmed their progeny, and approximated religious ideals by fulfilling their obligations as parents of Catholic children, even if the couple did not feel compelled to legitimate their relationship through the Church. The consensual unions documented in the confirmation records of Xalapa, in particular, demonstrate that African-descended mothers and fathers in such relationships had committed to the idea of the family unit for at least the first several years of their children’s lives. Perhaps a lack of resources made marriage prohibitive to these families or perhaps these women and men wanted to avoid institutional obligations in their relationships but still felt compelled to initiate their children into religious life through Catholic rites of passage. Xalapa’s comparatively more established population of African descent, an important presence since at least the second half of the sixteenth century, demonstrated considerable levels of religious acculturation by marrying in the Church and baptizing and confirming their children. The higher rates of children born in wedlock signals greater approximation to Catholic religious ideals, including those regarding birthright

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legitimacy. The centrality of legitimacy and family was not only documented in the parish records but also elaborated upon throughout the notarial archive. By the time the free parda Getrudis del Barrio arrived on the notarial stage in 1708, she was already an adult. Getrudis never identified her biological parents, but her upbringing as an adopted daughter shaped the course of her life. At some point during Getrudis’s childhood a woman named Juana de Orantes stepped in to raise the free parda as if she were her own, becoming her lifelong guardian and companion. Juana was a vecina of Xalapa and had been married to Antonio de los Santos, who had died by 1708. Juana and Antonio never had any biological children, nor did they bequeath anything to any other family members to give readers a sense of their other affective relationships. A Spanish woman named Juana de Orantes appeared in the parish archives on August 25, 1668, to serve as godmother for a mulata girl named Luisa, whose mother was a free morena named Ageda María.28 This Juana’s spouse was not cited in the baptismal entry, and Getrudis’s “Juana” was not specifically designated as an española in the notarial case, so it is uncertain if she was the same woman. However, if the two women were one and the same (and the periodization is close enough), then Juana de Orantes had more than one connection to people of African descent in Xalapa, serving both as godmother and surrogate mother to two African-descended girls. In addition to providing care, Juana de Orantes invested in her adopted daughter’s future. On December 12, 1708, Juana donated a plot of land and a house to Getrudis. Centrally located on the Camino Real and near the main public plaza, the plot measured 35 by 45 varas. Juana made one stipulation in the transfer of property: Getrudis had to agree to pay for ­Juana’s burial when she died, thus entrusting her final wishes to her

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adopted parda daughter. Juana de Orantes, a woman who had inherited the land and house from her own parents, who had inherited it from their parents, was a third-generation property owner who could not sign her own name. And yet with one donation to her adopted daughter, Juana effectively made Ge­ trudis a fourth-generation property owner with a firm legacy. However, Getrudis did not hold on to Juana’s donation for very long.29 Five years later she sold it to a man named Juan Joseph Rincón and turned her adopted mother’s generosity into a profit of thirty-seven pesos. The sale agreement noted that Getrudis had already started her own family, having married a man of unstated caste named Manuel Francisco, suggesting that the house was perhaps a wedding gift from Juana. Unfortunately, by at least 1713 Getrudis too was a widow. The selling of the house after her husband’s death may have been a way for Getrudis to raise some liquidity, but she simply might not have needed it any longer. Getrudis may have sought out familiar companionship and moved in with Juana—mother and daughter together again under one roof, living out their days as widows. A family forged not by religiously legitimate ties but by the affection of a mother figure toward a free parda girl who grew to be a trusted confidante and with whom she would eventually share a tragic life experience. Getrudis was adopted and perhaps illegitimate, but she enjoyed a life of relative economic comfort due to Juana’s choices. The silence around Getrudis’s parentage does not mean they were absent or did not care for her. If religious legitimacy was one form of capital that parents could bestow, then ensuring that a wealthy woman raised and cared for one’s daughter was surely another. In a twist of a generational lens, one woman of African descent in Xalapa accomplished economic stability not for her child but through him, navigating the minefield of illegitimacy and inheritance as a blended family. In 1641 a free morena

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named Teresa López took decisive action to secure her fi­ nancial future by claiming her rights as a mother through the proper legal channels. Teresa was the legitimate wife of the Spaniard Bartolomé de Betancur, and they resided at but did not own the sugar refinery Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, located in the jurisdiction of Xalapa. Before she married Bartolomé, Teresa had a relationship with a man named Andrés Domínguez from Puebla de los Ángeles. She did not specify whether the relationship was serious or casual, but it did result in the birth of their son, Miguel Domínguez.30 Teresa López never stated when Andrés Domínguez took responsibility for their child, but at some point he officially recognized baby Miguel as his son. And even given this affirmation, Teresa’s journey to secure her rights was not an easy one. When Andrés died only a few years after Miguel’s birth, Teresa figured that she might be able to claim part of the estate for her son since Andrés had legally acknowledged Miguel. Before Teresa could pursue the bequest on his behalf, Miguel tragically died when he was about three years old. Infant and childhood mortality rates remained high throughout the colonial period, so much so that a toddler’s early passing was not uncommon.31 Xalapa’s incomplete seventeenth-century burial records prevent one from assessing the mortality rate of children around the time of baby Miguel’s passing. The age of only one African-­ descended child who died was recorded, that of the free eightyear-old mulata Nicolasa Ruis, who died on May 25, 1656. However, Xalapa’s early-eighteenth-century burial records document a number of deceased children without any cited explanation. For example, on August 29, 1704, the free pardos María de la Asunsión and Gregorio Albares buried their one-year-old hija legítima, Francisca. Some parents had even less time with their children. On September 2, 1705, an hija legítima and parda

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named Clara was only twenty-four days old when she died, leaving her grief-stricken parents, Andrea de Garate and Francisco Mexia, without a stated cause.32 Baby Miguel might have also succumbed to one of the many pestilences and deadly fevers ushered into Xalapa by the constant stream of travelers from Mexico City or La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. Whatever claimed the life of three-year-old Miguel, Teresa López knew the legal implications of the deaths of both her son and his father. On November 8, 1641, “with the approval of her husband,” Teresa López galvanized her social capital and took her case to probably the most powerful man she knew, Licenciado Gabriel de Pantoja, a lawyer of the Real Audiencia of New Spain. Licenciado Gabriel was a vecino of Puebla de los Ángeles, not Xalapa, and it is unclear how Teresa knew him. However, she charged Licenciado Gabriel with confronting the executors of Andrés Domínguez’s will, who also lived in Puebla. Not trusting that Andrés’s family would be forthright, Teresa called for “the benefit of an inventory” to account for all money, goods, or property that would have been bequeathed to her deceased son. She argued that, as his mother, the full and legally allocated inheritance was now hers to claim, regardless of the illegitimacy of Miguel’s birth or his death. Dismissing and silencing Teresa as the primary initiator in this case, the notary attested that the testimony transcribed was faithful to that which was dictated by “the aforementioned Bartolomé de Betancur and his woman, who did not sign because she said she did not know how to.”33 It is not as if Teresa attempted to underplay her status as a married woman; in fact, she likely emphasized it as a form of capital by beginning the poder with, “I, Teresa López, morena libre, the legitimate wife of Bartolomé de Betancur, español, mi marido (my husband).” She may have believed that underscoring her religious legitimacy and her husband’s race would help her case; or perhaps

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she was hinting at the racial tensions in Xalapa when a free woman of African-descent like her tried to establish her rights before royal authorities. By the 1640s Xalapa’s population had transformed to include more African-descended people, mostly slaves, than the town had ever witnessed. Teresa may have been aware of the vulnerability of her own positionality at this juncture in the town’s history and sought to rhetorically reiterate her proximity to Spanish authority through her husband. Calling on her status as an upstanding Catholic with a legitimate Spanish husband was not the only rhetorical device Teresa summoned before the notary public. Outside of her initial statement, more than once Teresa asserted her status as the presumptive beneficiary, centering her own identity, not her husband’s or his assumed authority. In clear language that positioned her as an autonomous actor, Teresa declared that she sought to legally claim “the part [of the inheritance] that is owed to me,” not, for example, “that which is owed to us.” And while Teresa situated herself as the primary initiator of the inquiry, she could not foresee the notary public’s perception of her. Just two and a half pages later, after staking her individual claim, the notary attempted to make Teresa invisible as a legal claimant. Instead of naming her, he merely refers to Teresa López as the mujer (woman) of Bartolomé de Betancur. That the notary did not even specify that she was the mujer legítima (the legitimate woman), as was common notarial practice when a woman was indeed the lawful spouse, might also have been the notary’s way of casting doubt on her claim or even disparaging their union. Notarial forms were mostly standardized, and these subtle variations might speak to laxity of protocols, which did occur, or they might also offer some sense of the prejudice that legally married African-descended women faced as they lived in a world that assumed their immodesty and illegitimacy. Perhaps this was especially the case for a woman who

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had already had a child out of wedlock, as Teresa López had. Now simply the mujer of Bartolomé, who could stylishly sign his own name, Teresa could not prevent officials from subsuming her efforts and relegating her to a nameless, illiterate woman. If Teresa had some sense that the notary or her child’s father’s family would disregard her, she might have believed that choosing someone of Licenciado Gabriel de Pantoja’s stature would ensure that legal proceedings would run smoothly and possibly in her favor. Yet just a few months later she returned to the notarial office to issue another poder in order to claim the inheritance.34 On February 8, 1642, Teresa López bestowed her representative authority to a priest and vecino of Puebla de los Ángeles named Andrés Juarez de Arce to “judicially request and recover all furniture, real property, and other things” left by her son’s father. Once again Teresa called for the “benefit of an inventory,” implying that the executors had refused to draft a full accounting of Andrés’s estate after her first petition or that one was not compiled at all. Teresa may have believed that sending a man of the cloth would yield better results after she did not get the resolution she sought when she employed the most powerful Crown official she knew (or that any average vecino in the colony might happen to know) for the same job. That Teresa knew both a priest and a solicitor of the Real Audiencia from a city roughly two hundred kilometers from Xalapa also speaks to the strength of her social capital: a network of powerful, influential men whom she could marshal to attend to a discreet family matter. Teresa López could not be accused of being insufficiently litigious. She continued to pursue the executors even as they seemingly ignored her requests. On December 6, 1643, Teresa temporarily suspended the poder issued to Licenciado Andrés and issued a final poder to her husband Bartolomé.35 Likely

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displeased with how her two previous representatives served in her legal stead, Teresa López may have felt more confident that her husband, a Spanish man who would directly benefit from the matter, would resolve the inheritance dispute. Although the final result of this case was not located in the notarial archive, Teresa López’s determination over more than two years of legal action in order to collect her deceased son’s inheritance leads one to believe that she never relented. Indeed, we can imagine that she pursued the estate executors of Andrés Domínguez until they handed over every last peso. Significantly, the free morena Teresa, who had a child out of wedlock, believed she could make Spaniards obey the laws that protected legal heirs. “Acknowledged natural children had the right to be protected, even those of African-descended women,” she seemed to declare as she sent multiple influential emissaries to Puebla de los Ángeles from her residence in Xalapa. Teresa López did not have to establish that she had a lawful relationship with Andrés Domínguez in order to lay claim to her son’s rightful inheritance because, according to Teresa, Andrés freely admitted his parentage. Some complex legal matters required the participation of many more actors. Teresa was not alone in having to defend an inheritance. In a remarkable case analyzed in the final chapter, a free parda mobilized her capital along with gendered rhetorical tools to fight for what she believed was rightfully owed to her children. What free women of African descent claimed as theirs is central to understanding how and why they redefined what was in their realm of possibility. Others in seventeenth-century Xalapa may have viewed women with hijos naturales as powerless. However, Teresa unabashedly emphasized the power of her status as a mother, asserted her social capital through her deployment of prominent men, and demanded that Iberian legal culture protect her interests. She might have felt empowered to do so be-

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cause at the time of her flurry of trips to the notary public, Teresa was a legitimately married woman—the wife of a Spaniard no less. Importantly, while her illegitimate child may have marked her in some ways, Teresa felt no less entitled to what she believed the law said was due to her. Whether she received baby Miguel’s inheritance or not, Teresa demanded justice because she firmly believed it was possible to achieve, even if it pushed past the limits of what Spanish executors felt compelled to respond to. And what Spaniards considered, what they imagined possible, still dictated many of the life chances of African-descended people, even those free and of means. Elite Spanish families sought to preserve their honor by “protecting” the sexual purity of women and girls in their households. Regulatory edicts issued by the Spanish Crown and colonial proxies also underscore the secular realm’s religiously-­ centered definitions of good or bad colonial women, often grounded in notions of sexual virtue. Scholars have posited the safeguarding of a woman’s virginity as a central familial preoccupation—one in which all family members were supposedly invested and in which men in particular took pride and on which they hinged their honor. Premarital sex could lead to the stigmatization of entire families, compromising their ability to find ideal marriage partners for eligible daughters. How seriously families took their responsibility in defending the actions and reputations of female family members often correlated with the family’s wealth or social rank.36 However, one case in Xalapa demonstrates that protecting against public infamy, especially around questions of sexual propriety, was not the sole domain of the Spanish elite. On January 19, 1702, a man named Juan Verdugo sat in a jail cell in Xalapa. His crime? Juan had “deflowered” a mulata woman named Bernabela. The social price may have been a loss of reputation for Bernabela, but the courts also decided to

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exact a price on the offender in this case, which began with a bond set at seventy pesos. Local authorities throughout colonial Latin America sometimes responded by imprisoning men who had allegedly broken their promises to marry women after wooing them with their “solemn word” in order to begin a sexual relationship. A stint in a local jail was not the only punishment possible since, in some cases, those found guilty of such deception could face severe sentences, such as backbreaking construction work at sites as far away as the Philippines. Fines leveled at men became more common as a compensatory option to a forced marriage to resolve a dissolved engagement.37 Bernabela’s notarial entry did not specify that this was a case of an engagement gone awry, but it is possible that Juan, like other less scrupulous men, sought to satisfy a carnal impulse through manipulation. Needing seventy pesos and a fiador (financial backer), Juan Verdugo perhaps began to calculate the costly mistake he had made in besmirching Bernabela’s credible status as a virgin, especially one of her background and status. The lack of information about Bernabela tells its own story. Bernabela had neither a cited surname nor is her age noted, but she was identified as a vecina. As a recognized householder, she was likely in her early twenties at the time of Juan’s imprisonment. Not having a surname noted may have indicated that Bernabela was of limited means. However, in a case that involved possible familial defamation, the notary might have chosen to obscure Bernabela’s identity and preserve the social legitimacy of her family. In addition, Bernabela’s status as a mulata makes this an exceptional case, since, as Patricia Seed notes, even Spanish priests emphasized that Africans and Indigenous people “did not share the Spanish reverence for viriginity.”38 But, as Seed clarifies, people of mixed ancestry likely held Spanish values regarding family honor and absti-

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nence. Bernabela, and possibly her family, appeared to fit this mold and sought redress. And given the perpetrator’s imprisonment and the steep bail imposed (twice the value of many plots of land in Xalapa), the judge conceded with this penalty that a serious crime had taken place. Imprisoning Juan and holding him accountable for the offense against Bernabela and the potential public infamy he had incited against her unnamed family was a notable statement by Xalapa’s legal authorities. By punishing Juan Verdugo, the town’s officials acknowledged that Bernabela, as a free woman of African descent, had something to lose, that her virginity was sacred, and that, while they had not been able to protect her, they could punish Juan for the violation of her person, her trust, and her reputation. Juan’s arrest and the costs he was saddled with are noteworthy, but if Bernabela’s sense of self and place in society was diminished, the judge had not gone far enough. Weighed against the immeasurable loss of Bernabela’s public status as a maiden, what Juan experienced in his dank jail cell as he awaited his guarantor to bail him out would have been insufficient retribution for Bernabela or her family. Deflowering was considered irremediable. And while her reputation might not have been salvageable, Bernabela named her aggressor and saw him punished, even if the sentence did not include exile and toil in the harshest conditions of one of Spain’s Pacific islands. Over and over in Xalapa African-descended families, like Spanish ones, sought to defend their kin through the legal system. Even when marriage proposals accompanied the loss of virginity, a family’s reputation could still be at risk, as was true in the case of the free parda María de la Higuera. On July 20, 1716, a vecino of Xalapa named Alberto Fernández found himself imprisoned.39 He too required a fiador and asked a free pardo named Bartolomé Bustillos to pay his bond, although

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the amount was not indicated in the documents. Alberto was being held in custody because he had begun an “illicit friendship” with María, a vecina of Xalapa. The entry notes that Alberto had given María his word that they would be married, and he declared that he was convinced he would follow through with the engagement. María and her family lacked faith in Alberto and had him jailed for not fulfilling his promise in a timely manner. In seventeenth-century New Spain, verbal agreements carried the weight of documented commitments, and the breach of such contracts had consequences, as Alberto learned.40 María and Alberto had started a sexual relationship, and his spoken offer of marriage meant that she was contingently protected, according to the mandates of the Church, as long as they eventually married. Alberto may have decided to outright rescind his commitment to fulfill his promise to make María a mujer legítima after enjoying his “illicit friendship” with her or perhaps his ardor for her had simply cooled. In any case, María and her family demanded a legal remedy.41 Alberto’s hesitation to wed María after their verbal agreement resulted in his incarceration, and he was indicted for jeopardizing María’s social standing. Both Bernabela and María (and their families) saw themselves as people who had status, one that could be damaged if outsiders discovered unsanctioned sexual relationships, if men left promises unfulfilled, or when women and their families demanded the legitimization of sexual liaisons, whether through financial, legal, or religious resolutions. Remarkably, the courts of Xalapa agreed with the aggrieved women in these cases and recognized them as members of the community who were owed legal protections.

Race and class do not serve as the sole explanations of how African-descended families formed or how people treated them.42

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The ability to claim legitimate birth and attendant birthrights for one’s children might have made the difference in the loss or gain of economic capital. Did Teresa López’s legitimate marriage to a Spanish man allow other Spanish men to take her pursuit of inheritance more seriously? Would the free morena Juana de la Cruz even have the means to fight for the freedom of her enslaved moreno husband if they were not legitimately married? Perhaps if they were both enslaved, one or the other would have been sold away, precluding their marriage altogether. Couples who were not married or not yet married presented themselves as a united front in assuring their children would receive the Catholic rites of passage. Throughout the 1600s and early 1700s, many free African-­ descended children enjoyed the social legitimacy of being born to married parents. Others lived with their unmarried mothers and fathers, a status in which religious legitimacy was absent but where there was potentially greater economic safety than conveyed in their illegitimate status. Free women confronted challenges of marginalization by soliciting witnesses and mobilizing supporters to protect their interests. For cases involving the loss of virginity, the imprisonment of the male offenders allowed women to position themselves as people with reputations that could be tarnished and people who could legitimately demand amends. Criminal courts took the claims of African-­ descended women who had been “deflowered” seriously, followed up on such cases, and arrested the men involved. Some officials in Xalapa’s legal system treated free women and their families as being legitimate enough to be viewed as victims of a crime. The cases examined here afford a brief glimpse into the personal lives of free women and offer clues as to how African-­ descended women understood the value of the offices held by religious and secular authorities in Xalapa. Even as their lives are circumscribed for us by what is available in the documents,

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African-descended people clearly valued the measures of orderliness imposed on colonial society, such as those provided by legal institutions and religious rites of passage, but perhaps they did so only because it was a means to an end. African-­ descended women negotiated their own sense of what was legitimate enough and what justice looked like with regard to themselves and their families.43 Sometimes their strategies for navigating the dynamics of the central Veracruz region were stark, such as their turn to slave owning in order to secure their profile as socially legitimate actors in Mexico’s midcolonial period.

3 Owning Slaves

R

egardless of whether they owned a large sugar complex, a transportation business, or a store, most elites of all backgrounds owned slaves in Xalapa. The royal functionary and ecclesiastic Licenciado Don Alvaro de Samano y Quiñones was a vecino of Mexico City but an occasional resident of the ingenio he owned, San Miguel de Almolonga, in the jurisdiction of Xalapa. In 1640 he donated his part of the sugar mill, including all its slaves, to his brother Capitán Don Juan de Samano y Quiñones, the alcalde mayor of Xalapa. In 1663 Don Fernando Ruiz de Cordova y Arrellano, the owner of the hacienda San Sebastian Maxtlatlan, donated a fifteen-year-old mulato slave named Simón to Doña María de Vargas Matamoros, the daughter of a prominent family. In 1688 Capitán Don Antonio de Orduña Loyando donated his sugar ingenio San Pedro de Buenavista to his only daughter, Doña Juana Josefa de Orduña y Sousa. The donation included all of the land, supplies, and slaves belonging to the estate, effectively making Doña Juana a wealthy slave owner, if she had not been one already. Spanish residents like these dominated the purchase and sale of slaves, yet some free African-descended women in Xalapa also invested in the trade of slaves through-

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out the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in order to achieve greater social and economic security.1 Unlike the cooks, spinners, weavers, food purveyors, laundresses, and house servants of the colonies, women of African descent who owned slaves often rose above the challenges of subsistence. As slave owners, free women of African descent in Xalapa established alliances and business connections with other people of the same class, regardless of race. In the case of colonial Mexico, where the Spanish Crown never prohibited its subjects of African descent from owning slaves, an elite group of women emerged. However, few slave owners left enough historical traces to map out a life of connections, familial concerns, or their thoughts on slavery, regardless of race or gender. Historians have found a wide array of practices and life chances among women of African descent who owned slaves in colonial Latin America. The cases of African-descended women in Xalapa who owned slaves allow for a gendered consideration of the realities of slave ownership.2 The particularity of female slave ownership helps illuminate the vulnerabilities of gendered freedom and the strategies of quotidian survival that reinscribed the importance of social legitimacy in the mid­ colonial period. The most famous slave-owning woman of African descent in the Iberian world was arguably the exceptionally prosperous Francisca da Silva de Oliveira from Brazil, more commonly known as Chica da Silva. Owning more than one hundred slaves in her lifetime, Chica da Silva stands as an outlier not only among free African-descended women in Brazil but perhaps in all of the Americas.3 Júnia Ferreira Furtado, in her richly documented history of this remarkable slave owner and her family, contends that Chica da Silva’s impact cannot be measured by her slaves, diamonds, ostentatious estate, lavish

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clothing, or luxurious household items alone. Instead, Ferreira Furtado underscores that social influence, public perception, and the ability to mobilize powerful people and their structures for one’s own ends defined Chica da Silva’s legacy. These abilities also defined the notarial legacies of more comparatively modest free African-descended women slave owners in Mexico. Xalapa was uniquely home to a relatively large number of free women who owned slaves. Throughout the seventeenth century the average cost of a slave, regardless of gender, hovered between three hundred and four hundred pesos in the central Veracruz region. Purchasing slaves was therefore a steep, exclusive economic undertaking. Notarial documents reveal that most women of African descent entered the slave economy predominantly through two pathways: “acknowledged family” inheritance and individual industry.4 Some women had quite prominent familial ties that enabled them to become slave owners. In 1686 a free parda named María Yáñez manumitted her forty-year-old negra slave, who also happened to be named María Yáñez. María had inherited the enslaved woman from her late grandfather Francisco Pérez Romero. While few details are known about the life of the free, African-descended slave owner María Yáñez, more than twenty notarial entries outline the business interests of her relatives living in Xalapa. María Yáñez’s affluent grandparents Juana Martín de la Hinojosa and Francisco Pérez Romero were born in La Villa de Ayamonte in the Kingdom of Castile and migrated to New Spain, where they became vecinos of Xalapa, likely around the early 1600s. Their two sons, Juan Jacinto Romero and Fernando Yáñez Matamoros, and Francisco’s cousin Pedro Romero also lived and conducted business in the jurisdiction.5

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Little is known about Francisco Pérez Romero’s wife, but the notarial archive documented his history as a longtime resident of Xalapa who as early as 1606 owned homes with a total value of 240 pesos. María Yáñez’s grandfather also owned a cattle ranch valued at 400 pesos and at least ten mules rigged for transportation, likely used to haul sugar cane to market.6 Furthermore, Francisco owned more than 60 slaves at a time when slave prices were at their highest. Many of these slaves labored at Fran­cisco’s ingenio, Nuestra Señora del Socorro. He purchased the estate for the astronomical price of 40,000 pesos, and it later became one of the principal sugar mills in the region. Other members of María’s family also owned slaves. By at least 1673 Juana and Francisco’s son Fernando Yáñez Matamoros owned at least one slave, but he later inherited quite a few more since his father Francisco bequeathed Nuestra Señora del Socorro to him. Fernando subsequently passed the ingenio on to his widowed daughter Juana Yáñez Romero.7 Regardless of whether María Yáñez was the daughter of Fernando or Juan (this is never clarified), her family’s century-long involvement in sugar production made her a third-generation slave owner. María Yáñez’s family, especially her grandfather, was wealthy and also socially prominent in Xalapa. Francisco belonged to arguably the premier lay organization in town, the Cofradía de las Ánimas del Purgatorio. Founded by at least 1609, Xalapa’s first confraternity maintained a membership roster that included many of the jurisdiction’s public officials, including the alcalde mayor of Xalapa Don Fernando Cortés de Monroy and a number of diputados, mayordomos, and capitanes. Francisco Pérez Romero also made deals with people from Toledo in the Kingdom of Castile and businessmen from Puebla de los Ángeles and Mexico City. The notarial archive also firmly establishes that María’s grandparents had considerable access to luxury: in 1603 Juana and Francisco tasked one

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of their agents in Mexico City with purchasing for them chocolate, cases of wine, gold, silver, and the vaguely defined “merchandise and other such things.” The budget for the order of such nonessentials was a staggering one thousand pesos.8 Intergenerational slave ownership was a fast track to social legitimacy for people of African descent, as it often resulted in the greater potential for wealth acquisition. The status of slave owners also firmly placed them in networks of people who were longtime stakeholders in slavery, unquestionably in the dominant fold, and far removed from the maroons who disrupted commerce along the Camino Real. But perhaps by 1686 María Yáñez, the granddaughter of one of Xalapa’s largest slave-owning families, had grown tired of her family’s business and freed her namesake. She would not be the first in her family to manumit a slave. Decades before, in 1619, her grandparents freed a negra “from the land of Zape” named Isabel, who was more than fifty years old. When Juana and Francisco offered Isabel a freedom card, they did so because she had “served them very well and with much love and affection . . . and because she had paid them 300 pesos.” They had purchased Isabel eleven years prior for four hundred pesos and even though she was of advanced age and possibly experiencing diminishing health, they still expected to collect nearly the same price as a young, healthy, adult slave.9 Juana and Francisco were certainly not as generous as their granddaughter was nearly seventy years later when she offered a noncompensatory manumission to her forty-year-old slave. María Yáñez might have had other slaves, as did her grandparents. However, María, who could have potentially profited by hundreds of pesos, chose not to burden the enslaved María Yáñez with crushing debt before she could enjoy even one full day as a free woman. The free parda María Yáñez materially benefited from her wealthy grandfather’s recognition even though the records

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imply her illegitimacy since no single document identifies her parentage. As an acknowledged-family beneficiary through her grandparents, she came into the ownership of slaves through publicly recognized sanguineous ties, even if the family sought not to illuminate all of the lines. A heritage of slave ownership reinforced notions of proximity to Spanish imperial advancement, but María Yáñez made choices that her other family members did not. Outside of the manumission of Isabel in 1619, it does not appear that her family members notarized a liberty card for another enslaved person in Xalapa’s jurisdiction at any other time during the seventeenth century. While matriarchs and patriarchs often circulated ideas about capital management to their family members, the heirs were under no obligation to abide by them. People legally freed their slaves for a number of reasons, including actual or performed benevolence. In the case of the free parda María Yáñez, perhaps she manumitted her slave to disengage from slave owning and from her family’s expectations all together. Not everyone had such advantageous family connections that they could afford to distance themselves from slavery—one of the region’s most reliable sources for families to build an economic legacy. Still, slave owning was not enough for some, and the expansion of the region’s economy in the early 1600s opened doors for African-descended women slave owners to branch out into other endeavors, including entrepreneurship. One such woman was María Núñez, one of the earliest documented slave owners of African descent in Xalapa. María registered business at the notarial office six times between 1609 and 1615. Her executor later registered four posthumous business transactions in 1631. Few details are known about her family life, but María’s notarial trail establishes that in the early 1600s she was lawfully married to Vicente Rodrígues. However, the documents

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do not offer any other identifying information about him, such as his age, occupation, caste, or legal status. While we are short on details for her husband, we know that María eventually managed her own business but was first cited in the notarial archives because of her interest in buying and selling slaves. On March 16, 1609, she bought a negro slave named Francisco for 460 pesos. With the aid of a fiador, she had a year to pay off the debt to the slave seller Andrés Moreira. The need for a financial backer was common among nearly all economic groups— even the wealthiest subjects of New Spain lacked liquidity in the early- and midcolonial periods. As most people had to rely on their financial reputations and personal relationships, her need for a financier did not necessarily mean she was inept at money management.10 Indeed, María was quite skilled. Three months later María Núñez purchased an inn named the Venta del Río for 400 pesos. The property included all houses and storage areas of the venta and carried a price tag nearly ten times greater than that of the average parcel bought by residents of Xalapa. With the contract signed, María not only became a business owner but also the dueña of a substantial piece of real estate. However, instead of keeping the inn she decided to hedge her bets on the open market. The very next month, on July 10, 1609, she sold the Venta del Río to a man named Juan Gallegos for 550 pesos. María and Juan agreed on an installment plan, probably because he also lacked cash on hand. It appears as though Juan Gallegos may have realized that he was in over his head in running the business. Just a few years later, on May 31, 1613, Juan sold the Venta del Río for the same price he purchased it for to a man named Pedro Ruiz, also a vecino of the jurisdiction of Xalapa.11 Not until 1615 did María Núñez notarize another significant financial investment when she purchased an enslaved

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mother and her son for 550 pesos from the Xalapa negrero Capitán Jorge Veneciano. This same transaction notes that María resided at the Venta del Río even though she no longer owned it. The same 1615 entry reveals that María Núñez was a widow, her husband, Vicente Rodrígues, having died. It would take another sixteen years for María Núñez to reappear in the notarial archive but this time represented by Licenciado Jerónimo Gisberto, the priest and vicar of the sugar refinery Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, located in the jurisdiction of Xalapa. Unfortunately, by January 1631 Licenciado Jerónimo was taking care of all of María Núñez’s affairs because at some point she had passed away. On January 31, 1631, on behalf of María’s estate, Licenciado Jerónimo sold a thirty-four-year-old negra slave named Isabel to a man named Alonso Gaitán for 350 pesos. On the same day, the executor also sold María’s final asset to Alonso, the Venta del Río, for 1,000 pesos—nearly twice as much as she sold it for the first time in 1609. The final posthumous entry on April 27, 1631, discloses that María Núñez had charged Licenciado Jerónimo Gisberto with allocating funds to pay for masses for her soul and that of her second husband, none other than Pedro Ruiz, the same man who purchased the Venta del Río in 1613 from the man that María Núñez had sold it to in 1609. Not until this 1631 entry is her second marriage revealed, which demonstrates again that the notarial archive chronicled business lives and only sometimes inadvertently included more personal details. Because it appears that she never left the Venta del Río, the two likely met at the inn she had previously owned for just a month. For a few years, María Núñez relinquished ownership of the Venta del Río and enjoyed the initial profit of its sale. She eventually found a way, either purposefully or coincidentally, to regain control of the property as the wife of the new owner and then as the sole proprietor after his death.12

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María Núñez made a lifetime of judicious choices that served her well, including her decision to elect a thorough executor. In the final, posthumous entry on July 8, 1631, Licenciado Jerónimo Gisberto notarized that a debt of sixty-three pesos was owed to María’s estate.13 The debtor was a man named Manuel Núñez (no stated relation) who lived in the jurisdiction of San Juan de Llanos, located approximately one hundred kilometers west of Xalapa in the present-day state of Puebla. Manuel acknowledged that the debt had been verified in an official document, and he agreed to pay the total sum of sixty-­ three pesos in just six months’ time. That Licenciado Jerónimo was able to track down María’s debtors (even those quite far away) and have them agree to such demanding repayment terms is remarkable and perhaps indicates her renown as a well-connected and serious businesswoman in the region, a reputation that persisted long after she was gone. For more than twenty years María Núñez bought and sold slaves and periodically owned the Venta del Río. She contributed to the local economy, made deals, and ensured that her debts would all be accounted for by appointing a reliable legal proxy. A remarkable life to be sure, and one that required diversification across all available capital—social, cultural, and economic. Although there is no evidence that María Núñez knew her, María López was most certainly her peer and shared similar markers of status as another slave-owning woman of African descent who lived in Xalapa in the early seventeenth century. María López, described as being “de color morena,” resided in a few different locations in and around Xalapa for the two years she registered business at the notarial office, from 1609 to 1610. On March 16, 1609, as the owner of the Venta de la Rinconada, María purchased a negro slave from Capitán Andrés Moreira for 460 pesos, which happens to be the same price María Núñez paid for a male slave when she did business

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with the same slave seller. The costly price tag represented a particularly high market value at the time, perhaps because the enslaved man had training in a specific trade. María López and Capitán Andrés agreed that she would pay the debt in full in one year’s time. Since the case did not cite the need for a fiador, this allowance implies the credibility of her financial reputation. The following day, on March 17, 1609, María commissioned a resident of Xalapa named Juan de Sosa del Castillo to sell a negro bozal named Juan for her.14 She noted in the entry that Juan the apoderado should sell Juan the bozal at a price he deemed fit, a sign of María’s trust in his ability to bargain high and serve her interests. Juan de Sosa del Castillo appeared again two months later, on May 15, 1609, to finalize another agreement on María López’s behalf. Juan registered paperwork verifying a debt owed by María López to Mateo Jorge for another slave. María López had purchased a negra slave named Lucrecia from “the nation of Angola” for 420 pesos and had only six months to pay off the debt. Having 880 pesos in liabilities by midyear, María López did not reappear until 1610, perhaps having been occupied in raising money before she decided to again buy and sell slaves, which she started doing in the spring of 1610. On April 21, 1610, María López made headway in securing more funds by selling a twenty-five-year-old negra slave named Esperanza “from the land of the Bran” for a significant profit of 600 pesos.15 This transaction described María López as a resident of the Venta de Los Naranjos but did not specify if she worked there too as an innkeeper. What is clear is that she was still a slave owner and likely in need of greater income given that she continued to sell more of her slaves. On that same day in 1610 María López reached out to a man named Francisco Hernández Franco from La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz so that he could sell another negra slave of

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hers named Ana López (no cited relation). Later documents never recorded the price that Francisco sold Ana for, but even if she was sold at the low market price of 300 pesos, María López would have made enough in these two sales to cover her debts from 1609 for the purchase of the two male slaves. María López registered a third business transaction on April 16, 1610, when she finally revoked the representative power she had granted to Juan de Sosa del Castillo a year earlier. On April 22, 1610, now a resident of Xalapa proper, María López sold more of her slaves. She returned to familiar buyers, such as the vecino Francisco Hernández Franco, and sold him a twenty-fiveyear-old negra slave named María “from the Angola nation” for 325 pesos, demonstrating her ability to sustain profitable business ties with other slave owners.16 From a relatively short time frame of her recorded history, we get the sense that María López was a free morena who wielded considerable social, cultural, and economic capital. She owned at least six slaves and had professional connections to men in Xalapa, its agricultural environs, and La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. María López made her own path in the region by engaging in the slave trade when more people of African descent than not were enslaved in the early 1600s. Interestingly, her archival footprint never veers into the intimate or interpersonal. And, while she made references to her ties to the world of innkeeping, María López’s notarial life centers her identity as a slave owner who appeared to have little trouble buying and selling slaves as she saw fit. Given the lack of any further details to contextualize her choices, all that is really known is that she was fairly wealthy and well connected, perhaps revealing that it was the only identity María López ever wanted to be known and documented by Spanish officials. Not everyone wanted to divulge their private lives to notarial assistants, and María may have purposefully obscured details beyond what

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was absolutely necessary to contract the business she required at the moment. In this respect, the free parda and vecina Petrona de Arauz was an outlier, as she was mentioned in more than a dozen notarial entries that documented her business and her personal life. Petrona had a number of social markers that would have provided her with social legitimacy. The first is that she was legally married to Pedro de Licona, a man who left only a few details about his life and the possible economic circumstances of his slave-owning wife. Pedro de Licona was a free mulato and a fairly recent transplant to the jurisdiction. His only notarial entry stated that he had arrived in Xalapa from La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz only three years prior to register a case of stolen personal property on January 21, 1679. Pedro had left a transport mule in the care of Juan López Ruiz Matamoros, a vecino of Xalapa and cattle ranch owner. The mule had been stolen but then found in the possession of an indio ladino named José Hernández, who was a vecino of Xalapa and worked at a local mill.17 The two men resolved the dispute when José agreed to pay Pedro for the value of the mule. Petrona de Arauz and Pedro de Licona may have been owners of a recua, or perhaps they merely rented their solitary mule out to arrieros in need of a pack animal with “fresh legs.” The theft, then, appeared to be a serious enough matter to document but was resolved fairly uneventfully. Pedro de Licona’s notarial life was brief because by at least 1691 he had already passed away. Petrona, however, continued to conduct high-value business in Xalapa as a widow. In her first notarial entry, dated May 25, 1691, Petrona de Arauz purchased property from her fellow vecinos of Xalapa Josefa del Espíritu Santo and her husband, Lucas Díaz de la Cueva.18 The plot had a hefty price tag of sixty pesos and measured approximately 82 by 78 varas. And while the real estate was larger than

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A packtrain journeying from Mexico to Xalapa (1828). Claudio Linati (1790–1832), Coche de Colleras. Voiture de Voyage, de Mexico à Xalapa. Vue du Grand Pic d’Orizaba (1828). Lithograph with applied watercolor, 9 1/6 x 12 13/16 in. Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, 1985.31.43

average, the materials used in the construction of the actual house appeared to be humble. The purchase agreement described the house as being made of wood with a straw-covered roof along with enclosures made from wood and clay. However, when compared with materials used in other homes documented in the notarial archive in the late seventeenth century, it is difficult to ascertain whether Petrona’s home was as modest as it first might appear. In a review of twenty-four houses with physical descrip-

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tions documented in the notarial archive during the last quarter of the seventeenth century, thirteen were described as having tiled roofs, eight had palm-leaf roofs, and three had roofs made from straw. Straw appears to have been the least common material used, no doubt because of its lack of durability. However, straw was also used in more expensive homes. On July 22, 1697, Doña Isabel de Neira sold her house for 220 pesos. Located in the neighboring town of Naolinco, where Spaniards settled in 1526, it too had a straw-roof and was worth more than three times the price of Petrona’s home. Similarly, in 1697 a house made of wood and clay sold for 250 pesos. Petrona’s home worth 60 pesos was made of wood, which reveals less about the type of home one imagines because in 1684 a home made of wood and stone sold for 1,250 pesos.19 It is difficult to discern from the building materials alone how elaborate Petrona’s home was in comparison to others in the jurisdiction of Xalapa at the end of the seventeenth century. But even at its valuation of 60 pesos, it was still double that of most homes in the area at that time. Furthermore, although the house was not constructed of more apparently durable supplies, such as tile and stone, its prime location on the street of the main public plaza headed toward Mexico City increased its desirability and property value. The materials of the house at the time of purchase may not have also reflected Petrona’s future designs for it. She might have had plans to buy the land and then rebuild a completely new home to her preferred specifications with the materials she deemed fit. Fourteen years passed before Petrona de Arauz appeared again before Xalapa’s notary public. While she had fallen silent in her notarial life, she forged ahead with other economic activities by becoming a slave owner. The available documents do not contain information regarding how many slaves she owned in total, but a 1706 poder to Don Francisco García de

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Mendoza revealed that she owned a fourteen-year-old negra criolla named María Josefa.20 Petrona had originally purchased María Josefa in October of 1701 from Don Ignacio de Herrera Loza, a vecino from La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. Don Francisco, the man she charged with selling María Josefa, was also a vecino from Veracruz. Like many other residents of means in Xalapa, Petrona de Arauz continued to forge ties to merchants, landowners, and businessmen from the colony’s most economically prominent port. Petrona’s decision to sell her slave was likely the soundest financial move for her given the amount of debt she incurred in subsequent years. In March of 1709 Petrona de Arauz granted a general poder to Blas Fernández Álvarez in order to represent her on all civil and criminal cases that she might confront. Four months later it appears as though Petrona needed him for a more specific matter than the general legal proxy order conveyed. In July 1709 she found herself indebted to the heirs of Juan de Thormes, a merchant from the region.21 Alférez Sebastian de Flores Moreno, the executor for Juan de Thormes’s estate, noted that Petrona had two years to pay off a loan of just over five hundred pesos. Instead of using a financier, she put up her house in Xalapa on the Camino Real as collateral. Given the large sum, it seems extraordinary that Petrona de Arauz was not required to notarize a fiador. And while she bought her house in 1691 for sixty pesos, how could it have amounted to a sufficient bond for the executor of Juan de Thormes’s estate? The first reason can be deduced from her family history, and the second is not revealed until later. Every document in which Petrona de Arauz appeared from 1691 onward noted that she was a widow who had been legitimately married to Pedro de Licona. However, a 1716 entry reveals that she had given birth to a son—the result of an unsanctioned union that never resulted in a second legal marriage

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since she continued to be referred to as the widow of Pedro de Licona. Yet the liaison was likely significant given the courtesy extended by the man’s family in later years. Petrona’s son, Juan Joseph de Thormes, was the acknowledged but illegitimate child of the merchant Juan de Thormes, whose family offered Petrona de Arauz the five-hundred-peso loan. Her relationship to Juan de Thormes and her status as the mother of his child constitute a reasonable explanation as to why she did not need to provide a fiador to his family. One should not presume, however, that other members of Juan de Thormes’s family felt a strong affinity toward Petrona de Arauz just because she bore his son. Some families informally acknowledged illegitimate children, but many did not, nor was there a legal obligation to do so.22 Although widowed and then left again to fend for herself after her child’s father also died, Petrona de Arauz was certainly not short on opportunities and means. The years that followed reveal a woman with resources, one who navigated a complex legal world to her benefit and to that of her hijo natural, Juan Joseph de Thormes. Between 1709 and 1710 Petrona de Arauz expanded her social circle and sought out legal representation from someone of greater status than herself. On July 23, 1710, Petrona granted a general poder to Capitán Diego Rosado, a vecino from Mexico City.23 While many people established connections with the regional elite of central Veracruz, especially with those in the port, Petrona claimed as a confidante someone of real or perceived influence from the heart of New Spain’s seat of power—connections often made only by Xalapa’s elite. She may have intended to conduct business with someone in Mexico City and depended on Capitán Diego to represent her interests. For another two years, however, Petrona did not transact further business with the notary public that would verify any new acquisitions or sales. If

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Petrona de Arauz had no definitive affairs to arrange or debts to collect on, she may have used the authoritative power bestowed upon the notary in a poder to direct her own notarial truth: that she was a businesswoman who had influential ties and was well prepared to make any deal at any given moment, as other prominent members did. Petrona de Arauz reentered notarial life on March 2, 1712, when she sold off a portion of her estate, the one located on the Camino Real that she used as collateral in 1709.24 She sold a piece of land that measured 25 by 25 varas for fifty pesos to the Xalapa locals Pedro de Flandes and Diego Méndez. And while approximately one-quarter of her 1709 estate was a significant sale, Petrona de Arauz may have been facing pressure to pay off the loan she had secured from Juan de Thormes’s family, or perhaps she needed to raise funds for the maintenance or optimization of the land that remained in her ownership. Another four years passed before Petrona de Arauz re­ appeared. If selling part of her property implied that she had fallen on more precarious economic times, her next entry marked a change for the better. The case also reveals more about her personal life than her other, more routine business transactions divulge. On August 13, 1716, Petrona received 414 pesos and 4 reales from Doña Gertrudis de la Gala y Thormes, the widow of Alférez Sebastián de Flores Moreno.25 Doña Gertrudis had taken on the responsibility bestowed upon her late husband of administering the estate of Juan de Thormes, the father of Petrona’s son. As Juan Joseph de Thormes was still a minor in 1716, Petrona de Arauz received the funds on his behalf. The Spanish legal code allowed for acknowledged illegitimate heirs to receive an inheritance, and at least one wealthy Spaniard in Xalapa offered substantial financial support to his African-descended hijo natural. The agreement stated that

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Petrona would continue to receive financial support as long as she had Juan Joseph in her custody or served as the principal administrator of his affairs. However, Petrona would need to learn enough about estate law and notarial precedent if she wanted to ensure that she would continue to receive the funds she was promised since it was also noted that they could not locate some of the original documents. Petrona likely insisted on notarizing the arrangement with Doña Gertrudis de la Gala y Thormes, perhaps a relation of the child’s father, given that she faced missing paperwork and Juan Joseph’s economic future might have hung in the balance if a dispute ever arose. For the next three years Petrona’s notarial life fell silent. However, on August 23, 1719, she registered the sale of a portion of her property to José de Aguilar for thirty pesos. Measuring 30 by 25 varas, the plot was part of her original estate in the center of town. After more than fourteen years of notarial history, Petrona de Arauz’s next entry finally revealed the scope of her financial holdings. The previous year’s sale alluded to a larger property but failed to provide any further details about the size of the land or its degree of development. On August 31, 1720, Petrona de Arauz decided to grant Juan Joseph de Thormes a generous gift.26 The documents mention that her son had requested an undisclosed quantity in order to buy a home. Instead, Petrona de Arauz presented him with a house and some land located on the prime real estate location of the Camino Real. The expansive property measured more than 80 by 116 varas. Because she owned such a vast estate it seems improbable that Petrona de Arauz did not own more slaves beyond the one she purchased in 1701 and sold in 1706. A property of that size would have required a considerable amount of maintenance, but no other notarial documents involving Petrona de Arauz cite any other slaves that she may have owned

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or any seasonal or full-time wage laborers. It is hard to imagine that Petrona herself managed the upkeep, but perhaps she was just that dynamic. Her case further establishes that the nature of the notarial archive thwarts our efforts at rounding out the lives of historical figures, even for those who left relatively more substantial paper trails. Given the description of the property and its location, this extravagant donation to her son Juan Joseph must have been the same estate that Petrona de Arauz purchased in 1691. The original 1691 property measured roughly 81 by 78 varas. Throughout the years, she had sold segments of it, perhaps to raise funds during economic downturns. However, Petrona de Arauz, a widowed free parda who had raised a child on her own, found a way to recuperate her losses and increase her estate by nearly one-third by the time she donated it to her son twenty-nine years later. Petrona de Arauz maintained an enviable property for nearly three decades of her life, expanded it, and passed it on to her child, proving herself to be a conscientious landowner and sometime slave owner who created intergenerational wealth. Juan Joseph de Thormes entered only sparse clues in the notarial archive to provide evidence of how his mother’s financial skills assisted him. On December 31, 1721, he granted permission to vecinos from Puebla de los Ángeles, Capitán Juan Rodríguez de Tejada and Don Manuel de Santibáñez, to prepare his last will and testament. Although he had these two men from Puebla to compose the documents, Juan Joseph named as executors of his will two people closer to home: his wife, Juana Rosa de la Higuera, and his mother, Petrona de Arauz. He named his three legitimate minor children as his principal heirs: Gaspar Joseph, age three; Francisco, age two; and a daughter named María, only a year old at the time. Some-

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thing may have occurred that prevented the last will and testament from being drawn up because two years later, Juan Joseph de Thormes once again returned to the notary public in Xalapa to request that his will be prepared. On December 11, 1723, he granted a poder to his friend the cavalry lieutenant José Pérez de Arellano and Capitán Bartolomé de Castro, both vecinos from the jurisdiction of Xalapa, to arrange his will.27 To finalize this personal matter Juan Joseph may have preferred men who were in closer physical proximity and possibly more familiar with him and his family. While the legal proxies had changed, the directives had not; his wife and mother remained as executors and his children as principal inheritors. It is unclear how much wealth Juan Joseph de Thormes generated in his lifetime, but the 1720 donation of land by his mother made him the title owner of a sizeable property. Later documents reveal that Petrona de Arauz’s liberal donation of land to her son was perhaps a mistake since it had become an overwhelming liability for him. On September 2, 1724, a mere four years after transferring guardianship of the estate to Juan Joseph, Petrona arrived at the notarial office to relieve him of the onus of managing the property that he could no longer support.28 Juan Joseph de Thormes and his mother conceded that because the donation was so grand and because he would have to maintain the property throughout his lifetime, a commitment that would be impossible for him to fulfill, they agreed to revoke a part of the initial donation. For decades Petrona de Arauz managed the estate, and her son could not bear the burden of being responsible for it for a few years. Juan Joseph de Thormes acknowledged his shortcomings, and, instead of forfeiting the property through mismanagement or debt, his mother relieved him of most of its administration and ownership. Fortunately, Petrona de Arauz knew when it was time to

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reclaim her legacy before it was lost in the incapable hands of her perhaps far too fortunate son. Six years after rectifying a brief lapse in judgment, Petrona returned to the notary public on May 2, 1730, to sell to her fellow vecino Lucas de Olachea a plot of land located near the main public plaza. It was not a very large property, measuring just 25 by 36 varas, but she was able to find a buyer who was willing to offer the windfall of 270 pesos for the land. The 1730 case closes the chapter on the notarial life of the free parda Petrona de Arauz but not her impact on the collective memory of the town’s archival gatekeepers. Although Petrona owned a slave, selling real estate appeared to be her more consistent source of income. Indeed, it appears that her identity as the owner of well-known properties endured the longest. With so few existing street names to specify a location, the notaries of Xalapa often used other, well-­ known property lines to triangulate the address of a newly purchased or sold home for their clients. Petrona de Arauz’s centrally located property was used a number of times throughout the eighteenth century as an identifying marker. As late as 1796 the notary still oriented the address of a recently sold house with the description of its being located near the “land that used to be [owned] by Petrona de Arauz.”29 Most of Petrona’s revenue appears to have been derived from the astute acquisition of some of Xalapa’s most sought-­ after properties. As a widowed woman with a large estate, she likely needed to have at least one enslaved girl to assist her with chores and other daily maintenance. Petrona de Arauz purchased nine-year-old María Josefa in 1701 likely for this very purpose. As a landowner, Petrona de Arauz’s involvement in the slave trade is not surprising and, in fact, it is curious that she did not document a greater degree of slave owning. Per-

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haps she owned many slaves but never required the services of the notary to archive this history. Strikingly, as one of the most documented women of African descent who owned slaves in Xalapa, Petrona left virtually no documentation that would allow us to know how she felt about being a slave owner. She never manumitted any slaves, nor does it appear that she had enslaved family members. Petrona’s familial proximity to slavery is unclear, and perhaps she preferred that ambiguity and emphasized instead her most well-known status as a prominent real estate dealer. From slave owning to property management to familial obligations, Petrona de Arauz covered a vast array of experiences in the thirty-nine years in which the notary public documented parts of her life. She outlived her free mulato husband Pedro de Licona. She later engaged in an illicit relationship with a Spanish man, which resulted in the birth of her hijo natural, Juan Joseph de Thormes. She took the initiative to reclaim the fruits of her labor when she perceived her son’s limitations. And while Petrona did not even know how to sign her name, she maintained numerous properties from which she continuously profited and offered intergenerational wealth to her son and his family. Petrona de Arauz sustained a life of relative privilege because she judiciously reevaluated her personal and business circumstances and took executive action to preserve that which she had so robustly accomplished.30 However, there is no escaping that Petrona accomplished such feats at the same time that she benefited from the labor of a young slave girl who was largely raised in her home—a girl she later sold away. María Josefa’s journey is left untold—a history likely filled with more demanding labor and further exploitation, especially as she entered adulthood. Unlike Petrona de Arauz, most people, regardless of their race or status, would not have continued sequential years of

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engagement with the notary public that would allow us to reconstruct more developed histories of their public and private lives. Most subjects of some means would have only fleeting experiences with the varied institutions of colonial administration. However, in comparison to other towns in central Veracruz, Xalapa was home to a considerable number of free women with the means to engage in and document slave owning. In the sugar-producing hub of the greater Veracruz region, the town of Córdoba had virtually none. Between 1635 and 1732 only one woman of African descent was a documented slave owner in Córdoba, a free parda named Theresa Francisca Her­ nándes.31 Theresa was a vecina of San Antonio de Huatusco in the jurisdiction of Córdoba and was married to Francisco de Soto, also a free pardo. On August 3, 1714, Theresa went to the notary public in Córdoba to notarize a document with the intent to sell a three-year-old mulato named Baltasar. The baby was born and raised in Theresa’s house because his mother, Andrea, had also been her slave. At some unspecified date Theresa sold Andrea to Capitán Don Juan Joseph Fernandes, and Baltasar remained in her household. This case is particularly telling, as no other case of slave-owning women of African descent in either town involved the sale of a child so young without also selling the child’s mother. At the dawn of the seventeenth century, when the transatlantic slave trade was at its height, a few clear patterns arise in the proportion of minors separated from their mothers. After reviewing nearly seven hundred records related to slaves from 1600 to 1620 in Xalapa’s notarial archive, I found thirty-­ three cases of children being sold. When slave owners sold children, 48 percent of the time they were accompanied by at least their mothers, if not by their mothers and other siblings.32 Slave owners or professional slave sellers sold off slightly more than half of all minors (52 percent) unaccompanied by a stated

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family member. These data may include sales in which the slave owner had previously purchased the mother (perhaps only a short time before) but then decided later to purchase the woman’s child. This is speculation, but it is a factor that must be considered given incomplete archival collections and the use of documents not meant to speak to the familial structures of enslaved people. Among the nearly seven hundred slave-related cases between 1600 and 1620, seventeen children were separated from their mothers during a period of great influx of slaves to the central Veracruz region (table 2). These seventeen minors sold by themselves had varying characteristics that leave few clues as to why children so young would have been sold away when they did not yet have the same capacity of productive labor as adults. Boys represented the majority of these cases, while only five cases of girls were documented, which follow trends of more male slaves forced to the region than female slaves. The youngest girl, a two-year-old named Catalina, was sold in 1605 by her owner Catalina de Villafuerte to a man named Juan Díaz Matamoros.33 Her purchase price of one hundred pesos was not insignificant, and it would be years before the baby could possibly be expected to labor in any substantive way. Perhaps slave owners in Xalapa believed that any slave acquisition was valuable enough to merit purchase because they knew that negreros would simply move on to other eager buyers along the Camino Real, especially those awaiting their arrival in Puebla and Mexico City. Slave owners in early seventeenth-century Xalapa were perhaps so desperate for a pool of enslaved laborers that they were even willing to actually raise them from (near) birth. The purchase of such young children (even babies) indicates how central slavery had become to Xalapa by the early 1600s, foretelling the prominence it would have during that century.

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Table 2. Children Sold Without a Cited Parent, 1600–1620

Name

Age

Isabel Sebastian Unnamed

 8 10 10 or 12

Catalina Magdalena Francisco de la Nieves José María Juan Pedro Domingo Catalina de San Juan Francisco Gaspar Vicente Alvaro Juan

Price Sold (in pesos de oro común)

Date October 25, 1601 July 8, 1604 November 17, 1604

 2 10 10

250 200 675* (sold with an enslaved woman) 100 300 150

10 or 12 12 12 10  7 11

200 225 230 250 130 250

May 26, 1610 June 2, 1610 August 31, 1611 November 22, 1612 August 23, 1616 July 29, 1617

12 12 13 10 20 months

290 270 260 225 150

September 28, 1617 September 28, 1617 September 1, 1617 October 1, 1617 May 12, 1618

April 8, 1605 October 24, 1606 July 15, 1609

Source: ANX, Records of Slaves Sales

An examination of the purchase of children reveals that people who sought slightly older minors paid about half the market price of adult slaves, regardless of gender. The youngest boy, Juan, was a mere twenty months old when he was sold in 1618 for 150 pesos. Only one boy aged ten and over sold for less than 200 pesos. Francisco de la Nieves held the dubious honor

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of being sold for a piddling 150 pesos, the same amount as baby Juan. One ten- or twelve-year-old boy was sold together with a woman who was not identified as his mother for the total price of 675 pesos de oro común.34 Because they were sold together with no differentiation between the two in the sale, it is unclear what his market value would have been had he been sold by himself. Blas Duarte, a slave merchant from La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz, sold three of the eight twelve-year-old boys— Francisco, Gaspar, and Vicente, all noted as being recién llegado (recently arrived) or recién venido (recently come) from Guinea. If they had indeed just arrived from Africa, they may have lost their mothers to disease or exhaustion during the Middle Passage. However, twelve years of age was considered near adulthood in a slave market, and buying a boy of this age probably depended on his skill and physical strength. Still, it was not a common practice in Xalapa. During the period of New Spain’s most significant involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, the notary public documented seventeen children in Xalapa who were sold without their mothers—twelve boys and five girls. If the threshold age is lowered to eight and younger, then only four minors were ever sold without their mothers between 1600 and 1620. These children included two boys (ages twenty months and seven years) and two girls (ages two years and eight years). If one lowers the age range of “child,” the paucity of cases demonstrates how exceptional it was to buy or attempt to sell children, as the percentages shift drastically from minor children being sold by themselves only 20 percent of the time and with their mothers at least 80 percent of the time, instead of the nearly 50 percent split when ten- to twelve-years-olds are included.35 Clues in the notarial archive of Xalapa suggest that some

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colonial officials might even have frowned upon the practice. Of the sixteen cases in which minors were sold with their mothers, one case sheds light on what colonial authorities might have thought about the selling of children. On April 11, 1607, the probate judge in Xalapa, Licenciado Antonio Rodríguez, charged his subordinate Justice of Commissary Alonso Ordóñez with carrying out his order regarding the property of the late Bartolomé González.36 Justice Alonso was to sell five of Bartolomé’s slaves, two men (Pedro and Manuel), two women (María and Lussia), and a child (Antón) to the ingenio owner Francisco de Orduña for the total price of 1,850 pesos de oro común. Judge Antonio Rodríguez included a specific instruction to Justice Alonso Ordóñez with regard to the child, ordering that because Antón was a niño (boy) he should not be sold away from his mother, María, and that wherever she went he was to accompany her. Unfortunately, Antón’s age has fallen victim to the passage of time; the page is torn away at the top left corner where his age had been documented. The missing detail could have shed greater light on what dynamic was perhaps at play when the judge attempted to ensure that the child remained with his mother. For example, was the niño four months old or seven years of age? If still nearly a baby, then perhaps Justice Antonio recognized that keeping Antón with his mother, María, at least for the initial years, would ensure the general health of a child whose future slave owner intended him to do arduous labor. If older and therefore not in need of a round-the-clock caretaker, perhaps the judge’s decision implies that he believed in keeping families together, regardless of what it might have meant for their vitality in the slave market. Given that María and Antón were the slaves of a well-connected administrator of a goat and sheep ranch in the area, the judge may have even

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known them personally, and his actions might speak to his sympathy for this specific enslaved family and not a general belief held for other enslaved families.37 What we know is that Judge Antonio Rodríguez felt strongly enough about his po­ sition to have it documented by the notary public, making it clear that his decision to not separate this mother from this child should be respected. In other cases, economic desperation likely led slave owners to sell a child. The notarial archive suggests that these cases were rare in Xalapa, even during the peak of the forced displacement of African slaves to the region. The one case of niño Antón and mother María demonstrates that at least one judge in Xalapa found it to be illogical, perhaps even distasteful, to sell a child away from his mother, as the free parda Theresa Francisca Hernándes had done one hundred years later in Córdoba. Many free women of African descent sold both male and female slaves and purchased them when they could afford to take on the responsibility and risk that slave owning entailed. Perhaps Theresa’s case in Córdoba further demonstrates how different the two towns were. The early 1600s represented the peak of Xalapa’s active purchase of newly arrived slaves, and the early 1700s represented the same for Córdoba. It would appear that the two towns had distinct expectations of slave owners even at the apex of their involvement in slave trading. In Xalapa slave owners rarely sold minors away from their mothers. Apparently even justices thought to intervene when it became a possibility. This cultural code may have been much more pervasive in Xalapa than in Córdoba. Both of the towns were situated in the central Veracruz region, but they were distinctly founded and subsequently developed on two very different paths with regard to slavery and free people of African descent.38 Free women slave owners in Xalapa appeared to have had extensive latitude with

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regard to how, when, and why they sold away enslaved women and men, but perhaps there were lines some did not dare to cross due to personal conviction or societal pressure. The selling of children might have been one of them. The women profiled thus far may reflect larger trends among people of African descent during the colonial era, especially given the gendered division of slave ownership. A review of the notarial entries of all free men of African descent residing or conducting business in Xalapa during the seventeenth century uncovers only three who owned slaves and notarized their activities without a free African-descended woman. The three cases offer different types of slave-owner business, the first two being fairly straightforward transactions. The first male slave owner of African descent appeared before the notary on April 21, 1618. Tomás Rodríguez, a mulato libre and vecino of Xalapa, owned a fifteen-year-old mulato criollo named Gabriel, who was born in Xalapa. For 350 pesos Tomás sold Gabriel to Hernández del Hierro, a secular priest of the district of Tlacolula. The second case involved the purchase of a slave. On May 17, 1620, a free mulato and vecino of Xalapa named Andrés Ramírez bought a twenty-year-old negra slave named Catalina, purportedly from Angola.39 Andrés purchased Catalina for 300 pesos from a widow named Isabel de Maya, a resident of Xalapa, demonstrating that, like free women, free men also brokered business deals with Spanish women in Xalapa. The third and final notarized case of a free man of African descent owning slaves involves a more complicated story of family. On June 19, 1645, Juan Biafara, a free negro and vecino of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz, bought a negra slave named Magdalena for 360 pesos from a fellow vecino named Bernardo Antonio. Nearly six months later, on January 10, 1646, Juan returned to the notarial office to register a trade he had contracted with the Xalapa resident Capitán Don Sebastian de

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la Higuera Matamoros. Juan agreed to hand over the aforementioned Magdalena in exchange for the freedom of one of Don Sebastian’s slaves, a forty-year-old negra criolla named Leonor.40 Don Sebastian issued the carta de libertad to Leonor and the matter was settled. The notarial authorities noted an important detail about Leonor: she was the wife of Pedro Biafara, Juan Biafara’s brother. It would appear as though a family of African descent worked diligently to reunite. The two entries registered in Xalapa were the only notarial evidence left by Juan Biafara and his brother, likely because they lived in La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. Thus it is unclear whether Juan sacrificed his one and only slave, Magdalena, to achieve Leonor’s freedom. Or whether he bought the enslaved woman six months previously with the specific purpose of trading her to secure the freedom of his brother’s wife. Either option demonstrates a tremendous financial sacrifice on Juan Biafara’s part and underscores the complexity of identity highlighted by the cases of women profiled here. The narrative of free people going to great lengths to secure the freedom of their family members, including by pulling together economic resources available to any and all members, is well established in the historiography. In Juan Biafara’s case, he perpetuated a system of involuntary servitude through his ownership of a brutal slave even as he acknowledged the detriment of slavery to his own family. The Biafara family’s predicament exemplifies the many ways in which people of African descent had to constantly negotiate the tension of their identities both as slave owners and as free women and men often intimately tied to slavery as family members of enslaved laborers or as formerly enslaved people themselves.

-

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Kings, viceroys, and regional authorities expressed concern about the economic potential of African-descended people by restricting admission to educational institutions and professions, the collective organizing of Indigenous and African-­ descended subjects, and even the ability of free women to wear pearls, silks, and silver adornments. Yet these late-sixteenthand early-seventeenth-century officials never communicated a similar apprehension about people of African descent involved in the lucrative business of slave owning, perhaps because it appeared that they acted as other slave owners did. In fact, Spanish governors may even have encouraged slave owning among free people. While free African-descended women and men often represented potential sources of colonial instability in the Spanish imaginary, a commitment to the colony’s economic structure through slavery symbolized a level of acculturation that Spanish authorities may have hoped would be the case for all of their subjects.41 While both Crown and Church might have supported slave ownership among free people to consolidate coalescing imperial interests, free African-descended women mobilized slave ownership as a tool of survival to guard against interventions in their socioeconomic autonomy and place as legitimate members of society. Regardless of the desires of Spanish officials, free women of African descent in Xalapa seized the opportunity to access a greater cross section of society. As they bought and sold slaves, they interacted with professional slave traders from the port, elite brokers in the region, ingenio owners in the agricultural peripheries of the jurisdiction, and more modest businessmen in Xalapa. Questions of economy motivated many of their activities as slave owners, such as in the cases in which women appeared to sell slaves to invest in more real estate. Rarely did they engage in socially unacceptable slave-owning

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practices, such as selling away minor children. In many ways, free African-descended women demonstrated patterns similar to those of Spanish elites who owned slaves and property. Women of African descent acquired slaves as many others did: through donations, familial inheritances, and individual purchase from acquaintances or traveling slave traders. Some women owned separate businesses that generated the economic capital that allowed them to continue to participate in the slave trade. A few had advantageous patrons. How some women of African descent came to be slave owners will remain shrouded in the shadows of the archives. Notarial documents divulged only what they legally needed to and only incidentally disclosed the nature of personal relationships and life experiences. However, not all choices regarding slave ownership appear to be mobilized by purely economic considerations, and these instances of variation documented by the notary public communicate how both race and gender influenced the decisions of free women. Slave-owning women of African descent found avenues to assert narratives within the constraints of familiar formulae and tropes of the notarial genre. While the records might have wanted to force them into orderly subjects through the regimen of procedure, free women tailored their own notarial truths with the inclusion and exclusion of elements of their lives. María Yáñez was sure to include that it was her grand­ father who had provided her with the slave she later manumitted. The inclusion of her grandfather’s name allowed for the greater examination of a man who was a wealthy Spaniard and a longtime resident of Xalapa, a fact that the notary public likely knew when he registered this information in María’s case.42 This detail allowed María Yáñez to claim her own social space by publicly identifying her familial benefactor and aligning herself with a source of economic influence and social le-

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gitimacy even when her natal legitimacy was left ambiguous. María Nuñez, on the other hand, noted that she was legitimately married to Vicente Rodrígues but offered nothing in the way of identifying markers for him that would allow her to claim a status beyond the legitimacy of marriage. She also never referred to her establishment as a shared operation with her spouse. María Núñez claimed legitimacy through her economic activities, as did Petrona de Arauz, a widow and single mother of an hijo natural who owned land, sold at least one slave, and negotiated a financially fraught relationship with her son’s Spanish family. Additionally, free women exercised the ability to be self-­ determining through slave ownership in ways that most subjects could not because of their lack of economic resources and exclusion from certain professions and trades. As slave owners they also wielded the power to determine the life chances of others. How did enslaved people hold onto a sense of community when free African-descended women calculated their value and then sold them after only a few years in their household? When free women displaced them through such sales, how did enslaved women and men experience the port, Puebla, or Mexico City after having spent their lives in the way station of Xalapa? What did it mean to have a slave owner who might have resembled one’s own mother? Not everyone was a lifelong slave owner. Xalapa’s notarial archive documents cases in which people owned slaves for as little as a few weeks. And while many people sought the protection of notarized exchanges of goods, property, and rights, free women did not have to legally document their status as slave owners. Even if future research finds that free African-­ descended women numerically accounted for a minuscule percentage of slave owners in seventeenth-century Mexico, these contours of colonial negotiations enrich and complicate under-

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standings of quotidian choices and life chances and open new realms of possibilities and considerations about economic survival, family, status, and even notions of their rights as colonial subjects.

4 One Generation

P

olonia de Ribas had four daughters, a son, and pos­ sibly her aging mother to support. She first appeared before Xalapa’s notary public on February 25, 1655. Polonia had recently brokered a deal to trade two of her slaves for two men owned by Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos, one of Xalapa’s wealthiest and most influential businessmen. The notary noted only that the two unnamed men whom she owned were negros bozales, implying that they were possibly born in Africa or were not yet fully acculturated to Iberian norms. The two men Don Joseph owned, the brothers Juan and Gerónimo de Irala, were Polonia’s siblings. There is no indication in the available documents that Polonia was ever raised with them, as she was a free woman and they were enslaved on a sugar mill until they were about twenty years old. She may have never identified with Juan or Gerónimo in a familial sense given her next decision. After Polonia de Ribas and Don Joseph finalized the transaction, she then kept her brothers enslaved for a quarter of a century.1 Only people with financial backers, profitable family ties, or particularly well-honed pecuniary skills could engage in sustained slave ownership. Polonia de Ribas was one such woman.

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She did so by spending her life managing capital so expertly that she confidently asserted her financial solvency in her last will and testament when she declared, “I do not owe anything to anyone. . . . [My] conscience is free and clear.”2 Choosing a lifetime investment in the enslavement of African-descended people, including two of her own brothers, Polonia de Ribas had taken extraordinary measures to safeguard her place in society. What makes her history even more astounding is that while other women transacted more points of business and owned more slaves, Polonia de Ribas was the only woman of African descent in Xalapa in over two hundred years’ worth of notarial records who left enough details to enable one to profile not only the impact of slavery in her own life but also the benefits it reaped for her extended family across multiple generations. Polonia de Ribas herself was a slave owner just one generation removed from slavery. However, the life story of her mother, Clara Lópes, may help explain why Polonia chose to invest in the enslavement of others. Polonia was a vecina in Xalapa by the time she was raising her family and notarizing business, but she was born in San Antonio Huatusco, a town in central Veracruz located between Xalapa and Córdoba. Her mother, on the other hand, was a negra from “the land of Guinea.” And while Guinea was commonly employed to generically refer to various parts of West and West Central Africa, Clara may have actually been a member of the Serer ethnic group from the Upper Guinea near the Gambia River. Spanish-­ American sources commonly referred to Serer people as Berbesi, and this trend was likely true for the archives of Xalapa. However, other groups in the Gambia River area included Wolof, Fula, and Mandinka peoples.3 When Clara Lópes first set foot in the central Veracruz region is unknown, but if indeed she was Serer/Berbesi, then

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the time she gained her freedom becomes clearer. According to Polonia, Clara had been enslaved for an unspecified period at the sugar hacienda Tenampa, which was owned by a man named Pedro de Irala. On November 17, 1643, Pedro’s nephew Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos granted a carta de libertad to a sixty-year-old woman named Clara López. Although not a particularly unique name, the manumission entry noted that this Clara López was a “negra from Berbesi.”4 Given that Pedro de Irala’s relative freed her and that Polonia described Clara as a “negra bozal from Guinea,” it is very likely that the Clara López manumitted in 1643 was Polonia’s mother. Although the manumission record notes that Clara was sixty years old in 1643, she was likely younger given that her two sons were possibly eight and thirteen years old at the time. If her two sons were born in the early 1630s, then Clara would have given birth to them in her early fifties. This is not unheard of, but it was more likely that her true age (and possibly theirs too) fell victim to the common practice of estimating ages, especially for slaves. More often, the records implied the stage of a perceived life cycle. Women over the age of twenty-­five, for example, did not require legal guardians, so a number of documents state that they were “twenty-five, more or less.” The designation of “sixty years old” may have implied merely that Clara was no longer of childbearing years or that she was viewed as an elder.5 Clara’s approximate age as well as those of Juan and Gerónimo matter because Polonia’s siblings were noted as criollos, men born in the colonies. If Clara had been in Veracruz since at least the late 1620s or early 1630s, she represented one of the last generations of enslaved Africans forced to colonial Mexico en masse. With the dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640, Spain slowed its investment in the transatlantic slave trade. Never again would thousands of enslaved Africans be forcibly displaced to the shores of Mexico in the annual pro-

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portions once seen. The timeline for Xalapa’s peak investment in the purchase of African slaves closely mirrored that of the rest of the colony but was shortened to the 1620s. Precipitated by the highest prices of sugar that the entire century experienced, the early 1600s marked the zenith of slave purchases in Xalapa. Between 1600 and 1610 alone, 323 enslaved women and men were sold in Xalapa, and the decade of 1610–20 documented 276 people sold in town. Across the two decades, the gender ratio of slaves sold in Xalapa was nearly exactly two men to every one woman. Between 1620 and 1629 the number of slaves sold in Xalapa dropped dramatically to just 99. The sale of slaves fell precipitously after the 1630s and never rebounded to the levels witnessed in Xalapa during the first two decades of the century.6 Manumitted as an elderly woman in 1655, Clara Lópes spent her final years in freedom after living most of her life enslaved. By the time Polonia registered her last will and testament in 1679, Clara had already passed away. Perhaps before she did, Clara helped raise Polonia’s five children—Sebastiana de Irala, Josefa, Micaela, Melchora de Irala, and Juan de Ribas. Polonia never identified their father or fathers, who might have otherwise assisted with the maintenance of the household. The only hint of paternity is found in her son’s 1642 confirmation record.7 The entry notes that Polonia was a vecina and a free mulata but states that Juan’s father “ignores him,” euphemistic language implying that a man had refused to acknowledge paternity, at least publicly (and, importantly, legally). Clara may have taken it upon herself to labor for a wage in order to assist her daughter. Likewise, she may have relied on her daughter and grandchildren to live comfortably, having spent years of backbreaking work at a sugar mill after being captured and sold into the Spanish realm. According to Polonia, Clara Lópes was born somewhere

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in Africa and was possibly a member of an ethnic group that had been disproportionately devastated by slave raids. Berbesi people, and Upper Guineans more broadly, were one of the most pillaged groups of Africans during Portugal’s slave raids in the sixteenth century, accounting for an estimated 75 to 100 percent of those abducted and forced onto slaving ships. Why, then, was her daughter a slave owner? Polonia de Ribas, while one generation removed from slavery, was also potentially only one generation removed from a specific African ethnic group (even if she was not a Serer, her mother was still a bozal). While her proximity to slavery and ethnicity might at first appear to offer a strong rationale as to why she would have rejected slave owning, historical speculation might offer a narrative as to why she was one for nearly her entire adult life, emphasizing the twisted nature of slavery’s logic. Perhaps Polonia had witnessed the horrors her mother had endured while enslaved at Tenampa or had heard of how her Berbesi/Serer forebearers had been brutalized. If so, she might have wanted to ensure that, as a wealthy free woman of African descent, no one would associate her with such a subjugated legacy. Polonia lived in a region experiencing a resurgence in slavery due to expanded sugar production in nearby Córdoba. She may have surveyed her surroundings, considered her vulnerability and that of her family, and chosen the option that those who did not experience her conditions might view as indefensible. While this is conjecture, if these possibilities are not opened up, the history of marginalized women is rendered one of victimization or passivity, or both. Polonia de Ribas’s archival trail portrays a woman seemingly careful and conscientious in matters registered with the notary public. And this exactitude and her circumstances allow for measured historical speculation, even as uncertainty lingers, to consider pasts incompletely archived and disparately told.

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From at least the mid-1640s until her death in 1679 Polonia de Ribas chose slave owning during a time when it marked an exclusive economic undertaking. For some slave owners, the purchase of slaves accounted for their largest financial ­investment. Momentarily setting aside the ownership of her two brothers who were born in the Spanish colonies, Polonia owned an unrelated negro criollo named Diego de Irala, two unnamed negros bozales, and an untold number of slaves accounted for in her daughter’s dowry. She may have also decided to be mindful that none of these slaves were of the same ethnic background as her mother, a practice replicated among other slave-owning women of African descent in the Spanish dominon.8 If Polonia felt a strong familial connection to her mother’s Serer ancestry, perhaps she never saw any incongruence in choosing to purchase slaves from other ethnic groups. While it is unknowable why she chose certain slaves over others (perhaps they were the only ones available), we know that Polonia’s investment in slavery was long and consistent and shaped her notarial life. Regardless of how many years Clara Lópes enjoyed legal freedom, one has to wonder whether she was still alive when her daughter bartered for the ownership of her sons, Juan and Gerónimo de Irala. Clara was enslaved when she gave birth to her three children. It is unclear whether Polonia was manumitted at birth or later in life. Her notarial documents do not note whether she was previously owned and by whom, which some records did specify for other free people. Perhaps she was young enough that she had no personal memories tied to her own enslavement. While this detail of her life is left unknown, Polonia de Ribas chose to invest in the purchase and sale of African-descended people to ensure that she and her children continued to enjoy the life chances of upwardly mobile people—to be firmly people of means.

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Polonia may have spent thousands of pesos purchasing slaves over her lifetime, but how and why did she own her siblings? Notarial documents rarely disclosed enough personal inferences to allow one to attest to the nature of these choices or the conditions of the people involved. Sometimes even rudimentary details were not entered into the record. For example, while it was common in Xalapa to offer a few more specifics about enslaved people when they were bought or sold, the notary did not note the ages or even transcribe the names of the two bozales whom Polonia exchanged for her siblings. They remain anonymous, their lives impacted by the enslavement of the brothers of one free mulata of means and made invisible by the archive. Most frustrating for one interrogating Polonia de Ribas’s financially entangled relationships was archival parlance, which could be quite misleading. The February 25, 1655, transaction between Polonia and Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos clearly stated that he had “donated” two slaves named Juan and Gerónimo de Irala to Polonia and that the men were her mother’s sons (“hijos de mi madre”). However, what is labeled as a donation in the 1655 document turns out not to be a gift at all but a straightforward business arrangement. This important clarification is not offered until Gerónimo’s 1679 manumission order. It states that Polonia had “exchanged [Gerónimo and Juan] for two other negros bozales, which [she] gave to the mill that produces sugar called Tenampa.”9 The fact that she gave Don Joseph two slaves for her brothers instead of outright purchasing Juan and Gerónimo may imply that Polonia herself was cash-poor, like many other colonial subjects. She may have had high-value assets but limited specie. Don Joseph might have also been more open to an exchange of healthy, skilled laborers who were always in demand at sugar mills rather than to receive payment and await a passing negrero. If

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her brothers carried the average valuation of generally healthy slaves, she would have needed eight hundred pesos to buy them, a tall order for all but the wealthiest in Xalapa, such as the Spanish men prominently linked to her own family’s history. Pedro de Irala and Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos were from one of the oldest, most influential families in Xalapa. By 1637 Pedro was a resident at a sugar mill in Xalapa and served as a priest holding the honorific title of bachiller. By 1643 he functioned as the cura beneficiado of Xalapa. He also had access to greater income after he inherited his mother’s estate, the considerable sugar hacienda Tenampa. In addition to owning Tenampa, purchasing slaves, and conducting other business in the region, Pedro de Irala by 1660 boosted his prestige in Xalapa when he found a seat as an ecclesiastical judge. Like his uncle, Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos inherited con­ siderable wealth, including the large, multi-industry estate of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, and he managed and later owned Tenampa. Don Joseph owned an additional grain mill called El Molino del Río Frío and a cattle ranch called La Palmilla, both of which were located in the jurisdiction of La Antigua Veracruz. He also regularly conducted business with people from La Nueva Veracruz and Mexico City. In 1655 Don Joseph served as the justicia mayor of Xalapa, a chief magistrate appointed by the viceroy.10 It is no wonder that in the first half of the seventeenth century both Don Joseph and his uncle Pedro documented dozens of transactions with the notary public. Beyond the matter of her brothers’ ownership, Polonia’s notarial life further intersects with the Irala and Ceballos y Burgos families, which demonstrates that her web of associates included wealthy and politically powerful men who held her in esteem. While a number of African-descended women sought out legal representation, at least one of Xalapa’s most prominent

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Spanish residents trusted an African-descended woman and slave owner to represent him as he finalized a financial agreement. The December 22, 1664, poder reads as follows: “I, the Licenciado Pedro de Irala, cura beneficiado for his Majesty of this district of Xalapa, grant and give my poder to assign and transfer, with proper cause and as required, to Polonia de Ribas, free mulata and my vecina of this town.”11 Licenciado Pedro specifically charged Polonia with collecting on the sizeable debt of 257 pesos and 2 reales from Joseph Cogollos y Zarate, the owner of the Venta de Lencero and administrator of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. Pedro de Irala had an expansive social circle and often entrusted other prominent Spanish men to serve as his legal proxy. In 1641 Licenciado Pedro granted his poder to Sargento Manuel Viveros, a resident of La Antigua Ciudad de Veracruz, in order to lease property he had in that city. He also had a number of distinguished family members, such as his brother Bachiller José de Goitia, whom he called upon in a 1637 poder to conduct business for him in Puebla de los Ángeles. Pedro de Irala could also have appointed his nephew Don Joseph Ceballos y Burgos. Interestingly enough, and perhaps indicative of how small the social circle of elites was in Xalapa, twice he turned to a Spaniard named Diego de Villar to collect debts on his behalf—once in 1649 and then again in 1651.12 Diego de Villar later married Melchora de Ribas, Polonia’s daughter. Diego and Melchora were first documented as a married couple in 1668, so it is unclear whether Pedro de Irala knew that he had contracted as his apoderado the future son-in-law of Polonia de Ribas—fifteen years before he called upon her to undertake a similar duty. Given his history of choosing elite men as apoderados, why then did he bestow upon the free mulata Polonia de Ribas this legal power of representation? This is where the mundane,

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formulaic processes of notarial documentation provide greater qualitative explanations than might be expected. People paid for notarized documents in order to use them to corroborate verbal agreements, substantiate rights and authority, record intended legal actions for fear of dispute, and ensure that third parties and witnesses attested to the validity of statements provided. In the case of the issuance of a poder, colonial subjects usually did not take the time and incur the cost of registering a designated legal proxy with the notary public to conduct minor errands or to execute an impromptu transfer of small, immaterial goods. As such, the notarial record offers additional testimony that Pedro de Irala purposefully and thoughtfully appointed Polonia de Ribas to manage a considerable business transaction with Joseph Cogollos y Zarate, a business owner and administrator of one of Xalapa’s main sugar complexes. Pedro could have chosen from any number of Spanish men, including the affluent ones in his own family, but he did not. He entrusted a free mulata to do the job for him, to collect a large sum of money from a prominent Spaniard, and not because she was the only person he had available to him and was therefore his reluctant choice as a substitute legal agent. Nor was it the case that Pedro de Irala asked Polonia de Ribas to do him the casual favor of picking up a promissory note or a parcel of equivalent bullion. Sometimes legal proxies did not successfully collect on debts, which led to costly and lengthy processes of choosing new agents and dispatching them again, as the notarial archive attests. Pedro de Irala chose Polonia de Ribas as his legal proxy because he believed her to be a resolute mediator or astute negotiator who would resolve the matter posthaste. Pedro de Irala’s poder spoke not only to Polonia’s ties to formidable economic associates but also to her position as a reliable confidante of one of Xalapa’s influential power brokers.

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While Pedro de Irala trusted Polonia enough to serve as his legal agent, the archive remains silent on the nature of her relationship with Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos, with whom she also conducted business. Sometimes his and Polonia’s notarial interactions appear like those of platonic elites and other times his actions suggest something more. While he required steep terms in the exchange for Polonia’s brothers, Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos revealed in the same entry that they may have had a closer relationship than initially conveyed. At the bottom of the first page of the two-page document Don Joseph stated that he agreed to pay Polonia one thousand pesos because her daughters Josepha, Micaela, and Sebastiana “were going to take a state,” meaning that they planned to wed. He further declared, “I promise in writing that I will not revoke this [notarized] deed.” That Don Joseph provided dowry funds to three of Polonia’s daughters certainly implies that he might have been the unnamed father of some of her children. However, if their relationship was so close, why did he stipulate in the first part of the entry that she had to trade two of her slaves for her brothers? Why did he not simply donate them to Polonia to save her the loss of the two negros bozales whom she owned? In addition to Polonia’s siblings, Polonia de Ribas’s mother was enslaved by Don Joseph’s uncle Pedro de Irala and by Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos himself after he began to manage his uncle’s estate, which he eventually owned. However, Don Joseph manumitted a Clara López in 1643 without requiring a payment for that freedom card. Perhaps Polonia de Ribas and Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos were romantically involved. Perhaps the relationship between the two was affective but not amorous.13 Either way, her closeness to this powerful vecino of Xalapa suggests her high status and perhaps something of her strategy to ensure her family’s livelihood.

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Whereas some women of African descent spent their days struggling with payment arrangements and fearing the danger of their loved ones’ continued enslavement, a few women attended to the welfare of their children in ways similar to those of other privileged women, such as dowering their daughters. Not only a way to provide economic security to women, a dowry also served as a status marker for women and their families. Wealthy women in Mexico City could offer 10,000 pesos, and some noble families could offer hundreds of thousands. Some African-descended women in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries from the middling economic sectors in Mexico City had dowries around 1,500 pesos, although some excessive ones persisted. Families in provincial towns in colonial Mexico offered dowries from one thousand up to several thousands. In addition to the sliding scale of valuations, the contents of dowries varied widely. Some included homes and slaves, while others consisted of dishes and furniture.14 The dowries notarized in Xalapa fell closer to regional ranges, both in value and composition. At some point Polonia’s daughter Melchora married the español Diego de Villar, who was originally from Xalapa but who had relocated to La Nueva Veracruz. In addition to whatever amount Melchora received from Don Joseph, Polonia provided her daughter with a substantial dowry that included 3,000 pesos’ worth of slaves, jewelry, oxen, cash, clothing, and “other items of value.” Even with thirty-six other dowries registered by Spaniards around the midcentury mark in Xalapa, it is challenging to establish an average dowry price around the time Polonia would have likely offered the wedding gift. One 1645 dowry stated its value at 2,876 pesos, which included a lump sum of 1,000 pesos and the rest in an unitemized assemblage of clothing, jewels, and other domestic articles. A 1642 entry did not offer an estimated value but noted that the dowry

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comprised one half of the family’s sugar mill named San Sebastián Maxtlatlan. The property featured tracts of land, boilers, plumbing, living quarters, a number of storage rooms, various tools and packaging for transporting sugar cane, fifteen mules, eleven mares, four horses, fifty oxen, forty cows and steers, seventeen bulls, twenty-five other pack animals in various conditions and ages, thirteen enslaved men, three enslaved women, and 90 pesos in back annuities from a convent in Puebla. The line items may initially appear impressive, but, according to historian Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, San Sebastián Maxtlatlan was actually in decline by the 1630s and 1640s due to fire damage, the death of slaves, and “other impairments.” How promising was the actual value of the dowry given its deterioration from a once-profitable estate? The ingenio could have been thousands of pesos in debt, the animals and land could have been exhausted, and the sixteen slaves could have been old and infirm. Dowries could be misleading.15 Two of the thirty-six dowries had ambiguous values, the aforementioned dowry of half of the ingenio and another dowry that consisted of houses without specific appraisals. Of the dowries with discernible assessments registered in the mid1600s, fourteen were valued under 1,000 pesos. These lower amounts could have actually been quite substantial, depending on whether they included enslaved people as part of the dowry. Five of these fourteen dowries specifically noted that they included a total of eight slaves, highlighting the importance of slavery in Xalapa and how easily dowries could be undervalued given that slaves could generate income for generations of slave owners. The 400-peso valuation of an enslaved person in a dowry certainly did not account for this lifetime earning potential. Two of the fourteen entries referenced funds to dower orphaned girls, both between 150 and 200 pesos each. Seven women received less than 1,000 pesos during this time

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period. Another seven received dowries between 1,000 and 2,000 pesos. Three women had dowries valued between 2,000 and 3,000 pesos. Two women had dowries between 3,000 and 5,000 pesos. Five dowries were valued between 5,000 and 7,000 pesos, and one woman received a dowry of 8,000 pesos. During this time period, two broke the mold with extravagant dowries with an estimated value of 20,000 and 30,000 pesos, demonstrating that a few families in this provincial town had the resources to attract marriage partners from the most elite families.16 Given this sample, Polonia de Ribas’s dowry to Melchora stands up to most of those of the Spanish residents of Xalapa, offering a dowry amount larger than many other families during the mid-seventeenth century. Dowries made for serious considerations for elite Spanish families, but so too did they for a few woman of African descent in colonial Xalapa. That Polonia’s daughter Melchora was an hija natural of African descent likely played a role in why she offered a more substantial sum than many Spanish parents, attempting to attract the best possible marriage prospects while affirming that her daughter Melchora deserved them. Dowries recognized classed relation­ ships, but they also instantiated familial obligations within and across relatives. When her daughter Sebastiana de Irala also married a Spaniard, Phelipe Falcón de Santiago from La Nueva Veracruz, Polonia stated in her will that she offered a dowry of five hundred pesos but did not specify if that value represented pesos, goods, or other property. However, in a turn that aired out seemingly long-held frustrations with her privileged offspring, Polonia added, “Before Sebastiana married the aforementioned Falcón, she squandered, spent, and consumed many assets that I had [since] my estate was very good.” Detailing her daughter’s poor judgment, Polonia announced with no little disdain

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that Sebastiana had “pawned to different people of this town some jewelry and other things.” If Sebastiana had taken more than her fair share before her wedding and jeopardized even more than she was owed, it is no wonder she received sig­ nificantly less in her dowry when compared with her sister Melchora. It would also explain Polonia’s hostility about the depleted wealth, still considering her daughter’s carelessness as she lay in bed dictating her last will and testament. In addition to archiving lingering disappointment, Polonia’s will establishes how central slave owning was to her life in seventeenth-century Xalapa. In it, she states that she owned at least one unrelated slave named Diego de Irala for a considerable amount of time. When Polonia manumitted Diego in 1676, she noted that he was a thirty-year-old man who had been “born and raised” in her home, which situates her earliest experience with slave owning to at least 1646, nearly a decade before she owned her brothers.17 She also owned the two unnamed negros bozales whom she exchanged for her brothers in 1655. The dowry Polonia offered her daughter Melchora included an unspecified number of slaves, their value likely comprising a large portion of the three thousand pesos. Polonia already owned the slaves included in the bridal gift or bought them for the specific occasion, making her either a more notable slave owner than overtly stated or far wealthier than her last will and testament belies. Underscoring her comfort level in engaging with a Crown institution, these details begin to sketch a fuller picture of the lived experiences of Polonia de Ribas and her family members for more than a generation. She had the economic capital to offer generous dowries to two of her daughters, and she also had the means to support her extended family. In her last will and testament Polonia sadly noted that by 1679 all of her daughters were deceased. Only Sebastiana’s death record has

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survived in Xalapa’s parish archive, marking her date of passing on March 29, 1674.18 The document notes that Sebastiana’s husband, Phelipe Falcón de Santiago, was with her as she received last rites in their home. He later had her interred in the parish cemetery. When Polonia notarized her will, Juan de Ribas was her last living child, but two of her daughters also had children. Melchora and Diego de Villar had two sons, Diego and José de Villar. Sebastiana and Phelipe Falcón de Santiago had one son, Juan Falcón. Sebastiana also had a son out of wedlock before marrying Phelipe named Francisco Joseph de Acosta, whom Polonia specifically stated that she acknowledged as her grandchild. Polonia then attempted to secure all of their futures and named her son Juan de Ribas and her four grandsons as universal heirs and instructed her executors to divide her estate into equal parts among them. Polonia appeared to be a generous mother and grandmother by equitably attending to the financial welfare of her legitimate and “natural” family members. However, they were not the only beneficiaries of her capital. As a benefactor of Xalapa’s spiritual economy, Polonia was also a public figure to a certain extent. Her last will and testament affirms that Polonia de Ribas was a faithful member of Xalapa’s religious community. In her home she showcased her dedication with images of Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory. As she settled her affairs, she also ordered her executors to offer small sums to a wide array of religious causes and institutions, including “two reales to the Casa Santa de Jerusalén, two reales for the canonization of beato Gregorio López, another 2 [reales] for the canonization of mother María de Jesús, a religiosa of the Convent of La Concepción in the city of Puebla de los Ángeles.” While these were discrete donations, Polonia had her eye on a grander religious affair as she considered her final wishes.

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Formulaically, Polonia declared that she “entrusted her soul to God, Our Father,” adding, “As such, dying under this disposition, I want to be buried in the church of Señor San Francisco of this town, shrouded in the habit and chord of his sacred religion.” The monastery of San Francisco, founded by Franciscan friars between 1531 and 1534, was Xalapa’s oldest Catholic institution. Polonia’s belief that she deserved to be buried in the church of San Francisco, where Xalapa’s Spanish elites rested, speaks to her self-assurance that she had a place not only in the town’s social milieu but also in its spiritual collective. Polonia also requested that the executors of her estate pay for a mass to be celebrated during her vigil. In addition to this funerary service, Polonia asked that twenty masses be offered for her soul after her interment with alms for the services paid for by her estate’s funds. Elite Spaniards in Xalapa, and more broadly in colonial Spanish America, often commissioned masses for their souls, but so too did less affluent members of society, often through membership in a cofradía (confraternity).19 The women and men of confraternities participated in public and private religious celebrations, contributed to charitable efforts, and organized secular social events. Members of these religious lay organizations represented the economic spectrum, and the church encouraged all racial groups to join. The scholarship on cofradías establishes that some African-­ descended people mobilized their memberships for social advancement. Humble members of confraternities relied on their affiliation to offset burial costs, but Polonia de Ribas, a member of two confraternities in Xalapa and not short on funds, wanted to enjoy these specific funerary benefits, even though she could afford to pay for masses herself. Polonia belonged to the cofradía El Santo Nombre de Jesús and the cofradía Las Ánimas de Purgatorio. She noted in her will that she was be-

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hind in her dues for the year and that her executors should pay each confraternity three pesos to settle her accounts. Polonia added that the officers of the two cofradías should ensure that masses be offered for her burial, “as they are said for all [members].” There is no specific mention of Polonia’s responsibilities in either, but the cofradía Las Ánimas was one of Xalapa’s oldest and most distinguished, dating back to at least the early 1600s. It even once had the honor of adorning the pulpit of the main chapel in the San Francisco convent.20 So while Polonia, given her financial standing, may not have needed more than the customary bestowal of masses from her confraternities, her membership earned her the benefits and the status that came with such religious investments that expanded the scope of her social capital. Polonia de Ribas’s business, familial, and confraternal connections denote a broad range of associations, but the archives revealed little about her other interpersonal relationships. For example, given the demographic breakdown of Xalapa, it is curious that Polonia had no documented interactions with Indigenous people. Also, Polonia may have served as a godmother, as was common among elite women in colonial Spanish America, but she was not named in any of the surviving baptismal or confirmation records from Xalapa’s parish. Nor did any of her daughters take on the responsibility of god parentage. Her son Juan de Ribas, however, was the godfather to a two-day-old mulata named Josefa Gregoria. Juan’s participation as a godfather may have been encouraged by his mother—a way for the family to appear charitable and socially legitimate in the form of the religious shepherding expected of more wealthy residents. Juan de Ribas reappeared in the notarial archive when he paid for the same infant girl’s freedom. His sister Melchora also registered business with the notary public. She and her Spanish husband Diego de Villar sold their female

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slave María to a man living in La Antigua Veracruz for two hundred pesos.21 Polonia’s children, it appears, also had diverse ties to the region and disparate relationships with the institution of slavery, one turning to manumission and the other to profit. In a formulaic statement for wills, Polonia’s reads, “I declare that I do not owe anything to anyone . . . my conscience is free and clear.” As an unmarried mother of five children without a stated stream of revenue, Polonia de Ribas proved to be fiscally responsible even though how she remained solvent is unclear. Her impressive circle of associates that extended out to include prominent religious communities, business and familial connections in Veracruz Port, and distinguished members of Xalapa may help contextualize how and why she spent most of her life as a slave owner. Polonia’s notarial trail never explicitly identified an income-generating business outside of hiring out her slaves. An explanation, however, may reside in the details of her daughter’s dowry, which included the prized gift of oxen. As discussed in chapter 1, Xalapa’s residents took part in commerce-centered businesses, such as venta (inn) and recua (packtrain business) ownership. Free women of African descent worked at, and sometimes owned, these establishments. In addition to catering to the many demands of the transportation business and the transient community flowing in and out of town, Xalapa’s agricultural industry had long received Crown support to foster its potential. Between 1560 and 1600 Spanish colonists received land grants from New Spain’s viceroys to develop pastures for maintenance of both large and small ranch animals, such as mules and oxen. Polonia may have leveraged her ownership of oxen to rent them out to one of the many sugar plantations, mills, packtrain businesses, or even to some of the circulating muleteers transporting cargo and people along the Camino Real.22

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The size of Polonia’s house is never specified, but perhaps she had a more modest operation of renting out a spare room or even just a rough mat for fatigued travelers. Polonia’s household items certainly convey that she owned a business as well as maintained an elite sensibility. She had a few borrowed items from neighbors lying about that needed to be returned. However, Polonia also possessed a few noteworthy articles. She had the aforementioned religious images hanging on her walls or perhaps perched on one of her two escritorios (desks). She owned two large boxes and a number of smaller boxes but did not specify what purpose they served, as well as a medium-­ sized pine chest, a few chairs, small jar-like containers, and other dishes. She also documented a collection of jewelry consisting of five strands of pearls. Slave owning appeared to afford Polonia de Ribas with a life of marked opportunity and the ability to flaunt her position with prized trinkets. The other objects suggest an office space, workshop, or small store. Could a portion of her home have even been rented out as a storage facility? Plenty of merchants stored their goods in Xalapa rather than in La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. If Polonia did not have a business, she had some of the supplies and perhaps enough space to start one. Polonia de Ribas could have also benefited from the constant supply of cash-strapped colonials in need of more financially privileged patrons. Subjects of colonial Spanish America notoriously found themselves cash deficient, allowing for the proliferation of loan agreements and debt settlements in notarial record books. Polonia’s will proclaimed that her conscience was “free and clear,” as she surprisingly carried no debt except the dues she owed to the two cofradías. While she had done well to not burden her estate with dissolution to eager creditors, Polonia wanted to remind her executors that at least two wealthy Spanish men in Xalapa owed her money.

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One of the debtors was none other than Don Joseph de Ceballos y Burgos. The other was Capitán Don Antonio Orduña Loyando, the owner of the sugar mill San Pedro de Buenavista, which at one point had more than one hundred slaves on site. While Polonia did not enumerate the amounts owed, she assured the notary that she had documented the debt and claimed that all could be corroborated with the personal papers and wills of those involved.23 Perhaps considering that she appeared to know his family, Polonia likely trusted Don Joseph to honor the repayment without having it notarized. It is curious, though, given that there are no documents that speak to her ties to Don Antonio, that Polonia was confident that he would repay her. Perhaps her reputation as an astute debt collector preceded her, or perhaps the two were close associates given the size of Xalapa and the likelihood that wealthier members of the town knew most others. Loaning money to neighbors, friends, and family members remained an in-demand business across Spanish America for the whole of the colonial period. Larger investors and diversifying prospectors looked to other elites and to the Catholic Church as monasteries and convents became the colonies’ de facto financial centers. By the early 1600s Xalapa’s largest land and business owners began to explore financing options from elites in Veracruz Port, Puebla, and Mexico City. As the century marched on, credit remained in high demand. Social equals and those involved in less equal patronage systems handled smaller loans. Polonia likely charged interest (although it is not specified in the will) or informally agreed to collect other goods or services from these two elite clients. She certainly did not consider these monies owed as favors or gifts, as she was mindful to make note of them as she lay sick in bed and had her last will and testament drafted by a notarial assistant. Her ability to loan money to elite, landowning (but perhaps cash poor)

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Spanish men and to serve as the financial proxy for at least one prominent member of Xalapa speaks to her impeccable fiscal reputation and further establishes the strength of Polonia’s social legitimacy and the security of her place in society.24 In many ways Polonia de Ribas was a typical slave owner in the region. She owned a few slaves, loaned money to her peers, and made business deals with others. And like many slave owners in the Americas, she was open to the idea of manumission. However, freeing one’s slaves, even those with family ties to the owner, was not a foregone conclusion. In total, Polonia legally freed at least three of her slaves. In 1675 she freed her forty-year-old brother Juan de Irala after he labored for twenty years as her slave. The documents state that Polonia’s love of Juan and his loyal service to her moved her to free him, rhetoric commonly found throughout manumission records. In 1676 she freed the aforementioned and unrelated Diego de Irala, a negro criollo.25 However, it was not until she was on her deathbed in 1679 that Polonia freed her other brother, Gerónimo de Irala. At that point Gerónimo was in his midforties, married with children, and living and working at a sugar mill in Xalapa as Polonia’s hired-out slave. Although Polonia acknowledged Gerónimo de Irala as her brother, she declared him as her slave in an inventory of other goods and property. The paragraph relating to Gerónimo reads like most other clauses offering freedom to slaves in wills: “I declare that among my belongings is Gerónimo de Irala, negro criollo, my slave, who is the son of Clara Lópes, my deceased mother, for whose respect and for other causes, it is my will, given that he provides forty pesos as he has promised, that when the time comes . . . my executors provide him with a liberty card.” Even in the official notarized carta de libertad that Polonia filed a few days after her will, the language remains tepid.26 In it, she asked her executors to grant a liberty card to Gerónimo de Irala,

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noted that he was her brother, and reiterated the forty-peso agreement. Noticeably, it was devoid of sentimental language. The instruction to free the unrelated Diego de Irala includes prose that perhaps would be more expected in the carta de libertad of Gerónimo. Diego’s manumission document reads, “I grant [a liberty card] to my slave Diego de Irala, who is a negro criollo and approximately 30 years of age, he is the son of my slave Catalina, a negra from Guinea, [Diego] was born in my house . . . and has served me with much purpose and loyalty.”27 Polonia’s manumission of Diego included two conditions: he had to promise to take care of her until her final days and to pay the costs of her funeral and interment. This expense may have been quite high depending on Polonia’s expectations. Such requests were not uncommon in the manumission of slaves who had labored most of their lives under one slave owner, but it was an intimate request nonetheless. Polonia’s will contains even more affective language in reiterating Diego’s freedom. It reads, “I declare that to Diego de Irala, my negro slave, I have given and granted liberty before the present notary . . . and I declare that he has always aided and supported me with much love and by his own will from [La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz], where he is presently and has been working to assist me.” While manumission cases included the common rhetorical flourishes of “love” and “free will,” Polonia reserved them for her slave Diego, who worked in the port, and not her brother Gerónimo, who lived in the same town she did. Unlike the understanding of love as an expression of affection or intimacy, this “notarial love” seems to ­express a sense of loyalty experienced by the slave owner. If Polonia believed that Diego had fulfilled his obligation with “much love,” his manumission was her recognition of that devotion. The distinctions in the manumission descriptions in her will and in Diego’s carta de libertad allude to how Polonia de Ribas

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might have understood herself as an altruistic slave owner and as a person who owned her family members with noted indifference. The more muted tone with her brother Gerónimo (and the required payment of forty pesos!) may have been tied to his experience as a hired-out slave and his not performing the deferential or more broadly affective familiarity expected by slave owners of slaves living in close proximity or born and raised in the slave owner’s home.28 That Polonia made use of her slaves as hired-out workers is also telling. Gerónimo de Irala worked in Xalapa and Diego de Irala labored in Veracruz Port. Both were married, had children, and at least periodically lived at their work sites. Scholarship outside of the Spanish American context argues that hired-out slaves released slave-owning women from the burden of supervising their slaves’ activities, but some historians assert that women managed (and disciplined) slaves as others did.29 While it is unclear what type of work the men performed or what they thought about their slave owner, Polonia de Ribas managed to keep them seemingly productive for decades without documenting differential treatment. Polonia’s case suggests that slave owners of African descent in colonial Mexico likely represented a mixture of slave-­ owning possibilities, such as purchasing slaves, keeping the children of their female slaves until adulthood, hiring them out, and manumitting them when they saw fit. And yet many questions remain. Did the practice of hiring out slaves allow free African-descended women to enjoy economic and social advantages while simultaneously shielding them from having to face the reality of physically perpetuating such atrocities, as some of the scholarship suggests? Did African-descended women who owned slaves prefer hiring out their slaves to avoid meting out corporal punishment? Slave owner absenteeism by hiring out slaves who lived “nearly free” was commonplace in

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many slave societies in the Americas.30 Perhaps Diego de Irala experienced this relative freedom as he labored in the port while Polonia enjoyed the material and social benefits of slave owning. Polonia de Ribas hired out one of her brothers in a way that allowed him to live with his family (there is no indication that Polonia owned his wife or children). However, she did the same for an unrelated slave, Diego de Irala. This decision implies that economic considerations or reasons of practicality, rather than a familial connection alone, motivated Polonia’s actions. Some scholars do not allow for the possibility that exploitative slavery existed among African-descended slave owners who possessed family, although Polonia de Ribas’s case indicates that for at least one woman of African descent in seventeenth-century Xalapa there might have been no inherent conflict. It is challenging to determine if Polonia’s familial connection to two of her slaves meant anything to her other than a detail that she documented. She removed her brothers from the Tenampa hacienda, but when Gerónimo was finally manumitted in 1679 he was still working at a sugar hacienda, although which one was not specified. He had changed slave owners but probably not the nature of his work. It may have mattered to him that he was no longer enslaved where his mother was also enslaved, but in the absence of independent records written by him, it is hard to tell whether he believed that his circumstances had changed substantially. Since no further qualitative evidence describes the condition of her brothers’ enslavement, the documents beg the question, Did being a slave owner reconstitute familial considerations in a way that aligned Polonia de Ribas so closely to other elites in Xalapa that not even her own enslaved family members mattered anymore? Even if she never physically abused Juan and Gerónimo de Irala, they were her slaves for more than

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two decades. Could she have not freed them and worked together as a free family to support one another financially, as many others did? Did she merely keep them to secure her place among Xalapa’s upper echelon? Perhaps slave owning served as a social buffer for this upwardly mobile African-descended woman. The historiography of colonial Latin America more broadly establishes that tenuously elite members of society used an assemblage of artifacts and artifices to garner distinction, including slave ownership. Scholars of Brazil have also interrogated the gendered vulnerability of women slave owners not far removed from slavery, which might explain why Polonia and other women like her in colonial Mexico turned to slave owning as one of many strategies to reorient society’s perception of them.31 Polonia de Ribas, an unmarried mulata mother of five born in the agricultural periphery of central Veracruz to an enslaved African-born mother, crafted a life of opportunities for herself, her children, and her grandchildren. However, she may have actually needed the status of slave owner to safeguard against discrimination and even challenges to her own freedoms—including the freedom to live and make choices as the matriarch of a free-born family. If Polonia believed that her status was at all vulnerable, perhaps she kept her brothers as a way to claim legitimacy as a public and economic actor. If asserting and maintaining one’s position as a slave owner offered the possibility for greater social currency and economic stability, it is not surprising then that Polonia de Ribas held fast to her status and refused to relinquish her slaves, even those who were family members, until her final days. The documents do not reveal definitively if Polonia acted as a benevolent or a strategic slave owner who relied on that standing or whether she saw beyond race or had a different understanding of family and primarily understood herself as a

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slave owner among many others in central Veracruz. What the documents make clear is that she eventually had a large family to support. Being marked as a mulata did not seem to inhibit her ability to provide for her children and see some of them eventually married. Polonia existed in a circle of elites who owned slaves and made business transactions with others in the region. She served as the legal proxy for a prominent member of Xalapa’s most powerful. When she drafted her will, at least two Spanish men owed her money. In many regards she behaved as they did, but Polonia did not share all of the same considerations as elite Spanish men, no matter how much she strove for parity.

Polonia de Ribas emerged from humble beginnings as the daughter of an enslaved African woman to become a slave owner with stores of cultural, social, and economic capital. In fact, Polonia appeared to spend most of her life as a slave owner. At some point, she also became a homeowner. The oxen she gifted to her daughter Melchora indicates that Polonia may have participated in Xalapa’s active packtrain or short-haul transportation business. Her concluding act bestowed liberty on one of her brothers, a gesture in line with how other slave owners chose to perform magnanimity. Polonia’s notarial life was exceptional, whether personally constructed or influenced by the interests of the notarial office. Much of her narrative approximates the same paths of other slave owners in Xalapa, which she likely leveraged to establish greater opportunities for herself and her family.32 Tragically, the use of her siblings as an economic (and potentially social) shield cost Juan and Gerónimo nearly a lifetime of legal freedom. Polonia de Ribas also ensured that at least one of her children would be a slave owner by providing her daughter

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Melchora with a dowry that included slaves, building a legacy of second-generation slave owners. If Melchora still possessed them and passed them on to her children before she died, then Polonia’s family tree would have included three generations of African-descended slave owners. Polonia de Ribas, the only documented living daughter of Clara Lópes, entwined her life with the institution that had fundamentally disrupted her mother’s story as a West African-born woman and changed the trajectories and life chances of all of her family members, including those of her enslaved brothers. Polonia’s notarial life story also asks us to consider strategies of survival for African-descended women. Could status-­ based considerations undermine acknowledged blood ties? Did the dread of losing social status prompt her to keep her brothers as slaves for more than twenty years? Was it possible that Polonia de Ribas understood Juan and Gerónimo as chattel even though they were cited as members of her family in every single document in which they appeared together? One also might wonder how they viewed their sister. If they feared she would sell them or their families to a traveling slave merchant, then Polonia would have accomplished the slave owner’s goal of balancing the threat of retribution for disobedience with that of continued productivity. Given that at least one of her brothers had a wife and children, the cost of being separated from them due to insubordination to his sister-­owner likely moved him to continue laboring for what became a long tenure. As a woman of African descent who had neither a husband nor many legitimate familial ties to claim, Polonia generated social legitimacy through slave owning, intergenerational wealth management, and religious approximation. Polonia owned a modest home and had no cited business other than hiring out her slaves. While at least two of her slaves were her siblings, she held fast to the title of slave owner. Not manumitting slaves

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during their peak years of physical productivity ensured that she would have fairly reliable income if she had long-term contracts for the slaves. More than just a financial consideration, free African-descended slave owners, by virtue of their participation in the institution, could position themselves as loyal subjects of the Crown, an opportunity that might explain why Polonia de Ribas, just one generation removed from slavery, engaged in slave-owning practices rarely documented in colonial Spanish America among African-descended people.

5 Capitalizing Status

I

n 1671 Sebastiana de Rivas y de Irala, the daughter of the wealthy free mulata slave owner Polonia de Ribas, went to the notarial offices to issue a poder to her Spanish husband, Phelipe Falcón de Santiago.1 The power of legal proxy that Sebastiana endowed her husband with was a general one, and it does not appear that she ever required him to act in her stead. The issuance of a poder to attend to a specific matter was already a highly classed action. The granting of a general poder without definitive business to execute was a notarial choice of the elite. Polonia loaned money to townspeople and owned slaves, livestock, jewelry, and potentially a business, so it is possible that her daughter too could have had hundreds of pesos to spend, civil cases to advance, or debts to collect. Sebastiana’s inferred wealth is important, as is her decision to select her husband. Phelipe Falcón de Santiago was not Sebastiana’s de facto legal representative, even as her husband. Nor could he act on his wife’s behalf without an official poder; he needed her licencia (license or permission). Sebastiana had to declare him formally as an assigned administrator of her affairs, which emphasizes Iberian legal norms that allowed women to have recognized autonomy in their marriages.

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Women might have also emphasized their husbands’ licencia as a rhetorical strategy, especially since those who performed the most socially acceptable presentations likely found more sympathetic ears to hear their cases. The preservation of social expectations, the confirmation of religious adherence and piety, along with the wealth of the family combined to offer a timetested narrative of social legitimacy that women of African descent mobilized during their interactions with Spanish officials. Crown authorities issued specific guidelines that offered the illusion of uniformity and objectivity of documents, but rec­ ord keeping was never a neutral process and notaries produced highly gendered narratives.2 Sebastiana might have gained this cultural capital from her mother and knew to notarize that her husband worked on her behalf. However, it was more common for women, regardless of race, in Xalapa to state that they had acquired the licencia of their husbands in order to conduct business. Although not found in all cases, the convention appeared in a few notarial cases of free African-descended married women. The inconsistent assertion of the licencia clause may indicate the lax practices of notaries or women’s own sense that they did not deem it necessary to declare. The choice to elect one’s husband as legal proxy went beyond marital norms. Many subjects preferred the confidences forged by familiar ties rather than risk giving an outsider access to the private details of one’s financial standing or any pending civil and criminal litigation that might tarnish the public reputation of a family. Importantly, it was not a legal requirement for women to gain the permission of their husbands in order to represent themselves and their interests. Male relatives and acquaintances sometimes represented free mulatas, pardas, negras, and morenas on legal matters in Xalapa, but African-­ descended women continued to serve as notable actors in their own proceedings. The early eighteenth-century case of the free

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parda Theodora Diáñez is one such example.3 Theodora and her free negro husband, Juan Manuel, were vecinos of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz but found themselves in need of a representative who was familiar with Xalapa. On July 21, 1714, Theodora granted a poder to Juan Manuel’s uncle, Miguel de Morales. He was a vecino of Xalapa, and she needed him to sell some property in town that she had inherited from her father, Gonzalo Diáñez. The records confirm that Gonzalo had inherited the land from his father, Gerardo Diáñez, making Theodora Diáñez a third-generation landowner. And although she was the sole beneficiary, Theodora Diáñez gave her poder to Miguel de Morales and declared that she had done so with the expressed licencia of her husband, Juan Manuel. She affirmed in seemingly formulaic language that she “had not been forced by her husband or by anyone else in her husband’s name” to grant this poder and that she had made the decision of her own free will. By August 3, 1714, Miguel found a customer for Theodora’s large property holdings. The buyer was Capitán Pedro Zapata de Ezquerra, the alcalde mayor and Capitán de Guerra of the provinces of Xalapa and Jalacingo. The sale meant that Theodora would relinquish a substantial portion of her inheritance: half of Ingenio Viejo and its lands valued at the considerable price of two hundred pesos. What was striking about Theodora’s assertion that neither her husband nor anyone else had coerced her was that it was not standard notarial language found in other bills of sale by women of African descent in Xalapa. Notably, she was selling a much more expensive property than most women, and her buyer was a powerful persona in society, both militarily and likely economically since he could afford to purchase such expensive land. Theodora Diáñez, the notary public, or perhaps even Capitán Pedro Zapata de Ezquerra wanted to clarify that she had arrived at the decision wholly on her own

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to avoid the possibility of a future dispute of landownership, which was not uncommon in Xalapa. The ideal of free will permeated Spanish legal culture and defined ecclesiastical protocols. And while the Spanish juridical structure categorized women as a so-called protected class in need of legal oversight, women retained a legal identity after marriage that allowed them to independently own and sell property, engage in lawsuits, and make other legal decisions. As the historian Asunción Lavrin clarifies, “Women could not be legally forced to act against their will, and in many documents they had to state they had not been forced, compelled, or menaced by their husbands.”4 Juan Manuel may have influenced Theodora, as many spouses took an interest when high-­ valued property was bought or sold. However, that the convention of the licencia was elaborated upon allowed Theodora Diáñez to invoke a gendered legal stance, available even to African-descended women, meant to guard against abusive and exploitative husbands. Lacking further records, one can get only a fleeting glimpse as to how a free woman of African descent declared her experience with and knowledge of the legal system that allegedly offered protections for women perceived to be fragile and easily persuaded. However, Theodora Diáñez was a third-generation landowner and likely had acquired knowledge of property rights from members of her own family. While Spanish legal culture might have viewed her as unfit to make such significant changes to her personal estate, neither Theodora nor her husband viewed any deficits in her knowledge of financial administration. With or without permission, free women of African descent recorded many types of business with the notary public, but none more often than in matters of real estate, which is unsurprising given that most notarial entries documented the transfer of property. What is most noteworthy is that some

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women were second- or third-generation landowners. The more stable and time-tested investment in land and houses served as significant factors in intergenerational wealth among African-­ descended women throughout the Americas.5 Interestingly, no notarial entry documented a free woman of African descent inheriting a specific business from a family member or bequeathing one to her children. Property gifted by relatives, on the other hand, was common and offered an heir the financial leverage, potential rental income, and the means to generate high yields of revenue when selling a property or even a part of it. Whether it was small or grand, the inheritance of land offered free women opportunities for geographic mobility and the acquisition of capital—economic, social, and cultural. The transfer of capital to second-generation beneficiaries always had gendered considerations. María Pacheco, a free parda and vecina of Xalapa, was a second-generation landowner and the widow of a man of unstated caste named Luis de la Cruz.6 By 1707, when she notarized a sale, María had ­already remarried—this time to a free pardo named Antonio de la Cruz. Although twice married, María Pacheco came into property ownership via the generosity of her mother, María Magdalena, a free mulata who had owned land near the coveted location of the Convent of San Francisco in Xalapa. Measuring 197½ by 108 varas, it was one of the largest single plots owned by a woman of African descent in the town’s recorded colonial history. María Pacheco ended up selling the property “with her husband’s licencia” for a mere 52 pesos and 4 reales on August 17, 1707, to a fellow vecino of Xalapa, Diego Vázquez de Ochoa. While she swore that this amount was the “just value and price of the [land],” it appears undervalued given its size and location. One wonders whether María’s husband pressured her to sell the land or perhaps she needed the liquidity for her

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own purposes and chose to accept an offer much lower than a property with those specifications would normally demand. Whether it was a good deal or not, María Pacheco and her mother, María Magdalena, had transformed the townscape of Xalapa by owning highly visible parts of it. Even if neither woman ever resided on the property and only ever leased it, other elites who owned property in Xalapa would have likely identified the prime real estate with these free African-­descended women for years before María Pacheco sold it. As merchants, slave owners, and business owners passed through the plaza, they likely surveyed the property and envied the two women who made their presence nearly unavoidable. By owning such centrally-located real estate, the African-descended women materially staked a claim as members of the Xalapa milieu. Its proximity to the town’s most important religious institution also captures how women of African descent sought to acquire and pass down literal and figurative forms of social legitimacy, even if only approximations. Like María Magdalena, other free African-descended mothers precipitated the advent of impressive real estate legacies as they bequeathed both economic and cultural capital to their daughters. A free parda named Agustina de Acosta was the legitimate daughter of María de Salazar Romero and Antonio de Acosta Clemente.7 Agustina had been born and raised in Xalapa, where she would have seen other free women make profitable economic investments in landownership during the late 1600s and early 1700s. And though she was an hija legítima when she married her husband Juan Manuel de León, neither she nor the groom had any stated wealth. However, this was not to remain the case. Before meeting Juan, Agustina de Acosta had a daughter out of wedlock named María de la Candelaria, who lived in La

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Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. Over the course of her lifetime, Agustina invested in both slaveholding and landownership—a strategy of survival she passed on to her daughter. Agustina’s will noted that she owned a woman named María de Guadalupe and that Maria de la Candelaria owned two men named Antonio and Juan Gerónimo. Agustina appeared to be so ded­ icated to her daughter’s future that she decided to alienate her husband from the inheritable estate. She appointed both her daughter and her husband, Juan Manuel de León, as executors of her will, but she boldly prioritized María’s financial welfare by declaring, “All of the stated possessions that I have will belong to the aforementioned María de la Candelaria, my daughter.” Agustina lived in a home owned by her daughter but added that she herself owned a house located near the Hermitage of Santiago and later bought the land on which it was located but was never given a deed for the property. However, Agustina made certain that no one could debate her rights to the property by following up with the previous owner’s family. On May 21, 1707, a woman named María de la Trinidad appeared before the notary to resolve the matter of the missing land title on behalf of her grandfather Diego de Moral, who had originally sold Agustina the empty lot.8 Diego was noted as the leader of the “naturales” (Indigenous people) in Xalapa, representing a rare case of an African-descended woman conducting business with the town’s Indigenous population.9 The mostly undeveloped plot that Diego sold Agustina measured 60 by 120 varas, a sizeable property. María de la Trinidad acknowledged that Agustina had purchased the land from her grandfather fairly but that the deed “which she now has requested” had not been given to Agustina. The land “included entrances and exits,” implying that it was gated or fenced, perhaps indicating its high value. Knowing that the tract had been sold at the bargain price of twenty pesos, the Indigenous woman

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must have felt a pang of bitterness as she walked to the office of the notary public. Losing such a large property for such a paltry return, María de la Trinidad perhaps begrudgingly affirmed her grandfather’s deal with Agustina de Acosta. While a twenty-peso parcel of land suggested an image of a family not economically established, Agustina de Acosta and her husband, Juan Manuel de León, may have had another, more lavish home given the stately manor their daughter María de la Candelaria enjoyed as an unmarried woman. On December 20, 1702, María de la Candelaria had purchased from her fellow vecino Domingo de Olivera a house measuring 54 by 52 varas, a relatively smaller lot in comparison to the property her mother owned.10 However, María’s estate consisted of masonry pillars and composite walls of an earthen mixture and stone—all materials of high cost rarely seen in descriptions of houses in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Xalapa. María de la Candelaria, the illegitimate daughter of a free parda mother, paid a staggering two hundred pesos for the manor. According to her mother’s 1707 will, María’s primary residence was in La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz, where she probably owned property too. In all likelihood María de la Candelaria’s extravagant two-hundred-peso home was her country abode and sojourn away from the heat, humidity, and mosquitos of the Port of Veracruz. The value of María de la Candelaria’s house in Xalapa was ten times that of the plot her mother, Agustina, purchased from the Indigenous cacique Diego de Moral. Their family’s history demonstrates how valuable intergenerational landowning could be and how free African-descended women could be the creators, not just the beneficiaries, of such capital. Owning an estate rivaled by few others in Xalapa, the free parda Jacinta Domínguez literally grounded her position in society. At the time she registered notarial business Jacinta had a Spanish husband named Nicolás Fernández, but it was

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her first husband, Don Francisco de los Santos, who had provided her with the property that would position her well above subsistence. Jacinta’s late husband Don Francisco had died by at least 1671, the date when the division of his assets had been finalized. Their four children received monetary payments: their son Nicolás received roughly 100 pesos, and their three other children (Juana, Francisco, and Juan) all received approximately 127 pesos each. However, Juan received his inheritance later than the others because he was not in the colony at the time. Notably, Nicolás and Juana shared a separate bequest of an additional 481 pesos. Their ages were not noted, but Nicolás may have been the favored son, the eldest, or the most responsible. It was not uncommon for elite families to establish a mayorazgo, or inheritance entail, that bestowed a son or daughter with up to one-third of the inheritance, while the rest was evenly distributed among the other legitimate children. Such arrangements were often employed to preserve the indivisibility of land or a family business.11 Juana’s additional share might have reflected her father’s attempt to fortify an existing dowry or merely to offer his daughter greater economic independence, as he did for his parda wife Jacinta. A few years after her husband’s death on December 16, 1675, Jacinta set out to generate an income by renting a house and a store to a man named Juan Lorenzo Velázquez.12 Her contract with Juan Lorenzo stipulated that he would take occupancy of the properties on February 1, 1676, for a period of nine years at twenty-six pesos per year. Most other homes in  Xalapa could be purchased outright for nearly the same amount that Jacinta leased this commercial–residential property. However, owing to the properties’ central location in town, Jacinta mobilized the market to her advantage and rented it to a deep-pocketed vecino for a long-term contract that would maintain a high rental income for her.

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Jacinta did encounter one legal snag for a lesser-valued property owned by her husband.13 Francisco de Santos appeared to have misjudged the prudence of his chosen apoderado (representative). Approximately eighteen years prior, he purchased a plot of land near the edge of town heading toward the looming mountain of Macuiltépec. To finalize the deal, he used a legal proxy, his fellow Xalapa vecino Gaspar de los Reyes, who also happened to be a royal treasurer. In 1676 Gaspar testified that as Don Francisco’s apoderado, he had purchased the property for twenty pesos in 1658 from a free married couple of African descent from La Antigua, Juana de la Cruz and Francisco Camacho. However, Gaspar claimed that he did not have the transaction verified by a notary because he was not in residence at the time. Instead, the treasurer confirmed the purchase agreement before the alcalde mayor of Xalapa, Captain Don Antonio Rosel y Lugo. Gaspar noted that this same property was where Francisco later built homes of “limestone and stone [that were] covered with a tiled roof where he lived for many years until his death.” The problem arose when Jacinta and her children sought to sell the property and learned it was still technically owned by the apoderado, Gaspar de los Reyes. Luckily for Jacinta Domínguez, Gaspar came forward to testify that, indeed, he had purchased the land for Francisco with Francisco’s own money. He emphatically declared that the property was never actually his and bemoaned the problems he had caused by not waiting to have it properly notarized. Debacles such as these, discovered nearly two decades after the fact, could have spelled ruin for families. If Gaspar had died or decided to despoil Jacinta and her children of their inheritance, a protracted legal battle could have ensued that would have put the onus on the African-descended family to prove ownership. The absence of a notary at the time complicated the matter. Even worse, Captain Don Antonio Rosel y

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Lugo, who confirmed the initial transaction, was no longer the alcalde mayor of Xalapa and very likely no longer in the jurisdiction. Gaspar de los Reyes’s failure to carefully review the documents for a purchase he was entrusted was a folly that Jacinta Domínguez could scarcely afford as a widowed woman of African descent. In some ways, Francisco de los Santos ultimately saved his family from his brief lapse in judgment because he had chosen at least an honest apoderado, if not a fully competent one. Twelve years later, it became clear why Jacinta was so invested in reclaiming the property her husband purchased for twenty pesos in 1658. She may have inherited valuable personal items or expensive household items from her husband, but what is certain is that Francisco de los Santos left his greatest single high-value item to Jacinta: a large house made of stone and wood with a tiled roof.14 When she later sold the estate to her former renter Juan Lorenzo Velázquez, she parted with it for the astonishing price of five hundred pesos. While Jacinta certainly benefited as a legal heir to her husband’s wealth, it was her foresight, business management, and ability to navigate Iberian legal culture that sustained her more than fifteen years after his death. Overall, Jacinta Domínguez’s notarial life was straightforward, excepting the gaffe by the treasurer. However, the notarial archive also bore witness to the more complex legal lives of other women of African descent determined to defend their financial security and that of their loved ones. Ana de la Cruz, initially referred to as a mulata in 1694 and a decade later referred to as a parda, was the legitimate wife of Juan Jacinto. Ana began her notarial history while Juan was still alive but it was she, not him, who acted on their family’s behalf when on September 22, 1694, she visited the notary public. Ana granted a poder to the Xalapa vecino Miguel Jerónimo López de On-

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tanar so that he could appear before the justices of Xalapa and request that a hold placed on Ana’s and Juan’s assets be lifted. By March 11, 1704, Ana was a widow, but she was left with what appeared to be a farm, which means that the apoderado must have been at least partially successful in restoring the couple’s rights to their assets ten years prior.15 Ana de la Cruz declared that she owned several houses, seven oxen, four cows, four calves, eight mares, a sorrel horse, an old mule, seven head of unspecified cattle, four turkeys, and three chickens. In addition to owning livestock, Ana leased a few of the houses on her property to the Monastery of San Francisco. In the initial reclamation of goods and property, the estate was named as being jointly owned by Ana de la Cruz and Juan Jacinto, implying that he could have chosen a different representative but instead trusted the abilities of his wife. After his death Ana assumed sole accountability for her stable of farm animals that likely yielded her some revenue, as most were pack animals that could be sold or hired out for seasonal agricultural or transportation-related work. The houses she rented to the monastery likely offered a steady income, and perhaps the fees sustained her enough that she did not need to labor. As a widow, she could not assume that someone would provide for her in her advanced years, and thus she attended to her finances accordingly. Ana de la Cruz was a woman who proactively sought to protect her interests even before her husband died. She secured leases with a religious institution that would have likely continued to need boarding for its members and visitors. Her husband believed in her ability to be the most effective family manager and allowed her to take the lead in their finances. Gendered roles in marriage could be flexible, perhaps most especially when husbands freely acknowledged that their wives had greater competencies than they to preserve their economic futures.

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Not all free people of African descent had the funds to bequeath real estate or profit-generating livestock to their children in order to ease them into adulthood. Whatever they might have lacked in economic capital, children of African descent benefited from the cultural and social capital of their free mothers. Arranging for early education in trades that accepted boys of African descent was one of the soundest investments outside of property ownership. María de Jesús, a free morena, was the mother and legal administrator of her twelve-year-old son Gregorio de la Cruz, a free pardo.16 On September 30, 1689, María stood before Don Francisco Miguel de Campo, the lieutenant general of the province, instead of a notary public because one was not present in the jurisdiction when she finalized the terms for a four-and-a-half-year apprenticeship for Gregorio. She contracted with a master shoemaker named Hipólito de Amaya, who agreed to house and train Gregorio in shoemaking and repair. The arrangement also noted that Hipólito would provide María’s son with meals and clean clothing and pay for the cost of any medical care that Gregorio might need while in his charge. Pursuant upon completion of the apprenticeship, the cobbler agreed to provide the young man with a suit with pants, a doublet, two shirts, a hat, one pair of shoes, and a set of the tools of the trade—a proper starter kit for a young man seeking to make a career for himself. The contract further stipulated that if Gregorio absconded from Hipólito’s guardianship before he completed his training, Hipólito was responsible for finding and bringing the boy back from wherever he might be. However, María offered to pay Hipólito for the trouble of having to search for and retrieve her son. They also agreed that if the craftsman decided to dismiss Gregorio before the end of the four-and-a-half-year residency, Hipólito would place him with another master shoe­ maker. The cobbler affirmed in the first person that he accepted

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all of the stipulations outlined by María, and the contract was notarized. Neither party knew how to sign their names, but María de Jesús had made a critical decision that would likely save her son Gregorio from the arduous labor of cutting cane in the sugar fields of Xalapa’s agricultural periphery or traversing the rough roads of the region as a muleteer. Even so, as an apprentice Gregorio would certainly undertake taxing work in the future, including late nights and early mornings clicking leather, repairing heels, and mending soles. In Mexico City some guilds and skilled worker societies barred men of African descent from membership, ultimately impeding free people’s ability to obtain more stable jobs. Shoemaking, however, was a trade open to African-descended apprentices, and, perhaps not coincidentally, Gregorio was entering a profession in which he would not be the lone zapatero of African descent in Xalapa. In 1625 a slave owner named Leonor Díaz placed her fourteen-year-old slave named Cristóbal in a three-year apprenticeship with a master zapatero. In 1650 an Indigenous leader named Catalina Luisa entrusted her son’s cobbler training to a pardo man who was a master shoemaker. In 1648 the free mulato and master zapatero Melchor de Baeza also accepted African-descended apprentices, including one newly freed thirteen-year-old boy named Diego Mosegón. Mel­ chor later documented in 1655 that he sold some property for fifty pesos, perhaps indicating that his business was profitable enough to have made the high-value purchase in the first place. In 1661 another Spanish woman placed her slave with a cobbler for training. In 1679 a free mulato father named Francisco de Orduña arranged an apprenticeship for his twelve-year-old son with a master shoemaker.17 Given these other cases, Gregorio would have seen or heard of other African-descended apprentices and master cobblers in Xalapa, affirming for him that a future in the vocation

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was possible. As a shoemaker, Gregorio would have likely ­encountered a steady clientele base given Xalapa’s stream of travelers who would have needed a good cobbler during their sojourn in the town. If he ever achieved the level of master zapatero, perhaps he would later establish a shop and take in his own apprentices, feeling grateful to his mother, María de Jesús, for her foresight and planning. Unlike children of landowning parents, Gregorio benefited from the cultural capital that came with his mother’s appreciation for early vocational training in a field that would yield reliable work in the future for an African-descended man. To be sure, he would have to put his education to work, hope that he had sufficient preparation, and exert a tremendous amount of effort to remain competitive in his field. Dispersed capital—economic, social, and cultural—continued to prove indispensable to women of African descent and their families. A number of free women enjoyed such advantageous connections to a wide range of workers and patrons, but some in Xalapa desperately relied on them. A notarial entry from March 16, 1679, highlights just how seriously some demanded repayment and how necessary social capital was for African-­ descended families from more tenuous financial backgrounds.18 The free mulata criolla Ana María of the sugar ingenio Pacho was the legitimate wife of Sebastián de la Cruz, a free negro criollo of the sugar ingenio Mastlatlan. Sebastián was in prison because of his failure to pay 236 pesos and 4 reales to a mulato recua owner named Cristóbal de Figueroa. The case does not state how long Sebastián had been in custody, nor is there any information as to how the debt was initially incurred. With a price tag that substantial, there are two probable explanations. The first is that Ana María and Sebastián had purchased an impressive estate or business, such as an inn or even a recua,

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and then defaulted on payment. The second possibility is that one of the spouses paid for the freedom of the other, and then they could not meet their financial obligation. Although 236 pesos would have been a significantly lower assessment for a healthy adult slave of either gender, the valuation might have indicated that a person had a disfigurement or persistent injury or was considered illness-prone or recalcitrant by an owner. The amount owed might also indicate the remainder of a longheld, larger debt that the couple had incrementally paid down. The notarial entry reveals that what Ana María and Sebastián might have lacked in economic capital, they made up for in social capital. The couple knew a vecino from La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz named Capitán Don Juan Francisco de Herrera, who came to their financial rescue and offered up the 236 pesos. In exchange for the liquidation of the debt, Ana María and Sebastián agreed to work in the “personal service” of Don Juan Francisco until they paid off the amount. The captain set their monthly compensation for labor at 3 pesos each. If Ana María and Sebastián de la Cruz had no other income prospects, given this rate it would have taken the couple more than three years to reimburse Don Juan Francisco de Herrera if they handed over all 6 pesos every month. If they needed at least half of their joint earnings to pay for their living expenses, the couple faced more than six and a half years of indentured servitude together to resolve the debt. The notarial records noted that Ana María and Sebastián “ow[ed] their gratitude to [Don Juan Francisco].” While the terms were daunting, the couple likely preferred an exploitive but paid labor agreement to the continued imprisonment of a loved one. Despite the misfortune and debt peonage of the free mulata and the (temporarily less free) negro spouse, some cases of economic liability favored free women of African descent. The free parda Isabel Bautista experienced the benefit of a fellow

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vecino’s honoring his financial commitment.19 Juan de Olmedo’s 1710 last will and testament declared that he owed eighteen reales (the equivalent of two pesos plus two reales) to Isabel and that he wanted the funds to come from the dissolution and sale of his estate. Juan was the legitimate son of María Rodríguez and Juan de Olmedo, and he was lawfully married to a woman named Isabel León. His will outlined that he was indebted to several others, including Alférez Sebastian de Flores (two pesos), Capitán Bonefacio De Castro (six reales), and the estate of the late Don Juan de Medina (one peso and four reales). Juan de Olmedo was by no means destitute; he owned two houses and a plot of land. Additionally, at the time of the registration of his will, Juan’s son-in-law Juan Rodríguez owed him two hundred pesos for the eight mules he had sold him, likely the passing on of a family packtrain business to his daughter’s husband. Juan de Olmedo was owed another seventy pesos by one vecino and four pesos and two reales by another. Juan was quite adept at managing his resources, owing very little at the time he registered his will, about eleven pesos total. He had assets and substantial sums due him, but among the smaller amounts he owed to Spanish men he was also indebted to the free parda Isabel Bautista. Unfortunately, Juan de Olmedo’s will served as the only notarial appearance by Isabel, and the documents did not stipulate what generated the debt of eighteen reales. Perhaps she worked for him or contracted a specific, fixed job. She might have even loaned him the money. Isabel certainly would not have been the only African-descended woman lending money to cash-strapped Spaniards in Xalapa. Whatever her financial situation, if Isabel ever had to confront his executors for the repayment, then Juan de Olmedo’s documented indebtedness to her would smooth the path to reimbursement. The case also demonstrates how the notarial office could invoke drastically different feelings among free African-­

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descended women. To Ana María, the notary public solidified her debt peonage but freed her husband. To Isabel, it offered her protection. Many women continued to benefit from their families’ seventeenth-century investments in real estate and social connections, but they also communicated their own priorities and interests in how they managed such capital. One eighteenth-­ century woman found a way to make her public religious identity, and perhaps some familial strife, well known as she oversaw the distribution of her wealth. On March 8, 1708, the free parda Manuela Martín went to the notary public to sell a plot of land to Felipe Rodríguez.20 The property was not grand; it measured only 64 by 6 varas, but its location was superior, as it stood in front of Xalapa’s main church and the Convent of San Francisco. With her husband Manuel de los Santos’s licencia, Manuela sold it for the “just price” of twenty pesos. Unlike many bills of sale by African-descended women, Manuela’s included some biographical information. The document reads, “I speak as the legitimate daughter and heir of Miguel de la Cruz and Catharina Martín, both free pardos . . . who were from Xalapa but are now deceased.” Manuela’s parents had purchased the land in 1672 from Antonia de la Rey, making Manuela a second-­ generation property owner in Xalapa, which is not particularly remarkable given that one hundred years earlier people of African descent also owned property in town. What is noteworthy is what she did with the remainder of her estate. Nineteen years later Manuela Martín returned to the ­office of the notary public. She declared that her only assets ­included some land and a small house made of wood that she had inherited. She also noted that she had not made a last will and testament because she had no descendants. Having no children to inherit her property, Manuela bequeathed everything to the Cofradía de Nuestra Señora de la Piedad, a con-

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fraternity in Xalapa. As noted earlier in the case of the cofradía member Polonia de Ribas, confraternities provided members with space to express their religiosity by participating in feastday processions and sponsoring the maintenance of altars dedicated to saints. Cofradías also served as mutual aid societies and required an economic commitment from members. Manuela Martín did not state that she was a dues-paying member of this particular cofradía, but given her donation she likely was active in the confraternity. The decision of two free African-­ descended women to affiliate themselves with cofradías likely reflected their interest in asserting public identities as fully invested Catholic subjects.21 Manuela’s choice to not bequeath anything to her husband, who was still alive, made this a peculiar case. Spanish legal customs did not require Manuela to bequeath all of her belongings to her husband, and as she had no children to maintain with an inheritance or dowry, she exercised her right to donate her estate to her religious community. Manuela’s endowment demonstrates her determination to be self-governing and signals the ways in which free women of means made choices that went against familial expectations as they adopted Catholic identities and financed institutions that affirmed their status. Throughout the mid to late colonial period free African-descended women became known as the principal donors to cofradías with a primarily African-descended membership.22 However, Manuela Martín’s choice to economically estrange her husband in favor of the Cofradía de Nuestra Señora de la Piedad underscores the value that some free African-descended women placed on their public socioreligious lives outside of their identities as wives. In addition to supporting cofradías, free African-descended women in Xalapa served as godmothers, baptized their children, confirmed them, and attempted to marry them off as best

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they could. Catholic rites of passage, however, were not their only avenues of religious expression. Some free women pursued more tangible manifestations. María Godínez was a free morena (sometimes noted as a free parda) and homeowner in Xalapa. At some point in the late seventeenth century María financed a capellanía, an endowment founded by individuals so that masses could be said for their souls.23 Capellanías required a substantial principal investment, or, alternatively, the value of a property was assessed to determine what amount would yield its 5 percent annual interest. This amount would then be used to pay the cost of the priest who would administer mass at a chapel. On October 22, 1691, Bachiller Manuel del Posso, the vicar and ecclesiastical judge of the ingenio La Santísima Trinidad, was cited as the administrator of María Godínez’s capellanía. Bachiller Manuel also managed the capellanía endowed by Don Francisco de Leiva Irasi, the corregidor (district magistrate) and lieutenant general of Veracruz. Don Francisco paid an initial deposit of one thousand pesos, while María financed her capellanía with four hundred pesos. Others in Xalapa established their capellanías with principal sums between five hundred and three thousand pesos, marking such grants as elite religious ventures.24 María Godínez’s capellanía may not have been as generously backed as the lieutenant general’s, but she sought to demonstrate her religious identity and her economic standing through the spiritual fortification offered by a well-connected cleric for the not-so-modest price of four hundred pesos. According to elites, salvation was costly, and María Godínez had the discretionary funds to indulge in such a public display as a faithful member of the Catholic realm. A humble display of religious commitment by one young woman demonstrates that even those who could not afford to finance their own sanctuaries still concerned themselves with

Street in Xalapa with a view of the church of San Francisco (1831–34). Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802–1858). Oil on cardboard, 31.8 × 23.9 cm. Inv. VIII E. 2447. Photo: bpk Bildagentur / ­Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin / Volker-H. Schneider

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displays of reverence. On March 6, 1668, a twelve-year-old mulata named Ana Ruiz had a unique reason for calling upon the notary public. In a declaration that served as her last will and testament, Ana Ruiz made a somber request as she lay sick in bed. The notary’s dictation reads, “She said that it was her wish that God . . . rid her of her illness or that her body be buried in the Church of the Señor San Francisco.” Ana’s entreaty referred to the cemetery at the Monastery of San Francisco, an appeal often found in the wills of Xalapa’s Spanish elite.25 Ana Ruiz was the hija natural of Ana María, a vecina of Xalapa, and she named her mother as the sole beneficiary of whatever goods she might have had but did not specify any assets or properties that she might have possessed. Was she truly someone of economic means or merely a sick parishioner with one last favor to ask of Xalapa’s religious leaders? Ana Ruiz may have been short on funds and likely on hope, too, given her bedside petition, but she believed that as a Catholic she had the right to request that the sanctity of her interred body be respected as she had indicated. If she had nothing else, Ana had religiously-centered expectations. Xalapa’s extant burial records do not cite a woman named Ana Ruiz, so it is unresolved whether the twelve-year-old recovered from her ailment or got the final rest she requested. Ana may not have been considered elite by others but that did not impact how she saw herself, as she made an appeal usually granted only to affluent Spaniards. Ana Ruiz’s case stresses that people of African descent had their own sense of piety and notions of religious reciprocity, defined by their belief that they too could claim such delineated sacred spaces. Asserting and preserving one’s religious or secular public persona was a balancing act. For those who sought to garner special legal consideration, stirring up tempered pity as Ana Ruiz did could be a socially dangerous game to play. At least

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one free African-descended woman decided to divulge the tragic financial hardships of her family but then backed up her admission with a team of influential contacts that formed a defensive line that could affirm her status. Gambling with social legitimacy might have been worth it if losing just a bit of one’s standing resulted in a worthwhile financial gain, as in the case of the free parda Juana Fernández. Juana was lawfully married to Martín Bentura, and the two first appeared before the notary public when she granted him her poder on November 22, 1659. Martín was not Juana’s first husband, and, being married for about a year, they were virtually newlyweds when she went before the notary public. Juana had been previously married to the late Francisco Sánchez. Juana’s poder allowed her current husband to represent her before the alcalde mayor of Xalapa to protect her dowry and other belongings under the terms of the last will and testament registered by her late spouse, Francisco. Juana sought fairly standard restitution, as was provided for in Spanish legal culture.26 She and Francisco had five children, and, since all were still minors, she used the legal avenues available to her to protect her assets so that she could care for her large family alongside her new husband. The most sobering part of the poder arose when Juana disclosed that she needed access to the inheritance because she had become so destitute that she could no longer afford to feed her children. Juana Fernández and Martín Bentura registered their second notarial entry on September 23, 1660, when Martín appeared before Don Antonio Rosel y Lugo, the alcalde mayor of Xalapa. The couple needed to prove that Juana’s first husband, Francisco Sánchez, lawfully made the appropriate addendum in his will that would allocate to Juana all that belonged to her. In Juana’s legal stead, Martín Bentura presented his first wit-

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ness, Miguel de Quintana. Miguel was a Spanish vecino of Xalapa and the alguacil mayor (chief justice) of the province, a nearly unassailable witness whom Juana and Martín had the good fortune of knowing.27 Miguel swore that he served as a primary witness when Francisco Sánchez, who was sick in bed but still of sound mind, signed the documents protecting the legal rights of his parda wife, Juana. On the same day Miguel de Quintana gave his testimony, Martín presented his second witness, Antonio de Acosta Clemente, another Spanish vecino of Xalapa. Antonio confirmed Miguel’s narrative, stating that sometime in September of 1658 he witnessed Francisco Sánchez, still of sound mind, sign the documents with his own hand even though he was ill. This testimony also specified that Francisco Sánchez was actually so ill that he was noted as being on his deathbed. Four days after the first two witnesses appeared before the alcalde mayor, Juana and Martín presented one final witness in this case, Juan Jacinto Romero, a vecino of the ingenio Chico, located on the outskirts of the town but still within the jurisdiction of Xalapa.28 Juan Jacinto clarified that although he was not present at the signing, as the other two men had been, he knew about the written agreement and swore that Francisco had made it while still mentally competent to do so. In November 1659 Juana affirmed that she and Martín had been married for about a year, which means that Juana had a fairly short mourning period (perhaps two months) before she moved on from her first husband and married her second. As a widowed mother of five, she wasted no time in considering new suitors, even if only for her family’s economic welfare— if not also for her personal interests. Given the timeline, one wonders if Juana’s and Martín’s courtship perhaps predated Francisco’s death or even the beginning of his deteriorating

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health. One might even speculate that perhaps all of the Spanish witnesses were close friends of Martín Bentura and therefore willing to offer whatever testimony was necessary. Much of this narrative is unclear, including whether the stated urgency to settle the affairs of her first husband in order to feed her five children reflected a period of insolvency or the creation of a “notarial truth” to win the sympathies of those who held the power to influence her economic security. Juana and Martín drew from an influential network of Spanish men to testify on their behalf, flaunting their social capital before the authorities. They even had the ability to have someone who was not present at the principal affair in contestation to testify to events he supposedly knew to be true. Juana Fernández’s and Martin Bentura’s interactions with the judge also demonstrate their knowledge of key aspects of colonial legal proceedings, both formal and customary. The first involved the possible benefits of an affective narrative: a widow left with five children to care for, trying to provide for them and their hungry bellies, albeit with a new husband. The devoted widow and mother, who happened to be remarried at the time of the entry, performed a notarial identity that officials likely found legible.29 The socially irrefutable witnesses helped buttress this role, lending greater credibility to Juana Fernández’s notarial claims. The presence of well-known, politically connected or economically prominent witnesses also changes the tone of the plea from a widowed woman of African descent in need of assistance. Juana claimed poverty when she admitted that she could not provide even the basic necessities for her children, but she possessed plenty of means to fight for the assets she believed belonged to her. She discerningly assembled her social capital, which included an influential group, to vouch for

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her legal status as the rightful administrator of her late husband’s estate. She also skillfully employed notions of gender that Spanish authorities would have recognized. Juana Fernández called upon widely held cultural codes of masculine duty and fatherly responsibility to provide for the economic security of her family and especially of her children. Even Spaniards cited the rhetoric of the “abandoned mother” living in “abject poverty” to their advantage.30 The importance of positioning oneself as the virtuous but aggrieved widowed mother, instead of the acquisitive newlywed, cannot be overstated. Juana’s notarial fashioning, whether an accurate description of her indigence or an exaggeration, offered a familiar and sympathetic positionality to the man who would decide the validity of her case. And while the ultimate resolution was not registered or perhaps was lost, Juana Fernández exhibited her keen understanding of cultural capital when she invoked gendered strategies as she and her new husband presented an impressive cadre of Xalapa’s elite to secure her rights. The reconfiguring of identities was probably more common than can be assessed by means of an examination of mediated sources. Not always a complete fabrication, a notarial truth often drew from details of one’s life. In one particularly fascinating case, one woman’s husband may have foiled her attempts to craft the notarial life she wanted documented. The free mulata Mariana Rodríguez was lawfully married to the free mulato Miguel Jiménez Carralero. And, unlike the couples who sold off plots of land for thirty to sixty pesos, this family had to protect property, goods, and a business worth thousands.31 Mariana and Miguel had dozens of primary initiator and secondary receiver entries in the notarial archive that chronicled their prominence in Xalapa. Miguel was born in Acatzingo and was the hijo natural of Magdalena de la Cruz and Juan Mar­

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tínez Carralero. By 1712, when he registered his will, both of his parents were deceased, although it is unclear whether he was raised an orphan or had only recently lost them. Central to Miguel’s presentation of his and his wife’s history was that they had not always enjoyed material comfort. The second clause of Miguel’s will asserts that he married Mariana “according to the dictates of our Mother Church,” a standard declaration in such documents. He then claimed that when they married, the two had very little to offer one another financially, citing his lack of wealth and Mariana’s nonexistent dowry. However, he then professed triumphantly that he and his wife had worked tirelessly throughout their marriage to establish a fortune “totaling eleven thousand pesos, more or less, in the packtrain business, slaves, property, furniture, and jewelry.” The African-descended couple generated most of their wealth through their ownership of an extensive and successful recua with more than two hundred mules. However, Mariana and Miguel also owned quite a few slaves, which is unsurprising considering their line of business. Their slaves included Antonio Arroyo (negro), Manuel de Ortega (negro Congo), Joseph (“son of Catarina de Yralla”), Juan Joseph (negro Congo), Baltazar (mulato prieto), Joseph (mulato prieto), Paula and Gregoria and Domingo (three children, negros), Manuel (mulato), Juan Antonio (mulato prieto, who did not belong to ­Miguel but whom he had “presented to his wife”), Francisco (negro), and Juan (mulato). Miguel also specified that an additional negro slave named Juan Pachupin, likely a hired-out slave, labored in their house but did not belong to them. Throughout the early part of the eighteenth century the couple had owned several other slaves. On November 3, 1701, Miguel purchased a mulato criollo named Joaquín for 400 pesos. Five years later, when Joaquin was a twenty-seven-year-old man, Miguel sold him for 400 pesos to a vecino of the city of Tlax-

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cala. On October 30, 1709, Miguel purchased a twenty-threeyear-old mulato named Cayetano from a Mexico City merchant, but less than a year later, he sold him for 315 pesos to a vecina of Xalapa.32 Like many businessmen, Miguel dictated a lengthy list of debts and sums to be collected in his will. Trusting his wife’s abilities to settle his estate, he appointed Mariana along with the cleric Licenciado Manuel de Pozo as joint executors of his will but named Mariana as the sole beneficiary. Mariana and Miguel were successful, prominent, and possibly even literate. Miguel Jiménez Carralero could sign his own name at the end of the will and in a style that denoted literacy. They were also generous. While the couple had no cited biological children, for nearly seventeen years they cared for an orphaned girl named Gertrudis Josepha in their home, to whom Miguel affectionately referred as “mi niña” (my girl) in his will. Miguel demonstrated the closeness of this relationship by ordering that one thousand pesos be given to her from his estate. Miguel’s charity extended to members of his wife’s family as well. On March 28, 1707, Miguel donated land measuring 21 by 56 varas to Mariana’s sister, Micaela Rodríguez, who was certainly not impoverished. Micaela was the wife of Sargento Don Alférez Sebastián de la Higuera, who was a militia member and was named among other influential men of Xalapa in a petition requesting funding from Señor Don José Sarmiento Valladares, the viceroy of New Spain.33 Miguel noted in the documents that he made this gift to Micaela for “favors and services” that she had done for him, perhaps a good-will gift to solidify bonds between two distinguished families. On January 30, 1720, Miguel Jiménez Carralero returned to the notary public to make changes to his will.34 In the eight years since he had drafted his initial will, Miguel had come to own a reduced but still substantial estate that included the

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house he lived in, eighty-two mules, five slaves, and land in front of his primary residence where his nephew Tomás de Figueroa had constructed a house. He also made changes to the executor list. While his wife Mariana remained, the cleric was replaced with Tomás. Miguel bade them to order as many masses as they could for his soul after his passing, echoing the requests made by wealthier colonial subjects, including free women profiled here. Miguel Jiménez Carralero must have not been long for the world because by February 26, 1720, just a few weeks later, Mariana Rodríguez was cited as a widow. The following month Mariana sold three of her slaves—the three children, Paula, Gregoria, and Domingo—for 750 pesos, perhaps to raise liquidity to pay off the debt left by her husband. She later sold property measuring 13 by 40 varas to Joseph de Castro for 13 pesos. On the same day, Mariana and her nephew Tomás also sold fifty-four rigged mules and two houses to a fellow recua owner Alférez Juan José Rincón for 2,460 pesos. A year later Mariana and Tomás again contacted Juan José for business purposes. This time they sold him a twenty-seven-year-old mulato blanco slave named Juan Jiménez for 300 pesos. On June 10, 1723, Mariana and Tomás sold another slave, Joseph, for 350 pesos to Alférez Jerónimo de Acosta.35 From a mere five business transactions Mariana Rodríguez had amassed 3,873 pesos from the sale of assets bequeathed to her, a small fortune. On September 9, 1725, Mariana Rodríguez, the widow of one of Xalapa’s most wealthy men of African descent, registered her last will and testament, in which she revealed that, five years after her husband Miguel’s death, she possessed only half of the estate, perhaps indicating poor management skills or the need for greater liquidity.36 As she lay sick in bed Mariana disclosed that for about the past year and a half the house she was living in was leased from Andre Coto for a monthly

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rent of six pesos. At such a high cost, it must have been a fairly large or very well-appointed home given that many properties in Xalapa during this period sold for thirty pesos. In the will, Mariana designated as the sole heir to her estate her twentyfive-year-old unmarried niece, Melchora de los Reyes, not the orphaned girl she had raised in her home, Gertrudis Josepha. Mariana’s choice to not name as partial beneficiary the young woman whom she had raised may imply her desire to distance herself from public scandal. Miguel’s reference to her as “mi niña” might have been an implicit admission to an extramarital affair that resulted in Gertrudis Josepha’s birth. Or perhaps Mariana believed that Miguel had done enough for his niña with the one-thousand-peso dowry and therefore chose to turn to enriching members of her own sanguineous ties. The most fascinating twist in Mariana Rodríguez’s notarial life is the biographical license she may have taken in her final entry. In his 1712 will Miguel Jiménez Carralero clearly stated that when he and Mariana married she had no dowry to offer nor did he have much else to his name. Miguel seemed to want to affirm that his current wealth belied a central truth about his relationship with his wife: the couple contracted the marriage despite their humble beginnings and with no financial gain to be had by either spouse at the time—a true partnership of love. Mariana’s 1725 will revised a bit of her own history by asserting that when she married Miguel she brought with her one hundred pesos. This alteration by Mariana (one hundred pesos was not a large dowry but still a considerable amount of money) was a notarial narrative that better suited the station in life that she and her husband had built over the years but perhaps not the one that reflected her actual history. She might have forgotten that her husband had already notarized that neither party brought noteworthy financial resources to the marriage. Or perhaps Miguel was the one who

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attempted to construct his own notarial truth, one that centered him as the patriarch of a self-made family who built a transportation business from nothing. He appeared to say that without the resources of a rich spouse or her family, he would leave this world a wealthy man because of his and his wife’s herculean efforts. Perhaps Miguel sought to distance himself and his wife from any assumptions people may have made about external benefactors.37 Whose notarial narrative was closer to the truth? Both versions are replete with gendered investments and classed understandings of industrious men and respectable women with dowries. Mariana Rodríguez and Miguel Jiménez Carralero were free mulatos who owned land, a lucrative business, and slaves. They also managed professional relationships with elite members of society from Xalapa, Veracruz, and even Mexico City. The two had worked to create a life of luxury that they shared with their “adopted” daughter and other family members. Perhaps Mariana Rodríguez refused to let her husband mar their social status with his notarial truth of their modest beginnings given her current station in society. Her will might have served as a notarized corrective to affirm her rank in the public rec­ ord. Mariana Rodríguez took on the expected notarial narrative of a wealthy landowner, and perhaps discreetly amended the notarial truth purported by her husband.

The formula of the notarial document often dictates the type of information available to illustrate the business lives of free women of African descent. Notarial records did not offer cold summaries of everyday transactions but fragments of elaborate lives composed of legal etiquette, social relations, business and personal ventures, and other configurations of colonial subjects and their activities.38 While there were attempts to stan-

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dardize notarial documents, they occasionally offered expressive and intimate details of people’s lives. Notaries recorded a tapestry of economic dilemmas and successes that women of African descent experienced in Xalapa and these notarial interactions articulated preoccupations with status and an awareness of their own vulnerability. Dowries attempted to safeguard young girls from less-than-desirable marriage partners (and their families). A trade education was arranged in the hope of encouraging upward social mobility. Generational wealth needed to be protected through legal measures. Poorer women could manipulate their personal histories to alter their economic trajectories. Free women, both wealthy and not, expressed their religiosity through public and private avenues. All of these cases underscore the constellations of social legitimacy that these historical actors strove for and that had been denied to many other people of African descent. Whether single, married, or widowed, free women actively defended their assets, large and small. Strikingly, according to the notarial records, free African-descended women conducted business almost exclusively with men. Outside of noted family members, there appear to be few documented business interactions specifically between free women of African descent. No unsettled debts to other women were declared. No poderes were issued to other women. The parish archives ­allude to fairly even gender ratios among the population of African descent, and yet the notarial archive is wont to tell another story. As Kathryn Burns asserts, “Documents of all kinds—contracts, wills, legal petitions, and depositions—were crucial to obtaining justice, and the making of valid documents was the exclusive province of the notary.” This goal of “obtaining justice” is the differentiating factor between the notarial archive and most of the parish archive.39 The emphasis on resolution might have prompted free women to document

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only their transactions with men, most of them Spanish. Free African-descended women may have co-owned commercial properties, worked for one another in various businesses, and served as each other’s informal lenders and insurers—all without turning to the notary public. They might have worried only about the informality of business arrangements with others. The notarial archive documented business, but it was also a theater in which the performers knew their roles to varying degrees. Free women’s economic investments demonstrated an interest in particular kinds of capital to garner social legitimacy. African-descended women of means, perhaps not needing to use one another as actors in this legitimizing theater, may have foregone the performances and interacted with one another in economically meaningful ways outside of the sanctioned realm of the notarial office. The notarial page could not, and was not designed to, capture all economies, but it did happen to capture an array of relationships.40 The notarial apparatus archived classed frustrations and personal tragedy. And while a number of free women thrived in colonial Veracruz, others continued to disregard and discredit African-descended women, even those of means.

6 Preserving Legacies

O

n November 7, 1586, Ana de Arriaga must have dreaded the task at hand. As she approached the entryway of the notarial office in Xalapa, a flush of embarrassment might have come over her as she considered how best to couch her predicament. Ana was a free African-descended woman from a well-off family in late sixteenth-century Xalapa. Her brother Tomás Rodríguez de Alcazar also lived in town, but their parents, Beatriz de Arriaga and Pedro Rodríguez de Alcazar, resided nearby in the peripheral jurisdiction of Xalapa.1 Curiously, the notarial rec­ ords never designated Ana’s parents or her sibling by caste but clearly noted her as a woman “de color negra.” Ana’s husband, Jordan Pérez, on the other hand, was from the greater Iberian world, a transplant from Lagos, Portugal. Ana de Arriaga had lived a life of privilege and yet, on that day in 1586, she had to confront a mortifying possibility, namely, that her marriage to Jordan was not legitimate. An improperly contracted marriage was not a mistake a woman of her station and family would have made. Some aspect of the nuptial process might have gone awry without her knowledge; maybe the officiant was a novice. Or, as was more commonly

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the case among elites whose legitimacy had been questioned, Ana’s and Jordan’s marriage may have been a clandestine one because their families did not approve of their union. Ana might have even been pregnant, and, in the hastily organized marriage, someone may have overlooked the required formalities. Whatever the blunder, Ana de Arriaga sought to right the ship and ascertain whether the Church deemed her marriage to Jordan Pérez valid or not. To this end Ana contracted the help of Juan Ruiz, a procurador (attorney) in Puebla de los Ángeles.2 On that November day she issued him an official poder to represent her before the ecclesiastical tribunal in Puebla to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt, beyond a whisper of gossip, that she had indeed married Jordan according to the dictates of the Catholic Church. Established in 1525, the diocese of Puebla de los Ángeles represented the apex of the religious power structure in the region and was likely the definitive arm to resolve the confounding matter. The legitimacy of Ana de Arriaga’s marriage had been questioned because a friar named Joaqin had married the couple, and there was some doubt as to whether he had the authority to do so. At the time, Friar Joaqin was serving in the capacity of guardian of the Monastery of San Francisco. The monastery was the most important Catholic institution in the region and one of the oldest in the colony. As such, the friars should have known the protocols for contracting marriages, even surreptitious ones that would have still been deemed legitimate.3 Ana did not state specifically what prompted her to request the confirmation. Had an unnamed figure slanderously accused her of being illegitimately wedded to her Portuguese husband? Had either of the couple’s parents demanded proof? No extant documents shed light on these issues, but the poder reveals a bit about Ana’s background and situates her petition in the same realm as those of other elites in Xalapa.

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While Ana de Arriaga had only one notarial entry, and her father, Pedro Rodriguez de Alcazar, is only superficially mentioned, her mother, Beatriz de Arriaga, documented the family’s elite standing in Xalapa. On January 20, 1592, Beatriz registered two business matters, details of which clarify information about the family left obscured in Ana’s case. Her daughter’s 1586 case mentioned only that her parents lived at the Venta de Aguilar. However, both of the 1592 entries clearly noted that Beatriz de Arriaga actually owned it. Beatriz’s husband was deceased by then, leaving her as the sole proprietor and administrator of the inn. By 1592 she was also a slave owner according to a poder that she issued to sell one of her slaves. This poder did not specify whether Beatriz owned other slaves, but it was likely that she had either slaves or paid laborers to help her run the boarding establishment. The second entry was a general poder she issued to her son in order to collect on any debts that others might have owed her.4 Not until an entry on January 9, 1597, did Beatriz de Arriaga’s record unveil a fuller picture of her wealth.5 Beatriz continued to involve her son Tomás in business matters related to their family, and on this occasion the two cataloged her holdings. The first item listed in her estate was the Venta de Aguilar, one of the first ventas ever constructed in the region, with an estimated market price of 1,000 pesos, her highest-valued single asset. The inventory affirmed that Beatriz de Arriaga continued to invest in slavery, which accounted for the majority of her personal wealth at 1,700 pesos. She owned a negra slave named Joana (450 pesos), two of Joana’s children described as a mulato and a negro (200 pesos), a negra slave named Isabel (350 pesos), two of Isabel’s children described as mulatos (200 pesos), and a negro slave named Diego valued at 500 pesos. Beatriz’s household items further reveal her capital and perhaps the level of comfort in which Ana de Arriaga had grown

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up and into which her daughter’s Portuguese husband had married. Her collection included a number of items of silver, including an astonishing 100-peso serving dish. She owned a set of twenty bedsheets and ten sleeping mats valued at 120 pesos—most people’s homes did not cost as much as Beatriz’s supply of bedding. While the mats and linens affirm that she owned an inn, the expensive dishes imply that Beatriz may have been accustomed to hosting high-end parties or welcoming any number of distinguished travelers that sought luxury accommodations in town. For example, in 1640 Viceroy Don Diego López Pacheco enjoyed a week of relaxation in Xalapa before continuing his journey to Mexico City. As Bermúdez Gorrochotegui writes of him, “The viceroy remained in [town] for eight days, which was considered an honor and a significant cost for the hosts because in addition to the family, servants, and employees of His Excellency, there were also civil functionaries, military [personnel], ecclesiastics, and ‘almost everyone noble in the kingdom.’ ”6 While certainly a privilege to have one’s house graced by Crown dignitaries, even wealthy hosts likely fretted over the colossal expense incurred by offering lodging to such an illustrious guest and his accompanying entourage. Beatriz never hinted at the type of clientele she attracted, but it would not be outside of the realm of possibility that her establishment appealed to a more exclusive group. The additional sheets would have been found at other inns, but the silver dish marked Beatriz’s household as wealthy. This entrepreneurial woman also had a collection of fine jewelry, which included gold rings and a rosary valued at forty pesos, an astonishing assortment of high-value items. Such baubles were well out of reach to the ­average vecino at the turn of the sixteenth century, demonstrating the lavish life that Beatriz de Arriaga had enjoyed and likely afforded her two children.

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Along with material wealth, Beatriz de Arriaga had accumulated a sizeable debt. She owed a total of 540 pesos to nineteen individuals, most liabilities totaling less than 30 pesos each. She also owed 112 pesos to the aforementioned member of Xalapa’s elite, Pedro de Irala. A few years later, in 1600, Beatriz was still in considerable debt to Pedro; the entry notes that by then she owed him 90 pesos.7 The notary later marked the case as canceled but did not state why. At nearly every level of the social echelon in colonial Mexico, beleaguered debtors found their names marked in the personal notes of friends and acquaintances, in account books of their local shops, and in records in the notarial office. Even the wealthy Beatriz de Arriaga had reimbursements to manage. However, they did not appear to affect her or her family adversely because her assets were valued higher than her documented debt. Beatriz’s largest liability was to Pedro de Irala and the two elites may have decided to resolve the question of the 90 pesos amicably outside of the purview of the notary public, as many others did. Considering the status of both individuals, it is possible that Pedro de Irala could have agreed on a trade of comparable services or goods since both had businesses in Xalapa. Later that year, on September 2, 1600, Beatriz de Arriaga returned to the notarial office with her son Tomás Rodríguez to serve as his fiadora.8 The poder cites that Tomás needed his mother to guarantee a rather large debt of 115 pesos. Only wealthy colonial subjects could afford to put their possessions and economic reputations up for collateral in such sizeable transactions, and Beatriz did so as a widow. The prospects of growing her family’s wealth by supporting her son’s new enterprise likely motivated her. Tomás had accrued the 115-peso debt when he purchased from the prominent aforementioned muleteer Jerónimo de Vega two horses and one mule with all attendant packtrain gear. It would appear that Tomás intended

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to profit from the burgeoning transportation market that would become a mainstay business venture for many throughout the seventeenth century. Tomás was not the only family member looking to invest. On November 14, 1601, Beatriz de Arriaga continued to expand her holdings by purchasing a plot of land for thirty pesos that adjoined her property line located on the Camino Real in Xalapa. The seller was her fellow inn owner Bartolomé Martín who owned the Venta de Los Naranjos, demonstrating that Beatriz not only maintained relationships with other business owners but also that they might have viewed her as a genuine peer.9 Again, it is unclear if this speaks to questions of racial dynamics since Beatriz is never categorized by race. However, her position as an elite business owner disrupts notions of women being too vulnerable for the potentially rough and tumble male-dominated industry of innkeeping. Her purchase of the additional property also alludes to her desire to put her stamp on Xalapa’s landscape in a highly sought-after area and implies that other members of the community were willing to concede that space to her. Ana de Arriaga, Tomás Rodríguez, Pedro Rodríguez de Alcazar, and their matriarch Beatriz de Arriaga formed a nuclear family of considerable wealth and opportunity. And while Ana did not even know how to sign her name, her petition to establish the validity of her marriage reflected an upbringing accordant with her family’s background. Ana’s mother, Beatriz, had successfully embedded her family in a higher echelon of society. A single poder reveals little about how the free negra Ana de Arriaga and her Portuguese husband, Jordan Pérez, made a living or how the couple navigated life in colonial Xalapa. Her mother, Beatriz de Arriaga, left a much more accessible historical trail in the archive as she sought to secure her and her family’s economic position through continued engagement with

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local markets and the regional elite—a legacy she likely hoped would affirm the marital legitimacy expected of the daughter of a wealthy family. Confirmations of marital legitimacy, while generally rare, occurred when families feared an unforeseen canonical impediment that might void a union, jeopardize the legitimacy of children or forfeit crucial dowries, individual inheritances, and family mayorazgos. As such, most cases involved elite members of society.10 Xalapa’s parish archives establish that free African-descended women valued marriage as a sacrament throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Ana de Arriaga’s case highlights that the institution of marriage as a vessel for anxieties around legitimacy, family, and wealth reaches as far back as at least the 1580s in Xalapa for African-descended women and their families. One can imagine the unsympathetic face of her mother, Beatriz de Arriaga, after learning that her daughter’s actions might have put her family’s status in peril. That the daughter of a prominent business owner had to send a legal proxy to Puebla de los Ángeles in order to stand before a council to verify anything given her mother’s successful management of family affairs must have been infuriating. Heirs of wealth did not always exhibit the same know-how (or cultural capital) that their parents, and sometimes their grandparents, had that would have prevented such dilemmas in the first place. Beatriz de Arriaga and Pedro Rodriguez de Alcazar (and perhaps even Tomás) might have urged Ana to resolve the matter as expeditiously (and discreetly) as possible to avoid any further cost to their social legitimacy. Most significantly, while some fathers were absent and others deceased, it was often African-descended mothers who led the fight in defending their family’s legacies. Unlike the typical elite Iberian families, in which male family members often were expected to take charge of businesses and personal matters,

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women of African descent in Xalapa consistently guided their families, often through the roughest of waters.11 Another distinguished matriarch, María de la Candelaria (not to be mistaken for the daughter of Agustina de Acosta from chapter 5), attempted to shield her family from economic misfortune but could not save them all from tragedy. And yet, even when faced with heartbreak, this free African-descended mother fought to retain her status and that of her children, just as Ana de Arriaga and her mother, Beatriz, had done almost exactly one hundred years earlier.

The free parda María de la Candelaria was a vecina of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz with long-established family ties to Xalapa through her wealthy free pardo husband, Diego ­Ordóñez. She and Diego had raised five children: Francisca, Juana, María, Mariana, and Joseph. Tragically, Diego died at some point before 1682, and his death precipitated María’s entry onto the historical stage along with a collection of her friends and associates. In 1685 María de la Candelaria, very much like Ana de Arriaga in 1586, had to subject herself, her family, and members of her community to the humiliating process of proving the legitimacy of her marriage. In one month’s time six notarial entries named María de la Candelaria as the primary agent or secondary actor. Five of these took place on March 30, 1685, and involved settling an inheritance dispute regarding a substantial estate left to María and her children by her late husband. María served as the administrator of Diego’s assets for her four daughters because they were still considered legal minors, but Joseph appeared alongside his mother, as he was over the age of twenty-five.12 Importantly, María asserted time and again that all of her children were legitimately born. María’s first notarial business involved transferring her

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“complete power [of representation]” to Joseph, “especially so that in her name and representing her person, he may sell some tracts of rural land and livestock grazing sites that her aforementioned husband possessed [located] on the limits of the town of Xalapa, donated to him by Luisa Ordóñez, widow of Manuel Rodriguez.”13 The poder did not divulge the nature of the relationship between the widow Luisa and Diego, but given the shared surname it was implied that they were kin. The second entry begins with María and Joseph testifying before Señor Capitán Andrés Garcia de la Peña, the alcalde ordinario of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz.14 Writing in blunt, declarative language, she proclaimed, “We appear before you to say that we agree to prove and ascertain that between myself, María de la Candelaria, and my deceased husband Diego Ordóñez, we had and procreated legitimate children, Francisca, Juana, María, Mariana, and the aforementioned Joseph. And as legitimate children, any assets that might have been left [by Diego] correspond and belong to them.” María and Joseph concluded the one-page petition by stating with resolve, “We ask that there be justice [in this matter].” Near the end of the document, the alcalde noted that neither María nor her son could sign their names. What followed was tantamount to a procession of character witnesses, all attesting that María de la Candelaria was the lawful wife of Diego Ordóñez and that all of their children were legítimos. One of their witnesses was the free pardo and vecino Francisco Maldonado, who testified that he had known the couple for more than thirty years, declaring that he “saw them legitimately married in this city and that during their marriage, he saw them have their children.” He then named all five children and swore that Diego “always recognized, raised and nurtured them, and that was the truth.” The following witness called to testify was another free pardo and fellow vecino,

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Manuel de Ortega.15 He too corroborated that he had known María and Diego and that all five children were conceived during their marriage. While both men testified that they had known María and Diego as a married couple and watched them care for their children, neither man stated that he had served as an official witness in their marriage application. Nor did either serve as the padrino of any of the five kids, which might have denoted a close familiarity with the free couple of African descent. However, as both men claimed to be vecinos, affirming their long relationship with the city of La Nueva Veracruz, they implied that had a wealthy couple like María and Diego not been legitimately married, it would have been common knowledge. The alcalde, and likely María and her son Joseph, must have understood the potential ambiguity of their witnesses’ statements and calculated the need for someone who could offer a more absolute narrative. To that end, they called upon Licenciado Don Juan Sánchez de Tovar, a presbítero (a local priest) and vecino of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. Licenciado Don Juan “promised to tell the truth” and testified that María de la Candelaria and Diego Ordóñez had been married according to the dictates of the Church. He asserted that because he “saw them in a married life, their children were legitimate.” When the presbítero named all five children, he stated that Francisca, Juana, and Joseph were in La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz, and Mariana was in Mexico City. When he mentioned María “the daughter,” he added, “who was taken prisoner by the enemy.”16 He then reemphasized that all the children were legitimate and declared that “this is the truth.” María de la Candelaria had provided an unassailable witness, one who would have known if she and Diego had followed the proper protocols of a religious union, but in addition the ecclesiastic assisted the widow’s enterprise

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The shores of Veracruz City (1847). From City of Vera Cruz: From the Road to Mexico / Vista de Vera Cruz: Por el Camino de Mexico (New York: N. Currier, 1847). Courtesy of the Library of Congress

for the restitution of her rights by calling upon the power of a recent collective memory, one that resonated across the region. María de la Candelaria and her husband had established a life of relative privilege for their children. But in the 1680s María had to contend with the possibility that one of her daughters, who had been born free, was living the nightmare of enslavement, other sordid forms of exploitation, or was already deceased. Enemy pirates who threatened the total destruction of colonial Mexico’s most important Atlantic gateway had taken María’s daughter prisoner, and Don Juan Sánchez de Tovar was there to remind everyone of that tragic event. Two years prior, in the early hours of May 18, 1683, a wave of violence unfolding on the shores of Veracruz awoke the res-

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idents of the sweltering port. By daybreak, some would bear witness and others would fall to one of the greatest assaults on Spain’s crown jewel of New Spain. The Dutchman Laurens de Graaf, also known as Lorencillo, had planned and executed an unprecedented raid on the city, held hundreds of people captive, and left the port in shambles during a two-week siege of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. The event resulted in hemispheric implications for colonists, Crown, and the Church. Outside of war, widespread economic crises, and the most destructive natural disasters, few events mark time across a diverse spectrum of society. The 1683 Great Siege of Veracruz Port was one such event. In addition to the near ruin of the city and the horrors experienced by its residents, African-descended people were targeted, abducted, and sold into slavery rather than ransomed like Spaniards. While the Atlantic and Pacific pirates who haunted the shores of the Spanish circum-Caribbean had for years attacked unsuspecting towns and captured underprotected communities during the so-called Golden Age of piracy, this large-scale targeting of African-descended people was singular among documented raids in the Spanish empire.17 Ceaseless assaults, big and small, during the seventeenth century frustrated Crown strategies to establish and secure reliable Atlantic trade. Pirates, privateers, buccaneers, and corsairs all found the Spanish bonanza, particularly in silver mining, rife with opportunity. While minor attacks occurred during the early sixteenth century, the latter part of the 1500s witnessed more daring exploits. In 1597 the English pirate William Parker attacked the port of San Francisco de Campeche in the Yucatán Peninsula, provoking dread along New Spain’s shores when unidentified ships approached the horizon. Parker’s raid had caused so much panic that year that, fearing a similar fate, authorities in Veracruz requested auxiliary troops from Mexico, of which two hundred arrived to fortify the coastal militias.18

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As the Spanish Crown attempted to coordinate more frequent and safer transatlantic journeys, galleons traveling to and from Veracruz Port became marked prizes for the most enterprising pirates. In fact, Laurens de Graaf was not even the first Dutchman to successfully attack Spanish convoys circulating in the Gulf Coast and Caribbean. In the autumn of 1628 a twelve-ship fleet disembarked from La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz weighed down with silver and other colonial treasures. When the convoy neared the Cuban coastline near Matanzas, the infamous privateer and onetime director of the Dutch West India Company Admiral Piet Heyn purportedly captured eleven ships. Heyn’s thirty-one vessels seized nearly 11 million guilders (5½ million pesos), a crushing hit to the Spanish in the middle of the Anglo–Spanish War (1625–30). This fateful commandeering not only debilitated the Spanish treasury but also fueled the Dutch territorial battle for Spanish Netherlands. Heyn’s attack on the silver fleet also enshrined him in Dutch history as the greatest pillager of Spanish resources during a critical time in the future country’s trajectory. It also “earned” him a children’s nursery rhyme extolling his actions that is still sung today.19 Three decades later pirates dealt New Spain’s shores another blow. In February 1663 the Englishman Christopher Myngs and the Dutchman Edward Mansvelt sacked Campeche with 1,000 buccaneers. The attack on the Yucatán Peninsula likely shocked the Spanish realm since the city had fortifications and a standing militia of 150 men. Within hours of their arrival the pirates had overcome the Spanish forces and launched an assault on the city that lasted for two weeks and yielded 150,000 pieces of eight.20 Campeche, however, was not Veracruz Port. And even with foreign pirates making more daring attempts along New Spain’s coasts, the Great Siege of Veracruz was unparalleled and unprecedented.

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Colonial officials knew well the importance and vulnerability of their port cities. In 1535 construction began on the fort of San Juan de Ulúa, which would become a monumental structure located on a small island facing the main pier of the port. While nearly always under construction, the fort variously counted militiamen and slaves of African descent along with Spanish troops who lived near or at San Juan de Ulúa. The defensive companies of the port city did not have to wait long before their first test of preparedness. A few decades after San Juan de Ulúa’s initial development, two of history’s most in­famous seafarers arrived on the shores of the island fortress. In 1568 Spanish forces spotted the ships of Francis Drake and John Hawkins nearing the fort as they supposedly took cover from a storm. While initially agreeing on a truce that would allow the Englishmen time to gather supplies for their Atlantic crossing, the Spanish set upon Drake and Hawkins. The price of that miscalculation by the English privateers resulted in a loss of more than three hundred men and four ships.21 For more than a century before the Great Siege, the city of Veracruz decisively held off the enemies creeping toward its coastline. If military leadership in 1683 had been as suspicious of incoming vessels as those in 1568 with Drake and Hawkins, perhaps the city could have heralded its more than two-hundred-year rec­ ord of exceptional defense of the port rather than its spectacular defeat. Fortifications for the city’s protection continued in the seventeenth century as rumors of Atlantic rivals spurred new investments in military defense in the 1630s. Viceroy Don Rodrigo Pacheco y Osorio de Toledo, the Marquis de Cerralvo, approved the purchase of “four hundred muskets and arquebuses and six pieces of bronze artillery, as well as gunpowder and lead balls.” Before his departure from office in 1635, the viceroy ordered the construction of “two small bulwarks . . . in

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1633 and 1634.” Not even Havana, the most important port city in the Spanish Caribbean, received such fortifications, demonstrating the Crown’s awareness of Veracruz’s significance but also its shortcomings.22 By the late seventeenth century royal officials in Veracruz praised the efforts of Viceroy Antonio Sebastián Álvarez de Toledo y Salazar, who had “since he entered government in this kingdom taken the utmost care and attention (as in all of his service to your Majesty) with the royal forces of San Juan de Ulúa, as it is the only entry of this kingdom.” Acutely aware of the threat of enemy pirates from repeated news of their appearances, the city’s bureaucrats stated in the same 1670 report, “Luckily [the fort] has always been on full defense and full of provisions.” But, they noted, “the fort is in need of a few [improvements] for its greater defense.” The officials described La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz as being exposed but stated that the fort offered a critical barrier for “the greater security of the city.” In addition to new construction, they rallied three hundred Spanish infantrymen across three companies to guard the port.23 While concerned administrators dispersed funds and drew up plans to further develop the fort, San Juan de Uluá remained largely untested in the seventeenth century, and others might have known this too. In August 1675, just eight years before Lorencillo’s attack on the city, royal officials in the port reported that San Juan de  Ulúa was badly in need of repairs. However, due to the untimely death of the supervising foreman, construction had come to a halt. Local authorities beseeched Viceroy Payo Enríquez de Rivera Manrique to urgently send a replacement in order to resume the building of fortifications, describing the fort as old and gravely beaten down by the unforgiving nortes that violently struck Veracruz every season. While the viceroy received the letter by January 1676, he did not dispatch another

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supervisor to San Juan de Ulúa until the war council convened in November 1677. The military assembly charged the new ­supervisor with expediting the work “with the brevity that is convenient.”24 While the council encouraged swift action, the viceroy’s two-year delay in responding to the needs of his port officials likely caused a series of dangerous postponements to the work. The cost of the delay would inevitably be paid for by the people of Veracruz as 1683 approached. Under the cover of the predawn hours on May 18, 1683, Laurens de Graaf and his band of pirates crept toward the central plaza of La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. With a stunning early-morning assault, they caught the city’s inhabitants by surprise, confronting residents in various states of confused slumber and undress. In short order pirates overtook San Juan de Ulúa, ransacked and looted elite homes, and rounded up officials and their families while others hid in fear for their lives. For nearly two weeks Laurens and hundreds of other pirates held New Spain’s chief port of entry hostage.25 According to Philip Ayres’s account of the Great Siege, published in 1684, Laurens de Graaf had support from experienced English, Dutch, French, and Bermudan pirates by the eve of the invasion. Ayres claimed that these men controlled a cadre of artillery, including a commandeered fifty-gun English ship and water crafts that ranged from an eight- to a forty-gun capacity. Ayres adds, “These vessels had between nine hundred and a thousand men, most of them French and Dutch, and some few English.”26 The number of marauders likely did not reach such heights, but the 1683 Great Siege of Veracruz represented the fears of the Crown: invaders with the explicit or implicit backing of Spain’s foreign rivals. After the initial lightning strike of pillaging, the pirates rounded up the port’s residents and held them captive. The city officials’ report a year later stated, “They took our families and

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The city of Veracruz with a view of the Island Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa (circa 1670–1770). Source: Anonymous. © The Trustees of the British Museum

imprisoned them in the parish church, where we were confined with four thousand people—men, women, priests, children, and enslaved negros.”27 While the extant historical documents do not specify the breakdown of these masses, the description makes evident the scope of the impact: no one was spared, regardless of gender, religious position, age, race, or legal status. Given the size of most seventeenth-century churches, however, the estimate of four thousand people appears to be an exaggeration. While the population of the port of Veracruz sometimes fluctuated substantially with the arrivals and departures of the flotas carrying merchandise from Spain, the greater Caribbean, and South America, people of African descent consistently maintained a visible presence. If Laurens de

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Graaf held four thousand people in a church (or even a quarter of that number), a large percentage would have likely been people of African descent. As early as 1578 one Jesuit source noted, “Father Juan Rogel preached daily to the negros and mulatos, of which there was a large number in the city.” A letter from 1597 describing the work of the Jesuit residence in Veracruz noted, “[The] work is with españoles, the citizens, as well as with the ones who come and go on the flotas, passengers and the people of the sea. Also, [the fathers] preach to the great number of slaves that are in this city and the many others who serve the king on the island [of San Juan Ulúa].” A population estimate for 1646 posits that there were five thousand African-descended people in the city with an additional three thousand people of African descent laboring in the port’s agricultural periphery on cattle ranches and sugar plantations.28 There is no available population breakdown for 1683, but one estimate proposes that Veracruz was home to roughly six thousand people, including Spaniards. However, any demographic projection would have certainly vacillated depending on whether a fleet was approaching or leaving Veracruz Port.29 For most of the year La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz likely counted no more than a few thousand souls. Few seasonal residents lingered in the port after the merchant ships left the city. As emphasized in chapter 1, Xalapa was the more ideal site, which explains why plenty of port vecinos maintained property in and fostered ties with the hillside town on the Camino Real. These trends also emphasize how events in the port could have lasting effects on the central Veracruz region as a whole. Even if the estimate of four thousand hostages is a misrepresentation of those directly affected, it stresses a fundamental reality of this episode: No one was safe from the terror of Laurens de Graaf. One account by the port’s secular council a year after the

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siege provides a vivid retelling of the depths of the depravity that the residents endured. It reads, “[While being held hostage] in the church, we suffered hunger, thirst, and other disgraces, not sparing the priests, who endured by the Grace of God and the hope for the assistance provided by your Majesty. . . . Not content with the sacking of the city, they terrorized men and women who only had the heavens to protect them.” While many had suffered, not all had done so in the same ways. The city council highlighted the degradation borne by the priests and the agony of the greater religious community. It is believed that religious authorities shuttered the doors of the Convent of Nuestra Señora de la Merced due to the “desecration suffered at the hands of Lorencillo in 1683.”30 In that priests were representatives of Catholicism, their victimization, in a church, no less, might have also symbolized a targeted assault on the cornerstone of Spanish culture and society. An explicit rejection of the Catholic Church and its legitimizing power by pirate apostates must have shaken the religious communities of the region. Most significantly, the report by the city council of Veracruz begins a line of narratives that identified victims and described the long-term effects of the attack. How subsequent reports positioned casualties underscores the gendered, racialized, and classed experiences of midcolonial Mexico. People of African descent were always vital to understanding the history of the Great Siege of 1683—with the experience of trauma but also with the city’s survival. African-­ descended men had long served in the defense of the Spanish colonies. And while the Crown depended on their defensive labor, trepidation persisted about African-descended men having access to weapons. Although that fear continually played against the necessity of defense, free men of African descent answered the call to take up arms in 1683. According to the city

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council, free mulatos on horseback intervened in the attack, killed fifty pirates, and helped drive them out of the city. The report also noted that these African-descended men did so without being asked to since they “found themselves unsupervised.” Men of African descent fought against the foreign invaders and yet an air of suspicion remained—“unsupervised” they were. The fear of the autonomy of African-descended people harkens back to beliefs and laws that attempted to require that even free people live under Spanish amos (owners or “supervisors”).31 Nevertheless, African-descended men risked their lives in a city where the majority of all enslaved Africans entered colonial Mexico. Perhaps they battled against the enemies because it was their duty. Or perhaps these men rallied on horseback as they witnessed pirates abusing and rounding up hundreds of women and men of African descent. The Great Siege documented loss, but it also highlighted how Spanish authorities imagined the impact on the port’s community, which was distinctly bereft of care for the most marginalized. In their report the city council members indicated their level of concern for the people abducted by Laurens de Graaf by stating, “Not only does this create a great need [for labor] but these people also [used to] pay tribute to Your Majesty.” The shortage of labor and tribute, the colonial space that Spaniards expected Africans and their descendants to fill, was the primary point of distress for the royal officials.32 The Great Siege of 1683 stressed the marked priorities of the colony and the social hierarchies from which they emanated. The council reduced the port’s African-descended population to an abstraction of colonial inconvenience: the loss of productivity and capital, not people, not members of a community. The council report also noted that the pirates had captured four hundred “poor and miserable” free women of African descent. This description seems to have opened up space

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for free African-descended women to be acknowledged as victims who had suffered a specific tragedy. That pirates deprived free women of their liberty was perhaps shocking even to the council members. However, officials said little else about the trauma that African-descended women experienced and turned their sympathies to Spanish women. The members of the city council stated that the pirates forced the hostages from the church to march and carry supplies like “animales cargados” (pack animals), adding that, “At eleven in the morning, they took us but left the mujeres blancas in the church.”33 This is a remarkable description for its erasure but also for its specificity. Most archival descriptions of Spanish women simply noted them as “women” since Spanishness was the normalized universal identity. Rarely did documents denote Spanish women as “blancas” as there would be no need to do so as an archival convention. In fact, more often notar­ ial records used the modifier “blanca” in cases about African-­ descended people (such as references to mulatas blancas), attempting to clarify the predominance of their European features and to announce their African ancestry. For an incident that affected all sectors of society in a racially diverse site such as La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz, perhaps the clarification of who was left in the church was necessary. Additionally, one had to consider if  the church was actually safer for these mujeres blancas as plunderers still roamed the streets. Doubtful, but the pirates did not force them to carry supplies like animals, as others were forced to do that day. The council members offered no further elaboration on the fate of the mujeres blancas, but by signaling their gendered experience they also silenced the racialized experiences of non-Spanish women as Laurens terrorized the port’s residents. This silencing is especially disturbing given what the council revealed next about this traumatic event. Of those forced

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out of the church, the report stated that more than fifty people lost their lives in this dreadful march, as people drowned in river crossings and died from exhaustion.34 The report did not designate these fifty souls by race or gender. Did they include some of the enslaved women and men whom the pirates held hostage with hundreds (or thousands) of others in the church? How many of these fifty people were free people of African descent? Did this undifferentiated number represent the non-­ Spanish women forced from the church as the mujeres blancas stayed behind? The descriptions of the Great Siege of 1683 center religion, the interests of the secular government, the importance of Spanish womanhood, and the otherness of “poor and mis­ erable” African-descended women. The official report’s tone also conveys outrage. The council’s indignation seemed to be steeped in feeling as though they had been treated like slaves. The pirates had forced them into a cramped space in the church, deprived them of food and water, separated Spanish mothers from their children, and then marched weary survivors to an unknown destination like beasts of burden. The imagery of the report recalls the violence of the slave marches to West African ports, the deprivation experienced in dungeons, the trauma of the slave ship, and the savagery of bondage on the shores of the colonies. Perhaps most horrific to the city council members, Laurens de Graaf had reduced Spaniards, priests, and their children to captives exposed to endless degradation and death. The Great Siege caused more than just physical and financial damage to the city’s elite. While the Spanish residents of the port had doors broken in and windows busted out, African-descended people were vulnerable on all the registers that made their lives both precarious and necessary in a slave society. On June 1, 1683, members of the Veracruz city council witnessed pirates sailing away

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with “1,500 slaves and more than four hundred poor and miser­ able free pardas and negras.” The officials further testified that as the pirates fled from their final stand at Isla de Sacrificios, a small island near the port, they abducted one hundred more people, “personas negras y mulatas, esclavas y libres” (free and enslaved people of African descent).35 The council solemnly reported that the “sacking [of Veracruz] was one of the greatest that the Crown had experienced in many years.” In fact, the pirates had caused so much damage that even after the Auditor of War Don Francisco Fernandez Marmolejo conducted an appraisal, he declared that the loss could not be accurately assessed. If one accounts only for the value of fifteen hundred slaves taken by the pirates, more than half a million pesos had been stolen. The council offered the Crown a rough estimate of four million reales in lost goods and damaged property, a number that does not appear to reflect the capture of slaves.36 For people of African descent, the toll was immeasurable. The Great Siege of Veracruz shattered the lives of free and enslaved African-descended people. One of these ill-fated victims was the daughter of the widowed matriarch María de la Candelaria. Many people had failed to protect her and the greater port community. Who was to blame? Viceroy Don Tomás de la Cerda, who served from 1680 to 1686, placed culpability squarely on the infirm corregidor of Veracruz, Don Pablo Zepeda y Lira, who was recuperating in Puebla de los Ángeles due to an unspecified illness. According to the viceroy, Don Pablo was unfit when he arrived to take on the responsibilities of governing and defending the port. In a 1684 letter to King Charles II, Viceroy Don Tomás asserted, “I now realize that having [Don Pablo Zepeda y Lira in command] of this city, [and] him not being a soldier, allowed for the loss and great damage”; he added that the “gall of the pirates and ene-

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mies of the Crown of Your Majesty” also played a contributing role.37 The viceroy then relieved Don Pablo of his duties, citing the preferred Spanish euphemism of “inconvenience” in having him return to Veracruz Port and reiterating that he was not a soldier. In his place, Don Tomás appointed a man with military experience, the Maestre de Campo Don Francisco Osorio de Astorga. The viceroy believed Don Francisco was the best choice for the port’s grieving vecinos, who now “found themselves better off . . . [with] the Maestro de campo and his sargento mayor, [who] spent the evenings making [patrol] rounds and guarding the plaza.” The viceroy also promoted Don Francisco Osorio de Astorga, naming him interim maestro teniente general. Viceroy Don Tomás de la Cerda was so confident in this newly installed military government that he boldly proclaimed that had such a man been chosen in the first place, “the sack of the city would have never occurred.”38 The letter penned by the viceroy in the early weeks of 1684 carried a tone of disappointment and regret but also of determination. Don Tomás refers to Francisco Osorio de Astorga as the remedy and highlights the importance of his military experience combined with his clear political background. What might have also influenced the viceroy’s tenor in the letter was the fact that he had a lot to prove since he himself was new to the viceregal seat. Don Tomás de la Cerda’s investiture took place on November 30, 1680. Two and a half years later pirates nearly destroyed the port of Veracruz. As he wrote to King Charles II just six months after the Great Siege, he likely wanted to emphasize that he was well in command and had corrected the problem with an interim military governor of Veracruz. Notably, the viceroy’s letter to the Spanish monarch appeared reluctant to describe the current state of affairs in the port. Other than vague notes about “loss and great

Preserving Legacies 205

damage” and “the despair of the vecinos,” the letter offers little of the viceregal office’s specific sense of Veracruz and its needs outside of better management, which Viceroy Don Tomás de la Cerda defined as more militaristic.39 The Crown would not have to wait long before another group of officials offered a sharply different assessment of the Great Siege and the challenges of moving forward. According to the report by the city council of Veracruz, royal officials had betrayed the trust of the public by not listening to the experts, resulting in the tragedy that befell the port. They wrote, “In agreement with men with maritime experience, seeing these ships turn about, [three] messages were sent to Don Luis Francisco de Cordoba, governor of this city, saying that those ships did not seem right and that [the city] should be put [ready] at arms to which the governor responded that everything was already prepared [for such an attack].40 The indictment was clear. There had been a window during which the governor could have mobilized the resources of the port, readied additional men, and prepared for a full-scale defense. Instead, he ignored the training of his subordinates, and the people of Veracruz suffered for his hubris, especially people of African descent. The council also wanted to make clear that the people of Veracruz did not simply put down their arms and surrender the city to the raiding pirates. They carefully explained that more than six hundred armed pirates had overtaken the royal warehouses and gained access to arms, gunpowder, and ammunition, which crippled the city’s ability to defend itself. In an attempt to perhaps exculpate themselves, they noted, “[The city had] more than 1,200 Spanish men who, even though brave, were caught asleep due to the carelessness of military leaders and the lack of attention paid to the [warnings sent].” According to the council, the lookouts had accurately perceived

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and dutifully reported to their superiors, but the chain of command had failed at the top. The governor was derelict in his duties by not giving the people of Veracruz a fighting chance as they slumbered, unaware of the danger already advancing to their doorsteps. However, they agreed with the viceroy, adding, “[Given] the individual laws of our Majesty and the mandates of the viceroys that speak to military prevention . . . this situation should not have happened.”41 Even if María de la Candelaria had heard about the assessment by the council, it likely did not soothe her spirit to know that her daughter’s abduction was preventable. What is clear is that this free African-descended woman was not the only one who called upon the memory of the Great Siege when in need. In a letter penned on August 24, 1683, the city council stated that while they were ordered to help unload the flota of General Don Diego de Zaldivar “without any delay” they struggled with the workload due to a lack of African-descended laborers and other service people. They then offered the oblique reference to “that fatal incident.”42 Just three months after the attack, the population most affected by the ravages of the pirates had again been rendered a colonial inconvenience as others moved on and considered operational matters. Stalled work schedules were not the only occasions when royal magistrates invoked the explanatory power of the Great Siege of 1683. Three regidores (council members) convicted in 1686 of an unnamed offense against the vicar of Veracruz stated that they could not pay the one-thousand-peso fine due to the “poverty that they remained in due to the invasion of the enemy.”43 The judges noted at the end of their letter to the king that they would eventually charge the men the required amount and remit it. The magistrates seemed to have offered some leeway to the officials, likely due to their positions, but the mobilization of the memory of the Great Siege also appeared

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to function as a convenient avenue of extenuating circumstances for the regional government. Licenciado Don Juan Sánchez de Tovar’s narrative aside about María’s abduction by the enemy pirates may have elicited a visceral response from people all over the region and perhaps across the colony. He had positioned María de la Candelaria as the archetype of the grief-stricken protagonist: a widowed mother of five children in need of legal protection. That she had also been victimized by the hated scoundrel Laurens de Graaf perhaps heightened the degree of sympathy she was afforded by others. As further investigation into her notarial life reveals, María de la Candelaria might have been grieving, but she was still a woman of means. One month after María presented her case, on April 26, 1685, her son Joseph registered a final entry on her behalf. While not a letter verifying that María was the lawful wife of Diego Ordóñez, Joseph’s assertions of his family’s legitimacy resonate throughout the document and imply that María’s campaign was perhaps successful. Joseph’s introductory statement reads, “I, Joseph Ordóñez, pardo libre . . . legitimate son of Diego Ordóñez and María de la Candelaria . . . and as the heir of my aforementioned father and in virtue that I have the poder of my aforementioned mother as [she is] the guardian and administrator of the other heirs of my aforementioned deceased father Diego Ordóñez.” Joseph then noted that he had sold a sizeable number of his father’s properties in the greater jurisdiction of Xalapa.44 That he was able to transact this sale for María and exert some control of the inheritance implies that the officials who had examined María’s case had likely sided with the wealthy widow of African descent, at least partially. As his mother’s legal proxy, Joseph sold two grazing areas for smaller animals, such as pigs and sheep. The first measured three acres and was located on the outskirts of the town of Chil-

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Carl Nebel, elevated view of Xalapa with a lone traveler (1836). Lithograph. Courtesy of the California History Room, California State Library, Sacramento, California

toyac. The second measured two acres and was situated about a league and a half from Ixhuacán, approximately two leagues from Xalapa. The second pasture had the advantage of being located near the Joloatl River. Although a few acres of land do not sound particularly impressive, María sold them for a windfall of four hundred pesos. María’s diligence in her presentation of her family’s narrative paid off not only because it appears that she was confirmed as the legitimate wife of Diego, but, as is now clear, she had a lot to gain financially in securing the inheritance rights to high-value real estate. This final entry also clarifies how María’s husband came

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into possession of these lands. The documents of March 30, 1685, cited only that Doña Luisa Ordóñez had given Diego some properties. The April 26, 1685, bill of sale specified that she was Diego’s wealthy and generous aunt originally from Palm Island but for decades a vecina of Xalapa. Diego had inherited the property in 1638 when he was just ten years old. Doña Luisa and her husband, Manuel Rodríguez de Maya, had long been fixtures in Xalapa, owning property in the region valued at thirty-five hundred pesos as early as 1598 and owning slaves in the early 1600s before establishing a packtrain business in the 1620s. The couple echoed elite religious practices and endowed a chapel in the Monastery of San Francisco for masses to be celebrated for their souls and those of their deceased family members. When Manuel Rodríguez de Maya died in 1625, Doña Luisa continued to conduct business on her own, selling some of her land and owning slaves.45 The additional information regarding Doña Luisa Ordóñez’s background hints that María de la Candelaria might have needed a carefully curated narrative with a whole team of legal representatives and witnesses to prove her claim. The Spanish legal system allowed for the acknowledgment of natural children, if the father chose to grant such rights. The case of Polonia de Ribas profiled in chapter 4 underscores that one could even establish legal rights of inheritance for illegitimate grandchildren, if the petitioner so wished. The same could be done for female consorts. Under Spanish colonial inheritance laws, if María de la Candelaria successfully defended her position as the legitimate wife of Diego Ordóñez, she would have the right to half of his estate, the other half being evenly distributed among the legitimate heirs.46 In addition to the financial benefit she would receive, it likely mattered quite a bit to this woman of means that she set the record straight regarding the legitimacy of her family.

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María assembled an infallible defensive line against the accusation of her illegitimacy with three witnesses, one a clergy­ man, to assert her marital as well as her classed status. Although more widely documented among the Spanish elite, mothers and fathers rebutted claims that they conceived children out of wedlock to ensure that their progeny would continue to enjoy the material and social benefits ascribed to legitimacy.47 Some African-descended families understood marital legitimacy as being socially important, while others valued its approximation, as discussed in chapter 2. Religious legitimacy opened doors for elite Spaniards attempting to enter power structures of the colonies, such as universities, convents, and Crown-sanctioned positions. María de la Candelaria might have also wanted to affirm her family’s place in the social order and defend a position not outrightly presumed to be the domain of even a wealthy African-descended woman. Whether women of African descent were legitimate wives or lovers, the men’s families likely did not welcome the cases of free negras, morenas, mulatas, and pardas who sought to establish control over inheritances. María’s approach highlights her awareness of the weight accorded to gendered prescriptions, perhaps especially for African-descended women. María did not legally need her son to represent her before the notarial authorities—there was nothing in the Spanish legal code that would have prevented her, as a widow, from presenting her case alone. However, she must have known that having her son serve as her proxy together with three male witnesses fortified her case as a woman of African descent attempting to secure her rights as a mujer legítima. Perhaps María de la Candelaria strategically mobilized her trauma to her benefit, but so too did others.

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In proceedings that sought to establish whether María de la Candelaria and Diego de Ordóñez had been legitimately married, we learn that their daughter, also named María, along with hundreds of other free women of African descent, had been “taken prisoner by the enemy.” Perhaps those listening to and transcribing her testimony, unquestionably men and possibly slave owners too, did not empathize with the free woman standing before them. Nevertheless, few in the region would have been able to so casually disregard a reference to the horror caused by the Dutch pirate Laurens de Graaf. The Great Siege created a traumatic shared memory of hundreds of pirates terrorizing the residents of the port, damaging private and public property, and shattering the lives of both free and enslaved families as they witnessed loved ones taken hostage. The event so fractured the sense of safety of port residents that Xalapa’s population experienced a boom after 1683 as people abandoned the port en masse, again seeking refuge in the way station town.48 Most significantly, an entire region had experienced a tragedy, and the consequences ranged from a family in mourning to colonial authorities renegotiating the power dynamics of governance. The official reports of the tragedy centered people of African descent as indispensable but important only in their worth as chattel, in their representation as the Crown’s tributaries, and in their value as members of the free colonial workforce. The loss, the city council officials argued, “was nearly incalculable”—something the African-descended community in Veracruz would have agreed upon. The social status of people of African descent in the midcolonial era was always contingent, even for the wealthy. Who, for example, had questioned the legitimacy of Ana’s and María’s marriages? Importantly, neither woman allowed such an affront to stand. Ana de Arriaga and María de la Candelaria were women of means, but

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manumission was not the same as freedom. The abduction of a wealthy daughter of legitimately married, landowning parents was a chilling reminder that the threat of enslavement was never far away. The aftermath of the Great Siege of 1683 had long-ranging consequences, including the havoc it caused in the archives after the installation of the military government. In a rare case of contemporary admission, officials highlighted the significance and challenges of maintaining the documentary arm of colonial administration. In 1689, government administrators requested that Veracruz’s sitting corregidor, Pedro López Pardo, compile a report on the dispatches and records of his predecessor, Maestro de Campo Don Francisco Osorio de Astorga. Pedro noted that while he had not located all of the records in the city council archive, he could offer a summary of core concerns, the first of which was the “good treatment of and religious ministry to the slaves.” Corregidor Pedro López Pardo then followed this proclamation by addressing issues of commerce, including the threat of piracy.49 How was it possible that the archive, in just one administration, had fallen into such disarray that not even the military governor’s papers could be located? Additionally, why did the corregidor begin his summary with a centering of the “good treatment” of enslaved people? And in light of the sheer scale of the population decimation experienced due to the attack, why attempt to reassure his superiors that he would attend to those who remained? There might have been other reasons that Pedro López Pardo specifically and prominently addressed the treatment of African-descended people. Perhaps the royal official’s statements spoke to a broader concern of the scarcity of slaves and their continued demand in the region. By the late seventeenth century many places in colonial Mexico had turned toward wage laborers, but others in the central Veracruz region

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still relied on slavery. He may have wanted to assure his superiors that he had a more watchful eye on the enslaved population and would not allow the mistakes of his predecessors to reoccur during his tenure. “The enemy would not steal away more slaves from Veracruz,” he might have murmured as he drafted the note. María de la Candelaria’s daughter was taken prisoner by the enemy. Her abduction still lingered in the minds of her family and community. The Great Siege marked time for the region’s African-descendant population, and the aftermath must have been all-encompassing. Economic insecurity likely affected a large number of families since pirates killed, injured, and seized breadwinners, caregivers, children, and patrons. Perhaps the Candelaria family depended on María the daughter or her contacts in La Nueva Veracruz, her capture propelling the economic need to secure the inheritance. The archive reveals that María the mother wanted those hearing her tragic story to feel that absence too—to relive that traumatic event as fellow vecinos of the region. Whether it was to provoke the compassion of the officials who might have also lost loved ones or property in the Great Siege, the abduction of María the daughter called upon multiple notions of family, Crown obligations, and patriarchal duties. “She had suffered enough,” a notarial assistant might have thought as María de la Candelaria’s witnesses appeared one after another to attest to her good religious character and her family’s legitimacy. What might have been a gendered strategy of survival, a utilitarian attempt to secure her future, demonstrates the importance of a collective memory for traditionally marginalized people as they pled their cases before Crown authorities, offered up their family legacies, defended their humanity, and called for justice.

Epilogue

Soledad, the Mulata de Córdoba, may not have actually lived in colonial Veracruz, but women like her did. Women scrutinized by their neighbors—who accused Ana de Arriaga and María de Candelaria of being illegitimately married? Women who navigated interactions with powerful men—how did Polonia de Ribas ensure that other elites would actually repay her when the debt was left unnotarized? Women who stood before authorities with little recourse—how alone did free Getrudis feel as she watched her enslaved husband Nicolás sold away? These free African-descended women faced hard choices but attempted to safeguard themselves and their families in a region where other women and men from West and West Central Africa and the Atlantic Islands toiled in fields, on docks, and in private homes. In dozens of stories across more than one hundred years of history, some women’s lives might appear triumphant. However, their freedom was not free—it was always circumscribed—and the vulnerability that they faced never fully faded. At the start of this journey, I asked who might have believed women of African descent. The better question appears to be: Whom did they believe? Perhaps not even their husbands, as in the case of Manuela Martín, who decided to be-

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queath her wealth to a religious institution instead of to her spouse. Certainly not slave owners, as in the case of Catalina de Morales, who knew that her two daughters’ freedom was at stake if she did not prove that their owner had agreed to manumit them. Not Indigenous leaders, as was the case of Agustina de Acosta, who made the granddaughter of a cacique stand before the notary public to testify that Agustina’s purchase was wholly valid. Not even one’s paramour could be trusted, as in the case of María de la Higuera, who sued to have her lover thrown into jail when he appeared to hedge on his proposal to marry her. Free African-descended women could afford to have faith in but a few. What we do know is that they often sought out the notary public when engaging with Spaniards, perhaps indicating their fear of unscrupulous españoles. Whom did they believe? Perhaps, most often, they believed other African-­descended people and therefore avoided the fees and the inconvenience of the notarial office. By the mid-eighteenth century and a generation after the institution of powerful Bourbon reforms had reshaped the economic landscape of the region via the ferias, free African-­ descended women had become archivally alienated. They either no longer sought out the legitimizing power of the notarial office or they no longer had the economic means and status to register business or other personal matters. They had likely not moved to other towns and cities given their continued presence in the parish records of Xalapa. In the 1712 parish collection, 175 children of African descent were noted as having been confirmed. In the combined records of the 1726 file along with the two extant partial records of 1728 and 1736, African-descended parents confirmed 110 children. Between 1724 and 1736, 94 marriages included at least one person of African descent, a notable increase from the 25 marriages documented from 1656 to 1702 in the likely incomplete parish ar-

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chive. Their trails of their rites of passage establish that by the early decades of the eighteenth century Xalapa remained home to a robust population of African-descended people. While the second half of the eighteenth century bore witness to their gradual disappearance from documented transactions, for more than a century free African-descended women conducted business with Spanish elites, owned slaves, freed their families from slavery, interacted with royal representatives in the town square, offered housing to travelers, and purchased newly imported goods from traders coming from La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz. Free women documented both distressing circumstances and enviable life chances. For women whose husbands or children were enslaved, heartache likely pained them, but so too would the debt from the purchase of freedom cards for their loved ones. Other women owned properties and managed them well enough to pass them on to their children, who either continued the success of their mothers or failed to maintain the inheritance and had to sell the house or tract of land for a pittance. As an elite group, free women with wealth most often behaved as other affluent people did by requiring the assistance of apoderados to conduct business for them, offering their daughters attractive dowries, and serving as financial insurers for their family members. However, other narratives documented with the notary public appear to be embellished. The differences between the two are not always clear. Some elite members of Spanish America attempted to create their own notarial truth by forging documents and providing false witnesses to alter their life stories in order to vie for claims to a legitimate heritage.1 In Xalapa one free African-descended woman seemed to refuse her husband’s notarial narrative of her modest beginnings. While this practice is largely seen as an elite phenomenon, some free people of more modest back-

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grounds may have felt the societal pressure to present and have legitimized narratives that best served the story they wanted chronicled. Their notarial truths mattered because social legitimacy mattered to them. And while they might not always have had the power to guard it against assault, they could craft a notarial life by solemnly appearing at a large table in a room filled with sheets of paper, inkwells, and registers in a building in the center of town. What we have now are not their biographies. Their lives did not revolve around their purchases, their businesses, or their family disputes. In conversation with the notarial archive, the parish archive alludes to a whole world of experiences and interpersonal relationships we cannot access. What we have left is not so dissimilar to what the notarial assistant produced so dutifully by taking testimony, drafting the documents, and then drafting a final version that awaited the notary’s signature. These young men might have even exerted their own creative license. Notarial documents were copies of copies of a moment in the lives of free women written by young men who might have added their own elaborations, however un­ assumingly. Imagine how an African-descended woman of means might have felt as she stood up, thanked the assistant for the service as she paid, walked out of the notary’s office into the main plaza, took a breath, and hoped that someone perhaps younger than her own daughter or son had not made a mistake—quite a powerful place for a lad who had likely slumbered on the floor of the notary’s workshop the night before.2 These were the gatekeepers of truth. And it was up to free women of African descent to dictate their desires, frustrations, and achievements, trusting that this imperial arm of governance would remain strong. This book emerged from a desire to tell one woman’s history, that of the free mulata Polonia de Ribas. I encountered her archival trail in 2003 while an under-

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graduate at Cornell University, long before I realized that she would become my guide into this world. I first believed her to be unique as a well-connected, wealthy, slave-owning mulata in Xalapa. I then began to search for other women and realized that Polonia was not so out of place as I had imagined. These women were most apparently marked socially by race and gender but also by other identifiers. Their economic capital perhaps even dampened Spanish stereotypes of African-descended people as “loathed vagabonds.” Their status as slave owners likely helped distance them from accusations of sympathizing with or harboring maroons in the region. The dowries given to their daughters and apprenticeships for their sons may have buffered the possibility of abject poverty. As many scholars have found, survival in a slave society did not look the same everywhere. For African-descended women, it might have looked like fighting for every sliver of social legitimacy that they could acquire, defend, and later pass on to others. Little is known about the everyday lives of colonial subjects, regardless of race, gender, or status. Free women of African descent left an even smaller archival footprint than most, resulting in unsatisfying narratives for the eager reader. Yet it is the reality that only highly spectacular events were ever recorded in substantive ways, and even then such documentation was uneven. However, histories of free African-descended women of means demonstrate their ability to navigate multiple identities in which race and gender shifted in meaning. My book treats the history of a dynamic world crucial to earlyand midcolonial Mexico. The notarial traces of free African-­ descended women bring to light some of their material circumstances, their affiliations, and perhaps even their sense of self. This book also reorients the history of free African-descended women of means to an earlier period, one in which their strat-

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egies around capital accumulation and management sustained themselves and their families for more than a century. The long legacy of slavery and freedom in colonial Veracruz shaped the life chances of those in the region. One’s ability to approximate Spanish ideals of religious and economic legitimacy further delineated what was possible. Free African-­ descended women lived in this nexus of worlds, enduring ­unstable economies and navigating layers of positionalities to maneuver themselves and their families out of harm’s way. At times the realities of central Veracruz may have made such calculations feel particularly perilous, regardless of the capital that free women wielded. Although this study is grounded in 150 years of materials from archives in four countries and two continents, African-descended women’s lives remain shrouded by mediated forms and inconsistent archival practices. Their histories remain incomplete not only because of the types of institutions they engaged with but also because some chose not to open their lives to more scrutiny than was necessary. African-descended women in Xalapa included those who were successful businesswomen and landowners but also women who were newly manumitted and still reeling from a lifetime of trauma. Not all free people desired to detail for Spanish institutions their business prospects, family disputes, wealth, or destitution. Free women in Xalapa did not need to hear the legend of the Mulata de Córdoba to understand that African-descended women remained vulnerable as they stood before Crown authorities. Likewise, if Soledad did exist, few women of African descent in central Veracruz would have likely been surprised that colonial officials would rather believe that the mulata was demonic than to take her word over that of a dejected Spanish man. Free women could not afford to hope that their account

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would be so trusted—they needed contingencies in place. For years I have imagined the Mulata de Córdoba sitting in that cell with a knowing smile. I like to believe that she knew she would outwit them—that she had a plan to survive. Did a free African-descended militiaman on guard duty at San Juan de Ulúa help her abscond under the cover of night? Did she convince one of the slaves who labored at the fort to swipe the key to her cell? Did she discreetly slip through the rusted bars of her poorly constructed cell and swim to the port of Veracruz? I think about all of the possibilities of how Soledad could have realistically fled. I also consider what her life might have been like afterward. Did she move to Xalapa and blend into the population of free African-descended women? Did she travel the Camino Real to Mexico City or had she clandestinely boarded a ship destined for Cuba or journeyed deeper into the Atlantic World? I like to think that whether she ever aged or not, she continued to live an unapologetic life, even if that meant never having her choices documented by someone like a notary or a parish priest. Soledad’s Great Escape from the fort of San Juan de Ulúa captivates readers, but so too should the lives of free African-descended women of means in colonial Mexico who sought to live as autonomously as she did. They both have something to teach us about women made invisible.

Notes

Abbreviations AEPX AGI AGN ANC ANX ARSI

Archivo Eclesiástico de la Parroquia del Sagrario, Iglesia del Sagrada Corazón—Xalapa, Veracruz (Mexico) Archivo General de las Indias—Seville (Spain) Archivo General de la Nación—Mexico City (Mexico) Archivo Notarial de Córdoba, USBI, Colecciones Especiales, Universidad Veracruzana—Xalapa, Veracruz (Mexico) Archivo Notarial de Xalapa, Colecciones Especiales, La Unidad de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información Universidad Veracruzana—Xalapa, Veracruz (Mexico) Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu—Rome (Italy)

Introduction 1. Kathryn Burns, Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 26–27; 13. 2. Ann Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 273–75. 3. Burns, Into the Archive, 68. 4. Peter W. Rees, “Route Inertia and Route Competition: An Historical Geography of Transportation between Mexico City and Veracruz” (PhD diss., University of California Berkeley, 1971), 13. 5. Andrés Reséndez notes that the extended royal roads facilitated the forced movement of enslaved Africans from the port to sites in the northern reaches of New Spain’s territories, such as mining towns like Parral. Andrés

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Notes to Pages 8–9

Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (New York: First Mariner Books, 2016), 109–11. For a history of African-descended men in Spanish American military service, see Ben Vinson III, Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); Ben Vinson III, “Articulating Space: The Free-Colored Military Establishment in Colonial Mexico from the Conquest to Independence,” Callaloo 27, no. 1 (2004): 150–71; Ben Vinson III, “Free Colored Voices: Issues of Representation and Racial Identity in the Colonial Mexican Militia,” Journal of Negro History 79, no. 4 (1994): 170–82; Ben Vinson III, “Race and Badge: Free-Colored Soldiers in the Colonial Mexican Militia,” The Americas 56, no. 4 (April 2000): 471–96; Matthew Restall, “Black Conquistadors: Armed Africans in Early Spanish America,” The Americas 57, no. 2 (October 2000): 171–205; Michele Reid-­ Vazquez, The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba and the Nineteenth-­ Century Atlantic World (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011). 6. The importance of honor has a well-established historiography for colonial Latin America. The following is a sample of central texts: Patricia Seed, “Marriage Promises and the Value of a Woman’s Testimony in Colonial Mexico,” Signs 13, no. 2 (Winter 1988): 253–76; Patricia Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574–1821 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets; Ramón A. Gutiérrez, “Honor, Ideology, Marriage Negotiation and Class– Gender Domination in New Mexico, 1690–1846,” Latin American Perspectives 12, no. 1 (Winter 1985): 81–104; Verena Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press: 1989); Nicole von Germeten, Violent Delights, Violent Ends: Sex, Race, and Honor in Colonial Cartagena de Indias (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013). Germeten examines a fascinating case involving elites who used rumors of sexual impropriety to defame a political rival. Violent Delights, Violent Ends, 207–31. 7. For important discussions, see Tamara J. Walker, Exquisite Slaves: Race, Clothing, and Status in Colonial Lima (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Tamara J. Walker, “ ‘He Outfitted His Family in Notable Decency’: Slavery, Honour and Dress in Eighteenth-Century Lima, Peru,” Slavery and Abolition 30, no. 3 (September 2009): 383–402; Germeten, Violent Delights, Violent Ends, 196; Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Colour, 115–19. 8. However, some may have preferred informal arrangements. As Germeten argues, “The difficulty and expense of divorce may have motivated the majority of plebeian couples to simply avoid marriage in favor of committed cohabitation.” Germeten, Violent Delights, Violent Ends, 194.

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9. Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in J. Richardson, ed., Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (New York: Greenwood, 1986), 242–43. 10. This cultural capital, as Bourdieu asserts, likely proved to be the most valuable, especially intergenerationally. Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” 245–46. 11. For important contributions on the impact of the Bourbon and Caroline Reforms on African-descended populations, see Ann Twinam, Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulatos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015); Norah L. A. Gharala, Taxing Blackness: Free Afromexican Tribute in Bourbon New Spain (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2019). 12. A number of scholars have championed this approach for colonial Mexico. See Adriana Naveda Chávez-Hita, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucareras de Córdoba, Veracruz, 1690–1830 (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1987); Citlalli Domínguez-Domínguez, “La población afromestiza de Coatepec, Veracruz: mestizaje e integración social, 1670–1790,” BA thesis (Xalapa: University of Veracruz, 2005); Juan González Esponda, Negros, pardos, y mulatos: Otra historia que contar (Tuxtla Gutiérrez: Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas, 2002); Aaron P. Althouse, “Contested Mestizos, Alleged Mulattos: Racial Identity and Caste Hierarchy in Eighteenth-Century Patzcuaro, Mexico,” The Americas 62, no. 2 (October 2005): 151–75; Melchor Campos García, Castas, Feligresía, y Ciudadanía en Yucatán: Los afromestizos bajo el regimen constitucional español, 1750–1822 (Merida, Yucatán: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, 2005); Matthew Restall, The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009). For greater Spanish America, see Rachel Sarah O’Toole, Bound Lives: Africans, Indians, and the Making of Race in Colonial Peru (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012); Martha Few, Women Who Live Evil Lives: Gender, Religion, and the Politics of Power in Colonial Guatemala (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002); Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1999); Sherwin K. Bryant, Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing through Slavery in Colonial Quito (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014). 13. Only these four categories ever appeared in Xalapa’s notarial archive to refer to women of African descent. On occasion, these categories included modifiers, such as “mulata blanca,” which likely referred to women of African descent with more prominent European features. 14. For critical examinations of the surveillance of African-descended people in Spanish America, see Walker, Exquisite Slaves; Michelle A. McKinley,

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Notes to Pages 16–17

Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Intimacy, and Legal Mobilization in Colonial Lima, 1600–1700 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Marisa J. Fuentes demonstrates this for colonial Barbados: Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). Sherwin Bryant makes a similar argument for the relatively smaller population of enslaved people in the Kingdom of Quito. Bryant, Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage. 15. The historiography on late eighteenth and nineteenth century free ­African-descended women of means in the Americas and circum-Caribbean is robust and cannot be summarized adequately here. Edited volumes along with dedicated monographs have contributed invaluable knowledge about women’s history, family life, economic dynamics, legal traditions, and slavery. The following is a mere sample of this diverse field that focuses on free women in whole or in part: María Elisa Velázquez Gutiérrez, Mujeres de origen africano en la capital novohispana, siglos XVII y XVIII (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, UNAM, 2006); David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, eds., More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996); David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, eds., Beyond Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004); Júnia Ferreira Furtado, Chica da Silva: A Brazilian Slave of the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Kimberly S. Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769–1803 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997); Adele Logan Alexander, Ambiguous Lives: Free Women of Color in Rural Georgia, 1789–1879 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1991); Emily Clark, The Strange History of the Amer­ ican Quadroon: Free Women of Color in the Revolutionary Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013); Camillia Cowling, Conceiving Freedom: Women of Color, Gender, and the Abolition of Slavery in Havana and Rio de Janeiro (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013); Jessica Marie Johnson, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020); Tamika Y. Nunley, At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021). 16. Herman Bennett asserts that in New Spain there were significantly more free people of African descent by the mid-seventeenth century. He notes, “By 1646, the creole population, largely free and comprised of mulattos, numbered 116,529, whereas the predominantly African slave population totaled 35,089.” Herman Bennett, Colonial Blackness: A History of Afro-­ Mexico (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 27.

Notes to Pages 19–22

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1 A Nexus of Worlds 1. Pierre Chaunu, “Veracruz en la segunda mitad del siglo XVI y primera del XVII,” Historia Mexicana 9, no. 4 (April–June 1960): 521; Antonio García de León, Tierra adentro, mar en fuera: El puerto de Veracruz y su litoral a Sotavento, 1519–1821 (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2011), 317, 320. 2. Peter Rees situates the territory of the Camino Real’s significance by noting that it “represents one of Mexico’s principal and oldest transportation axes.” Rees also establishes that the Spanish Crown shaped the Camino Real and was not a continuation of pre-Conquest established trade routes of the Aztecs or Totonacas. Peter W. Rees, “Origins of Colonial Transportation in Mexico,” Geographical Review 65, no. 3 (July 1975): 323, 333. Peter Rees, Transportes y comercio entre México y Veracruz, 1519–1910 (Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1976), 11; Manuel Rivera Cambas, Historia Antigua y Moderna de Jalapa y de Las Revoluciones del Estado de Veracruz, Tomo II (Mexico: Imprenta de I. Cumplido, 1869), 5. 3. Rees elaborates: “Xalapa, from the beginning, was not only an important stop on the road so that travelers could repair their gear and continue on their journey to Mexico [City] but also a more elevated urban extension of Veracruz.” Rees, Transportes y comercio, 48. José Antonio Villa-Señor y Sánchez, Theatro Americano, descripción general de los reynos, y provincias de la Nueva-España, y sus jurisdicciones: Dedicada al rey nuestro señor, el señor d. Phelipe Quinto, monarcha de las Españas, Tomo I (Mexico: Imprenta de la Viuda de D. Joseph Bernardo de Hogal, Impressora del Real y Apostólico Tribunal de la Santa Cruzada en todo este Reyno, 1746), 283. 4. However, Rees notes that Orizaba’s route could not be traversed during the rainy season, resulting in “all traffic passing through Jalapa.” There is a third, highly daring route, one which would require traversing the intimidating mountainous ranges of the Pico de Orizaba, which reaches more than eighteen thousand feet above sea level at its peak, and the Cofre de Perote, which measures fourteen thousand feet above sea level at its highest point. Rees adds, “None of these three passes can be negotiated with ease, not even in today’s time with modern technology.” Rees, Transportes y comercio, 64, 12, 84, 20. Carmen Blázquez Domínguez, Breve Historia de Veracruz (Mexico: Colegio de México, Fideicomiso Historia de las Américas, 2000), 63; Rees, “Origins of Colonial Transportation in Mexico,” 324. For a detailed study of the trajectory of the Camino Real’s history, see Rees, Transportes y comercio; Guillermina del Valle Pavón, “Desarrollo de la Economía Mercantil y Construcción de los Caminos México–Veracruz en el siglo XVI,” América Latina en la Historia Económica, no. 27 (January–June 2007): 7–49.

226

Notes to Pages 22–26

5. Valle Pavón, “Desarrollo de la Economía Mercantil,” 11, 20; Archivo Notarial de Xalapa, La Unidad de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información, Colecciones Especiales, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz (ANX), February 6, 1584, f. 163fte–163vta; ANX, December 20, 1585, f. 218fte–218vta. 6. ANX, December 22, 1633, f. 51fte–51vta. Guillermina del Valle Pavón briefly discusses the importance of tamemes (Indigenous transporters who worked on foot and carried materials on their backs), who carried materials back and forth on the Camino Real. Valle Pavón, “Desarrollo de la Economía Mercantil,” 17–18. Rees also briefly discusses the abuse suffered by tamemes along the Camino Real, “Route Inertia and Route Competition,” 130. For a brief discussion of the abuse suffered by Indigenous people by venta owners along the Camino Real, also see Rees, “Route Inertia and Route Competition,” 91. As quoted in Rees, Transportes y comercio, 21. 7. Gilberto Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa: Siglo XVII (Xalapa: Biblioteca Universidad Veracruzana, 1995), 15–16; Villa-Señor y Sánchez refers to it as a “mexicano” term. This description of the Indigenous language, “idioma mexicano,” spoken by Xalapa’s communities was common in seventeenth-century archival materials and persisted until at least the early eighteenth century when Villa-Señor y Sánchez published his work. Villa-­ Señor y Sánchez, Theatro Americano, 281. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 16. 8. Blázquez Domínguez estimates that key functionaries spent only about 50 percent of their time in the port. Blázquez Domínguez, Breve Historia de Veracruz, 63; Rivera Cambas, Historia Antigua, 73–74, 55; Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, Siglo, 33–35. 9. Rivera Cambas, Historia Antigua, 67; ANX, May 30, 1602, f. 236fte– 236vta; ANX, May 2, 1618, f. 154fte–154vta; Gilberto Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, “La formación de las haciendas en la región de Xalapa, 1580–1630,” La Palabra y el Hombre, no. 67, nueva época (July–September 1988): 68. For an overview of the development of large-scale haciendas in Xalapa, see Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, “La formación de las haciendas en la región de Xalapa,” 67–74; Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, Siglo XVII, 147–238. 10. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 43, 45; Constantino Bravo de Lagunas, Relación de Xalapa, 1580 (Mexico: Editorial Citlalteptl, 1969), 37–38. 11. Bravo de Lagunas, Relación de Xalapa, 1580, 9; Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 39, 50; Thomas Gage, La Nueva Relación que Contiene los Viages de Tomas Gage, Tomo Primero (Paris: Librería de Rosa, 1838), 78. Xalapa’s parish was not established until 1641. Thus all extant church records date from this time period forward. For the purpose of this book, I have collapsed the mulato and negro population data to better depict the

Notes to Pages 26–29

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African-descended population compared with the sizes of others. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui does not account for the pardo population in his estimates. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 123–24. 12. The list of “ethnic origins” included in this paragraph comes from my review of all slaves noted in the notarial archive, including those noted in slaves sales, last will and testaments, labor contracts. For an analysis of the slave population based on slave sales that also highlights purported ethnic origin, see Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 321–27. Patrick J. Carroll asserts, “Africans imported into Veracruz did not display the cultural diversity of slaves shipped to many other parts of the Americas.” While he adds, “Angola supplied the majority of the region’s bondservants after about 1580,” the notarial archive establishes that African people in Xalapa came from a broad range of ethnic and regional backgrounds. This diversity complicates his assertion that the enslaved population’s common cultural and linguistic background “facilitated solidarity and communication with the slave community.” Patrick J. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991), 81. 13. ANX, May 2, 1658, f. 219fte–218vta; my italics. ANX, January 10, 1646, f. 567fte–576vta. Cuba is estimated to have received 35,552 from the Bight of Biafara. Raphael Chijioke Njoku, West African Masking Traditions and Diaspora Masquerade Carnivals: History, Memory, and Transnationalism (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2020), 101. 14. For a sample of important works that engage Asian trade in colonial Latin America, see Tatiana Seijas, Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico: From Chinos to Indians (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 32–108; Déborah Oropeza Keresey, “La Esclavitud Asiática en el Virreinato de la Nueva España, 1565–1673,” Historia Mexicana 61, no. 1 (241) (July–September 2011): 5–57; Birgit M. Tremml, “The Global and the Local: Problematic Dynamics of the Triangular Trade in Early Modern Manila,” Journal of World History 23, no. 3 (September 2012): 555–86; Tatiana Seijas, “Inns, Mules, and Hardtack for the Voyage: The Local Economy of the Manila Galleon in Mexico,” Colonial Latin American Review 25, 1 (2016): 56–76. ANX, January 9, 1615, f.  336vta–337fte; ANX, November 6, 1617, f. 579vta–580vta. Ann M. Pescatello offers an overview of the history of Africans in pre-Portuguese India but clarifies that her assessment is based on limited sources, including “scattered court and travel records.” Ann M. Pescatello, “The African Presence in Portuguese India,” Journal of Asian History 11, no. 1 (1977): 26–48. Known as “Habshis,” many enslaved Africans performed military functions. Pescatello writes, “Records indicate that from 1459 to 1481, the Bengali Ilyās Shāhī sulta Rokn al-Din Bārbak Shāh maintained some eight thousand African slaves for military service, a few of whom later acquired powers, usurped the throne,

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Notes to Page 29

and provided a succession of Habshi rulers from 1486 to 1493.” However, due to a revolt Africans were expelled to other areas of the Indian subcontinent, including central and western regions, where they continued to serve in defense, specifically as bodyguards. Pescatello warns, “Any discussion of the quantity, the functions, or the status of pre-Portuguese African elements in India is based largely on suppositions drawn from isolated references.” Pescatello clarifies that the status of “slave” assigned to some African inhabitants is likely misleading as the term did not easily correlate “in status to the type of chattel laborer we associate with plantation workers in European, African, and American plantations after the seventeenth century.” Pescatello, “The African Presence in Portuguese India,” 27–28, 31–32. 15. ANX, October 8, 1616, f. 644fte–645fte. George Bryan Souza posits that genta da terra may refer to Macau’s population of mestiços or even Chinese Christians. George Bryan Souza, The Survival of Empire: Portuguese Trade and Society in China and the South China Sea, 1630–1754 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 32. Defense was a domain in which Africans were highly sought. While Pescatello does not posit the scale of the popu­ lation in Macau, she notes that in 1651 a governor of Macau wanted African slaves to bolster garrison defense, which Goa supplied. Pescatello, “The African Presence in Portuguese India,” 34. While the numbers are still uncertain, the African presence in Macau might have been substantial. Early in his work Souza notes these important trading currents but does not proffer any East African nations as the potential homesites of Macau’s African slave population. Souza, The Survival of Empire, 1–2. However, there is scattered evidence that the population of Africans included people from both East and West Africa. Pescatello, “The African Presence in Portuguese India,” 38. Enslaved Africans in Macau likely were from East Africa, given its proximity and coastal trading relationships in the Indian Ocean and South China Seas. For 1640 alone more than five thousand slaves lived among a largely Chinese population (twenty thousand) in Macau. For most of the seventeenth century Portuguese inhabitants accounted for as few as two hundred with a high of approximately two thousand, underscoring the political and economic might of a few hundred Portuguese traders who trafficked slaves from this Chinese trading post to a transit stop in the sugar-growing region of central Veracruz. Of Macau, Souza writes, “Slaves, with the exception of Chinese female domestic servants whose employment conditions were slave-­ like, came from all over Asia and Africa; their numbers were influenced by the prosperity of their purchasers.” Souza, The Survival of Empire, 32–33. Of Mexico City, Seijas writes, “Chinos were mainly servants because Spanish colonists characterized the slaves ‘who came from the Philippines’ as being

Notes to Pages 29–34

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‘more domesticated than blacks (negros).’ ” Tatiana Seijas, Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico: From Chinos to Indians (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 109. Seijas also makes note that these same racialized stereotypes of chinos as being “naturally obedient” were also applied to Indigenous people. She highlights the perspective of Spanish hacienda owners who believed chino slaves were “not as robust or as strong as African slaves.” Seijas, Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico, 114. 16. ANX, February 9, 1617, f. 7fte–7vta. 17. ANX, February 6, 1736, f. 19vta–20vta; ANX, June 14, 1736, f. 91fte– 94fte; ANX, December 24, 1738, f. 18fte–19fte. 18. ANX, June 1, 1656, f. 123fte–124vta; ANX, September 7, 1670, f. 321fte– 322vta. 19. It is unclear if the site “Hualingo” actually refers to Huazalingo in Hidalgo or Huitzilapan in Veracruz or another town altogether. Given the closer physical approximation, Huitzilapan is the most likely option. Locations cited in the incomplete AEPX marriage records (1641–1735). 20. Felix Zubillaga, S.I., ed., Monumenta Mexicana, Tomo VII (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1981), 213. 21. Rees, Transportes y comercio, 70. Between 1720 and 1778, Xalapa did not host all of the ferias precipitated by the thirteen flotas that arrived in Veracruz. Two were celebrated in Mexico City (1723 and 1725). José Joaquín Real Díaz, Las Ferias de Jalapa (Sevilla, España: La Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, 1959), 13–14. 22. Manuel Carrera Stampa, “Las ferias novohispanas,” Historia Mexicana 2, no. 3 (January–March 1953), 320. Abel Júarez Martínez asserts, “During the Age of the Feria, all roads from Spain, Guatemala, Oaxaca, Guadalajara and Acapulco in New Spain led to Xalapa.” Abel Júarez Martínez, “Las Ferias de  Xalapa 1720–1778,” in Las Ferias de Xalapa y Otros Ensayos (Veracruz: Gobierno del Estado de Veracruz, Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1995), 31. Carrera Stampa includes an extensive list of products found in Xalapa during the ferias. He also describes the ferias of Xalapa as “undoubtedly” the most important in New Spain. Carrera Stampa, “Las ferias novohispanas,” 322–23. Real Díaz, Las Ferias de Jalapa, 17, 20. 23. ANX, January 21, 1721, f. 124fte–125fte; ANX, February 7, 1721, f. 128vta–129fte; ANX, November 9, 1720, f. 108vta–109fte. 24. Rees, Transportes y comercio, 33, 71–72. 25. Valle Pavón adds, “Given that people were accustomed to wait in Xalapa until the moment of embarkation and the unhealthy weather in the port, there were ten inns located between Xalapa and Veracruz.” My trans­ lation, Valle Pavón, “Desarrollo de la Economía Mercantil,” 23. Valle Pavón,

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Notes to Pages 35–37

“Desarrollo de la Economía Mercantil,” 9. Rees cites that this early venta “at the entrance of the Xalapa pass” was founded in 1527. Rees, Transportes y comercio, 17, note 1. Also spelled Chapultepec. Rees, “Origins of Colonial Transportation in Mexico,” 330, note 20; Rees, Transportes y comercio, 17, note 1. ANX, January 26, 1640, f. 125fte–126fte. ANX, September 14, 1640, f.  142vta–143fte. Spelled Xaco’me in the document. ANX, December 29, 1584, f. 185fte–185vta; ANX, March 16, 1609, f. 74fte–74vta; ANX, March 16, 1609, f. 86vta–87vta. 26. Elisabeth K. Butzer asserts, “Although women could hold property under Spanish law, innkeeping was a rough and tumble profession.” Elisabeth K. Butzer, “The Roadside Inn or ‘Venta’: Origins and Early Development in New Spain,” Yearbook (Conference of Latin American Geographers), 23 (1997), 4. Rees, Transportes y comercio, 17. 27. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 243; ANX, November 15, 1595, f. 73fte. 28. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 243, 249, 147. The work of Citlalli Domínguez-Domínguez highlights the importance of African-­ descended transportation workers as Crown officials attempted to unite their commercial interests in the principal ports of the Atlantic and Pacific. Citlalli Domínguez-Domínguez, “Uniendo el comercio de la mar del norte y la mar del sur: La bioceanidad en el Caribe vista a través del eje Veracruz— Acapulco, en la segunda mitad del siglo XVI,” Iberoamérica Social (Número Especial, Vol. 2): 10–26. 29. Carroll asserts that the periodization is more truncated for the central Veracruz region, between 1570 and 1610. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 80. Carroll describes central Veracruz as the “heartland of New Spain’s sugar industry until nearly the end of the seventeenth century.” Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 20. Proving again that Herbert Klein’s assertion that “no American society seemed capable of exporting sugar except with use of African slave workers” continues to ring true. Herbert S. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 66. Naveda Chávez-Hita, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucareras. 30. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 80. Rivera Cambas, Historia Antigua, 74. Frank T. Proctor notes the third primary sugar-producing area as “central New Spain (largely Morelos).” Frank T. Proctor III, ‘Damned Notions of Liberty’: Slavery, Culture, and Power in Colonial Mexico, 1640–1769 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010), 16; Fernando Winfield Capitaine, Esclavos y Libertos en Veracruz (Xalapa: Editora de Gobierno del Estado de Veracruz, 2009), 59; Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 148, 322.

Notes to Pages 38–39

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31. Ranching and sugar production occupied the interest of many early Spanish residents of Xalapa. However, Bermúdez Gorrochotegui asserts, “In the early years of the colonial period, few Spaniards were interested in the agricultural business because they preferred to labor in commercial activities and attend to the travelers in the inns built near the Camino Real.” Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 239. The most significant haciendas included San Miguel de Almolonga, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (La Concha), Tenampa, Nuestra Señora del Rosario, San Sebastián Maxtlatlan, La Limpia Concepción de Nuestra Señora (El Chico), Lencero, Nuestra Señora del Socorro (Las Animas), Lucas Martín, San José Zoncuantla, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios (Pacho), San Pedro Buenavista (La Orduña), and la Santísima Trinidad (El Grande). Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 148–49. Xalapa’s Indigenous population continued to cultivate maize and offer it as part of the royal tribute requirement, as documented in the notarial archive. ANX, October 6, 1615, f. 438vta–439 fte; ANX, December 31, 1646, f. 259–259vta. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 239, 242. As cited in Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 31. 32. Of Xalapa, Rees writes, “After the intense heat and humidity in the low lands, this town, situated in a tempered, semitropical climate, was nearly an obligatory stop for travelers.” Rees, Transportes y comercio, 48. Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripción de las Indias Occidentales (Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 108, 1948), 369–70; Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 31. My translation, Villa-Señor y Sánchez, Theatro Americano, 284. 33. My translation. As cited in Josefina Muriel, Hospitales de la Nueva España, Tomo 1: Fundaciones del Siglo XVI (Mexico: Instituto de Historia, 1956), 218. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 392. While Bermúdez Gorrochotegui offers the date of 1562, Muriel offers an approximation of its founding sometime between 1569 and 1584, adding, “Los datos sobre este hospital son muy escasos,” perhaps leading to the uncertainty of its founding date. Muriel notes that the Xalapa hospital persisted until an 1820 decree led to its dissolution. Muriel, Hospitales de la Nueva España, Tomo 1, 218, 230. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 392, 29–30. The category of hospital covered a wide range of sites that did not always correlate to the modern understanding of a facility offering specific medical care. One such hospital cited in sixteenth-century Veracruz may have actually referred to a boardinghouse for negros and not a hospital dedicated to the care of free and enslaved people of African descent. Muriel, Hospitales de la Nueva España, 52–53. However, where formal hospitals did not yet exist or were not available for African-descended people, boardinghouses, inns, and very likely back rooms of tabernas likely served as triage centers for travelers, traders,

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Notes to Pages 39–44

outcasts, and the impoverished. Villa-Señor y Sánchez, Theatro Americano, 283. 34. García de León, Tierra adentro, mar en fuera, 470–71. 35. My translation. Francisco Javier Alegre, S.J., Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, Tomo 4, new edition by Ernest J. Burrus, S.J. and Felix Zubillaga, S.J. (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.J., 1960), 153–54. 36. My translation. Francisco Javier Alegre, S.J., Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, Tomo 1, new edition by Ernest J. Burrus S.J. and Felix Zubillaga, S.J. (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.J., 1956), 371, my translation. Francisco Javier Alegre, S.J., Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, Tomo 3, new edition by Ernest J. Burrus S.J. and Felix Zubillaga, S.J. (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.J., 1959), 152–53. 37. Reséndez, The Other Slavery, 215–16; Zubillaga, Monumenta Mexicana, Tomo VII, 248; Alegre, Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, Tomo 3, 54. 38. Edited for clarity, John Chilton, “A notable discourse of M. John Chilton, touching the people, manners, mines, cities, riches, forces, and other memorable things of New Spaine and other provinces in the West Indies, 1568–1586,” in Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, vol. 14, ed. Edmund Goldsmid, 157. Edited for clarity, Chilton, “A notable discourse,” 157. My translation. As quoted in Manuel B. Trens, Historia de Veracruz, Tomo II, Segunda Parte, Libro Primero, La Dominación Española (1519–1808), 202. Alegre, Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, Tomo 3, 203. Rees, “Route Inertia and Route Competition,” 4–5. 39. Archivo Eclesiástico de la Parroquia del Sagrario, Iglesia del Sagrada Corazón, Xalapa, Veracruz (AEPX), Entierros, Casamientos y Bautizos (ECB) Collection, Entierros CAJA 1, Libro 1, July 29, 1650, f. 262fte–262vta; AEPX, ECB Collection, Entierros CAJA 1, Libro 1, July 24, 1650, f. 263fte; AEPX, ECB Collection, Entierros CAJA 1, Libro 1, August 2, 1650, f. 264fte. 40. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 392. AEPX, ECB Collection, CAJA 1, libro 3, August 1, 1652. De la Fuente provides some background on the experience and practices of surgeon-barbers in sixteenth-­ century Cuba, highlighting the great need for medical professionals but also the dubious expertise of such so-called practitioners. Alejandro De la Fuente, César García Del Pino, and Bernardo Iglesias Delgado, Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 210–11. 41. AEPX, ECB Collection, CAJA 1, Libro 1, July 13, 1644; AEPX, ECB

Notes to Pages 44–46

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Collection, CAJA 1, Libro 3, August 1, 1655; AEPX, ECB Collection, CAJA 2, Libro 4, November 25, 1665, 133; AEPX, ECB Collection, CAJA 1, Libro 1, June 23, 1706. 42. AGI, MEXICO 350, 51fte–65fte. Alegre, Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, Tomo 3, 282. Manuel Orozco y Berra, Historia de la Dominación Española en Mexico, Tomo IV (Mexico: Antigua Librería Robredo de José Porrúa e Hijos, 1938), 54. 43. Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), Mexico, vol. 2, Epp. Gen. 12, February 6, 1607, 88fte. Decorme notes that the fire destroyed two convents. Gerard Decorme, S.J., La Obra de los Jesuitas Mexicanos Durante la Época Colonial, 1572–1767, Tomo 1: Fundaciones y Obras (Mexico: Antigua Librería Robredo de José Porrua e Hijos, 1941), 85. The March 28, 1619, letter to Rome noted the loss of a Jesuit residence and church. ARSI, Mexico, vol. 2, Epp. Gen. 12 dec 1599–1638 oct (microfilm), March 28, 1619, 226vta; ARSI, Mexico, vol. 2, Epp. Gen. 12 dec 1599–1638 oct (microfilm), February 21, 1622, 256fte. 44. Solange cites Bartolomé de Olmedo’s challenges with logistics and time for the lack of “fundaciones, iglesias, ermitas” in Veracruz. In addition, Alberro highlights the devastation of virulent epidemics that depopulated the region as a central cause for the relatively late emergence of religious institutions in Veracruz, and mostly on the Camino Real when the Church established a more formal presence. While logistics were challenging and depopulation was a devastating issue in the sixteenth century, religious orders and secular clergy made numerous attempts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to bring Veracruz’s diverse population into the religious fold. Solange Alberro, “Hernán Cortés, Heroico y Piadoso,” in El Veracruz de Hernán Cortés, ed. Juan Ortiz Escamilla (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 2015), 80; Blázquez Domínguez, Breve Historia de Veracruz, 56–57; Rivera Cambas, Historia Antigua, 69. Historian Solange Albero asserts, “It [was] in Veracruz where people began to conceive the best strategies to undertake an evangelization [plan] that would be solid and systematic, which is why in 1524 it was requested that the emperor send Franciscans and Dominican [friars], because they were considered uniquely suited to take on such an enterprise, distrusting the secular [clergy].” Solange Alberro, “Hernán Cortés, Heroico y Piadoso” in El Veracruz de Hernán Cortés, ed. Juan Ortiz Escamilla (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 2015), 82. “Fourth Letter,” The Five Letters of Relation from Fernando Cortes to the Emperor Charles V, trans. and ed. Francis Augustus MacNutt (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), 215. From https://archive.org/stream/lettersofcorts02cortuoft/lettersofcorts02cortuoft _djvu.txt (Accessed January 11, 2021). 45. “Fourth Letter,” The Five Letters of Relation from Fernando Cortes, 214.

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From https://archive.org/stream/lettersofcorts02cortuoft/lettersofcorts02cortuoft _djvu.txt (Accessed January 11, 2021); Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 360, 357, 351, 362, 368–69. 46. Fernando Winfield Capitaine, “La Vida de los Cimarrones en Veracruz,” in Jornados de Homenaje a Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán (Veracruz: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1988), 86. The historiography on maroons in Mexico has been enriched by a number of scholars who specialize in the central Veracruz region; see Naveda Chávez-Hita, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucareras, 113–54; Patrick J. Carroll, “Mandinga: The Evolution of a Mexican Runaway Slave Community, 1735–1827,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 19, no. 4 (October 1977): 488–505; Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 93–111; Proctor, ‘Damned Notions of Liberty,’ 14–17; Miguel García Bustamante in “Los Dos Aspectos de la Esclavitud Negra en Veracruz: Trabajo especializado en trapiches e ingenios azucareros y cimarronaje durante el siglo XVII,” in Jornados de Homenaje a Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán (Veracruz: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1988), 215–35; Fernando Wind­ field Capitaine, Esclavos y Libertos en Veracruz (Xalapa: Gobierno del Estado de Veracruz, 2009); Fernando Windfield Capitaine, Los Cimarrones de Mazateopan (Xalapa: Gobierno del Estado de Veracruz, 1992). For an overview of maroon activity and slave resistance throughout colonial Mexico, see David D. Davidson, “Negro Slave Control and Resistance in Colonial Mex­ ico, 1519–1650,” Hispanic American Historical Review 46, no. 3 (August 1966): 235–53; Guadalupe Castañon González, Punición y Rebeldía de los Negros en la Nueva España en los Siglos XVI y XVII (Veracruz: Instituto Veracruzano de la Cultura, 2002). Edgar F. Love, “Legal Restrictions on Afro-Indian Relations in Colonial Mexico,” Journal of Negro History 55, no. 2 (April 1970): 131; John Herbert Roper and Lolita G. Brockington, “Slave Revolt, Slave Debate: A Comparison,” Phylon 45, no. 2 (Second Quarter 1984): 99; Blázquez Domínguez, Breve Historia de Veracruz, 76; Naveda Chávez-Hita, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucareras, 27–38; Davidson, “Negro Slave Control,” 246; Blázquez Domínguez, Breve Historia de Veracruz, 76; Winfield Capitaine, “La Vida de los Cimarrones en Veracruz,” 86. 47. Vinson cites a 1523 report of slaves fleeing to Zapotec communities along with a 1537 slave rebellion in Mexico City. Vinson, Bearing Arms for His Majesty, 15. ANX, July 3, 1725, f. 691–692fte. 48. A sample of important work on these topics includes Vincent Brown, Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020); Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004); Lomarsh Roopnarine, “Maroon Resistance and Settlement on Danish St. Croix,” Journal of Third World Studies 27, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 89–108.

Notes to Pages 50–62

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2 Defending Family 1. ANX, September 30, 1681, f. 31vta–32 bis fte; Patricia Seed, “American Law, Hispanic Traces: Some Contemporary Entanglements of Community Property,” William and Mary Quarterly 52, no. 1 (January 1995): 158, 160. 2. ANX, January 17, 1657, f. 157fte–157vta. 3. The sugar ingenio San Pedro de Buenavista was also sometimes refer­ red to in notarial documents as “ingenio de azúcar nombrado San Pedro.” The alcalde mayor was a judge that usually held jurisdiction over a province. John F. Schwaller elaborates, “While those [local] magistrates might have a variety of titles (gobernadora, alcalde mayor, corregidor), their functions were similar. They collected local taxes, enforced royal law, and heard a limited number of lawsuits in their jurisdiction.” John F. Schwaller, “Alcalde vs. Mayor: Translating the Colonial World,” The Americas 69, no. 3 (January 2013): 393. 4. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 206–20. 5. ANX, January 16, 1642, f. 234fte–234vta; ANX, June 1, 1656, f. 123fte– 124vta; ANX, September 15, 1660, f. 357fte–357vta. 6. Also spelled “Cathalina” in the two-page petition. ANX, December 29, 1661, f. 419fte–419vta. 7. ANX, December 7, 1691, f. 474vta–476fte. 8. Elizabeth Teresa Howe, Education and Women in the Early Modern Hispanic World (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 86–87; Joan Cameron Bristol, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches: Afro-Mexican Ritual Practice in the Seventeenth Century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007), 23–24. 9. Bristol, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches, 53–54. Bristol provides a summary of the function of “early modern vidas” or biographies of women and men with exceptional religious experiences. Bristol, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches, 48–62. 10. ANX, January 27, 1713, f. 9fte–10vta. 11. AGI, MEXICO, 854, f. 143fte–148ft. 12. AGI, MEXICO, 854, f. 147vta. 13. ANX, November 7, 1641, f. 211vta–212vta. 14. ANX, November 7, 1641, f. 210vta–211fte. 15. ANX, July 8, 1620, f. 285vta–286fte; ANX, October 21, 1621, f. 315vta– 316vta. 16. ANX, June 23, 1638, f. 29vta–30fte; ANX, June 5, 1644, f. 468fte– 468vta. 17. ANX, March 22, 1658, f. 218fte–218vta. The discrepancies I found in

236

Notes to Pages 63–69

notarial and parish archives indicate that racial drift occurred, intentionally or accidently, in Xalapa’s archives. Robert McCaa found issues of racial drift between the census and marriage records he examined for his work on marriage choice in colonial Mexico. Robert McCaa, “Calidad, Clase, and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral, 1788–1790,” Hispanic American Historical Review 64, no. 3 (August 1984): 480. Burns, Into the Archive, 65. 18. ANX, August 3, 1678, f. 464vta–465fte. 19. Germeten, Violent Delights, Violent Ends, 85–102. 20. ANX, February 17, 1692, f. 503fte–505fte. 21. ANX, November 23, 1694, f. 135vta–136fte. Bennett discusses cases in which women and men of African descent petitioned priests to prevent slave owners from selling their spouses. Herman L. Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570–1640 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 128–30. 22. ANX, February 10, 1620, f. 256fte–256vta. A regidor is described as a “city councilman, whose most important duties in the sixteenth century, dealt with supervising foodstuffs and the distribution of public lands. He was appointed directly by the King and his duration of office was five years. His salary was eighteen hundred or two thousand pesos in gold annually.” Ophelia Marquez and Lillian Ramos Navarro Wold, eds., “Compilation of Colonial Spanish Terms and Document Related Phrases,” Accessed January 19, 2013, http://www.somosprimos.com/spanishterms/spanishterms.htm. ANX, February 12, 1620, f. 258vta–259vta. 23. The volume of traffic on the Camino Real helped facilitate interactions with towns hundreds of miles away from one another. Even by 1540, historian Guillermina Del Valle Pavón notes, the Camino Real could accommodate one hundred packtrains of mules at the same time. The number increased drastically with the improvement of the roads and increased Atlantic trade in the seventeenth century. Guillermina Del Valle Pavón, El camino México-Puebla-Veracruz, comercio poblano y pugnas entre mercaderes a fines de la época colonial (Mexico City: Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Secretaría de Gobernación 1992), 18. 24. Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey, 97, 215. For in-depth discussions about the histories of “blood purity,” see María Elena Martínez, Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008); Ann Twinam, Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015). For elite concerns of legitimacy across Spanish America, see Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets. Anxious families often took coordinated measures to uphold the fiction of honor. Elite Spanish women secretly gave birth to children born out of wedlock—accounting

Notes to Page 70

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for an unknowable share of orphans left on church doorsteps or in the homes of discreet family members or even servants. Ann Twinam offers an important discussion of how Spanish women navigated expectations of honor tied to their performance of sexuality, which sometimes led women to extreme measures like abandonment. Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 59–89. Some Spanish women took abortive concoctions, risking death to maintain “the rule” of presumed virginity. For cases of alleged abortion among Spanish women, see Nora E. Jaffary, Reproduction and Its Discontents in Mexico: Childbirth and Contraception from 1750 to 1905 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 77–103; Lee M. Penyak, “Safe Harbors and Compulsory Custody: Casas de Depósito in Mexico, 1750–1865,” Hispanic American Historical Review 79, no. 1 (February 1999): 88–89, and note 9. See also Twinam’s discussion of “private pregnancies”: Ann Twinam, “Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America,” in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, Asunción Lavrin, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 125–34. 25. AEPX, Libro de Confirmaciones, 1642. For the 1642 cases, ten children (9.26 percent) were also specifically cited as orphaned children. If the illegitimate categories are collapsed into one, 54.54 percent of children were not raised by parents legally united by the tenets of the Church. Seed found similar illegitimacy rates for children of African descent in baptismal rec­ ords of the central parish of Mexico City during the second half of the seventeenth century. Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey, 26. The baptismal records that chronicle the years 1641 to 1669 establish a growing trend toward higher rates of legitimacy. The two aforementioned AEPX-ECB Collections were knowingly incomplete when contemporaries compiled them. The data from Caja 1, Libro 1 (1641–46) have been combined with Caja 1, Libro 3 (1646–55), in order to analyze trends around midcentury. Those data were then compared with the results of the analysis of baptismal records in Caja 2, Libro 4, which includes documents from 1656 to 1669. 26. The absence (whether temporary or permanent) of a husband did have benefits. Steven Stern argues that institutionalized marriage may not have been advantageous for all women. He writes, “The fragile economic and institutional support of plebeian marriage brought knotty dilemmas to prospective sexual partners, especially women.” Steve Stern, The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 270. In her work on property rights in colonial Brazil, Alida Metcalf asserts, “Portuguese Law gave women clearly defined rights to property as daughters, as wives, and as widows.” Alida C. Metcalf, “Women and Means: Women and Family Property in Colonial Brazil,” Journal of Social History 24, no. 2 (Winter 1990): 280. Metcalf

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Notes to Pages 71–75

adds, “After their fathers died and when husbands absented themselves in the interior, married women became more active and influential in the management of the family property. When husbands left home to do business in the interior, their wives assumed the management of the family property. They became the heads of households and made many decisions concerning the future of the family.” Metcalf, “Women and Means,” 286. According to Stern, this might have been a contributing factor in Mexico City. Stern, The Secret History of Gender, 271. In eighteenth-century New Mexico, Gutiérrez notes, residents accused priests of charging exorbitant fees to perform marriages, perhaps offering a rationalization for dodging marriage as determined by the Catholic Church. However, Gutiérrez asserts that such claims were u ­ nfounded since fees were set “on the basis of established fee schedules.” Ramón A. Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1948 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 312. Steve Stern asserts, “From these considerations and their social negotiation there emerged a culture of respectable consensual union among persons too poor to marry.” Stern, The Secret History of Gender, 271. For the northern Spanish territories, Ramón A. Gutiérrez found that few were motivated to contract such marriage, writing, “If one had no property to transmit to legal heirs, if one did not cherish the cultural ideals of Spanish society, if one valued Pueblo or nomadic Indian conceptions about the meaning of the marital bond, then there was little reason for entertaining a sacramental Christian marriage.” Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, 333. 27. As Richard Boyer notes, “We should see [bigamists], then, not as people bent on disorder but as wanting to fit in and settle in.” Boyer also describes this phenomenon as one that “emphasizes the coexistence of toleration and prohibition.” Richard Boyer, The Lives of the Bigamists: Marriage, Family, and Community in Colonial Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), 32. 28. ANX, December 22, 1708, f. 167vta–169fte; AEPX, Bautizos Caja 1, 1666–1689, Libro 1, August 25, 1668. 29. ANX, February 2, 1713, f. 81vta–83fte. 30. ANX, November 8, 1641, f. 217fte–218fte; ANX, December 6, 1643, f. 428vta–430vta. 31. Cristina Masferrer León offers an important examination of the history of African-descended children in colonial Mexico City. Cristina Masferrer León, Muleke, negritas y mulatillos: Niñez, familia y redes sociales de los esclavos de origen africano de la Ciudad de México, siglo XVII (Mexico City: INAH, 2013). 32. AEPX, ECB Collection, Entierros Caja 2, Libro 4, May 25, 1656; AEPX,

Notes to Pages 75–79

239

ECB Collection, Entierros Caja 1, Libro 1, August 29, 1704; AEPX, ECB Collection, Entierros Caja 1, Libro 1, September 2, 1705. 33. My emphasis. 34. ANX, February 8, 1642, f. 249vta–251fte. 35. ANX, December 6, 1643, f. 428vta–430vta. 36. There has been significant work on questions related to preoccupation with female sexuality, the politics of an honorable woman, and social consequences of breaching the codes of respectability. Many of these narratives are based in familial concerns of the maintenance of an idealized public reputation garnered through the virtue of womanhood. While colonial edicts do appear, attempts at controlling women and their bodies through community self-regulation predominated. See María Emma Mannarelli, Private Passions and Public Sins: Men and Women in Seventeenth-Century Lima, trans. Sidney Evans and Meredith D. Dodge (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007), 97–126; Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 59–88; Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey, 102–8; Boyer, Lives of the Bigamists, 109–64. Julia Tuñón Pablos notes early royal concerns regarding the “type” of woman authorities allowed to travel to New Spain. She writes, “A 1554 royal letter ordered officials of the House of Trade in Seville to see that ‘women be obliged to provide information on their cleanliness, as men [must do], and not to let any [women] through without express permission”; it also prohibited the departure of gypsies and persons of “loose morals.” Julia Tuñón Pablos, Women in Mexico: Past Unveiled, trans. Alan Hynds (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), 24. Of the viceroyalty of Peru, Mannarelli describes early seventeenth-century efforts to control women’s behavior. She writes, “In his 1604 report to his successor, the viceroy Luis de Velasco (1595– 1603) complained about the behavior of Lima’s women. The ‘laziness and abundance of luxuries’ were, by his account, a breeding ground for female sexuality. He requested permission to build a house of retreat where ‘wicked and insolent’ women could be kept. This would serve to intimidate other women and keep them from behaving in disgraceful ways.” Mannarelli, Private Passions and Public Sins, 101. Robert Slenes argues that in the case of enslaved African-descended women in the Brazilian historiography, “The image of slave promiscuity was drawn from an uncritical reading of nineteenth century accounts left by European travelers and well-to-do Brazilians. . . . Their distortion of the experience of slave women was particularly severe.” Robert W. Slenes, “Black Homes, White Homilies: Perceptions of the Slave Family and of Slave Women in Nineteenth-Century Brazil,” in More than Chattel, 126–46. I argue that the same could be said of the Mexican historiography when African-descended people are posited as people who did not share Spanish ideals of the family and female respectability. Seed, To

240

Notes to Pages 80–82

Love, Honor, and Obey, 66. For a more in-depth discussion of female honor and social hierarchies, see Mannarelli, Private Passions and Public Sins, 97– 126. Twinam discusses the importance of a “public persona” tied to women’s bodies. Her examination of the practice of private pregnancies to guard against negative social effects most directly speaks to this issue. Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 60–73. Mannarelli, Private Passions and Public Sins, 106. 37. ANX, January 19, 1702, f. 138fte–138vta. Germeten argues, “Honor and sexuality are inseparable areas of investigation for Spanish America.” Adding, “Honor required pure Spanish and Christian lineage (known as lim­ pieza de sangre or ‘clean blood’). This guaranteed exclusive access to most professions and encouraged an obsessive concern for precedence and a lavish display of wealth whenever possible. Soldiers, sailors, and bureaucrats often asserted their honor by making claims to loyal and extensive service to the king, but any man, regardless of his occupation, based his personal sense of honor on his reputation for carefully protecting the sexual reputation/ activity of all his dependents, including both female relatives and slaves who lived under his roof.” Violent Delights, Violent Ends, 11. In Private Passions and Public Sins, Mannarelli argues, “Sexual relations outside of marriage were considered a serious offense. Virginity nevertheless had a price that varied according to who the deflowered woman was.” Mannarelli, Private Passions and Public Sins, 106. Seed writes, “Offenders were given the opportunity to marry or be sent to the Philippines to work on His Majesty’s fortresses, a severe punishment for breaching the code of honor.” Seed, “Marriage Promises and the Value of a Woman’s Testimony in Colonial Mexico,” Signs 13, no. 2 (Winter 1988): 260, 267. 38. Twinam discusses the practices of protecting the identity of women who had given birth to illegitimate children to preserve the public repu­ tations of their families and of themselves. Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 63–64. Also, Seed, “Marriage Promises and the Value of a Woman’s Testimony in Colonial Mexico,” 256, 255. Seed adds, “Not surprisingly, ­concern with the code of honor was greatest among ethnic Spaniards and racially mixed persons, that is those most likely to have assimilated or inherited Spanish ideas about social respectability.” Seed, “Marriage Promises,” 255. 39. ANX, July 20, 1716, f. 376vta–377fte. 40. Dyer establishes that a broken promise to marry was considered a crime perpetrated against the woman involved. Abigail Dyer, “Seduction by Promise of Marriage: Law, Sex, and Culture in Seventeenth-Century Spain,” Sixteenth Century Journal 34, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 443. Seed establishes that by the early eighteenth century, written promises and the extended val-

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uation of literacy changed the way a woman’s testimony that her paramour had secured the relationship with “his word” was respected. However, for much of the seventeenth century, which is the primary focus in her article, Seed argues, “Speaking and doing were synonymous, and words were widely regarded as deeds.” Seed, “Marriage Promises,” 256. 41. Dyer, “Seduction by Promise of Marriage,” 444. Boyer notes, “Relatives had a duty to protect their women’s honor when it looked as if a suitor wanted to enjoy her sexual favors without following through with marriage. In so doing they protected their own honor, for the behavior of daughters, sisters, or cousins reflected on the honor of fathers, brothers, cousins, and uncles.” Boyer, Lives of the Bigamists, 89. 42. In line with these efforts to open up what is understood as socially salient, Rachel O’Toole argues that “other factors may have deterred rural inhabitants from formalizing their unions, such as lack of clergy, high ­marriage fees, and difficulties in obtaining permission from slave owners.” Rachel Sarah O’Toole, “ ‘In a War against the Spanish’: Andean Protection and African Resistance on the Northern Peruvian Coast,” The Americas 63, no. 1 (July 2006): 36. In his examination of Afro-Indigenous marriages in seventeenth-century Guatemala, Paul Loken cites shared workspaces as an important variable that influenced exogamy. Paul Loken “Marriage as Slave Emancipation in 17th Century Guatemala,” The Americas 58, no. 2 (October 2001): 176. 43. Stern argues that colonial subjects of African descent were targeted as “symbols of licentiousness, people who lacked lineage and respect for social order.” Stern, The Secret History of Gender, 213.

3 Owning Slaves 1. ANX, March 18, 1640, f. 119fte–124vta; ANX, September 14, 1663, f. 42vta–44fte; ANX, July 28, 1688, f. 320fte–321fte. Unlike what Zephyr L. Frank found in the nineteenth-century Brazilian context in his important work Dutra’s World, slaves were not “more evenly distributed than any other category” of assets. Zephyr L. Frank, Dutra’s World: Wealth and Family in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004), 58. 2. Female slave owners were prominent features in other colonies during the long-seventeenth century. Inge Dornan argues that the omission of the narratives of slave-owning women in the United States “has led to a distorted picture of the relationship between women and slavery in the colonial era.”

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Notes to Pages 86–87

Inge Dornan, “Masterful Women: Colonial Women Slaveholders in the Urban Low Country,” Journal of American Studies 39, no. 3 (2005): 402. Dornan adds, “The surviving sources indicate that there was very little public or private debate regarding women’s ability to manage their slaves.” Dornan, “Masterful Women,” 400. From the Brazilian context, Kathleen J. Higgins notes, “Women who were former slaves were 70 percent of all the women slaveholders listed in 1720.  .  .  . They did not often directly compete with White men in the more alluring and lucrative gold-mining sector of the economy, which had first attracted free immigrants to the [jurisdiction].” Kathleen J. Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1999), 82. In a review of nearly 150 years of Xalapa’s notarial history (1580 to 1725), this elite group of slave owners consisted of more than a dozen people who were marked as free women of African descent. An examination of notarial documents from Córdoba dating from 1635 to 1730 yielded only one case, and documents from Orizaba dating from 1585 to 1730 did not yield a single case of slave ownership by a free woman of African descent. The exact number of women of African descent who owned slaves may never be known due to lax archival practices. The phenomenon of free women owning slaves in one gold-mining community in Minas Gerais, Brazil, was pronounced. African-descended women accounted for two-thirds of all African-descended slave owners and represented an overwhelming majority (70 percent) of women slave owners. However, Higgins argues the prevalence may have had to do with the fact that Spanish men never felt economically threatened by free women who owned slaves, due to the small number of slaves women individually held. Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Gold-­Mining Region, 82. While there is a dearth of literature on free women of African descent, there are important contributions on enslaved women in New Spain, especially by pioneering Mexican scholars. See Velázquez Gutiérrez, Mujeres de origen africano; Cristina Masferrer and María Elisa Velázquez, “Mujeres y Niñas Esclavizadas en la Nueva España: Agencia, Resilencia y Redes Sociales,” in Mujeres africanas y afrodescendientes: Experiencias de esclavitud y libertad en América Latina y África, Siglos XVI al XIX, María Elisa Velázquez and Carolina González Undurruaga, eds. (Mexico City: ­Secretaría de Cultura, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2016), 29–58. For an examination of the understudied history of enslaved children, including a discussion of enslaved girls, see Masferrer León, Muleke, negritas y mulatillos. 3. Ferreira Furtado, Chica da Silva, 154. 4. I reviewed all sales of slaves from 1600 to 1700 in Xalapa. For the en-

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tirety of the seventeenth century in central Veracruz, the average cost of a slave, male or female, hovered between three hundred and four hundred pesos. Variations in price depended more on age and health than on gender. These averages are substantiated by Carroll’s work. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 35. There were rare exceptions to valuations. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui notes that the highest price for a slave that he found in the notarial archives was six hundred pesos. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 323. My review of all of the notarial archives of Xalapa and Orizaba corresponds to the quantitative data offered by Miguel García Bustamante in “Los Dos Aspectos de la Esclavitud Negra en Veracruz: Trabajo especializado en trapiches e ingenios azucareros y cimarronaje durante el siglo XVII,” in Jornados de Homenaje a Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán (Veracruz: Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1988): 188–89. I differentiate between donation and inheritance. Inheritance could also be premortum, such as in the case of daughters being offered slaves, goods, or property as part of their dowries in the knowledge that the value would be deducted from the rightful percentage of their parents’ postmortum division of the inheritance. 5. ANX, October 6, 1686, f. 305vta–306fte; ANX, June 24, 1657, f. 176fte– 178fte; ANX, July 9, 1661, f. 254fte–255vta; ANX, May 2, 1614, f. 740fte–740vta. 6. ANX, July 29, 1606, f. 289fte–290fte. For example, in 1606, he purchased a negro slave named Pedro “from the nation of Angola” for 530 pesos. ANX, March 31, 1606, f. 379vta–380fte; ANX, August 31, 1608, f. 487fte– 490vta; ANX, August 8, 1608, f. 484vta–485fte; ANX, November 13, 1619, f. 248vta–249vta. 7. ANX, June 17, 1673, f. 38vta–39fte; ANX, August 31, 1714, f. 153fte– 156vta. 8. ANX, December 26, 1615, f. 717fte–717vta; Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 408. ANX, February 24, 1603, f. 162vta–163vta. 9. ANX, November 23, 1619, f. 251fte–252vta; ANX, June 23, 1608, f. 575vta– 576fte. 10. From the Brazilian context, Frank highlights the importance of entrepreneurship among slave owners. He writes, “The most common pathway to wealth among middling wealth holders lay through a combination of slaveholding and entrepreneurship, with a minority of the middle sector deriving its income and wealth from government employment and urban rental property.” Frank, Dutra’s World, 120. ANX, July 10, 1609, f. 149vta–150fte; ANX, March 16, 1609, f. 74fte–74vta. Burns aptly describes the Spanish American colonies as “perpetually cash poor.” Burns, Into the Archive, 100. 11. ANX, June 10, 1609, f. 149vta–150fte; ANX, July 10, 1609, f. 150vta– 151fte; ANX, May 31, 1613, f. 318vta–319vta.

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12. ANX, April 17, 1615, f. 342fte–343fte; ANX, January 31, 1631, f. 495fte– 497fte; ANX, January 31, 1631, f. 497fte–498fte; ANX, April 27, 1631, f. 522fte– 523fte. 13. ANX, July 8, 1631, f. 536vta–537fte. 14. ANX, March 16, 1609, f. 86vta–87vta; ANX, March 17, 1609, f. 92fte– 92vta. 15. ANX, May 15, 1609, f. 101fte–101vta; ANX, April 21, 1610, f. 17fte–17vta. According to Rachel O’Toole, the designation of “bran” suggested “origins in Guinea-Bissau.” O’Toole, Bound Lives, 15. 16. ANX, April 21, 1610, f. 18fte–18vta; ANX, April 21, 1610, f. 19fte–19vta; ANX, April 22, 1610, f. 19vta–20fte. 17. ANX, January 21, 1679, f. 480fte–481fte. Ladino was a category that referred to a non-Spanish person perceived to be acculturated to Spanish norms, including language, religion, and other cultural markers, such as dress and even food preferences. 18. ANX, May 25, 1691, f. 417vta–419fte; ANX, May 25, 1691, f. 417vta– 419fte 19. ANX, July 12, 1697, f. 406fte–408fte; ANX, February 26, 1697, f. 392fte– 393vta; ANX, February 6, 1684, f. 162vta–166fte. 20. ANX, January 12, 1706, f. 444fte–444vta. 21. ANX, March 14, 1709, f. 193fte–194vta; ANX, July 19, 1709, f. 244fte– 245fte. 22. ANX, August 13, 1716, f. 401fte–401vta. Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 140–50. 23. ANX, July 23, 1710, f. 353fte–354fte. 24. ANX, March 2, 1712, f. 502fte-503vta. 25. ANX, August 13, 1716, f. 401fte–401vta. 26. ANX, August 23, 1719, f. 732fte–733fte; ANX, August 31, 1720, f. 93vta– 96fte. 27. ANX, December 31, 1721, f. 231vta–233fte; ANX, December 11, 1723, f. 505vta–506vta. 28. ANX, September 2, 1724, f. 596fte–598fte. 29.  ANX, May 2, 1730, f. 107vta–109fte. ANX, September 28, 1797, f. 216vta– 219vta. 30. ANX, July 19, 1709, f. 244fte–245fte. 31. I intended to review all documents until 1735, but the years 1733–35 were missing. Archivo Notarial de Córdoba, USBI, Colecciones Especiales, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz (ANC), August 3, 1714, f. 2133vta– 2135fte. 32. I define “minor child” as a child who is twelve years old or younger. Many times the ages of children or young adults were estimated, and the

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rec­ord would read, “Twelve years old, more or less.” The description of “more or less” might have signaled a shift in life cycles that was culturally established and that indicated that the age-range/life-cycle age, and not accuracy, was the more important signifier because many enslaved people did not have exact birth dates recorded. Twelve years of age as a marker of adulthood is also established in the U.S. historiography regarding when children joined their parents, kin, and fellow slaves in primary duties of production. Twinam corroborates for the Mexican context by establishing that adulthood was marked at age ten. Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 181. As an important aside, I did not find a single case during this period in which a father was documented as having been sold with his minor children. 33. Carroll argues, “Until the eighteenth century children were often separated from their parents,” noting the cases of three children under ten between 1635 and 1667. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 84. I found relatively few for the early 1600s. Girls: Isabel, ANX, October 25, 1601, f. 68fte– 69fte; Catalina, ANX, October 24, 1606, f. 449vta–450vta; Magdalena, ANX, October 24, 1606, f. 449vta–450vta; María, ANX, June 2, 1610, f. 28fte–28vta; Catalina de San Juan, ANX, July 29, 1617, f. 682fte–682vta. Boys: Sebastian, ANX, July 8, 1604, f. 278fte–278vta; Jose, ANX, May 26, 1610, f. 26vta–27vta; Juan, ANX, August 31, 1611, f. 236fte–237fte; Pedro, ANX, November 22, 1612, f. 290fte–291vta; Alvaro, ANX, October 1, 1617, f. 569fte–569vta; ANX September 28, 1617, f. 696fte–697vta; Gaspar, ANX, September 28, 1617, f. 698fte– 698vta; Vicente, September 1, 1617, f. 704vta–705vta. Boys were also more likely to be imported than girls during the early years of high slave importation. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America, 169. ANX, April 8, 1605, f. 330fte–330vta. 34. ANX, May 12, 1618, f. 604fte–604vta; ANX, July 15, 1609, f. 153fte– 154vta; ANX, November 17, 1604, f. 302vta–303fte. 35. Carroll argues, “Until the eighteenth century children were often separated from their parents in this manner” and cites three cases: one in 1635, the second in 1641, and the final case in 1667. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 84. I found this not to be the case in early-seventeenth-century Xalapa. Including Carroll’s three cited cases, only seven children under the age of ten were ever sold away from both their mother and father in the entirety of the seventeenth century, as recorded in the notarial archive. 36. ANX, April 11, 1607, f. 477fte–478fte. 37. ANX, February 17, 1585, f. 231fte. 38. For an in-depth examination of the history of Africans in Córdoba, see Naveda, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucareras. 39. Higgins finds that African-descended female slave owners outnumbered men of African descent in eighteenth-century Sabará, Brazil. She ties

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Notes to Pages 114–15

this phenomenon to the high manumission rates of women compared to those of enslaved men. Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Gold-Mining Region, 82–83. During the era of Spanish control of New Orleans, Kimberly Hanger establishes that African-descended women slave owners also outnumbered male slave owners of African descent. She writes, “Why female purchasers were so prevalent in the early years of Spanish rule is not clear; perhaps they had access to greater cash or credit resources than males did.” Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 72. Further research on African-­ descended men’s economic opportunities must be carried out to determine whether this was also the case for Xalapa. ANX, April 21, 1618, f. 598vta– 599fte; ANX, May 17, 1620, f. 275vta–276fte. 40. ANX, January 10, 1646, f. 576fte–576vta; ANX, January 23, 1646, f. 573fte–573vta. It is difficult to assess how common a practice this was. Hanger notes a case in which a sixty-year-old female slave provided a young male slave to her owner in exchange for her freedom. However, she asserts, “Although the practice of substituting one slave for another in order to obtain freedom was rare in New Orleans, it was customary in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and occasionally found in other American slave societies.” Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 44. 41. Danielle Terrazas Williams, “Finer Things: African-Descended Women, Sumptuary Laws, and Governance in Early Spanish America,” Journal of Women’s History 33, no. 3 (Fall 2021): 11–35. Landers asserts that African-­ descended and white slave owners appeared to act similarly in Spanish Florida. Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida, 94. In his examination of the early colonial experiences of African and African-descended people in the circum-Caribbean, David Wheat underlines some of the common trends of women who owned land, businesses, homes, and slaves. David Wheat, Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570–1640 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 151–55. Karen Graubart’s examination of free women slave owners in Lima argues that these women understood how precarious their economic lives were in early colonial Peru, which resulted in few manumissions. Karen Graubart, “Los lazos que unen: Dueñas de esclavos negros, Lima, ss. XVI–XVII,” Nueva crónica 2 (July 2013): 637. However, there were some outliers. Ferreira Furtado outlines the case of a free woman from the Coast of Mina living in Brazil. She had opted to purchase an enslaved girl instead of purchasing the freedom of one of her two enslaved daughters, but Furtado does not offer a possible explanation of why this mother would have done so. Ferreira Furtado, Chica da Silva, 147. Kimberly Hanger implies that slaveowning was encouraged in Spanish New Orleans. She writes, “Ownership of black slaves fostered free black identification with

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white society and thus dissipated white fears of racial collusion.” Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 70. Of the eighteenth-century Brazilian context, Furtado notes, “Owning slaves was an essential mechanism in the pursuit of insertion into the world of the free where a disdain for work and for living by one’s own graft reigned supreme.” Ferreira Furtado, Chica da Silva, 146. 42. Burns discusses the importance of having a notary who was familiar with the population of his jurisdiction. She asserts, “Notaries were required to certify that they knew the people whose business they recorded.” Burns, Into the Archive, 27.

4 One Generation Some of the material in this chapter is adapted from Danielle Terrazas Williams, “ ‘My Conscience is Free and Clear’: African-Descended Women, Status, and Slave Owning in Mid-Colonial Mexico,” The Americas 75, no. 3 (2018): 525–54. 1. ANX, February 25, 1655, f. 69vta–70fte. ANX, March 14, 1679, f. 490vta– 492fte. 2. ANX, March 8, 1679, f. 486vta–489fte. 3. Under Spanish law the legal age of consent for women was twenty-five years of age. Polonia claimed to be a slave owner from as early as 1646, and since she never indicates that someone else served as her proxy before that time period, she must have been at least twenty-five years old at that time. During the sixteenth century San Antonio Huatusco was known as San Antonio Otlaquiquiztla, located in the province of Quauhtochco (now spelled Huatusco). Located in central Veracruz, it was one of the oldest Spanish towns in the region, dating its founding to Cortés’s visit in 1521. However, scholars believe that San Antonio Huatusco is noted in the Codex Mendoza and that the province served as a regional Aztec capital before the Conquest. Modern-day San Antonio Huatusco is approximately fifty-five miles from Xalapa, Veracruz, and seventy-five miles from the Port of Veracruz. Emily Umberger, “Huatusco,” in Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia, Susan Toby Evans and David L. Webster, eds. (New York: Garland Publishing, 2001), 349. The term vecino denoted a legal status as an acknowledged “householder” in a town or city. It could also indicate a longtime resident of a town. ANX, March 8, 1679, f. 486vta–489fte. Bennett discusses the Iberian processes and politics that manifested Guinea as an

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acknowledged sovereign entity in the fifteenth century. Bennett asserts, “In the litany of texts constitutive of the colonial discourse, Europe produced many Guineas.” Bennett, African Kings and Black Slaves, 101–31, 108. As David Wheat notes, “Serers from both [the states of] Siin and Saloum were known to Iberians as ‘Berbesí,’ ‘Berbecín,’ or ‘Barbacins.’ ” David Wheat, Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570–1640 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 34. Wheat describes “Berbesi” as “an ethnonym derived from the Wolof political title Bur ba Siin, meaning the ‘ruler of Siin.’ ” Wheat, Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 31, 34. 4. Tenampa is also referred to as Nuestra Señora del Rosario and Nuestra Señora del Rosario Tenampa. Tenampa included a sugar mill and a hacienda and was located in the jurisdiction of San Antonio Huatusco. The carta estimates her age to be around sixty years. Most ages in the notarial archive appear to be general approximations. ANX, December 17, 1643, f. 426fte–427fte. Berbesi/Serer peoples were from the Gambia River area. Other groups in this area included Wolof, Fula, and Mandinka peoples. Wheat, Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 31, 34. 5. There are a number of discrepancies with ages in the notarial archives. Polonia’s records document that Gerónimo was fifty years old, but he would have likely been “around 50.” According to earlier documents, he might have been closer to forty-five years old. 6. Carroll establishes that the larger trajectory of enslaved Africans entering colonial Mexico was mirrored in Xalapa, citing that 65 to 70 percent of purchases of enslaved laborers occurred between 1590 and 1610. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 30. For further analyses of these trends for Xalapa, see Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 29–37. While the transatlantic trade to New Spain decreased precipitously after 1640, the slave trade did not cease due to the emergence of a thriving internal market of enslaved Africans and their descendants during the seventeenth century. For an examination of these trading patterns in the central Mexican region, see Tatiana Seijas and Pablo Miguel Sierra Silva, “The Persistence of the slave market in seventeenth-century Central Mexico,” Slavery and Abolition 37:2 (2016): 307–333. For an overview of Portugal’s involvement in Spain’s expansion of the slave trade, see Linda A. Newson and Susie Minchin, From Capture to Sale: The Portuguese Slave Trade to Spanish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 18–31. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 322–327. 7. AEPX, Libro de Confirmaciones, 1642. 8. For large landowners, as Carroll establishes, “Slaves represented the most expensive single item on the inventories of many of the province’s

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seventeenth-century estates, plantations such as Mazatlán, Almolonga, La Santísima Trinidad, Concepción, and Rosario. They cost more than the land, the equipment, and the buildings.” Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 35. According to Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, La Santísima Trinidad had 120 slaves as early as 1597. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 321. While slave owning was likely not widespread among free women during this ­period, Wheat argues, African-descended women seemed to demonstrate a politics of slave owning, specifically avoiding the purchase of people from their same “ethnolinguistic background.” Wheat, Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 155. 9. ANX, February 25, 1655, f. 69vta–70fte; ANX, March 14, 1679, f. 490vta–492fte. 10. ANX, December 16, 1637, f. 16vta–17fte. A bachiller is defined as a “holder of a bachelor’s degree. Less common and more prestigious in the sixteenth century than at present. The honorific title of a secular priest.” Ophelia Marquez and Lillian Ramos Navarro Wold, eds. “Compilation of Colonial Spanish Terms and Document Related Phrases,” Accessed October 19, 2016, http://www.somosprimos.com/spanishterms/spanishterms.htm. ANX, December 29, 1643, f. 425fe—426fte. The title afforded Pedro de Irala the status of head priest, a position without term restrictions. He would have also “held the parish as a benefice or quasi-feudal property,” which allowed him access to “parish income, labor, and provisions permitted by law or custom.” William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 79. ANX, December 14, 1643, f. 433fte–437fte; ANX, June 14, 1660, f. 348vta– 349vta. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 79. In the sixteenth century officials had hoped that the site of La Antigua Veracruz, with its topography that better-protected the area from the severe northerly winds, would serve as the principal port of Veracruz. It was abandoned in 1599 due to its sandy inlets, which were incapable of sustaining large vessels. The principal port was relocated to a southern site closer to Hernán Cortés’s original landing in 1519 and christened La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz, today Veracruz. Rivera Cambas, Historia Antigua, 67. ANX, April 19, 1642, f. 270fte-270vta; ANX, January 19, 1655, f. 66vta–67vta; ANX, February 13, 1642, f. 285fte– 285vta.; ANX, December 14, 1643, f. 433fte–437fte; ANX, December 31, 1655, f. 95vta. 11. ANX, December 22, 1664, f. 117fte–118vta. Polonia is cited as his apoderada, a woman who has been appointed as a legal proxy by way of a notarial poder (power). ANX, December 22, 1664, f. 117fte–118vta.

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Notes to Pages 127–30

12. ANX, December 31, 1642, f. 230vta–231fte; ANX, December 16, 1637, f. 16vta–17fte; ANX, September 23, 1649, f. 266vta; ANX, January 25, 1651, f. 139vta–140vta. 13. “Taking a state” could also imply joining a convent, as in taking the state of a bride of Christ. However, “blood purity” requirements of religious institutions served as racial restrictions that attempted to prevent non-­ Spanish women from becoming nuns, so it is likely that Don Joseph was referring to the futures marriages of Polonia’s daughters. Susan Migden Socolow, The Women of Colonial Latin America (New Approaches to the Americas) 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 97–119. ANX, December 14, 1643, f. 433fte–437fte; January 18, 1655, f. 65fte–66fte. In her work on seventeenth-century Mexico City, María Elisa Velázquez Gutiérrez analyzes the similarly entangled case of a free African-descended woman named Pascuala Santoyo, the wife of the medical surgeon of the Inquisition, Juan Correa, and later the mother of the famed painter Juan Correa. In 1630 the wealthy treasurer of the Order of Santiago Alonso de Santoyo gifted to Pascuala, her siblings, and her children the returns of a six-thousand-peso mortgage. Velázquez Gutiérrez notes that Pascuala had four children before she married the surgeon and, given the date of the gift, the transfer of the revenues likely began before she married and had additional children with her legitimate husband. It was also noted that her family would receive these funds until their last waking days. When Pascuala later married Juan Correa she had a dowry of five hundred pesos, not the amount seen among the most elite women in Mexico City but it indicated that she had access to some means either through her own industry or a generous benefactor. Velázquez Gutiérrez posits that perhaps Alonso de Santoyo was the slave owner of Pascuala’s parents or that he had an intimate or affective relationship with Pascuala’s mother, although, Velázquez Gutiérrez concedes, there is no documentation to confirm whether Pascuala’s parents were ever enslaved at all. Pascuala’s parents’ background is less clear, and Alonso de Santoyo may have felt indebted to the family for any number of reasons. They could have served as longtime faithful but paid servants to his family, for example. Velázquez Gutiérrez, Mujeres de origen africano, 363–65. 14. For a more detailed discussion of the importance of dowries in colonial Mexico, see Asunción Lavrin and Edith Couturier, “Dowries and Wills: A View of Women’s Socioeconomic Role in Colonial Guadalajara and Puebla, 1640–1790,” Hispanic American Historical Review 59, no. 2 (May 1979): 280– 304; Asunción Lavrin, “In Search of the Colonial Woman in Mexico: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives, ed. Asunción Lavrin (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978),

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23–59. Lavrin, “In Search of the Colonial Woman in Mexico,” 34. On the higher end of a sample, the African-descended daughter of a famed African-­ descended painter received a dowry of 2,206 pesos. More research is required to establish whether these were outliers or representative of African-­ descended women, but the range offers a multitude of possibilities. Velázquez Gutiérrez, Mujeres de origen africano, 267–69. Lavrin, “In Search of the Colonial Woman,” 34. For late sixteenth-century Havana, Alejandro de la Fuente also found that dowries were comprised of slaves, household items like linens and clothing, real estate, and ready cash. De la Fuente, Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century, 194–95. 15. While dowries could be transferred after the death of the parent, ­Polonia’s will specifically stated that she had already provided her daughter with the stipulated amount. Unfortunately, Polonia’s gift is not documented in the notarial archive as a separate entry to establish the date of transfer. She likely intentionally included it in her will to offer a more formal postscript to the earlier unnotarized action. Polonia may have also cited it in the will to establish that Melchora was not due any further inheritance since her dowry was so substantial. ANX, September 15, 1645, f. 554bis vta–558fte; ANX, May 5, 1642, f. 294fte–306fte. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 165. ANX, December 20, 1655, f. 78fte–79fte. The ingenio San Sebastián Maxtlatlán experienced a boom in the early 1600s, as its owner, Juan López Ruiz, served as a supplier for markets in Puebla de los Angeles and Veracruz. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 163. 16. ANX, June 16, 1664, f. 85vta–87vta. I examined all dowries from 1600 to 1700. These data are specifically for the dowries registered between the 1640s and the early 1680s. I analyzed this range in order to arrive at some comparative sense of the value of dowries around the time Polonia de Ribas would have offered her daughter the dowry and to establish the value of dowries around her passing. ANX, December 22, 1654, f. 63vta–64vta; ANX, December 13, 1655, f. 106fte–107vta; ANX, December 9, 1673, f. 71vta–72fte; ANX, April 4, 1675, f. 97fte–98fte; ANX, August 17, 1676, f. 154vta–156fte; ANX, August 8, 1642, f. 344vta–335vta; ANX, October 15, 1679, f. 598vta– 599vta. The practice of providing orphaned girls with modest dowries was common in colonial Latin America. Socolow, The Women of Colonial Latin America, 119. Many of Xalapa’s seventeenth-century Spanish families still had close ties to Spain, and some likely saw these dowry donations as part of their religious duty. For a discussion of the practice of charity dowries in Spain, see Valentina K. Tikoff, “Gender and Juvenile Charity, Tradition and Reform: Assistance for Young People in Eighteenth-Century Seville,” Eighteenth-­

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Notes to Pages 133–36

Century Studies 41, no. 3 (Spring 2008): 307–35. While dowries are often discussed as being crucial for well-heeled or aspirational families, A. J. R. Russell-Wood describes how precarious the lives of Brazilian women could be if they had few or no resources for a dowry: “For the daughter of poor parents or an orphan, a dowry could mean the difference between an honorable marriage and prostitution.” A. J. R. Russell-Wood, “Women and Society in Colonial Brazil,” Journal of Latin American Studies 9, no. 1 (May 1977): 14. In late-colonial Venezuela, regular officers attempted to provide for the social welfare of economically vulnerable women with the establishment of the “Widow and Orphan Pension Plan.” Gary M. Miller, “Bourbon Social Engineering: Women and Conditions of Marriage in Eighteenth-Century Venezuela,” The Americas 46, no. 3 (January 1990): 261–90. ANX, December 14, 1643, f. 438vta; ANX, May 16, 1644, f. 466fte–467vta; ANX, December 29, 1647, f. 244fte; ANX, November 19, 1672, f. 522fte–523fte; ANX, May 11, 1682, f. 59fte–62vta; ANX, April 1, 1660, f. 335vta–337vta; ANX, November 2, 1683, f. 133vta–135vta; ANX, September 15, 1640, f. 143fte–145vta; ANX, November 23, 1646, f. 340fte; ANX, September 3, 1654, f. 45fte–48fte; ANX, October 11, 1680, f. 577fte–581vta; ANX, July 8, 1668, f. 157vta–162fte; ANX, November 30, 1672, f. 529fte–533fte; ANX, June 4, 1684, f. 184vta–187fte; ANX, September 15, 1645, f. 554bis.vta–558fte; ANX, July 11, 1669, f. 231fte–232fte; ANX, March 3, 1685, f. 224vta–229fte. The first was valued at 4,412 pesos and the second at 3,731 pesos. ANX, March 16, 1675, f. 90vta–94vta; ANX, October 23, 1681, f. 34fte–39fte; ANX, October 11, 1664, f. 105vta–110vta; ANX, December 14, 1677, f. 265fte–269fte; ANX, April 22, 1671, f. 370fte–374vta; ANX, September 15, 1671, f. 396vta–400fte; ANX, September 30, 1671, f. 412fte–419fte; ANX, September 6, 1688, f. 395fte–396fte; ANX, June 29, 1643, f. 398fte–406fte; ANX, March 29, 1669, f. 204vta–208vta. 17. ANX, September 2, 1676, f. 164vta-165vta 18. AEPX, ECB Collection, Entierros Caja 2, Libro 4, March 29, 1674. 19. ANX, March 8, 1679, f. 486vta–489fte. For a summary history of San Francisco, see Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 357–70. For an examination of confraternities and requests for masses, see Larkin, “Confraternities and Communities: The Decline of the Communal Quest for Salvation in Eighteenth-Century Mexico City,” in Local Religion in Colonial Mexico, ed. Martin Austin Nesvig (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006), 189–214, 200–206. 20. For an overview of the institution in colonial Mexico, see Asunción Lavrin, “Cofradías Novohispanas: Economías Material y Espiritual,” in Cofradías, capellanías y obras pías en la América colonial, ed. María del Pilar Martínez López-Cano, Gisela Von Wobeser, and Juan Guillermo Muñoz Correa (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998),

Notes to Page 137

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49–64; Nicole von Germeten, Black Blood Brothers: Confraternities and Social Mobility for Afro-Mexicans (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006); Larkin, “Confraternities and Communities”; Nicole von Germeten, “Routes to Respectability: Confraternities and Men of African Descent in New Spain,” Local Religion in Colonial Mexico, ed. Martin Austin Nesvig (Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico, 2006), 215–34. For an examination of the importance of confraternities among African-descended people, see Nicole von Germeten, Black Blood Brothers; Pablo Miguel Sierra Silva, “From Chains to Chiles: An Elite Afro-Indigenous Couple in Colonial Mexico, 1641–1688,” Ethnohistory 62, no. 2 (April 2015): 361–84; Bristol, Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches, 93–112. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 408. The privilege to adorn the pulpit was later taken up by Juan Díaz Matamoros, the wealthy slave owner and proprietor of the sugar mill Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. ANX, January 9, 1616, f. 713fte. 21. No indigenous people are mentioned in any capacity in her notarial documents. The parish secretary informed me that some of the documents were lost or severely damaged in a fire. Others were lost when they were temporarily ­removed from the church during reconstruction from the fire damage. However, I reviewed all extant parish records for the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. If there had been any notarized exchanges, perhaps they fell victim to the passage of time. Archivo Eclesiástico de la Parroquia del Sagrario Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón, “Entierros, Casamientos, Bautizos,” Caja 1, Libros 1 and 3; Archivo Eclesiástico de la Parroquia del Sagrario Iglesia del Sagrado Corazón, “Entierros, Casamientos, Bautizos,” Caja 2, Libro 4. For a discussion of the importance and prevalence of godmothers, see Frank T. Proctor, “La familia y comunidad esclava en San Luis Potosí y Guanajuato, México,” in La ruta de la esclavitud en Africa y América Latina, ed. Rina Cáceres (San José: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 2001), 240–50. ANX, March 15, 1670, f. 284fte-285 vta. While godparents could play many important roles throughout the life of the child, Frank T. Proctor III writes that, at least among Spanish godparents, rarely did they help to manumit enslaved children. Frank T. Proctor III, “Gender and the Manumission of Slaves in New Spain,” Hispanic American Historical Review 86, no. 2 (2006): 325–26. ANX, January 6, 1668, f. 119fte–121fte. 22. Regarding her management of finances, while Polonia de Ribas was cited as a vecina of Xalapa there are no references in her documents regarding tribute payments. In fact, none of the notarial files I examined for this book reference tribute requirements for the African-descended population in Xalapa. Further study at the Archivo General de la Nación is required to ascertain whether Xalapa’s residents were subject to tribute demands in the seventeenth century or whether this is a later, eighteenth-century phenome-

254

Notes to Pages 139–40

non. For a discussion of the history of tribute and how African-descended people negotiated this fiscal duty, see Vinson, Bearing Arms for His Majesty, 132–72. So important were inns along the Camino Royal that Governor of New Spain Hernán Cortés ordered their construction at regular intervals and fixed their prices. Valle Pavón, “Desarrollo de la Economía Mercantil,” 9. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 243, 147. For a detailed examination of the importance of the transportation industry and early New Spain’s economy, see Valle Pavón, “Desarrollo de la Economía Mercantil,” 7–49. 23. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 329. ANX, March 8, 1679, f. 486vta–489fte. 24. For a discussion of the persistent struggles with debt in large colonial industries, see P. J. Bakewell, Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico, Zacatecas 1546–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971); Heather B. Trigg, “The Ties That Bind: Economic and Social Interactions in Early-­ Colonial New Mexico, A.D. 1598–1680,” Historical Archaeology 37, no. 2 (2003): 65–84. For an examination of debt between communities, see Yanna Yannakakis, “Witnesses, Spatial Practices, and a Land Dispute in Colonial Oaxaca,” The Americas 65, no. 2 (October 2008): 161–92. For cases of debt peonage in various industries, see François Chevalier, Land and Society in Colonial Mexico: The Great Hacienda (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), 277–88; Cheryl English Martin, Governance and Society in Colonial Mexico: Chihuahua in the Eighteenth Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 56–62; R. Douglas Cope, The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 98–102. For a discussion of money lending by convents in Spanish America, see Kathryn Burns, Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 41–69. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui notes that Xalapa’s principal hacienda owners demonstrated the greatest need for credit between 1620 and 1630. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 304. For a discussion of loans among African descendants in Puebla, see Sierra Silva, “From Chains to Chiles,” 361–84. Walker focuses on the importance of reputation to dis­ aggregate the more class-based notions of honor often denied to (but also rarely invoked by) people of African descent and the lower-class castas. Walker, “ ‘He Outfitted His Family in Notable Decency,’ ” 394–95. 25. Proctor explores the juridical origins of manumission and examines how the freeing of slaves served as fertile ground for contestation. Proctor, ‘Damned Notions of Liberty,’ 152–85. In her important study of “close-kin ownership” in eighteenth-century Suriname, Aviva Ben-Ur acknowledges that while there were likely people who attempted to keep families together, she asserts that “other arrangements allowed family members to treat their en-

Notes to Pages 140–42

255

slaved relatives as bona fide slaves without the intention of eventually manumitting them.” Aviva Ben-Ur, “Relative Property: Close-Kin Ownership in American Slave Societies,” New West Indian Guide 80 (2015): 24–25. ANX, February 16, 1675, f. 77vta–78vta; ANX, September 2, 1676, f. 164vta–165vta. 26. ANX, March 8, 1679, f. 486vta–489fte; ANX, March 14, 1679, f. 490vta– 492fte. 27. ANX, September 2, 1676, f. 164vta–165vta. 28. ANX, March 8, 1679, f. 486vta–489fte. For further discussions of manumission trends and rhetorical devices, see Shawn Cole, “Capitalism and Freedom: Manumissions and the Slave Market in Louisiana, 1725–1820,” Journal of Economic History 65, no. 4 (December 2005), 1008–27; Hanger, Bounded Places, Bounded Lives; Stuart B. Schwartz, “The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684–1745,” Hispanic American Historical Review 54, no. 4 (November 1974): 603–35; Lyman Johnson, “Manumission in Colonial Buenos Aires, 1776–1810,” Hispanic American Historical Review 59, no. 2 (May 1979): 258–79. Proctor offers an important discussion of manumission trends and affective relationships. See Proctor, “Gender and the Manumission,” 309–36. Higgins also highlights the importance of physical proximity between slave and slave owner that could lead to manumission. See Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Gold-Mining Region, 47–48, 52. 29. Writing about white women slave owners in the US South, Inge Dornan argues, “[Hiring out] enabled them to receive from their slaves’ work at the same time as it extricated them from a great deal of the practical side of slave management. Unlike women who employed their slaves in their own businesses, or female planters who put their slaves to work in their households and fields, urban women slaveholders who hired out their slaves did not have to supervise their slaves’ work.” Dornan, “Masterful Women,” 390. Dornan argues that hiring out slaves also excused women from having to mete out punishment, an option she theorizes that was more ideal for women who owned adult male slaves. Dornan, “Masterful Women,” 391. Dornan later clarifies that slave owners ruthlessly abused their slaves when they saw fit, regardless of the gender of the owner. Dornan, “Masterful Women,” 399. She writes, “The evidence suggests that women slaveholders generally conformed to contemporary notions regarding the management of slaves and differed little from their male peers in [disciplining their slaves].” Dornan, “Masterful Women,” 400. Stephanie Jones-Rogers further dismisses the myth that white women were not active slave owners, writing, “White women embraced their role within this community [of slave owners], assumed position of power over slaves within and outside their households, and challenged anyone who attempted to infringe upon that power. And local, state, and federal courts recognized, upheld, and protected them when they did so.”

256

Notes to Pages 143–44

She further establishes how deeply involved white women were in various areas of the slave trade. Jones-Rogers asserts, “Besides benefitting from their personal transactions in slave markets, women also served as intermedia­ ries, attorneys-in-fact, and agents for other women and men, including slave traders, who wanted to buy and sell slaves.” Stephanie Jones-Rogers, They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 62, 136. Regarding African-descended slave owners in the United States, Larry Koger writes, “In many instances, black slave owners were no different from white slave masters. They both exploited the labor of slaves to extract a profit and used their slaves as commodities.” Larry Koger, Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790–1860 (London: McFarland, 1985), 94. Evidence from the Brazilian context demonstrates the similarity of behaviors exhibited by Portuguese slave owners and African-descended women. Higgins cites a case of a free woman of African descent named Roza de Azevedo who had enough resources to buy “property and thirty slaves valued at twenty thousand cruzados.” Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Gold-Mining Region, 54. In discussing agricultural zones in colonial Peru, James Lockhart argues that Spanish slave owners rarely performed direct supervision, likely leaving daily management of slave labor and discipline to a hired laborer. James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 1532–1560: A Social History, 2nd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 210–11. 30. Lockhart describes the privileges of slaves who were owned by temporarily absent slave owners in Peru. One shipmaster’s female slave had keys to the house, “received visitors and guarded the chest [her slave owner] kept in his bedroom, full of gold, silver, and papers.” Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 205. For Brazil, Higgins found that nearly 75 percent of the slaves in jurisdiction “did not live in the town boundaries of Sabará, and for many of those living both inside and outside town, personal contact with their masters was limited.” Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Gold-Mining Region, 47. 31. Bennett asserts, “In Mexico City, [slaves] represented both labor and symbols of the status of their owners.” Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico, 18. Of the colonial Peruvian context, James Lockhart writes, “No encomendero felt happy until he owned a large house, land, livestock, and—most to the point here—black servants. Most Spaniards could not hope to achieve this goal in its entirety, but they aimed at least for two essentials, a house (which could be rented) and blacks.” Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 205. Turning to Brazil, Júnia Ferreira Furtado found that free African-descended women established much of their wealth through slave owning. Not only that, she argues, but owning slaves generated a type of “social affirmation.” Mariana L. R. Dantas agrees, adding, “Because owning slaves allowed [people of African descent]

Notes to Pages 145–49

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to avoid the types of labor usually associated with slavery, it marked more publicly their transition from property to property holder, improving the general perception of their quality.” Mariana L. R. Dantas, “Humble Slaves and Loyal Vassals,” in Imperial Subjects, ed. Andrew B. Fisher and Matthew O’Hara (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), 126. Susan Socolow, in the context of the Saint-Domingue, echoes this assessment: “To free people of color of Cap Français, as to whites, ownership of slaves was a mark of prosperity and social distinction.” Susan M. Socolow, “Economic Roles of Free Women of Color of Cap Français,” in More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas, ed. David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 286–87. Regarding transitioning strategies, Júnia Ferreira Furtado notes that “their only chance of diminishing the social exclusion and stigma of their origins was to avail of precisely the mechanisms the whites used for their survival and promotion. The first of these mechanisms was to purchase a slave, which enabled the owner to remove herself from the world of work. For the freedwomen who registered wills in Tejuco in the eighteenth century, slaves were not only their main source of wealth but also of social affirmation.” Ferreira Furtado, Chica da Silva, 147. From the colonial Brazilian milieu, Kathleen Higgins reiterates the specific gendered concerns highlighted by Ferreira Furtado. Higgins writes, “The best proof to others that one was no longer a slave or enslaveable was surely to become a master.” Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Gold-Mining Region, 85. Mariana L. R. Dantas discusses the dual benefit of slave owning in colonial Brazil. She writes, “Because owning slaves allowed [people of African descent] to avoid the types of labor usually associated with slavery, it marked more publicly their transition from property to property holder, improving the general perception of their quality.” Mariana L. R. Dantas, “Humble Slaves and Loyal Vassals,” 126. 32. The royal notary public of Xalapa, Alonso de Neira Claver, signed all of Polonia’s documents. However, Polonia likely first, or even primarily, interacted with a notarial assistant who often served as the initial point of contact in the drafting process. Only after transcription would the official notary public review the documents for final approval and add his signature. For an in-depth discussion of notarial practices, see Burns, Into the Archive.

5 Capitalizing Status

1. ANX, August 10, 1671, f. 394fte. 2. According to Burns, “[The Pragmatic Sanction of 1503] regulated the

258

Notes to Pages 150–56

production of notarial records right down to the type of paper and the number of lines to be written on each sheet.” Burns, Into the Archive, 28–29. 3. ANX, August 3, 1714, f. 146vta–150fte. 4. Landers explains: “Castile’s thirteenth-century legal code, the Siete Partidas, classified women along with children, invalids, and delinquents as in need of supervision but also deserving of familial and societal protection.” Landers, Black Society in Spanish America, 137. See also Asunción Lavrin, “In search of the colonial woman in Mexico: the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,” in Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives, ed. Asunción Lavrin (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978), 30; Seed, “American Law, Hispanic Traces,” 157–62. 5. Land and homeownership have long been characteristic activities of economically mobile free African-descended women throughout the Americas and the Caribbean during the colonial period. Of women in Cap Fran­ çais, Socolow writes, “Widows of successful free black and mulatto artisans showed a special penchant for investing in expensive real estate.” Socolow, “Economic Roles of the Free Women of Color of Cap Français,” in More than Chattel, 283. In “Slave and Free Colored Women in Saint Domingue,” David P. Geggus writes, “Women landowners varied from solitary ex-slaves living in ramshackle cabins on an acre of land to the proprietors of coffee plantations with large families and forty or more slaves.” Geggus, “Slave and Free Colored Women in Saint Domingue,” in More than Chattel, 270. The following is an abridged selection of important works on landownership: Kimberly S. Hanger, “Landlords, Shopkeepers, Farmers, and Slave-Owners: Free Black Female Property-Holders in Colonial New Orleans,” in Beyond Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas, 219–36; B. J. Barickman and Martha Few, “Ana Paulinha de Queirós, Joaquina da Costa, and Their Neighbors: Free Women of Color as Household Heads in Rural Bahia (Brazil), 1835,” in Beyond Bondage: Free Women of Color in the Americas, 169–201; Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places; Adele Logan Alexander, Ambiguous Lives: Free Women of Color in Rural Georgia, 1789–1879. 6. ANX, August 17, 1707, f. 64fte–65fte. 7. ANX, March 17, 1707, f. 22fte–24fte. 8. ANX, May 21, 1707, f. 36fte–38vta. 9. Diego de Moral is referred to as both a cacique and principal in this case, both titles designating one’s leadership role in an Indigenous community. 10. ANX, December 20, 1702, f. 207fte–207vta. 11. ANX, July 22, 1671, f. 390fte–391vta; ANX, March 8, 1685, f. 233fte– 233vta; ANX, July 22, 1671, f. 390fte–391vta. Seed adds that mothers and fathers equally held the right to establish a mayorazgo. Seed, “American Law,

Notes to Pages 156–70

259

Hispanic Traces,” 159. For a concise overview of the practice of mayorazgo and other economic strategies of Spanish elites in the colonies, see Verónica Zárate Toscano, “El Destino de la Nobleza Novohispana en el Siglo XIX: ¿Decadencia o Adaptación?” Historia Mexicana 65, no. 4 (April–June 2016): 1789–1815. 12. ANX, December 16, 1675, f. 133fte–134fte. 13. ANX, August 27, 1676, f. 163vta-164vta. 14. ANX, April 18, 1684, f. 178vta–180fte. 15. ANX, September 22, 1694, f. 39vta–40vta; ANX, March 11, 1704, f. 289fte–291vta. 16. ANX, September 30, 1689, f. 361vta–363fte. 17. Colin A. Palmer, Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570–1650 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), 180. However, the cobbler was not specifically cited as a man of African descent. ANX, June 21, 1625, f.  379fte–379vta; ANX, January 22, 1650, f. 137vta; ANX, March 12, 1648, f.  252fte–252vta. ANX, May 7, 1655, f. 72fte–72vta; ANX, March 1, 1661, f. 389fte–389bis. No caste designation is noted for the master cobbler. ANX, December 15, 1679, f. 524fte–525fte. 18. ANX, March 16, 1679, f. 492fte–493vta. 19. ANX, May 1, 1710, f. 319fte–322fte. 20. ANX, March 8, 1708, f. 95fte–97fte. 21. ANX, October 16, 1727, f. 49vta–50fte. Germeten argues, “[Women of African descent] relied on their labor in confraternities to provide them with respect and authority in life and tangible benefits for their survivors after their death.” Germeten, Black Blood Brothers, 42. 22. Germeten, Black Blood Brothers, 11. For a more detailed examination of African-descended women’s involvement in confraternities, see Germeten, Black Blood Brothers, 41–70. 23. ANX, January 31, 1693, f. 584vta–587fte; ANX, October 22, 1691, f. 445vta–447vta. 24. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 408. 25. ANX, March 6, 1668, f. 139vta–140fte. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui notes, “Before dying, Spaniards of a certain heritage and lineage ordered their relatives to have their bodies interred preferably inside the interior of the church of the Convent of San Francisco.” My translation, Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 408. 26. ANX, November 22, 1659, f. 368fte–368vta. For a more detailed discussion of women’s rights to their personal property and their dowries, see Lavrin and Courturier, “Dowries and Wills,” 280–304. As Lavrin and Courturier note, “The property which a woman brought into marriage as a dowry remained legally hers and could not be alienated without her permission.

260

Notes to Pages 171–76

The husband had the right to administer the dowry, but he had the duty to return its value on the dissolution of the marriage or to make provisions for its restitution in his own will.” Lavrin and Courturier, “Dowries and Wills,” 282–283. 27. ANX, September 23, 1660, f. 369vta–370fte. An alguacil mayor was the equivalent of a local sheriff or a chief constable with a vote as a city councilman in the town council when the office was purchased for a life term. In  other areas of the Spanish empire, the alguacil mayor was an annually elected position by the town council and was not permitted to vote at council meetings. 28. ANX, September 23, 1660, f. 370fte–371fte; ANX, September 27, 1660, f. 371fte–371vta. 29. In her examination of notarial entries by women in colonial Cuzco, Burns asserts that “when availing themselves of legal forms of protest against ‘bad patriarchs,’ women (through their chosen notaries) seem to have gone in for a saturated femininity, the most concentrated possible version.” Burns, Into the Archive, 113. Landers also notes the gendered approaches utilized by women of African descent in Spanish Florida that focused on family. She writes, “In a community which operated within the idiom of family, women frequently referred to themselves as mothers and made references to their children. If they were sick, widowed, or abandoned, they made sure to mention it.” Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida, 138. 30. Stern discusses how women understood obedience in relation to patriarchal duty as a type of “social pact,” in which men held a responsibility to fulfill their roles as protectors and providers. Stern, The Secret History of Gender, 70–111. For a discussion of how capital and the dawn of capitalism influenced the juridical position of patriarchy, see Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey, 134, 234–37. Twinam offers cases in which illegitimate children of dons and doñas described living in “the worst extreme of poverty . . . lacking a thousand necessities . . . and without comfort.” Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 175. 31. ANX, February 24, 1712, f. 504fte–509vta. 32. The will is vague as to whether he owned Juan Antonio and had only recently presented his wife with the gift of this particular slave. Or whether Juan Antonio was in his employ as a slave and separately owned by his wife, Mariana Rodríguez. ANX, November 3, 1701, f. 119fte–120fte; ANX, January 21, 1706, f. 444vta–444vta bis; ANX, May 21, 1710, f. 327vta–329vta. 33. ANX, March 28, 1707, f. 24fte–25fte; ANX, January 2, 1697, f. 332fte– 332vta. 34. ANX, January 30, 1720, f. 26fte–27vta. 35. ANX, February 26, 1720, f. 32vta–33vta; ANX, April 10, 1725, f. 676fte–

Notes to Pages 176–87

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677fte; ANX, February 26, 1720, f. 32vta–33vta; ANX, March 11, 1721, f. 136vta– 137vta. A mulato blanco was probably a mulato with features that could allow him to pass for Spanish but who was of purported African descent. ANX, June 10, 1723, f. 458vta–459fte. 36. ANX, September 9, 1725, f. 701vta–703fte. 37. Kimberly Hanger asserts, “Like [free people of African descent] throughout the Americas, the majority earned their liberty and whatever property they acquired themselves rather than benefited from the generosity of individual masters.” Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, 170. 38. Kathryn Burns, “Notaries, Truth, and Consequences.” American Historical Review 110, no. 2 (2005): 351–52. 39. Burns, Into the Archive, 24. Twinam discusses how baptismal records were fraught with social agendas that obscured paternity and even maternity in the case of private pregnancies. Twinam, Public Lives, 130–38. 40. Burns notes that “documents were made by people in relationships” and were affected by the power imbalances among those participating in the production. Burns, Into the Archive, 126.

6 Preserving Legacies 1. ANX, July 11, 1586, f. 366fte–366vta; ANX, September 2, 1600, f. 6vta– 7vta. 2. A procurador was an attorney, distinct from an apoderado. An apoderado did not have to have any legal education to serve as a lawful proxy. 3. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, 357. 4. ANX, January 20, 1592, f. 390fte; ANX, January 20, 1592, f. 390vta–391fte. 5. ANX, January 9, 1597, f. 143fte–146vta. 6. Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, Siglo XVII, 34–35. My translation. 7. The original notarial tally sheet says 541 pesos, but the individual entries account only for 540 pesos. ANX, no date specified, sometime between May 27 and July 11, 1600, f. 4fte. 8. ANX, September 2, 1600, f. 6vta–7vta. 9. ANX, November 14, 1601, f. 69vta–70fte. This date is approximated by surrounding entries because the second page where the date would have been is deteriorated. 10. Ann Twinam discusses the importance of legitimate ancestry and the lengths to which elite families were willing to go to prove their legitimacy, purchase it through gracias al sacar petitions to the Crown, or pass as legiti-

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Notes to Pages 188–92

mate children or a legitimately united couple. Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, especially 35–58, 126–215. 11. Alida C. Metcalf, “Women and Means: Women and Family Property in Colonial Brazil,” Journal of Social History 24, no. 2 (Winter 1990): 277–98. 12. Juana is also spelled Joana in some of the documents. In this record Diego Ordóñez was noted as being deceased in a tangentially related property purchase in which his estate is noted as a neighboring parcel. ANX, June 30, 1682, f. 63fte–64fte; ANX, March 30, 1685, f. 238fte–239fte; ANX, March 30, 1685, f. 238fte–239fte. 13. ANX, March 30, 1685, f. 238fte–239fte. 14. ANX, March 30, 1685, f. 240fte. 15. ANX, March 30, 1685, f. 241fte; ANX, March 30, 1685, f. 242vta. 16. ANX, March 30, 1685, f. 240vta–241fte. The archivists and paleographers at the Universidad Veracruzana—Xalapa campus believe that “the enemy” refers to the infamous pirate Lorencillo, who held La Nueva Ciudad de Veracruz hostage for nearly two weeks in May 1683. For a more detailed account of the 1683 pirate attack on Veracruz, see David F. Marley, Sack of Veracruz and Pirates: The Great Pirate Raid of 1683 (Windsor, Ontario: Netherlandic Press, 1993). For an overview of the history of piracy and buccaneering in the Gulf Coast region, see Juan Juarez Moreno, Corsarios y Piratas en Veracruz y Campeche (Seville, Spain: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, 1972). 17. For colonial Latin America, the following is a sample of excellent studies that demonstrate how such events marked time for society. War: Alex Borucki, From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de la Plata (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015); Henry Kamen, The War of Succession in Spain, 1700–15 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969). Massacres: Michele Reid-Vasquez, The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011); María Elena Martinez, “The Black Blood of New Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico,” William and Mary Quarterly 61, no. 3 (July 2004): 479–520. Natural disasters: María Eugenia Petit-Breuilh Sepúlveda, Naturaleza y desastres en Hispanoamérica: la visión de los indígenas; Desastres naturales y ocupación del territorio en Hispanoamérica (siglos XVI al XX); Jaime Lara, “Francis Alive and Aloft: Franciscan Apocalypticism in the Colonial Andes,” The Americas 70, no. 2 (October 2013): 139–63. The literature on colonial piracy is extensive. The following is a sample of works that pay some attention to attacks on Spanish territories: Marley, Sack of Vera­ cruz; Juarez Moreno, Corsarios y Piratas en Veracruz y Campeche; Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston:

Notes to Pages 192–93

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Beacon Press, 2011); Kris Lane, Pillaging the Empire: Global Piracy on the High Seas, 1500–1750, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2015); David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates (New York: Random House, 2013); Diana Reigelsperger, “Pirate, Priest, and Slave: Spanish Florida in the 1668 Searles Raid,” Florida Historical Quarterly 92, no. 3 (Winter 2014), 577–90. Pablo Sierra Silva tracks some of those captured during the Siege and sold into the French dominion. Pablo Sierra Silva, “Afro-Mexican Women in Saint Domingue: Piracy, Captivity and Community in the 1680s and 1690s,” Hispanic American Historical Review 100, no. 1 (February 2020): 3–34. 18. Piracy had entered its so-called Golden Age by the mid-1600s, and many subjects throughout the Americas and the circum-Caribbean had to face relentless threats by sea bandits. For important discussions of the history of coastal defense of New Spain, see Ben Vinson III, “Race and Badge: Free-Colored Soldiers in the Colonial Mexican Militia,” The Americas 56, no. 4 (April 2000): 471–96; Ben Vinson III, “Articulating Space: The Free-­ Colored Military Establishment in Colonial Mexico from the Conquest to Independence,” Callaloo 27, no. 1, Face and Voices of Coyolillo, an Afromestizo Pueblo in Mexico (Winter 2004): 150–71; Vinson, Bearing Arms for His Majesty. Wim Klooster writes, “Silver was the booty of choice, at least when Spain was the enemy. When Portugal remained as the only Iberian foe, ships carrying Brazilian sugar were the main target.” Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016), 6. Francisco Javier Alegre, S.J., Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, Tomo 2, new edition by Ernest J. Burrus, S.J. and Felix Zubillaga, S.J. (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.J., 1958), 13. Alegre appears to get this information from Manuel Orozco y Berra, Historia de la dominación española en México, Tomo III (Mexico: Antigua Librería Robredo, de José Porrúa e Hijos, 1938), 51–52. For an overview of the attack by Parker, see Lourdes de Ita Rubio, “El Primer Ataque Inglés a Campeche, por William Parker en 1596,” TZINTZUN, Revista de Estudios Históricos, no. 41 (January–June 2005): 117–30. For a discussion of Spanish–English contentions in the late sixteenth century, see K. R. Andrews, “Caribbean Rivalry and the Anglo-Spanish Peace of 1604,” History 59, no. 195 (1974): 1–17. 19. Klooster implies that Mexican and Peruvian galleons were nearly systematically monitored by pirates and privateers. Klooster, The Dutch Moment, 45. In addition to silver, I. A. Wright writes, the shipment included “gold, pearls, indigo, sugar, Campeachy wood and costly furs, which sold in the Netherlands for no less than fifteen million guilders.” I. A. Wright, “The Dutch and Cuba, 1609–1643, Hispanic American Historical Review 4, no. 4

264

Notes to Pages 193–94

(November 1921), 615–16. There are varying numbers for how many ships he commanded during this attack. Alex Ritsema notes thirty-one ships in Pirates and Privateers from the Low Countries, C. 1500-C.1810, 66. Cornelis C. Goslinga states “more than thirty ships” in A Short History of the Netherlands Antilles and Surinam, 22. Dirk Barreveld notes that the siege yielded 11 million in gold and provides the currency conversion of $2 billion. Dirk Barreveld, Henry Hudson and the Rise and Fall of New Amsterdam, 11. Jaap Jacobs notes 11,500,000 guilders in “Dutch Proprietary Manors in America: The Patroonships in New Netherland,” in Constructing Early Modern Empires: Proprietary Ventures in the Atlantic World, 1500–1750, ed. Louis H. Roper and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, 305. Wright estimates a much higher take of “no less than fifteen million guilders.” Wright, “The Dutch and Cuba,” 616. While published some time ago, the two articles that follow offer a succinct overview of the Spanish–Dutch conflict: J. I. Israel, “A Conflict of Empires: Spain and the Netherlands 1618–1648,” Past & Present no. 76 (August 1977): 34–74; Geoffrey Parker, “Spain, Her Enemies and the Revolt of the Netherlands 1559–1648,” Past & Present no. 49 (November 1970): 72–95. Wright claims that schoolchildren in Holland were still singing a song in 1921 heralding Heyn’s pillage with lyrics that include, “Piet Hein’s name is small—but his deeds are great—he has captured the silver fleet.” I. A. Wright, “The Dutch and Cuba, 1609–1643, Hispanic American Historical Review 4, no. 4 (November 1921): 616, note 68. The historian Marjoleine Kars adds that this song with nearly identical lyrics was still sung by Dutch children in the 1960s in the Netherlands, personal correspondence 10/29/2018. For the various ways he was lauded and memorialized in Dutch history, see Virginia W. Lunsford, Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands (Basing­ stoke: Palgrave, 2005), 198–201; Wright, “The Dutch and Cuba,” 614–16. 20. Also spelled Mansfield. Jon Latimer, The Buccaneers of the Caribbean: How Piracy Forged an Empire 1607–1697 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 138. David F. Marley, Pirates of the Americas, Volume 1:1650– 1685 (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2010), 229–230. One “pieces of eight” silver coin was worth approximately 8 reales. The 150,000 pieces of eight would therefore amount to approximately 1,200,000 reales in the seventeenth century. 21. David Goodman, “Philip II’s Patronage of Science and Engineering,” British Journal for the History of Science 16, no. 1 (March 1983): 61. Rodrigo Martínez Baracs, “Veracruz in the Conquista de México,” in El Veracruz de Hernán Cortés, ed. Juan Ortiz Escamilla (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 2015), 145. In his chronicle John Chilton describes the fort: “Within a moneth after, we fell with the Isle of S. Domingo, and from thence directly to Noua Hispania, and came into the port of S. Iohn de Vllua, which is a little Island standing in the sea, about two miles from the land, where the king

Notes to Pages 195–96

265

mainteineth about 50 souldiers, and captaines, that keepe the forts, and about 150 negroes, who all the yeere long are occupied in carying of stones for building, and other vses, and to helpe to make fast the ships that come in there, with their cables.” John Chilton, “A notable discourse of M. John Chilton, touching the people, manners, mines, cities, riches, forces, and other memorable things of New Spaine and other provinces in the West Indies, 1568–1586,” in Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, vol. 14, ed. Edmund Goldsmid, 156, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40803/40803-h/40803-h.htm. For a more detailed discussion of this attack, see James Seay Dean, Tropics Bound: Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs on the Spanish Main (The History Press, 2010); Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation (E. & G. Goldsmid, 1890); David Marley, Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present (ABCCLIO, 1998); Rayner Unwin, The Defeat of John Hawkins: A Biography of His Third Slaving Voyage (Allen & Unwin, 1960); John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake (Henry Holt, 1990); Carlos Saiz Cidoncha, Historia de la piratería en América española (Editorial San Martín, 1985); Alan Villiers, “Men, Ships, and the Sea” (National Geographic Society, 1973); Irene Aloha Wright, Spanish Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Caribbean, 1527–1568 (Hakluyt Society, 1925). Drake’s spectacular defeat at San Juan de Ulúa may have spurred his lifelong hatred of the Spanish and motivated his actions that yielded important gains for the English Crown. For more on Drake’s legacy, see John G. Cummins, Francis Drake: The Lives of a Hero. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); Alice Smith Duncan, Sir Francis Drake and the Struggle for an Ocean Empire (New York: Chelsea House, 1993); Harry Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). The fleet directed by Drake and Hawkins likely had not been conducting a reconnaissance mission to test the resources of the Spanish, as the ships carried a large number of enslaved people. John C. Appleby, Women and English Piracy, 1540– 1720: Partners and Victims of Crime (Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2013), 17. 22. Pablo Montero, Ulúa, Puente intercontinental en el siglo XVII (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1997), 80–83. 23. AGI, MEXICO, 353, March 22, 1670, 1fte; AGI, MEXICO, 353, March 22, 1670, 1vta. 24. AGI, MEXICO, 353, August 7, 1675; AGI, MEXICO, 353, August 7, 1675. 25. Marley, The Sack of Veracruz, 37. 26. Philip Ayres, Esq., The voyages and adventures of Capt. Barth. Sharp and others in the South Sea being a journal of the same: also Capt. Van Horn with his buccanieres surprizing of la Veracruz (London: Printed by B.W. for R.H. and S.T. and are to be sold by Walter Davis, 1684), 115–16.

266

Notes to Pages 197–205

27. Marley, The Sack of Veracruz, 52–53. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 455fte. 28. Alegre, Historia de la Provincia de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, Tomo 1, 237; Felix Zubillaga, S.I., ed., Monumenta Mexicana, Tomo VI (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1976), 219 (my translation); Davidson, “Negro Slave Control,” 237. 29. Marley, Pirates of the Americas, 32–33. Marley does not offer a racial breakdown of this broader population. He estimates that the demographic in the port would have likely doubled with the arrival of the plate fleet. Marley, Sack of Veracruz, 11. 30. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 455vta. Pamphlet, “Catedral de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora: Corazón del Centro Histórico,” Parroquia del Sagrario, Catedral de Veracruz, Diócesis de Veracruz, Collected in July 2017, 1fte. 31. In 1568 and again in 1573 King Philip II decreed that, “no mulato nor zambaígo may carry arms, and the mestizos who live in Spanish areas, who maintain a home in such places and labor there, may carry them with a license.” Spain, Recopilación de las Leyes, Tome 2, Book 7, Title 5, Law 14. While the Spanish monarch saw fit to regulate the access of arms even among its mestizo population, mulatos and zambaígos (also people of African heritage) were expressly prohibited from owning weapons. King Philip IV reiterated this ban in 1628. The decree reads, “We order that all viceroys, presidents, audiencias, governors, corregidores, and alcaldes mayores shall not give licenses to anyone, no matter their status or calidad, to permit negros to carry swords, halberds, nor any offensive weapon, nor any defensive weapon. If they violate this order, take over their residences and impose on them the penalties incurred by this clause.” Spain, Recopilación de las Leyes, Tome 2, Book 7, Title 5, Law 18. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 455vta. Spain, Recopilación de las Leyes, Tome 2, Book 7, Title 5, Law 12–13. 32. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 456fte. For an overview of tribute demands on African-descended populations in eighteenth-century Mexico, see Gharala, Taxing Blackness. 33. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 455vta. 34. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 455vta. 35. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 456fte; AGI, MEXICO, 350, 457fte. 36. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 455fte; AGI, MEXICO, 350, 455fte. Estimated slave values of 400 pesos/person. 1,500 people X 400 = 600,000 pesos. 1 peso = 8 reales. AGI, MEXICO, 350, 455fte. 37. AGI, MEXICO, 54, R. 1, N. 12, 1–2. 38. AGI, MEXICO, 54, R. 1, N. 12, 2; AGI, MEXICO, 54, R. 1, N. 12, 3. 39. AGI, MEXICO, 54, R. 1, N. 12, 2; AGI, MEXICO, 54, R. 1, N. 12, 4. Francisco A. Eissa-Barroso tracks the legacy of the increased militarization of the local government of Veracruz in the late seventeenth and first half of

Notes to Pages 205–17

267

the eighteenth century. And while Eissa-Barroso cites the impact of the Great Siege, he argues that Veracruz was not an isolated case of cities turning to political leaders with military experience, which he identifies as part of a larger Bourbon-backed project of administrative reform. Francisco A. Eissa-­ Barroso, “De corregimiento a gobierno político-militar: el gobierno de Veracruz y la ‘militarización’ de cargos de gobierno en España e Indias durante los reinados de Felipe V,” Relaciones 147 (Summer 2016): 13–49. 40. AGI, MEXICO, 350, f. 454vta. 41. AGI, MEXICO, 350, f. 454vta; AGI, MEXICO, 350, f. 455fte. 42. AGI, MEXICO, 353, August 24, 1683. 43. AGI, MEXICO, 354, April 7, 1686. 44. ANX, April 26, 1685, f. 242fte–243fte; ANX, April 26, 1685, f. 242fte– 243fte. 45. ANX, August 14, 1638, f. 430fte–431vta; ANX, August 24, 1598, f. 214fte–216fte; ANX, June 14, 1602, f. 248fte; ANX, November 24, 1621, f. 324fte–324vta; ANX, November 2, 1622, f. 79fte–79vta; ANX, November 14, 1623, f. 86vta–87fte; ANX, August 16, 1625, f. 354fte–357vta; ANX, December 20, 1625, f. 73fte–74vta; ANX, April 9, 1641, f. 154fte–154vta; ANX, January 16, 1642, f. 234fte–234vta. 46. For more extensive discussions on Spanish inheritance laws and natural children, see Jane E. Mangan, “Moving Mestizos in Sixteenth-Century Peru: Spanish Fathers, Indigenous Mothers, and the Children In Between,” William and Mary Quarterly 70, no. 2, Centering Families in Atlantic Histories (April 2013): 273–94; Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets. 47. Twinam discusses the specific consequences and benefits of legitimacy among elites. Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 46–47. 48. Abel Júarez Martínez, “Las Ferias de Xalapa 1720–1778,” in Las Ferias de Xalapa y Otros Ensayos (Veracruz: Gobierno del Estado de Veracruz, Instituto Veracruzano de Cultura, 1995), 23. 49. AGI, MEXICO, 354, April 4, 1689. The corregidor’s surname of “Pardo” might also imply a connection to communities of African descent, even if a distant one.

Epilogue 1. Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets, 273–75. 2. Burns posits that notaries “honed their own skills as interpreters and ‘purifiers’ of witnesses’ words, (re)arranging them and polishing them up between draft and final copy.” Burns, Into the Archive, 90, 70.

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Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures. Acosta, Agustina de, 153–55, 215 African-descended people: ethnic backgrounds of, 26, 27, 36; fear of autonomy of, 200; geographic mobility of, 30–31; in Great Siege, 190, 191, 199, 200–201, 202–3, 206, 207, 213; health care for, 231–32n33; labels used for, 226–27n11; population of, 216, 226–27n11; restrictions on, 115, 161; in Veracruz Port, 197–98. See also free people of African descent; free women of African descent; men of African descent; women of African descent Africans: enslaved (see slaves); in India, 29; in Macau, 228n15 age, 244–45n32, 248n5 agriculture, 36–38, 137, 231n31. See also sugar production Ana María (free mulata), 162–63, 165 Angola, 26, 27, 28, 227n12 apprenticeships, 160–62, 179, 218 approximations, 8, 9, 153, 219; rela-

tionships and, 70–71; Ribas’s, 146 Arauz, Petrona de, 3, 96–106, 117; debts of, 99; financial holdings of, 102; lack of documentation of slaves, 106; real estate of, 101, 102–5; son of, 99–100, 101, 103–5, 106 archives, 9. See also Church records; notarial documents Arriaga, Ana de, 3, 181–87, 214 Arriaga, Beatriz de, 183–87 arrieros. See transportation industry Asians, 28, 29–30, 228–29n15 autonomy, 115; of African-­ descended people, fear of, 200. See also freedom Ayres, Philip, 196   baptism, legitimacy and, 71 baptismal records, 16, 68–69, 261n39 barbers, 43–44, 232n40 barraganía, 71

270 Index Barrio, Getrudis del, 72–73 Bautista, Isabel, 163–65 Bentura, Martín, 170–73 Berbesí, 120–21, 123, 248nn3,4, 249n8 Bermúdez Gorrochotegui, Gilberto, 25, 26, 131, 184 Biafara, 27–28 bigamy, 70–71, 238n27 birth, legitimate. See children; illegitimacy; legitimacy birthrights, 83. See also inheritance “blanca,” use of, 201 Bourdieu, Pierre, 10, 11 bozales, 26. See also African-­ descended people; slaves Bravo de Lagunas, Constantino, 25 Bristol, Joan Cameron, 56 burial records, 74–75 Burns, Kathryn, 4, 62, 179   Camino Real, 5, 13, 18, 20, 225n2; competition for, 21; condition of, 22; geographic mobility and, 30–31; improvements to, 22; Indigenous communities and, 23; maintenance of, 22–23; map of, 6; safety of, 22; ventas and, 35; volume of traffic on, 236n23; Xalapa and, 21. See also roads Campeche, 192, 193 Canary Islands, 7, 27, 60 Candelaria, María de la, 153–55, 188–91, 214; daughter of, 190, 191, 203, 206, 207, 213; marital legitimacy of, 207–10 capellanías, 167 capital: forms of, 11; legitimate marriage as, 75–76; mobilization of, 3. See also legitimacy capital, cultural, 10; husbands as

legal proxy and, 149; inheritance and, 152, 153; intergenerational, 160–64; manumission and, 54; passive accrual of, 11; reliance on, 162; Ribas’s, 145; slave-owning women of African descent and, 93, 95; use of gendered strategies and, 173; vocational training and, 160–62. See also legitimacy capital, economic, 10, 133, 218; inheritance and, 152, 153; intergenerational, 151–59 (see also inheritance; land ownership, intergenerational); manumission and, 54, 57–63, 65–66, 68; reliance on, 162; Ribas’s, 134, 145; slave-owning women of African descent and, 93, 95. See also legitimacy capital, social, 10, 11, 75; constructing narratives and, 172–73; defending family and, 77, 78; inheritance of land and, 152; intergenerational, 160–62; manumission and, 54, 60, 63–68; proving marital legitimacy and, 189–90, 207–10; reliance on, 162, 163; Ribas’s, 126–29, 145; slave-­ owning women of African descent and, 93, 95. See also legitimacy capital accumulation, 219. See also financial aptitude carta de libertad, 29, 52–54, 57, 60, 65, 114, 121, 140 castizo, 44. See also African-­ descended people Catholic Church, 9; in Great Siege, 199; Inquisition, 1, 70, 250n14; in Veracruz region, 45–46. See also Church records; confrater-

Index 271 nities (cofradía); legitimacy; religion Ceballos y Burgos, Joseph de, 119, 121, 125, 126, 129, 139 Charles I of Spain, 38 Chica da Silva (Francisca da Silva de Oliveira), 86–87 childhood mortality, 74–75 children: legitimacy of, 9, 68–70, 73–79 (see also legitimacy); securing manumission for, 54–57; separated from mothers, 107–13, 245nn33,35 children, illegitimate, 99–100, 103–5, 106, 134, 237n25; acknowledgment of, 54, 74, 100, 209; baptismal records and, 261n39; honor and, 236–37n24, 240n38; in legal system, 101–2, 209. See also illegitimacy Chilton, John, 42 chinos, 28–29, 228–29n15 Church. See Catholic Church; legitimacy; religion Church records, 16, 215–16, 226n11; baptismal records, 68–69; burial records, 74–75; confirmation records, 69–70; illegitimate children in, 261n39; legitimacy trends in, 237n25 clergy, secular, 46 climate, 24, 44, 231n32 clothing, restrictions on, 115 cobblers, 160–62 Coche de Colleras (Linati), 97 cofradía (confraternities), 45, 55–56, 135–36, 138, 165–66 colonial management, 58–59 community, sense of, 117 confirmation, legitimacy and, 71 confirmation records, 16, 69–70

confraternities (cofradía), 45, 55–56, 135–36, 138, 165–66 connections, 95. See also capital convents, 55–56, 250n14. See also confraternities Córdoba, 5, 6; demand for slaves in, 6; farming in, 36–38; slaveowning women of African descent in, 107, 242n2; slavery in, 48, 49, 112; sugar production in, 123. See also Veracruz region Cordova y Arrellano, Fernando Ruiz de, 85 Correa, Juan, 250n14 Cortés, Hernán, 23, 34, 46, 48 credit, 139, 254n25. See also debt criminal cases, 63–64 criollos, 24 Cruz, Ana de la, 158–59 Cruz, Gregorio de la, 160–62   death records, 16. See also Church records debt, 162–63, 165, 185; Arauz’s, 99; collecting, 128; manumission and, 54, 57–63, 68, 89, 141; owed to Ribas, 138–39; protection by, 163–65 defense, military, 59, 192, 194–96, 228n15. See also San Juan de Ulúa Diáñez, Theodora, 150–51 documentation. See Church records; notarial documents Domínguez, Jacinta, 155–58 Dominicans, 233n44 “donation,” 125, 243n4 dowries, 129–33, 137, 146, 179, 218, 243n4, 250n14, 251n15; importance of, 252n17; for orphaned

272 Index dowries (continued) girls, 251–52n17; provided by Ribas, 130, 132–33, 137, 146, 251n16; slaves in, 131, 133, 146, 243n4; women’s rights to, 259–60n26 Drake, Francis, 194, 265n21   economic liability, 162–65. See also debt economic security. See security, economic/social economy of Veracruz region, 5–6, 19, 21; agriculture and, 36–38; Bourbon reforms, 11–12, 215; entrepreneurship, 90–96, 243n10; instability in, 31, 58–59; lack of liquidity in, 91, 126, 243n10; poverty, 31; slavery and, 6, 36; transportation industry and, 35–36; ventas and, 34, 36; Veracruz Port and, 7; Xalapa and, 21. See also Camino Real; ferias education: restrictions on, 115; vocational, 160–62, 179, 218 enslaved Africans. See slaves enslavement: threat of, 191, 192, 202, 212. See also slavery entrepreneurship, 90–96, 243n10 epidemics, 39–44, 233n44 expectations, 8, 51; gender and, 64; husbands as legal proxy and, 149; regional variability in, 13; of sexual impropriety, 51, 76–77, 81, 239n36, 241n43; sexual virtue and, 79–82. See also approxi­ mations; honor; legitimacy   fairs. See ferias Falcón de Santiago, Phelipe, 148 families: barraganía and, 71; de-

fending, 68–70, 79–82; legitimacy and, 51, 68–79; minors separated from mothers, 107–13, 245n33,35; securing manumission for, 51, 54–57, 114; of slaveowning women of African descent, 87, 143 (see also Ribas, Polonia de); slavery’s effects on, 51, 65–66, 107–13, 236n21; value of, 70. See also children; marriage farming. See agriculture; sugar production female consorts, 209 ferias, 12, 16, 31–33, 215, 229n21,22 Fernández, Juana, 170–73 Ferreira Furtado, Júnia, 86–87 financial aptitude, 219; Arauz’s, 104–5; Diánez’s, 151; Ribas’s, 120, 137, 253n23; social legitimacy and, 61 fires, 45 Franciscans, 46, 233n44 freedom: forms of, 47; gendered, 86; precariousness of, 51, 68, 86, 215 (see also Great Siege of Veracruz); restrictions on, 115, 214. See also manumission; survival strategies freedom card (carta de libertad ), 29. See also manumission free people of African descent: ethnic backgrounds of, 26–28; illness and, 44; population of, 224n16; in Veracruz Port, 42 (see also Great Siege of Veracruz); in Xalapa, 7. See also African-descended people; free women of African descent; men of African descent; women of African descent

Index 273 free will, 150–51 free women of African descent, 3, 16; archival disappearance of, 16–17, 215, 216; assumptions about, 10; captured in Great Siege, 190, 191, 200–201, 203, 206, 207, 213; incomplete histories of, 219; influence of, 15; interactions between, 179–80; of means, 10–11, 17; restrictions on, 115, 214; sources on, 9–10, 13, 16–17, 21 (see also Church records; notarial documents); use of notary public, 7–8; vulnerability of, 76, 86, 214; witness to empire, 7; work done by, 137–38; in Xalapa, 7. See also African-­ descended people; free people of African descent; slave-owning women of African descent; women of African descent   Gage, Thomas, 26 gender: in colonial Spanish America, 15–16; expectations and, 64; experience of free women and, 17; freedom and, 86; identity and, 218; inheritance and, 152; innkeeping and, 186, 230n36; in legal system, 151, 173; manumission and, 246n39; in notarial documents, 149, 260n29; roles in marriage and, 159; slave ownership and, 86, 113–14, 255n30; of slaves, 108, 122; in Spanish culture, 173. See also women geographic mobility, 30–31 Goa, 29 Godínez, María, 167 god parentage, 136

Graaf, Laurens de (Lorencillo), 192, 193, 196–206, 207, 211 Great Siege of Veracruz, 191–93, 196–206, 211–13; African-­ descended people captured in, 203, 206, 207, 213; African-­ descended people in, 199; blame for, 203–6; mobilization of memory of, 206–7; report on, 200–203, 205–6 Guinea, 120, 123, 247–48n3   haciendas, 37, 231n31. See also sugar production Hawkins, John, 194, 265n21 health, 39–44, 231–32n33 Hernándes, Antonia, 63–65 Heyn, Piet, 193 Higuera, María de la, 215 hijos legítimos. See children; legitimacy honor, 8, 9, 79–82, 254n25; women and, 79–82, 83, 236–37n24, 239–40n36, 240nn37,38, 240–41n41 hospitality-centered businesses. See ventas hospitals, 38–39, 231–32n33 houses, 97, 155, 158. See also property; real estate Hualingo, 229n19 Huitzilapan, 229n19   Iberian Union, 11–12, 36, 59, 121. See also Portugal; Spain identity, 218; complexity of, 114; public, 165–67, 169; reconfiguring of, 173 illegitimacy, 68–70, 99–100, 101, 103–5, 106; inheritance and, 73–79, 90; racialized expec­-

274 Index illegitimacy (continued ) tations of, 76–77. See also children; families; legitimacy India, 29, 227–28n14 Indigenous labor, 23, 37, 47, 226n6 Indigenous language, 226n7 Indigenous people (indios): acculturated to Spanish norms, 63, 244n17; Camino Real and, 23; deaths of, 25; free women’s interactions with, 154–55; ventas and, 34; in Xalapa, 23, 26, 231n31 ingenios, 37, 131. See also sugar production inheritance: vs. donation, 243n4; dowries as, 243n4; illegitimacy and, 90, 101–2, 209; of land, 152 (see also land ownership, intergenerational); legitimacy and, 72–79, 83, 153. See also land ownership, intergenerational; wealth, intergenerational; wellbeing, intergenerational; wills inheritance entail, 156 innkeeping/inns, 34, 35, 36, 91, 137, 184, 186, 229–30n25, 230n36, 231n31 Inquisition, 1, 70, 250n14 insurrections, slave, 47–48 Irala, Gerónimo de, 119, 125, 133, 140, 142, 143–44, 145, 146. See also Ribas, Polonia de Irala, Juan de, 119, 125, 133, 140, 143, 145, 146. See also Ribas, Polonia de Irala, Pedro de, 126–28, 129 Irala, Sebastiana de, 132–34   Jalapa (Phillips), 41 Jesuits, 16, 40–42, 45, 46 Jesús, María de, 160–62

Jiménez Carralero, Miguel, 173–78 justice, obtaining, 179   labor: demand for, 26; Indigenous people and, 23, 37, 47, 226n6; in transportation industry, 23, 35, 226n6, 230n28. See also slavery; slaves ladino, 63, 244n17. See also Indigenous people (indios) land ownership, 35, 37, 50, 258n5; intergenerational, 35, 151–53, 155–58 (see also Diáñez, Theodora) Lavrin, Asunción, 151 legacies, preserving, 181; by Candelaria, 188–91; by mothers, 187. See also marital legitimacy legal proxy: class and, 148; free will in, 150–51; husbands as, 148–49; males as, 149–51; mistakes by, 157–58; Ribas as, 126–29, 140, 145; wives as, 148–49. See also poder legal system: age of consent for women in, 247n3; defending families through, 79–82; expectations and, 13; female consorts in, 209; free will in, 150–51; free women’s use of, 78–79; gender and, 151, 173; illegitimate children in, 101–2, 209; knowledge of, 172; legitimacy and, 83; married women in, 148, 149, 151, 237n26; promises of marriage in, 81–82, 240–41n40, 241n41; sexual impropriety and, 79–82. See also notarial documents legitimacy, 9, 46; benefits of, 209; claimed through economic activities, 117; families and, 51,

Index 275 68–79 (see also children; manumission; marriage); inheritance and, 72–79, 83, 153; intergenerational, 69; legal system and, 83; marriage and, 75–76, 96; notarial documents and, 3–4, 7–8, 76, 116–17, 180; race and, 69; relationships and, 70–71; significance of, 69; slave ownership and, 87–90, 115, 144–45, 257n32; value placed on, 72–73. See also children; expectations; marriage; religion legitimacy, marital, 181–82, 187, 188–91, 207–10 legitimacy, social: birth to married parents and, 83 (see also children); defending, 217, 218; details in notarial documents and, 116–17; fluidity of, 69; god parentage and, 136; husbands as legal proxy and, 149; marriage and, 96, 187; mobilizing, 8–9; proof of, 9; religion and, 46; Ribas’s, 140, 146; slave ownership and, 86, 87–90, 257n32; social markers of, 96 licencia. See legal proxy; poder life chances, 124, 129–33, 219 liquidity, lack of, 91, 126, 243n10 loans, 138–40. See also debt Lópes, Clara, 120–23, 124, 129, 146. See also Ribas, Polonia de López, María, 93–96 López, Teresa, 74–79 López Pacheco, Diego, 184 López Pardo, Pedro, 212 Lorencillo (Laurens de Graaf), 192, 193, 196–206, 207, 211   Macau, 29, 228n15 Magdalena, María, 152, 153

malaria, 40 Mansvelt, Edward, 193 Manuel, Juan, 151 manumission, 29, 215; capital needed for, 54; by Ceballos y Burgos, 121, 129; compensatory, 54, 57–63, 68, 89, 141; economic capital and, 54, 57–63, 65–66, 68; by free women, 89, 90, 140–42, 143–44, 246n41; gender and, 246n39; of Clara Lópes, 122; in notarial documents, 14; reasons for, 90; recognition of paternity and, 54; by Ribas, 140–42, 143–44; securing for family, 51, 54–57, 114; selling of slaves to achieve, 114; social capital and, 54, 60, 63–68; strategic, 54; substituting one slave for another, 246n40; in wills, 140–42; women’s achievement of, 51–54, 246n39. See also slaves marital legitimacy, 181–82, 187, 188–91, 207–10 market fairs. See ferias maroon communities, 47, 48, 49 marriage, 243n4; avoiding, 222n8, 238n26; dowries, 129–33, 137, 146, 179, 250n14, 251n15,16, 251–52n17, 259–60n26; gendered roles in, 159; legitimacy and, 75–76, 96, 187; origins of partners, 30–31; promises of, 81–82, 240–41n40, 241n41; value placed on, 70–71; women’s autonomy in, 148, 149, 150–51. See also legitimacy; marital legitimacy marriage records, 16. See also Church records Martín, Manuela, 3, 165–66, 214–15

276 Index masculine duty, 173 men of African descent, 16; access to arms, 266n31; in Great Siege, 199–200; restrictions on, 115, 161; slave ownership by, 113–14 mestizos, 24, 26. See also African-­ descended people Mexico: map of, 20. See also Veracruz region Moctezuma, 25 money lending, 138–40 Morales, Catalina de, 54–57, 215 Morales, Miguel de, 150 morenas, 10, 14. See also African-­ descended people morenos, 62. See also African-­ descended people mosquitos, 40, 41, 44 mothers: minors separated from, 107–13, 245n33,35; rights of, 74 (see also inheritance); status of, 78 Mulata de Córdoba, 1, 2, 3, 18, 214, 219–20 mulatas, 10, 14. See also African-­ descended people mulatos, 26, 226–27n11. See also African-descended people muleteers. See recuas; transportation industry mutual aid societies, 166. See also confraternities (cofradía) Myngs, Christopher, 193   narratives. See notarial documents negras, 10, 14. See also African-­ descended people negreros. See slave trade; slave traders

negros, 26, 62, 226–27n11. See also African-descended people nortes, 44, 195 notarial documents, 7, 15; addresses in, 105; creating truth in, 170–78, 216–17; decline in, 14–15; disappearance of women of African descent from, 16–17, 215, 216; formula of, 178–79; free women’s use of, 51; gendered narratives in, 149, 260n29; identifiers in, 14, 61–62, 201, 223n13; imperfections of, 4; invisibility of women in, 16–17, 33, 76–77, 215, 216; legitimacy and, 3–4, 7–8, 76, 116–17, 180; limitations on, 15; obtaining justice and, 179; personal details in, 50, 51, 62, 80, 95–96, 116–17, 125, 136, 178, 219; racial drift in, 62, 236n17; real estate in, 151; trust of, 4, 215; truth and, 170–78, 216–17; types of business in, 14 (see also manumission; poder; real estate; slaves); types of women in, 13–14; uses of, 128; vocabulary in, 125. See also legal system Núñez, María, 90–96, 117 nuns, 55–56, 250n14   opportunity. See life chances Ordóñez, Diego, 188–91, 209 Ordóñez, Joseph, 207 Ordóñez, Luisa, 209 Orduña Loyando, Antonio de, 52–54, 55, 85, 139 Orizaba, 5, 225n4; Camino Real and, 22; demand for slaves in, 6; farming in, 36–38; road through, 21. See also Veracruz region

Index 277 Pacheco, María, 152–53 Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de, 40, 46 pardas, 10, 14. See also African-­ descended people pardo, 227n11. See also African-­ descended people Parker, William, 192 Pasquala, Juana, 57–58, 59 passivity, 123 paternity, acknowledgment of, 54, 74, 100, 209. See also children peninsulares, 24, 35 people, strategic proximity to, 8. See also capital people of African descent. See African-descended people; free people of African descent; free women of African descent; men of African descent; slaves Pérez, Jordan, 181 Pérez Romero, Francisco, 87–88, 89 Philip II of Spain, 266n31 Philip III of Spain, 40 Philip V of Spain, 12, 32, 58 Phillips, John, 41 piracy, 191–206, 211–13, 263n18, 263–64n19, 265n21 places, strategic proximity to, 8. See also capital poder, 14; class and, 148; registering with notary public, 128. See also legal proxy Ponce, Alonso, 42 Portugal, 29, 123. See also Iberian Union poverty, 31, 218 power of attorney. See legal proxy; poder professions: education in, 160–62, 179, 218; restrictions on, 115, 161

property, 50; inheritance of, 73; joint ownership of, 63. See also houses; inheritance; land ownership; real estate; ventas property rights, 151   race: in colonial Spanish America, 15–16; expectations of sexual impropriety and, 51, 76–77, 81, 239n36, 241n43; experience of free women and, 17; identity and, 218; religious legitimacy and, 69 racial classifications, 14, 62, 236n17 racial drift, 62, 236n17 racial hierarchies, 8 real estate, 14, 35; Arauz’s, 96–98, 101, 102–5; left to confraternities, 165–66; in notarial documents, 151; Núñez and, 91; social mobility and, 258n5; status and, 152–58. See also houses; land ownership; property; ventas rebellions, slave, 47–48 records. See notarial documents recuas. See transportation industry Rees, Peter, 5, 32 relationships: barraganía, 71; bigamy, 70–71, 238n27; with chino men, 30; consensual unions, 70, 71, 238n26; origins of partners, 30–31; religiously sanctioned, 70–71 (see also children; families; legitimacy; marital legitimacy; marriage); Ribas’s, 136 religion: capellanías, 167; confraternities, 45, 55–56, 135–36, 138, 165–66; Franciscans, 46, 233n44;

278 Index religion (continued) Jesuits, 16, 40–42, 45, 46; public identity and, 165–67; representing in notarial documents, 179; seculares, 46; in Veracruz region, 45–46, 233n44; in Xalapa, 38, 46, 134–36. See also Catholic Church; convents; legitimacy religious acculturation, 71 religious legitimacy. See legitimacy revolts, slave, 47–48 Reyes, Gaspar de los, 157–58 Ribas, Juan de, 134, 136 Ribas, Melchora de, 127, 133, 136 Ribas, Polonia de, 119–47, 214, 217–18, 251n17; age of, 247n3; children of, 122, 127, 129, 130–34, 136–37, 145–46, 148, 149; debts owed to, 138–39; dowries provided by, 130, 132–33, 137, 146, 251n16; economic capital of, 134; ethnicity of, 123, 124; family’s relationship with slavery, 137; financial aptitude of, 120, 137, 253n23; funeral/burial of, 135–36, 141; grandchildren of, 134; hiring out of slaves by, 137, 142–43; income sources, 137–38, 146; as legal proxy, 126–29, 140, 145; manumission by, 140–42, 143–44; money lending by, 138–40; mother of, 120–23, 124, 129, 146; motivations of, 123, 124; proximity to slavery, 123; relationships of, 129, 136; in religious community, 134–36; social capital of, 126–29, 145; social legitimacy of, 140, 146; strategy to ensure family’s livelihood, 129–33; will of, 133–42, 145

Rivas y de Irala, Sebastiana de, 148, 149 roads, 5, 221n5, 225n4. See also Camino Real Rodríguez, Mariana, 173–78 Romero, Juan Jacinto, 87 royal market fairs. See ferias Royal Road. See Camino Real   Sánchez de Tovar, Juan, 191 San Francisco monastery, 46, 135 San Juan de Ulúa, 1, 40, 194, 195–96, 197, 220, 264–65n21. See also Veracruz Port Santos, Francisco de los, 156, 157 Santoyo, Pascuala, 250n14 security, economic/social, 83, 86; defending, 158–59 (see also inheritance); slave ownership and, 120, 143–44, 145 (see also Ribas, Polonia de); social capital used to provide, 170–73. See also inheritance; survival strategies Seed, Patricia, 80 self-determination, 117. See also freedom sensibilities, 8. See also capital; expectations; legitimacy Serer, 120–21, 123, 124, 248n3, 249n8 sexual impropriety: accountability for, 79–82; racialized expectations of, 51, 76–77, 81, 239n36, 241n43 (see also children; illegitimacy; legitimacy; marital legitimacy) sexuality, female, 239–40n36, 240n37,38, 240–41n40, 241n41 sexual virtue, 79–82, 83, 237n24, 240n37

Index 279 Silva de Oliveira, Francisca da (Chica da Silva), 86–87 slave ownership: absentee, 142–43, 256n31; benefits for owner’s family, 120 (see also Ribas, Polonia de); costs of, 124; entrepreneurship and, 90–96, 243n10; female, 86, 241n2, 255–56n30 (see also Ribas, Polonia de; slave-owning women of African descent); gender and, 86, 113–14, 255n30; intergenerational, 87–90, 116; legitimacy and, 87–90, 115, 144–45, 257n32; by men of African descent, 113–14; sustained (see Ribas, Polonia de); wealth and, 53, 87, 95, 243, 256n32. See also slave-owning women of African descent slave-owning women of African descent, 7, 85–117, 174, 218; Acosta, 154; Arauz, 96–106; Arriaga, 183; capital and, 93, 95; Chica da Silva, 86–87; complexity of identity of, 114; entrepreneurship by, 90–96; ethnicity of slaves owned by, 124, 249n9; familial ties and, 87–90; gendered vulnerability of, 144–45; hiring out of slaves by, 142; lack of information on, 86, 106; legitimacy and, 144–45, 257n32; López, 93–96; manumission by, 89, 90, 246n41; minors separated from mothers by, 107; motivations of, 115, 116, 120, 123, 124, 129, 147, 246–47n41, 256–57n32 (see also life chances); in notarial documents, 14; number of, 242n2, 245n39; Núñez, 90–96; ownership of family

members, 143 (see also Ribas, Polonia de); patterns of slave ownership, 115–16; security and, 86, 120 (see also Ribas, Polonia de); self-determination of, 117; sense of community and, 117; separation of child from mother by, 112–13; slave trade and, 93–95, 112–13; in Xalapa, 87. See also free women of African descent; Ribas, Polonia de; slave ownership slave raids, 123 slavery, 19; commitment to, 115; in Córdoba, 48, 49, 112; effects on families, 51, 65–66, 107–13, 236n21; expansion of, 48, 49, 50; minors separated from mothers in, 107–13, 245n33,35; threat of, 191, 192, 202, 212; in Xalapa, 85. See also Indigenous labor slaves: cost of, 87, 93, 95, 108, 109–10, 243n4, 249n9; demand for, 6, 26, 37, 108, 122, 123; dependence on, 47; in dowries, 131, 133, 146, 243n4; estimating ages of, 121; ethnic origins of, 26, 27, 36, 60, 120–21, 123, 124, 227n12, 247–48n3, 248n4, 249n8; gender of, 108, 122; hiring out of, 137, 142–43, 255n30; jobs done by, 36; lack of documentation of, 106; lifetime earning potential of, 131; in Macau, 228n15; number of, 26, 36; status and, 256n32; sugar production and, 52, 53, 230n29; supervision of, 256n30; uprisings by, 47–48; in wills, 133–42. See also African-­ descended people; bozales; manumission

280 Index slave trade, 6, 50; Asians in, 29–30; in Córdoba, 112; free women and, 93–95, 112–13; Iberian Union and, 12; internal, 248n6; minors separated from mothers in, 107–13, 245nn33,35; Spanish domination of, 85; transatlantic, 110, 121–22, 123, 248n6; in Veracruz region, 36; white women in, 256n30; in Xalapa, 36, 37, 112, 122. See also slave-owning women of African descent slave traders, 6, 7 social hierarchies, regional variability in, 13 social mobility, 28, 61, 179, 258n5 soldiers, 24 Soledad (La Mulata de Córdoba), 1, 2, 3, 18, 214, 219–20 sources. See Church records; notarial documents Spain: Charles I, 38; economy and, 16 (See also ferias); Philip II, 266n31; Philip III, 40; Philip V, 12, 32, 58; War of Spanish Succession, 12, 58–59. See also Iberian Union Spanish culture, 64, 173. See also honor Spanish population in Veracruz region, 24, 35 spiritual community. See religion status: notarial truth and, 178; real estate and, 152–58; slave ownership and, 256n32. See also marital legitimacy sugar production, 37, 131, 231n31; in Córdoba, 123; slave workers and, 52, 53, 230n29. See also land ownership

surnames, ethnic background and, 27 survival strategies, 51, 115. See also freedom   Techacapan, 23, 25 Thormes, Juan de, 99, 100, 101 Thormes, Juan Joseph de, 99–100, 101, 103–5, 106 transportation. See Camino Real; roads transportation industry, 22; disease and, 39, 43; economy and, 35–36; ferias and, 33; free women and, 137; labor in, 23, 35, 226n6, 230n28. See also recuas tribute requirements, 253n23 Trinidad, María de la, 154–55 truth, 5, 170–78, 216–17   unions, consensual, 70, 71, 238n26 uprisings, slave, 47–48 upward mobility, 61   Vargas Matamoro, María de, 85 Vázquez de Espinosa, Antonio, 37–38 vecino, defined, 247n3 Velázquez Gutiérrez, María Elisa, 224n15, 242n2, 250n14, 251n15 ventas, 34, 35, 36, 91, 137, 184, 186, 229–30n25, 230n36, 231n31 Veracruz Port, 6–7, 13, 18, 191, 197; African-descended people in, 197–98 (see also Great Siege of Veracruz); conditions in, 42; entry into colony by, 20; fires in, 45; location of, 41–42, 249n11; population of, 198; poverty in, 31; protection of, 192, 194–96;

Index 281 weather/climate in, 24, 44, 195. See also Great Siege of Veracruz; San Juan de Ulúa Veracruz region, 3; colonial defense and, 58, 59 (see also San Juan de Ulúa); conditions in, 19–20; economy and, 19 (see also economy of Veracruz region; ferias); epidemics in, 39–44; map of, 6; as nexus of worlds, 19–20; preeminence of, 19; regional variability in, 12; roads in, 5 (see also Camino Real); slave trade in, 36. See also Córdoba; Orizaba; Xalapa verbal agreements, 82 virginity, 79–82, 83, 237n24, 240n37. See also sexual impropriety vocational training, 160–62, 179, 218 vómito prieto (yellow fever), 39–40   War of Spanish Succession, 12, 58–59 wealth: slave ownership and, 53, 87, 95, 243, 256n32; strategic proximity to, 8. See also capital, economic wealth, intergenerational, 11; management of, 69; protecting, 179; real estate and, 152; Ribas’s management of, 129, 146. See also dowries; financial aptitude; inheritance; land ownership, intergenerational; well-being, intergenerational; wills weather, 24, 44, 231n32 well-being, intergenerational, 18. See also dowries; inheritance;

land ownership, intergenerational; life chances; wealth, intergenerational; wills wills, 120, 133–42, 145. See also inheritance; land ownership, intergenerational; wealth, intergenerational; well-being, intergenerational women: efforts to control, 239n36; honor and, 239–40n36, 240n37,38, 240–41n41; invisibility of, 21, 220; legal age of consent for, 247n3; in legal system, 151, 237n26; slave ownership by, 86, 241n2, 255–56n30 (see also slave-owning women of African descent) women, married: autonomy of, 150–51; dowries of, 259–60n26; free will of, 150–51; during husbands’ absence, 238n26; in legal system, 148, 149, 151, 237n26; status of, 75 (see also legitimacy; marital legitimacy); use of notarial documents, 14 women of African descent: archival disappearance of, 16–17, 33. See also African-descended people; free women of African descent; slave-owning women of African descent; slaves women of means, 10–11, 17. See also wealth   Xalapa, 5, 6, 13, 21, 22, 168, 225n3; African-descended population of, 7, 216; African-descended women of means in, 10–11; Asian population of, 28–29; building of, 23–24; Camino Real

282 Index Xalapa (continued) and, 21; commerce-centered businesses in, 137; diversity in, 20, 31; economic conflicts in, 32; economic importance of, 21; non-Spanish Europeans in, 24; ferias in, 12 (see also ferias); health in, 42, 43–44; hospital in, 38–39; Indigenous people in, 23, 26, 231n31; land in, 35; map of, 6; as nexus of worlds, 47; opportunities in, 21, 31, 36, 45, 60; population of, 24–31; racial tensions in, 76; religion in, 38, 46, 134–36; as site of transatlantic

importance, 38; slave-owning women of African descent in, 87, 107; slave revolt in, 48; slavery in, 26, 27, 36, 37, 85, 112, 122; Spanish population of, 26; view of, 41, 208; weather in, 24, 231n32. See also ferias; Veracruz region Xallapan, 23–24, 25 Xallitic, 23, 25   Yáñez, María (free parda), 87, 88, 89–90, 116 Yáñez, María (slave), 87, 89 Yáñez Romero, Juana, 88 yellow fever, 39–40