Construyendo identidades: Mujeres Afro-descendientes en la Nueva España a traves de los documentos coloniales siglos XVII–XVIII

Socorro Zaragoza, Purdue University

Abstract

This study examines the intersections of gender and race in Mexico during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The project analyzes archival documents from Inquisition trials, legislation in the form of Royal Decrees, and literary works for the purpose of investigating the ways in which women of African ancestry were depicted in Mexican society by hegemonic institutions. To date, the history of the black population in Mexico, in particular Afro-Mexican women, has been studied primarily from a statistical point of view. This approach calls for a reexamination of the archival documents in order to reconstruct the lives of black females and their influence in the colonial period. The significance of this work is that it expands the current understanding of the colonial texts as historical documents by providing basic data such as dates and descriptions, to propose that these documents, especially those concerning Inquisition trials, have been used as political tools to construct social and cultural identities. In particular, it proposes that these documents have been used to construct a negative socio-cultural identity of the black woman. My research shows that these colonial texts helped to reinforce a negative representation on black women, due to the excessive use of images of the Afro-Mexican woman as spiteful, vicious, and in need of constant supervision. Further, I describe how these women were perceived as a threat to New Spain (Mexico), and how their unfavorable image portrayed in the trials augmented efforts to control them, especially to control their sexuality. The colonial authorities tried, by all possible means, to deny Afro-Mexican women control of their own lives and bodies.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Stephenson, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Latin American literature|Black studies|Womens studies|Gender studies

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