scholarly journals “Pure and Noble Indians, Untainted by Inferior Idolatrous Races”: Native Elites and the Discourse of Blood Purity in Late Colonial Mexico

2011 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter B. Villella
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Native Communities ◽  
Limpieza De Sangre ◽  
Medieval Iberia ◽  
Indigenous Participation

Abstract As sixteenth-century Spaniards constructed their global empire, they carried with them the racial-religious concept of “limpieza de sangre,” or blood purity, which restricted marginalized communities from exercising prestige and authority. However, the complex demographic arena of early modern America, so different from the late medieval Iberia that gave rise to the discourse, necessarily destabilized and complicated limpieza’s meanings and modes of expression. This article explores a variety of ways by which indigenous elites in late colonial Mexico sought to take advantage of these ambiguities and describe themselves as “pure-blooded,” thereby reframing their local authority in terms recognized and respected by Spanish authorities. Specifically, savvy native lords naturalized the concept by portraying their own ancestors as the originators of “pure” bloodlines in America. In doing so, they reoriented the imagined metrics of purity so as to distinguish themselves from native commoners, mestizos, and the descendants of Africans. However, applying limpieza in native communities could backfire: after two centuries of extensive race mixing, many native lords found themselves vulnerable to accusations of uncleanliness and ancestral shame. Yet successful or not, indigenous participation in the discourse of limpieza helped influence what it meant in New Spain to be “honorable” and “pure,” and therefore eligible for social mobility.

scholarly journals Shifting the Frontiers of Early Modern Science: Astronomers, Botanists, and Engineers in Viceregal New Spain during the Habsburg Era, 1535-1700

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nancy Marquez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
History Of

<p>This doctoral thesis offers a big-picture view of the material and cultural history of science in colonial Latin America. It argues that science in the Viceroyalty of New Spain can be best understood not as isolated from centres of European culture, but rather as a productive extension of Old World and Indigenous techniques for observing and quantifying nature. Moreover, it also shows that Mexico City quickly became a central node in the production and funding of science within the Spanish Empire, rather than being peripheral to early modern scientific discourse. It examines the nerve centre of Spain’s overseas territories, the viceregal capital of New Spain, as a hub not only of funding but also of vibrant activity for Spanish and Novohispanic science from 1535 to 1700.  Current historians of Spanish and Spanish-colonial science have demonstrated that, in contrast with depictions in older histories of early modern science, Spain was an active producer of technologies of discovery and natural resource extraction as well as works on theoretical and applied mathematics. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Crown and other private corporate bodies—including the religious orders—supported the production of new forms of knowledge. I will refer to these throughout as “science” and to its practitioners as “scientists.”  Scientists who feature prominently in this thesis set precedents for later scientific endeavours in Latin America and Europe. Sixteenth-century botanist Francisco Hernández, cartographer Francisco Domínguez y Ocampo, and astronomer Jaime Juan established some of the first large-scale observations and records of an expansive New Spain. In the following years a diverse set of seventeenth-century hydraulic engineers fielded a variety of solutions to a complex set of topographical and political issues in the viceregal capital. At the same time, a lively group of astronomer-mathematicians contributed to an increasingly global network of scientific discourse.  Many of these scientists and intellectuals owned notable personal libraries. This thesis examines the implications of mobile books—locally-produced as well as European—as they contributed to the production of new knowledge in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Powerful Spanish and criolla women patronized or supported the promulgation of scientific writings in New Spain. Additionally, indigenous authors disseminated the concepts of early modern science to their readers within colonial-era Nahua chronicles. Hobbyists also interacted with professional and well-known scientific thinkers at local discussion clubs or via correspondence and improvised their own instruments based on available texts. Local book printers and authors of popular early modern science works are also included in this investigation as they played key roles within the social networks of science.  This thesis relies on archival manuscript sources while synthesizing the rigorous scholarship of many specialists in order to tell the story of how a major sixteenth-century Spanish colonial city possessed the resources to engage in a variety of early modern scientific undertakings. It re-examines documents concerning the history of science in New Spain in order to ask new questions about the role of scientists’ instruments, personal book collections, and correspondence with colleagues abroad upon the influence of their professional writings. By assembling a selection of key case studies, the thesis shows that sixteenth-century royal investments in scientific institutions on the Iberian Peninsula bore fruit in New Spain during the late 1500s and the 1600s as diverse communities of scientists flourished in Mexico City and its seaports. In sum, this is a study of the movement of early modern scientists, their tools and ideas as well as the concentration of these resources in the geographical and cultural surroundings of New Spain.</p>

scholarly journals La globalización hispana del comercio y el arte en la Edad Moderna

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Dobado González
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Main Protagonist ◽  
Modern Era

This article shows some important aspects of a worldwide, historical phenomenon: the globalization of commerce and art which started in the second half of the sixteenth century and had the American, Asian and European territories of the Hispanic Monarchy as main protagonist during the Early Modern Era. The international exchanges -basically, American silver in return for more or less luxurious goods from Asia- that followed the discovery by Urdaneta, in 1565, of the “tornaviaje” between Manila and Acapulco had a profound influence on the forms of production and consumption in both the Old World and the New. Spanish economists and economic historians have probably underscored the historical significance of these unprecedented interactions. The central role played by the Viceroyalty of New Spain in this globalization has perhaps not been properly valued either.

scholarly journals Shifting the Frontiers of Early Modern Science: Astronomers, Botanists, and Engineers in Viceregal New Spain during the Habsburg Era, 1535-1700

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nancy Marquez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
History Of

<p>This doctoral thesis offers a big-picture view of the material and cultural history of science in colonial Latin America. It argues that science in the Viceroyalty of New Spain can be best understood not as isolated from centres of European culture, but rather as a productive extension of Old World and Indigenous techniques for observing and quantifying nature. Moreover, it also shows that Mexico City quickly became a central node in the production and funding of science within the Spanish Empire, rather than being peripheral to early modern scientific discourse. It examines the nerve centre of Spain’s overseas territories, the viceregal capital of New Spain, as a hub not only of funding but also of vibrant activity for Spanish and Novohispanic science from 1535 to 1700.  Current historians of Spanish and Spanish-colonial science have demonstrated that, in contrast with depictions in older histories of early modern science, Spain was an active producer of technologies of discovery and natural resource extraction as well as works on theoretical and applied mathematics. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish Crown and other private corporate bodies—including the religious orders—supported the production of new forms of knowledge. I will refer to these throughout as “science” and to its practitioners as “scientists.”  Scientists who feature prominently in this thesis set precedents for later scientific endeavours in Latin America and Europe. Sixteenth-century botanist Francisco Hernández, cartographer Francisco Domínguez y Ocampo, and astronomer Jaime Juan established some of the first large-scale observations and records of an expansive New Spain. In the following years a diverse set of seventeenth-century hydraulic engineers fielded a variety of solutions to a complex set of topographical and political issues in the viceregal capital. At the same time, a lively group of astronomer-mathematicians contributed to an increasingly global network of scientific discourse.  Many of these scientists and intellectuals owned notable personal libraries. This thesis examines the implications of mobile books—locally-produced as well as European—as they contributed to the production of new knowledge in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Powerful Spanish and criolla women patronized or supported the promulgation of scientific writings in New Spain. Additionally, indigenous authors disseminated the concepts of early modern science to their readers within colonial-era Nahua chronicles. Hobbyists also interacted with professional and well-known scientific thinkers at local discussion clubs or via correspondence and improvised their own instruments based on available texts. Local book printers and authors of popular early modern science works are also included in this investigation as they played key roles within the social networks of science.  This thesis relies on archival manuscript sources while synthesizing the rigorous scholarship of many specialists in order to tell the story of how a major sixteenth-century Spanish colonial city possessed the resources to engage in a variety of early modern scientific undertakings. It re-examines documents concerning the history of science in New Spain in order to ask new questions about the role of scientists’ instruments, personal book collections, and correspondence with colleagues abroad upon the influence of their professional writings. By assembling a selection of key case studies, the thesis shows that sixteenth-century royal investments in scientific institutions on the Iberian Peninsula bore fruit in New Spain during the late 1500s and the 1600s as diverse communities of scientists flourished in Mexico City and its seaports. In sum, this is a study of the movement of early modern scientists, their tools and ideas as well as the concentration of these resources in the geographical and cultural surroundings of New Spain.</p>

Empathy, Patients’ Needs, and Therapeutic Innovation in the Medical Literature of Early Viceregal Mexico

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-116
Author(s):  
Yarí Pérez Marín
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
The Body ◽  
Local Source ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Scientific Debates

Agustín Farfán’s Tractado breve de anothomia y chirvgia (1579) stands out as one of the most widely read medical texts of sixteenth-century colonial Mexico, printed more times than any other local source on health and the body during the period. Despite its popularity then, it has not received as much attention from scholars as projects by other medical authors of the colonial era who either wrote before Farfán did, or were better positioned in European circles, or whose work is seen as having tapped into cutting-edge scientific debates. This chapter proposes a new entry point into the Tractado, highlighting its singular connection with the readers of New Spain, and taking as a point of departure the revisions between the first and second editions: a series of context-driven changes that reveal shifting attitudes toward patients’ needs and indigenous medical knowledge.

Producing Idols

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-47
Author(s):  
Byron Ellsworth Hamann
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Mistaken Identity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mesoamerican Languages

Idolatry is an accusation. Derived from ancient Greek terms for the veneration (latreia) of images (eidola), idolatry provides a framework for exploring the connections and confusions of the early modern Mediterratlantic world, where false images seemed to be everywhere. This essay surveys the social lives of idols in sixteenth-century New Spain, focusing on their destruction, creation, excavation, and commodification. Significantly, all four actions were performed by Europeans and Native Americans alike: the treatment of idols in New Spain cannot be neatly divided into Mesoamerican versus Mediterranean strategies. Understanding these shared practices requires contextualizing them in pre-Hispanic and medieval histories, as well as in Europe’s Renaissance present. But of course shared actions may conceal radically different meanings, and the essay’s final section considers how the Castilian term ídolo was translated into different Mesoamerican languages. The ancient category of the idol, imported to the Americas, was remade into something new. Connecting dictionary entries to military and missionary reports to the archives of the Inquisition, the production of idols in early modern New Spain provides an unexpected context for revisiting the classic concerns—and still generative possibilities—of James Lockhart’s concept of Double Mistaken Identity. RESUMEN La idolatría es una acusación. Derivada de los términos del griego antiguo utilizados para la veneración (latreia) de las imágenes (eidola), la idolatría brinda un marco para explorar las conexiones y confusiones del mundo Mediterratlántico de la temprana modernidad, donde las falsas imágenes parecían estar en todas partes. Este ensayo analiza la vida social de los ídolos en la Nueva España del siglo XVI, centrándose en su destrucción, creación, excavación y mercantilización. Es importante señalar que tanto los europeos como los indígenas americanos participaron en estos actos: el tratamiento de los ídolos en Nueva España no se puede dividir claramente en estrategias mesoamericanas versus mediterráneas. La comprensión de estas prácticas compartidas exige contextualizarlas en las historias prehispánicas y medievales, así como en el presente del Renacimiento europeo. No obstante, no cabe duda de que las acciones compartidas pueden ocultar significados radicalmente diferentes, y la sección final del ensayo considera cómo se tradujo el término castellano ídolo a diversos idiomas mesoamericanos. La antigua categoría del ídolo fue transformada al ser importada a las Américas. Al conectar las entradas del diccionario con los informes militares y misioneros a los archivos de la Inquisición, la producción de ídolos en la Nueva España de la temprana modernidad proporciona un contexto inesperado para revisar las preocupaciones clásicas, y las continuas posibilidades, del concepto de Doble Identidad Equivocada de James Lockhart. RESUMO Idolatria é uma acusação. Palavra derivada do termo do grego antigo para veneração (latreia) de imagens (eidola), a idolatria provém um enquadramento para explorar as conexões e confusões do mundo Mediterratlântico no início da era moderna, onde as imagens falsas pareciam estar em toda parte. Esse ensaio examina a vida social dos ídolos na Nova Espanha do século XVI, concentrando-se em sua destruição, criação, escavação e mercantilização. Significantemente, todas as quatro ações foram performadas tanto por europeus quanto por nativos-americanos: o tratamento de ídolos na Nova Espanha não pode ser claramente dividido em estratégias mesoamericanas versus mediterrâneas. Compreender essas práticas compartilhadas requer sua contextualização em histórias pré-hispânicas e medievais, bem como no presente da Renascença na Europa. Entretanto, é claro que ações compartilhadas podem esconder significados radicalmente diferentes, e a seção final do ensaio considera como o termo castelhano ídolo foi traduzido em diferentes línguas mesoamericanas. A categoria antiga do ídolo, importada para as Américas, foi transformada em algo novo. Conectando verbetes de dicionários a relatórios militares e missionários a arquivos da inquisição, a produção de ídolos no início da era moderna na Nova Espanha provém um contexto inesperado para revisitar preocupações clássicas – e ainda as possibilidades geradoras – do conceito de Identidade Duplamente Equivocada de James Lockhart.

scholarly journals Teaching Tepahtia

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-104
Author(s):  
Mackenzie Cooley
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Medicinal Plants ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
New Spain ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Gain Access

This pedagogical article discusses sources and methods for teaching the history of imperial science and medicine in the Nahua world from 1400 to 1600, a period that ranges from the spectacular growth of the Aztec Empire through the conquest to the creation of New Spain. By providing students tools to explore non-European ontologies and world-building, this article presents several exercises in which students act as archival researchers and themselves puzzle out the complexities of information transfer in the archive of sixteenth-century Latin America. Combining European paleography workshops, linguistic tools pioneered by the IDIEZ Nahuatl program, the study of Mesoamerican archeological objects, and an engagement with Mexican medicinal plants to recreate early modern remedies, students gain access to a world of New Spanish knowledge-creation.

Converting the Pacific

2019 ◽  
pp. 788-816
Author(s):  
Brandon Bayne
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New Spain ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Strong Ties ◽  
Competition And Cooperation ◽  
Modern Enterprise ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Religious Devotion

As an early modern enterprise, the Society of Jesus established networks that relayed information from far-flung missionaries back to superiors in metropolitan centers. At the same time, Jesuits linked to colleagues serving in other locales by sharing letters, maps, and devotional objects that helped forge a worldwide, imagined community. Through these informal means, Jesuits in New Spain developed particularly strong ties to Asia as the colonization of the Philippines and establishment of the Manila Galleons turned their viceroyalty into a transpacific contact zone. Beginning with a sixteenth-century debate over forceful conversion, this chapter traces confrontations and comparisons engendered by this communication. It tracks religious devotion to Japanese martyrs in the Americas to better understand the function of hagiography in colonial contexts. Martyrs also factored into transpacific competition and cooperation, leading Jesuits in Mexico, China, and Spain to connect their personal sacrifices to the larger effort to convert the Pacific.

The Codex Mexicanus: Time, Religion, History, and Health in Sixteenth-Century New Spain

2016 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Boornazian Diel
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
New Spain ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
New Name ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Aztec Empire ◽  
Conquest Of Mexico

About 60 years after the Spanish invasion and conquest of Mexico, a group of Nahua intellectuals gathered in Tenochtitlan. On the very site of the heart of the Aztec empire stood a city of a new name: Mexico City, capital of New Spain. There the Nahuas set about compiling an extensive book of miscellanea, now known as the Codex Mexicanus. Owned by the Bibliothèque National de France, the codex includes records pertaining to the Christian and Aztec calendars, European medical astrology, a genealogy of the Tenochca royal house, and the annals of preconquest and early colonial Mexico City, among other intriguing topics.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 143-146
Author(s):  
Yarí Pérez Marín
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Medical Books

This section briefly discusses the place of sixteenth century print medical texts written by authors who resided in colonial Mexico within the larger context of the study of Latin American letters. It stresses the need to maintain a distinction between presence and influence when assessing the significance of their texts within larger cultural traditions, both in the context of colonial writing and as outputs conditioned by the logic of scientific progress moving into the seventeenth century, which saw some of the most widely disseminated sources of the previous era slip into obscurity as new medical findings superseded earlier formulations. The conclusion remarks on the important role played by this group of radicado figures who authored the print medical books of early modern Mexico, considering how they articulated intellectual positions that both anticipated and differed from later criollo responses to colonial mechanisms for marginalisation and exclusion.

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