scholarly journals Oath Ceremonies in Spain and New Spain in the 18th Century: A Comparative Study of Rituals and Iconography

2017 ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
Inmaculada Rodríguez Moya
Author(s):  
Nicole von Germeten

Female occupational and economic choices help clarify understandings of colonial historic agency, especially in the lives of Mexican women who made their income as alcahuetas or “bawds.” These women hosted and managed other women in the marketing and selling of sex acts in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Viceregal bawds manipulated both the sex lives of their clients and the paternalism of crown justice in hopes of exoneration in court. They walked a precarious legal tightrope, negotiating the fluctuating margins of legal procuring and the transition to more stringent laws against sex for sale. The examples presented here, drawn from contemporary archival documents, show that these women’s lives span most of New Spain’s history, ranging from 1570 to the independence era in the early 19th century. In the 16th century, bawdry resembled the clandestine personal mediation that was common and familiar in medieval and early modern Spain. Bawds working in the 1st century of Spanish rule in Mexico carefully defended their social respectability to contradict evidence that they solicited for clients in the street. Reputable hospitality featured prominently in the early 17th-century procuring, while indigenous-influenced sorcery and love magic dominated the understanding of 17th- and early 18th-century alcahuetas. Lastly, in the 19th century, profitable market exchange characterized professional brothel operations, granting bawds honorable status within their economic and occupational community. Bawds recorded in the archives demonstrate communication skills, entrepreneurialism, and a concern for reputation through all of these eras. These intelligent female survivors offer compelling representations of viceregal women who exercised their personal agency to forge their own economic prosperity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 175-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorina Claudia Samoilescu ◽  
Octavian G. Duliu ◽  
Maria M. Manea ◽  
Daniela Stan ◽  
Bogdan Constantinescu

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-241
Author(s):  
Victor Oijagbe Ogbeide

This paper is a comparative study of incarceration in two African novels. The concept of the modern prison as a form of deterrence and rehabilitation can be traced to 18th century Europe. With the passage of time however, many authoritarian leaders have come to regard prison houses as veritable places to forcibly confine their political opponents in their bid to desperately remove them from the socio-political space. Apart from a few criminals in the two novels many of the prisoners are prisoners of conscience. Ironically, as observed in the two works, while the unforgiving circumstance in the prison and the brutality of the prison guards have conspired to deepen the depravity of the criminal elements in the prison, the political prisoners have become even tougher in their conviction to fight the evil regimes that confine them there. The paper contends that rehabilitation and deterrence can hardly take place for the genuine criminals in the two novels because these items  seem to have vanished from the administrative guidelines of the prison officials. The way forward therefore, the paper concludes, lies in good governance which will not only prevent the need for political repression or imprisonment but also see prison as a genuine instrument of reform.


Tlalocan ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 287-342
Author(s):  
Hans Roskamp ◽  
Cristina Monzón

Primordial titles form an important category in the extensive corpus of native documents from 17th and 18th century New Spain. Generally made by local scribes (carariecha) or regional specialists who combined information from older documents and oral tradition, they emphasize the foundation of the villages and the boundaries of their lands. These local histories were —and often still are— used whenever the territorial integrity of the community was threatened by their neighbors. The present article includes the transcription, translation and analysis of a primordial title written in the Tarascan or P’urhépecha language. The document, now kept in the National Library of Anthropology and History (BNAH) in Mexico City, originally comes from Tócuaro, a small village on the southern shores of Lake Pátzcuaro in Michoacán.


Author(s):  
Rafal B. Reichert

En el presente artículo se muestran los avances de una investigación sobre la política de suministros forestales que desarrolló la Marina Real de España a lo largo del siglo XVIII con el fin de demostrar su importancia ante la rivalidad que existía entre las potencias marítimas europeas por el dominio sobre los mares del mundo. Se propone un análisis del sistema de aprovisionamiento para los departamentos navales, en especial en relación con los proyectos de utilización de maderas novohispanas y bálticas en la construcción naval, y su valoración por los oficiales hispanos. Por otra parte, se presenta la dinámica de otorgamiento de los asientos de madera a los criollos novohispanos y, finalmente, se estudia el movimiento marítimo entre el Báltico sur y España para demostrar la valiosa participación de esta región en el sistema de pertrechos navales. A partir de lo anterior se ofrece una visión general del comercio global de suministros forestales de España, que perseguía la recuperación de su poderío naval.AbstractThe present article shows the progress of the research about the policy of forestry supplies, developed during the 18th century by the Royal Navy of Spain, in order to demonstrate its importance in the rivalry between the European maritime powers by the dominion over the seas of the World. For this reason, it is proposed to analyze different aspects of the provision system for the naval departments, with an approach to the projects of use the New Spain and Baltic wood in shipbuilding, and its recognition by the Hispanic officials. On the other side, it is presented the dynamics of granting to New Spain Creoles with wooden contracts and finally is studied the maritime movement between the southern Baltic and Spain to demonstrate their valuable participation in the naval supplies system. All these aspects demonstrate a general panorama of the globalization of forest supplies with only one purpose: the recovery of Spanish naval power.   


Author(s):  
Guillermina del Valle Pavón

In New Spain, cocoa was a staple food whose high demand at the beginning of the 17th century meant that cocoa beans were imported from Guatemala, Venezuela, and Guayaquil. The viceroyalty of New Spain became the largest world buyer of cocoa because it paid for the product with silver, which was the principal means of exchange at the time. The cocoa trade was monopolized by a small, powerful group of the Consulado (merchants’ guild) of Mexico City who contracted it, redistributed it to the rest of the viceroyalty, and shipped it to Spain. However, the Spanish Crown’s prohibitionist trade policy hindered the expansion of the cocoa trade to meet the demand in New Spain. As Spain intermittently suspended sailing between the viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru, the supply of Guayaquil cocoa was limited to shippers who could obtain special licenses and those who smuggled it. When the monarchy required extraordinary funds to finance its wars in Europe, it granted permits to move Ecuadorian cocoa through the Pacific routes. However, it preferred the supply of cocoa from Caracas for geostrategic reasons, a factor that was used by Caracas shippers to raise prices. Mexican merchants preferred to import Ecuadorian cocoa because of its higher profitability. Trade in cocoa from this source was based on a confluence of complex kinship, community, and friendship networks. Finally, in 1789, the Guayaquil cocoa trade was authorized without restrictions, which significantly reduced the demand for Caracas cocoa. In addition, cocoa from Tabasco, Guatemala, and Maracaibo was traded in New Spain. The relationship between the Crown and the commercial elite of Mexico was characterized by a policy of continual ongoing negotiations. The cocoa trade was privileged in exchange for merchants’ contributions over and above regular fiscal payments.


Author(s):  
Eloy Cruz

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition of Mexico City was in between 1569 and 1820. Its task was to regulate the moral life of the society of New Spain and it was authorized to punish offenders. The crimes that were usually persecuted were acts against the Catholic faith (heresy, blasphemy, sorcery, and idolatry) or against accepted morality (indecency, bigamy, sexual harassment, homosexuality, and sedition). The Court placed limited attention to the sones de la tierra (sounds of the land) from 1766 to 1819. The sones were sung dances that were eventually considered unsuitable and were denounced for various reasons: the lyrics of the songs contained vulgar words or heretical or blasphemous concepts, the steps of dances were indecent, the choreography implied actions that parodied known acts of the Christian liturgy, or by some combination of these factors. The archive of the Inquisition of Mexico is practically the only source of information on music and street poetry in the cities and towns of the colony. The sones de la tierra are the origin of the current cultural music genre called son mexicano, the most significant part of the traditional music and poetry of the country. The sones de la tierra of the Baroque period and the current Mexican sones have three basic elements: music, poetry, and choreography. The music is based on recurrent rhythmic-harmonic patterns (ostinato) on which instrumental or vocal improvisations are made. Each determined pattern generates a son with a specific name. Thus, it is possible to speak of sones typical of the Baroque period (chacona, zarabanda, chuchumbé, and saraguandingo) or in present-day Mexico (bamba, maracumbé, petenera, and oaxacado). Some can be documented both in the 18th century and in the 21st century (matachines, fandango, panaderos, and zacamandú). The poetry of the sones is based on the active principle of the copla, a poetic form based on the octosyllabic quatrain in various modalities (seguidilla and décima). The current Mexican variants are directly related to the Spanish poetry of the Golden Age. The dance of the sones is performed mainly in couples who dance without having physical contact, using different steps whose main characteristic is the zapateado. The archive of the Inquisition of Mexico mentions some sixty sones. The complaints and interrogations of the Court provide information about the sung lyrics, the ways of dancing, the people who practiced them, their geographical distribution, and some social attitudes regarding their use. This information shows that the sones de la tierra were common throughout the territory of New Spain and were practiced by people of almost all social classes. The study of the sones de la tierra allows us to understand the existence and behavior of the different variants of the Mexican sones of today, which represent one of the fundamental elements of Mexican culture.


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