Women in early 18th century Spanish Colonial New Mexico had rights and privileges under Spanish law that were not enjoyed by other women in North America until the late 19th and early 20th century. Women were considered separate entities under the law and valuable members of Spanish society. As such, they could own property, inherit in their own name, and act as court witnesses. In particular they could make accusations and denunciations to the local alcalde mayor and governor, which they frequently did. The documents in this book show that Spanish Colonial women were aware of their rights and took advantage of them to assert themselves in the struggling communities of the New Mexican frontier. In the documents, the women are shown making complaints of theft, physical and verbal abuse by their husbands or other women, and of non-payment of dowries or other inheritance. Other documents are included showing men accusing women of misrepresenting property ownership and dowry payments and of adultery and slander. Spain was a legalistic society and both women and men used the courts to settle even minor matters. Because the court proceedings were written down by a scribe and stored in the archives, many documents still exist. From these, thirty-one have been selected allowing us to hear the words of some outspoken Spanish women and the sometimes angry men, speaking their minds in court about their spouses, lovers of their spouses, children, and relatives, as well as their land, livestock and expected inheritance. The documents translated into English in this book are a small number of the existing documents held in Santa Fe at the Spanish Archives of New Mexico, at the Bancroft Library at University of California, the Archivo General de la Nacion in Mexico City, and elsewhere. A synopsis, editor’s notes, maps, and biographical notes are provided. The material can be considered a companion, in part, to Ralph Emerson Twitchell’s 1914 two volumes, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, available in new editions from Sunstone Press. Sunstone Press has also published a Spanish/English edition both in both hardcover and softcover.

Women in early 18th century Spanish Colonial New Mexico had rights and privileges under Spanish law that were not enjoyed by other women in North America until the late 19th and early 20th century. Women were considered separate entities under the law and valuable members of Spanish society. As such, they could own property, inherit in their own name, and act as court witnesses. In particular they could make accusations and denunciations to the local alcalde mayor and governor, which they frequently did. The documents in this book show that Spanish Colonial women were aware of their rights and took advantage of them to assert themselves in the struggling communities of the New Mexican frontier. In the documents, the women are shown making complaints of theft, physical and verbal abuse by their husbands or other women, and of non-payment of dowries or other inheritance. Other documents are included showing men accusing women of misrepresenting property ownership and dowry payments and of adultery and slander. Spain was a legalistic society and both women and men used the courts to settle even minor matters. Because the court proceedings were written down by a scribe and stored in the archives, many documents still exist. From these, thirty-one have been selected allowing us to hear the words of some outspoken Spanish women and the sometimes angry men, speaking their minds in court about their spouses, lovers of their spouses, children, and relatives, as well as their land, livestock and expected inheritance. The documents transcribed and translated in this book are a small number of the existing documents held in Santa Fe at the Spanish Archives of New Mexico, at the Bancroft Library at University of California, the Archivo General de la Nacion in Mexico City, and elsewhere. A synopsis, editor’s notes, maps, and biographical notes are provided. The material can be considered a companion, in part, to Ralph Emerson Twitchell’s 1914 two volumes, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, available in new editions from Sunstone Press. *** “This is an important work from Linda Tigges and Richard Salazar dealing with early eighteenth century women and the law. However their court cases were decided, these Spanish Colonial women were successful in the legacy they left for future generations. If you are a twelfth generation New Mexican or a newcomer, you will find this work priceless.” —Henrietta Martinez Christmas

"This outstanding collection makes available for the first time a remarkable range of primary sources that will enrich courses on women as well as Latin American history more broadly. Within these pages are captivating stories of enslaved African and indigenous women who protest abuse; of women who defend themselves from charges of witchcraft, cross-dressing, and infanticide; of women who travel throughout the empire or are left behind by the men in their lives; and of women’s strategies for making a living in a world of cross-cultural exchanges. Jaffary and Mangan's excellent Introduction and annotations provide context and guide readers to think critically about crucial issues related to the intersections of gender with conquest, religion, work, family, and the law." —Sarah Chambers, University of Minnesota

Emancipatory Narratives & Enslaved Motherhood examines three major currents in the historiography of Brazilian slavery: manumission, miscegenation, and creolisation. It revisits themes central to the history of slavery and race relations in Brazil, updates the research about them, and revises interpretations of the role of gender and reproduction within them. First, about the preponderance of women and children in manumission; second, about the association of black female mobility with intimate inter-racial relations; third, about the racialised and gendered routes to freed status; and fourth, about the legacies of West African female socio-economic behaviours for modalities of family and freedom in nineteenth-century Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. The central concern within the book is how African and African descendant women navigated enslaved motherhood and negotiated the divide between enslavement and freedom for themselves and their children. The book is, therefore, organised around the subject position of the enslaved mother and the reproduction of her children in enslavement, while the condition of enslaved motherhood is examined through overlapping historical praxis evidenced in nineteenth-century Bahia: contested freedom, racialised mothering, and competing maternal interests - biological, ritual, surrogate. The point at which these interests converged historically was, it is argued, a conflict over black female reproductive rights.

DIVEssays in collection argue that Latin American legal institutions were both mechanisms of social control and unique arenas for ordinary people to contest government policies and resist exploitation./div

In Sins against Nature Zeb Tortorici explores the prosecution of sex acts in colonial New Spain (present-day Mexico, Guatemala, the US Southwest, and the Philippines) to examine the multiple ways bodies and desires come to be textually recorded and archived. Drawing on the records from over three hundred criminal and Inquisition cases between 1530 and 1821, Tortorici shows how the secular and ecclesiastical courts deployed the term contra natura—against nature—to try those accused of sodomy, bestiality, masturbation, erotic religious visions, priestly solicitation of sex during confession, and other forms of "unnatural" sex. Archival traces of the visceral reactions of witnesses, the accused, colonial authorities, notaries, translators, and others in these records demonstrate the primacy of affect and its importance to the Spanish documentation and regulation of these sins against nature. In foregrounding the logic that dictated which crimes were recorded and how they are mediated through the colonial archive, Tortorici recasts Iberian Atlantic history through the prism of the unnatural while showing how archives destabilize the bodies, desires, and social categories on which the history of sexuality is based.