Nobles de papel. Identidades oscilantes y genealogías borrosas en los descendientes de la realeza inca by Rocío Quispe-Agnoli (review)

With a title allusive to the variety of legal papers and visual iconography that sanctioned nobility in the Spanish realms, Nobles de papel immerses the reader into the depths of language in archival documents. Based on a colonial case file extant in the Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Rocío Quispe-Agnoli sets out in search for the discursive underpinnings of ethnic identity construction both textually and in visual royal heraldry. The legal case in point confronted the self-proclaimed Inca noble woman Doña Maria Joaquina Uchu Túpac Yupanqui with the royal authorities of Mexico and Spain. The hope for recognition of her nobility and the attainment of the concomitant material and symbolic benefits brought Doña Joaquina to engage in a long legal battle, which eventually dragged between transatlantic courts from 1788-1801. In practice, however, the petition for nobility engaged a genealogical history and a tradition of petitioning for probanzas de nobleza (proof of noble merits) that lasted for about two hundred and fifty years.

The author dives into this 804-folio manuscript, catalogued in the AGI as "Mexico 2346" and referred to as Expediente in the book, in search for the rhetorical elements central to the "self definition" of the Uchu Túpac Yupanqui in "social, material, historical and genealogical terms" (23). Quispe-Agnoli disclaims that hers is not a historical study but a discursive and interdisciplinary one (41–42), with a focus on identity construction and gender. The book elaborates on the contending forces against and in favor of the plaintiff's interest and synthesizes the identity markers in the legal texts in four interwoven categories: place of origin, family, socioeconomic status, and genealogy and caste. These categories constitute the organizing themes for the book chapters as well.

The author suggests that the use of place identifiers (Cuzco, Lambayeque, and Spain) and identifiers of family, caste, and socioeconomic status ("doña," "vecina," "natural," and descendant of the Lambayeque mitimaes) was not always consistent in the Expediente. This was particularly the case when referring to different members of the Uchu Túpac Yupanqui lineage, which perhaps indicated internal differences in social positionality. Such constructions of nobility featured oscillations between the public legal and private discourses and between the above mentioned identifiers, as, for example, Doña Joaquina recurrently represented herself as a noble but poor and suffering woman, rhetorically seeking a favorable legal outcome.

Petitioning for privileges, even for ones that are not commonly regarded as ambitious—such as employment for her husband, a scholarship for her son, etc.—would redress her socially and economically, giving some materiality to her nobility. Doña Joaquina chose specific identifiers such as being an Inca noble, a lady, and a person of calidad (social worthiness). She also presented herself as Christian (thus possessing pureza de sangre), claimed to possess nobleza de sangre (Inca lineage), and claimed that her family had enjoyed limpieza de oficio (appointments in high offices). The crown, however, denied her pureza de sangre as an Inca noble, and questioned her calidad, associating her with indios del común (commoners) and perhaps even with plebeians. Although occasionally such elements opposed to each other, they were flexible.

Quispe-Agnoli qualifies the Inca lineage in question as "nobles de papel," subordinated subjects that engaged in a "guerra de decires" (a war of speeches) to resist and negotiate with the royal mediators "from outside the place of dominance." The Uchu Túpac Yupanqui accomplished this by redeploying the written legal devices and visual heraldry of the Spanish imperial culture that constituted pureza de sangre. That is, the royal decrees granting nobility status to other colonial Incas (reales cédulas de 1544, 1545, 1546, and 1617); the representations or memoriales they wrote petitioning for noble distinctions and benefits; and the painted iconography of coats of arms that the king previously granted to...