Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and Witches: Women and the Catholic Church in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments M y work on the history of women’s religious lives in colonial Brazil, first conceived as a series of independent research projects, has proceeded deliberatelyovera numberof years, and the support of grants, foundations, colleagues, and friends has finally made this book possible. My preliminary studies on women and Roman Catholicism could not have been completed without the generous funding by the Fulbright Senior Scholar Research Award that I received from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, American Republics Regional Research Program, for research in the libraries and archives in Brazil. Further support came from my Joyce Foundation leave, granted through IllinoisWesleyanUniversity, fora semester’s sabbatical to research concepts of gender and religious activities. Illinois Wesleyan University has supported my work in several important ways.The Faculty Development Committee Academic and Scholarly Development Grants funded my travel to Brazilian archives and my research on concubines, religious women, and late colonial magic, the rather divergent topics that have been brought together here. FDC Senior Faculty Development Awards and course releases sustained my more recent studies on the images of Amazons and Luso-Brazilian concepts of honor, and the thoughtful advice of Associate Dean Irv Epstein encouraged me through the process of rewriting the manuscript. I remain grateful for the research funding that I received through the McFee Endowed Professorship of Religion for completing this project. I wish to express my deep appreciation for the assistance from Brazilian librarians, archivists, and scholars whose guidance made my continuing research possible. At the Biblioteca Nacional, the library staff in the Seção de Manuscritos and in Obras Raras made my searches easier, and I { x } Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and Witches thank them for facilitating my use of the card and digitized catalogs and the still-unwieldy texts. Eliane Perez, in particular, helped me manage the microfilm copies and machines. Historian Luciano Raposa de A. Figueiredo generously shared his own work, and counseled me on the hidden gems in the Archivo Nacional. And before the Arquivo da Cúria at the Catedral Metropolitana de São Sebastião in Rio de Janeiro had completed its revised cataloguing, archivists Paulo Lavandeira Fernandes and Aloysio de Oliveira Martins Filho lent me their invaluable assistance in locating individual texts and boxes of documents that had been transferred from convents in Rio de Janeiro. I could not have overcome the challenges of this complex research without the help of many friends and colleagues along the way. Although I cannot name everyone who has assisted me with its many pieces, I would be remiss if I did not mention at least the most recent. Many thanks are due to the reviewers who offered sage advice for rewriting my manuscript and to University of Texas Press Editor Theresa May, who forwarded such encouraging notes, answered many and random questions, and arranged the final publication of this book. My colleagues at Illinois Wesleyan University have reviewed my work, encouraged myefforts, and responded generously to my requests for help. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Alison Sainsbury and April Schultz for their encouragement, and to Karen Schmidt for helpwith copies and permissions; in the Religion Department, I wish to thank Regina Linsalata for her helpwith editing and proofreading, and Tao Jin, Bob Erlewine, and my chair Kevin Sullivan for their unfailing support. My final thanks go to my husband, Ted McNair, who read nearly every draft, and to my daughter, Sonya Myscofski, whose sunny disposition cheered me even long-distance—thank you both for the gifts of love, time, and companionship on this journey. Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and Witches THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...