Religion in New Spain (review)

104Southwestern Historical QuarterlyJuly nizations (such as the Deacons for Defense in Louisiana and Mississippi) directly drew their inspiration from Garvey's UNIA. Grassroots Garveyism marks a serious and important new direction in UNIA scholarship and in the broader field of African-American history. Collin County Community CollegeMichael Phillips Religion in New Spain. Edited by Susan Schroeder and Stafford Poole. (Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2007. Pp. 368. Illustrations, notes, index. ISBN 9780826339782. $39.95, cloth.) Susan Schroeder and Stafford Poole bring together in one volume the scholarship of the first France Vinton Scholes Conference on Latin American Colonial History, held in 2000 at Tulane University. This anthology presents a wonderful diversity of themes that reveal the rich religious traditions of New Spain. More than this, however, the essays showcase some very compelling and recent social history, which adds to our understanding of many facets of life in New Spain, going well beyond the practice of faith. The editors' short introductory essay provides a useful framework for the volume as a whole, which the editors have organized into seven sections: Encounters, Accommodation, and Outright Idolatry; Native Sexuality and Christian Morality; Believing in Miracles; Taking the Veil and New Realities; The Holy Office of the Inquisition; Music and Martyrdom on the Northern Frontier; Tangential Christianity on Other Frontiers. Each of these begins with a brief but useful introduction that offers some context for the two or three articles in that section. As the section titles suggest, an impressive range of topics finds expression here. Lisa Sousa, for example, writes about Nahua nuptials in central Mexico while Martha Few traces accounts of children's miraculous healing as far south as modern Guatemala. Maria Elena Martinez examines the process by which colonial subjects might prove their purity of blood, including as an appendix a questionnaire that Mexican Inquisitors employed in their investigations. Solicitation in Yucatecan confessionals forms the basis ofJohn Chuchiak's contribution, which considers the differences between Mayan and Catholic sexuality and morality. Music, gambling, female visionaries, and the Guadalupe cult represent just a sampling of subjects that other chapters explore. Because they originated as conference papers, these chapters are considerably shorter than those one normally finds in an anthology. This brevity makes the essays ideal for classroom use but also poses a problem in the few cases where an author, seeking to be succinct, glosses over her or his conclusions rather than forsake an example or two in favor of more analysis. The temptation is understandable, however, given the lively character of many of the anecdotes and personalities that infuse diis collection. Despite the book's impressive geographic diversity (it covers Mexico City, Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Yucatan, Chiapas), the beliefs and practices of New Spain's northern-most residents (frontier areas including Texas and New Mexico) are 2??8Book Reviews105 largely missing. Stanley Hordes's essay on New Mexico's crypto-Jewish population of course dedicates considerable attention to this area, but most other references to die region are only in passing, and the introductory essay represents a missed opportunity to reflect on this gap. The book's misleading map of New Spain contributes to this oversight, showing as it does the modern U.S. border with Mexico—and in the Soudi, the modern borders with Guatemala and Belize —as the boundaries of New Spain. Like these nations, New Mexico and Texas appear shaded so as to suggest their complete separation from New Spain; Florida and California are entirely absent. Still, this volume does a better job than many on New Spain in this respect as it devotes two sections to the frontier and includes perspectives from Baja California, Coahuila, and elsewhere. The strengths of diis fine volume, including its engaging scholarship, colorful stories, and topical breadth easily outweigh any minor shortcomings. Religion in New Spain represents a strong contribution to the field, with essays that are accessible , interesting, and wonderfully free ofjargon. Texas Woman's UniversityMartina Will de Chaparro African Creeks: Estelveste and the Creek Nation. By Gary Zellar. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. Pp. 368. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780806138152. $34.g5, cloth.) In the past decade, scholarship on southeastern Indians has increasingly focused on the question...