The Human Tradition in Colonial Latin America (review)

As teachers of Colonial Latin American History, we are forced to cover a very long time period and a vast geographical expanse. One consequence of this daunting task is that we rely heavily on broad historical sweep, examining the evolution of institutions or the shift in social and cultural practices. Sometimes lost to students are the ways in which these processes affected real individuals and how such people shaped these very developments. Kenneth Andrien's edited volume provides teachers and students with a highly useful tool to overcome some of these limitations.

This book, the fifth volume in Scholarly Resources' growing series entitled The Human Tradition Around the World, brings together seventeen essays that explore the lives of both ordinary and extraordinary individuals who lived in Spain's and Portugal's American territories.

Part I examines the period of conquest through 1610. Matthew Restall discusses the bilingual Gaspar Antonio Chi who learned to write and became an important ally in the Spanish efforts to subjugate the Maya. His mastery of language and his role as a trusted scribe, however, also enabled Chi to struggle on behalf of his people against certain colonial demands. Susan Ramírez presents Don Melchior Caruarayco, a Kuraka of Cajamarca, who is forced to balance the considerable demands placed on him by both his community members and his Spanish overlords. Ana María Presta relates the remarkable story of doña Isabel Sisa who used the Spanish legal system to try to assert her rights to property as dictated by traditional Andean inheritance practices. Sisa's legal struggles reveal the way in which the Spanish conquest altered traditional gender roles. Alida Metcalf discusses the life of a Brazilian slaver who moved freely between the cultures of Portuguese and indigenous Brazil. Noble David Cook tells of "the Mysterious Catalina," a servant whose uncertain ethnicity threw into question her rightful place in society.

Part II examines the "mature colonial order." Nancy van Deusen writes of Ursula de Jesús, an enslaved servant who works in a convent, becomes a famous mystic, wins her freedom, but is still limited by her calidad. Mary Karasch relates the fascinating story of Zumbi of Palmares who is raised by a Catholic priest but flees to the Quilombo of Palmares where he becomes "Great Chief." Kenneth Mills introduces Diego de Ocaña a Jeronymite missionary in Peru who despite great piety displays human weaknesses. The well known life of Guaman Poma is highlighted by Rolena Adorno. Grant Jones recounts the story of AhChan an Itza Maya nobleman who converted to Christianity but later resisted Spanish attempts to subdue his peoples' remote and long independent kingdom.

Part III explores late colonial challenges to Spanish rule. Ann Twinam elucidates the centrality and limits of race in structuring colonial society in her discussion of the attempts of Pedro de Ayarza, a well-to-do pardo merchant of Cartagena, to purchase whiteness for himself and his two sons through the colonial process known as gracias al sacar. From Victorina Loza, a widowed Quiteña merchant introduced by Christiana Borchart de Morena, the reader learns both of the opportunities afforded to widows as well as the commercial limits placed on all women in a patriarchal society. The sexual life of José Antonio da Silva, a prominent Paulista, allows Muriel Nazzari to show how marriage served to reinforce the dominance of colonial Brazil's white settlers but also how concubinage permitted the social mobility of women of lower social status. The experiences of a Kuraka who remained loyal to the Crown during the Tupac Amaru movement permits Ward Stavig to comment on the complexities of local politics in the late colonial Andes. Lyman Johnson's discussion of a remarkably liberal thinking merchant in 1795 Buenos Aires reveals the perceived threat to the colonial order posed by the messages of Liberty emanating from the French Revolution. The...