Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands

Book Description

This sweeping, richly evocative study examines the origins and legacies of a flourishing captive exchange economy within and among native American and Euramerican communities throughout the Southwest Borderlands from the Spanish colonial era to the end of the nineteenth century.

Indigenous and colonial traditions of capture, servitude, and kinship met and meshed in the borderlands, forming a "slave system" in which victims symbolized social wealth, performed services for their masters, and produced material goods under the threat of violence. Slave and livestock raiding and trading among Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, Navajos, Utes, and Spaniards provided labor resources, redistributed wealth, and fostered kin connections that integrated disparate and antagonistic groups even as these practices renewed cycles of violence and warfare.

Always attentive to the corrosive effects of the "slave trade" on Indian and colonial societies, the book also explores slavery's centrality in intercultural trade, alliances, and "communities of interest" among groups often antagonistic to Spanish, Mexican, and American modernizing strategies. The extension of the moral and military campaigns of the American Civil War to the Southwest in a regional "war against slavery" brought differing forms of social stability but cost local communities much of their economic vitality and cultural flexibility.

Customer Reviews:

Informative and thought-provoking.......2003-06-24

It would be foolish to give a book that won three prestigious professional awards (the Bancroft, Turner, and Parkman prizes) all in one year anything less than five stars, but the stars I have given this book can only hint at its remarkable contents. Captives and Cousins is based on prodigious research in original sources, and the research is wedded to a compelling and innovative analysis.
Brooks is not the first historian to show that the practice of taking captives and subjecting them to involuntary servitude was widespread in the American Southwest, but I don't think that anyone else has demonstrated so convincingly how deep and wide the cycle of capture and slavery was. Virtually all of the peoples who lived in and around New Mexico in the three centuries following the Spanish entrada (Native Americans and Europeans alike) took captives and engaged to one degree or another in the slave trade. Indians preyed on Spanish and Mexicans, and on themselves, and the Spanish and Mexicans returned the favor. To a degree, even Americans played a role in the trade after they became the controlling force in the region. They offered rewards for the return of captives and thus provided incentives for further captures. Brooks shows that the system of capture and slavery contributed in significant ways to the political, economic, and cultural development of the Southwest, providing a ready source of labor (and wives), knitting disparate peoples into webs of kinship (some biological, some adoptive, some deriving from Catholic godparenthood), helping to equalize wealth, and provoking endless cycles of revenge and retaliation. The system (a kind of "war of all against all") had its own logic, though the logic was crude and in many respects cruel.
Brooks does not saddle Europeans with all of the blame for the system. He makes it clear that capture and enslavement were practiced before the Spanish first arrived in the Southwest. But they participated in it and added refinements derived from their own Iberian traditions. In one sense, the book helps to challenge the myth of Indians as indigenous peoples "operating within subsistence-and-exchange economies that produced little intergroup conflict." Conflict there was, and in spades.
Brooks is an academic, and the book is addressed primarily to his fellow academics. General readers will find the text too dense for easy reading. I found some parts of the book slow going, but I persisted and, in the end, was glad I did. Captives and Cousins not only informed me; it made me think.

The Women of Colonial Latin America (New Approaches to the Americas)

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The Women of Colonial Latin America
Excelent
somewhat redundant
The Women of Colonial Latin America

The Women of Colonial Latin America (New Approaches to the Americas)
Susan Migden Socolow
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521476429

Book Description

This book presents an overview of the varied experiences of women in colonial Spanish and Portuguese America. Beginning with the cultures that would produce the Latin American world, the book traces the effects of conquest, colonization, and settlement on colonial women. The book also examines the expectations, responsibilities, and limitations facing women in their varied roles, stressing the ways in which race, social status, occupation, and space altered women's social and economic realities.

Customer Reviews:

The Women of Colonial Latin America .......2007-09-26

Excellent condition, barely any wear on cover of book, no bent pages, no writing in book

Excelent.......2007-01-12

It's a complete new perpective of the conquest and colonization. I read it for my history class and I loved it. It's an interesting reading.

somewhat redundant.......2002-07-16

The book was a very good collection of stories of the women of Colonial Latin America-but the stories were dull at times, and I just thought that there should have been more detail in regard to the actual women's lives.

The Women of Colonial Latin America.......2000-11-10

I'll be honest, and say that I had to get this books bcause of an assignement I was doing in school. The professor just asked me to write on a couple of chapters, kind of like a book review, but I was hooked! After I was done with the assignment I HAD to read the whole book, because It was really imformative, and interesting to read. I'm a history major, and as other historians know, the subject of women historically, has been in the dark since the beginning of time. Only recently have historians began to write about women. Socolow does a great job in her book, which focuses on women in Latin America She begins with the Spanish conquest of the New world and talks about the indigenous people before Columbus. Socolow includes the arrival of African women along with European ones. She goes on to talk about women, marriage, and family, the religious women and all about how the elite ones spent their time. Socolow touches on women and work and about slavery, and of course about their social deviance, like crime, withcraft and rebellions. It really is an outstanding book and I truly recommend it!

Women Who Live Evil Lives: Gender, Religion, and the Politics of Power in Colonial Guatemala, 1650-1750

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Women Who Live Evil Lives: Gender, Religion, and the Politics of Power in Colonial Guatemala, 1650-1750
Martha Few
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0292725493

Book Description

"This is a significant intellectual contribution that has the additional merit of being thoroughly readable and appealing to a broad [audience].... The case studies are riveting, detailed with intensely personal, often sexually and socially charged examples, and clearly integrated with Few's overarching theoretical and conceptual framework. This is wonderful historical ethnographic material."

—Grant D. Jones, author of The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom

Women Who Live Evil Lives documents the lives and practices of mixed-race, Black, Spanish, and Maya women sorcerers, spell-casters, magical healers, and midwives in the social relations of power in Santiago de Guatemala, the capital of colonial Central America. Men and women from all sectors of society consulted them to intervene in sexual and familial relations and disputes between neighbors and rival shop owners; to counter abusive colonial officials, employers, or husbands; and in cases of inexplicable illness.

Applying historical, anthropological, and gender studies analysis, Martha Few argues that women's local practices of magic, curing, and religion revealed opportunities for women's cultural authority and power in colonial Guatemala. Few draws on archival research conducted in Guatemala, Mexico, and Spain to shed new light on women's critical public roles in Santiago, the cultural and social connections between the capital city and the countryside, and the gender dynamics of power in the ethnic and cultural contestation of Spanish colonial rule in daily life.

With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550-1700

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With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550-1700
Karen Graubart
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0804753555
Release Date: 2007-03-21

Book Description

Based upon substantial new research, this book investigates the heterogeneity of experiences of rural and urban indigenous women in Peru during the first two centuries of Spanish colonization. Using wills, as well as other notarial and legal documents, it discusses changes in their working lives and how their identity as “Indians” as well as women was shaped in a multicultural society. From their utilization of colonial law to seek redress, to their creation of urban dress styles that reflected their new positions as consumers and as producers under Spanish rule, the early colonial period witnessed a dramatic upheaval in indigenous women's lives. By analyzing the migration from rural to urban areas, interaction with Spanish as well as African society, and the lives of both plebeians and elites, the author provides a thorough picture of this transformational period.

The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico

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Amazing research--a MUST-READ for gender scholars and scholars who hate 'gender'

The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico
Steve J. Stern
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Mexico | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0807846430

Book Description

In this study of gender relations in late colonial Mexico (ca. 1760-1821), Steve Stern analyzes the historical connections between gender, power, and politics in the lives of peasants, Indians, and other marginalized peoples. Through vignettes of everyday life, he challenges assumptions about gender relations and political culture in a patriarchal society. He also reflects on continuity and change between late colonial times and the present and suggests a paradigm for understanding similar struggles over gender rights in Old Regime societies in Europe and the Americas.

Stern pursues three major arguments. First, he demonstrates that non-elite women and men developed contending models of legitimate gender authority and that these differences sparked bitter struggles over gender right and obligation. Second, he reveals connections, in language and social dynamics, between disputes over legitimate authority in domestic and familial matters and disputes in the arenas of community and state power. The result is a fresh interpretation of the gendered dynamics of peasant politics, community, and riot. Third, Stern examines regional and ethnocultural variation and finds that his analysis transcends particular locales and ethnic subgroupings within Mexico. The historical arguments and conceptual sweep of Stern's book will inform not only students of Mexico and Latin America but also students of gender in the West and other world regions.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing research--a MUST-READ for gender scholars and scholars who hate 'gender'.......2006-03-14

For those who love 'gender' as a lens through which to analyze other social processes (warfare, citizenship, empire- or nation- formation, etc.) this may not be the book for you: this is an actual analysis of Gender itself. The author looks at the relations between men and women in peasant communities in Mexico, using concrete examples of real families that went through the justice system. But not just husbands-wives--he addresses daughters-parents (mother/father), sisters-brothers, AND fathers-sons, brothers-brothers... Priests-parishioners... he really looks at patriarchy as a system that organized society NOT as static and merely oppressive, but dynamic and unstable. And he looks at how patriarchy not only organized men-women relations, but relations between the rich and poor AND politics and power, in the most convincing way I have read so far. It's GREAT in that regard--but getting through the INSANELY NUMEROUS examples and statistics gets pretty tiresome...

Women's Lives in Colonial Quito: Gender, Law, and Economy in Spanish America

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Women's Lives in Colonial Quito: Gender, Law, and Economy in Spanish America
Kimberly Gauderman
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0292705557

Book Description

Kimberly Gauderman has produced an informative, well-organized study on the lives of Spanish, mestiza, and indigenous women in seventeenth-century Quito.

— Colonial Latin American Historical Review

"Gauderman's book is a must-read for anyone interested in gender and the law.

— Law and History Review

Overall, this book contributes significantly to the field by shedding a great deal of light on the complex terrain in which the women, men, and state officials of colonial Quito negotiated policies and power. Its careful analysis, rich data, and readability will make it enormously useful in both research pursuits and the classroom.

— The Journal of Latin American Anthropology

"I am impressed by the extent to which Gauderman . . . seems to have better grasped the complexities of [colonial] women's lives than most of the [authors of] existing literature. . . . I am very enthusiastic about this book."

—Patricia Seed, Rice University, author of To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821

What did it mean to be a woman in colonial Spanish America? Given the many advances in women's rights since the nineteenth century, we might assume that colonial women had few rights and were fully subordinated to male authority in the family and in society—but we'd be wrong. In this provocative study, Kimberly Gauderman undermines the long-accepted patriarchal model of colonial society by uncovering the active participation of indigenous, mestiza, and Spanish women of all social classes in many aspects of civil life in seventeenth-century Quito.

Gauderman draws on records of criminal and civil proceedings, notarial records, and city council records to reveal women's use of legal and extra-legal means to achieve personal and economic goals; their often successful attempts to confront men's physical violence, adultery, lack of financial support, and broken promises of marriage; women's control over property; and their participation in the local, interregional, and international economies. This research clearly demonstrates that authority in colonial society was less hierarchical and more decentralized than the patriarchal model suggests, which gave women substantial control over economic and social resources.

Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru

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A subject that needs to be explored

Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru
Kathryn Burns , and Kathryn Burns
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822322919

Book Description

In Colonial Habits Kathryn Burns transforms our view of nuns as marginal recluses, making them central actors on the colonial stage. Beginning with the 1558 founding of South America’s first convent, Burns shows that nuns in Cuzco played a vital part in subjugating Incas, creating a creole elite, and reproducing an Andean colonial order in which economic and spiritual interests were inextricably fused.
Based on unprecedented archival research, Colonial Habits demonstrates how nuns became leading guarantors of their city’s social order by making loans, managing property, containing âunrulyâ women, and raising girls. Coining the phrase âspiritual economyâ to analyze the intricate investments and relationships that enabled Cuzco’s convents and their backers to thrive, Burns explains how, by the late 1700s, this economy had faltered badly, making convents an emblem of decay and a focal point for intense criticism of a failing colonial regime. By the nineteenth century, the nuns had retreated from their previous roles, marginalized in the construction of a new republican order.
Providing insight that can be extended well outside the Andes to the relationships articulated by convents across much of Europe, the Americas, and beyond, Colonial Habits will engage those interested in early modern economics, Latin American studies, women in religion, and the history of gender, class, and race.

Customer Reviews:

A subject that needs to be explored.......2000-04-26

Katheryn Burns has written a great book. Her discussion of the spiritual economy is innovative and needs to be explored by more people. Burns uncovers a history that has been neglected by most historians but is integral to one's understanding of colonial Latin America. In short, this is must read for anyone interested in the subject.

House/Garden/Nation: Space, Gender, and Ethnicity in Post-Colonial Latin American Literatures by Women (Post-Contemporary Interventions)

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House/Garden/Nation: Space, Gender, and Ethnicity in Post-Colonial Latin American Literatures by Women (Post-Contemporary Interventions)
Ileana Rodriguez
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822314657

Book Description

How ironic, the author thought on learning of the Sandinista’s electoral defeat, that at its death the Revolutionary State left Woman, Violeta Chamorro, located at the center. The election signaled the end of one transition and the beginning of another, with Woman somewhere on the border between the neo-liberal and marxist projects. It is such transitions that Ileana Rodríguez takes up here, unraveling their weave of gender, ethnicity, and nation as it is revealed in literature written by women.
In House/Garden/Nation the narratives of five Centro-Caribbean writers illustrate these times of transition: Dulce María Loynáz, from colonial rule to independence in Cuba; Jean Rhys, from colony to commonwealth in Dominica; Simone Schwarz-Bart, from slave to free labor in Guadeloupe; Gioconda Belli, from oligarchic capitalism to social democratic socialism in Nicaragua; and Teresa de la Parra, from independence to modernity in Venezuela. Focusing on the nation as garden, hacienda, or plantation, Rodríguez shows us these writers debating the predicament of women under nation formation from within the confines of marriage and home.
In reading these post-colonial literatures by women facing the crisis of transition, this study highlights urgent questions of destitution, migration, exile, and inexperience, but also networks of value allotted to women: beauty, clothing, love. As a counterpoint on issues of legality, policy, and marriage, Rodriguez includes a chapter on male writers: José Eustacio Rivera, Omar Cabezas, and Romulo Gallegos. Her work presents a sobering picture of women at a crossroads, continually circumscribed by history and culture, writing their way.

Colonial Subject's Search for Nation, Culture, and Identity in the Works of Julia Alvarez, Rosario Ferre, and Ana Lydia Vega (Hispanic Literature, V. 84)

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Colonial Subject's Search for Nation, Culture, and Identity in the Works of Julia Alvarez, Rosario Ferre, and Ana Lydia Vega (Hispanic Literature, V. 84)
Eda B. Henao
Manufacturer: Edwin Mellen Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0773465510

Convent Life in Colonial Mexico: A Tale of Two Communities

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Convent Life in Colonial Mexico: A Tale of Two Communities
Stephanie L. Kirk
Manufacturer: University Press of Florida
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0813030307

Book Description

"Ground-breaking in its focus on the alliances and solidarity that nuns created in their convent communities against the vision and institutional restraints imposed by male ecclesiastics . . . an exciting and pleasurable read that I believe will have a significant impact on future scholarship in colonial and women's studies."--Kathryn J. McKnight, University of New Mexico

The Catholic Church produced an enormous volume of written material designed to ensure the servility of nuns. Reading this body of proscriptive literature alongside nuns' own writings, Kirk finds that practice often diverged from theory. She analyzes how seventeenth- and eighteenth-century nuns formed alliances and friendships in defiance of Church authorities' efforts to contain and control them. In the Mexican convents that form the basis of Kirk's study, nuns developed a powerful, counterhegemonic spirit of female solidarity, establishing communities that made possible a surprising degree of productive autonomy, despite official promotion of oppressive ideas about gender and religiosity. Kirk also examines the motivations and discursive structures behind the Church's desire to regulate all aspects of convent life.

Drawing on a rich and diverse body of literature that includes little-known texts, religious tracts, and didactic manuals on convent behavior, historical artifacts including Inquisition documents, letters, sermons, and official decrees, as well as poetry and inspirational religious biographies of exemplary nuns, Kirk's methodology is a departure from studies of the early modern nun as religious writer, focusing instead on the nun as historical agent. Kirk frames her study with well-regarded theory on discourse and gender, including works by Roland Barthes, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Joan Scott. Addressing such important questions as the relationship between power and gender, female colonial agency and authorship, early modern subjectivity, and conflicting gender ideologies, Kirk demonstrates that both sides--the nuns and the Church authorities--are shown to manipulate, through conflicting discourses, the nuances of power and resistance. This first in-depth study of the positive community dynamics of female religious in the early modern Spanish world, as seen through their own words, will appeal to scholars of colonial, Latin American, women's, and religious studies.

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