Genealogical Fictions

María Elena Martínez is Associate Professor of History and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

"This important and meticulously researched work takes on the historiography that argues that the modern Western conception of race had its origins in nineteenth-century scientific constructions of race as a biological category . . . This is an engaging and important work that is sure to attract the attention of historians and scholars from other fields working on issues of race, religion, gender, and colonial empires in Latin America, Europe, and the Atlantic World." - Martha Few (Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe) "Through a persuasive analysis of a vast array of archival and published sources, [Martinez] adds depth and complexity to our understanding of religious, cultural, and social framework and of the tensions and contradictions the fiction of limpieza de sangre created in its Mexican settings . . . Martinez's tour de force gives a new meaning to an important subject not seriously addressed previously and should be of great interest to scholars and students." - The Americas "This book provides detailed information about how ideas and information circulated across the Atlantic. Throughout the text, Martinez uses primary documents judiciously and well; particularly fascinating are the descriptions of the processing of probanzas in both local and transatlantic contexts." (Magali Carrera American Historical Review) "Genealogical Fictions is the first serious treatment in English of the origins of the sistema de castas and racial ideology in colonial Mexico. It problematizes unquestioned assumptions about limpieza de sangre—purity of blood—the foundation of the sistema de castas, through a reconstruction of the concept's transformations from its origins in early modern Spain to its adaptations in colonial Mexico. Martinez also has much to say about the development of Mexican society in the seventeenth century, a largely neglected period that is only now beginning to attract the attention of contemporary historians. This is an important and original work and a first-rate addition to the existing literature." - Susan Deans-Smith (University of Texas at Austin)

• CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 000 Problem and Objectives Limpieza de Sangre, Race, and Colonialism in the Early Modern Period Archives, Sources, and Chapter Description PART ONE: IBERIAN PRECEDENTS CHAPTER 1 THE EMERGENCE OF THE SPANISH STATUTES OF LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE 000 Mass Conversions, Anti-Semitism, and the Rise of the Statutes in Late Medieval Spain, 000 Political Centralization, Christian Militancy, and the Founding of the Inquisition, 000 The Problem of Conversion During and After the Reign of the Catholic Kings, 000 CHAPTER 2 RACE, PURITY, AND GENDER IN SIXTEENTH--CENTURY SPAIN000 The Spread of the Limpieza de Sangre Statutes, 000 Heresy, Blood, and the Essentialization of "Race", 000 The Inquisition's Production of Heresy and the Feminization of Impurity, 000 CHAPTER 3 JURIDICAL FICTIONS: THE CERTIFICATION OF PURITY AND CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNAL MEMORY 000 The Holy Office's Procedures and the Probanza de Limpieza de Sangre, 000 The Probatory and Unstable Nature of Purity of Blood, 000 Teleological Fictions, 000 PART TWO: RELIGION, GENEALOGY, AND CASTE IN EARLY COLONIAL MEXICO CHAPTER 4 NOBILITY AND PURITY IN THE REPUBLICA DE INDIOS000 The Rise of the Mexica in the Late Postclassic and the Colonial "Republic of Indians", 000 Spanish Colonialism and the Reconstitution of Pre-Hispanic Dynasties, 000 History, Genealogy, and the New Symbolics of Blood, 000 CHAPTER 5 NOBILITY AND PURITY IN THE REPUBLICA DE ESPA; OLES000 Descent and Territoriality: The Probanza de Meritos y Servicios, 000 Bloodlines and Religion: The Probanza de Limpieza de Sangre, 000 Creoles and the Struggle for Religious and Public Offices, 000 CHAPTER 6 THE INITIAL STAGES AND SOCIORELIGIOUS ROOTS OF THE SISTEMA DE CASTAS000 Categories and Archives: Books of Spaniards, Indians and Castas, 000 Caste, Slavery, and Colonial Mexico's Gendered Symbolics of Blood, 000 Raza, Casta, and Limpieza de Sangre: The Spanish Colonial Language of Race, 000 PART THREE: PURITY, RACE, AND CREOLISM IN SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW SPAIN CHAPTER 7 THE PROBANZA DE LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE IN COLONIAL AND TRANSATLANTIC SPACE 000 The Mexican Inquisition and the Transatlantic Certification of Purity, 000 Nativeness, Communal Memory, and the Instability of Limpieza de Sangre, 000 Creole Nativeness, Purity, and History in the "Kingdom of New Spain", 000 CHAPTER 8 RELIGION, LAW, AND RACE: THE QUESTION OF PURITY IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MEXICO000 The Official Line: The Inquisition and the Crown on the Issue of Limpieza de Sangre, 000 Idolatry, Heresy, and the Ambiguities of the Colonial Discourse of Native Purity, 000 Blacks, Castas, and the Expansion of the Category of Impurity, 000 CHAPTER 9 CHANGING CONTOURS: LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE IN THE AGE OF REASON AND REFORM000 An Iconography of Mestizaje: Casta Paintings and the Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender, 000 The Sistema de Castas in Flux and the Proliferation of Statutes and Stains, 000 Creole Fictions: Purity, the Virgin, and the Rise of a Catholic Mestizo Patria, 000 CONCLUSION 000 Appendix. Questionnaire used by the Spanish Inquisition to interrogate witnesses in purity of blood investigations (in Spanish) 000 Abbreviations 000 Glossary000 Bibliography000 Index 000