Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction Negotiating Status through Confraternal Practices
- Part I Indigenous and Black Confraternities in New Spain
- Part II Indigenous and Black Confraternities in Peru
- Part III Indigenous Confraternities in the Southern Cone
- Part IV Black Brotherhoods in Brazil
- Afterword Indigenous and Black Confraternities in Colonial Latin America
- Bibliography
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Index
3 - “Of All Type of Calidad or Color”: Black Confraternities in a Multiethnic Mexican Parish, 1640-1750
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction Negotiating Status through Confraternal Practices
- Part I Indigenous and Black Confraternities in New Spain
- Part II Indigenous and Black Confraternities in Peru
- Part III Indigenous Confraternities in the Southern Cone
- Part IV Black Brotherhoods in Brazil
- Afterword Indigenous and Black Confraternities in Colonial Latin America
- Bibliography
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter moves beyond the traditional depiction of black confraternities as sites of distinct cultural community formation separate from Spanish, indigenous, or mixed sacred organizations to argue that the complex social relationships forged by persons of African descent within the multiethnic colonial parish formed the foundation of their religious communities. In the daily social interactions that occurred in the sacred and secular spaces of the parish, black parishioners discussed their conceptions of communal behavior with individuals of “all type of color or calidad” – as the document studied in this chapter put it – fostering a sense of Christian unity that emerged in the formation of confraternal orders. Based on a shared spirituality framed by black expertise in Christian practices, sacred communities functioned within the dynamic cultural and social milieu of the colony, not as a distinct social organization, a recognition that ultimately places black Catholics as the center of local expressions of the Catholic faith.
Keywords: Black confraternities, Mexico, African diaspora, Black Catholicism, interethnic solidarity
In August 1698, José de Santa María, a Spanish tobacco trader in Mexico City, received an invitation to accompany Isidro de Peralta to a confraternal organization in the nearby neighborhood of San Juan de la Penitencia. Isidro, a mulatto street vender, had founded the religious brotherhood for the communal devotions in honor of Saint Augustine. He indicated to José that he would learn to “practice devotions and matters of the spirit” from a local instructor at the gathering. Intrigued by the devotions, José decided to attend. “On one Sunday or feast day in the afternoon,” he would later testify, he arrived at a house “where different men of all calidades” sat before an altar with “an image of Saint Augustine and some burning candles.” He remained at the gathering for “about a quarter of an hour,” listening to “a chat or sermon” given by one of the attendees before everyone departed “for their own homes.” During the following year, he continued to assist in the festivities in San Juan de la Penitencia for most feast days until for “no reason good or bad” he left the confraternity. Later he would state that he enjoyed the devotionals because he did not believe “these gatherings could be bad since they pray to the Rosary of Our Lady.”
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- Information
- Indigenous and Black Confraternities in Colonial Latin AmericaNegotiating Status through Religious Practices, pp. 91 - 114Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022