Imperial Subjects

In colonial Latin America, social identity did not correlate neatly with fixed categories of race and ethnicity. As Imperial Subjects demonstrates, from the early years of Spanish and Portuguese rule, understandings of race and ethnicity were fluid. In this collection, historians offer nuanced interpretations of identity as they investigate how Iberian settlers, African slaves, Native Americans, and their multi-ethnic progeny understood who they were as individuals, as members of various communities, and as imperial subjects. The contributors’ explorations of the relationship between colonial ideologies of difference and the identities historical actors presented span the entire colonial period and beyond: from early contact to the legacy of colonial identities in the new republics of the nineteenth century. The volume includes essays on the major colonial centers of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil, as well as the Caribbean basin and the imperial borderlands.Whether analyzing cases in which the Inquisition found that the individuals before it were “legally” Indians and thus exempt from prosecution, or considering late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century petitions for declarations of whiteness that entitled the mixed-race recipients to the legal and social benefits enjoyed by whites, the book’s contributors approach the question of identity by examining interactions between imperial subjects and colonial institutions. Colonial mandates, rulings, and legislation worked in conjunction with the exercise and negotiation of power between individual officials and an array of social actors engaged in countless brief interactions. Identities emerged out of the interplay between internalized understandings of self and group association and externalized social norms and categories.Contributors. Karen D. Caplan, R. Douglas Cope, Mariana L. R. Dantas, María Elena Díaz, Andrew B. Fisher, Jane Mangan, Jeremy Ravi Mumford, Matthew D. O’Hara, Cynthia Radding, Sergio Serulnikov, Irene Silverblatt, David Tavárez, Ann Twinam

“The essays . . . offer important insights into the complicated processes of social formation in the colonies. . . . [H]istorians, as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students, will find much to think about in this provocative work.” - Karen B. Graubart, Catholic Historical Review, “This is a pioneering study of the constructions of socio-cultural identities in colonial Latin America. . . . [An] innovative collection of essays.” - David J. Robinson, Journal of Latin American Geography, “While scholarly in content, these short essays are readable and could be included in an undergraduate syllabus. The volume is crisply edited; many of the essays refer to each other. I highly recommend the volume for college and graduate courses. The essays invite comparison of different regions, in addition to offering intriguing lessons about the multiple ways that identities evolved in the colonial era.” - Deborah Kanter, The Americas, “This volume presents a superb collection of essays covering the muddled, confused, overlapping, and changing dimensions of identity-making in the Hispanic colonial empires of the New World. . . . The authors of these essays expose us to all these intensely real aspects of life in the Spanish and Portuguese empires of the Western Hemisphere. This volume should be required reading for those trying to understand how people related to one another, government, and institutions in these colonial empires.” - Sheldon Avenius, History: Reviews of New Books, “It is imperative that historians incorporate a number of perspectives to enhance our understanding of this unique period, especially within the studies on race and identity. Imperial Subjects does just that. The respective authors approach the subject through a variety of perspectives, incorporating unique themes, all of which are backed by a solid archival research.” - Larry V. Larrichio, Colonial Latin American Historical Review

Andrew B. Fisher is an Assistant Professor of History at Carleton College.Matthew D. O’Hara is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz.