"To Lose One's Soul": Blasphemy and Slavery in NewSpain, 1596-1669|aver Va-ForesHispanic American Historical Review, 82:3, August 2002, pp. 435-468(Article)Pubshed by Duke Unversty PressFor additional information about this articleAccess provided by FGV-Fundacao Getulio Vargas (13 Jul 2015 20:19 GMT)http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hahr/summary/v082/82.3villa-flores.htmlThis article is based on 105 Inquisitorial cases (trials and denunciations included) againstAfro-Mexican slaves from 1596 to 1669. These materials were obtained from the followingarchives and libraries: Archivo General de la Nacin, Ramo Inquisicin, Mexico City;Archivo del Museo Nacional de Antropologa e Historia, Coleccin Antigua, Mexico City;and The Huntington Library. Research for this essay was made possible by the support ofthe Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologa, UCMexus, The John Carter BrownLibrary, The Huntington Library, The Newberry Library, and The Department of Historyof the University of California, San Diego. Many thanks to Eric Van Young, PaulVanderwood, Dain Borges, John Kickza, Robert Patch, Carlos Aguirre, R. Douglas Cope,Andrew Fisher, Christopher Boyer, Susan Fitzpatrick, Christina Jimnez Mara Eugenia dela Torre, and HAHRs anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and insights onprevious drafts. 1. Commissaries were the Inquisitions representatives in the major towns.Hispanic American Historical Review 82:3Copyright 2002 by Duke University PressTo Lose Ones Soul: Blasphemy and Slavery in New Spain,15961669Javier Villa-FloresAny Christian [would be] in great danger of renouncing God and His just faith.Slave Nicols Bazn at the Holy Ofce (1661)On 28 April 1598, Juan Bautista, slave of Regidor Cristbal Jimnez, denouncedhimself to the commissary of the Inquisition in Puebla, Bartolom Mrquez deAmarilla.1Inhistestimony,Juanrecountedtheeventsofthepreviousday:Around 4 PM, his master harshly beat him in the stable of his textile workshop(obraje)becauseJuanhadnotnishedtheworkhehadbeenassigned.Unhappy with his slaves pace, the master applied hot pitch to Juans woundsand continued to beat him while two other men rmly held Juan down. In anattempt to appease Jimnez, Bautista begged him to stop for the sake of thelove of God and Holy Mary. His torturer replied, I beat you for the sake ofGod and Holy Mary! and forced a rebrand into his mouth. Seeing himselfso aficted, Juan shouted, I renounce God! (reniego de Dios) twice, and wasbeatenagainbyhismaster.Thenextday,afterrecoveringconsciousness(volviendo en s ), Juan asked the Inquisitions ofcial for mercy, insisting he wasa Christian and begged for a transfer to another location so that his soul wouldnot be damned.2More than 60 years later, in 1661, the black slave Nicols Bazn renderedtotheInquisitorFranciscoEstradaaterribleaccountoftheviolentworkregime that reigned in the Coyoacn textile mill of his master Melchor Dazde Posadas. As an example of the cruelty of Melchor Daz, Bazn described thegargantn, an instrument that was a combination of collar and handcuffs usedtoimmobilizeslavesfordaysatatime.Thechastisementitinictedwassorigorous,NicolsassuredtheInquisitor,thatanyChristian[wouldbe]ingreat danger of renouncing God and His just faithsomething he actuallydid,accordingtootherwitnesses.HeimploredtheInquisitorFranciscodeEstrada on his knees not to send him back to the textile mill of his master inCoyoacn, lest he be forced to despair and lose his soul on account of thecruel punishment that was awaiting him. He concluded that the suffering inCoyoacnbyChristiansredeemedbyChristsbloodatthehandsoffellowChristians was so painful that not even among Turks and Moors was a com-parable martyrdom endured.3The cases of Juan Bautista and Nicols Bazn are good examples of thecircumstances under which more than one hundred slaves were held account-able for blasphemy in colonial Mexico, between 1596 and 1669. As victims ofcruelty and mistreatment, black slaves renounced God and His saints to pro-voketheinterventionoftheInquisitionasawaytobefreed,atleastforamoment,fromtheharshworkingconditionstheyendured.Sometimestheyevensucceededinusingtheirreligioustransgressiontoobtainatransfertoanother location and a new master. In some of these instances, they deployedan ingenious rhetoric that transformed the legitimate punishment of slavesbymastersintotorture,chastisementintomartyrdom,andtheirownblas-phemies into painful reactions of persecuted Christians. Moreover, by claim-ing to lose their souls at the hands of the owners of their bodies, black slavesalso undertook an inversion of the colonial discourse that justied slavery by436 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores2. Archivo General de la Nacin (Mexico City), Ramo Inquisicin (hereafter cited asAGN, Inq.), vol. 165, exp. 3 (hereafter 165.3) (unfoliated).3. The Huntington Library Manuscript (hereafter cited as HLM), no. 31131, vol. 37,pt. 1 (unfoliated).predicating the Christian salvation of African souls upon the servitude of theirbodies.4Asbothpropertyandhumanbeings,Afro-Mexicanslaveslearnedquickly that they could be Christians and still remain in human bondage. Thiscould not be clearer than at the moment of punishment. While slaves askedtheirownerstostopbeatingthemforthesakeofaGodwhocommandedcharity and fraternity to believers, masters put it clearly that in a hierarchicalsociety in which slaves were at the bottom, the same God sanctioned that theirbodies be answerable for all their crimes; indeed, some masters justied theircruelty by saying, I beat you for the sake of God and Saint Mary. Corporalpunishmentrepresentedthecurrencyinwhichblackslaves,mulattoes,andotherpeopleoflowcastehadtopayforanylegaltransgression.Nominalnes as punishments for similar misdeeds were normally reserved to the trans-gressing Spaniards.5In light of this conspicuous contradiction between mar-To Lose Ones Soul 4374. In Spain, the paradoxical nature of this liberating servitude garnered littlecriticism until the mid-sixteenth century, when theologians and jurists began to pay someattention to the Portuguese slave trade. Even then, the isolated protests were mostlydirected at the process by which slaves were acquired, not at the legitimacy of slavery itselffor, as Francisco de Vitoria wrote in 1546, it was better for Africans to be slaves amongChristians than free in their own lands. Archbishop Alonso de Montfar famouslychallenged this position in a letter written to the Spanish crown in 1560 in which he askedthe king to terminate the slave trade arguing that the benets of Christianization did notoffset the terrible injustices that Africans endured. Similarly, Jurist Bartolom de Albornozforcefully denounced in his Arte de contratos the extended conviction that the freedom ofthe soul should be paid by the servitude of the body. These protests notwithstanding, thecourt at Madrid did not modify its royal policy and solidly embraced the doctrine ofsalvation as the main argument for the enslavement of African pagans. For a discussion ofthe tendency of the Spanish crown to disclaim any responsibility in the slave trade, seeAnthony Pagden, The Fall of the Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins ofComparative Ethnology (1982; reprinted, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994), 33;Vitorias remarks are included in his Political Writings, ed. Anthony Pagden and JeremyLawrance ( New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991), 335; Montfars letter is cited inFrancisco del Paso y Troncoso, ed., Epistolario de Nueva Espaa, 15051818, 16 vols.(Mexico City: Antigua Lib. Robredo, de J. Porra e hijos, 19391942), 9:55; Albornozelaborates his position in De la esclavitud, in Biblioteca de autores espaoles, desde laformacin del lenguaje hasta nuestros das, 305 vols. (Madrid: Real Academia Espaola, 1873),65:23233. For a detailed discussion of the moral qualms and rationalizations involved inthe Atlantic slave trade, see David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture(Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1966), esp. chap. 6.5. Equality before the law was an unknown concept in colonial courts. Reecting thehierarchical order in which they were embedded, tribunals distributed sentences accordingto the race, social status, occupation, and even gender of the defendants: judicialprocedures may have been impartial, [but] the ultimate disposition of offenders often was ginality and integration, it would be reasonable to argue that the use of blas-phemybyAfro-MexicanswasbotharejectionoftheChristianmoralorderthat legitimized slavery and an attempt to survive a violent regime by claiminga Christian identity.In Slavery and Social Death, Orlando Patterson offered a poignant analysisof the painful dialectics of inclusion and exclusion endured by slaves in soci-eties that embraced the Christian doctrine of salvation: The slave, in the cityof the Christian God, was declared an insider, an integral part of the brother-hood of man in the service of God; but the slave, in the city of man, remainedthearchetypicaloutsider,theeternalenemywithin,inaformalizedstateofmarginality.6As Patterson argues, slaves were never assigned to the status of out-casts,butinsteadtheywerepushed(notwithoutanxiety)tothemarginsofsociety.Withslavesinthisstateofsecularexcommunication,slaveholdersdrewtheirauthorityfromtheircontrolofsymbolicinstrumentssuchasthesymbolic whip of religion. This control persuaded slaves to believe, Patter-son contends, that the master was the only mediator between the living com-munity to which he belonged and the living death that his slave experienced.7Several blasphemy trials, however, show that Afro-Mexicans were some-timesabletoturnthissymbolicwhipagainsttheirownmastersandholdthemaccountableforthepossiblecondemnationoftheirsouls.Stemmingfrom unbearable chastisement in the city of man, blasphemy extended a bridgeto the city of God, where slaves could occasionally nd leverage against theirmasters with the help of the Inquisition. In general, the Mexican Holy Ofcewas very lenient towards violent slaveholders, normally condemning slaves tosevere beatings for alleged religious transgressions. Part of the reason for theInquisitions biased attitude undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that the HolyOfce, and the church in general, were also major slave owners. More impor-tantwasthedeterminationoftheHolyTribunaltocurbanysignofslaverebellioninNewSpain,whereAfro-Mexicanswerefearedandrepudiated438 HAHR / August / Villa-Floresaffected by their position within the social order. See Michael Scardaville, (Habpsburg)Law and (Bourbon) Order: State Authority, Popular Unrest, and the Criminal JusticeSystem in Bourbon Mexico City, in Reconstructing Criminality in Latin America, ed. CarlosA. Aguirre and Robert Bufngton ( Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2000), 11. On black slaves as defendants, see William H. Dusenberry, Discriminatory Aspects ofLegislation in Colonial Mexico, The Journal of Negro History 33 (1948).6. Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge:Harvard Univ. Press, 1982), 72.7. Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, 8.from the beginning of the colonial enterprise and especially during the periodcovered by this essay.Indeed, during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries serious con-cerns over the presence of too many slaves in the colony and the possibility ofslaverebellionsfrequentlytranspiredinlettersandreportswrittenbyroyaladministrators.8As early as 1537, New Spain experienced the rst of severalattemptsofslaverebellion.OntheroadsofNewGalicia,Guanajuato,Pn-jamo, San Miguel, and the highway between Puebla and Veracruz and alongthe Pacic Coast, active bands of cimarrones (runaway slaves) robbed and killedIndians and Spaniards throughout this period. In the mountains near Orizaba,aCongolesechiefcalledYangaestablishedanalmostimpenetrablepalisade,raiding the neighboring pueblos and haciendas with impunity for more than30 years until the settlement was subdued in 1609. By the second decade of theseventeenth century the importation of slaves, now in the hands of Portuguesetraders,reacheditshighpoint,furtherfuelingthealreadystrongfearofanurbanslaveuprising.Afteranabortedrebellionin1608 inMexicoCity,thecolonistsfacedanewthreatin1611, whenanangrycrowdof1,500 blacksbelongingtotheCofradadeNuestraSeoraledpasttheviceregalpalaceandthePalaceoftheInquisition,carryingthecorpseofafemaleslavewhohad been ogged to death by her master. The rebellion was quickly repressed,with 36 blacks, 7 women included, publicly hanged in the plaza mayor of thecity, and their heads were placed on pikes. Numerous minor revolts were reg-isteredinthefollowingyearsintheranchingregionsofthenorthernNewSpain and in the vicinity of Veracruz, while Mexico City itself experienced anew scare in 1665. Working as an important instrument of colonial vigilance,the Inquisition had detected in that year new signs of unrest among the Afro-Mexicans of the capital. In the end, the alleged conspiracy never materialized,To Lose Ones Soul 4398. During the fusion of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns (15801640), theimportation of black slaves to America increased enormously. Between 1595 and 1640, theaverage annual importation was 2,880, totaling 132,600 for the whole period. As might beexpected, the mining economies of Mexico and Peru absorbed the bulk of the increase. See Frederick P. Bowser, Africans in Spanish American Colonial Society, in The CambridgeHistory of Latin America, ed. Leslie Bethell, 12 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,1984), 7:361. For a detailed discussion of the slave trade to the Indies during these years,based on the study of monopoly contracts granted by the crown (known as asientos), seeJean-Pierre Tardieu, Les principales structures administratives espagnoles de la traite des Noirs vers les Indes Occidentales, Caravelle 37 (1981); and Enriqueta Vila Vilar,Hispanoamrica y el comercio de esclavos (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos,1977).440 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores9. On slave resistance and racial tension during this period, see Leslie B. Rout, TheAfrican Experience in Spanish America, 1502 to the Present Day (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.Press, 1976), esp. 212, 105; Colin A. Palmer, Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico,15701650 (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1976), 119 44; David M. Davison, NegroSlave Control and Resistance in Colonial Mexico, 15191650, HAHR 46 (1966); Edgar F.Love, Negro Resistance to Spanish Rule, The Journal of Negro History 52 (1967); JonathanI. Israel, Race, Class, and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 16101670 ( New York: Oxford Univ.Press, 1975), 6775; Ben Vinson, Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia inColonial Mexico (California: Stanford Univ. Press, 2001), 1516; R. Douglas Cope, TheLimits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 16601720 (Madison:Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 1718. For a discussion on Yanga and Veracruz, seeAdriana Naveda Chvez-Hita, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucareras de Crdoba, Veracruz,16901830 (Xalapa: Univ. Veracruzana, 1987), 12561; Octoviano Corro Ramos,Cimarrones en Veracruz y la fundacin de Amapa (Veracruz: Ed. Citlaltepetl, 1974); GonzaloAguirre Beltrn, El negro esclavo en Nueva Espaa: La formacin colonial, la medicina popular yotros ensayos (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1994), 17986; Patrick J. Carroll,Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development (Austin: Univ. of TexasPress, 1991), 9092; and Carmen Bernard and Serge Gruzinski, Histoire du Nouveau Monde,2 vols. (Paris: Fayard, 1993), 2:247 49.buttheensuingconstantpatrolsbytheSpanishinfantryandmilitiawereaclear proof of the racial tension existing in the colony.9While one may not assert that black-white relations were always abrasive,itisclearthatAfro-Mexicanstendedtoarousefeelingsoffearratherthansympathy or even compassion in Spaniards. The obvious difculty of meetingSpanish standards of civil security, and of fullling economic needs at the sametime,producedharshlegalmeasuresmeanttocontroltheincreasingblackpopulation and forestall slave revolts. This only made slavery more unpalat-able, at times leading to new rebellions, which, in turn, conrmed the need forvigorous suppression. In this circular process of fear and repression, colonialauthorities tended to tolerate the brutality of the masters. Indeed, the lash, thestock, the pillory, the use of gags and leg irons, and the practices of branding,burning, and even mutilating slaves evidenced the de facto power held by theslaveholders in New Spain.Although it was assumed that violence had a key role in maintaining andcreating slavery as a relation of dominance, it was not settled how far a masterwasallowedtogoinhisdisciplinaryactions.Wherewasthelinebetweenlegitimate punishment and sadistic mistreatment? In colonial Mexico slavesstruggledconstantlytosetlimitstothisbrutalityboththroughinstitutionaland noninstitutional avenues. Under Spanish law, mistreated slaves could askforprotectionofcivilcourts,butinpracticefewslavesbenetedfromthislegal instance during the rst two centuries of Spanish domination.10For thegreatmajorityofbondsmen,workslowdowns,maroonage,banditry,occa-sionaloutburstofriotingviolence,andblasphemywereamongthemostrecurrent strategies of resistance to abusive masters. Of these types of socialcontention,onlyblasphemygavethemaccesstotheMexicanHolyOfcewhere they could ght the vast range of impunity enjoyed by their masters byappealingtomoralleverageasmembersoftheChristiancommunity.Thisstrategy of verbal resistance was well known in old Spain, especially in centersof great concentration of slaves such as Seville. Hoping to spare masters theeconomiclossincurredwhentheirslavesweretakentoprisonwheretheywerefedandclothedattheslaveholdersexpense,theCatholickingshadissued a decree in 1502 allowing the master to punish the transgressor by pub-licly administering 50 lashes.11The Inquisitorial zeal soon diluted this respitefor the master, however, for the Holy Tribunal insisted on its jurisdiction totrytheblasphemers.12InNewSpain,theInquisitionsinterestinrepressingTo Lose Ones Soul 44110. In contrast to the litigious reputation earned by Indians in Spanish America earlyin the colonial period, slaves seemed to have experienced a true juridical wake-up by thesecond half of the seventeenth century. See Carlos A. Aguirre, Working the System: BlackSlaves and the Courts in Lima, Peru, 18211854, in Crossing Boundaries: ComparativeHistory of Black People in Diaspora, ed. Darlene Clark Hine and Jacqueline McLeod(Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999), 205; and idem, Agentes de su propia libertad: Losesclavos de Lima y la desintegracin de la esclavitud, 18211854 (Lima: Ponticia Univ.Catlica del Peru, 1993), 184. For a discussion of the uses of law by Indians, see, amongothers, Woodrow Borah, The Spanish and Indian Law: New Spain; Steve S. Stern, TheSocial Signicance of Judicial Institutions in an Exploitative Society: Huamanga, Peru,15701640, in The Inca and Aztec States, 14001800: Anthropology and History, ed. George A. Collier, Renato I. Rosaldo, and John D. Wirth ( New York: Academic Press, 1982);Ronald Spores, Spanish Penetration and Cultural Change in Early Colonial Mexico, inThe Indian in Latin American History: Resistance, Resilience and Acculturation, ed. John E. Kicza( Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1993); Ward Stavig, Ambiguous Visions: Nature,Law, and Culture in Indigenous-Spanish Land Relations in Colonial Peru, HAHR 80, no. 1 (2000); and Susan Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 15001700( Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1995).11. Las pragmticas del Reyno (Valladolid: Juan de Villaquiron, 1540), 11. On blasphemyby Sevillian slaves, see JeanPierre Dedieu, Le modle religieux: Les disciplines dulangage et de l`action, in Linquisition espagnole: XVeXIXe sicle, ed. Bartolom Benassar(Paris: Hachette, 1979), 24950; Ruth Pike discusses the characteristics of Sevillian slaves,by far the largest slave community in Spain, in her Aristocrats and Traders: Sevillian Societyin the Sixteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1972), 17092.12. In 1534 the Cortes of Madrid requested that all trials of blasphemy cases beconducted by secular courts. The Inquisition, however, continued to intervene in these blasphemyatthesetimesofslaverebellionoccasionallyworkedagainstthevery masters it was intended to protect. Forced to intervene by the slave blas-phemers, the Holy Ofce not only undermined the disciplinary authority ofthe slaveholders but also permitted it to be transformed, by apt manipulation,from a coercive colonial institution into a protective shield against the masters.Undoubtedly, the stakes wagered by slaves in resorting to the Inquisition werealways high.The Meanings of Blasphemy Among Afro-Mexican SlavesThroughoutthecolonialperiod,blasphemyconstitutedthemostcommoncrime for which Afro-Mexicans faced the Inquisition. In contrast to Spaniards,who frequently resorted to blasphemy as a strategy of masculine self-fashioning, a442 HAHR / August / Villa-Florescases for many years to come. See Henry Arthur F. Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: AHistorical Revision ( New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1998), 26162. For a detailed discussionof the jurisdictional disputes among the Spanish secular, ecclesiastical, and inquisitorialauthorities over the right to try the blasphemers, see Henry Charles Lea, A History of theInquisition of Spain, 4 vols. (London: Macmillan, 19067), 4:32835. Following the seminalworks of Johan Huizinga and Jean Delumeau, an increasing number of historians ofearlymodern societies have studied blasphemy in the last twenty years. See JohanHuizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1996); Jean Delumeau, La peur en Occident, XIVeXVIIIesicles: Une cite assige (1978; reprinted, Paris: Fayard, 1988); John C. Sommerville,Religious Faith, Doubt and Atheism, Past and Present 128 (1990):15255; Silvia Berti, Atthe Roots of Unbelief, Journal of the History of Ideas 56, no. 4 (1995); JeanPierre Dedieu,The Inquisition and Popular Culture in New Castile, in Inquisition and Society in EarlyModern Europe, ed. Stephen Haliczer (London: Croom Helm, 1987); Elizabeth Belmas, La monte des blasphmes lage moderne du Moyen Age au XVIIe sicle, in Injures etblasphmes, ed. Jean Delumeau (Paris: Ed. Imago, 1989); Maureen Flynn, Betrayals of the Soul in Spanish Blasphemy, in Permanence and Evolution of Behavior in Golden-AgeSpain: Essays in Gender, Body, and Religion, ed. Alain Saint-Sans (Lewiston: Mellen Press,1991), 30 44; idem, Blasphemy and the Play of Anger in Sixteenth-Century Spain, Pastand Present 149 (1995); Alain Cabantous, Du blaspheme au blasphmateur: Jalons pourune histoire, XVIeXIXe sicle, in Blasphmes et liberts, ed. Patrice Dartevelle, PhillippeDenis, and Johannes Robyn (Paris: CERF, 1993); idem, Histoire du blasphme en Occident,XVIe-milieu XIXe sicle (Paris: A. Michel, 1998); John Edwards, Religious Faith and Doubtin Late Medieval Spain: Soria, circa 14501500, Past and Present 120 (1988); David A.Lawton, Blasphemy (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1993); Leonard W. Levy,Treason Against God: A History of the Offense of Blasphemy ( New York: Schocken Books,1981); and idem, Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred from Moses to Salman Rushdie( New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).meansofestablishingonesautonomyafterhumiliatingdefeatsingamblinggames,andaverbalresourcetomakestrongstatementsinhonordisputes,Afro-Mexicansgenerallyusedblasphemousspeechasastrategyofresistanceandsurvivalunderunbearableworkingandlivingconditionsasbondsmen.13Indeed, although many of the defendants were free blacks, slaves seem to haverepresentedtheoverwhelmingmajority,whichsuggestsadirectrelationshipbetween this state of human bondage and the uttering of expletives judged tobesinful(only3 casesoutof105 involvedfreemulattos).Inmostcases,theaccusedwasayoungmaleslave,whiletheirfemalecounterpartsfacedtheInquisitionwithlessfrequency(18 cases).14Althoughthisinformationisnotalwaysprovided,theavailableevidencesuggeststhatthemajorityofAfro-Mexican slaves tried by the Holy Ofce between 1596 and 1669 tended to beeither creole (acculturated) black slaves (20), or mulatto slaves (21). While boza-les (nonacculturated Africans) were rarely tried for blasphemy in this period (1),ladinos (Hispanicized Africans) were better represented in blasphemy trials (3).15Most of the defendants inhabited urban settings, particularly Mexico City (35),andLosAngeles,Puebla(18),althoughVeracruz(1),Jalapa(1),andCelaya (1)werealsoindicatedasplacesofresidence.Inthecountryside,Coyoacn (4)andAmilpas(2),registeredthehighestnumberofcases,whileCholula,Tlanepantla, the mines of Zacatecas, and Misquiguala presented only one caseeachforthewholeperiod.Althoughmanyoftheslaveswereemployedasdomesticservants,asignicantnumberofallcasesinvolvingAfro-MexicanTo Lose Ones Soul 44313. I discuss these different uses of blasphemy in Defending Gods Honor:Blasphemy and the Social Construction of Reverence in New Spain, 15201700 (Ph.D.diss., Univ. of California, San Diego, 2001).14. For a recent discussion of blasphemy from the perspective of gender, see KathrynJoy McKnight, Blasphemy as Resistance: An African Slave Woman before the MexicanInquisition, in Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World, ed. Mary E. Giles(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1999).15. A similar trend is perceived in Lima, where bozales were never tried forblasphemy during the period under study here. See Jean-Pierre Tardieu, Lglise et les noirsau Prou: XVIe et XVIIe sicles, 2 vols. (Paris: LHarmattan, 1993), 1:644. According towriters of the time such as Jesuit Alonso de Sandoval, the fact that creoles and ladinos hadprevious contact with the religion and language of their often blasphemous masters madethem less valuable among Spaniards because they were thought to offer minimal serviceand have maas (bad habits). An additional reason for preferring bozales over creole blacksand ladinos concerned the assumption that the latter peoples were usually much lesssubmissive than those who had been transported from Africa. See Israel, Race, Class, andPolitics in Colonial Mexico, 68; and Alonso de Sandoval, Un tratado sobre la esclavitud, trans.Enriqueta Vila Vilar (Madrid: Alianza, 1987), 239.slaves took place in obrajes (21) in Mexico City, Los Angeles, Coyoacn, andother urban areas.16Both in urban and rural zones, blasphemy was the result ofexcessivepunishmentmetedoutbymastersfortheirslavesputativelydelin-quent behavior. Failure to nish work assigned, pilfering, and ight constitutedthemostcommongroundsonwhichslaveholdersharshlythumpedAfro-Mexicans. Typically tied to a step-ladder (Ley de Bayona), rmly held down byother slaves, or even hanged in the air by both hands, slaves faced their mastersanger; often times, in their attempts to stop physical punishment, slaves blurtedout expressions of blasphemy and rejected God, which early modern writers onthecriminallawofthechurchandtheologians(suchasDomingodeSotoyFranciscodeSurez)consideredtobeaclearmanifestationofindelitythatwarranted prosecution by the Inquisition.17444 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores16. Throughout Spanish domination in Mexico obrajes earned what Charles Gibsoncalled a sordid reputation. Within their walls the work was hard, food and livingconditions were unsatisfactory, and physical abuse was a commonplace. See CharlesGibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valle of Mexico,15191810 (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1964), 243. For discussions on the obrajes inNew Spain and the use of black slave work force during the period under consideration,see Edmundo OGorman, El trabajo industrial en la Nueva Espaa a mediados del sigloXVII: Visita a los obrajes de paos en la jurisdiccin de Coyoacn, 1660, Boletn del ArchivoGeneral de la Nacin 11 (1940); Richard Greenleaf, Viceregal Power and the Obrajes of theCorts Estate, 15951708, HAHR 48, no. 3 (1968); Palmer, Slaves of the White God, 6583;Samuel Kagan, Penal Servitude in New Spain: The Colonial Textile Industry (Ph.D.diss., City Univ. of New York, 1977), 31, 141 49; idem, The Labor of Prisoners in theObrajes of Coyoacn, 16601693, in El trabajo y los trabajadores en la historia deMxico/Labor and Laborers Through Mexican History, ed. Elsa Cecilia Frost, Michael C.Meyer, and Josena Zoraida Vzquez (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mxico; Tucson: Univ.of Arizona Press, 1979); Gonzalo A. Beltrn, La esclavitud en los obrajes novoespaoles,in La heterodoxia recuperada: En torno a Angel Palerm, ed. Susana Glantz (Mexico City:Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1987); idem, El negro esclavo en Nueva Espaa, 6779;Richard J. Salvucci, Textiles and Capitalism in Mexico: An Economic History of the Obrajes,15391840 (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1987), 41, 99, 104, 114; Luisa Hoberman,Mexicos Merchant Elite, 15901660: Silver, State, and Society (Durham: Duke Univ. Press,1991), 13238; Carlos Paredes y Mara Blanca Tenorio, La poblacin negra en los vallescentrales de Puebla: Orgenes y desarrollo hasta 1681, and Mara Guadalupe ChvezCarbajal, La gran negritud en Michoacn: poca colonial, in Presencia africana en Mxico,ed. Luz Mara Martnez Montiel (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y lasArtes, 1997), 5961, 10004; and Rebeca Horn, Postconquest Coyoacn: Nahua-SpanishRelations in Central Mexico, 15191650 (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1997), 21820, 223.17. See Cesare Carena, Tractatvs de ofcio Santissimae Inquisitionis et modo procedendi incavsis dei (Lvgduni: Svmptibus Lavrentii Anisson, 1669); Juan Alberghini, ManualeQualicatorum Sanctae Inquisitionis (Zaragoza: Agustin Verges, 1671), chap. 16, no. 3, 44; For Spanish moralists, however, renouncing God was also an unbearableexpression of ingratitude by a Christian.18Indeed, through the Son, the Fatherhad set men and women free from the slavery of sin, hence making of them, asone modern scholar of Philippine colonization has remarked, recipients of agift so enormous as to defy equal return.19As a result of this divine manumis-sion, Christians agreed to a new slavery for, as Saint Paul wrote to the Romans,true freedom only exists in enslavement to God.20Yet, for those who were realTo Lose Ones Soul 445Domingo de Soto, De iustitia et iure/De la justicia y del derecho, trans. P. Marcelino GonzlezOrdez (1556; reprinted, Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Polticos, 19671968), bk. 8,question 2, 753; Diego Covarruvias y Leyva, Relectio cap. qvamuis pactum, de pactis, regvl.possesor malaedei, libro sexto, & clementinae si furiosus, de homicidio (Salmanticae: Andreas aPortonariis, 1557), chap. 7, no. 8, 52v; Francisco de Surez, Operis de virtute et statvreligionis tomvs primus (Lvgduni: Svmptibus Horatii Cardon, 1613), bk. 1, chap. 6, 295. Theexpression reniego de Dios constituted by far the most common one not only in New Spainbut also in Peru, Cartagena de Indias ( New Granada), Brazil, and Seville. For Seville, seeJeanPierre Dedieu, Les disciplines du langage et de laction, in Benassar, Linquisitionespagnole, 250; and for Peru, Jos Toribio Medina, Historia del Tribunal de la Inquisicin deLima, 15691820, 2 vols. (Santiago: Imp. Gutenberg, 1887), 32; Paulino CastaedaDelgado and Pilar Hernndez Aparicio, La inquisicin en Lima, 3 vols. (Madrid: Deimos,1989), 1:28687, and JeanPierre Tardieu, Leglise et les noirs au Perou, 64360; forCartagena de Indias, Jos Toribio Medina, Historia del tribunal del Santo Ocio de laInquisicin de Cartagena de las Indias (Santiago de Chile: Imp. Elzeviriana, 1899), 11819;and for Brazil, Laura de Mello e Souza, El diablo en la tierra de Santa Cruz: Hechicheria yreligiosidad popular en el Brasil colonial, trans. Teresa Rodrguez Martnez (Madrid: Alianza,1993), 119, 122.18. Domingo de Soto, De como se a de evitar el abuso de juramentos (Antwerp: Viuda yherederos de Juan Stelo, 1569), 82; and Nicols de Avila, Suma de los mandamientos, ymaremagnum del segundo, que ensea para el confesionario y persuade para el plpito (Alcala: En casa de Juan Gracian, 1610), 493.19. Vicente L. Rafael, Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion inTagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1993), 96.20. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness . . . Butnow that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you getis sanctication and its end, eternal life (Romans 6:2022). For an insightful discussion ofPauls theology of freedom, see Orlando Patterson, Freedom and the Making of WesternCulture, vol. 1 of Freedom ( New York: Basic Books, 1991), chap. 19. See also I. A. H.Combes, The Metaphor of Slavery in the Writings of the Early Church: From the New Testamentto the Beginning of the Fifth Century (Shefeld, England: Shefeld Academic Press, 1998),chap. 2; and J. Albert Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity (Tbingen:J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1995), chap. 1. For a discussion of slavery to Christ as asoteriological and positive image for early Christians, see Dale B. Martin, Slavery asSalvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity ( New Haven: Yale Univ. Press,1990), 5065.slaves, renouncing God entailed more than a denial of otherworldly indebted-ness; it also implied a refusal of the Christian ideology that justied their sub-jection as slaves under the promise of future redemption in the Afterlife,21anda rejection of the God who failed to perform as a true Master protecting Hisslave under unbearable circumstances of chastisement.22What is the purposeofbelievinginGod,ifHedoesnthelporfavormeinthesetribulations?asked Gernimo, the slave of Juan de Isla, in 1611. Slapped in the face for thispronouncementbythestewardoftheCholulaobrajeinwhichheworked,Gernimo kneeled facing an altar and roared, May the devil take with himour Lord and our Lady! I renounce God and all His saints because Ive beentaken to this obraje.23A parallel case was offered in 1616 by the slave Isabel(MexicoCity?),whoaskedindespairwhenshewascruellybatteredbyhermaster,OhmyJesus,whydidyouallowthistohappen?...YourenotGod!24As the pain and exasperation of slaves grew under the whip of their mas-ters, the rejection of the God who did not manifest concern about the tribula-446 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores21. Solange Alberro, Negros y mulatos en los documentos inquisitoriales: Rechazo eintegracin, in El trabajo y los trabajadores, 140; and idem, Inquisition et socit au Mexique,15711700 (Mexico City: Centre dtudes Mexicaines et Centroamricaines, 1988), 227.22. Although after the Council of Trent the church encouraged the identication ofthe Christian God with the gure of the father, it is unlikely that slaves found paternalmetaphors as compelling as free men did. Indeed, incapable of making natal claims upon afather, they also had no claims to pass on their children. Under these circumstances, fathersrepresented rather weak gures to slaves. Consequently, the Christian God was cast in theimage of the earthly master himself, the only once capable of offering an image of powerand authority. On the tendency of slaves to see the Christian God as a divine master, seeEugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made ( New York: PantheonBooks, 1974), 167; and Colin A. Palmer, Religion and Magic in Mexican Slave Society,15701650, in Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies, ed. StanleyL. Engerman and Eugene D. Genovese (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1975), 318. Onthe churchs stress on the image of God as a father after the Council of Trent, see KeithThomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth andSeventeenth Century England ( New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), 152; and O. Robert,Porter le nom de Dieu, in Histoire des pres et de la paternit, ed. Jean Delumeau andDaniel Roche (Paris: Larousse, 1990), 13154.23. AGN, Inq. 480.3, fol. 83r.24. AGN, Inq. 421.1 (unfoliated). Even Inquisitors acknowledged that slaves mighthave renounced God because of His perceived failure to preserve them from the mastersbrutality. For instance, when Isabel denounced herself in 1576 for having said, I am beatenwithout blame! I renounce God! I dont believe in God! she was asked by the InquisitorLicenciado Bonilla: Did you say that blasphemy out of anger against God because Heallowed you to be treated in this way? See AGN, Inq. 48.7, fol. 273r.tions of His believers acquired increasingly existential proportions. A descrip-tive approach to the verbal repertoire used by slaves while being beaten showsthattherewasacleartendencytocoupletherenunciationofGodandtheChristian community (symbolized by the baptismal chrism) with the rejectionoftheslavesownparents,especiallytheirmotherandhernurturingmilk.While in Mexico City Francisco uttered, some eight times in 1601, I renouncethe [baptismal] chrism I received and the milk I suckled! Pedro, slave of mer-chant Amado Pinto of Mexico City, in 1617 renounced the father who madehim, the mother who bore him, and the Holy Mother.25In Cholula, AmbrosioGutirrez, in 1611, renounced the mother who bore him four times after hewas slapped in the face by the steward of the obraje. Most noteworthy of all,however, was the case of Felipa, slave of Valeriano de Negrn in Mexico City,who was sentenced to 200 lashes after she confessed in 1607 to having renouncedGod our Lord and His saints, as well as the mother who bore her and thefatherwhoengenderedher,andthemilkshesuckledandtheswaddlingclothes( paales)inwhichshewaswrappedwhennewlyborn.26Underthedubious protection of a god who allowed his people to be beaten, it seems evi-dentthatAfro-MexicansrepudiatedhavingenteredthisworldasChristiansand slaves or, more strikingly, to have been born at all if birth meant being aslave.Blasphemywasnotamereexpressionofangerstemmingfrompainordespair among Afro-Mexican bondsmen. It often had another purpose, moresubtle and material, which Jean-Pierre Tardieu has dened as moral briberyandMexicanInquisitorsunderstoodasforcingapact( forzarunpacto).27Indeed, facing the imminence of physical punishment, Afro-Mexicans threat-ened their masters with renouncing God. For the slaveholder this created animpasse; if he decided to proceed with the chastisement, he was morally respon-sible for the resulting blasphemies. Yet if he dropped the whip, he conrmedtheefcacyofthisstrategyforescapingcastigationandriskeditsrepetitionamong other slaves. Although some masters suspended punishment and tooktheir slaves in continenti to the Holy Ofce, the majority tended to react withincreased anger to the dilemma set before them. Therefore, when on 3 June1598,Antnthreatenedhismaster,JuanOrtz,withrenouncingGodatthesombrero obraje in Tlanepantla, he was harshly whipped, and Ortz explained,To Lose Ones Soul 44725. Archivo Histrico del Museo Nacional de Antropologa e Historia (hereafter citedas AHMNAH), Col. Antigua (CA), 366.1, fol. 11; and AGN, Inq. 421.1 (unfoliated).26. AHMNAH, CA, 366.4, f. 231.27. AGN, Inq. 421.1 (unfoliated); and Tardieu, Lglise et les noirs au Prou, 647.so this wouldnt set a precedent among slaves as a way to avoid punishment.28In the same vein, in 1598, Gabriel de Castro, owner of an obraje in Los Ange-les, Puebla, yelled at his slave in a similar situation: Dog! Do you think youcan escape punishment in this way? Ill kill you for this reason!29For Inquisi-tors, the slaves conditional utterance involved a great deal of premeditation,andwasthusconsideredespeciallyreprehensibleasasignoftrickeryanddeceit (malicia y afectacin) on the part of the slave.30Intheirattempttothwartthestrategyoftheirslaves,mastersoftenimposed silence on them through a vast array of instruments that included notonly gags, but also candles, rebrands, sticks, cords, hot oil, and the mastersownfeet,sts,andngers.Theincrediblebrutalitydisplayedagainsttheslaves organs of speech seems to suggest, as Ranajit Guha has argued in a dif-ferent context, that masters attempted not only to control the spoken word,but also to produce a signicant absence of speech; that is, to force a pre-scriptive silence on the bodies of slaves by marking them brutally as an exam-ple and warning to other bondsmen.31Exhibiting the cruel traces of their mas-ters fury, Afro-Mexicans frequently faced the Inquisitors with swollen cheeks,broken or missing teeth, black eyes, burned skin, and bleeding wounds. Some-times,slaveswereinsuchbadphysicalconditionthattheHolyTribunalordered a cirujano to examine them.32In such cases, it was not uncommon forInquisitorstospareaslavephysicalpunishmentbecausetheaccusedhadalready been beaten extremely (muy aotado).33Often enough, masters crowned their extreme physical chastisement withverbalabuse.Thetermmostcommonlyusedwasdog,whichslaveholdersoften employed as a prelude to a severe beating. To use an animal name as animprecation indicates, as Edmund Leach has argued, that the animal categoryitself is credited with potency, that it is considered in some way taboo andsacred. Dogs derived their potency from the fact that, as pets and domes-ticated animals, they occupied an intermediate category between human and448 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores28. AGN, Inq. 147.4 (unfoliated).29. AGN, Inq. 147.2 (unfoliated).30. See, for example, the accusation of Commissary Antonio de Cervantes Carvajalagainst Juan de Jerz on 3 Sept. 1631 (Puebla), in AGN Inq. 375.5 (unfoliated).31. Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (1983;reprinted, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994), 467.32. See, for example, the case of Nicols de la Cruz in 1658, AGN, Inq. 572.13, fols.187214v.33. This was the case of Juan de Luyba, slave of Francisca de Peralta in 1625, seeAGN, Inq. 421.1. (unfoliated).not human.34This social limbo inhabited by dogs was similar to the status ofsocial excommunication, or social death, that according to Orlando Patter-son slaves experienced as nonpersons in the masters world. Indeed, incorpo-ratedatthemarginsofsociety,theslavewasneitherhumannorinhuman,neither man nor beast, neither dead nor alive, the enemy within who was nei-theramembernortruealien.35FranciscodelRosal,asixteenth-centurySpanishscholar,clearlysawthesimilaritybetweenthesetwostates.Heexplained that slaves were called dogs because, like domesticated canids, theywere part of the family, though they constituted the vilest members of it.36Yet,however marginalized slaves were in their masters society, they were expectedto honor the Christian God as any other member of a slaveholders family.This explains why slaveholders expressed a strong feeling of betrayal, ingrati-tude, and outrage when the slave renounced God and became not only a dogbut also a heretical other: Dog, youre a Christian! Do you know what youjust said? What did you just say, dog enemy of God? dog of the devil!Lutheran dog! rabbi dog! What seems to be implied in the use of perro,the most faithful of animals, to insult and debase slaves, is a situation in whichslaveswereperceivedtohavesymbolicallychangedloyalties;hencetheresulting indignation. Tellingly, slaves were often ordered, and even obliged,to conrm their membership in Christianity by renouncing the anti-God parexcellence,theDevil,andhisworks:Dog!ItistheDevilwhoyoushouldrenounce!37To Lose Ones Soul 44934. Edmund Leach, Anthropological Aspects of Language: Verbal Categories andVerbal Abuse, in New Directions in the Study of Language, ed. Eric H. Lenneberg(Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1964), 24, 45.35. Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, 48.36. Francisco del Rosal, La razn de algunos refranes: Alfabetos tercero y cuarto de origen yetymologia de todos los vocablos de la lengua castellana, ed. B. Bussell Thompson (London:Tamesis Books, 1975), 81.37. In a recent article, Alberto Ferreira discusses the Medieval and Early Christianmetaphorical tradition of depicting Jews, Muslims, heretics and general unbelievers ashostile, ravenous and wild canines to be shunned by Christians. See Alberto Ferreiro,Simon Magus, Dogs, and Simon Peter, in The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft in the MiddleAges: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey B. Russell, ed. Alberto Ferreiro (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill,1998), 4590. Perro apparently was a favorite Spanish expletive from the early days ofconquest of the New World, for the Laws of Burgos (15121513) prohibited Spaniardsfrom calling an Indian dog, or address[ing] him by any other name other than his propername alone. See Charles Gibson, ed., The Spanish Tradition in America ( New York: Harper& Row, 1968), 74. In spite of increasing miscegenation, perro was still clearly identied as aSpanish insult in eighteenth-century New Spain. See William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicideand Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1979), 82, 140. In spite of the masters horrendous punishment and the Inquisitions con-demnation,thereisevidencethatblasphemywastaughtandtransmittedamong Afro-Mexican slaves as a strategy to prevent bodily harm. For instance,in 1599, Joaqun de Santa Ana told his master Don Carlos de Smano in Jalapathatheblasphemedbecauseafellowslave,whomhehadmetinaprisoninTlaxcala, told Joaqun he could stop punishment by renouncing, as he himselfhad done. In fact, Doa Luisa de Valds, the wife of Don Carlos de Smano,related to the commissary of the Holy Ofce that in the nearly 14 years shehad possessed Joaqun, he had run away and committed robbery several times,butthatshehadneverheardhimgoagainstthe[Catholic]religion.38Inanother case, mulatta Gertrudis de Escobar assured the sadistic nun for whomsheworkedin1658shortlybeforebeingsoldasaslavebyherownrela-tivesthat she learned to renounce from a slave called Scorpion, who waslater whipped on the streets of Mexico City for renouncing God. As might beexpected, prosecutor Andrs de abala was outraged to hear that a ritual ofpublic punishment designed to deter spectators from committing this religiousoffense would produce its repetition.39abalas irritation stemmed from thefact that public retribution for blasphemy was not only supposed to manifestthe outrageousness of the crime committed but also the fearful power of thejusticethatpunishedtheblasphemers.Followingtraditionalprocedure,thedelinquent was rst required to dissociate himself from the offense by meansof a public disavowal (abjuracin) of his/her crime. Like other sorts of publicapologies, this ritual was not only meant to smooth the reincorporation of theindividualtothebodyofthefaithfulbutalsotorestoresymbolicallypowerrelations by showing that the culprit publicly accepted the judgment of . . .450 HAHR / August / Villa-FloresAccording to Cheryl E. Martins analysis of popular speech in eighteenth-century Parral,Chihuhua, the use of the word perro or perra as an insult was frequently used in disputesthat ended in attacks on personal honor; see her Popular Speech and Social Order inNorthern Mexico, 16501830, Comparative Studies in Society and History 33, no. 2 (1990):312. For recent discussions of insults and honor in colonial Latin America, see Lyman L.Johnson, Dangerous Words, Provocative Gestures, and Violent Acts, and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, A Slap in the Face of Honor, in The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violencein Colonial Latin America, by Lyman L. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera (Albuquerque:Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1998), 13235, 18284, 18789, 19091. 38. AGN, Inq. 48.6. (unfoliated).39. In opinion of prosecutor Andrs de abala Gertrudis had abused del n porqueeste santo offo. castiga a los reos en publico que es para exemplo de los que lo ven y seabstengan por el temor de la pena de cometer otros tales ni algunos otros delitos. SeeAGN, Inq. 446 (unnumbered), fols. 180v.[theHolyOfce]thatthisisanoffenseandthus,implicitly,thecensureofpunishmentthatfollowsfromit.40Next,thenowinfamousindividuals,regardless of their gender, were conducted on a beast of burden through thecustomary streets, naked to the waist and bearing a gag and a rope, while acrierannouncedtheirtransgression.Theywerethenadministeredbetween100 and 200 lashes. It truly was a moment in which, social values [were] notso much inculcated into the subject as etched upon the subjects body.41How-ever spectacular this event might have been, there was always the possibilitythat the audience could subvert the original message and transform the intendedpedagogy of repression into a pedagogy of resistance.42Yet slaves did not needto attend to those special occasions to learn to curse. As an utterance nor-mally stemming from unbearable chastisement, renouncing God was part oflifeunderslavery,anditsfrequencymusthaveremindedblackslavesoftheterrible living and working conditions they endured. In this sense, renouncingGod bore a legacy of voices, a polyphony in each utterance, and by repeatingthis kind of speech, black slaves transmitted and reenacted a specic practiceofresistanceamongfellowslaves.43ContrarytowhatInquisitorswanted tobelieve,itwasnottheparticularuttererontrialwhowastheoriginof the condemned expletives, but a shared and long history of mistreatment andexploitation.DenunciationRenouncing God did not immediately provide Afro-Mexican bondsmen respitefrom the masters hand. Like any other crime, one had to be rst denouncedTo Lose Ones Soul 45140. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts ( NewHaven: Yale Univ. Press, 1990), 57. For a classical discussion of rituals of punishment inearly modern society as political spectacles aimed at reactivating the power of authoritiessee Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of The Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan( New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), 5860.41. Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington:Indiana Univ. Press, 1994), 120.42. According to the sixteenth-century canonist Francisco Pea, the fear of offeringthe audience encouragement instead of deterrence from committing the crime in questionwas always present. But is there anything that wicked men cannot pervert? he reasoned.Theres no doubt that teaching and terrifying people with the proclamation of sentences,the imposition of sambenitos, and so forth, is a good action. See Nicolau Eimeric andFrancisco Pea, El manual de los inquisidores, trans. Francisco Martn (Barcelona: Muchnik,1996), 199.43. See Oswald Ducrot, Esquisse dune thorie polyphonique de lnonciation, in Le dire et le dit (Paris: Minuit, 1984).for blasphemy in order to be prosecuted. In this sense, the social alchemy thatallowed slave blasphemers to do things with words, as philosopher John L.Austinputit,restednotupontheslavesbutupontheiraudience,whoindenouncing them endowed the forbidden expletives with the necessary socialforcetowarrantinterventionbytheHolyOfce.44Appealingtotheirownreligious competence (generally their concern with the honor of God) tointerpret and then report what was said to the Inquisition, denouncers consti-tutedtherealtriggeringforcebehindblasphemyaffairs.45Ofcourse,theInquisitors reserved to themselves the power to dene speech violation, and toponder the circumstances under which the crime was committed. As a conse-quence,therewasalwaysagapbetweendenunciationsandprosecutions.Denouncersseemtohaveunderstoodthattheircompetencewasinrealitysubordinated to that of the Inquisition, for they tended to use terms such asdisparates (nonsense,absurdities),anddisonancias (literally,discords,disso-nances),insteadofthemoredoctrinaltermblasfemias,toreporttheverbalinfractions of the slaves. Moreover, it was not unusual to consult with priestsand confessors, the specialists on religious matters, before deciding to go tothe Holy Ofce.46The slaves chances to be brought before the Inquisition were improved,of course, if beyond appealing to the masters Christian conscience, they drew452 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores44. See John L. Austin, How To Do Things with Words (Cambridge: Harvard Univ.Press, 1962).45. See in this sense the illuminating article by Jeanne Favret-Saada, Rushdie etcompagnie: Pralables une anthropologie du blaspheme, Ethnologie franaise 22, no. 3(1992).46. For an excellent discussion of the theory and practice of denunciation and itscrucial relevance for the development of the Inquisitorial process see JeanPierre Dedieu,Ladministration de la foi: Linquisition de Tolde, XVIeXVIIIe sicles (Madrid: Casa deVelzquez, 1989), chaps. 6, 7. In recent years the study of practices of denunciation hasdrawn the attention of several scholars as an important but unstudied point of contactbetween individual citizens and the state, on the one hand, and to family and fellowcitizens, on the other. See Sheila Fitzpatrick and Robert Gellately, Introduction to thePractices of Denunciation in Modern European History, The Journal of Modern History 68,no. 4 (1996). Harold Garnkel offered an analysis of public denunciations as part of whathe called the sociology of moral indignation, in his famous essay Conditions ofSuccessful Degradation Ceremonies, The American Journal of Sociology 41 (195556). Forhis part, Luc Boltanski, Yann Darr, and Marie-Ange Schiltz offer a fascinating discussionof public denunciations in the framework of a sociology and social history of methods ofprotest (modes de protestation) in their La dnonciation, Actes de la Recherche en SciencesSociales 51 (1984).the attention of a wider audience. This strategy, however, represented a double-edged sword, because by renouncing publicly, slaves incurred the ancillary sinof scandal. In moral theology this offense was not likely to cause a reactionof indignation and outrage, but something that provided occasion and incite-ment to the sin of another, or as Aquinas put it, something less rightly doneor said, that occasions anothers spiritual downfall.47What censors most fearedwas the negative pedagogical effect renouncingcouldhaveonthefaithfulears of the audience. In 1660, for instance, Nicols Ramos, slave of FranciscoLpezinMexicoCity,wasseverelyscolded:itwasnotonlyacrimeforaCatholictorenounceGodbutalsobecauseapublicrenunciationwasscan-dalous.48This severe reprimand notwithstanding, it was obvious for slaves likeNicolsthatpublicrenunciationwassometimesanecessaryrisktotakeinorder to secure a denunciation.Surprisingly, a signicant number of cases concerning slaves who expressedreniegos were initiated by the masters themselves, or by people related to themasters, such as relatives, friends, and employees (37 cases). This fact becomesstriking because there were multiple disadvantages for the owner in doing so:spending time and money taking his slave to the Holy Ofce, paying for thestayofhisslaveinprison,losinghis/herlaborpowerduringthetimeinjailand, if it was so ordered by the Inquisition, selling their own slave. In addition,since sellers were obliged to declare their bondsmens conduct, an unruly slavewith a criminal record, a drunkard, runaway, thief, fornicator, blasphemer, orat the audiencia or the Holy Ofce could decrease in market value, thus repre-sentingasourceofeconomiclossfortheslaveholder.49Pendingalengthytrial,thecostsofkeepingaslaveinprisoncouldbeindeedexorbitant.Atatime when the price of a young male slave ranged between 300 and 500 pesos,for example, silversmith Juan de Padilla of Mexico City had to pay 158 pesos inTo Lose Ones Soul 45347. The New Catholic Encyclopedia ( New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 1112; ThomasAquinas, The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Fathers of the EnglishDominican Province, 22 vols. (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 19141925), 2:521.See also AGN, Inq. 6, fols. 491v 492v for a discussion of the crime of scandal related toblasphemy.48. AGN, Inq. 578. 10, fol. 425.49. Peter Boyd-Bowman offers examples of such transactions in notarial records, seehis Negro Slaves in Early Colonial Mexico, The Americas 26, no. 2 (1969): 137. See alsoChvez-Hita, Esclavos negros, 32; Rolando Mellafe, Negro Slavery in Latin America, trans. J. W. S. Judge (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1975), 84; and Aguirre Beltrn, El negroesclavo en la Nueva Espan, 457.1658 for the year his slave Juan de la Cruz spent in prison.50Similarly, Juan deCampos, owner of a textile obraje in Coyoacn, paid 73 pesos in 1656 for aneleven-monthstayinprisonbyhisslaveMarcosBautista.51NicolsdelaCruzsimprisonmentforvemonthscost46 pesosin1658,andLicenciadoGernimo Morn had to pay 48 pesos in 1662 for 166 days spent in prison byhis slave Antonio.52The amounts charged masters included not only feedingtheir slaves, but also for buying them clothes, giving them occasional medicalattention, cutting their hair and beards, and getting them some tobacco. Sincemost of the denunciations came from the masters circle of inuence, and hestood to lose the most by bringing his slave before the Holy Ofce, there hadto be tremendous pressure on the holder to denounce the blasphemer.Besides the obvious fear of the Inquisition, one can never overestimate inthese cases the inuence exerted on masters by neighbors, bystanders, and wit-nesses of all kinds, who often expressed concern over the dangers awaiting theChristian community if blasphemers were not punished, denounced the slavesthemselves (9 cases), or manifested apprehension for the fact that slaves losttheir soul at the hands of their masters. Sometimes the reactions of the wit-nesses were also reported to the Holy Ofce, which had a particular interest inknowing the effects of blasphemous speech on those who heard it. FranciscadeVargasstatedin1602 inLosAngeles,Puebla,forexamplethatshecriedand trembled (le temblaron las carnes) upon listening to Pedro Jurez, slave ofher neighbor, renouncing God.53Similarly, in 1609 the workers of the obrajeof Diego Caro in Mexico City crossed (blessed) themselves out of fear whenthe slave Diego blasphemed.54In contrast to these rather peaceful reactions, in1571 the outraged neighbors of Pedro de Mungua in Mexico City repeatedly454 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores50. AGN, Inq. 441.5, fols. 503 43. My estimate of the slaves price is based onPalmer, Slaves of the White God, 34. For a general discussion of black slaves prices incolonial Mexico consult the following works: R. Brady, The Domestic Slave Trade inSixteenth-Century Mexico, The Americas 24, no. 3 (1968): 288; and Peter Boyd-Bowman,Negro Slaves in Early Colonial Mexico, 137, for the years between 1540 and 1556;Frederick Bowser, The Free Person of Color in Mexico City and Lima: Manumission andOpportunity, 15801650, in Engerman and Genovese, Race and Slavery in the WesternHemisphere, for the years indicated in the articles title; Carrol, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz,3435, for the years between 15811690, and 7576, for the period 16751800; andDennis Valds, The Decline of Slavery in Mexico, The Americas 44, no. 2 (1987): 17174,for the period comprised between 1584 and 1756.51. AGN, Inq. 566.1, fols. 130v.52. AGN, Inq. 586.6, fols. 373 410.53. AGN, Inq. 452.6, fol. 98.54. AHMNAH, CA, 366.5, fol. 240r.struck his slave Toms de Contreras across his mouth and cheeks as a means ofbeatinghimintosilence.55Otherneighbors,however,harboredfeelingsofhorror and indignation upon hearing the familiar sounds of a cracking whipandtheslavespainfuloutcriesandblamedthemastersforthesinfulutter-ances.DrawnbythescreamsofaslaveofFranciscodeUrriola,ownerofawarehouse on the street of El Relox in Mexico City, a group of women com-mentedon22 August1669,thatthewretchedbondsmanhadbeenforcedtoblaspheme byhistorturersbecausetheyhadpouredhotsugaronhisskin.56Almost 70 years earlier, on 16 May 1598, the commissary Bartolom Mrquezde Amarilla had reported to the Inquisition that the continuous mistreatmentinicted upon the slaves of the obraje owner Gabriel de Castro in Los Angeles,Puebla,wasamotiveofconstantscandalintheneighborhood,forGodwasdailyblasphemedbecauseofthecrueltywithwhichtheywerechastised.57ReportingonablackslavewhorenouncedinanobrajeinLosAngeles,Puebla, in 1632, the commissary Antonio Cervantes expressed a similar opin-ion by stating that although slaves frequently incurred in blasphemy to escapepunishment in that mill, this was often caused by the cruel treatment of themasters.58GiventhegreatanxietyanddistresscausedbysinfuloutcriesofAfro-Mexicans, it is understandable that masters would feel strongly obligedtodenouncetheirslaves,lesttheywouldalsoriskareprimandfromtheInquisitors themselves.It was possible, however, for slaveholders to take steps to keep their slavesfrom going to trial. Some cases suggest, in fact, that when masters preventedtheir slaves from denouncing themselvesprobably by means of threats andclose surveillanceand occasionally dared to defy the Inquisition. Undoubt-edly, urban slaves who enjoyed more physical mobility such as domestic ser-vants were more likely to circumvent the vigilance of their masters and havedirect access to commisaries in their hometowns or to the Inquisitions head-quartersinMexicoCity.Thiswas,however,notalwaysthecase.59Forinstance, Pascual Francisco, a black slave in the Hospital del Amor de Dios inTo Lose Ones Soul 45555. AGN, Inq. 47.1, fols. 2 42.56. Emphasis mine. AGN, Inq. 514.4, fols. 1215.57. AGN, Inq. 147.2 (unfoliated).58. AGN, Inq. 375.5 (unfoliated).59. For examples in which domestic slaves succeeded in denouncing themselves, seethe cases of Juan (Mexico City, 1600), Isabel de la Cruz (Mexico City, 1625), Catalina (LosAngeles, Puebla, 1606), Pascuala (Mexico City, 1602), Juana de los Reyes (Mexico City,1613), in AGN, Inq. 471.101, fols. 343345v; 421.1 (unfoliated); 279.1, fols. 117; 421.1(unfoliated); 421.1 (unfoliated), respectively.Mexico City, euphemistically stated to the Inquisition in July 1606, one monthafter he had blasphemed, that he did not denounce himself earlier because hismasterkepthimverybusy.60Forthoselivinginthecountryside,havingaccesstotheHolyOfcecouldbeamorechallengingventure.Thiswas thecaseofblackslaveAntndeCartagenainTlanepantla,whocouldnotdenounce himself until 1598, two years after the blasphemous utterance wascommitted. Even then, his self-denunciation occurred only because he shoutedto Constable Ochoa to bring him to the Inquisition, on his way to Mass andescorted by the steward of the textile mill.61A more dramatic example occurredin Los Angeles, in 1603, when the black ladino slave Baltazar denounced him-self before the commisary Alonso Hernndez de Santiago. On 22 April, around3 PM, Baltazar was being beaten tied to a step-ladder in the obraje of his mas-ter, Alonso Gmez, who was also a regidor in Los Angeles. Remembering thatablackwomanhadbeenrecentlywhippedtodeathinthesameobraje,andseeing that the steward of the mill was about to pour pork fat on his skin, Bal-tazar renounced God and all His saints. Several black slaves heard him blas-pheme, but the steward ordered them not to denounce Baltazar and to declareif summoned by the Holy Ofcethat he was drunk. Seven days later, Bal-tazarmanagedtodenouncehimselftothecommissary.Hismaster,however,ercely resisted the competence of the Holy Ofce to try his slave, refusing totake Baltazar to the Inquisition. Gmez asserted that he himself would punish hisservant according to the laws. Irritated, the Inquisitors told the regidor to stayout of this business and do not meddle with the jurisdiction of the Inquisition,or he would be tried for conspiracy against the Holy Tribunal. Initially broughtto the public jail of Los Angeles, Baltazar was later returned to his master, buttheHolyOfceorderedAlonsoGmeztohaveBaltazarimprisonedintheobraje and prohibited him from selling his servant until the matter was settled.62456 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores60. AGN, Inq. 279.10, fols. 114137v.61. AGN, Inq. 147.4. (unfoliated). In a similar case Francisco, a mulatto slave ofToms de Baeza, secured a denunciation in 1603 by telling a passerby that he renouncedGod, and that he was not a baptized Christian while being escorted by his master on thestreet in Mexico City. See AGN, Inq. 271.16 (unfoliated).62. AGN, Inq. 271.18 (unfoliated). Obstructing the free exercise of the Inquisitionconstituted a grave offense; the impeders of the Holy Ofce were heavily ned and, inextreme cases, prosecuted as heretics. In 1635, for instance, Spaniard Francisco de la Torrewas sentenced to pay two thousand golden pesos as an impeder of the Tribunal. See JosTorbio Medina, Historia del tribunal del Santo Ocio de la Inquisicin en Mxico (1905;reprinted, Mexico City: Conaculta, 1991), 194; and Stephen Haliczer, Inquisition and Societyin the Kingdom of Valencia, 14781834 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1990), 19.As the slaveholder clearly knew, once the trial started, it could take some timebefore everything was over.Afro-Mexicans on TrialBlasphemy trials could be rather lengthy. After receiving the denunciation oftheslavescrime,theInquisitionundertookadetailedinvestigationofthecharges involved. The investigators summoned witnesses of all social classesnot only to render an account of the exact words used and the circumstancesunder which the slave blasphemed but also to express their opinion about theinfractor as a Christian. Furthermore, witnesses were asked if the accused wassober and in the right state of mind (en su juicio) at the time of renunciation,and if the slave had made a habit of blaspheming (costumbre de renegar). Beforean arrest took place, a number of theologians who served as consultants (cali-cadores)determinedwhetherornotthecasewarrantedprosecution.Iftheevidencegatheredwasjudgedsufcient,anorderofarrestwasissuedattherequestoftheprosecutingattorneyorscal.BroughttojailinMexicoCity by the alguacil mayor (constable) or the master himself, the slave would thenspend months (sometimes more than a year) imprisoned before a verdict wasannounced. Occasionally, the slaveholder would be allowed to keep the slave athis service pending the trial, a phenomenon which, according to the availableevidence, occurred in only seven cases, but is likely to have occurred in manyother instances;63the slaveholder was obliged, however, to present the defen-dant before the Tribunal whenever he or she was needed. In addition, the mas-ter would be clearly instructed not to sell his slave.During the rst meeting with the prisoner, the Inquisitors elicited infor-mation concerning the slaves age, marital status, genealogy, and personal his-tory (discurso de la vida). It was not unusual, however, for a slave to be ignorantof such details. Sometimes the defendants tried to summarize their genealogyby stating, as Marco Bautista did in 1656, that he descended from good, notfrom bad people.64The slave was then asked if (s)he had been previously triedTo Lose Ones Soul 45763. See the cases of Joaqun de Santa Ana (Xalapa, Ver., 1599), AGN, Inq. 145.7, fols.80132; Francisco (Mexico City, 1601), AHMNAH, CA, 366.1, fols. 127; Sebastin(Mexico City, 1603), AGN 271.14 (unfoliated); Pascual Francisco (Mexico City, 1606),AGN, Inq. 279.10, fols. 114137v; Pedro (Mexico City, 1607), AHMNAH, CA, 366.2, fols.168190; Felipa (Mexico City, 1607), AHMNAH, CA, 366.4, fols. 191236; and Pedro(Mexico City, 1608), AGN, Inq. 483.2, fols. 16 42.64. AGN, Inq. 566. 1, fols. 130vbytheHolyOfce;if(s)hewasaChristian,baptizedandconrmed;andif(s)hereceivedtheHolyCommuniononthedaysdesignatedbythechurch.Then, as a means of testing his/her basic knowledge of Christian doctrine andritual,theslavewasrequestedtomakethesignofthecross,andrepeatthefour prayers (Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Salve Regina, and Credo) and the TenCommandments.Inaccordancewiththetraditionalprocedure,neitherthenamesofthedenouncernorthechargesweredisclosedtothedefendant.Whenaskedif(s)heknewthereasonforthetrial,theslavesometimesevenconfessedtocrimes unknown to the Inquisitors. Aside from those who denounced them-selves, however, most slaves claimed to know the nature of the charges againstthemandpromptlyofferedtheirownversionoftheevents.Renderingasmanyluriddetailsaspossible,slavesdepictedthehorricconditionsunderwhichtheyblasphemed.Giventhefactthatintentwasthemostimportantaspect in committing this crime and sin, slaves had to prove beyond doubt thatthey had no real intention to renounce God. Hence, in order to present theirblasphemies as a result of their masters brutality, they made an effort to depictbefore the Holy Tribunal the vast and cruel array of disciplinary inscriptionspracticed on their bodies. In an effort to limit their responsibility and present themselves as piousChristians before the Tribunal, slaves resorted to several different strategies ofself-representation. First, it was necessary to stress that, as fellow Christiansthey asked their masters to stop the chastisement either for the sake of Christ,the Holy Sacrament, or the Holy Virgin. Then, the slaves stated, lacking the[necessary] strength ( faltndole el vigor) to withstand the beating, forced bythe unbearable pain, or urged (oprimido) by the rigorous punishment, theywere compelled to renounce God in order to put an end to their suffering. Incontrast to their use of the active voice to reject the divinity under those cir-cumstances (I renounce God), however, slaves often used the passive voiceto disclaim responsibility for the sinful utterances. Couching their confessionsin a variety of self-exculpatory expressions, slaves attempted to establish beforethe Holy Tribunal that they were not in control of their faculties under suchduress: I didnt know what was said (no supe lo que se dijo), I was out of con-trol (estaba fuera de m ), I was out of my mind ( fuera de mi juicio natural ).Having lost command over themselves, they only learned what they had saidthroughsurroundingwitnesses.Whentheycamebacktotheirsenses,theyclaimed to have shown remorse and regret.65In addition, Afro-Mexicans drew458 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores65. In contrast to JeanPierre Tardieus ndings for Peru, AfroMexicans rarely used a distinction between renouncing from the moutha sort of automatic reac-tiontointolerablecastigationandrenouncingfromtheheart,wheretrueintention apparently resided. In 1621 Diego, the young slave of barber ManuelRoberto, stated that he renounced from his mouth, not from his heart, becausehewasabaptizedChristian.66Slavesoftendeclaredtohaverenouncedonlyonce,andclaimedtohaverepentedeitherbyutteringaparticularformula(May Jesus be with me!), by asking forgiveness in front of an altar, or recant-ing the sinful utterances. The number of renouncements was important, for itwasestablishedthatrepetitionasasignofcontumacy(stubbornrebellious-ness) warranted a harsher punishment from the Inquisition.67In a nal state-ment,defendantskneeledandbeggedformercyandpromisednottoblas-phemeagainevenifitmeantdeath(aunquelequitenlavida)orbeingshredintopieces(lo/lahaganpedazos);slavesoftenrequestedthattheybesoldtoanothermasterinordertoavoidblasphemy.Theslavewasusuallyadmon-ished to offer a full confession, but having nothing more to say, the Tribunalwould put an end to the rst hearing and order the accused to be returned toprison.During the second judicial session, the defendant was admonished onceagain to render a complete confession of his crimes. Since slaves rarely addedanything else to their previous statements, the Inquisitors would immediatelyask the prosecutor to proceed with a formal accusation. The scal, in his turn,would stress that the fact that slaves claimed a Christian identity only aggra-vated their cases, for it was inadmissible for a Christian to blaspheme his ownGod. Based on the testimony of the witnesses, the prosecutor summarized theevents and almost invariably emphasized that the beating slaves received wasmoderate,welldeserved,andwithnocrueltywhatsoever(singnerodecrueldad).Thescalspositionmirroredthatoftheslaveholders,whooftendeclared themselves to have punished their slaves mercifully and in the nameTo Lose Ones Soul 459drunkenness as an exculpatory argument for their blasphemies. For exceptions, see AGN,Inq. 16.14, fols. 464 472, versus Juan Sevilla, Antequera, 1560; AGN, Inq. 46.5, fols.2337, versus Domingo, Mexico City, 1572; AGN, Inq. 421.1, versus Juan Garca, MexicoCity, 1616. See also, Tardieu, Lglise et les noirs au Perou, 656.66. AGN, Inq. 421.1 (unfoliated).67. See Arnaldo Albertino, De agnoscendis assertionibus Catholicis et haereticis tractatus(Rome: In Aedibus Populi Romani, 1572), question 28, no. 18, 145v; and Antonio de Sousa,Aphorismi inqvisitorvm in qvatvor libros Distribvti (Olissipone apud Petrum Craesbeeck,1630), bk. 1, chap. 19, no. 18, 53.of God.68If slaves blasphemed God under these circumstances, the prosecu-tor would argue, it was only because of their bad disposition. In 1659 in thecase against Gertrudis de Escobar, Prosecutor Andrs de abala stated, nei-ther the instrument, nor the oppression nor the rigor of the punishment couldjustifysuchaterribleanddreadfulaudacity,butonlyhernaturalevilandvicious penchant.69To regard blasphemy as a consequence of the bad natureof the slave transgressors, obviously, only manifested a constant disavowal ofthe history of violence involved in these cases and, for that matter, the violenceperpetrated in slavery in general.70To conclude his accusation, the prosecutorwouldassertthatthedefendanthadcommittedotheroffenses,andwouldchargehim/herwithperjury,allegingtheprisonerfalselystatedtohavenomore crimes to declare. In replying to the charges, the slave generally adheredtohis/herpreviousstatementsanddeniedhavingcommittedmorecrimes.The Tribunal would then appoint a defense attorney for the slave and termi-nate the hearing.As in the previous meeting, the third session started with a new admoni-tion from the Inquisitors to the slave to declare in full his/her crimes. Next,the defendant and his/her attorney appeared before the Holy Tribunal. Thisminor ofcial of the court, however, could do no more than advise the defen-danttoconfessandaskformercy.AsStephenHaliczerhasemphasized,defense attorneys found themselves in an ambiguous, even dangerous, positionbeforethecourt.WantingtheapprovalandrespectoftheHolyTribunal,these ofcials feared to offer a vigorous defense that would place their jobs atrisk and possibly even raise the suspicion that they were protectors of hereticsand blasphemers.71Notwithstanding this, defense attorneys frequently offered460 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores68. For instance, in his testimony against his slave Pedro Jurez, in 1602 the priest ofthe Cathedral of Tlaxcala claimed before the commisary of Puebla Bartolom Marqus deAmarilla to have reproached Pedro: Dog! what reason [did] you have to renounce Godand His saints? The punishment I give you is moderate and merciful because youre abaptized Christian and you must mend yourself . . . Treacherous traitor to God and theHoly Trinity! In the name of God and the Holy Trinity in which I believe and I adore, andas an expression of reverence to them I punish you! See AGN, Inq. 452.6, fol. 94.69. AGN, Inq. 446 (unnumbered), fol. 180.70. Both Davidson and Palmer stated in the same way that, in general, the slaveswere tried for their crimes, while the violence which provoked them was ignored. SeeDavidson, Negro Slave, 241; and Palmer, Slaves of the White God, 118.71. See Haliczer, Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom, 7475. Similarly, for theinuential sixteenth-century canonist Francisco Pea, the main role of the defense attorneywas to press the defendant to confess and repent, and request penitence for the crimecommitted. See Eimeric and Pea, Manual de los inquisidores, 168. slaves some coaching when it came to asking for forgiveness. While conferringwith their attorney, slaves were often advised to make a nal attempt to estab-lishtheirinnocencebymentioningSpanishprejudicesagainstpeopleofAfrican blood. In doing so, Afro-Mexicans often begged for the Inquisitionsaccustomed mercy, claiming to be wretched and ignorant negroes, withlittle judgment and understanding.72Atsomepointafterthelastaudience,theInquisitorsvotedandpro-nounced the sentence. Slaves normally heard the Inquisitors decision at theHolyOfcequarters,butagoodnumberofsentenceswerealsoannouncedbeforeavastcrowdinanautodef,atheaterofpunishmentinwhichAfro-Mexicans were routinely included as penitents.73Penance varied from case tocase, but the Tribunal generally condemned the offenders to public abjurationde levi (reserved for minor offenses), scourging (usually between 100 and 200lashes), public disgrace by being paraded on the streets, and spiritual penance(attending a mass and undergoing a course of religious instruction). Tempo-rary incarceration, and/or work in obrajes (which functioned as labor prisons)foroneortwoyearswerealsopossible,thoughlesscommon,penalties.74To Lose Ones Soul 46172. See, for instance, AGN, Inq. 147.2 (unfoliated), vs. Domingo, Puebla, 1598;AGN, Inq. 48.6 (unfoliated), vs. Joaqun de Santa Ana, Jalapa, 1599; AMNAH, CA 366.1,fols. 127, vs. Francisco, Mexico City, 1601; AGN, Inq. 269.1 (unfoliated), vs. Juan( Jhoan), Los Angeles, 1603.73. Medina, Historia del Tribunal del Santo Ocio de la Inquisicin en Mxico, 62, 121,166, 169, 172, 174, 194, 297, 303. See also Alejandro Caeque, Theater of Power: Writingand Representing the Auto de Fe in Colonial Mexico, The Americas 52, no. 3 (1996):33233.74. For cases in which slaves were sentenced to prison, see Juan Criollo (Mexico City,1596), 6 months, AGN, Inq. 161.5 (unfoliated); Juan Montes (Mexico City, 1596), 6months, AGN, Inq. 145. 10, fols. 168205v; Domingo (Los Angeles, 1598), 6 months,AGN, Inq. 147.2 (unfoliated); Baltazar de los Reyes (Los Angeles, 1603), 4 months, AGN,Inq. 271.18 (unfoliated); Ambrosio (Mexico City, 1603), one year in prison, AGN, Inq.271.17 (unfoliated); Pascual Francisco (Mexico City, 1606), 6 months, AGN, Inq. 279.10,fols. 114137v; Pedro (Mexico City, 1608), 4 months, AGN, Inq. 483.2, fols. 16 42; andMara de la Cruz (Mexico City, 1658), 6 years in prison, AGN, Inq. 576.5, fols. 518570.On obrajes as prisons, consult Samuel Kagan, The Labor of Prisoners in the Obrajes ofCoyoacn, 16601693, in El trabajo y los trabajadores, 201214; idem, Penal Servitude inNew Spain: The Colonial Textile Industry (Ph.D. diss., City Univ. of New York, 1977),7384. See also, Gonzalo A. Beltrn, La esclavitud en los obrajes novoespaoles, in LaHeterodoxia Recuperada: En torno a Angel Palerm, ed. Susana Glantz (Mexico City: Fondo deCultura Econmica, 1987). In Peru, bakeries played a similar role since colonial times. SeeChristine Hnefeldt, Paying the Price of Freedom: Family and Labor among Limas Slaves,18001854 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1994), 18794; and Carlos A. Aguirre,Violencia, castigo y control social: Esclavos y panaderas en Lima, siglo XIX, Pasado yPresente 1 (1988).Although it is difcult to establish a clear correspondence between crimes andpunishments,itseemsthatInquisitorsreservedlighterpenancesforthoseslaves who offered a prompt confession, manifested immediate repentance andsigns of submission, and promised not to blaspheme again. Apparently, a par-ticularlyeffectivewayforslavestoavoidpunishmentwastoshowprofoundcontrition and to vow not to renounce God anew, even if masters were beatingthem to death. Inquisitors found this act of repentance especially satisfactorybecausebyassertingtheirwillingnesstoendurethemastersviolencetothepoint of risking death, slaves accepted the slaveholders right to chastise anddisciplinetheirbodies,whilealsodepictingthemselves,thevictims,aslaw-abiding,obedient,andfaithfulChristians.Thiswasprobablyseenasadra-maticstatement,forbothInquisitorsandslavesknewthatthepossibilityofdyingatthemastershandswasindeedarealone.75Ingeneral,theaccusedslaves who resorted to this strategy at the Holy Ofce received only a severereprimand.76It seems, however, that the sentences were frequently considered to be tooharsh by the Supreme Holy Tribunal in Spain. Due to the institutional subor-dination of all colonial tribunals to the Council of the Inquisition (La Suprema)headed by the Inquisitor General, the Mexican Inquisition regularly sent sum-mariesofallcases(relacionesdecausas)toMadrid.ThispracticeallowedtheSuprematosupervisethetrialsandtoponderthefairnessofthesentencesimposed. A letter written by the Supreme Council to the Mexican Inquisitorsin1610 showsthatMadridfrequentlyfoundexcessivethedecisionsagainstAfro-Mexicans:[G]enerallythesesentencesseemtoorigorous,statedtheSuprema,consideringthatthey[theslaves]blasphemedonaccountoftherigorofthepunishment.ShowinggreatertolerancethanitscounterpartinNew Spain, the Suprema instructed the Mexican Inquisitors to warn masterswho exhibited cruelty against their slaves not to give them [the slaves] occa-sion to blaspheme against God our Lord, but to treat them well.77As a resultof this injunction, the Holy Ofce apparently tended to reduce the harshness462 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores75. Some cases never reached conclusion because of the defendants death, possibly asa result of mistreatment in the masters house pending the trial. For examples, see the casesof Thomas de Contreras (Mexico City, 1572), and Antn de Cartagena (Tlanepantla, 1598)in, respectively, AGN, Inq. 47.1, fols. 2 41, and 147.4 (unfoliated).76. For examples consult the cases of Juana (Mexico City, 1629), Mara (Mexico City,1630), and Gabriel (Mexico City, 1629), in AGN, Inq. 421.1. See also the case of MarcosBautista (Coyoacn, 1656), in AGN, Inq. 566.1 (unfoliated).77. AGN, Inq. 502 (unnumbered), fol. 385, quoted in Alberro, Negros y mulatos,160.ofitssentencestoastrongadmonitionandabeatingconsistingof12 to50lashes between 1611 and 1640, but later increased the severity of the punish-ment to its usual levels in the 1650s.78Although the Suprema generally tendedin the direction of greater leniency in modifying sentences handed out in theIberian provinces, the disagreement between Madrid and its colonial depen-dencyregardingthepunishmentofslaveswasalsoaresultofthedifferentsocial conditions faced by the two tribunals. As emphasized by Colin Palmerand Solange Alberro, tensions deriving from the pre-1650 numerical inferior-ity of Spaniards to blacks,79the constant fear of rebellion, and the Spaniardsneed of self-preservation worked powerfully against any kind of liberalism inthe slave system in New Spain.80To Lose Ones Soul 46378. For several instances in which a milder punishment was ordered, see AGN, Inq421.1 (unfoliated).79. After constituting a participant in the slave trade as important as to purchasealmost half of all Africans sent to America between 1595 and 1622 (a period in which thecapital of the colony alone registered more than 10,000 slaves as well as 3,500 blackfreemen, mulattoes and mestizos), Mexico imported decreasing numbers of slaves in the1630s. By the 1670s the trade had virtually stopped in important centers of slave acquisitionsuch as Jalapa. This trend reected the general withdrawal of New Spain fromparticipation in the Atlantic slave trade after the dissolution of the SpanishPortugueseunion in 1640 and the consequent lack of supply of Africans. As a result of these changes,whites came to outnumber blacks in Mexico after the 1650s. For an estimate of thepopulation of Mexico at the end of the sixteenth century, see Georges Baudot, Lapopulation des villes du Mexique en 1595 selon une enqute de lInquisition, Cahiers dumonde hispanique et lusobrsilien (Caravelle) 37 (1981): 17. For discussions of the decline inthe importation of slaves to New Spain, see Carrol, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 31, 145, 146;Gilberto Bermdez Gorrochotegui, Historia de Jalapa, siglo XVII (Xalapa, Mexico: Univ.Veracruzana, 1995), 31719; Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrn, La poblacin negra de Mxico: Estudioetnohistrico, 2d ed. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1972), 26575; Cheryl E.Martin, Rural Society in Colonial Morelos (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1985),esp. chap. 6; Vila Vilar, Hispanoamrica y el comercio de esclavos, 207; and Palmer, Slaves of the White God, 6. An important exception to the generalized decrease in slave importationwas Crdoba, which augmented its acquisition of Africans at the end of the seventeenthcentury, see ChvezHita, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucareras; and idem,Trabajadores esclavos en las haciendas azucareras de Crdoba, Veracruz, 17141763, inEl trabajo y los trabajadores, 163.80. See Palmer, Slaves of the White God, 88; and Alberro, Negros y mulatos, 159. On the Supremas pattern of greater leniency in relation to the provinces, see Haliczer,Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom, 9091.The DeclineThe Holy Ofce clearly enjoyed a reputation among slaves as a possible wayout of the stern conditions in which they lived. In the absence of effective civilcourts where they could lodge a complaint for mistreatment, Afro-MexicanssawtheInquisitionasanavenuetoalleviatetheirmiserablecondition.81Although most slaves only obtained a momentary respite before the Tribunal,they longed for the possibility of changing masters. Spanish law and its colo-nial variants required brutally treated slaves to be sold to another master, butsuchdispositionwasrarelypracticed.EvenwhentheInquisitiontookthismeasure in several cases of extreme cruelty, the action was clearly more a mildpunishmentofthemasterthanarightoftheslave.82Stillthisalternativegave slaves some hope of having a better life through the intervention of theHolyOfce.Bythemid-seventeenthcentury,theTribunalsreputationasapossible way of changing masters was so clearly established among slaves thatInquisitors felt in need of admonishing slave Juan de Morga in 1650 that TheHolyOfcenevertakesawaytheslavesfromtheirmasters,norforces[theowners] to sell them because its only business is to deal with cases related totheCatholicfaith.83Nevertheless,thecourtdidnotalwaysfollowthroughwith such rhetoric. Morgans fate was a case in point. The Inquisitors ordereda thorough investigation to establish whether his master Diego de Arratia waspracticing the cruelties alleged by Morga at his mines in Zacatecas, and if such464 HAHR / August / Villa-Flores81. According to Palmer, there were two main methods of offering judicial protectionto the slave in New Spain. The rst one was preventive, and consisted of an unannouncedand sporadic visit to an obraje to register if abuses were committed against the laborforce, of which slaves formed a signicant part. The second one was punitive in character,and was triggered when witnesses or the slaves themselves denounced a slaveholder formistreatment before the Holy Ofce or audiencia. Unfortunately, protection cases wererare throughout the colonial period. In this context, intervention of the Holy Ofce couldbe only secured by AfroMexicans through criminal deeds such as blasphemy. See Palmer,Slaves of the White God, 902; and Davidson, Negro Slave, 240 41.82. Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, 202. Changing of masters was a triumph forslaves, but a small one. As R. Douglas Cope asserts, a slaves welfare depended in largepart on establishing a rapport with his master, that could reduce the coercive element insocial control and be translated into a movement along the spectrum toward paternalismand clientage. See Cope, The Limits Racial Domination, 96. For examples of slaves whosucceeded in changing masters, see the cases of Juan (Puebla, 1603), Nicols de la Cruz(Mexico City, 1658), and Salvador (Mexico City, 1707). In these three instances, themasters were ordered to sell them. See, respectively, AGN, Inq. 269.1. (unfoliated); 572.13,fols. 187r214v; and 544.19, fols. 375387v.83. AGN, Inq. 253 (unnumbered), fol. 270.wasthecase,theyorderedMorgatobesoldsincethesalvationofthismulatto [was] in danger.84However, as the seventeenth century neared its end, slaves found it increas-inglydifculttodrawtheattentionoftheHolyOfce,fortheInquisitorswerelosinginterestinblasphemyamongAfro-Mexicans.Partofthereasonfor this decline was undoubtedly related to the general decline of blasphemy asa transgression capable of calling down the wrath of the celestial powers thatbe,achangeassociatedwiththedeteriorationoftheimageofaretaliatingGod, and its replacement with the more loving, but more distant God of theNew Testament.85More important for our discussion, however, was the increas-ing resistance of the Tribunal to work as an institutional avenue to free slavesfromtheirmastersauthority,andtospenditstimeandresourcesintheseoften-burdensome trials. The weary prosecutor Andrs de abala, in a letterwritten to the Holy Ofce in 1663, offered a good example of this change ofattitude.ComplainingaboutthewayMexicanbondsmenprecipitatedtheinterventionoftheInquisitionbyrenouncingGod,theofcerstatedthatslaves simply intend to evade their masters service and escape his dominion . . . [as a result,] they have represented a lot of work for this Holy Ofce, whichis repeatedly overburdened with these kinds of cases.86Some late-century cases indicate, on the other hand, that the Inquisitionwasincreasinglywillingtocastigateslavesattheplaceoftheirsupposedinfraction, instead of transferring the defendants to Mexico City. There weresomepetitionstoreducetimeanddistancebetweencrimeandpunishment.On 3 September 1631, the commissary of the Inquisition in Puebla, Don Anto-nio de Cervantes Carvajal, denounced Francisco Snchez, a mulatto awaitingpunishmentinthepublicjailforseveraldifferentcrimes.Inanattempttoescapepunishmentbythesecularauthorities,SnchezrenouncedGodandHis saints several times so he would be taken out of his prison and conductedbeforetheHolyOfce.CervantesaskedorderstoproceedagainstSnchez,but also reminded the Inquisitor Francisco Bazn de Albornoz that in a recentsimilarcasehehadorderedtheinfractortobegiven40 lashesinfrontofthose who heard him, and it caused such a good effect that his master will notsell him for any money, because he made such a big change from bad to good.87To Lose Ones Soul 46584. AGN, Inq. 253, fol. 273. 85. I discuss in detail these changes in the perception of blasphemy in the colonialMexican context in Defending Gods Honor.86. AGN, Inq. 502.385 (unfoliated), quoted in Alberro, Negros y mulatos, 158.87. AGN, Inq. 374.4, fols. 40rSimilarly,LicenciadoJosephRamrezdeArellano,writingfromasugarmillnearPantitln,requestedin1663 thatslavesbepunishedattheplaceoftheinfraction s