Periodic Reporting for period 1 - UGM (Under the guidance of Mary: “Moriscos” and “Indios” against the expansion of the Spanish Empire and the politics of Marian devotion.)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-09-01 bis 2025-08-31
Zusammenfassung vom Kontext und den Gesamtzielen des Projekts
This research project enquires into the political implications of Marian devotion in the Early Modern Iberian World and its role in the colonial management of “native” communities of “Moriscos” and “Indios,” subdued since the end of the 15th century by the expansion of the Spanish Empire. This study proposes a “political” reading of the development of Marian devotion in the Iberian Peninsula and its American colonies, exploring its role in local politics, native strategies, and colonial dynamics across the Atlantic. With this aim, the project analyzes how the particular characteristics and evolution of Marian devotion reflected the progressive transformation of the Spanish imperial project and encoded diverse and changing conceptions of the role of these “native” communities in the imperial fabric. Through the comparative study of the representation of “Indios” and “Moriscos” in the collective imagery, imperial documentation and religious literature, my research tries to question the role of the Virgin and her imagined relationship with these communities in the debate over the ability of “native” populations to integrate themselves into the colonial regime as “faithful subjects” and “good Christians”, and the place of their culture and religious sensibility in the configuration of the emerging colonial culture. The project centers not only on the politics of Marian devotion in the Spanish Empire and its relationship with imperial policies towards “Moriscos” and “Indios”, but fundamentally on the “native” response to its transformation. In this way, through the analysis of the intellectual and artistic products commissioned by “Christianized” Morisco and Mesoamerican elites, the project tries to elucidate how “native” communities and especially subaltern elites, facing the progressive erosion of their rights and privileges, used Marian devotion to prove the value of their cultural heritage, lineage and memory and to reclaim their place in the colonial society. In this sense, the research project seeks to understand how “native” communities transformed the Virgin into a “political” symbol, through which they could legitimize their understanding of Christianity and promote an alternative and more “inclusive” conception of the Spanish Empire against the growing acculturating and homogenizing pressure of the Empire and the Reformed Church.
To analyze these questions, the project focuses on studying the parallel stories of two regions with unique political statuses, cultural characteristics, and a prominent native elite and intellectual culture: Granada and Tlaxcala. Through the analysis of the “native” fabrication of the Lead Books of Granada and the apparition of the Virgin of Ocotlan, the project aim to explore the role of Marian devotion across the Atlantic in key phenomena: the configuration of local Christianity and Christian native identities, the development of imperial rhetoric and the debates about “Moriscos” and “Indios” assimilability, the changes in imperial policies toward native communities, the erosion of local autonomy and the articulation of similar native elite strategies to resist imperial control and acculturation. Through the analysis of these “native” fabrications, the research explores how Granadan Morisco and Tlaxcalan Indigenous elites, facing increasing imperial pressure that threatened their political power, class privileges, and regional autonomy, reinvented local sacred history and created a unique religious imagery to channel local religious sensibilities and reclaim their lost prestige. The study reveals how these native forgeries rely on a similar narrative of Marian protection and an honorable Christian past to vindicate the exceptional Christian character of their land, blessed with unique celestial gifts. On both sides of the Atlantic, this “Marian strategy” formed part of a broader project to reimagine “native” origins. This shared “native” agenda exploited humanist knowledge to insert local memories into a global biblical antiquity and reaffirm the apostolic roots of local Christianity, native lineages, and cultural expressions. The project will evidence how, through these parallel native inventions, Granadan and Tlaxcalan elites intended to vindicate their place in a Spanish Empire in transformation, ease increasing interethnic and inter-class tension, and control the troubling effects of “popular” religiosity during a critical moment in which the position of their territory within the colonial system was being redefined.
To analyze these questions, the project focuses on studying the parallel stories of two regions with unique political statuses, cultural characteristics, and a prominent native elite and intellectual culture: Granada and Tlaxcala. Through the analysis of the “native” fabrication of the Lead Books of Granada and the apparition of the Virgin of Ocotlan, the project aim to explore the role of Marian devotion across the Atlantic in key phenomena: the configuration of local Christianity and Christian native identities, the development of imperial rhetoric and the debates about “Moriscos” and “Indios” assimilability, the changes in imperial policies toward native communities, the erosion of local autonomy and the articulation of similar native elite strategies to resist imperial control and acculturation. Through the analysis of these “native” fabrications, the research explores how Granadan Morisco and Tlaxcalan Indigenous elites, facing increasing imperial pressure that threatened their political power, class privileges, and regional autonomy, reinvented local sacred history and created a unique religious imagery to channel local religious sensibilities and reclaim their lost prestige. The study reveals how these native forgeries rely on a similar narrative of Marian protection and an honorable Christian past to vindicate the exceptional Christian character of their land, blessed with unique celestial gifts. On both sides of the Atlantic, this “Marian strategy” formed part of a broader project to reimagine “native” origins. This shared “native” agenda exploited humanist knowledge to insert local memories into a global biblical antiquity and reaffirm the apostolic roots of local Christianity, native lineages, and cultural expressions. The project will evidence how, through these parallel native inventions, Granadan and Tlaxcalan elites intended to vindicate their place in a Spanish Empire in transformation, ease increasing interethnic and inter-class tension, and control the troubling effects of “popular” religiosity during a critical moment in which the position of their territory within the colonial system was being redefined.
Arbeit, die ab Beginn des Projekts bis zum Ende des durch den Bericht erfassten Berichtszeitraums geleistet wurde, und die wichtigsten bis dahin erzielten Ergebnisse
To address the primary questions raised by my research regarding the role of native elites in shaping rhetorical strategies centered on the Virgin and the political significance of Marian devotion within the Spanish imperial framework, I have consulted archival documentation produced by imperial bureaucracy and key sources by or for the Tlaxcalan “Christinized” elites. Ranging from devotional literature, like the Codex Indianorum 23, an unpublished early Nahuatl sermonary directed to Tlaxcalan elites hosted in the John Carter Brown Library, historical writings by Tlaxcalan nobles, such as the Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, composed by the Tlaxcala cacique Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza (1662-1692) (Mexican Manuscripts 212); and the enormouscabildoand ecclesiastical documentation preserved at Mexican archives, the documentation gathered evidences the struggle of Tlaxcalan municipal authorities to maintain their legal and political autonomy and preserve the religious ceremonies and public celebrations that reflect their unique status as “Indian conquistadors” and exemplar Christian subjects of the Spanish Empire. To meet these scientific objectives, I have conducted extensive archival research during the reporting period in American Libraries with vast collections of documents from the Early Americas, such as the John Carter Brown Library, Harvard University's Library (HU), the Newberry Library (Chicago), and the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C). With this aim, I have also completed two research stays in Mexico, working with key documentation held at the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), the Biblioteca Nacional de México (BNM), the Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala (AHET), and the Archivo del Museo Nacional De Arte(MUNAL).
This research work in the United States and Mexico has evidenced how Tlaxcalan elites fostered the creation of a new Marian cult and local Marian mythology to reclaim their class privileges and the unique political status of Tlaxcala as an “Indian Republic”, threatened by the viceregal infiltration in the indigenous cabildo and the establishment of the Intendencias system. This archival research also reveals how the Tlaxcalan inventions tried to deal with key changes in New Spain’s Marian devotional culture associated with the erosion of Indian Republics' political power and autonomy, granting Tlaxcala a unique Marian apparition that signaled the providential election of the land and its people, emulating the Creole invention of the apparition story of the Virgen de Guadalupe or the Virgen de los Remedios. The documentation gathered also suggests that through the inventions, Tlaxcalan elites tried to control popular religiosity and macehualtin revolts, linked to an unorthodox form of Marian devotion, like the religious movements led by indigenous leaders such as Juan Coatl (1665) or Antonio Pérez (1761) or the political insurrection led by the “Marian king”, Don Pedro Vicente Ormigo Durán, who was said to be a Tlaxcalan prince, anointed by Christ and divine providence to rule over New Spain.
Through this intensive archival work, the project has significantly advance in these two years in the study of the political implications of Marian devotion in the Early Modern Spanish Empire, enquiring specially its role in the configuration of imperial identities across the Atlantic and the articulation of “native” strategies to curb the loss of local autonomy and ease the effects of the increasing imperial pressure. Through the study of two unique cases, Granada and Tlaxcala, the project reveals similar efforts by Granadan Morisco and Tlaxcalan Native elites to negotiate their place in a changing colonial regime, through a shared use of a “Marian language”, which exploited imperial and reformed Catholic rhetoric. Through new, unpublished documentation, the project examines how Granadan and Tlaxcalan elites fabricated “miracle or prodigious stories” centered around the Virgin, using forged documents and artifacts to reimagine local memories and native origins. The project reveals how these “Marian” inventions were part of a wide range of native strategies that instrumentalize Marian devotion to reclaim their deteriorating agency, regional autonomy, and political power. This is also evident in contemporary documentation regarding land rights, family privileges and properties, nobiliary applications, and residence permits. The project also enquires how these inventions reflected the native elite's attempts to control unorthodox expressions of “native” religiosity and its connection to forms of social disobedience and popular unrest, promoting new local devotions that channeled “native” religious sensibilities through an expanded religious imagery that could be sanctioned by colonial authorities and the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy.
This research work in the United States and Mexico has evidenced how Tlaxcalan elites fostered the creation of a new Marian cult and local Marian mythology to reclaim their class privileges and the unique political status of Tlaxcala as an “Indian Republic”, threatened by the viceregal infiltration in the indigenous cabildo and the establishment of the Intendencias system. This archival research also reveals how the Tlaxcalan inventions tried to deal with key changes in New Spain’s Marian devotional culture associated with the erosion of Indian Republics' political power and autonomy, granting Tlaxcala a unique Marian apparition that signaled the providential election of the land and its people, emulating the Creole invention of the apparition story of the Virgen de Guadalupe or the Virgen de los Remedios. The documentation gathered also suggests that through the inventions, Tlaxcalan elites tried to control popular religiosity and macehualtin revolts, linked to an unorthodox form of Marian devotion, like the religious movements led by indigenous leaders such as Juan Coatl (1665) or Antonio Pérez (1761) or the political insurrection led by the “Marian king”, Don Pedro Vicente Ormigo Durán, who was said to be a Tlaxcalan prince, anointed by Christ and divine providence to rule over New Spain.
Through this intensive archival work, the project has significantly advance in these two years in the study of the political implications of Marian devotion in the Early Modern Spanish Empire, enquiring specially its role in the configuration of imperial identities across the Atlantic and the articulation of “native” strategies to curb the loss of local autonomy and ease the effects of the increasing imperial pressure. Through the study of two unique cases, Granada and Tlaxcala, the project reveals similar efforts by Granadan Morisco and Tlaxcalan Native elites to negotiate their place in a changing colonial regime, through a shared use of a “Marian language”, which exploited imperial and reformed Catholic rhetoric. Through new, unpublished documentation, the project examines how Granadan and Tlaxcalan elites fabricated “miracle or prodigious stories” centered around the Virgin, using forged documents and artifacts to reimagine local memories and native origins. The project reveals how these “Marian” inventions were part of a wide range of native strategies that instrumentalize Marian devotion to reclaim their deteriorating agency, regional autonomy, and political power. This is also evident in contemporary documentation regarding land rights, family privileges and properties, nobiliary applications, and residence permits. The project also enquires how these inventions reflected the native elite's attempts to control unorthodox expressions of “native” religiosity and its connection to forms of social disobedience and popular unrest, promoting new local devotions that channeled “native” religious sensibilities through an expanded religious imagery that could be sanctioned by colonial authorities and the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Fortschritte, die über den aktuellen Stand der Technik hinausgehen und voraussichtliche potenzielle Auswirkungen (einschließlich der bis dato erzielten sozioökonomischen Auswirkungen und weiter gefassten gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Projekts)
Through the comparative study of the Granadan and Tlaxcalan contexts, the project has unveiled numerous documentary evidence of the parallel evolution of Marian devotion and imperial policies towards “native” populations in the Iberian Peninsula and its American colonies. The research carried out evidence how, across the Spanish Empire, this process was marked by a similar search for cultural, linguistic, and religious homogeneity, the emergence of a shared “imperial Marian rhetoric”, and the construction of a global post-Reformation Catholicism that questioned local devotions, cultural particularities, and native political autonomy as interconnected phenomena. My research reveals how the post-Tridentine control of local religiosity, was intimately interconnected on both sides of the Atlantic, with the parallel deterioration of native elites' political power, intermingling in some aspects, such as the native authorities' control over local religious celebrations, native confraternities, and the communal lands used to sustain them, or the loss by native elites of privileges and public rituals that marked their distinguish position among the local population: such as their enjoyment of selected seats in church, the performance of specific rituals by ecclesiastical authorities to receive them during religious celebrations or their possession of burial places in exclusive locations like the main cathedral or monastery. Similarly, the project has unveiled key archival documentation about the similar use by “Indios” and “Moriscos” of Marian devotion as a “political” tool in their struggle for power and influence in the Spanish Empire, revealing especially how this use of Marian devotion was intrinsically linked to other shared native strategies, such us the fabrication of documents and artefacts, the appropriation of antiquarian technical language, the rewriting of local history, the invention of local miracle stories and apostolic mythologies, that were meant to fostered a global conception of imperial memory and Catholic identity.
In this way, my ongoing research has evidence the similarities in the imperial policy in both contexts, in line with previous works about the parallel “racialization” of “Moriscos” and “Indios” (Martínez, 2008, Cook, 2021, Philip Quintanilla, 2018), the ecclesiastical and imperial policies against the persistence of pre-Hispanic religions and Islam (Duviols,1971) and the construction of the “unassimilability” of “Moriscos” and specific indigenous communities (Cardaillac, 2012, Cook, 2013, 2021). More importantly, the project has added new evidence that illustrates the articulation of similar native strategies against the hardening of the colonial regimen and the progressive acculturating pressure of the Spanish Empire, as explored in previous studies (Adorno, 1989; Suñe Blanco, 1994; Palomo Infante, 1994; Cardaillac, 2012). In this sense, in line with recent studies by José Cardenas Bunsen (2018), Karoline Cook (2020), and Max Deardorff (2023), the project evidences the emergence across the Atlantic of interconnected native rhetorical strategies and the role of “native” elites in the construction of an “inclusive” imperial history and Catholic imagery, that openly challenged and intended to shape imperial policies and local realities. Through the study of a wide range of sources produced by Tlaxcalan indigenous and Granadan Moriscos, my research evidences also how the elite use of Marian devotion as a legitimizing factor, apparent in the Sacromonte inventions, the Ocotlan legend, the historical writings commissioned by Granada's aristocratic Nasrid families and Tlaxcalan cabildo authorities and the artistic commissions of local nobiliary families and ecclesiastical authorities, was part of broader phenomenon, that permeated all colonial society. This is evident in land rights disputes from the Tlaxcala-Puebla valley, as well as in the residence permits that Moriscos from different socioeconomic levels submitted to the "Junta de Población" after 1570. Finally, in line with previous studies about the Indigenous and Morisco use and subversion of Spanish Imperial legal system, historical writing and scholarship, family history and genealogy, antiquarianism and forged artefacts my research evidences how this use of Marian devotion was part of a wide range of "native" strategies, thought to define what it meant to be "Indio" (Jackson,1999, Villella, 2016, Díaz,2017) or "Morisco" (Soria Mesa,1995, 2003, García-Arenal, 2013) and to claim their rights and privileges in the Spanish Empire (Van Deusen, 2015, De la Puente Luna, 2018, García-Arenal, 2006, 2013).
My research examines the gender dimensions of various forms of native resistance, negotiation, and adaptation to colonial norms. By exploring the role of male “native” elites in the fabrication of Granadan and Tlaxcala forged religious stories, my study question the historiographical assumptions based in colonial sources (inquisitorial records, edicts of faith, synodal and conciliar acts, "idolatry" reports and refutation works again Islam and indigenous “Idolatry”)that identified “Indias” and “Moriscas” as principal agents in the reproduction of crypto-Islamism and “idolatry” (Birriel Salcedo, 1997, Perry,2006, Martínez, 2008) and the preservation of Indigenous and Morisco culture (Perry,2006, Díez Jorge 2017, Ochoa and Guengerich,2021). In this sense, by tracking the efforts of the native members of the Tlaxcalan cabildo and Morisco aristocratic families and intellectual elites to ensure the education of their descendants in Nahuatl and Arabic and the preservation of these “native” languages, to continue local historical traditions, record local memories and keep family histories and linages relations, my research evidences the central role of male elites in the same activities long attributed to their female counterparts. Nonetheless, my research also analyzes the role of women in these native strategies, which linked local memory, religious history, and “patriotic” proclamations, exploring the meaning of specific signs of female participation. This is the case of the custody of the Codex Indianorum 23, a 16th-century Nahuatl sermonary directed to Tlaxcala elites, by Francisca de Mendoza, a 17th-century indigenous noble woman from the altepetl of Tepeticpac, who descended from the cabecera’s governor since 1530, Gonzalo Tepanécatl, and his son, Francisco de Mendoza I, who has governed this region since 1545. This is highly meaningful, as in consonance with the work of her male relatives in the Tepeticpac municipal government as keepers of local historical memory and protectors of regional political autonomy, Francisca's ownership of this sermonary served as a local relic, as an essential reminder of Tlaxcala’s early conversion to Christianity, the distinguished role of local noble elites in the process and the exemplar Christian character of the Tlaxcalan people, all crucial factors in the indigenous case for preserving Tlaxcalan unique political status. Nonetheless, my work also intends to explore how the colonial “feminization” of impurity, evident in the inquisitorial and Idolatry visitas system marking, vigilance and punishment of “native” women and their projection as sources of social contamination (Perry,2006, Martínez, 2008), was meant to hinder “native” struggle for economic and political agency and regional autonomy. This is apparent in increasing colonial interest in questioning female-owned cacicazgos and their transmission, in reducing the number of people labeled as “indio” and revising the “indio” status and the conditions to claim this juridic label (Martínez, 2008; Ochoa and Guengerich, 2021). This is similarly evident in the colonial authorities' efforts to control the reproduction of Indigenous people and Moriscos, and the persistence of their pre-conquest cultural practices through the “othering”, persecution, and stigmatization of native women (López de la Plaza, 1993; Perry, 1996; Birriel Salcedo, 2019).
The project aims to explore the gender dimension of colonial and native uses of the maternal figure of Mary, and its potential for fostering collective identities and an imagined kinship between the Virgin and native communities. In this way, my ongoing research enquires how the development of a “Marian language” used by colonial authorities, Morisco and Indigenous elites, and native communities at large, conditioned the centrality of Mary in the emergence of shared ideas about the reproduction of religious beliefs and the origin of native lineages and their spiritual inherence. Finally, the project aims to explore the gender implications of the protagonism of Morisco and Native American women in the emergence of heterodox religious movements centered around the Virgin Mary, characterized by recurring ideas related to reproduction and kinship. This is clear in the emergence of the Alpujarras legend recorded in the inquisitorial cases of several Granadan Morisco women who affirmed that the Virgin was the Moriscos’ grandmother, as she had given birth to the Prophet, and so “Muhammad was the son of Mary and the Moors her grandchildren.” (AHN, Leg.1953 Caja 1, Exp.10 and 11). Similarly, the religious movement promoted by Tlaxcalan indigenous spiritual leaders such as Juan Coatl (1665) or Antonio Pérez (1761) vindicated the Virgin’s role as a mother goddess and were centered around Marian “icons” that took the form of indigenous women, like the “their Virgin, Soapile,” a baroque painting of Mary with native features or “Our Lady of the Lily”, an “idol,” that was supposed to appear at the volcano Popocatepetl as an Indigenous woman, Maria de los Dolores, who was supposed to engender again the Son of God, initiating a new cosmic cycle (Gruzinski, 1991).
In this way, my ongoing research has evidence the similarities in the imperial policy in both contexts, in line with previous works about the parallel “racialization” of “Moriscos” and “Indios” (Martínez, 2008, Cook, 2021, Philip Quintanilla, 2018), the ecclesiastical and imperial policies against the persistence of pre-Hispanic religions and Islam (Duviols,1971) and the construction of the “unassimilability” of “Moriscos” and specific indigenous communities (Cardaillac, 2012, Cook, 2013, 2021). More importantly, the project has added new evidence that illustrates the articulation of similar native strategies against the hardening of the colonial regimen and the progressive acculturating pressure of the Spanish Empire, as explored in previous studies (Adorno, 1989; Suñe Blanco, 1994; Palomo Infante, 1994; Cardaillac, 2012). In this sense, in line with recent studies by José Cardenas Bunsen (2018), Karoline Cook (2020), and Max Deardorff (2023), the project evidences the emergence across the Atlantic of interconnected native rhetorical strategies and the role of “native” elites in the construction of an “inclusive” imperial history and Catholic imagery, that openly challenged and intended to shape imperial policies and local realities. Through the study of a wide range of sources produced by Tlaxcalan indigenous and Granadan Moriscos, my research evidences also how the elite use of Marian devotion as a legitimizing factor, apparent in the Sacromonte inventions, the Ocotlan legend, the historical writings commissioned by Granada's aristocratic Nasrid families and Tlaxcalan cabildo authorities and the artistic commissions of local nobiliary families and ecclesiastical authorities, was part of broader phenomenon, that permeated all colonial society. This is evident in land rights disputes from the Tlaxcala-Puebla valley, as well as in the residence permits that Moriscos from different socioeconomic levels submitted to the "Junta de Población" after 1570. Finally, in line with previous studies about the Indigenous and Morisco use and subversion of Spanish Imperial legal system, historical writing and scholarship, family history and genealogy, antiquarianism and forged artefacts my research evidences how this use of Marian devotion was part of a wide range of "native" strategies, thought to define what it meant to be "Indio" (Jackson,1999, Villella, 2016, Díaz,2017) or "Morisco" (Soria Mesa,1995, 2003, García-Arenal, 2013) and to claim their rights and privileges in the Spanish Empire (Van Deusen, 2015, De la Puente Luna, 2018, García-Arenal, 2006, 2013).
My research examines the gender dimensions of various forms of native resistance, negotiation, and adaptation to colonial norms. By exploring the role of male “native” elites in the fabrication of Granadan and Tlaxcala forged religious stories, my study question the historiographical assumptions based in colonial sources (inquisitorial records, edicts of faith, synodal and conciliar acts, "idolatry" reports and refutation works again Islam and indigenous “Idolatry”)that identified “Indias” and “Moriscas” as principal agents in the reproduction of crypto-Islamism and “idolatry” (Birriel Salcedo, 1997, Perry,2006, Martínez, 2008) and the preservation of Indigenous and Morisco culture (Perry,2006, Díez Jorge 2017, Ochoa and Guengerich,2021). In this sense, by tracking the efforts of the native members of the Tlaxcalan cabildo and Morisco aristocratic families and intellectual elites to ensure the education of their descendants in Nahuatl and Arabic and the preservation of these “native” languages, to continue local historical traditions, record local memories and keep family histories and linages relations, my research evidences the central role of male elites in the same activities long attributed to their female counterparts. Nonetheless, my research also analyzes the role of women in these native strategies, which linked local memory, religious history, and “patriotic” proclamations, exploring the meaning of specific signs of female participation. This is the case of the custody of the Codex Indianorum 23, a 16th-century Nahuatl sermonary directed to Tlaxcala elites, by Francisca de Mendoza, a 17th-century indigenous noble woman from the altepetl of Tepeticpac, who descended from the cabecera’s governor since 1530, Gonzalo Tepanécatl, and his son, Francisco de Mendoza I, who has governed this region since 1545. This is highly meaningful, as in consonance with the work of her male relatives in the Tepeticpac municipal government as keepers of local historical memory and protectors of regional political autonomy, Francisca's ownership of this sermonary served as a local relic, as an essential reminder of Tlaxcala’s early conversion to Christianity, the distinguished role of local noble elites in the process and the exemplar Christian character of the Tlaxcalan people, all crucial factors in the indigenous case for preserving Tlaxcalan unique political status. Nonetheless, my work also intends to explore how the colonial “feminization” of impurity, evident in the inquisitorial and Idolatry visitas system marking, vigilance and punishment of “native” women and their projection as sources of social contamination (Perry,2006, Martínez, 2008), was meant to hinder “native” struggle for economic and political agency and regional autonomy. This is apparent in increasing colonial interest in questioning female-owned cacicazgos and their transmission, in reducing the number of people labeled as “indio” and revising the “indio” status and the conditions to claim this juridic label (Martínez, 2008; Ochoa and Guengerich, 2021). This is similarly evident in the colonial authorities' efforts to control the reproduction of Indigenous people and Moriscos, and the persistence of their pre-conquest cultural practices through the “othering”, persecution, and stigmatization of native women (López de la Plaza, 1993; Perry, 1996; Birriel Salcedo, 2019).
The project aims to explore the gender dimension of colonial and native uses of the maternal figure of Mary, and its potential for fostering collective identities and an imagined kinship between the Virgin and native communities. In this way, my ongoing research enquires how the development of a “Marian language” used by colonial authorities, Morisco and Indigenous elites, and native communities at large, conditioned the centrality of Mary in the emergence of shared ideas about the reproduction of religious beliefs and the origin of native lineages and their spiritual inherence. Finally, the project aims to explore the gender implications of the protagonism of Morisco and Native American women in the emergence of heterodox religious movements centered around the Virgin Mary, characterized by recurring ideas related to reproduction and kinship. This is clear in the emergence of the Alpujarras legend recorded in the inquisitorial cases of several Granadan Morisco women who affirmed that the Virgin was the Moriscos’ grandmother, as she had given birth to the Prophet, and so “Muhammad was the son of Mary and the Moors her grandchildren.” (AHN, Leg.1953 Caja 1, Exp.10 and 11). Similarly, the religious movement promoted by Tlaxcalan indigenous spiritual leaders such as Juan Coatl (1665) or Antonio Pérez (1761) vindicated the Virgin’s role as a mother goddess and were centered around Marian “icons” that took the form of indigenous women, like the “their Virgin, Soapile,” a baroque painting of Mary with native features or “Our Lady of the Lily”, an “idol,” that was supposed to appear at the volcano Popocatepetl as an Indigenous woman, Maria de los Dolores, who was supposed to engender again the Son of God, initiating a new cosmic cycle (Gruzinski, 1991).