Free thinking women, oh my!

This week we explored beatas,  unofficial nuns who were still very religious and devoted to the Catholic church. These nuns were not officially recognized by the church but lived in convents and did about everything an official nun did. The Inquisition was often on the watch for nuns like this for signs of heresy because of the fact that they did not go through the same things like women who became official nuns. We looked at two cases recently of two beatas who got in trouble with the church and had a run in with the inquisition. The first of these was a beata by the name of Marina de San Miguel who was arrested by the Inquisition in November and question for 4 months before “released”.  The Inquisition brought people in “arresting them” and they held them in captivity for an unset period of time, then for a week or so they would bring the person in or questioning asking northing but open ended questions. Since the person doesn’t know why they were arrested it makes them think of anything they could possibly have been arrested for and they’ll confess all sorts of things. Marina confessed of a conversation wit ha man about whether or not Satan exists, something that could be considered heresy but the Inquisition sent her back to think some more. As the weeks dragged on her confessions got weirder and she confessed to masturbating to an image of God, having a relationship 20 years ago with her nephew, and a couple other random things to try and figure out why she was being held. This tactic used by the Inquisition was very effective in weeding out heretics or getting information on other people if the person they had presently wasn’t one.

The next case was of the beata in the movie we watched whose love for knowledge and free thinking began to get her in trouble with the church. She had a ton of books and poems she had written and tons of artifacts around her room but free thinking people and especially women were seen as dangerous in the eyes of the church. This didn’t help with the fact that the Archbishop actually hated women and thought they had a certain role within the church and this further got Juana in trouble when she spoke out against him. Although she had gained some respect from the Vice Roy and his wife and a few others that did not stop the Church from condemning her and to try and force her back into the path of God.

The point of all this is that beatas were dangerous women because they were unofficial nuns who had access to the same education official nuns did but were targeted more  for not taking the same steps.

Catholic Church in Latin America

The church has always been a big institution within any modern society and often where many go for moral direction. It’s no surprise that when any of the European powers conquered others lands that it was done with some religious intentions. Taking territory for the King was important but it was also very important to spread the word of God to these conquered people. Spain would conquer indigenous people with their army but they would also send missionaries with them to try and convert those there and show them the Bible. It was no easy task to get people to convert to Christianity when another religion or practice was in place before for decades or centuries. The priests would have to adapt their teachings to those of the indigenous people first and in time get Christianity to take over. Once towns and homes and churches were built, converting could take full swing and in time the Spanish did get the natives to practice Christianity. But still traces of the natives old religion was placed within the churches by painting some of their gods or people in the churches on the walls. Sometimes paintings that were done by the natives often blended Jesus and the natives together like one such painting done that depicted Jesus as a child Inca King. This is odd mostly because when people think of Jesus as a kid they view him as a baby with Mary and not as a seven year old and never as a king in the monarch version. The church was often seen as a financial institution that was used to fund missionaries and pulled money from real estate and loans  and dowries in terms of women who became nuns. Women often became nuns in Latin America because it was a way for the church to gain money and then those families were given a kind of blessing from the church. Not only could the family gain something from this but also becoming a nun was the best way for a woman to get an education.

I’ve seen a few instances when the church would send out missionaries to foreign countries to try and spread Christianity. Japan was a place where it worked a little bit but mostly failed because the Japanese were mostly just using them for their guns and when the priests tried to spread it to the common people it all ended. They were kicked out of Japan and the ones who tried to get in after that could be killed. Luckily for the Spanish they had their army in Latin America with them.

She’s a Witch!

1) Ruth Behar, Lots of confessions and accounts to the courts.

a) Women are generally subordinate to men in the public sphere and any power a woman gains is considered to be negative to society or “pollution”. b) Spain was different than other countries in Europe when it came to Witchcraft. While other countries carried out witch hunts mostly targeting women, Spain had bigger heretics to deal with such as Islam and Judaism and did not have mass movements to take down “witches”. The Spanish religious elites considered witchcraft as more of stupidity and not heresy.

c) Indians, Mulattas and Mestizas seemed to be the ones most accused of witchcraft

d) Sexual witchcraft and kinds that made their men submissive to them

e) Women mostly used witchcraft to gain some kind of power over men.

2) Irene Silverblatt, first hand accounts from letters.

a)  Women were seen as the inferiors in society and had no voice in politics or church and women could not own property. According to the church this made women dangerous and most likely to use evil ways to get what they wanted.

b) Witchcraft was tied to demonic acts of the Devil and black magic and this was seen mostly done by poor and old women in the Andes.

c) The devil began to take on many forms to the indigenous people of the Andes and eventually appearing as a Spaniard and things that did not mirror the image the Europeans had for the devil.

3) Guaman Poma, 1992

a) Magic that made people fall in love or punished thieves for stealing crops and ones that punished parents for having twins, a cleft-nosed baby or if the baby was born feet first. And also magic used to cure injuries or diseases.

b) Magicians or high Priests of the Incan society

c) These acts don’t seem to be done just by women and aren’t really about control but more about helping others or punishing those who have done bad deeds. every now and then these practices were used to abuse others.

4) Michaela de Molina, 1696

a) Michaela to me seems to be just a candy seller who happened to get into a fight with the neighbor Maria and Maria got sick from the pregnancy but it also seems like she or someone else used witchcraft on her for some reason. The mistress and niece seemed kind of mean towards Michaela because of her friends.

b) Michaela was charged with using witchcraft on Maria because of the fight they had over the man and the witnesses only claimed that she was a witch because of the fight and the friends that she had one being a person who had already been accused of being a witch before.

c) I think maybe that Teresa might have used witchcraft on Maria in order to get back at her for fighting with Michaela.

Homosexuality in Latin America

This past week we talked about homosexuality in early Latin America and exactly how the issue was dealt with by the local authorities. During the Spanish conquests the soldiers were told to look for unusual sexual practices so there would be some kind of justification for the conquer. Immoral natives were mistreated often and the women generally raped by the soldiers. Long after the conquests the local neighborhoods had established a kind of neighborhood watch that would go around the towns, these people were referred to as “Alcalde Del Barrio”. The job of these individuals was to specifically look for anything illegal that the townspeople might be engaging in. Often times they would search the house of certain people based on a suspicion from another towns person that they were conducting immoral acts. We went over a few cases in class of a few individuals who were under the suspicion of having a same-sex relationship with each other. In both of the cases it seemed that a lot of the charges against them were the same generalities and often misunderstandings according to the ones being tried. In this day and age there was no DNA evidence or most of the time eyewitness accounts so the main way to get someone caught was to basically have a feeling about them. Many of these cases also happened to be brought about because a friend or family member suspected them of having a same sex relationship. We saw how the punishment for something like this could be several years working with tobacco.

It sucks that many of these people were “caught” through word of mouth by someone who might just have a grudge against them and the evidence or lack there of could be so stacked against them. But it just goes to show just how against homosexuality the church and others were that suspicion would be enough to lock these people up. But some of the things we talked about were really disturbing that some of these people too religion to places it shouldn’t go. The woman who pleasured herself to images of Jesus and all of that with the candles and whatnot was a bit odd and I couldn’t imagine what the person questioning her was thinking.  However it’s not surprising that religion had such big influence over people and infrastructure as it normally does throughout all of history. It’s also not surprising that acts of homosexuality go back this far even though back then it might not have really been viewed in the way we know it today.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Marriage

it’s no surprise to me that the church would try to say what is acceptable and what is not. Even today churches have rules based on scripture in most cases of what is appropriate for the average family. What we have here is that a marriage must be 1) consensual 2) procreative and 3) unadventurous as set by the church. It’s obviously important that the marriage was consented by both parties and not forced. It was important for family to be able to procreate because bigger families usually meant more work got done and also more children to carry on the family name if they were male. Last but not least a couple must be unadventurous which I assume means be boring and do the same thing over and over again. Now I can understand why the church wags its finger at many of the items on the lust list but I never got why masturbation is a sin. I haven’t read the bible or anything and if anyone has an answer for that let me know. But the rest I can see as bad, sex for pure pleasure I can see as wrong, adultery obviously. Incest has always been a big no no except for in monarchies where it’s been encouraged. Rape is wrong no matter what and should be punished now abduction is sketchy. One person could say that they were kidnapped but I know that some were probably happy to get away from their lives to be with someone they loved.  I went over my confusion about masturbation but I can surely understand sodomy and bestiality. The church is often seen to many as the role model for everything good and we always lash out when they mess up but people forget that the church is run by humans and temptation gets the best of all humans from time to time. So these rules are set in place to keep people from straying down the wrong path or at least to remind people to be good citizens. Nowadays I don’t see that unadventurous thing flying and I think that if a couple is happily married that as long as things are kept within reason that they should be able to expand their love making beyond the simple and boring.

In my honest opinion though all these rules can also backfire on the ones that put them in place. I know from observing others and reading news that when rules are strictly enforced that many times it just makes people want to break them just to experience what was so forbidden. So I understand why the church during these times had rules like this in place but I also understand why many acted out against them.

Marriage and Religion

For centuries marriage has constantly changed in meaning and practice. We read many difference accounts of marriages that were for monetary of territory gains and not at all about a relationship or love. And the only institution that could arrange a marriage was the church during these times. The Catholic church in Spain at the time kept tight restrictions on marriage and every aspect of it. As centuries passed and marriage changed the church implemented more rules. Divorce and annulment could only be done through the church if a couple was not happy with their marriage but both were hard to obtain. Technically according to the church once you were married the marriage should not be able to break. Only in special cases could you divorce such as proving that the marriage was forced or something of that nature. Once a divorce was granted though the couple could not get remarried for a set amount of time. An annulment was different and it only occurred when it was proven that the marriage should not have happened in the first place. A marriage could be annulled if  one of the party went to the church and claimed that the person they married was their relative or something equally crazy. However there were also those who chose to marry their cousins and even though it was frowned upon by the church couples found ways around it. As the decades went the church began to lose some of its influence on marriage and the royal family began to share the right to make marriages.  While marriage was still about land and combining assets the idea of marriage began to change which led to the shared right to arrange marriages between the two institutions.

Keeping customs alive in Spanish colonies.

The Spanish conquered a lot of territory in South and Central America during the late 1400’s and early 1500’s. Their conquests were accomplished because of several variables since they were truly outnumbered by the indigenous populations. Technology played a major role in winning over the natives such as armor, guns and cannons. Horses also helped since the natives hadn’t really seen them in their daily lives. For the big groups like the Aztecs and Mayans, neighboring groups allied with the Spanish to increase their numbers in order to fight these huge groups off. I would say this was the 2nd biggest contributor to the conquest but the number one reason for Spanish success in the Americas was disease. Small pox and various other diseases spread like wild fire through the indigenous tribes in such huge numbers that within a few decades 90% of the population was gone. All these factors led to the take over of South and central America by the Spanish where they established their own settlements for trade. As time went on and the Spanish colonies grew the indigenous populations that had survived the disease and battles started to integrate into the new society. The Spanish tried to press their customs and ways of life onto these people and tried to set up their own government to aid them. While the indigenous people adapted to these forms of government they still kept their own customs within the disguise of the Spanish way. In one chapter we read in class about wills and testaments for example, the natives used these wills that they did not have before the Spanish as a way to pass down their possessions to their kids. The women would pass on items that only they used in their gender defined society such as garden tools and house items.  Also the leaders they picked for their political offices were the same exact people who led their villages before the Spanish conquest. It was important for these people to keep their practices alive under the disguise of the Spanish customs because it was all they could do against the now dominant group.

The indigenous groups, such as the Mexica, needed to maintain their customs and ways of life after the Spanish conquests because of the importance of them. Many of their people had died and a lot of their culture wiped out from the conquest and not much could be done about the Spanish so their religion and practices had to be taken. However, the natives learned how to incorporate their customs within the Spanish customs to keep their previous lives and culture intact.

Women in Spain

Spain was occupied by many different groups during the 15th century, about 7 or so major ones. Aragon and Castile were two of the major kingdoms whose rulers became married to one another. Mostly an agreement between the two these rulers still stayed within their kingdoms and ruled separate from each other. Because of all these groups and the influence of the two major groups Spain became a very mixed place in terms of culture, laws and religion. Marriage was one of those things that was run culturally but would soon be backed up by the institute of religion to back up the promises of the partners. Spain was special in this regard because unlike in many European countries where woman had limited rights, Spain allowed a lot more flexibility to both parties. In the article by Allyson M. Poska marriage in 17th century Spain was greatly influenced by the Catholic Church because marriage was a sacred institution. So legally once a marriage was made between two people in the presence of a priest it could not be broken but under the most specific circumstances. For those that were not married but promised to marry still ran into problems as most of them were promised to receive sex from the other person and then ditched afterward.  But what sets Spain apart from other places is the amount of justice a woman or man can receive based on the presented evidence. Like a man could not promise marriage and have sex with a woman who then became pregnant and was left to raise the child. Like today, they would go before the court and in many cases the man would have to compensate the woman for putting her in this situation. The same practice applied to adulterers who wanted to leave their partners for another man or woman. Many times these compensations would not be in the form of money because many were poor so instead materials would be given instead such as aprons or cloth materials. Sometimes women tried to use the excuse of rape or that they didn’t consent to the marriage but this didn’t always work especially if their were any witnesses to their promised marriage together. Married couples had a harder time dealing with bad relationships because as mentioned before they could not separate by law. Often times the two would just separate from each other physically without any legal means but this led to both parties eventually getting back together. In rare cases a marriage could be granted separation if the woman could not bear a child which was the purpose of marriage, if one of the partners wanted to take up religious order or if the marriage was forced somehow. So women in Spain had a lot of room to operate within the legal system where often in history they did not have any rights. it just goes to show the importance of the females in Spain and how that would soon effect the countries they conquered later in time.

Slavery in South America

Slavery has been around for centuries in many different forms in many different areas of the world. Slaves were generally captured soldiers during war or even a religious group of people or race minority in an area. Slaves were often used for construction of big structures or cultivation of the land. Around the 1400’s, Europeans were very active in Africa rounding up slaves for their colonies and with the help of many African tribes many Africans were rounded up by the hundreds of thousands. The Atlantic Slave Trade was a big enterprise used by several countries like Britain, Portugal, France and Spain and many others to turn out profits for goods that were scarce in the Old World. When the New World was discovered slaves were taken from Africa to South America on huge slave ships were tons of slaves were kept. Conditions on these boats were horrible and just barely livable enough for a majority of the slaves to survive the journey. Once on the other side they were taken to a port town where the slaves were auctioned off to Plantation owners or small business owners in towns. Slaves were treated like property more than human beings and they were exchanged in this way. Even though many were given christian names when they arrived there were given little rights. Some did make money by taking the skills they had learned from their masters and using them to make a living once they were freed, but that rarely happened. Men and women had different tasks depending on the location and their condition. Slave men in urban areas worked with their masters if they owned a small business. For example, some were apprentices to their masters who worked as a blacksmith. Women in urban areas often worked at the homes of the masters that bought them, helping with the house work and helping with the kids of the house.  Slaves in rural areas had a different lifestyle and it was once again divided by sex. Men often worked in the fields doing the harder labor, harvesting and chopping wood while the women worked in the houses or even planted in the fields. Every now and then slaves would escape or revolt and those lucky enough got away but those that didn’t were punished severely and sometimes put to death and many of the up rises ended in bloodshed. But those slaves that did make it out would head to nearby free slave camps or just somewhere far away from their masters. Slavery was huge in the New World from around this time all the way until the Civil War in America during the end of the 1800’s but it still remains in some countries today and it’s really sad that countries still use people like that.

Gender and Sexuality 2nd Blog Entry

This week was an interesting introduction into the course. The Andes is a very interesting place wit ha diverse ecosystem and a wide array of animals and plants. It’s no surprise then that the environment had such a huge impact on the people who lived there. The shape of the land encouraged a kinship between different peoples in order to gain access to the food in the separate zones. What interests me the most is how the Inca Empire rose out of this area and then extended as far as it did along the Andes. This huge society was made up of millions of people which a specific set of rules that kept them all in line. Everything was strict and kept in check including food, living, roles of people and all of this was different for males and females. The reading under the Guaman Poma de Ayala went into detail on this, explained how punishment was given for certain offenses and how whoreish woman were dealt with. Men and woman were categorized in 9 different groups by age and each group was expected to do something specific until a certain age. Men generally ended up serving in the military around age 20 and women stayed and took care of children and weaved and made things. Crossing many of the rules set in place by the Incas was normally punished by death or something equal to what was committed. They even had a set of rules for the mentally or physically handicapped and these people often lived in the same area together but were still given tasked based on their disability.

After reading this article I came to realize just how advanced this civilization was compared to those around them. Technologically they were behind the Europeans during this time but as a society and culture they were quite advanced. Especially with the vast size of their empire to be able to control that many people and do it for so long takes a lot of work and time. I often wonder, as I’m sure historians in this field also think about, what would have happened if the Spanish had not arrived and dismantled this society how would it have turned out centuries later. Would there be a huge power in South America like there is in North America or Europe and Asia and also what records could have been recovered or found had the Spanish not destroyed a great deal of it. Of course we’ll never really know the answers to many things but it still makes one wonder just how much was wasted from many similar invasions like this.