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Max Deardorff, A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, 373 pages, ISBN: 978-1-009-33540-9.
Amanda Valdés Sánchez
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Max Deardorff, A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, 373 pages
ISBN: 978-1-009-33540-9.

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1A Tale of Two Granada, by the American historian Max Deardorff, is one of the most suggestive recent publications on the construction of the Spanish colonial legal and ecclesiastical administration and its relationship with the emergence of new racial categories and changing conceptions of imperial subjecthood. This book is the result of the author’s reworking of his doctoral research (2016), as well as his previous works on the evolution of ecclesiastical regulations in the Iberian world (2021), the role of policía, interethnic marriages and the adoption of Castilian customs in the definition of legal categories in the Spanish Republics of the Andes, New Granada and Spain (2016, 2017, 2018b, 2018c, 2019), and the political meaning of the promotion of the cult of the Virgin of Chiquinquirá by Muisca elites (2018a, 2019).

2Drawing on extensive archival work in Spain and Colombia, Deardorff’s book presents a well-documented study of the transatlantic transformations of ideas about subjecthood in the Spanish Empire through a comparative analysis of the efforts of Mestizos, Indios, and Moriscos to claim their rights as “urban citizens” alongside the “old Christians” Spanish settlers in the Spanish republics of New Granada and the recently conquered city of Granada. Deardorff’s study proposes the regulations of the Council of Trent and its regional application across the Spanish Empire (1530-1630) as a way through which imperial authorities and local communities argue for a more inclusive alternative of imperial enfranchisement and a new conception of Christian identity, that of “Christian citizenship,” that opposing to the “purity of blood” ideology, identified belonging through the practice of “orthodox Catholicism” and the adoption of shared values, customs, and social norms. Simultaneously, from a “cis-Atlantic” perspective, Deardorff’s book focuses on the decades of 1570 and 1580, “decisive in determining the limits of Christian subjection in the Spanish Empire,” to show how the intense activism of Mestizo elites of New Granada, pressured the Crown to define its policy towards its subjects of mixed or non-Christian ancestry and collaborated in the consolidation of the notion of “Christian citizenship”, as a model of legitimation, opposed to the discourse of the exclusionist “nativist factions”, which saw Indios and Mestizos as “racially inferior neophytes.” Finally, the book illustrates how this notion of “Christian citizenship” unified the diverse populations that made up the Empire and served as a means by which some Moriscos, Mestizos, and Indios Ladinos were able to claim their rights, legitimize their belonging to the Christian Republic and access the most lucrative professions of the church and the colonial administration.

3The initial chapters analyze the transformation of the medieval Iberian model of multi-confessional “coexistence” and the progressive confessionalization of the unified Spanish kingdoms under the Trastámara (1369-1516) and the Habsburgs (1516-1700) dynasties through the emergence of the “new Christians” as a social category, after the 14th-century pogroms, the birth of the Inquisition and the rise of the “purity of blood” ideology. Analyzing the economic and political basis of these transformations, Deardorff examines the role of royal and ecclesiastical policies in the evolution of the limpieza statutes and their impact until 1550 in defining what it meant to be an “old/new Christian” and who was eligible to hold public office and high positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The second chapter addresses how the Council of Trent (1564) and its application in the Spanish territory promoted a “revolution” in ecclesiastical legislation, whose regulation of “Catholic orthodoxy” and its focus on “good customs,” catechetical education, and orthopraxy contributed to the emergence of an alternative path for the integration of the “new Christians” into Catholic society. Focusing on the post-1492 Granadan city and the imperial management of its abundant population of “cristianos nuevos de moro,” the third chapter explores the evolution of royal policy toward Granadan Moriscos and the role of their adoption of Castilian culture, their naturaleza and family upbringing, and interethnic marriages and mixed ancestry in their perception as loyal subjects and good Christians. Through the analysis of the applications to the “Junta de Población” of those Moriscos who wished to return to Granada after the Alpujarras War and the 1570’s expulsion, this chapter reveals how the language of this documentation and the magistrates responsible for its evaluation evidenced the consolidation of the new notion of “Christian citizenship”, as it had been formulated in the 1567’s Pragmatic and the Synods of Guadix and Baza, evident in the allegations of premature conversion, services to the Crown, the practice of post-Tridentine religiosity and the adaptation to the Castilian norms of social presentation.

4Moving to the other side of the Atlantic, Deardorff’s study continues with an analysis of the implementation of this notion of “Christian citizenship” in the emerging kingdom of New Granada, following the trace of the Archbishop of Santafé, Luis Zapata de Cárdenas (1573–1590), and his promotion of an evangelizing program based on the imposition of Christian education, policía, and “good customs,” as part of a global process of renewal of ecclesiastical legislation, reflecting, as in Granada, a constant revision of the standards that defined belonging to the “Christian Republic” across the empire. As a complement, the following chapter explores the norms that defined “urban citizenship” (“vecindad”) in the “Spanish Republics” of New Granada, Santafé and Tunja, which, as Deardorff shows, was based not only on legal requirements, such as naturaleza (local origin) and the possession of a “casa poblada,” but also on social expectations such as the status of paterfamilias and the adoption of the Castilian lifestyle, which hindered the integration of mestizos and indios ladinos.

5The book’s second part focuses on the conflict arising from the struggle of mestizos and indios ladinos to claim their rights in the colonial settlements of Santafé and Tunja. Through the story of Turmequé’s cacique, Diego de Torres, son of a conquistador and a Muisca noblewoman, the legal dispute surrounding the 1577 visita orchestrated by Zapata de Cárdenas, Torres’s petitions to Philip II and the accusations of rebellion against him, Deardorff examines the role of religious conversion and orthodoxy, collaboration with colonial authorities and the language of post-Tridentine Christianity, evident in the legal documentation associated with the case, in the legitimation of mestizo caciques and the Crown’s policies regarding their role as leaders of native communities, and their ability to instrumentalize the colonial system and question violations of imperial legislation, such as the New Laws, in the American territory. Similarly, following the story of the mestizo cleric Gonzalo García Zorro and Archbishop Cárdenas’s opposition to his appointment as canon of the Santa Fe Cathedral, chapter seven explores the contradictions of the emerging “Christian citizenship,” pointing out how Cárdenas’ policy, who had promoted the new pan-ethnic model of imperial belonging by endorsing post-Tridentine policies and ordaining hundreds of mestizo priests in New Granada, against royal dictates, simultaneously evidenced a staunch opposition to mestizos’ rise to the highest positions of ecclesiastical and secular authority and an abuse of his authority to plunder Indigenous communities through brutal idolatry campaigns. However, in the final chapters, Deardorff proposes that the efforts of native elites paid off, as despite opposition to mestizos’ rise to civil and ecclesiastical administration positions, increased between 1570 and 1580 with the arrival of new waves of peninsular immigrants, many mestizos became councilors, encomenderos, procurators, scribes, corregidors and artisans, and many other “urban Indians” managed to settle as “vecinos” in Santafé and Tunja, by assuming Castilian social norms and Christian devotional practices, creating politicized family networks that connected them with the main actors in the local struggle for native rights. In the epilogue, Deardorff explores how the emergence of the local cults around the Lead Books of Granada and the image of the Virgin of Chiquinquirá evidenced the desire of Morisco elites, Muisca leaders, and Mestizo officials to interfere in the political landscape by promoting new devotions capable of appealing to different social groups, as a means to consolidate the Christianization of the native communities and their integration into the Res Publica Christiana, to encode elements of “native” spirituality into the local variants of Post-Tridentine Catholicism and to promote the resolution of interethnic conflicts that threatened the stability of colonial society in Granada and New Granada.

6Deardorff’s work continues the study of the parallels in the imperial management of “Moriscos”, “Indios”, and Mestizos (Cardaillac, 2012; Phillips-Quintanilla, 2018; Cook, 2013) and the development by “native” elites throughout the Empire of similar strategies to counter imperial pressure and legitimize their social position (Adorno, 1989; Deardorff, 2016; Cárdenas Bunsen, 2018; Cook, 2020). Likewise, Deardorff’s study contributes decisively to previous scholarship on the imperial native subjecthood (Matthew & Oudijk, 2007; Wood, 2012), the role of local devotions in the legitimation of “native” elites (Dean, 1999; Cuadriello, 2011; Drayson, 2016; Osowski, 2022), and the appropriation of colonial legal language and rhetoric by “native” elites to define what it meant to be “Indio,” “Mestizo” (Jackson, 1999; Villella, 2016; Díaz, 2017), or “Morisco” (Soria Mesa, 1995; García-Arenal & Rodríguez Mediano, 2013), and claim their place in the Spanish Empire (Van Deusen, 2015; Puente Luna, 2018; García-Arenal & Rodríguez Mediano, 2013). Finally, the book reflects current research on the interconnectivity of the Spanish imperial territories (Cardillac, 2012; Cook, 2016, 2020) and the impact of the “purity of blood” ideology and its ramifications (Martínez, 2008; Soria Mesa, 2016; Cook, 2021). Nonetheless, Deardorff innovatively proposes the notion of “Christian citizenship” as a way of overcoming the “racial” dimension and rigidity that historiography has often associated with the constitution of modern “citizenship” in the Spanish Empire, showing how the promotion by the Crown, the Church and the “native” elites of forms of belonging based on shared values, favored the malleability and mutability of contemporary ideas about imperial subjecthood, ethnic-racial differences and the Christian Republic. The study is also illuminating regarding the global reach of the local battles of Mestizos, Indios, and Moriscos, showing their impact on the Crown’s policies regarding the role of communities of non-Christian descent in the colonial structure and its interaction with homogenizing policies based on the promotion of shared ecclesiastical and civil legislation.

7Nonetheless, Deardorff’s work shows a more in-depth study of these questions in New Granada, addressing the Granadan context superficially. This shows in his sporadic inclusion of imprecise or broad affirmations, occasional lack of nuance or established sources (pp. 52, 82, 84, 140), and the use of unconventional terminological distinctions (the popular unassimilable “moriscosvs. the assimilated “granadino” elites, p. 299), especially regarding the complex matter of Morisco religiosity and the royal policy towards Morisco cultural assimilation. Similarly, Deardorff analysis of the debates surrounding the integration of Granada’s Moriscos and its relationship with the redefinition of catholic identity after Trent, based on orthodox behavior, failed to integrate previous studies that evidenced the inquisitorial production of “heresy,” interpreting and categorizing behavior in function of the accused’s ancestry, the progressive “racialization” of Islamic ancestry and the Inquisitorial failure to determine sincere beliefs (Roots 1988; Starr-LeBeau, 2018; García-Arenal & Rodríguez Mediano, 2013), the evolving definition of orthodoxy along the 16th century (Boon, 2012; Robinson, 2013) and the tension between the pressure to assimilate and “the anxiety of sameness” (Lee, 2015). Moreover, Deardorff notion of “Christian citizenship,” based on the diffusion of pos-Tridentine religiosity, seems to associate religious and cultural assimilation without addressing how “native” communities negotiated what it meant to be a “good Christian,” even beyond the adoption of Castilian culture and language (Cuadriello, 2011; Drayson, 2016). Despite these omissions, Deardorff’s work offers a brightly articulated comparison of two highly complex historical contexts and their extensive historiography. Deardorff’s study leaves some open questions: What were the limits of “Christian citizenship”? Why was the enfranchisement of Indios and Mestizos on the global “Christian Republic” possible while Morisco’s enfranchisement ultimately failed? Finally, the book evidences the interest of future studies on the role of “nativity” as a legitimizing element across the Empire, exploring specifically the enfranchisement of the native elites that ruled the “Indian Republics,” whose power depended not only on their Christian identity and loyalty to the Crown but also on their native ancestry.

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Amanda Valdés Sánchez, « Max Deardorff, A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668 »CECIL [En ligne], 11 | 2024, mis en ligne le 25 novembre 2024, consulté le 21 mars 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/cecil/5811 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12v41

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Amanda Valdés Sánchez

Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown University - Center for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS-CSIC)

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