Overview

In 1570's New Kingdom of Granada (modern Colombia), a new generation of mestizo (half-Spanish, half-indigenous) men sought positions of increasing power in the colony's two largest cities. In response, Spanish nativist factions zealously attacked them as unequal and unqualified, unleashing an intense political battle that lasted almost two decades. At stake was whether membership in the small colonial community and thus access to its most lucrative professions should depend on limpieza de sangre (blood purity) or values-based integration (Christian citizenship). A Tale of Two Granadas examines the vast, trans-Atlantic transformation of political ideas about subjecthood that ultimately allowed some colonial mestizos and indios ladinos (acculturated natives) to establish urban citizenship alongside Spaniards in colonial Santafé de Bogotá and Tunja. In a spirit of comparison, it illustrates how some of the descendants of Spain's last Muslims appealed to the same new conceptions of citizenship to avoid disenfranchisement in the face of growing prejudice.

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9781009335409

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'Conceptualizing the Spanish empire as a 'Christian Republic', the author highlights mestizos and the social spaces that, by design and/or by struggle, they inhabited in such an empire. The malleability of notions such as subjecthood, race, and 'Republicas,' expands our understanding of both mestizos and Spanish colonialism in the Americas.' Alcira Duenas, The Ohio State University 'Max Deardorff's insightful study reveals that the tensions between religious segregation and assimilation paradoxically informed royal and ecclesiastic policies regarding membership in the Republic of the Spaniards. Deardorff skilfully demonstrates that, by exploiting these tensions, granadinos and neogranadinos of partial or no Spanish/Christian ancestry secured a space within a wider Christian Republic.' Jose Carlos de la Puente, Texas State University 'In this lucidly written book, Max Deardorff explores what citizenship meant for those social actors in the early modern Spanish territories who faced degrees of exclusion due to their ethnicity and proximity to orthodox Christianity. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Deardorff brings together the Iberian Atlantic by looking at lesser-studied regions and the people inhabiting their margins, and also, at the Spanish powerholders who moved across the two jurisdictions.' Joanne Rappaport, Georgetown University

Author Information

Max Deardorff is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Florida. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory. He is the recipient of the Association for Spanish & Portuguese Historical Studies (ASPHS) prize for best early career article.

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