Public Lives, Private Secrets

by Twinam, Ann

• ISBN13: 9780804731478
• ISBN10: 0804731470
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-06-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, illegitimate offspring of elite families in colonial Spanish America appealed to the Council and Camara of the Indies in Spain to purchase gracias aI sacar legitimations. Their applications provided intimate testimony concerning their own lives, accounts of their parents' sexual relationships, and details regarding the impact of illegitimacy within their families and communities. Bourbon officials in Spain debated which petitions merited approval, and in the process forged policies concerning gender, sexuality, illegitimacy, and the family. Scattered throughout the Archive of the Indies, the petitions were difficult to locate until the author determined the pattern of how they were archived and was able to access this extraordinarily rich new source for Spanish American social history. For this book, she has not only analyzed the gracias al sacar documents of some 240 illegitimates, but also traced the histories of those involved in eighteen major archives in Spain, the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America. The collective biographies of the gracias al sacar parents, and of their illegitimate offspring -- as infants, children, and adults -- reveal a Hispanic mentality that consciously differentiated between the public and private spheres. Colonial elites distinguished between a private circle of family, kin, and intimate friends and a public world where status (honor) was negotiated with outside peers. This bifurcation was distinct yet permeable; an individual might "pass" to negotiate a public status different from a private reality. Thus, an unwed mother might enjoy the public reputation that she was a virgin, the bastardson of a priest might be treated as legitimate, and a mulatto could be transformed into someone white. The author explores how the probability for passing varied throughout the Spanish Empire, and how it narrowed as the eighteenth century drew to a close. She also demonstrates that the inability to conceptualize passing beyond the scope of the individual exacerbated social tensions prior to independence.

Table of Contents

Maps and Tables	xiii
PART ONE INTRODUCTION
Antecedents	3	(32)
Precedents: Sexuality and Illegitimacy, Discrimination, Civil Legitimation	35	(24)
PART TWO LIFE COURSE
Mothers: Pregnant Virgins, Abandoned Women, and the Private and Public Price of Sexuality	59	(30)
Fathers: Life Course and Sexuality	89	(37)
Babies and Illegitimacy: The Politics of Recognition from the Font to the Grave	126	(32)
Children: Growing Up Illegitimate	158	(26)
Adults: Passing, Turning-Point Moments, and the Quest for Honor	184	(32)
Adults: The Quest for Family Property	216	(27)
PART THREE THE STATE'S RESPONSE
Royal Officials: Prelude (1717--1760) and Early Policy Formation (1761--1775)	243	(19)
Bourbon Reformers: The Activist Camara, 1776--1793	262	(27)
Reform and Retreat: Bourbon Social Policies After 1794	289	(28)
PART FOUR AFTERMATHS
The Legitimated: Life After Gracias al Sacar	317	(18)
Conclusion	335	(10)
Appendix 1. Sources, Data Bases, Monetary Usages, Jose, and `Audiencias'	345	(6)
Appendix 2. Supporting Tables	351	(8)
Glossary	359	(4)
Notes	363	(52)
Abbreviations	415	(2)
Works Cited	417	(20)
Index	437