Bristol’s exploration of Afro-Mexican ritual practice in the seventeenth century is organized around four central points. First, the experiences of Afro-Mexicans are inseparable from those of other residents of New Spain: mestizos, Native Americans, and Spaniards. Second, church-authorized and unorthodox ritual practices coexisted in each caste. Third, the meanings of ritual practices varied depending upon ever-changing social context. Finally, “different forms of authority existed in New Spain, which Afro-Mexicans understood and took advantage of” (6). It is the last of these assertions—an intricate examination of power—that serves as the book’s major theme. Interpreting documents created by the Mexican Inquisition involving crimes against Christianity (including blasphemy, witchcraft, and bigamy), accounts of Africa by European missionaries and traders, and narratives penned by elites in New World colonies, Bristol paints a complex picture of seventeenth-century Mexican hierarchy, struggle, belief, and practice.

Bristol begins by outlining the “hierarchy of difference” in seventeenth-century New Spain, where status was defined by calidad (quality), a multifaceted notion that included “skin color, clothing, occupation, personal relationships, cultural practices, limpieza de sangre [cleanliness of blood], status as slave or free, and other conditions” (26). Individuals were required to demonstrate “pure blood” (white and Christian) status before attending university, holding military office, or joining religious orders. Slavery was justified as a way of saving the souls of “culturally inferior,” non-Christian Africans. Although both Native Americans and Africans were forced converts to Christianity, only the latter, whether New World born or recent arrivals, were held strictly to Christian rules.

Bristol continues with a discussion of the ambiguous and inconsistent manner in which Africans were Christianized. She describes as common, involuntary pro forma baptisms of Africans on their way to the ships that would bring them to the New World; such “conversions” were performed without regard for African comprehension. Not surprisingly, Africans and Spaniards possessed different understandings of the Christian practices and obligations to which all residents of New Spain were held. Such differences were exacerbated by the lack of formal religious educational opportunities for Africans. Nevertheless, Africans risked punishment by owners and the Inquisition for performing Christianity in a less than orthodox manner.

Bristol includes a chapter focusing on cases of blasphemy that were brought before the Inquisition. She argues that Afro-Mexicans employed such risky tactics to gain some power over their masters and their lives. They renounced God in order to stop beatings in progress, create opportunities to complain in court about harsh treatment, or diminish the authority of their superiors by involving an institution with greater authority. Bristol argues that cases of blasphemy demonstrate Afro-Mexicans’ complex understandings of the institutions of power in New Spain. However, in most cases the renunciations did not result in material betterment or relief from punishment for the “blasphemers.” Indeed, Bristol notes that the futility of such actions provides insight into the lives of Afro-Mexicans in seventeenth-century New Spain: “For many of them, life was so full of violence that any inroads they could make on their supervisor’s authority, however symbolic, were worth the potential hazards they risked in challenging that authority” (148).

In another chapter, Bristol examines incidents involving magical practices by blacks and mulattos. Bristol calls such religious rituals “radically subversive” because of their potential to challenge the power structures of New Spain. Afro-Mexicans used magical remedies to gain power over their masters or to improve their own living conditions. Afro-Mexican curers received monetary remuneration and status for their curative powers beyond what was usual for their caste. Curandera/os (curers) might even enjoy a measure of authority over Spaniards whom medical authorities could not help, unless (or until) they were reported to the Inquisition for witchcraft. Bristol concludes that the advantage of magic for Afro-Mexicans was limited; “the power and authority they did achieve was fleeting and potentially dangerous” (189). Although Afro-Mexicans used ritual to create alternative authority structures, such inroads were temporary and risky.

Bristol’s in-depth examination of historical documents provides a complex view of the interrelations of power, authority, and ritual in seventeenth-century New Spain. Within a wider social context of slavery, institutionalized social control by church and state, and strict social hierarchies based on calidad, Afro-Mexicans used religious ritual as a tactic to subvert existing hierarchies and construct alternative forms of authority. Bristol concludes that “blacks and mulattoes, as well as other non-Spaniards, used ritual practice to negotiate the social hierarchy and challenge the roles they were assigned, but the Spanish state maintained ultimate control over colonial society” (222). Although the book’s title may suggest an in-depth exploration of the specifics of Afro-Mexican ritual practices—a focus on unraveling the intricacies of African religious survivals in the New World—this is not that book. Instead, Bristol offers a study of resistance and agency, desperation and innovation, useful to scholars of the African diaspora, social scientists examining relationships between power and religious practice, and advanced students of Afro-Mexican history.

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[Review length: 807 words • Review posted on April 6, 2010]