BookBeyond black and red: African-native relations in colonial Latin America

HLAS annotation

• Part of a stream of renewed high-quality scholarship centered on Africans in colonial Spanish America, this anthology departs from the norm in that it pays careful attention to unraveling the complexities of relationships between them and indigenous peoples. Articles with particular ethnohistorical content or implications include Ben Vinson III and Matthew Restall's investigation of the interaction of these Africans and natives in militia units in the Acapulco region and in Sonora, "Black Soldiers, Native Soldiers: The Meanings of Military Service in the Spanish American Colonies" (p. 15-52), an intriguing story of intermixing, conflict, and Afro-indigenous relationships during the 17th and 18th centuries in Cholula, an important indigenous community and one with textile obrajes employing African and mulatto workers of varying condition and status; Norma Angélica Castillo Palma and Susan Kellogg's "Conflict and Cohabitation between Afro-Mexicans and Nahuas in Central Mexico" (p. 115-136); Christopher Lutz and Restall's overview of "Wolves and Sheep? Black-Maya Relations in Colonial Guatemala and Yucatan" (p. 185- 221), emphasizing the results of a growing African presence in urban and rural settings (including runaway slaves) during the mature colonial era; and Patrick J. Carroll's "Black-Native Relations and the Historical Record in Colonial Mexico" (p. 245-267), which tests older stereotypes about supposedly ubiquitous conflict between Afro-Mexicans and indigenous peoples, tracing the origins of these beliefs and finding them wanting in many ways.