A tale of two Granadas

Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668

Deardorff, Max

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.
Reveals how the politics of blood purity in the mid-sixteenth century Spanish Empire was countered by the politics of Tridentine Catholic citizenship
Unveils the root of colonial prejudices toward mestizos, how pervasive it was, and whether it was anchored in time
Compares the struggle of colonial mestizos to that of the descendants of Spain's last Muslims