William B. Taylor

Estate and Class in a Colonial City: Oaxaca in 1792

Colonial Latin American societies have generally been presented as systems of estates following forms that were firmly entrenched in Europe before the Spanish conquest in America, an estate being “a legally defined segment of the population of a society which has distinctive rights and duties established by law” (Lenski 1966:77). Lyle McAlister suggests that the American equivalent of a threefold European system of noble—clergy—commoner estates was represented by broad racial classifications: Spaniards—Castas—Indians.

Documents: Our Lady in the Kernel of Corn, 1774

Marian apparitions and miraculous images in Mexico inevitably bring to mind one renowned figure — Our Lady of Guadalupe and its shrine at Tepeyac in the Valley of Mexico. Guadalupe is, indeed, a touchstone to the history of Catholicism and popular devotion in Mexico, and Mexico is a special case of a religious image becoming the main symbol for an emerging nation. As Jeannette Rodríguez recently wrote, “To be of Mexican descent is to recognize the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.” But devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe has a history. This image has not always been, and in some ways still is not, the dominant symbol throughout Mexico, and the location of its principal shrine on the edge of Mexico City is as much a key to its importance as is its association with the oldest Marian apparition officially recognized by the Catholic Church. Dozens of different shrines to other miraculous images have captured the hearts of thousands, sometimes millions of followers in Mexico. They still do.