Abstract
Family history has a long trajectory among Latin American scholars who have produced many fine studies that focus on particular regions. Jane Mangan builds on this foundational literature but, rather that simply adding another layer to the study of family, she broadens the scope of family history to show the fluidity between regions and within social groups. Her book explores family history within early colonial Peru but in the context of the connections between Peru and Spain. As such, her study brings a transatlantic element to family history that is truly original and reveals the movements of not just men and women between colony and metropole but also children. Another original aspect of her study is the fluidity of movement between indigenous and Spanish groups in terms of marriage and the formation of couples outside marriage. Mangan also concentrates on the early sixteenth century, a period of great transformations and encounters, which has often been characterized by sweeping statements. Historians have often commented upon the marriages of figures such as Quispe Sisa, daughter of the Inca Lord Huayna Capac and sister of the Inca Lord Atahualpa, who was given in marriage to the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro. In Peru, as in other colonized areas, such unions served to cement political alliances and were part of diplomatic traditions from both the indigenous and European factions. Nonetheless, these famous weddings were but a fraction of the ways that indigenous and Spanish men and women came together, formed family, and engendered progeny. Mangan’s book is an important corrective to the often one-dimensional view of this process.
Mangan’s study expands our knowledge of this early formative period of the colonial family; she documents the ways that mestizaje or the mixing of races challenged traditional notions of family. Spanish fathers reacted in divergent manners to their mestizo offspring—in some instances, they turned their backs on their progeny but, as the author shows, in many cases they took these sons and daughters away from their mothers to shield then from indigenous culture and sent them to live with relatives in Spain. These fathers wished their children to profit from being raised within the cultural norms of the conquerors; the fathers’ mobility across oceans made this difficult decision vital in their view and forced movements both physical and emotional on their progeny. This export of children was but one of the transatlantic movements of family. Spanish couples were frequently separated by the Atlantic Ocean, and Mangan documents efforts and complications of trying to reunite wives and husbands. These movements within families provide rare insights into the values and cultural aspects that were vital to parents. It also offers an exploration of fathers and how they related to their children.
More than previous works, Mangan documents the nuts and bolts of transatlantic and Peruvian families in the early contact period. She follows the process from matchmaking to weddings, journeys to arrivals, and births to deaths. Within these life stages, she shows how colonial culture was being formed within the couplings of men and women; how they brought together cultural elements and created the new colonial society within their families. Despite efforts to protect children from their indigenous pasts, these families created a mestizo culture—one that embraced a material culture, language, and practices that were transcultural. Families in sixteenth-century Peru crossed many boundaries—of race and ethnicity, of social class, of legitimacy, and illegitimacy—but they continued to construct bonds that would form the foundation for families of the later colonial period and contemporary societies.
The research for this book is primarily based on notarial documents, but the author also uses some court cases. This is certainly not a particularly innovative research strategy, but Mangan is exceptionally deft in her use of the details she gleaned from these files. She weaves together a portrait of the inner workings of Peruvian and Spanish families in such an elegant and enchanting manner that the reader forgets that this information comes from that tedious manuscripts of notaries. Mangan’s book is an important addition to the scholarly literature on family history—not just for Latin America but also for other regions. She provides a new tangent that will undoubtedly inspire much replication. This monograph will be useful to specialists but is highly readable and should find a place in upper-level classrooms.