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Female Conflict and Its Resolution in Eighteenth-Century St. Augustine*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
Historian Charles Cutter has analyzed the “non-adversarial nature” of the Spanish legal culture and the manner in which Spanish authorities deployed written law (ley), customary law (derecho), and personal discretion (arbitrio judicial) effectively to achieve justice (equidad), even in peripheral areas of the empire. The primary objective of judicial administration was the resolution of conflict and restoration of harmony within the Spanish community. This paper uses civil and criminal records from second Spanish period Florida (1784-1821) to explore the gendered nature of Spanish legal culture by examining conflict between women and its resolution, as well as the ways in which the community and the court attempted to monitor and correct the “disruptive” behavior of women.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1998
Footnotes
*
Research for this paper was generously supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Vanderbilt University's Graduate Research Council, and the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities.
References
1 Cutter, Charles R., The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700–1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995),Google Scholar ch. 2. Also see Mcalister, Lyle N., Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492–1700 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. 24–26.Google Scholar
2 Landers, Jane G., Across the Southern Border: Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar
3 Censuses, East Florida Papers (hereafter cited as EFP), microfilm reel 148, P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida, Gainesville (hereafter cited as PKY); Carlos Howard to Luis de las Casas, July 2, 1791, Cuba 1439, Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla (hereafter cited as AGI).
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9 Women also asked for land grants, pensions, licenses and passports, posted bonds, mortgaged, bought and sold properties, assumed debt, and stated their dying wishes in testaments. For comparable patterns see Hanger, Kimberly S., Bounded Lives, Bounded Places: Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769–1803 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 Castilian legal institutions and customs were transferred to the Americas, where they underwent some modifications, codified as the Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de Las Indias. In theory, slave women had rights to personal security and legal mechanisms by which to escape a cruel master, conjugal rights and the right not to be separated from children, and the right to hold and transfer property and initiate legal suits. Phillips, William D. Jr., Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), pp. 154–170 Google Scholar; Pike, Ruth, Aristocrats and Traders: Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 170–193.Google Scholar
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12 Dillard, Heath, Daughters of the Reconquest: Women in Castilian Town Society, 1100–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 12–35.Google Scholar On the legal and social position of women in Spain and the Spanish colonies see, Eugene, H. Korth, S.J., and Flusche, Della M., “Dowry and Inheritance in Colonial Spanish America: Peninsular Law and Chilean Practice,” The Americas 43 (April 1987), 395–410 Google Scholar; Lavrin, Asunción, “Introduction” and “In Search of the Colonial Woman in Mexico: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives, ed. Lavrin, Asunción (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1978), pp. 3–22, 23–59.Google Scholar
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15 It was even more difficult for dark-skinned women to approach this standard since another Spanish stereotype, a remnant from Spain’s Muslim rule, emphasized their sensuality. Mary Elizabeth Perry has argued that Spain’s patriarchal society became most obsessed with controlling female sexual behavior during times of rapid change or crisis—during plague or famine years, for example, and especially during the period of high mobility and migration that followed the discovery of the Americas. Anxiety over social order might also lead to punitive actions against other “minorities” such as Jews, Muslims, or slaves. Perry, Mary Elizabeth, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 3–13.Google Scholar
16 Although oft-quoted restrictive legislation repeated (and possibly reinforced) popular notions about the degraded nature of castas or persons of mixed ancestry, personal and corporate relations were more powerful in a small community such as St. Augustine, where everyone knew one another and could form their own judgements about an individual’s character. In larger capitals such as Mexico City, Lima, and Havana, discriminatory legislation probably had more impact, but was still largely ineffectual and moderated by personal and corporate relations. Cope, R. Douglas, The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), ch. 1.Google Scholar
17 Complaints of Bartolomé Usina, María su muger, Pedro Estopa, Miguel García, Antonia su muger, y otros vecinos de la Calle Española, EFP, microfilm reel 174, PKY.
18 Patricia Griffin named this neighborhood Little San Felipe since most of the residents came from that Minorcan village. She found this area the most “cohesive in terms of Old World origins” of any she studied in St. Augustine. Griffin, , Mullet on the Beach, pp. 162–4.Google Scholar
19 Memorial of Juan Seguí and response by Governor Juan Nepomuceno de Quesada, August 16, 1790 and August 31, 1790, EFP, microfilm reel 174, PKY. Griffin found that although Juan Seguí had relatives living elsewhere in the city, he was one of the few Minorcan men not linked by godparent ties to other Minorcans in his neighborhood, and this fact may have contributed to the couple’s ostracism. Griffin, , Mullet on the Beach, pp. 168–69.Google Scholar
20 Pedro Llul versus José Ximénes, for having injured his wife with the expression mulatta, October 30, 1802, EFP, reel 125, PKY.
21 Ibid.
22 On the general toleration of cross-racial alliances in eighteenth-century Spanish societies see Hanger, Bounded Lives, Bounded Places, and Landers, Across the Southern Border.
23 For more on Spain’s religious sanctuary policy in Florida see Landers, Jane, “Spanish Sanctuary: Fugitives in Florida, 1784–1790,” Florida Historical Quarterly (January 1984), 296–313 Google Scholar and Landers, , “Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Colonial Florida,” American Historical Review 95 (February 1990), 9–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24 Several of the essays in this issue remark on doorways as a “safe” liminal area, neither fully public or private, from which women launched insulting remarks, but in this case Judy was not standing in her own doorway, and thus, her remark was more public and more threatening.
25 María was illiterate but her son Francisco, who was educated in St. Augustine, produced the petition for her and signed by her “X.” Memorial of María Witten, August 27, 1798, EFP, microfilm reel 79, PKY. I discuss this case in greater depth in, “African and African American Women and their Pursuit of Rights Through Eighteenth-Century Spanish Texts,” in Jones, Anne Good-wyn and Donaldson, Susan V., eds. Haunted Bodies: Gender and Southern Texts (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, forthcoming).Google Scholar
26 Judy had escaped bondage during the American Revolution and also had intimate knowledge of the French Revolution and the Haitian slave revolt. Her daughter married one of its participants and she knew many others. Landers, Jane G., “Rebellion and Royalism in Spanish Florida: The French Revolution on Spain’s Northern Colonial Frontier,” in Gaspar, David Barry and Geggus, David Patrick, eds. A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 156–77.Google Scholar
27 Landers, Across the Southern Border.
28 Memorial of María Witten, August 27, 1798, EFP, microfilm reel 79 and response by dons José and Bernardino Sánchez. For a discussion of Spanish interrogatories and the relative weight assigned to witnesses of different status, see Cook, Alexandra Parma and Cook, Noble David, Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance: A Case of Transatlantic Bigamy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), pp. 87–89,Google Scholar 91–103, and 112–114.
29 Causa of Reyna, May 12,.1798, EFP, microfilm reel 79, PKY.
30 Causa of Maríana Tudory, December 12, 1793, EFP, microfilm reel 78, PKY.
31 Another standard closing might be “The humble petitioner fully expects to be graced with the charity and justice for which your esteemed Majesty is well-known. I kiss your hand and pray that God grant you many years.” Although by modern standards the language might sound obsequious, when rendered, such flowery and flattering phrases were considered a mark of civility and, in that context, graceful language might conceivably improve the outcome of a petition. On treatment of the “miserable classes” and Christian obligations see Flynn, Maureen “Charitable Ritual in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain,” Sixteenth-Century Journal 16 (Fall 1985), 335–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
32 Andaina was born in Baltimore and was therefore, probably literate in English, as well as Spanish. Memorials, Petition of Andaina, February 13, 1793, EFP, microfilm reel 78, PKY. I discuss this case in greater depth in, “African and African American Women and their Pursuit of Rights Through Eighteenth-Century Spanish Texts,” in Haunted Bodies: Gender and Southern Texts (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, forthcoming).
33 Ibid. By the mechanism of coartación slaves could petition the courts to set their just purchase price. Each party, owner and slave, then chose an assessor to evaluate the slave’s value. If wide disagreement arose, the court appointed a third assessor and then made its decision. Once the court established a slave’s “just” price, owners had to honor it. If slaves could not afford their immediate freedom, they could make payments and move slowly out of slavery, or they could seek out new owners willing to pay the price and effect a change in their conditions that way. Scott, Rebecca J., Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860–1899 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar
34 Landers, Across the Souther Border.
35 Catalina’s absent husband was a grenadier in the Third Battalion of Cuba, stationed in St. Augustine. Memorial of Andaina and Response of Catalina Cantar (Acosta), December 12,1797, EFP, microfilm reel 79, PKY.
36 Memorials, Response of Catalina Cantar (Acosta), December 12, 1797, EFP, microfilm reel 79, PKY.
37 Spanish society customarily attached status to clothing and tried unsuccessfully to maintain social boundaries with sumptuary legislation. Andaina described the clothing she bought herself as “saraza ordinaria, o listado,” (cotton cloth with a white background and stripes, so possibly Osnaburg). Catalina described Andaina’s ball attire as “zapatos de baza y otras galas” (yellowishbrown shoes and other finery). Memorials, Statement of Catalina Acosta, February 27, 1793, EFP, microfilm reel 78, PKY.
38 Memorials, Petition of Andaina, February 13, 1793, EFP, microfilm reel 78, PKY.
39 Memorials, response of Catalina Cantar (Acosta), December 12, 1797, EFP, microfilm reel 79, PKY.
40 Witnesses José Peso de Burgo, Domingo Martinely, and Pedro Cocifaci were prosperous shopkeepers and shipowners who had many personal and business relationships. Martinely and Cocifaci were also brothers-in-law, having married the Minorcan sisters, Maríana and Inez Cavedo. Their families lived near each other on St. George Street. Griffin, , Mullet on the Beach, pp. 157 Google Scholar and 184–92. Catalina countered that Andaina repeatedly harbored her nine-year-old runaway son. Andaina denied that charge and specified that “the soldier, Luna” and “the convict laborer, Arturo” sheltered her son. Memorial of Andaina, December 2, 1797, and response of Catalina Cantar (Acosta), December 12, 1797, EFP, microfilm reel 79, PKY.
41 Memorial of Andaina, December 2, 1797, and response of Catalina Cantar (Acosta), December 12, 1797, EFP, microfilm reel 79, PKY.
42 Sexual exploitation of enslaved women who lived on rural plantations was probably common and rarely prosecuted. It is also likely that even in urban areas, where women could appeal to courts and influential patrons for protection, much sexual abuse was never reported. “Autos seguidos…contra Juana, esclava de Juan Salom, por haver ahogado dos niños suyos en un pozo de su casa,” EFP, Miscellaneous Legal Instruments and Proceedings, 1784–1819,” microfilm reel HO, no. 33, PKY. I discuss this case in greater depth in, “In Consideration of Her Enormous Crime: Rape and Infanticide In Spanish St. Augustine,” in The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 205–217.
43 I am indebted to Patricia Griffin for a reference to the Salom family from the 1786 Hassett census, which records Juan Salom, age 35, a native of Alayor (Minorca), his wife Margarita Neto, age 30, from San Felipe (Minorca), their children Juan, 7, and Clara, 4, and two male and two female slaves, unnamed and not baptized. Censuses, EFP, microfilm reel 148, PKY.
44 Infanticide was harshly punished in medieval Spain and men and women were usually executed for this crime. Women convicted of such a grave crime were usually burned alive. Dillard, , Daughters of the Reconquest, pp. 208–210.Google Scholar In other parts of early modern Europe, women were more often drowned for this crime, and more women were executed for this crime than for any other, except witchcraft. See Weisner, Merry E., Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 51–2.Google Scholar
45 “Autos seguidos…contra Juana.” For similar legal exactitude in a frontier setting see Cutter, Legal Culture, ch. 2.