Marvels and Miracles in Late Colonial Mexico: Three Texts in Context

by William B. Taylor

Overview

Miracles, signs of divine presence and intervention, have been esteemed by Christians, especially Catholic Christians, as central to religious belief. During the second half of the eighteenth century, Spain’s Bourbon dynasty sought to tighten its control over New World colonies, reform imperial institutions, and change the role of the church and religion in colonial life. As a result, miracles were recognized and publicized sparingly by the church hierarchy, and colonial courts were increasingly reluctant to recognize the events. Despite this lack of official encouragement, stories of amazing healings, rescues, and acts of divine retribution abounded throughout Mexico.

Consisting of three rare documents about miracles from this period, each accompanied by an introductory essay, this study serves as a source book and complement to the author’s Shrines and Miraculous Images: Religious Life in Mexico Before the Reforma.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826349774
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	02/15/2019
Series:	Religions of the Americas Series
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

William B. Taylor is the Muriel McKevitt Sonne Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Part I Trouble with Miracles: An Episode in the Culture and Politics of Wonder in Colonial Mexico 9

Document Summary investigation concerning the marvel that Our Lady of the Walnut Tree worked for Doña María Francisca Larralde, wife of Sergeant Major Don Antonio Urresti, residents of this city of Monterrey, witnessed and written down by Joseph Ygnacio Treviño, notary public of this aforementioned city (1758) 23

Part II Our Lady in the Kernel of Corn 53

Document Account of the prodigious miracle by Most Holy Mary in the village of Santa María de la Asumpción Tlamacazapa, parish of Acamixtla, appearing as the figure of Divine Grace in a kernel of corn to an Indian woman about to give birth (1774) 57

Part III Between Nativitas and Mexico City: Miracles and the Mundane in an eighteenth-Century Pastor's Local Religion 71

Document History of Miracles Worked by the Image of Our Lady of Intercession which is Venerated in the Monastery of Nativitas of Tepetlatzinco Pueblo, by Fray Francisco de la Rosa Figueroa (1776) 89

Notes 137

Index 147

Editorial Reviews

Readers interested in the cultural history of popular religion in colonial Spanish America will find the book richly informative. Those interested in methodology will be rewarded with a glimpse of how a masterful scholar engages his sources. Finally, the book is an exemplary work of translation. . . . In sum, Marvels and Miracles amounts to a valedictory contribution to the scholarship on religion in late colonial Spanish America by a historian who has done much over the last two decades to define the field.—A Contracorriente

A welcome contribution to the social history of religion in Latin America.—Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

A welcome contribution to the social history of religion in Latin America.—Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

From the Publisher