Herman Bennett

Which Law and Culture? Christian Colonialism and Afromestizo Culture in Colonial Mexico

By examining the intersection between law and culture, recent studies on colonialism have illustrated how legal systems have enabled cultural formation. What previous scholars believed represented authentic forms and cultural traditions have been shown to represent products of regulation-in which the law occupied a privileged role. Much of this work draws heavily on the pioneering endeavors of the historical anthropologist Bernard Cohn. Cohn's work has been seminal for understanding colonialism in India and beyond. Anthropologists in particular but historians as well have deployed his insights in Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. In their quest to discern the social logic of cultural formations, law and the legal systems constitute prominent sites.

My paper intends to build on this exciting field by asking "which law and culture?" By examining cultural formations among persons of African descent over the course of the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, I suggest that ecclesiastical law occupied the preeminent role in their lives during the formative years. Gradually, however, other legal domains shaped the experiences of Africans and their descendants. By the eighteenth century, ecclesiastical law was one of many legal influences shaping the experiences of the largest free black community in the Western Hemisphere. By its engagement with culture, ecclesiastical law and the panoply of laws applicable to persons of African descent, this paper questions the prevailing historical assumptions about law, status and the slave experience.