Abstract

VERA CASTANEDA, Julio. The Complexion of the Indians of New Spain: Composition, Nature, and Racialization in the Early Modern Period (16th-17th Centuries). Estud. hist. novohisp [online]. 2024, n.70, pp.153-181.  Epub Apr 05, 2024. ISSN 2448-6922.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iih.24486922e.2024.70.77780.

This article discusses the role of the composition of American nature in the racialization of the inhabitants of New Spain during Early Modernity. Based on a set of natural histories produced between 1577 and 1618, the article posits that the rhetorical use of the theory of humours in the description of the complexion of the Indians evidences the political condition of the concept of nature. Throughout, the text explores the way in which the actors use the epistemological tradition of “local natures” to inferiorize the “natural” condition of the Indians in regard to other inhabitants of the territory such as Creoles and Spaniards, building an alterity understood as natural. From this analysis it is concluded that the instability of the concept of nature and its inherent normative dimension contributes to the political understanding of racism during early modernity and its particularities in the case of New Spain.

Keywords : race; complexion; Indians; nature; composition; New Spain; Early Modernity.