Moriscas, North Africans, and Canarians in Mexico
from Part II - Magic in the 1520s and 1530s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2025
This chapter tells the stories of women from liminal-frontier regions – Andalucía and the Canaries. Some of these women were ethnic Spaniards. Others were described as Moriscas, an ambiguous term. In the stories told here, Morisca women could have been Arab–Spanish converts from Islam to Christianity; Maghrebi women; Spanish Canarians; or vaguely exotic or darker-skinned Andalucian women. Andalucía had a long tradition of female courtesan slaves, called ŷāriya. The women accused of sorcery in this chapter were often shamed for their sexual behavior. Two in particular, Esperanza de Valencia and María de Armenta, were described as being mujer enamorada, a euphemism for courtesan. Armenta in particular had affairs with two wealthy and politically powerful men of Mexico City in the 1530s. These women were accused, almost predictably, of love magic and of being too sexually free. In the context of Mexico, these Morisca and Andalucian women flouted Catholic ideas about female chastity and decorum. They were targeted by inquisitional courts not only for sorcery but also for being courtesans. At least one such Morisca was a slave of a wealthy man in Oaxaca and may have had some kind of amorous relationship with him.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.