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.

In 1537 in Mexico City, Zumárraga’s Inquisition pursued a massive investigation into a network of suspected African and Spanish witches. Those punished were two African slaves, probably of Senegambia, Marta and María. Two freed slaves, María de Espinosa and Margarita Pérez, a Spanish woman Isabel de Morales, and a Nahua man whose name was Antón Cuatecu or Coatecu, were also condemned. The African women were accused of performing sorcery for multiple Spanish women, who were never arrested or prosecuted. These women offered multiple forms of love magic for their Spanish women patrons. Cuatecu was the cultural intermediary and supplied both the African and Spanish women with Mesoamerican plant material, which is not identified by name, only as roots, powders, which is clear evidence that Spanish and African women communicated with Cuatecu in Nahuatl. This network was multiethnic and composed of Senegambian, Maghrebi, Spanish, and Nahua peoples.