The Intersections of Race, Class, and Labor in New Spain: Archaeological, Bioarchaeological, and Ethnohistoric Perspectives from the Basin of Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and Material Culture of the Spanish Invasion of Mesoamerica and Forging of New Spain" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper brings together archaeological, bioarchaeological, and ethnohistoric data to highlight how daily life was transformed in New Spain. In particular, we focus on labor as an avenue for understanding the complex relationships and negotiations between working individuals and the emerging colonial structures of power that attempted to prevent or prohibit certain individuals from engaging in particular kinds of work. We attempt to show how these interactions occurred not just within urban spaces, but extended to other more rural areas of the Basin of Mexico. Examples range from the life history of an Afro-descendant person who served in the home of a wealthy Spaniard to indigenous communities in the countryside whose labor was protected from foreign rivals by law. The combination of data from material culture, the bodies of individuals engaging in work, and the written documentary sources allows us to explore this topic at both the individual and community level and emphasize a more complex, yet possibly more accurate, interpretation of how race and class influenced labor.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeology and Material Culture of the Spanish Invasion of Mesoamerica and Forging of New Spain   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24399