Mulatas settled in La Plata (Charcas, today Bolivia), 1575-1635: Professional Practices, Intra-ethnic Relations, Clothing, and identity in a Colonial Society

ANA MARIA PRESTA

Colonia

Workshop; Dress Matters. Transcultural Perspectives on Belonging and Distinction; 2017

This proposal seeks to construct a new hermeneutic at approaching casta women in a specific colonial setting. Cultural miscegenation, material cultures, and identity building can be detected at associating professional practice and clothing as strong ethnic markers.Mulatto women were active gendered subjects revealed at visualizing the complex Spanish colonial society through specific primary sources such as testaments, dowries, and economic transactions gathered from the notarial records deposited at the Bolivian National Archive. Evangelization, family making, Catholic marriage, and religious rituals and institutions together with material culture contributed to ideological and cultural integration of a group of New Christians in the urban mesh. Profession, ethnic relations, Christian devotion, and specific clothing offer impressive clues to recover representation and identity building along three generations of mulatto women relocated in the Southern Andes.