Imagining Catholic Empires: Slavery, Freedom, and the Jesuits in Colonial Mexico

Imagining Catholic Empires: Slavery, Freedom, and the Jesuits in Colonial Mexico examines the Society of Jesus’ ministry of one of Mexico’s burgeoning demographics, people of African descent. The Society’s aim to reach as many colonial subjects as possible along with their internal mandate to submit reports back to Rome make the Society a critical lens in understanding Spanish American life and quotidian practices of empire-making. Much of the scholarship on Jesuits in colonial Mexico focuses on the Society’s work with indigenous communities, especially the establishment of missions and the learning of indigenous languages and customs. However, Jesuits encountered people from across the socio-economic and ethno-racial spectrum. My work argues that examining strategies in attending to both free and enslaved African-descended people helps to illuminate notions of Jesuit authority, the praxis of colonial religiosity, and the continued struggle for agency among subjugated groups.