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New Directions in Mexican Legal History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Silvia Marina Arrom
Silvia Marina Arrom*
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
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Extract

These three articles, originally presented as papers at the 1992 American Historical Association meetings, represent a new direction in Mexican legal history. Whereas most legal histories have concentrated on a textual analysis of the law, these articles go beyond the laws to explore how they were implemented (as in Charles Cutter's and Michael Scardaville's pieces) and how they were made (as in Linda Arnold's piece). To do so the authors supplement printed sources with rich and previously neglected materials from local court proceedings, police logs, and supreme court archives. Taken together, the articles present a fascinating picture of how the Mexican legal system worked in practice, be it through the provincial courts of New Mexico, the lower courts of Mexico City, or the Supreme Court visitas of prisons.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , April 1994 , pp. 461 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1994

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References

1 This introduction, originally presented as a commentary on the panel, benefitted from remarks made by the audience. The session was entitled “The Vulgar and the Elegant: The Roman Law Legacy in Ibero-America.”

2 See, for example, the excellent works by Margadant, Guillermo F., Introducción a la historia del derecho mexicano (Mexico City: UNAM, 1971)Google Scholar; and Condición jurídica de la mujer en México (Mexico City: UNAM, 1975).

3 Tannenbaum, Frank, Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1946).Google Scholar

4 Hanke, Lewis, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Washington, D.C.: The American Historical Association, 1949).Google Scholar

5 An example of an influential book that embodied this idea is Nisbet, Robert, The Quest for Community (London, 1969).Google Scholar

6 For a discussion of contrasting legal traditions see Langum, David J., Law and Community on the Mexican California Frontier: Anglo-American Expatriates and the Clash of Legal Cultures (Norman, OK: 1987).Google Scholar

7 Simpson, Leslie Byrd, Many Mexicos (Berkeley, 1966), p. 199.Google Scholar

8 This approach is exemplified by the works of Foucault, Michel, especially Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (trans. Richard Howard, New York, 1973).Google Scholar

9 On this point see also my analysis of ecclesiastical divorce cases in The Women of Mexico City, 1790–1857 (Stanford, CA, 1985), chap. 5.

10 Nader, Laura, Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village (Stanford, CA, 1990), especially chap. 14.Google Scholar

11 Kagan, Richard, Lawsuits and Litigants in Castile, 1500–1700 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981).Google Scholar

12 See, for example, Seed, Patricia, To Love, Honor and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts Over Marriage Choice, 1574–1821 (Stanford, CA, 1988).Google Scholar

13 Waldron, Kathy, “The Sinners and the Bishop in Colonial Venezuela: The Visita of Bishop Mariano Martí, 1771–1784,” in Lavrin, Asunción, ed., Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America (Lincoln, NE, 1989), pp. 156–177.Google Scholar

14 See discussion in Lockhart, James and Schwartz, Stuart, Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil (Cambridge, 1983), chap. 8Google Scholar; and Taylor, William, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford, CA, 1979).Google Scholar