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‘This Life of Misery and Shame’: Female Prostitution in Guatemala City, 1880–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

David McCreery
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Extract

A number of recent studies1 suggest that prostitution – ‘The act or practice of indulging in promiscuous sexual relations, especially for money’2 – in western society increased dramatically in the late nineteenth century, both in real terms and in popular consciousness. ‘Large scale, conspicuous prostitution’, they argue, ‘was a by-product of the first, explosive stage in the growth of the modern, industrial city…’ It is a proposition of this article that such changes were, in fact, far more widespread. From the evidence of Guatemala it appears that prostitution also increased during these years in agricultural export societies. Under the impact of demands from industrializing nations, colonial and neo-colonial regimes overhauled domestic economic and social structures to increase raw material and food production for export. Unprecedented but unstable economic prosperity, urbanization, and the social disorganization resulting from the implementation of systems of forced labour and removal from the land created a climate propitious for an increase in and institutionalization of commerical sex. This paper is an examination of the growth of female prostitution in late nineteenth-century Guatemala City, of the situation and attitudes of the women involved, and of state efforts to control the traffic. More broadly, it argues that attempts to regulate prostitution must be understood as part of a liberal drive to mobilize and control society as a whole in the interest of a class-defined vision of national development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , November 1986 , pp. 333 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 Finnegan, Frances, Poverty and Prostitution: A Study of Victorian Prostitutes in York (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar; Goldman, Marion S., Golddiggers and Silver Miners: Prostitution and Social Life on the Comstock Lode (Ann Arbor, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosen, Ruth, The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900–1918 (Baltimore, 1982)Google Scholar; Walkowitz, Judith R., Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class and the State (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Connelly, Mark T., The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era (Chapel Hill, 1980)Google Scholar; McHugh, Paul, Prostitution and Victorian Social Reform (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; and Evans, Richard J., ‘Prostitution, State and Society in Imperial Germany’, Past and Present no. 70 (02, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, Hirata, Lucy Chang, ‘Free, Enslaved and Indentured Workers in Nineteenth Century Chinese Prostitution’, Signs no. 5 (Fall, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Berg's, Joel ‘Careers in Brothel Prostitution: St. Paul, 1865–1883’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12 no. 4 (Spring 1982) pp. 597–619Google Scholar suggests many parallels with the situation in Guatemala.

2 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, Mass., 1977). p. 926.Google Scholar

3 Evans, , ‘Imperial German’, p. 106.Google Scholar

4 Child, homosexual and lesbian prostitution no doubt existed in Guatemala City in these years – for example, references B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40956, AGCA (see note 10 for explanation of archive sources) – but not enough information is available to treat these adequately.

5 Sanborn, Helen J., A Winter in Central America and Mexico (Boston, 1886), p. 174.Google Scholar

6 In Guatemala the term ladino is applied to an individual of European or ‘national’ culture regardless of his/her racial makeup; Colby, Benjamin N. and den Berge, Pierre L. van, Ixil Country (California, 1969), p. 21ffGoogle Scholar; anthropologists have paid less attention to Guatemala's ladinos than they have the more colorful Indians but, see the section on Guatemala in Adams, Richard N., Cultural Surveys of Panama – Nicaragua – Guatemala –El Salvador –Honduras (Washington, 1957).Google Scholar

7 The best introduction to ‘honor and shame’ societies remain the two volumes edited by Peristiany: Peristiany, J. G. (ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (Chicago, 1966)Google Scholar and Mediterranean Family Structures (Cambridge, 1976)Google Scholar, See also Schneider, Jane, ‘Of Vigilence and Virgins: Honor, Shame and Access to Resources in Mediterranean Societies’, Ethnology vol. 10 (1971), pp. 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Compare, for example, Martínez-Alier, Verena, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-century Cuba (Cambridge, 1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Pitt-Rivers, Julian, ‘Honour and Social Status’, in Peristiany, (ed.). Honour and Shame, p. 45Google Scholar; compare Walkowitz, , Prostitution, p. 7.Google Scholar

10 B102.1, legajo (leg.) 3639, expediente (exp.) 85859, Archivo General de Centroamérica (AGCA). The principal source for this paper is the surviving records of the Tolerance – that is, prostitution – Police held in the AGCA. Prostitution was not a subject of comment in the newspapers, even in the relatively open 1890s, and the archives of institutions such as the Church which might take an interest in public and private morality are not open to investigators. It is likely that the papers of the governor of the department of Guatemala available in the AGCA contain useful material but a preliminary survey did not turn it up.

11 Perry., Mary Elizabeth ‘Deviant Insiders: Legalized Prostitutes and a Consciousness of Women in Early Modern Seville’ (forthcoming in Comparative Studies in Society and History) MS, p. 20 ff.Google Scholar

12 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40963, AGCA.

13 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40953, fo. 20, AGCA; compare, ‘Prostitution is an inevitable evil, a true escape valve; it is absurd to prosecute it and impossible to extinguish it.’ Lisson, Pedro Davalos y, La prostitution en la ciudad de Lima (Lima, 1909) p. 45.Google Scholar

14 For example, Mont, Manual Pineda de, Recopilación de las leyes (Guatemala, 1979), p. 527 ff.Google Scholar

15 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40947, AGCA.

16 McCreery, David, Development and the State in Reforma Guatemala, 1871–1885 (Athens, Ohio, 1983).Google Scholar

17 The author has explored labor relations in agriculture extensively in two articles: McCreery, David, ‘Debt Servitude in Rural Guatemala, 1876–1936’. Hispanic American Historical Review vol. 63, no. 4 (11, 1983), pp. 735–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘An Odious Feudalism: Mandamientos and Commerical Agriculture in Guatemala, 1858–1920’, forthcoming in Latin American Perspectives.

18 Jones, Chester Lloyd, Guatemala, Past and Present (Minneapolis, 1940), p. 210.Google Scholar

19 Dirección General de Estadística (Guatemala, ), Censo general de la Repú;blica de Guatemala levantado el año 1880 (Guatemala, 1881)Google Scholar, Censo general – 1893 (Guatemala, 1894)Google Scholar, and Censo general de la República – 1921 (Guatemala, 1926).Google Scholar

20 Estadistica, Censo general – 1893.

21 Asturias, Miguel Angel, El Señor Presidente, trans. Partridge, Frances (New York, 1982), pp. 159–60Google Scholar; see also Schwartz, Kessel, ‘The Whorehouse and the Whore in Spanish American Fiction’, Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs vol. 15, no. 4 (11, 1974), pp. 472–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Rosen, , Sisterhood, p. 175.Google Scholar

23 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40957, no date, and exp. 40959, 20 March 1890, AGCA.

24 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40950, AGCA.

25 B 102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40947, AGCA.

26 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40973 and exp. 40947, AGCA.

27 B81.1, leg. 1092, exp. 23974, AGCA.

28 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40963, AGCA.

29 B81.1, leg. 1092, exp. 23974, AGCA.

30 Reglamento que deben observar las mujeres públicas en la ciudad Guatemala, emitido por la Dirección General de la Policia (Guatemala, 1881).Google Scholar

31 With one unsuccessful exception, bordel managers remained women throughout these years suggesting that, even with its growth, prostitution in Guatemala remained essentially an ‘artisan’ activity.

32 B102.1, leg. 3639, exp. 85859, AGCA.

33 In the mid-1880s the peso was worth slightly less than one dollar U.S.; by the 1910s it had fallen to 20–40 pesos to the dollar. Young, John Parke, Central American Currency and Finance (Princeton, 1925), p. 39.Google Scholar

34 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40952, AGCA.

35 B102.1, leg. 3643, exp. 85913, AGCA.

36 Forced inscription and registration of prostitutes was common in nineteenth-century Latin America – e.g. Davalos, Prostitutión… Lima, pp. 56–7Google Scholar and Guzman, Franco, Prostitution, pp. 94–5Google Scholar but forced reclusion in a bordel was not. According to the 1887 Guatemalan law, minors might be sent to ‘establishments where they could learn to rid themselves of their bad instincts’. What these ‘establishments’ might have been is not clear as, as far as can be determined, this was never done. B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40953, follows fo. 9, AGCA.

37 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40953, fo. 16, AGCA.

38 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40953, fo. 37–9 and exp. 40956, fo. 3, AGCA.

39 B102.1, leg. 3639, exp. 85897, AGCA.

40 Flexner, , Europe, p. 27.Google Scholar

41 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40968, 9 Oct. 1983, AGCA.

42 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40956, fo. 28, exp. 40958, 4 June 1890, and exp. 40961, 14 Feb. 1891, AGCA.

43 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40962, 11 Apr. 1891, and exp. 40956, fo. 38, AGCA.

44 Estudios: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Antropológicas y Arqueológicas (Guatemala) vol. II no. 7 (1981), p. 114.Google Scholar

45 B102.1, leg. 3641, exp. 85907, fo. 27, AGCA.

46 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40968, AGCA.

47 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40974, 21 Aug. 1893, AGCA.

48 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40958, AGCA.

49 B102.1, leg. 3639, exp. 85879 and 85900, AGCA. The relatively small number of tortilla makers/corn grinders who entered prostitution may reflect a predominance of Indian women in this employment.

50 Place of origin of prostitutes registering in Guatemala City, 1889–1911 (5 or more registering): Guatemala City, 175; Antigua, 47; Salamá, 16; Esquintla, 13; Quezaltenango, 11; Amatitlan, 11; Zacapa, 7; Villa Nueva, 5. B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 85879 and 85900, AGCA.

51 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40917, 14 Feb. 1890, AGCA.

52 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40957, AGCA.

53 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 85879 and 85900, AGCA.

54 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40965, 11 Apr. 1891, AGCA.

55 Compare Connelly, , Response and Prostitution in America: Three Studies, 1902–1914 (New York, 1976)Google Scholar, part III, chap. II.

56 B102.1,, leg. 1752, exp. 85879 and 85900, AGCA.

57 See Appendix.

5 8 B102.1, leg. 3640, exp. 85903, AGCA.

59 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40956, AGCA.

60 The information in the following paragraph is drawn from B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40973, AGCA.

61 B102.i, leg. 1752, exp. 40963, AGCA.

62 See, for example, the accounts of C.F.: B102.1, leg. 3642, exp. 85910, fo. 86, AGCA.

63 B102.1, leg. 3642, exp. 85910, AGCA.

64 Compare, for example, petitions and complaints from agricultural workers in the papers of the governor of the department of Hueheutenango: B119.21.0.0, various legajos, AGCA.

65 B102.1, leg. 3642, exp. 85910 and leg. 3643, exp. 85912, AGCA.

66 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40958, 12 Nov. 1890, AGCA.

67 B102.1, leg. 3642, exp. 85910 and leg. 3643, exp. 85912, AGCA.

68 Diario de Centro América (Guatemala), 20 02. 1906, p. 1.Google Scholar

69 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40961, 19 Apr. 1891, AGCA.

70 B102.1, leg. 3639, exp. 85901 and leg. 3641, exp. 85907, AGCA.

71 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40958, 23 June 1890, AGCA.

72 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40962, AGCA.

73 There are many similar examples to be found in B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40956 and exp. 40965, AGCA.

74 B102.1, leg. 3639, exp. 85849, 14 Oct. 1885, AGCA.

75 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40949, AGCA.

76 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40962, 11 Apr. 1891; Asturias, , Presidente, p. 164.Google Scholar

77 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40956, 17 July 1890, AGCA.

78 For example, B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40956, 17 July 1890, leg. 3640, exp. 85903, leg. 3642, exp. 85910, and leg. 3643, exp. 85912, AGCA.

79 B102.1, leg. 3643, exp. 85913, AGCA.

80 B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40958, AGCA.

81 Walkowitz, , Prostitution, p. 4.Google Scholar

82 Perry, ‘Deviant Insiders’.

83 This, of course, is adapted from Turner, Van Gennep via Victor, The Ritual Process (London, 1969)Google Scholar, chap. 3.

84 At one point matrona Montis had to ask that the time of medical inspections be changed to early in the morning to avoid the commotion in the streets which surrounded the women on the way to and from the doctor. B102.1, leg. 1752, exp. 40956,31 May 1890, AGCA.