Indigenous Women of Colonial Spanish America

Indigenous women of Spanish America, like their male counterparts, encountered the written word in the sixteenth century. The Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica and the Andes not only brought a new order but also alphabetic writing, which led to the gradual and uneven substitution of autochthonous systems of literacy. Yet, among the Indigenous populations, literacy did not only entail writing or reading but also included myriad skills for production and reception. While the female descendants of the former Native nobilities had much more access to literacy in colonial society and some even authored their own texts, the great majority of Native women engaged with the production of written legal documentation. As plaintiffs, witnesses, and defendants in civil and criminal records and as oral producers of numerous other mundane notarial documents, they not only authored the content of these texts, but, most importantly, they left a trace of their accomplishments and struggles in colonial lettered cities.