Matthew O'Hara's A Flock Divided is about politics and religion and the colonial heritage of being Indian. It is an erudite history that simultaneously reiterates what we think we already know about change and continuity in New Spain, yet confounds those same assumptions. The historical devil here, then, is in the details.
O'Hara's focus is on the relationship between Indians and the Church from the mid-eighteenth century to the reform era of Benito Juárez. During this span of over a hundred years there were monumental transformations such as the Bourbon Reforms, Mexico's independence from Spain and the Mexican–American War, although the last is not mentioned. At the same time, ethnic Indians, here predominantly but not exclusively Nahuas, officially went from being legitimate corporate enclaves to being subjects of assimilation, and then to being political nonentities. In view of native resilience, how might this have happened?
The book comprises three sections, beginning with a generous study of post-contact Nahuas as the spiritual charges of the mendicants, who gathered tens of thousands of tentative neophytes into doctrinas made up of one or more complex altepetls (ethnic states). The altepetl had been the basis for indigenous ethnic and social identity since the Nahuas' time immemorial, and although the political structure of the institution was modified during the colonial period, its cultural precedents manifested in myriad forms, serving to maintain the integrity of the indigenous communities. Most Nahuas eventually became Christians while practising their own form of Catholicism. Some of their religious beliefs were adaptations from the past that fostered local solidarity, and their friars often did not object as long as the Indians dedicated themselves to the sacraments and church duties. Early on, the friars enjoyed great influence among their native congregations. The Spanish crown, though, worried about the undue authority of the mendicants, and by the end of the sixteenth century it had initiated a process of secularisation that was to be carried out over the course of the next two centuries. Yet many mendicants continued to minister to Nahua towns, largely because only they spoke the necessary languages and were willing to live in the countryside.
The book opens with a sermon given in 1757 by a Dominican, Fray Antonio Claudio de Villegas, who was celebrating the tearing down of a wall dividing separate chapels utilised by Indians and Spaniards. The uniting of the two groups anticipated mandates from the Bourbon crown that sought to realise its secularisation project and thereby bring the native population into the mainstream of colonial society. The speaking of native languages was to end, religious festivals were to be tempered, and there would be economic advantages for all. Significantly, and tellingly in light of traditional indigenous perception and representation, the Indians responded to the reform initiatives by proposing the construction of seminaries for native boys who would replace the mendicants. Essentially, they would manage their own religious affairs. Plans for seminaries came to naught, although native women were finally allowed to have their own convents by 1724.
The second section of the book discusses official policy toward the Indians at the end of the eighteenth century. The integration of society had not been realised. Fraught with contradictions from the beginning, the crown had tried to keep native peoples apart from Spaniards, largely for the benefit of both groups, even though they were mutually dependent. Nevertheless, Spanish reformers, while aware of the incongruity of advocating homogenisation in the face of their own racial and caste biases, legislated the end of religious parochialism in 1772. The mendicants naturally opposed secularisation, but their congregations were more realistic. To optimise the inevitable outcome, the Nahuas made the transition to secular parishes but kept the clerics at arm's length. Their churches, with their holy paraphernalia and their celebrations, were all part of the colonial legacy of the community; the new priests could make no such claim. Tried and true spiritual corporations, such as the cofradías, served as hybrid models of social virtue but were also bulwarks of ethnic exclusivity. Even in Mexico City and small towns where casta populations were increasing, the Indians used religion to leverage politics.
The last section of the book focuses on independent Mexico and ‘Indianness’ in the new republic. By this time caste distinctions had been abolished, even in the parishes, yet Church policy established by the 1585 Third Provincial Council remained in force until 1896, and change was therefore slow. At the local level, however, the native leaders were well aware of the entitlements of the republican government and co-opted the new ayuntamientos constitucionales (constitutional town councils) for their own purposes. They championed tradition, when necessary, while capitalising on their irrefutable status as citizens to optimise their religious and political rights when challenged. Remarkably, they were often successful.
A Flock Divided is true to its title. It is a rich, revisionist history that confounds old notions of indigenous passivity and obsolescence by bringing to light a trove of new sources and interpretations that furnish great insight into what being Indian was about over the longue durée. It is a welcome contribution to the history of early Mexico.
