Review by Choice Review
This monograph examines constructions of race and ethnicity in the early colonial era in the New Kingdom of Grenada (present-day Colombia). Rappaport (Georgetown) argues that by looking at the early colonial era apart from Mexico, scholars can see the variety of roles that race and ethnicity played in different parts of the Spanish empire. The result is that this volume questions the pervasiveness of the casta system and essentialist ideas of race outside of 18th-century Mexico. Rappaport does this by closely examining a very limited number of legal cases in which lineage--particularly racial mixture--was a factor, showing the specific circumstances in which the language of mixture and racial fluidity played a role and how that was identified and addressed. The argument is most compelling in chapter 4, in which Rappaport carefully examines the stories of two mestizo caciques, painting a compelling portrait of the complexities of "socioracial" identification and cultural fluency. This volume is an important correction to dominant discussions of the caste system in colonial Latin America but also one that could have been laid out in two or three articles (as Rappaport has already done). --D. Ryan Lynch, Knox College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
