Ben Vinson
Biographic Data
| ID | 531392 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ben Vinson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ben |
| FAMILY NAME | Vinson |
| SIGNATURE | BEN VINSON |
| AFFILIATIONS | Johns Hopkins University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 94 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico
This book opens new dimensions on race in Latin America by examining the extreme caste groups of colonial Mexico. In tracing their experiences, a broader understanding of the connection between mestizaje (Latin America's modern ideology of racial mixture) and the colonial caste system is rendered. Before mestizaje emerged as a primary concept in Latin America, an earlier precursor existed that must be taken seriously. This colonial form of racial…
Una historia total de la esclavitud: La Esclavitud en América Latina y el Caribe
Afro-Mexico: Dancing between Myth and Reality
While Africans and their descendants have lived in Mexico for centuries, many Afro-Mexicans do not consider themselves to be either black or African. For almost a century, Mexico has promoted an ideal of its citizens as having a combination of indigenous and European ancestry. This obscures the presence of African, Asian, and other populations that have contributed to the growth of the nation. However, performance studies—of dance, music, and the…
West Side Story: Free-Black Labor in the Mexican Pacific during the Late Colonial Period as seen through the Revillagigedo Census
West Side Story: Free-Black Labor in the Mexican Pacific during the Late Colonial Period as seen through the Revillagigedo Census Ben Vinson III Introduction Since at least the 1960s, the study of labor has been among the central topics of research on black life in the colonial Americas. Understanding systems of slavery have, in many ways, dominated the discussion, providing fascinating insights into the development of colonial societies, the wor…
Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico
María Elena Martínez’s Genealogical Fictions deserves a place among the best of the recent literature that has been produced on race, caste, social hierarchy, and religion in colonial Latin America. The book is a significant work of archival research, historical synthesis, and interpretation, yielding one of the most comprehensive understandings to date on the wide-ranging significance of limpieza de sangre. In fact, while Martínez covers some we…
African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
This is an original survey of the economic and social history of slavery of the Afro-American experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. The focus of the book is on the Portuguese, Spanish, and French-speaking regions of continental America and the Caribbean. It analyzes the latest research on urban and rural slavery and on the African and Afro-American experience under these regimes. It approaches these themes both historically and structura…
Introduction: African (Black) Diaspora History, Latin American History
Inspired in part by Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic paradigm, the past several years have witnessed a reinvigoration of Black Studies, with careful attention being paid to the approaches and methods of writing black history. The terms “African Diaspora” and “Black Diaspora” have become almost commonplace in scholarly discourse, emerging out of relative obscurity from their roots in the politically inspired Pan-Africanist and Civil Rights discourses …
Afro‐Mexican History: Trends and Directions in Scholarship
This article surveys the development of a relatively new and vibrant subfield in Latin American History, mapping out the major stages of its evolution and signaling key intellectual debates. While much of the scholarship on Afro‐Mexican history has been produced in the last thirty‐five years, this article aims to contextualize these writings within a broader historical framework. This process shows more clearly the various independent and interde…
Fading from Memory: Historiographical Reflections on the Afro-Mexican Presence
Flight: The Story of Virgil Richardson, A Tuskegee Airman in Mexico
Virgil Richardson blazed his own unique trail through the twentieth century: a co-founder of Harlem's American Negro Theater, 1930s radio personality, World War II pilot, and expatriate for most of hi
Introduction From the Eyes of an Historian
I t was barely nine but it was already forbiddingly hot, as only the morning of a Texas June could be. I shut the door of the gray Silverado, thanking Morris for the six-minute ride. Stuffing a blueberry muffin into my mouth, I picked up my tripod, camera bag, tape recorder, and notebook. Then I hastened along the manicured lawn to the front of a single-story red brick, condo-style apartment. Despite the heat, someone was lingering outside, takin…
Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora
This edited volume, the result of papers delivered at the 1999 Bantu into Black conference, represents an important contribution to African diaspora studies. It seeks to correct the lingering imbalance between the study of West Africa’s impact on New World cultures and the significance of Central Africa as an anchor site of diasporic formation. Scholars tend to stress Yoruba roots over Central African ones in the study of religion and culture. Si…
Negros, mulatos, esclavos y libertos en la Costa Rica del siglo XVII
Book Review| October 01 2003 Negros, mulatos, esclavos y libertos en la Costa Rica del siglo XVII By Rina Cáceres. (Mexico City: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, 2000. ix + 130 pp., introduction, maps,bibliography. $20.00 paper.) Ben Vinson, III Ben Vinson, III Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnohistory (2003) 50 (4): 758–761. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-50-4-758 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Fac…
The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas
David Eltis achieves a masterful synthesis of both primary and secondary sources to shed enormous light on the development of the slave trade in the Atlantic World in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, The Rise of African Slavery is an important work that is in many ways a model for conducting Atlantic history, maneuvering fluidly among Africa, Europe, and the Americas while demonstrating key connections and disparities among the c…
The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780
Book Review| October 01 2002 The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780 By María Elena Díaz. (Stanford, : Stanford University Press, 2000. xviii + 440 pp., preamble, introduction, epilogue,maps, appendixes, bibliography, index. $49.50 cloth.) Ben Vinson, III Ben Vinson, III Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnohistory (2002) 49 (4): 893–896. https://doi.org/10…
Bearing arms for his majesty: The free-colored militia in colonial Mexico
"This study uses the participation of free-colored men, whether mulatos, pardos, or morenos (i.e., Afro-Spaniards, Afro-Indians, or "pure blacks"), in New Spain's militias as a prism for examining race relations, racial identity, racial categorization, and issues of social mobility for racially stigmatized groups in Colonial Mexico. By 1793, nearly 10 percent of New Spain's population was made up of people who could trace some African ancestry - …
The Racial Profile of a Rural Mexican Province in the “Costa Chica”: Igualapa in 1791
Late colonial Mexico possessed one of the largest free-colored populations in Spanish America, numbering around 370,000 in 1793. The colony's pardos, morenos , and mulattos were highly dispersed, being found throughout the major urban centers, coastal zones, rural areas, and in selected portions of the northern frontier. Studies conducted over the past two decades have assisted enormously in reconstructing the free-colored demographic profile, wi…
Race and Badge: Free-Colored Soldiers in the Colonial Mexican Militia
The question of identity has been one of considerable importance to the study of race in Latin America. Particularly for the multitude of racially mixed offspring produced by miscegenation, it has been debated, what exactly was the degree of consciousness that race could produce? What degree of strength, if any, should be attributed to the caste boundaries created in the colonial period, and how did the reins of “caste” contribute to the 19th and…
Free Colored Voices: Issues of Representation and Racial Identity in the Colonial Mexican Militia
African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
This is an original survey of the economic and social history of slavery of the Afro-American experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. The focus of the book is on the Portuguese, Spanish, and French-speaking regions of continental America and the Caribbean. It analyzes the latest research on urban and rural slavery and on the African and Afro-American experience under these regimes. It approaches these themes both historically and structura…
Bearing arms for his majesty: The free-colored militia in colonial Mexico
"This study uses the participation of free-colored men, whether mulatos, pardos, or morenos (i.e., Afro-Spaniards, Afro-Indians, or "pure blacks"), in New Spain's militias as a prism for examining race relations, racial identity, racial categorization, and issues of social mobility for racially stigmatized groups in Colonial Mexico. By 1793, nearly 10 percent of New Spain's population was made up of people who could trace some African ancestry - …
Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico
This book opens new dimensions on race in Latin America by examining the extreme caste groups of colonial Mexico. In tracing their experiences, a broader understanding of the connection between mestizaje (Latin America's modern ideology of racial mixture) and the colonial caste system is rendered. Before mestizaje emerged as a primary concept in Latin America, an earlier precursor existed that must be taken seriously. This colonial form of racial…
Race and Badge: Free-Colored Soldiers in the Colonial Mexican Militia
The question of identity has been one of considerable importance to the study of race in Latin America. Particularly for the multitude of racially mixed offspring produced by miscegenation, it has been debated, what exactly was the degree of consciousness that race could produce? What degree of strength, if any, should be attributed to the caste boundaries created in the colonial period, and how did the reins of “caste” contribute to the 19th and…
The Racial Profile of a Rural Mexican Province in the “Costa Chica”: Igualapa in 1791
Late colonial Mexico possessed one of the largest free-colored populations in Spanish America, numbering around 370,000 in 1793. The colony's pardos, morenos , and mulattos were highly dispersed, being found throughout the major urban centers, coastal zones, rural areas, and in selected portions of the northern frontier. Studies conducted over the past two decades have assisted enormously in reconstructing the free-colored demographic profile, wi…
Afro‐Mexican History: Trends and Directions in Scholarship
This article surveys the development of a relatively new and vibrant subfield in Latin American History, mapping out the major stages of its evolution and signaling key intellectual debates. While much of the scholarship on Afro‐Mexican history has been produced in the last thirty‐five years, this article aims to contextualize these writings within a broader historical framework. This process shows more clearly the various independent and interde…
Free Colored Voices: Issues of Representation and Racial Identity in the Colonial Mexican Militia
Introduction: African (Black) Diaspora History, Latin American History
Inspired in part by Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic paradigm, the past several years have witnessed a reinvigoration of Black Studies, with careful attention being paid to the approaches and methods of writing black history. The terms “African Diaspora” and “Black Diaspora” have become almost commonplace in scholarly discourse, emerging out of relative obscurity from their roots in the politically inspired Pan-Africanist and Civil Rights discourses …
Fading from Memory: Historiographical Reflections on the Afro-Mexican Presence
Free Colored Voices: Issues of Representation and Racial Identity in the Colonial Mexican Militia
The Racial Profile of a Rural Mexican Province in the “Costa Chica”: Igualapa in 1791
Late colonial Mexico possessed one of the largest free-colored populations in Spanish America, numbering around 370,000 in 1793. The colony's pardos, morenos , and mulattos were highly dispersed, being found throughout the major urban centers, coastal zones, rural areas, and in selected portions of the northern frontier. Studies conducted over the past two decades have assisted enormously in reconstructing the free-colored demographic profile, wi…
Race and Badge: Free-Colored Soldiers in the Colonial Mexican Militia
The question of identity has been one of considerable importance to the study of race in Latin America. Particularly for the multitude of racially mixed offspring produced by miscegenation, it has been debated, what exactly was the degree of consciousness that race could produce? What degree of strength, if any, should be attributed to the caste boundaries created in the colonial period, and how did the reins of “caste” contribute to the 19th and…
Bearing arms for his majesty: The free-colored militia in colonial Mexico
"This study uses the participation of free-colored men, whether mulatos, pardos, or morenos (i.e., Afro-Spaniards, Afro-Indians, or "pure blacks"), in New Spain's militias as a prism for examining race relations, racial identity, racial categorization, and issues of social mobility for racially stigmatized groups in Colonial Mexico. By 1793, nearly 10 percent of New Spain's population was made up of people who could trace some African ancestry - …
The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas
David Eltis achieves a masterful synthesis of both primary and secondary sources to shed enormous light on the development of the slave trade in the Atlantic World in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, The Rise of African Slavery is an important work that is in many ways a model for conducting Atlantic history, maneuvering fluidly among Africa, Europe, and the Americas while demonstrating key connections and disparities among the c…
The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780
Book Review| October 01 2002 The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780 By María Elena Díaz. (Stanford, : Stanford University Press, 2000. xviii + 440 pp., preamble, introduction, epilogue,maps, appendixes, bibliography, index. $49.50 cloth.) Ben Vinson, III Ben Vinson, III Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnohistory (2002) 49 (4): 893–896. https://doi.org/10…
Negros, mulatos, esclavos y libertos en la Costa Rica del siglo XVII
Book Review| October 01 2003 Negros, mulatos, esclavos y libertos en la Costa Rica del siglo XVII By Rina Cáceres. (Mexico City: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, 2000. ix + 130 pp., introduction, maps,bibliography. $20.00 paper.) Ben Vinson, III Ben Vinson, III Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnohistory (2003) 50 (4): 758–761. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-50-4-758 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Fac…
Flight: The Story of Virgil Richardson, A Tuskegee Airman in Mexico
Virgil Richardson blazed his own unique trail through the twentieth century: a co-founder of Harlem's American Negro Theater, 1930s radio personality, World War II pilot, and expatriate for most of hi
Introduction From the Eyes of an Historian
I t was barely nine but it was already forbiddingly hot, as only the morning of a Texas June could be. I shut the door of the gray Silverado, thanking Morris for the six-minute ride. Stuffing a blueberry muffin into my mouth, I picked up my tripod, camera bag, tape recorder, and notebook. Then I hastened along the manicured lawn to the front of a single-story red brick, condo-style apartment. Despite the heat, someone was lingering outside, takin…
Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora
This edited volume, the result of papers delivered at the 1999 Bantu into Black conference, represents an important contribution to African diaspora studies. It seeks to correct the lingering imbalance between the study of West Africa’s impact on New World cultures and the significance of Central Africa as an anchor site of diasporic formation. Scholars tend to stress Yoruba roots over Central African ones in the study of religion and culture. Si…
Afro‐Mexican History: Trends and Directions in Scholarship
This article surveys the development of a relatively new and vibrant subfield in Latin American History, mapping out the major stages of its evolution and signaling key intellectual debates. While much of the scholarship on Afro‐Mexican history has been produced in the last thirty‐five years, this article aims to contextualize these writings within a broader historical framework. This process shows more clearly the various independent and interde…
Fading from Memory: Historiographical Reflections on the Afro-Mexican Presence
Introduction: African (Black) Diaspora History, Latin American History
Inspired in part by Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic paradigm, the past several years have witnessed a reinvigoration of Black Studies, with careful attention being paid to the approaches and methods of writing black history. The terms “African Diaspora” and “Black Diaspora” have become almost commonplace in scholarly discourse, emerging out of relative obscurity from their roots in the politically inspired Pan-Africanist and Civil Rights discourses …
African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
This is an original survey of the economic and social history of slavery of the Afro-American experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. The focus of the book is on the Portuguese, Spanish, and French-speaking regions of continental America and the Caribbean. It analyzes the latest research on urban and rural slavery and on the African and Afro-American experience under these regimes. It approaches these themes both historically and structura…
West Side Story: Free-Black Labor in the Mexican Pacific during the Late Colonial Period as seen through the Revillagigedo Census
West Side Story: Free-Black Labor in the Mexican Pacific during the Late Colonial Period as seen through the Revillagigedo Census Ben Vinson III Introduction Since at least the 1960s, the study of labor has been among the central topics of research on black life in the colonial Americas. Understanding systems of slavery have, in many ways, dominated the discussion, providing fascinating insights into the development of colonial societies, the wor…
Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico
María Elena Martínez’s Genealogical Fictions deserves a place among the best of the recent literature that has been produced on race, caste, social hierarchy, and religion in colonial Latin America. The book is a significant work of archival research, historical synthesis, and interpretation, yielding one of the most comprehensive understandings to date on the wide-ranging significance of limpieza de sangre. In fact, while Martínez covers some we…
Afro-Mexico: Dancing between Myth and Reality
While Africans and their descendants have lived in Mexico for centuries, many Afro-Mexicans do not consider themselves to be either black or African. For almost a century, Mexico has promoted an ideal of its citizens as having a combination of indigenous and European ancestry. This obscures the presence of African, Asian, and other populations that have contributed to the growth of the nation. However, performance studies—of dance, music, and the…
Una historia total de la esclavitud: La Esclavitud en América Latina y el Caribe
Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico
This book opens new dimensions on race in Latin America by examining the extreme caste groups of colonial Mexico. In tracing their experiences, a broader understanding of the connection between mestizaje (Latin America's modern ideology of racial mixture) and the colonial caste system is rendered. Before mestizaje emerged as a primary concept in Latin America, an earlier precursor existed that must be taken seriously. This colonial form of racial…
History (15 works) · History (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Cuban History and Society (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Archaeology (8 works)