Butterflies Will Burn

Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico

Bibliographic Data

ID2828686
AuthorsRobinson A Herrera (Florida State University, corresponding author), Robinson Herrera (Florida State University)
Year2005
Volume85
Issue3
Pages505-507
Publication date2005-08-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-85-3-505
OpenAlexW1972007096
LanguageEN
Citations received5

Butterflies Will Burn weaves together criminal, inquisitional, and literary sources to show that attitudes toward so-called sodomites grew as much out of the needs of a burgeoning Spanish Empire as they did out of the religious conviction that male same-sex desire was immoral. Garza Carvajal argues that male homosexuality in the transatlantic Iberian world has been poorly understood within early modern European historiography. He posits that definitions of manliness, at least the manner in which they came to define acceptable male sexuality, resulted from an uneven discourse between the secular and ecclesiastical repressive apparatuses and the “unmanly” homosexuals they repressed. Donna Guy and Eileen Suárez Findlay have fruitfully applied similar methods in under-standing the construction of norms of acceptability in Argentina and Puerto Rico, but Garza Carvajal’s application to the study of male homosexuality in Spain and early Mexico is novel.Garza Carvajal musters a formidable knowledge of Golden Age literature and is at his best when dealing with early modern Spain. The book meticulously traces changes in the intellectual articulations of manliness; understanding the discursive elements of manliness and sodomy form a core of the book’s goals. To justify conquest first of the Moors and later of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Spanish discourse juxtaposed the essential qualities of acceptable manliness against supposed effeminacy and propensity for sodomy among these conquered peoples. In a way, the thesis resembles Richard Trexler’s explanations for the justification of conquest (Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas, Cornell Univ. Press, 1995), but Garza Carvajal marshals a stronger array of primary sources, ingeniously buttressing his hypothesis with case studies. Garza Carvajal also uncovers how Spaniards came to view sodomy as a foreign contagion that could infect all men if not for the vigilance of the authorities. Thus, repression and brutality against perceived sodomites represented a small price in exchange for the well-being of the nation.Yet, imposing a single standard against sodomy proved difficult due to the cultural differences within Spain’s dominions. Garza Carvajal uses Catalina de Erauso’s resistance to dress and behavior codes to inform a discussion of the irony in a transvestite woman embodying idealized manliness and also of how notions of manliness spread throughout Spain’s holdings. Erauso, who traveled widely during her remarkable life, serves as the perfect vehicle for the discussion of attitudes throughout the empire. To trace these varied attitudes, Garza Carvajal uses early modern literature and criminal records to such effect that the particular sections could serve as models for the successful blending of apparently disparate sources.Despite its overall strengths, the sections on New Spain prove problematic. For one thing, the number of cases falls far short of the claimed 125 for the years 1657–58 (p. 9). Indeed, only two cases receive substantial discussion. The problem lies not with the number of cases (after all, records dealing with sodomy are notoriously rare) but rather with the author’s claims to the contrary. Garza Carvajal’s discussion of the secondary literature on natives leaves out important sources, most notably the works of Miguel León Portilla and James Lockhart. As well, no mention is made of Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra’s work, despite the transatlantic intellectual nature of the book. Natives come across as largely passive: painted as sodomites by Spaniards but without a voice in the resulting colonial discourse. Yet the very cultural changes discussed came about partly as a result of indigenous influences. Perhaps this results from giving too much credit to the criminal and inquisitional sources. Dennis Tedlock’s warnings against the believability of official records notwithstanding, Garza Carvajal at times takes too much at face value the content of the documents. Could individuals discussed in the book, such as Correa, have hosted the alleged parties without at least a blind eye from the authorities (as Luiz Mott argues for Brazil), or does Correa’s testimony simply reflect what the authorities wanted to hear? An in-depth discussion of methodology would have gone a long way toward explaining the use of sources and avoiding confusion over interpretations.The book’s significant contributions far outweigh its minor shortcomings, however. Garza Carvajal’s study represents the first scholarly work of attitudes toward male homosexuality, sodomy, and transvestites in Spain and its colonies. He skillfully uses often-ignored sources such as literature, chronicles, and art to piece together a hidden history of resistance to antihomosexual repression. The work stands as a testament to what an imaginative scholar can achieve with an ironclad determination to explore new sources. The book would serve excellently for upper-division courses and graduate seminars and should be considered required reading for those interested not only in the fields of sexuality, but also of cultural, intellectual, and empire histories

Ancient history · Archaeology · Aristocracy (class · Art · CONQUEST · Conviction · Empire · Ethnology · Historiography · Homosexuality · Indigenous · Literature · Moors · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sodomy · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · History · Latin American history and culture · Law

Tools

Open DOI