Fugitive Freedom

Impostors abound these days. They can even be found in academia, where white scholars have passed as people of color to advance their careers. Do periods of turmoil like the present throw up more cheaters, swindlers, and grifters than usual? Or is it simply that we pay greater attention to them when the social order can't be taken for granted? William Taylor has been fascinated by such questions for decades. Even though he has done more than perhaps anyone in recasting our understanding of colonial Mexico, he admits that “vagabundos and other people out of place kept me wondering what I was missing about the temper of the times and the social order” (p. x). In Fugitive Freedom: The Improbable Lives of Two Impostors in Late Colonial Mexico, Taylor examines the lives of two men whose racket of impersonating priests landed them in hot water with the Inquisition.Drawing from their trial records, Taylor lays out in chapters 1 and 2 what we know about these two con men. The first, Joseph Aguayo, was born poor in Guanajuato in 1747. He came to the attention of the Inquisition in 1770 after posing not only as an itinerant priest but also as an officer of the Holy Office itself. In 1773 the Inquisition sentenced him to forced labor at the presidio in Havana. He survived his Cuban ordeal, in part by capitalizing on his literacy, and returned to Mexico in 1789. The last documented mention of him came in 1792, when he was once again in jail in Guanajuato for impersonating a priest. The second impostor, Juan Atondo, was born in Mexico City, likely in 1783. He also led a troubled, peripatetic life. Like Aguayo, he claimed to be a Spaniard of Old Christian descent. But unlike Aguayo, Atondo performed the role of priest—collecting alms, celebrating mass, and hearing confessions—in part due to a genuine religious inclination. He was arrested by the Inquisition in 1815. He apparently died in its jail around 1818, before his trial could be completed. How to make sense of these two small-time hustlers who preyed on the religious feelings of poor, rural Mexicans? The Inquisition records are copious but barely touch on the values, resentments, and self-perceptions that drove these men. Atondo did write a heartfelt, voluntary confession, but it was aimed more at winning mercy than honestly explaining his conduct.It is in chapter 3 that Taylor makes an ingenious turn. Rather than place Aguayo and Atondo in the context of their times, specifically the tumultuous visita of José de Gálvez (1765–72), when Aguayo was most active, and Mexico's War of Independence, when Atondo briefly fell into the hands of the insurgent forces of Ignacio Rayón, Taylor looks to fiction. He surveys the Spanish novels, such as the anonymously written La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades (1554) and Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599–1604), that made the pícaro, a roguish outcast who lives by his cunning and wit, a stock character in Spanish popular culture. Taylor asks, “Did Joseph Aguayo and Juan Atondo think of themselves—or did the authorities and a wider public think of them—in ways shaped by picaresque models?” (p. 89).In the fourth and final chapter, Taylor measures Aguayo and Atondo up against their fictional counterparts. Like the pícaros of literature, they tricked the gullible, evaded hard work, never stayed in one place too long, and suffered hardship and betrayal. Taylor admits, however, that the comparison with fictional models is instructive but not conclusive in understanding these small-time rogues. It is first difficult to know how the tropes of picaresque novels were received in late colonial Mexico. Both men also deviated significantly from type. In the case of Atondo, Taylor suggests that mental illness better explains his behavior than literary models. He exhibited the symptoms of bipolar disorder, his mood swinging from manic episodes of euphoria and religious ecstasy to dark spells of remorse and depression.Compact and beautifully written, Fugitive Freedom is ideal for the college classroom. By focusing on two petty criminals, Taylor offers an entertaining but revealing account of late colonial society, which shows that the Spanish colonial order was far from the settled world of hierarchy presented in standard texts. State builders and guardians of orthodoxy were always on guard, knowing that their power was tenuous, especially over unruly, mobile plebeians. Appearances could never be fully trusted. The experiences of Aguayo and Atondo also demonstrate how the Inquisition had evolved from the feared enforcer of Catholic orthodoxy of the early seventeenth century to a tribunal that offered better treatment and greater mercy than secular courts. Finally, Fugitive Freedom showcases the innovative methods of a master historian. Why not turn to fictional models to understand the elusive characters whom we find in archival documents? As Taylor states, “the possibility of life drawing from literature cannot be dismissed” (p. 132). This approach might not bring hard answers, but it does raise intriguing possibilities for the study of early Latin America

Archaeology · Colonialism · Officer · Order (exchange) · Political science · Trial by ordeal · White (mutation) · Early Modern Women Writers · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Latin American history and culture · Law

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