Extranjeros integrados

This study offers an illustrative and vivid re-creation of Portuguese's lives and activities in Lima and other parts of Spanish America. From the beginning, Gleydi Sullón Barreto indicates that her study challenges the traditional view of these Portuguese as the great merchants who lost their fortunes and lives after the Inquisition accused them of Judaizing. She explains that this conventional view results from scholars' recurrent and limited use of inquisitorial records, which focus on those Portuguese involved in the Great Conspiracy in Lima, who were not representative of the larger community. Aside from this accused minority, the broader Portuguese community lived as Christians and integrated well into Spanish society.In order to expand the historical perspective, Sullón Barreto has relied heavily on notarial records and other secular documents. Such archival materials have provided a sample of 192 Portuguese living in Lima at some point between 1570 and 1680. Collectively studying individual lives, the author draws attention to personal and economic connections among the members of the Portuguese community and between them and others in colonial society. She breaks the time frame of her study into three parts in order to compare the conditions of the Portuguese before, during, and after the years of unification. The result is a lively re-creation of the social, economic, and cultural aspects of the Portuguese community in Spanish America.In titling her monograph Extranjeros integrados (Integrated foreigners), Sullón Barreto stresses the book's assertion that the members of the Portuguese community varied in social status, engaged in diverse economic activities, intermingled with all members of colonial society, and commonly lived like their Old Christian equivalents. The Portuguese lived throughout Lima and its port, Callao; shared public and private spaces with people of diverse social backgrounds; and established personal and commercial relations with them.Religiously, the Portuguese maintained practices similar to those of the Old Christians, participated in confraternities, donated to religious institutions and pious works, and arranged for the salvation of their soul. Even though the veracity of their faith is not possible to confirm, as the author points out, most Portuguese lived as Old Christians and did not suffer questioning of their faith. The Great Conspiracy targeted and sentenced only a very small number of the Portuguese, most of whom were successful merchants.Although most of the Portuguese in Lima engaged in commercial activities, only a few amassed great fortunes. Most Portuguese combined commerce with other economic activities; those living from commerce alone were not the majority. Most merchants had medium or small investments in textile and agricultural products. Those investing in the former centered their activities in Lima and tended to other important Spanish American cities, while those investing in the latter were small traders, street vendors, or pulperos who served the local market. Comparing the three periods of time into which she divides her study, Sullón Barreto shows that the Portuguese engaged in the commercialization of three main products: wine, textiles, and slaves. Contrary to what is claimed in the traditional scholarship, only a few Portuguese merchants participated in the slave trade, because it required greater investment and many commercial connections. Portuguese merchants mainly commercialized wine and textiles, because these goods required less investment and small or medium commercial networks. There were many other activities that attracted the Portuguese, including artisan work, navigation, priesthood, and those offices that allowed many of them to simultaneously practice some trading. From these varied activities, the Portuguese promoted the development of inter- and intracolonial commercial networks that expanded to various parts of Spanish America.The unification of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies did not drastically alter the living conditions and experiences of the Portuguese community in Spanish America. Even though the Portuguese became subjects of the Spanish king, their political loyalty remained under suspicion. Nonetheless, they actively engaged in the economic and social life of the Spanish colonies. After the independence of Portugal, many Portuguese continued their lives and activities without major changes, although peninsular authorities increasingly questioned the legality of Portuguese's commercial activities.Missing from the study is an engagement with Anglophone scholarship. As a result, while Sullón Barreto masterfully re-creates the lives of the Portuguese in Spanish America, she misses the chance to contribute to the larger scholarly conversation on minorities and their integration with the Spanish body politic. Previous works (such as Karoline P. Cook's 2016 book) have shown the gap between legal prescriptions and informal practices in terms of minority migrants in the New World. Sullón Barreto's study certainly contributes to this scholarship and teaches us that the Portuguese community integrated very well into Spanish colonial society while preserving their ties with their motherland. Despite this lack of a strong theoretical framework, readers will find useful information about the commercial networks, economic activities, social practices, and quotidian life of colonial Spanish America

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