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On September 28, 1673, Catalina de los Reyes declared before the Royal Tribunal Court that she refused to surrender her property in Oaxaca's provincial capital of Antequera. Her land dispute with the bishop of Oaxaca shows how African-descended women navigated the court system in colonial Mexico and negotiated their social status in this Spanish colonial society. This article examines race and gender in colonial Mexico. It focuses on the ways in which local authorities attempted to confiscate one of the most valuable properties in Antequera from an African-descended woman named Catalina, as well as the strategies she used to challenge the social hierarchy in the city. By analyzing judicial records along with parish and census data, I argue that colonial women such as Catalina contested elite expectations of gender and race to redefine or secure their social status in colonial Oaxaca. My findings show that although colonial authorities marginalized African-descended women such as Catalina, these colonial women understood the judicial system in colonial Mexico, confronted authorities, and fought to retain their properties and their place in the social order. This article thus advances our understanding of the wide range of roles, experiences, and subjectivities of African-descended women in Spanish America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her study on the configuration of difference in colonial New Granada, Joanne Rappaport contends that many studies "tend to ignore how different practices of distinguishing one individual from another came into play in concrete situations," and as a result they "end up labeling as 'race' something that was much more multifaceted." Subsequently, she urges scholars to interpret colonial subjects and their identities on their own terms. This study responds to Rappaport's call by analyzing the workings of the historical concept of calidad in colonial Spanish America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]