Fear and Loathing in New Spain: Anti-Blackness in Colonial Mexico | Watch the full talk

Presented by Miguel A Valerio at Region and Enmity: A RaceB4Race Symposium in 2021

Miguel A. Valerio discusses anti-Black matters and events in Colonial Mexico City and the racialization of slavery more broadly in connection to the people of African descent in colonial Mexico and the Atlantic at large. He traces how New Spain’s anti-Black ethos stems from the racialization of African slavery and how it led to the maligning of Afro-Mexicans’ clamor for justice and their festive traditions. Valerio looks at the Spanish Empire as a locus to study the development of biopower in the early modern world. Through Alonso de Sandoval’s 1627 treatise on slavery manual titled De Instauranda Aethiopum Salute, or “On bringing salvation to Africans,” he highlights Sandoval’s concluding thoughts on why slavery is just for Africans.