In this thoroughly researched work, David M. Gitlitz traces the lives and fortunes of three clusters of sixteenth-century crypto-Jews in Mexico's silver mining towns. Previous studies of sixteenth-century Mexican crypto-Jews focus on the merchant community centered in Mexico City, but here Gitlitz looks beyond Mexico's major population center to explore how clandestine religious communities were established in the reales, the hinterland mining camps, and how they differed from those of the capital in their struggles to retain their Jewish identity in a world dominated economically by silver and religiously by the Catholic Church. In Living in Silverado Gitlitz paints an unusually vivid portrait of the lives of Mexico's early settlers. Unlike traditional scholarship that has focused mainly on macro issues of the silver boom, Gitlitz closely analyzes the complex workings of the haciendas that mined and refined silver, and in doing so he provides a wonderfully detailed sense of the daily experiences of Mexico's early secret Jews.
David M. Gitlitz is a professor emeritus of Hispanic studies at the University of Rhode Island. His publications include Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews and The Lost Minyan (both from UNM Press).
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One. Beginnings in the Raya de Portugal Chapter Two. Going to Mexico Chapter Three. The Castellanos's Jewish Life in Mexico City in the 1530s and 1540s Chapter Four. Tomas's First Mine: Ayoteco Chapter Five. Tomas de Fonseca's Pachuca Mine and the Mining Revolution Chapter Six. Tomas's Mine in Tlalpujahua Chapter Seven. Tomas de Fonseca Reconnects Chapter Eight. The Portuguese Come to America Chapter Nine. From Solitary Worship to Community Chapter Ten. The Taxco Miners Chapter Eleven. The Jewish Life of the Taxco Miners Chapter Twelve. Pachuca and Manuel de Lucena's General Store Chapter Thirteen. Lucena's Judaizing Community in Mexico City and Pachuca Chapter Fourteen. Judaizing from Tlalpujahua Chapter Fifteen. Destruction and Survival Chapter Sixteen. Some Conclusions Appendix One. Origins and Arrivals Appendix Two. Holiday Observances Appendix Three. Enriquez-Lucena Holiday Attendees Bibliography Index
"Overall, this book provides a better understanding of the wider crypto-Jewish community in late sixteenth-century Mexico beyond the Carvajal narrative and beyond Mexico City. It also opens up the study of mining cities to which historians have not previously paid as much attention in the historiography."--Rafaela Acevedo-Field, H-LatAm "David Gitlitz gives a remarkably detailed account of the lives of three large extended families of immigrants to sixteenth-century Mexico who secretly practiced Judaism while earning their living in the burgeoning silver mining industry. He manages to combine scrupulous accuracy with a vivid narrative style that constantly maintains the reader's interest and truly makes us care about these individuals."--Michael McGaha, author of Coat of Many Cultures: The Story of Joseph in Spanish Literature, 1200-1492 "Drawing on a wide range of original sources, Gitlitz forces us to readdress our understanding of the dynamics of crypto-Jewish identity."--Seth D. Kunin, author of Juggling Identities: Identity and Authenticity among the Crypto-Jews
