Norms, Customs, and Social Relaxation in the Real de Minas de Nuestra Señora delRosario, 1776–1810

Abstract

By the late eighteenth century, the Spanish Church still exerted considerable influence over social relations and the norms governing everyday life in New Spain. However, the final decades of the viceregal period also witnessed practices that reflected a certain degree of flexibility and relaxation within this social order. In the Real de Minas de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, relations among its inhabitants were shaped not only by racial patterns but also by economic, geographical, familial, social, and cultural factors. This article examines various practices and forms of behaviour that reveal this process of social relaxation during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Through an analysis of public scandals, festivities, forms of dress, and testamentary practices, it identifies the different ways in which inhabitants interpreted, negotiated, and, in some cases, transgressed the norms intended to regulate social life.