Matthew D. O’Hara cogently analyzes the intersection of popular Catholicism, Indian identity, community formation, and local politics in Mexico City and its environs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His work bridges many historiographical divides: urban and rural, colonial and early republican, religious and political. Because of this historiographical breadth and O’Hara’s thoughtful arguments and clear prose, this monograph will appeal to a broad audience.

The book is divided into three sections. In the first, the author examines how Catholicism in New Spain shaped the concept “Indian” and how colonial subjects thus labeled manipulated Indianness. Working from the notion that Indians were “spiritual neophytes,” the Catholic Church instituted parish structures for Indians separate from those for Spanish and castas (people of mixed race). The Indian parishes, doctrinas, were administered by mendicant orders (Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians), whereas the Spanish/casta parishes were run by the secular clergy. These different parish...

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