| FT-51227-03 | Research Programs: Summer Stipends | Brian Owensby | Justice against Powerful Hands: Law and Colonial Lives in 17th-Century Mexico | 6/1/2003 - 7/31/2003 | $5,000.00 | Brian | | Owensby | | | | University of Virginia | Charlottesville | VA | 22903-4833 | USA | 2003 | Latin American History | Summer Stipends | Research Programs | 5000 | 0 | 5000 | 0 |
Colonial Mexico was saturated in law. I want to discern how people differently situated in 17th-century Mexican society understood their relationship to law. I will explore procedural nuances as well as how litigants, judges, lawyers, and witnesses related to the central tenets of Spanish law--liberty, rights, royal protection, obedience, authority, possession, power. For summer 2003, I propose to examine a collection of appellate cases at the national archive in Mexico City that have not previously been available to researchers. These documents, which will be available in June 2003, will allow a much finer-grained analysis of the relationship between courts of the first instance and the appeals process than has been possible in the past. |