Book contents
- Sovereign Joy
- Afro-Latin America
- Sovereign Joy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 “With Their King and Queen”
- 2 “Rebel Black Kings (and Queens)”?
- 3 “Savage Kings” and Baroque Festival Culture
- 4 “Black and Beautiful”
- Conclusion
- Appendix Persons Charged in 1609
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - “With Their King and Queen”
Early Colonial Mexico, the Origins of Festive Black Kings and Queens, and the Birth of the Black Atlantic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 June 2022
- Sovereign Joy
- Afro-Latin America
- Sovereign Joy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 “With Their King and Queen”
- 2 “Rebel Black Kings (and Queens)”?
- 3 “Savage Kings” and Baroque Festival Culture
- 4 “Black and Beautiful”
- Conclusion
- Appendix Persons Charged in 1609
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter studies the performance "more than fifty" blacks staged "with their king and queen" in Mexico City in February 1539. To contextualize the performance, I draw a wide diasporic net that illuminates the origins of this festive tradition in the Atlantic. As the earliest known example of this performance in the Americas, the text that describes it centers Mexico as a key player in the cultural transformations that gave birth to the modern Black Atlantic.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sovereign JoyAfro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539-1640, pp. 26 - 79Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022