Rightful Inheritance: Defining “Nativeness” and Belonging in New Spain, 1590–1620

This paper examines Spanish and Creole identity in New Spain at the turn of the seventeenth century, focusing on the role of scientific texts in the creation and appropriation of nativeness, nature and the Mexican past. Juan de Cárdenas, Enrico Martínez and Diego de Cisneros, like many Spanish and European immigrants found a home in the land of the Mexicans, and they turned their pens and scientific training to describe and invent that place. Writing in a period of political dislocation in the Spanish Empire, their texts reflect the position of New Spain as it moved from periphery to center in the minds of its residents. By describing the nature and history of the colony they sought to create a Natural History of the land on par with those of the ancients, bringing the new kingdom into a discursive space with Greece and Rome, which like Mexico, had been great pagan capitals. Unlike these empires, however, New Spain was at the beginning of its glory, and its inheritors, native born Spaniards, were poised to carry the new land, and its dispossessed original inhabitants into the next era. To create the creoles as the “new natives” of New Spain, while distancing them from the original natives, these authors imagined a system of inheritance and environmental influence that distinguished them from both groups. They argued that the heavens of New Spain tempered the choleric nature that criollos inherited from their forefathers, while the temperate climate and the bounty of the kingdom sharpened their minds and manners. Examining the construction of creole eloquence in relation to native customs of oratory, this paper demonstrates how the appropriation of New Spain's nature, symbols, and habits helped forge a sense of belonging for native born Spaniards in the face of peninsular/ creole antagonisms.