Iberian colonies in the Americas and Asia produced record-breaking wealth for the Portuguese and Spanish Empires over the course of the late-fifteenth through early-nineteenth centuries. This wealth was by no means evenly distributed among the populations of the complex, hierarchical societies that developed within these colonial contexts. The terms “poverty” and “miserable” were relative and carried many meanings in Iberian colonies. Propertied settlers who owned land and enslaved laborers yet possessed little cash characterized themselves as “poor and in need” in petitions the Crown. The Spanish and Portuguese Crowns categorized Indigenous peoples as “miserables” who were in need of legal assistance and protections. Enslaved and free people of varied ethnic backgrounds and could find themselves in financially precarious positions. This panel uses a gendered lens to examine how women in distinct Iberian colonial settings experienced poverty and miserability and, in some cases, used the terms to defend their own interests in legal settings.

The gendered meanings of poverty and miserabilty varied across space and time. This panel brings together scholarship on Black women in Central Mexico, unhappily married women in Río de la Plata, and Buddhist women who converted to Christianity in Japan. The papers in this panel examine how women from specific economic backgrounds were affected by violence and exploitation within the Portuguese and Spanish Empires. Black women in Central Mexico developed close ties and financial networks to improve their social and material lives. Women in eighteenth-century Río de la Plata accused their husbands of “sevicia” or inhumane treatment when they appealed to ecclesiastical courts to intervene on their behalf. Portuguese missionaries in Japan recorded case studies of Buddhist women’s conversion to Christianity, a process that was contingent on their gender, social status, and age. The three papers address how women actively engaged as legal litigants, strategically manipulating concepts such as poverty and miserability to achieve their objectives in seeking justice.