| Summary: | Christian theology considered sodomy to be one of the most serious manifestations of the sin of lust, but as it occurred frequently in New Spain, those accused of committing it often faced no consequences. The widespread and wrongheaded belief that the Holy Office persecuted sodomy nevertheless persists in academia, even though the sources show the contrary, as we shall see. Through the case of a mulatto minor who denounced a black puppetmaster to a priest in Yanhuitlán, it is possible to catch a glimpse of the lives of marginalized individuals who, in poverty, isolation and anonymity, traversed long distances, escaping the control and surveillance of the authorities in order to make a living from the circus arts. Here, we can also question the alleged ethnic and racial solidarity of people of African descent, an analytic category imported from the Anglo-Saxon world that does little to explain the complex relationships between New Spaniards.
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