Overview

2023 Best Book in the Humanities, Latin American Studies Association Mexico Section Challenging conventional narratives of Mexican history, this book establishes race-making as a central instrument for the repression of social upheaval in nineteenth-century Mexico rather than a relic of the colonial-era caste system. Many scholars assert that Mexico's complex racial hierarchy, inherited from Spanish colonialism, became obsolete by the turn of the nineteenth century as class-based distinctions became more prominent and a largely mestizo population emerged. But the residues of the colonial caste system did not simply dissolve after Mexico gained independence. Rather, Ana Sabau argues, ever-present fears of racial uprising among elites and authorities led to persistent governmental techniques and ideologies designed to separate and control people based on their perceived racial status, as well as to the implementation of projects for development in fringe areas of the country. Riot and Rebellion in Mexico traces this race-based narrative through three historical flashpoints: the Bajío riots, the Haitian Revolution, and the Yucatán's caste war. Sabau shows how rebellions were treated as racially motivated events rather than political acts and how the racialization of popular and indigenous sectors coincided with the construction of ""whiteness"" in Mexico. Drawing on diverse primary sources, Sabau demonstrates how the race war paradigm was mobilized in foreign and domestic affairs and reveals the foundations of a racial state and racially stratified society that persist today.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ana Sabau
Publisher:   University of Texas Press
Imprint:   University of Texas Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9781477330791

ISBN 10:   1477330798
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   15 February 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. The Bajío Chapter 1. Vanishing Indianness: Pacification and the Production of Race in the 1767 Bajío Riots Chapter 2. “So That They May Be Free of All Those Things”: Theorizing Collective Action in the Bajío Riots Coda 1. From the Country to the City: Movement, Labor, and Race at the End of the Eighteenth Century Part II. Haiti Chapter 3. The Domino Affect: Haiti, New Spain, and the Racial Pedagogy of Distance Chapter 4. Staging Fear and Freedom: Haiti’s Shifting Proximities at the Time of Mexican Independence Coda 2. Haiti in Mexico’s Early Republican Context Part III. Yucatán Chapter 5. On Criminality, Race, and Labor: Indenture and the Caste War Chapter 6. The Shapes of a Desert: The Racial Cartographies of the Caste War Coda 3. “Barbarous Mexico”: Racialized Coercive Labor from Sonora to Yucatán Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Reviews

To undertake such an ambitious spatial and temporal project, Sabau closely analyzes a handful of documents generated by colonial and republican authorities as they sought to manage violent opposition. * Hispanic American Historical Review *

"To undertake such an ambitious spatial and temporal project, Sabau closely analyzes a handful of documents generated by colonial and republican authorities as they sought to manage violent opposition.-- ""Hispanic American Historical Review"" (8/7/2023 12:00:00 AM)"

Author Information

Ana Sabau is an associate professor of Spanish at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

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