COLONIAL BARACUNATANAS AND THEIR NASTY MEN: SPOUSAL HOMICIDES AND THE LAW IN LATE COLONIAL NEW GRANADA.

"...anoche te vi, habia otro que te chequeaba, montaste su moto, te brindo chicle, tambien galleta, prendio su motoneta y te marchaste con el mono del jean, el overall y la chaqueta ...

Por eso tu eres garuya, retrechera, abeja, bergaja, fulera, guaricha ... garosa, marronga, farisea, gorzobia ... Baracunatana."

"... last night I saw you, another man was taking you out, you got on his motorcycle, he gave you chewing gum, and also a cookie, he started it up and you rode away with that jean-, overall-, and jacket-wearing blond....

That is why you are rabble, slick, bee-like, rough, deceitful, strumpet ... greedy, whore, cat, hypocrite, filth ... Baracunatana."

"La Baracunatana" (Leonidas Plaza)

The male-composed song "La Baracunatana" was widely celebrated in Colombia. Back in the 1980s, when it was first released as a male-sung vallenato tune and during its 1990s female-vocalized rock revival, [1] Colombians of all ages enjoyed dancing to its catchy rhythm and loudly singing its slang-filled lyrics. The song's chorus was an overstated string of ugly slurs against a woman--the untranslatable La Baracunatana--whom the originally male narrator, probably her boyfriend or lover, accused of running away with another man. The words uttered against her, even those whose meaning was not entirely apparent to all listeners, were ostensibly insulting and aggressive. She was repeatedly called the equivalent of a deceiver, shrew, scum, bitch, whore, strumpet, harpy and so on.

Apart from the fact that Colombians, otherwise war-weary, violence-haunted and stressed out, have a compensatory inclination to produce and enjoy good 'tropical' music and bizarre (at times perverse) jokes about the very problems they face, it was hard to understand what made this song so likable. In it, a woman was verbally abused, trampled on, veritably trashed. [2] The song's excessive slurs were probably intended to mock common social behavior. Still, perhaps accustomed this sort of treatment of women (allegedly deceitful and otherwise), the country, men and women alike, loved the tune and went on blithely singing and dancing to it. [3]

During the colonial period, in this Spanish American region then called the viceroyalty of New Granada, women suffered repeated verbal and physical abuse, sometimes culminating in murder, at the hands of their spouses. The abuse itself, and the sometimes mild punishment the perpetrators met, are a deeply sad reminder that, although certainly not unchanging through the years, outbursts of violence against women seem to have been considered natural among the lower classes and state officials centuries ago. Certainly, this was also the case in other parts of the world. Wife-beating was a common practice, even a husband's right as a punishment for misbehavior, until as late as the nineteenth century in England, the United States, and probably elsewhere. [4] As this essay will show, both men and women were killed by their spouses with some frequency as a result of battering. Nonetheless, spousal homicides--the most acute form of domestic abuse, patriarchy and, also, female resistance--have received little attentio n. [5] In fact, specialized academic research about these crimes in the particular case of New Granada and the rest of colonial Spanish America is limited. [6]

However neglected they remain, such homicides are fertile ground for study, with significant implications for the understanding of violent crime in general. Gender-based disputes have been found to comprise a considerable share of all criminal violence in late colonial Latin America. [7] In addition, they express tensions and conflicts of unsuspected intensity among couples, bringing to the surface intriguing everyday facets of gender relations and family life. From the growing literature on the history of gender and the family in Latin America, we have learned a great deal about the economic, social, and political structures and roles of notable families and family networks. In particular, it has become clear that marriage strategy and alliances, frequently conflictive, were fundamental for attaining, maintaining and increasing social and economic prominence. [8] We have also gained a better understanding of family-based patriarchal structures, social values, and honor codes, all geared to ensure the subjuga tion of women and their strict adherence to "virtuous" behavioral patterns in a milieu dominated as much by gender as by class and race discrimination. [9] But only recently have we started to learn more about lower-class families' structures, daily routines, and gender interaction. Lower-class men and women appeared to have struggled with each other and with the larger society to assert their autonomy, individuality, and relative power. [10] Those struggles, exemplified by the spousal homicides under study, reflect deeply rooted and contested assumptions about the character of domestic life, appropriate public and private roles, acceptable sexual conducts, and so forth. Finally, the cases examined here are of particular significance to social historians because they reveal general day-to-day aspects of life in rural communities and constitute useful indicators of social values, popular culture, and living patterns.

Besides their value as historical evidence, there is something else redeeming about the rather depressing spousal homicide stories examined in this essay. The extreme manifestations of abusive patriarchy [11] some of the stories reflect appear to have been matched by equally extreme defensive reactions on the part of women. Our colonial "Baracunatanas," whether or not their behavior was justified, did not stand still but, sometimes at the slightest provocation or insult, fought back; several of them even killed their husbands.

In fact, one of the most striking findings of this research is that, although women were an absolute minority (29.4%) among spouse killers in late colonial Colombia, spousal homicide accounted for a significant proportion of homicides attributed to women. This essay demonstrates women to have been over three times more likely to kill their spouses than any other person. Probably this is why a prosecutor deemed them "enemigos incubiertos que tienen los hombres entro de su casa" (hidden enemies inside of men's houses). [12] Occasionally, women who killed their husbands committed their crimes as viciously as any male assassin, but most of the time they acted to defend themselves from abuse. In a few cases, they were simply victims of fatal accidents, which nevertheless reflect women's regular defiance of male dominance. Overall, there is ample evidence of defensive and occasionally aggressive actions by women explicitly meant to inflict, if not death, then considerable bodily harm on their husbands. This they ac hieved by stabbing them with knives, hitting them repeatedly with a machete, or beating them with sticks. However, before turning to such evidence, and also to evidence of similar crimes committed by abusive husbands, we must first pause to consider some significant features of crime in late colonial Spanish America and to discuss the sociological profile of the spousal homicide cases at hand. Later, this essay will discuss the character and biases of the justice system and the law to determine whether or not, as concerned these peculiar homicides, judicial decisions and legal regulations reflected society's patriarchal values and practices.

Crime in Colonial Spanish America and New Granada's Spousal Murders.

As we have learned in recent works pertaining to New Spain (today's Mexico), New Granada (today's Colombia), and Rio de la Plata (today's Argentina), crime was a serious problem in late colonial Spanish America . [13] Available statistics do not allow us to asses with accuracy the social and economic impact of crime but nonetheless indicate that colonial officials and courts were regularly visited by cases of homicide, assault and battery, robbery, rape, adultery and concubinage, incest, infanticide, sodomy, prostitution, slander and a host of offenses against "order and tranquility." Tentative data suggest that a majority of these crimes, probably one-quarter to one-third of the total, were property-related offenses, muggings and thefts in particular. Another one-quarter to one-third were violent crimes, including homicides and bodily injuries. From one-quarter to one-fifth were family- and sex-related offenses, including adultery, incest, concubinage, and rape. The remainder was a mixed bag comprising drunk enness, gambling, vagrancy, and numerous cases of injurias (defamation) and desacato (disobedience of royal officials). [14]

Of the violent crimes, homicides totaled several hundred in New Spain and New Granada, two of the viceroyalties listed above for which data are available, in the last half of the eighteenth century. Although municipal authorities in New Spain reported that murder was a common fact of daily life, the truth is that murders did not occur that frequently. They probably happened at an average rate--quite modest by today's standards--of 5 to 10 per year in central urban areas within each viceroyalty, a figure close to that of some European cities around the same time. During a 35-year interval in central Mexico the authorities recorded about 24.5 homicides per 10,000 people. In Antioquia, a northwest province of New Granada, the number was almost the same--53.3 during an interval of 69 years.

There is no accurate information as to how many of the total homicides in most Spanish American colonies involved spouses. We know that in central Mexico during roughly the 1780-1815 period, approximately 25% of homicides were committed against spouses, sex partners, or rivals, [16] but the inclusion of the last two categories makes the data ha rd to compare to the cases under study, which focus exclusively on legally married spouses. [17] In New Granada, according to a recent regional study of late colonial crime, spousal killings amounted to as much as one-quarter of the total homicides reported in and around Santafe de Antioquia, capital of the key mining province, a peculiarly high proportion. [18] Representative data from the central and northeastern provinces of Santa Fe, Tunja, and Pamplona suggest that such crimes constituted from 8% to 16% of all homicides. Additional fragmentary evidence shows that spousal killings comprised from one-twentieth to one-fifth of all homicides in other provinces. In all of New Granada, the data indicate that they represented approximately 11.4% of all homicides, a proportion close to some late-nineteenth-century U.S. standards. [20]

In fact, the extant criminal records housed in Colombia's central historical archive, the Archivo General de la Nacion, supplemented by partial information from Antioquia's Archivo Historico, provide fragmentary evidence that at least 51 spousal murders were committed in the viceroyalty between 1754 and 1812. [21] Judging by the irregular distribution of these cases by decade, it is fair to assume that easily 15 to 20 more incidents may be missing from the available records. Information is more abundant for the last years of this timeframe, due to undetermined factors that probably involve better reporting or record keeping at that time. [22]

Most cases in our sample occurred in the rural areas of Santa Fe/Mariquita and Tunja/Pamplona, the viceroyalty's central and northeastern provinces and two of its most densely populated regions. [23] In fact, Tunja/Pamplona alone accounted for 45% of the total, a disproportionately high figure relative to these regions' share of New Granada's entire population (34.1%) and crime (32.5%). This and other facts pertaining to the regional distribution of the cases remain unexplained. [24] The available records are thus irregular and, as is usual with historical evidence, can be presumed incomplete. Yet, they offer an approximation of reality that is worth considering. [25]

Those who committed spousal murders were for the most part locals. In fact, the available data suggest relatively little long-distance internal migration; a good portion of the defendants whose place of birth is listed in the records seem to have been natives of the places where the crimes were committed, or else they had been born in nearby villages. So were many of the witnesses interviewed.

We know the ethnic background of more than half of the accused. They appear to represent a cross-section of the viceroyalty's ethnic groups, especially Indians and white-Indian mixed races. Only a handful were "pure" whites and very few had black ancestry. [26] As for Indians, at first the available sample would suggest that they were a minority among the criminals, only 3 (8.3%) of the total. However, based on specialized research on Indian crimes in Tunja, one of the viceroyalty's central provinces (comprising over 29% of New Granada's entire population and 13.5% Indian), it is fair to assume that Indians may have committed at least an additional 5 or more spousal murders during the period under study in each of other major areas within Colombia demographically equivalent to Tunja. Such areas include Popayan (8.1% of New Granada's population, 17.6% Indian) in New Granada's south, and Cartagena (14.9% of the population, 16.4% Indian) in the north. In any event, the available data on Indian spousal homicides, incorporated into Table 5 below, would mean for now that indigenous people were responsible for one-sixth or more of these types of crimes throughout the viceroyalty. [27] Reported Indian crimes were thus just slightly high relative to this ethnic group's overall numbers.

Given the ethnic profile of New Granada's late colonial population, it seems clear that crimes committed by mestizos (offspring of Indian and white unions) in the sample were quite low relative to this group's share of the viceroyalty's population. This fact, plus the records' frequent omission of ethnic description for individuals other than Blacks and Indians, make it therefore highly probable that many of the 33 murderers of undetermined ethnic background (Table 5) belonged to this ethnic category. Black slaves, nearly 8.1% of New Granada's population, are likely also underrepresented in the sample. Most of them (35.4%) resided in Cartagena and Popayan regions for which evidence of spousal murders is scant in the available data. The same underrepresentation applies to people of African ancestry in general. Only two of the murderers (5.5%) in our sample appear to have been mulattoes and one a zambo, a person of mixed Indian/African ancestry. [28]

In absolute terms, the sample of murders at hand comprises a limited number of cases. Despite its modest size and the irregular temporal, spatial, and ethnical distribution of the cases, the sample represents more than 70% of spousal murders that occurred in the viceroyalty at the time. Therefore, it is a legitimate starting point for a discussion of general features of this form of criminality in late colonial New Granada. With some qualifications, the evidence may even be representative of patterns for similar events in other regions in colonial Spanish America.

In terms of occupation, spousal murderers were modest manual workers who came from all walks of life. The defendants included hatmakers, potmakers, tailors, journeymen, farmers, miners, weavers, laundresses, cooks, bogas (boat rowers), trasquilodores (shearers), retailers and the unemployed. Of all of these, weavers, farmers, and day laborers constituted a majority. Weavers were especially numerous among women (almost one-third of total female offenders). Most of them came from the central and northeastern regions of Tunja, Socorro, and San Gil, where the weaving of cotton and woolen cloth was concentrated. The abundance of farmers and journeymen (almost one-third of those whose occupation is known) across all of the regions was consistent with the overall agrarian character of New Granada's economy, which featured a combination--depending upon the region--of large landholdings, small farms, and subsistence peasant agriculture. [29]

Elites are not represented at all in these cases, a situation that should not be construed as a defect of the sample. We can assume that every effort would have been made to keep elite crimes from coming to public attention and ending up in court. It must also be acknowledged that crime of most kinds, except perhaps defamation, was prevalent mostly among the popular groups. Abject poverty, unemployment, oppressive living conditions, lack of education, and limited possibilities for upward mobility caused high levels of personal violence and frustration among the poor, making them more likely to reject social norms. Such groups found release through drinking, fighting, vandalism, and assorted criminal behaviors. And in colonial Spanish America, the poor comprised a majority (as much as 85%) of any region's entire population. [30]

Some of the couples involved were recently married and young, mostly in their 20s and 30s (more than half of the defendants). This corresponds to findings for late colonial Mexico; indeed, in most societies even to this day, young adults between the ages of 16 and 39 are the age group most prone to commit crimes. [31] Most spouses in New Granada fell into the 26 to 30 and 36 to 40-year-old age groups. [32] However, 8 spousal homicides, close to one-sixth of the total (30.7% of those whose age is known), involved couples who had lived together for more than 30 years, meaning that the assassins and victims were at least in their late 40s and 50s. This figure also mirrored late colonial Mexico, where the same age groups were involved in 10% to 17% of all crimes. [33]

Conditions, Means, Motives.

Only a handful of defendants, most of them women, were drunk when they murdered their victims. This probably includes 30-year-old laundress and chicha retailer Albina Arias, who killed her husband, Agustin de Angarita, by hitting him in the stomach with a machete handle. The two lived in the parish of Capilla in central New Granada's rural Tenza region with their two little sons. Albina and Agustin had argued when he implied, maybe in jest or because he was drunk, that most of their customers came to the house not just for the chicha, but also to sleep with his wife. [34] Thirty-one-year-old weaver Maria del Carmen Martinez also killed her husband while she was drunk. After ingesting some alcohol ("habia bebido"), she stabbed her husband Pedro (who was drunk too) after he allegedly said things "against her honor" and started to beat her, as he regularly did. [35] An identical situation involved 38-year-old weaver Maria Dolores Garcia, who killed her 70-year-old husband, Juan. After she refused to obey his ord ers not to go into a certain room of the house, Juan started to beat her with a club. Both spouses had been drinking chicha all day long. [36] Fifty-seven-year-old farmer and weaver Juan F. Ortiz also drank chicha prior to beating his wife, Silvestra, who disobeyed his orders not to go to a fandango or fiesta. [37] Zambo boat-rower Tom as A. Sierra got drunk on distilled sugar-cane liquor (aguardiente) and guarapo, a fermented cane liquor, prior to killing his wife Eduarda one night in 1799. [38] These incidents confirm the general assumption that drinking, prevalent among the popular classes, tended to precede violent crimes, homicides in particular. [39] However, drinking reportedly occurred in only 9.8% of our cases. It does not appear to have been the norm but rather the exception; most spousal murderers acted in full sobriety.

To accomplish their crimes and dispatch their "loved ones," killers resorted to all types of methods, particularly stabbings, beatings, and machete wounds. Machetes and knives were women's weapons of choice, whereas men used these as well as their fists and feet. Clubs and rocks were used only on occasion. In a few instances, men also engaged in exceedingly cruel behavior, such as throwing burning coal on the victim's face, or, in one case, damaging the victim's internal sexual organs. [40] Poison, a subtle and handy method, seems to have been used in just one of the cases under consideration. It was probably employed in a few other unrecorded instances; deaths that showed strong evidence of violence were more likely to be investigated, but murder by poison may have gone undetected. [41]

Many murders were the culmination of a long pattern of battering and abuse by the perpetrator, a situation typical of other urban settings and historical periods. [42] For instance, 48-year-old mestizo farmer and day laborer Eugenio J. Verdugo, who killed his wife, Maria, by beating her with his fists and throwing burning coal in her face, was portrayed by several witnesses as a habitual wife abuser, a sevicioso (cruel person), feared by his neighbors and even by his own parents. [43] Thirty-six-year-old mestizo day laborer and chicha retailer Francisco Diaz had a similar reputation. Prior to killing his wife, Maria, by hurling a large stone in her face, he often beat her for allegedly drinking too much, "provoking" him (she called him a verdugo or oppressor and a "cara de concha"), and uttering shameful remarks against him ("le decia desverguenzas"). [44] Similarly, 50-year-old mestizo retailer Hilario Cepeda was known to have battered his wife regularly, hitting her with his fists and even with iron bars an d a whip before killing her one day in 1799. [45] On several occasions, before he finally beat her to death one night in 1806, Lorenzo de Ospina also beat his wife severely, threw her in a river, and attempted to stab her. [46] Fifty-seven-year-old Indian Juan Francisco Ortiz also maltrataba (mistreated) his wife regularly without any apparent reason (although he alleged that she used to talk back using malas palabras or foul language and did not work hard enough). One day he beat her severely enough to harm her reproductive organs, causing her death. [47]

Some other cases cite only circumstantial evidence of previous battering. However, vicious behavior by husbands clearly shows men's inclination to assert their patriarchal prerogative by means of physical abuse. In fact, although he demanded moderation and "corrective" punishment, the lawyer of one female victim accepted that husbands could castigar (chastise) their insubordinate spouses. [48] No wonder that one of the main excuses husbands used to justify the battering and even death of their partners was a wife's disobedience, insolence, or rebellious attitude. We have already noted that one drunken defendant killed his wife because she went to a fandango against his wishes, [49] while another murderer claimed that his wife answered him back using foul language. [50] In another case, 46-year-old Martin Blanco stabbed his wife, Juana, in the back because she disobeyed his orders not to leave the house while he was away on business. Not only was she out of the house on the morning when her husband came home, Juana allegedly returned later in the company of a woman her husband disapproved of for having a love affair with a married man. Martin construed this company as an indication that his wife also was in "malos pasos"; that is, betraying him. [51] Twenty-one-year-old day laborer Vicente Gomez made deadly use of his fists against his wife, Francisca, because she returned home from Mass without waiting for him as he had commanded. Shortly prior to this final confrontation, he was furious that she had gone to Mass against his wishes. [52] In another case, farmer Emigdio Pabon, who began to feel ill while visiting neighbors with his wife, asked her to stay a little longer with him, but she went home instead. He then followed her, arguing along the way that he was the boss, "el que manda." When she replied that he could go and boss his own pants ("mandara en sus calzones"), he stabbed her to death. [53] When her husband returned home after a prolonged absence, Eduarda A. Garzon refused to allow him into the house an d told him to go and "spend the winter where he had spent the summer." Garzon, drunk and annoyed by his wife's apparent infidelity, did not like this irreverent treatment and stabbed her in the chest. [54] These and other cases make it clear that a hint of insolence put women at risk of their lives.

Other crimes, and most of those committed by women, occurred as a defensive response to abusive behavior and orders. In discussing the use of alcohol, we mentioned two female defendants (weavers Maria Dolores Garcia and Maria del Carmen Martinez) who killed their husbands (one to escape a beating for going into a forbidden area of the house, and the other to avenge remarks "against her honor" [55]). Forty-year-old mulatto potmaker and weaver Cecilia Heredia stabbed her husband, Ignacio Torres, as he tried to beat her after knocking her to the floor. There was abundant evidence that in previous fights he had beaten her (" le daba cuero") and she had tried to defend herself, pulling a knife in at least one previous incident. [56] Mestizo weaver Maria E. Quintero twice stabbed her husband, Salvador, complaining that she was tired of being treated "with cruelty." Witnesses confirmed that he beat her constantly. [57] Marcela Metauten, a 39- to 40-year-old mestiza, killed her husband, Ramon, by beating him with a s tick as he slept. For reasons the records do not explain, Ramon had mistreated her since shortly after they were married. [58]

In fact, as Table 9 indicates, most women in our sample--over 50%--were responding to repeated abuse by their husbands. One of the leading categories of violent crime reported in late colonial New Granada was domestic abuse, or "malos tratos." More than 21% of all assaults reported in the viceroyalty were cases of wife-beating (58 cases in a sample of 275 crimes). [59] Malos tratos were also prevalent in other Spanish American regions and cities, such as Rio de la Plata (especially Buenos Aires), the central valley of Costa Rica, Peru, and presumably elsewhere. [60] This abominable behavior caused ample female resistance, which in several instances took the form of murder.

Finally, a few murders were also motivated by a desire, mostly on the part of males, to avenge alleged infidelities. One ought to keep in mind that husbands accused of killing their wives may have used infidelity as a convenient excuse to receive favorable treatment from judges. These all-male, honor-obsessed state officials could base their lenient decisions on laws that, as we will soon explain, made crimes against unfaithful wives justifiable. [61] Several of the cases under study involved allegedly unfaithful victims, such as "disobedient" Juana, stabbed by her husband on suspicion of being in "malos pasos." [62] After tying his Indian wife, Rosalia, down by the throat and hands and beating her to death with his fists, Jacinto Gonzalez argued that she was having an affair (amancebada) with Francisco Bernal, a white neighbor. At the time of her death Rosalia was pregnant; the baby also died. [63] A similar situation involved 28-year-old farmer Luis Marcelino Gonzalez, who hit his wife Maria Teresa eight ti mes with a machete on different parts of her body, including the head, throat, and hands. He killed both her and the baby she was expecting. Luis's excuse was that he felt "verguenza" (shame) at finding her one night with another man. [64] Juan Francisco Soler, a 25-year-old weaver, also claimed that he was blinded by "impaciencia y colera" (impatience and rage) when one night he caught his wife Manuela having "actos ilicitos" (sexual acts) with a man in their marriage bed. The lover fled the house in a rush, leaving his pants behind, and Juan Francisco proceeded to beat Manuela until she died. [65] Upon returning from an eight-month absence, drunken boat rower Tomas A. Sierra found his wife Eduarda in her sixth month of pregnancy. Declaring his honor and "estimacion" destroyed ("mancillado"), he proceeded to strike her with a machete, killing her and the baby in her womb. [66] Notice that in most of these instances the women were pregnant, which further infuriated husbands who believed they had been betrayed . Even more significant, all of these incidents reflect long-standing social practices in Iberian societies, whereby aggrieved husbands would respond violently but "appropriately"-"honorably," they would say-to their wives' adultery. [67] Iberian literature is full of stories of such crimes. [68]

Conversely, husbands who were having extramarital affairs also tended to batter their wives. In several instances, men killed their wives so they could run away with, or marry, their lovers, including close relatives of their spouses. To marry his concubine Maria, 30-year-old Antonio Cano, who had long ago abandoned his wife Isidora, took his estranged spouse to a deserted place and allegedly poisoned her. A little later he forged the date on the death certificate to make it look older and submitted it to a nearby parish as proof that he was free to remarry, which he in fact did. The priest suspected him of wrongdoing and he was eventually apprehended and tried. Finally, Salvador Leon used a machete to kill both his wife, Manuela, and his stepson. He was enraged at the fact that Manuela had punished her 20-year-old daughter Maria, Salvador's stepdaughter, after learning that the two had been having incestuous relations for over a year. Salvador subsequently ran away with the frightened girl. [70]

Men did not always manage to have their way, however. In several instances, matters worked to the contrary, with women as the ones who fought and eventually killed their husbands over extramarital affairs. Both Maria del Carmen Martinez and Cecilia Heredia, whose cases were discussed above, killed their husbands after major brawls over the men's infidelities. [71] Some long-abused female killers reacted by engaging first in extramarital affairs themselves as a release. Later, sometimes with the active help of their lovers, they did away with their husbands. The most typical case was that of Dominga Espitia, who enlisted the aid o her lover Nicolas, a 32-year-old miner, in killing her husband, Matias. Matias demanded that Dominga leave a party she was attending, and upon her departure hit her with a machete at least once. Joined by a machete-bearing Nicolas, who had been at the same party and followed the fighting couple, Dominga killed Matias. Later, she explained her two-month-old infidelity with her accompl ice as a result of "la mala vida" (mistreatment) her husband regularly inflicted on her. [72] Twenty-five-year old Maria de la Cruz also helped her mulatto lover, 27-year-old Juan Agustin, to kill her husband, Jose, with a knife. Jose, she alleged, "le daba," or beat her, regularly. [73]

Battering and abuse such as the acts described above were, in turn, related to everyday domestic disputes that Steve Stem has recently placed within the "contested boundaries of gender rights and obligation." [74] Women regularly challenged patriarchal domination and tried to assert their "rights," acting in an obstinate, contentious, and disobedient manner (i.e., resisting verbal deference by speaking up forcefully and aggressively, displaying an "insolent" physical mobility by abandoning husbands and/or walking in and out at will). Threatened patriarchs, in turn, struck back with extreme harshness that, least in their minds, was "justifiable."

Defendants and Gender.

As was mentioned at the outset, two-thirds of spousal murders were committed by men and the remaining one-third by women. This corresponds to the general pattern found among criminals in other areas of the world during the same and different periods. [75] In at least two other Spanish American regions during the late colonial years, men were more likely to participate in all manner of criminal misconduct, especially violent acts, than were women. In fact, in late colonial Rio de la Plata women committed less than 9% of the violent crimes under investigation. [76] Men were arrested for more than 72% of the crimes committed in colonial Mexico during the mid-1790s, whereas women were incarcerated for only 27% of said crimes. [77] In some Brazilian regions women were arrested for as few as 4% of all criminal offenses in 1780-1833. [78] The same was true of New Granada, where men committed 91.3% of all crimes reported in the 1750-1810 period. [79]

However, if one considers the general involvement of men and women in all types of homicide, the intriguingly high proportion of female involvement in spousal murders becomes apparent. In some regions of eighteenth-century England, women were accused of just 13% of all murders and manslaughters. [80] In a random sample for 1800-1812 Mexico City, women were found liable for 2 of 25 homicides, or 8% of the total. [81] In New Granada, also, women were charged with 8% of all homicides listed in a representative index of late colonial trials. [82] When it came to killing spouses, however, New Granada's women committed almost one-third (29.4%) of all murders (34% if we count only defendants of known gender). In other words, they were almost 4 times more likely to commit spousal murder than any other type of homicide.

As far back as medieval times, the documentation for court cases indicates that women were more likely to perpetrate violent crimes against family members than against other persons. [83] The findings for colonial Spanish America are compatible too with evidence for late sixteenth and seventeenth-century England showing that females involved in homicide were more likely (42% as opposed to 7%) to kill members of their own household--relatives and servants included--than victims outside of the family. [84] Finally, this conclusion is in keeping with modern studies of homicide, which demonstrate that a majority (51.9%) of females involved kill family members. [85] However, research has focused mainly on "family" or "domestic homicides," that include crimes against offspring, relatives, servants, and even apprentices (in some samples, husbands represented as few as one-third of the victims), a category much broader than the spousal murder cases examined here. The evidence in this essay is more precise concerning spousal murders than any other previous findings discovered during a search of these sources.

Still more interesting is the prevalent academic explanation for the pattern of heavy female involvement in domestic crimes. According to this theory, since a woman's place was firmly in the home, it was only logical that she would restrict her criminal activities to the domestic sphere. [86] On the surface this makes sense. A woman would more likely quarrel and accumulate grievances with those with whom she was in daily contact, husbands and children in particular. She would also more likely strike (or be struck) in the space she was normally expected to circulate in, the home. However, several of our female assassins and victims appear to have had active "public" lives and to have interacted on a daily basis with a wide variety of people. In fact, a few of the female defendants were chicha retailers who were in regular contact with neighbors, local customers, and viajeros or travelers; so too were weavers, a majority among our female criminals, who by the very nature of their activity entered into regular c ontact with sheep raisers, wool retailers, and market vendors. In addition, some of the women involved in the crimes under discussion quarrelled with their husbands over their attendance at fiestas and Mass, and over visits to neighbors and friends, activities that gave them the opportunity to socialize with diverse groups of men and women. To be sure, many of the women committed their crimes or were murdered inside their homes. This is not, however, because they were absolutely restricted to this space, but because, having reached out and displayed an at times irreverent character and behavior (talking back, walking away from places where they did not want to be, leaving their husbands behind against the men's will, going to forbidden places and seeing forbidden people), they provoked their husbands' domineering character, jealousy, and rage. The husbands, sensing that their patriarchal prerogatives were spinning out of control, resorted to abuse. Over the years, these women either were killed or, if they we re lucky, killed their husbands first. In sum, contrary to what other studies of domestic crimes have argued, here it seems clear that female spousal murderers and victims customarily transcended domestic spaces and relations, placing themselves more at risk of clashing with their spouses.

Trial, Punishment and the Law.

Once the murders had been committed, a good part of those responsible remained at the scene of the crime, usually their home, with the corpse or alongside their dying partners. [87] Others immediately ran away and managed to evade justice for a while. [88] In one instance, with the help of friends, a wife took her husband's corpse out of the house. They later proceeded to hang the body by the neck from a tree near the local church to simulate a suicide, so that the "poor woman" would not be charged with the murder. [89] Still other defendants buried their victims to hide the crime, and in at least three cases corpses--at times carried at night on the back of a mule--were dumped in a river or creek so as to leave no trace. [90] Even considering that we are studying cases in which offenders were prosecuted, however, it is fair to say that hiding the crime appears to have been difficult.

Based on information from injured victims, relatives, neighbors, and witnesses, the local alcaldes or, in larger villages, their equivalent corregidores/justicias mayores, soon undertook the investigation of the crimes. These particular offenses, like all homicides, were considered to be "public" and atrocious ("enormisimo") crimes. Unlike delitos privados--for instance, danos (property damage) and injurias (slander)--such crimes did not require anyone to file charges. They could be automatically prosecuted by the generally diligent, all-male local officials. [91]

Usually, alcaldes and corregidores began by having the corpses examined by local physicians or healers (curanderos) to determine the nature of the injuries and the probable causes of death. [92] In some cases, investigating officials were actually able to talk to the victims prior to their deaths and learned about the circumstances of the crime. [93] In most instances, however, they began by hearing the versions of witnesses, neighbors, or acquaintances. On a few occasions, local officials went on to interrogate the defendants directly. In the meantime, they locked them up in the local jail, frequently along with their offspring, who were considered potential accomplices and/or prone to lie in order to protect the living parent. The defendant's property was also preemptively seized in some instances. [94]

Several of the accused confessed their acts shortly afterward and showed remorse; others denied their crimes by attributing their spouse's death to natural causes, especially prior diseases (menstruation-related illnesses included), food and drink poisoning, a variety of accidents, and even witchcraft. [95]

In the majority of cases, with or without a guilty plea, the investigation and sentencing was completed within one to two years of the crime. [96] After local officials had consulted with a designated letrado or lawyer, most of the accused were given jail sentences (43% were sentenced to six- to 10-year jail terms, and 13.7% to less than five years in prison). These sentences may appear strikingly mild by today's standards. However, considering that life expectancy was around 40 at the time, and that the harsh conditions in the region's prisons would have further reduced it, it is probable that a six- to 10-year term in prison was tantamount to a life sentence. Only a few (four of the total) were sentenced to death, and even several of these (three of the five) had their sentences reversed on appeal and substituted with eight- to 10-year jail terms. Once the sentences were issued, the cases went for review before the Real Audiencia, the viceroyalty's high court in Santafe de Bogata. It was not uncommon for th e Audiencia to be lenient and reduce the punishment originally imposed by local mayors. [97] It was also customary to celebrate special festive events (a prince's birth, a wedding, or a king's or queen's birthday), with special blank pardons from the Crown. Such pardons benefited one male and one female defendant in our sample. [98]

Although a good portion of the punishments met by both males and females were within the two to 10-year jail time frame, there appears to have been a lack of strict sentencing standards. Only on a couple of occasions did local officials, most of whom were not legal experts, cite the applicable laws to explain the parameters they followed in trying the case and imposing specific punishments. Even on these occasions, legal references tended to be vague and sentences probably followed customary practices. [99]

Fragmentary evidence shows biases among officials, particularly with regard to gender, in the form of passing statements and judicial decisions. For example, a prosecutor justifying his petition to hang a wife for murdering her husband insisted that this would set an example to serve as an "escarmiento a las demas mujeres" to curtail their hidden enmity toward their husbands. [100] This and similar evidence suggests that--in accordance with society's dominant male views--male officials were not altogether gender-neutral when prosecuting cases. Biases against female defendants can be seen, for instance, in the fact that two-thirds of the male offenders sentenced to death had their sentences reduced to jail terms, whereas this only occurred in half of the cases (one of two) involving females. This could have been a random situation or one derived from factors other than gender, but the facts of the cases suggest otherwise. Unlike the male offender sentenced to hanging for stabbing his wife to death in a vicious , cold-blooded, and seemingly unjustifiable murder, the woman whose death sentence was confirmed seems to have acted in self-defense, a consideration accepted in several similar cases as an extenuating factor. [101] Furthermore, given the lack of mitigating circumstances in at least two of the cases involving males, it is hard to understand why their death sentences were changed to jail terms. [102] The evidence is far from conclusive, however, and one could point to cases in which males were in fact treated even more harshly than women. Only men, for instance, were condemned to life in prison.

Gender biases in the formal legal texts themselves may be easier to discern. First of all, the law was casual in adddressing cases of malos tratos or sevicia (battery) on the part of husbands, a conduct that frequently preceded spousal homicide. Sevicia constituted a justifiable cause for quod thorum et mensam divorce; that is, physical separation from one's spouse. [103] However, even in cases of husbands who physically abused their wives, state officials were asked to make all efforts possible to reconcile the parties. [104] The criminal legislation of the time did not deal specifically or in any detail with battery, which seems to have been a widespread practice. In spite of acknowledgements that it was "unfortunately quite frequent" ("demasiado frecuente, por desgracia"), battery was not discussed either in contemporary legal manuals, except in passing. [105] In general, this conduct was not subject to automatic prosecution; rather, it was considered a delito privado that required the injured party to fil e charges. For the conduct to result in automatic prosecution it had to cause "serious injuries, ""severe bleeding," or "public outrage," extreme situations suggestive of the lack of active state protection of women's safety, especially against the frequent violent outbursts of their husbands. [106]

On the specific subject of spousal homicide, the legal codes clearly reflected the dominant male culture of colonial Hispanic society. The mid-fourteenth-century Spanish legal code known as the Siere Partidas established gender-neutral prohibitions on remarriage by spousal killers. [107] However, it specified that men (maridos) who found their spouses having extra marital sex could kill the male lover (wives had to be spared) without incurring any punishment. [108] Women whose husbands betrayed them did not have the same prerogative and were not entitled to report the offense, for the law did not consider male extramarital affairs to be a source of dishonor to women.109 To explain the dissimilar treatment of male and female adulterio, a popular mid-nineteenth-century legal manual discussing colonial and postcolonial regulations argued:

A woman who admits someone other than her husband to enjoy conjugal pleasures, usurps from her husband's offspring their paternal love, as she replaces the husband for a false substitute, thus also disturbing the rules of succession. It is not the same when a husband is unfaithful, for even though, considering his obligations towards his wife he may be said to commit a grave offense, nonetheless he hurts neither his family nor society. [110]

In other words, unfaithful women stigmatized family and society. Unfaithful men did not.

Provisions discriminating between males and females who killed their adulterous spouses appeared in various legal codifications after the Siete Partidas. The 1505 Laws of Toro, for instance, precluded males who murdered their spouses and sex partners caught in fraganti from keeping their wives' dowry or the male lovers' properties, but it also considered such murders to be justified. Wives who killed their unfaithful husbands had no justification. [111] This gender-biased provision continued to reappear until as late as the 1805 codification known as the Novisima Recopilacion. [112] In sum, colonial laws did not left no doubt as to who was socially superior or likely to receive preferential treatment in cases of criminal acts against a spouse.

Conclusions.

Trials of spousal killers reveal intriguing aspects of everyday life among colonial Spanish America's rural poor. Criminal records unveil a world of infrequent internal migration, peasant families' efforts to combine diverse economic activities (retailing, farming, day work, washing clothes) to make a living, and active socializing among relatives and neighbors, including regular drinking and party going. The records are even more revealing of the dynamics of gender relations among the lower classes. Colonial Spanish American societies displayed high levels of aggression and violence between spouses. Although women appear to have been the predominant victims, the records suggest that, far from the passive role indicated by earlier research, they could be defiant and ready to attack their male counterparts. [113] In fact, women reacted to domestic abuse in a variety of ways: talking back, abandoning husbands or leaving them behind, refusing to submit to restrictions on their physical mobility, engaging in extr amarital affairs, defending themselves from aggression with knives and sticks, and, in extreme circumstances, killing their husbands. It is true that in a nation of around 800,000 people, only 15 women appeared to have killed their husbands over a period of 60 years. It is also true that women were more likely themselves to be the victims of spousal murder. Yet, among female murderers those who killed their husbands were a sizable majority.

The fact that women were more likely to kill relatives and spouses than any other victims, however, did not result from their alleged restriction to the domestic sphere. In fact, such crimes seem to have been caused by the exact opposite situation--namely, the escalation of marital tensions when women transcended the circumscribed space of the household and displayed an "insolent" tendency to be with relatives, friends, market people, and village partygoers. One could go as far as to argue that the circumstances surrounding spousal murders committed by females call into question the entirely "domestic" nature and character of the female sphere in colonial Spanish American and other societies.

The female sphere in colonial Latin American societies has been assumed to be a space of mundane domesticity and seclusion. In it, women allegedly dedicated themselves to providing for the needs of the members of their households, which could include parents, husbands, offspring, or siblings. Their sphere contrasted with the male world, which was-arguably--authoritative, productive, active, and public. Females were mainly in charge of performing menial domestic activities and related chores (cooking, cleaning, sewing, nurturing, child care) geared to satisfying the private reproductive needs (material, emotional, or sexual) of family members. All women, housewives in particular, were allegedly kept away from the world outside of the home; their external connections were limited mainly to church attendance and local market activities. As a result, according to this view, they could have little if any impact on politics or the shaping of history. [114] Even their crimes did not transcend the home, but tended to be domestic.

The character and circumstances of some spousal homicides reveal this sharp public/domestic dichotomy to be not only an organizing fiction of social life but an academic fiction as well. [115] The world of the home was in reality closely linked to the world of the street, not only because of churches and marketplaces, which were indeed important public spaces for female contact with the larger society, but also because of the active character of social life taking place in chicheras, puiquerias or other bars, theaters, bullfights, parties and popular festivals, and the homes of neighbors, friends, and relatives. [116] The very tensions emerging from the ordinary day-to-day interactions of females in all of these public arenas regularly unleashed marital tensions and conflicts, [117] given that women's active public life was considered a sign of impropriety and insolence and a challenge to dominant patriarchal norms. Nonetheless, "insolent" public behavior on the part of females appears not to have been truly so exceptional; otherwise, it would be difficult to understand the frequency with which females faced marital disputes or became spousal murderers not only to protect their very physical integrity, but also to safeguard what they seemed to consider their prerogative to enjoy unrestricted and richer lives. Ultimately, patriarchal norms could and would be enforced by male colonial officials and a male-biased legislative structure that brought order and sense back to the sometimes turbulent and irreverent lives of women and men.

Evidence of gender biases on the part of officers rendering judicial decisions n cases involving spousal murderers is still not conclusive. Preliminary findings suggest that judicial authorities displayed a harsher attitude toward female spousal murderers and more leniency toward men than they did toward women sentenced to death for the same crimes. This bias is clear in the legal structure. As a reflection of the dominant male Hispanic culture, formal laws from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century were skewed on behalf of men. These laws may have served as a reminder that female domesticity and obedience were regarded as sacred and worth preserving and/or restoring. Like the colonial state officials in charge of enforcing the law, however, women at times also chose to obey patriarchal mandates and laws "a medias" (halfway).

ENDNOTES

I wish to thank Florida International University's Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences for financial support to conduct archival research for this article. I am grateful for the criticism of Professors John Kicza, William B. Taylor, Daniel A. Cohen, Noble David Cook and Alexandra Parma Cook. Two anonymous reviewers also provided valuable suggestions and critiques. Valuable and timely help with copy editing was kindly provided by Alisa Newman.

(1.) The vallenato is an accordion-based tropical rhythm from Valledupar, Colombia's northwestern region. See Peter Wade, Music, Race and Nation: Musica Tropical in Columbia (Chicago, 2000), Ciro Quiroz Otero, Vallenato, hombre y canto (Bogota: Icaro Editores, 1983). For La Baracunatana's original version hear singer Lisandro Mesa's 1988 CD "Mejor Imposible," Disco Fuentes; for the rock version hear group Los Arerciopelados's CD La Pipa de la Paz.

(2.) Numerous popular tunes in Latin America, particularly Argentine tangos and Mexican rancheras, refer to women whose heartbroken husbands and lovers insult or confess to having hurt or killed them.

(3.) Colombia's recent statistics on domestic abuse indicate a total of 36,511 reported cases (98 cases per 100,000 people) for the year 1997. These cases are said to represent just 27% of the actual total; most others go unreported. Therefore, there may be as many as 135,000 cases of wife battering (362 cases per 100,000 people) every year in Colombia, a reportedly high and constantly growing proportion of the country's total violence. See Colombia's Instituto de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses, "Comportamiento de lesiones de causa externa, Colombia, 1997." (Bogota, 1998), 45, 50-51. I thank lawyer Martha Lucia Pinzon Galan for these statistics and for her assistance with the database on colonial crimes developed for this essay.

(4.) Pamela Haag, "The 'III-Use of a Wife:' Patterns of Working Class Violence in Domestic and Public New York City, 1860-1880," Journal of Social History 25, 3 (Spring, 1992): 447-77; David Peterson, "Wife Beating: An American Tradition," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 13, 1 (Summer 1992): 97-118; Maeve E. Doggett, Marriage, Wife-Beating and die Law in Victorian England (New York, 1993); Elizabeth Pleck, Domestic Tyranny: The Making of Social Policy Against Family Violence From Colonial Times to the Present (New York, 1987), 65, 88.

(5.) The only academic works on the subject I came across for Europe and the United States were Edward Hatton, "Domestic Assassins: Spousal and Intimate Homicide in Antebellum America" (Ph.D. diss., Temple Univ., 1997), and the broader study by J.A. Sharpe, "Domestic Homicide in Early Modern England," Historical Journal 24 (1981): 29-48. For relatively more abundant historical literature on related subjects, particularly domestic abuse, see among others Carol Bauer and Lawrence Ritt, "'A Husband is a Beating Animal.' Frances Power Cobbe Confronts the Wife-Abuse Problems in Victorian England," International Journal of Women's Studies 6, 2 (March-April, 1983): 99-118; Myra C. Glen, "Wife-Beating: The Darker Side of Victorian Domesticity," Canadian Review of American Studies 15 (1984): 17-33; Brenda D. McDonald, "Domestic Violence in Colonial Massachusetts," Historical Journal of Massachusetts 14, 1 (January, 1986): 53-64; Linda Gordon, Heroes of their own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence. Bost on, 1880-1960 (New York, 1988), Chapter 8; Darla Borck, "'Domestic Recreation' & 'Household Amusements': Spousal Abuse in Memphis, 1861-1865," The West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 48 (1994): 81-90; Kathryn Harvey, "Amazons and Victims: Resisting Wife-Abuse in Working Class Montreal, 1869-1879," Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 2 (1991): 131-148; Daniel A. Cohen, "Homicidal Compulsion and the Conditions of Freedom: The Social and Psychological Origins of Familicide in America's Early Republic," Journal of Social History 24, 4 (Summer, 1995): 725-764; Jeffrey S. Adler, "'My Mother-in-Law is to Blame, But I'll Walk on her Neck Yet': Homicide in Late Nineteenth-Century Chicago," Journal of Social History 31, 2 (Winter, 1997): 253-276, esp. 259-261. I owe thanks to my colleague Daniel A. Cohen for having introduced me to some of this literature.

(6.) Except for an excellent ethnographic 'case study, I could not find any specialized writings concerning Spanish America on this subject. See Kevin Terraciano, "Crime and Culture in Colonial Mexico: The Case of the Mixtec Murder Note," Ethnohistory, 45, 4 (Fall, 1998): 709-745. See also a brief discussion in William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide & Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford, 1979), 85-88, 93-96; idem, "Amigos de sombrero: Patrones de homicidio en el centro rural de Jalisco, 1784-1820," in Antonio Escobar Ohmstede, ed., Indio, nacion y comunidad en el Mexico del siglo XIX (Mexico, 1993), 63-103, esp. 75-77, 82-83. For passing references see Beatrfz Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 1750-1820 (Medellin, 1994), 375-377; and Steve Stem, The Secret History of Gender. Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico (Chapel Hill, 1995), esp. chapters 3, 4, 6.

(7.) Stern, The Secret History of Gender, 57-59.

(8.) See Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof, "The History of the Family in Latin America: A Critique of Recent Work," Latin American Research Review, 24, 2 (1989): 168-186; Mark D. Szuchman, "The State of Family History in Spanish South America," unpublished paper presented at the American Historical Association meeting, New York, December, 1990; Lynn Stoner, "Directions in Latin American Women's History," Latin American Research Review, 25, 2 (1990): 101-134; Victor M. Uribe-Uran, Honorable Lives: Lawyers, Family and Politics in Colombia, 1780-1850 (Pittsburgh, 2000).

(9.) Lyman Johnson and Sonya Lipset-Rivera (eds.), The Faces of Honor. Sex, Shame and Violence in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque, 1999).

(10.) See, among others, Verena Martinez Alier, Marriage, Class and Color in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society (Cambridge, 1974); Susan Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of the Aztecs (Norman, 1995); Guiomar Duenas Vargas, Los hijos del pecado. Ilegitimidad y vida familiar en la Santafe de Bogota colonial (Bogota, 199 ); Sandra Lauderdale-Graham, House and Street: The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth-Century Riodejaneiro (Austin, 1988); Christine Hunefeldt, Liberalism in the Bedroom. Quarreling Spouses in Nineteenth-Century Lima (University Park, 2000); Stern, Secret History of Gender, passim; Susan Socolow, The Women of Colonial Latin America (Cambridge, 2000). On the intertwining of power and gender relations see the suggestive essay by Sandra Mcgee Deutsch, "Gender and Sociopolitical Change in Twentieth-century Latin America," Hispanic American Historical Review, 71, 2 (May, 1991): 259-306.

(11.) For a useful working definition of patriarchy applicable here see Stern, Secret History of Gender, 21.

(12.) Archivo Historico de Antioquia (hereafter AHA), Criminales, legajo 1800-1810, doc. 2, f. 6v.

(13.) See Gabriel Haslip-Rivera, Crime and Punishment in Late Colonial Mexico City, 1692-1810 (Albuquerque, 1999); Tamar Herzog, La administracion coma un fenomeno social: La justicia penal de la ciudad de Quito (1650-1750) (Madrid, 1995), 289; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura social; Lyman L. Johnson (ed.), The Problem of Order in Changing Societies. Essays on Crime and Policing in Argentina and Uruguay, 1750-1940 (Albuquerque, 1990); Teresa Lozano Armendares, La criminalidad en la ciudad de Mexico, 1800-1821 (Mexico, 1987), 35, 44; Patricia Ann Aufderheide, "Order and Violence: Social Deviance and Social Control in Brazil, 1780-1840." Ph.D diss., Univ. of Minnesota, 1976. See also Colin M. MacLachlan, Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. A Study of the Tribunal of the Acordada (Berkeley, 1974); Taylor, Drinking, Homicide & Rebellion; and Alberto Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe en Lima, 1760-1830 (Estructura de clases y sociedad colonial) (Lima, 1983), chapter 5.

(14.) In colonial Mexico, cases of indebtedness and the failure to pay tribute represented a significant percentage of crime. This does not seem to have been the case in New Granada. See Haslip-Rivera, Crime and Punishment, 53, 54-55, 58-59; Zoila Gabriel de Dominguez, "Delito y sociedad en el Nuevo Reino de Granada periodo virreinal, 1740-1810," Universitas Humanistica 8-9 (1974-75): 281-398, esp. 322-23. For Brazil see Aufderheide, "Order and Violence," 372-379, 390.

(15.) Haslip-Rivera, Crime and Punishment, 51. A probably irregular sample of 474 crimes committed in Mexico city from 1800 to 1812 includes just 25 homicides, close to 5% of the total crimes, or an average of just two per year. A larger, 4,352-arrest sample for 1798 Mexico City includes 13 homicides, a seemingly high number. See, respectively, Lozano Armendares, La criminalidad en la ciudad de Mexico, 65; and Michael Scardaville, "Crime and the Urban Poor: Mexico City in the late Colonial Period" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Florida, 1977), 38. For statistics on 1667-1816 Amsterdam, with an average of close to 8 annual murders, see Pieter Spierenburg, "Facets of Violence: Homicide Trends and Cultural Meanings: Amsterdam, 1431-1816," Journal of Social History 27, 4 (Summer, 1994): 701-716, esp. 707.

(16.) Taylor, Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion, 86.

(17.) Crimes of "uxoricidio" listed in the judicial archives used for this work do not include murders involving common-law partners, concubines, and lovers.

(18.) See Patino Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura social, 376. On late colonial Antioquia society and economy see Ann Twinam, Miners, Merchants and Farmers in Colonial Colombia (Austin, 1982).

(19.) Archivo General de la Nacion (hereafter AGN), Colonia, Juicios Criminales, Indice.

(20.) In 1890s Chicago, spousal murders (dubbed "divorce by bullets") reached one of their highest peaks to represent 13% of all homicides. See Adler, "My Mother-in-Law is to Blame," 259.

(21.) Data for this work primarily come from extant criminal cases of spousal homicide for the period l750-1810 found in the section Juicios Criminales of Colombia's Archivo General de la Nacion in Bogota. I thank Universidad Nacional de Colombia historians Alicia Florian and Luis Fernando Torres for helping me to gather this evidence. These records do not offer enough information on the northwestern province of Cartagena, the western province of Antioquia, and the southern province of Popayan. Therefore, they were supplemented with other primary evidence of family conflicts from the same Archivo's Juicios Criminales section and the Medellin-based Archivo Hist6rico de Antioquia's Fondo Criminal. Partial evidence for 5 additional cases comes from Sosa Abella, Labradores, tejadores y ladrones.

(22.) Notice that there are no records at all for the decade 1771-1780, and very few for the decades 1761-1770 and 1781-1790. An average of 8 to 10 murders of this type may have occurred per decade, in which case the total for the period under study may have been as high as 70.

(23.) Only a handful of cases (5.8% of the total) seem to have occurred in major urban centers-namely, 2 in Santa Fe and 1 in Medellin.

(24.) Similarly, although we donor have enough qualitative information, the high proportion of cases in Antioquia relative to this region's population is an issue requiring further study. On the demographic makeup of New Granada's regions see Anthony McFarlane, Colombia Before Independence. Economy, Society, and Politics Under Bourbon Rule (Cambridge, 1993), 353-363. Quantitative information on Antioquia is provided by Patiflo, Criminalidad, ley penal y estrucrura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376, 516.

(25.) For instance, there are surprisingly few cases (just three!) from the Cartagena area, in northwestern New Granada. Cartagena was the second most densely populated province and site of the viceroyalry's main commercial entrep6t and port, where reportedly 8.6% of all crimes in the viceroyalty took place. There are no records at all of cases from important and relatively densely populated areas such as Popayan, in southern New Granada, home to key gold mines and the prosperous southern valley of the Cauca river, an area of agriculture and livestock. A sample of 48 crimes committed in this region between 1591 and 1792 shows two cases of spousal homicide (one in 1591, another in 1629), suggesting the likelihood of further instances in the late colonial period. See Archivo Central del Cauca. Catalogo General. Judicial, Criminal, vol. 4, fol. 627, 631. See also German Colmenares, Historia econ6mica y social de Colombia, 11: Popayan: una sociedad esclavista, 1680-1800 (Bogota, 1979); idem., Cali: terratenientes , mineros y comercianres, Siglo XVIII (Cali, 1983).

(26.) For the mestizo character of late colonial New Granada see Ibid., 34.

(27.) Specialized research on crimes committed by Indians in New Granada's province of Tunja refers to a total of 6 cases of spousal homicide between 1740 and 1810. Only one case was part of my original sample. If added to my data, this information would mean that a total of 8 of 51 homicides against spouses were committed by Indians. See Guillermo Sosa Abella, Labradores, tejedores yladrones. Hurtos y homicidios en la provincia de Tunja, 1745-1810 (Bogot6, 1993), 60, 146-47. For a spousal homicide committed by an Mixtec Indian in late seventeenth-century Mexico see Terraciano, "Crime and Culture in Colonial Mexico." For a further discussion of Indians and Spousal homicides in late colonial Mexico see Victor M. Uribe-Uran, "Domestic Violence and The Law in Mexico, 1750-1810," Southeastern Conference on Latin American Studies, Veracruz, Mexico, March 1-5, 2001.

(28.) For the African component of New Granada's 1778-1780 population see McFarlane, Colombia Before Independence, 353. There are no specific statistics for mulanos and zambos. For the crimes committed by mulatos see AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 98, fols 899-1001; vol. 117, fols. 266-303. For a zambo murderer see vol. 204, fols. 488-613.

(29.) See Mcfarlane, Colombia Before Independence, 54-57.

(30.) See Haslip-Rivera, Crime and Punishment, 58-65; Lozano Armendares, La criminalidad en la ciudad de Mexico, 31-32; Scardaville, "Crime and the Urban Poor," 4-5; Taylor, "Amigos de sombrero," 73-74.

(31.) Scardaville, "Crime and the Urban Poor," 41; Haslip-Rivera, Crime and punishment, 55; Taylor, "Amigos de sombrero," 72-73.

(32.) Pablo Rodriguez, Sentimientos y vida familiar en el Nuevo Reino de Granada (Santafe de Bogota, 1997), 77.

(33.) Haslip-Rivera, Crime and Punishment, 56.

(34.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 163, fols. 452-477.

(35.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 61, fol. 549-552.

(36.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 3, fol. 423-424.

(37.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 97, fols. 778-784.

(38.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 204, fols. 488-613.

(39.) Taylor, Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion, 94-95; idem, "Amigos de sombrero," 78-80; Lozano Armendares, La criminalidad en la ciudad de Mexico, 67; Scardaville, "Crime and the Urban Poor," 40.

(40.) For the coal-throwing attack by 48-year-old day laborer Eugenio Verdugo against his wife, Maria, see AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 172, fols. 940. Fifty-seven-year-old farmer and weaver Juan F. Ortiz admitted that he refrego (stirred) with violence his wife Silvestra Nempaque's sexual organs, causing her mortal injury. Ibid., vol. 97, fol. 778, 784.

(41.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 167, fols. 292-326; vol. 36, fols. 622-768.) Spanish legal treatises dedicated extensive space to discussing homicides committed through poison. See Senen Vilanova y Manez, Materia criminal forense, o tratado universal teorico y practico de los delitos y delincuentes, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1807), 3: 41-45. On poison, arsenic in particular, as a common means of murder in the nineteenth century see Randa Helfield, "Female Poisoners of the Nineteenth-Century: A Study of Gender Bias in the Application of the Law," Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 28 (1990). For nineteenth-century France see also A. Lacassagne, "Notes statistiques sur l'empoisonnement criminal en France," Archives d' Anthropologie Criminelles et des Sciences Penales, 1(1886): 260-264.

(42.) Recent research shows, for example, that spousal homicides in late nineteenth century Chicago were the culmination of long-festering disputes and abuses. See Adler, "My Mother-in-Law is to Blame," 259; see also Pleck, Domestic Tyranny, 222-223.

(43.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 172, fols. 936-972.

(44.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 15, fols. 360-393.

(45.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 60, fols 775-895.

(46.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 207, fols. 448-492.

(47.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 97, fols. 776-831.

(48.) AHA, Criminales, Caja B-101, legajo 1800-1810, doc. 2, f. 16v.

(49.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 97, fols. 776-831.

(50.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 97, fols. 776-831

(51.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 181, fol. 489.

(52.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 169, fols. 955-986.

(53.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 41, fols. 673-765.

(54.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 204, fols. 488-613.

(55.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 3, fol. 423-424; vol. 61, fol. 549-552.

(56.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 117, fols. 226-303.

(57.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 117, fols. 226-303.

(58.) AHA, Criminales, Caja B-101, legajo 1800-1810, doc. 2, f. 2-4, 9-10, 16v; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura social en Antioquia, 376.

(59.) I could only examine a smaller portion of the 436 cases of "lesiones personales" (bodily injuries) available. AGN, Colonial, Juicios Criminales. Evidence of increase in maltrato cases in the late colonial period is provided in Patino Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura social, 265.

(60.) Silvia C. Mallo, "justicia, divorcio, alimentos y malos tratos en el Rio de la Plata," Investigaciones y ensayos 42 (Jan-Dec. 1992): 373-400; Susan Socolow, "Women and Crime. Buenos Aires, 1757-97," in Johnson, ed., The Problem of Order in Changing Societies, 1-18, esp. 4-6; Eugenia Rodriguez Saenz, "Ya me es insoportable mi matrimonio", El maltrato de las esposas en el Valle Central de Costa Rica (1750-1850)," Ciencias Sociales 68 (June, 1995): 73-93; idem, "Civilizing Domestic Life in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, 1750-1850,' in Elizabeth Dore and Maxine Molyneux, eds., Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America, 85-107; Juan Javier Pescador C., "Entre la espada y el olvido: Pleitos matrimoniales en el provisorato eclesiastico de Mexico," in Pilar Goizalbo Aizpuru, ed., La familia en el mundo iberoamericano (Mexico, D.F., 19), 193-225, esp., 202-205; Ward Stavig, Amor y violencia sexual. Valores indigenas en La sociedad colonial (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1995), 77-87; S tern, Secret History of Gender, passim; Socolow, Women of Colonial Latin America, 67.

(61.) See Patiflo, Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura social, 380, 405.

(62.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 181, fol. 489.

(63.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 170, fols. 922-974. In 1684 the Mixtec Indian Pedro de Caravantes killed his wife Maria de Montiel after charging her with adultery. This hints at the likelihood of similar cases throughout colonial Spanish America. See Terraciano, "Crime and Culture in Colonial Mexico."

(64.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 153, fols. 831-880.

(65.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 165, fols. 300-352.

(66.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 204, fols. 488-613.

(67.) Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva, Sistema de Casamenro no Brasil Colonial (Sao Paulo: Editora da Universidad de Sao Paulo, 1984), 194-195; Rodriguez, Senrimientos y vida familiar, 233-237; Lyman Johnson and Sonya Lipset-Rivera (eds.), The Faces of Honor. Sex, Shame and Violence in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque, 1999), 179-200; Socolow, "Women and Crime," 13.

(68.) See, to mention but a few works, Alfonso Garcia Valdecasas, El hidalgo y el honor (Madrid, 1948), 198-214; Albert S. Gerard, "The Loving Killers: The Rationale of Righteousness in Baroque Tragedy," Comparative Literature Studies 2 (1965): 209-232; Frank P. Casa, "Honor and the Wife-Killers of Calderon," Bulletin of the Comediantes 28 (1977): 27-31; Jorge Amado, Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (New York, 1988); and Matthew D. Stroud, Fatal Union. A Pluralistic Approach of the Spanish Wife-Murder Comedias (London, 1990).

(69.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 167, fol. 292-326.

(70.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 153, fol. 122-267.

(71.) AGN, Colonia,Juicios Criminales, vol. 61, fol. 541-651; vol.32, fol. 420-450.

(72.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 194, fol. 736-910.

(73.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 98, fol. 899-1001.

(74.) Stern, The Secret History of Gender, Chapter 4.

(75.) Women committed 33% of spousal murders in selected English counties from 1202 to 1276, and 34% in the period from 1300 to 1348; in Essex they were responsible for 33.3% in the 1560-1709 period; in Essex, Hertfordshire, and Sussex, 26% from 1559 to 1625. In Philadelphia, women were charged with 14.2% of spousal homicides committed between 1839 and 1901, and 47.2% between 1948 and 1952; and from 1963 to 1982, U.S. women were charged with 38% to 48% of these murders. See Pleck, Domestic Tyranny, 223-224. See also Pieter Spierenburg, ed. Men and Violence, Gender, Honor and Rituals in Modern Europe and America (Ohio, 1998).

(76.) Susan Socolow, "Women and Crime," 4.

(77.) Haslip-Rivera, Crime and Punishment, 56.

(78.) Aufderheide, "Order and Violence," 216. Statistical tables offered later seem to indicate female arrests to have been as high as 16% of the total, still a modest figure. Ibid., 375, 380

(79.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales. Indice.

(80.) J.M. Beattie, "The Criminality of Women in Eighteenth-Century England," Journal of Social History 8 (Summer, 1975): 80-116, esp. 85.

(81.) Lozano Armendares, La criminalidad en la ciudad de Mexico, 127.

(82.) AGN, Colonia. Juicios Criminales. Indice. Out of a total 374 homicides, women appear to have been involved in just 30, half of the time with male accomplices. Men alone committed over 332.

(83.) James Buchanan Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth Century England (Stanford, 1977), 56-61.

(84.) Sharpe, "Domestic Homicide," 36.

(85.) Marvin E. Wolfgang, Patterns of Criminal Homicide (New York, 1966).

(86.) For a clear summary of such views see Sharpe, "Domestic Homicide," 36.

(87.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 181, fols. 476-562; vol. 61, fols. 541-651; vol. 60, fols. 775-895; vol. 172, fols. 936-972; vol. 169, fols. 955-986; vol. 15, fols. 360-393; vol. 32, fols. 420-450;

(88.) AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 117, fols. 226-303; vol. 36, fols. 1-175; vol. 41, fols. 673-765; vol. 153, fols. 122-267. A few of the fugitives managed to evade justice for several years. See, for instance, the case of Maria T. Saavedra and her lover, Matias, who spent three years in hiding (ibid., vol. 108, fols. 950-951). It took four years to apprehend 32-year-old tailor Antonio Nieto (ibid., vol. 16, fols. 755-831). Almost 15 years passed before weaver Maria Quintero was questioned about her crime (ibid., vol. 36, fols. 8-9).

(89.) Ultimately, however, someone who heard the story from one of the participants denounced the crime to the local alcalde. AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 163, fols. 452-477.

(90.) For buried bodies see AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 98, fols. 899-1001; vol. 167, fols. 292-326; vol. 194, fols. 736-910. For corpses thrown into rivers and creeks see vol. 169, fols. 650-729; vol. 161, fols. 557-604; vol. 108, fols. 911-966.

(91.) Juan Alvarez Posadilla, Practica criminal por principios, o modo y forma de instruir los procesos criminales, 3 vols. (Valladolid, 1802), 3:101; Eugenio de Tapia, Febrero Novisimo o libreria de jueces, abogados y escribanos, 10 vols. (Valencia, 1830), 7:123-124. On the difference between delitos privados and delitos publicos (subject to automatic prosecution) see Ignacio Jordan de Asso y del Rio and Miguel de Manuel y Rodriguez, Instituciones del derecho civil de Castilla (Madrid: Imprenta de Francisco Garcia, 1771), ccxxv-ccxlvii.

(92.) This was standard practice in cases of assault and homicide. See Vilanova y Manez, Materia criminal forense, 3:35; Juan Sala, Ilustracion del derecho real de Espana, 5 vols. (Mexico, 1833), 5:18-19.

(93.) See, for instance, AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 60, fols. 775-895; vol 169, fol. 956.

(94.) See AGN, Colonia, Juicios Ciminales, vol. 15, fol. 361; vol. 153, fol. 831.

(95.) Farmer Eugenio Verdugo attributed the death of his badly beaten wife to tavardillo, a disease which she allegedly suffered from (AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 172, fol. 969); Francisco A. Leon argued that his poisoned wife died of a stomach ailment (ibid., vol. 167, fol. 293); so did day laborer Vicente Gomez, who also claimed that his wife had menstruation-related colic, got wet while crossing a creek, and got even sicker from eating prunes (ibid., vol. 169, fol. 964); 46-year-old white farmer and hatmaker Martin Ruiz claimed that his wife died not from stabbings but due to a maleficio or spell which damaged her liver (ibid., vol. 181, fol. 489).

(96.) Only on one occasion were they charged with neglect; most of the time these officials acted promptly and efficiently. See exceptional accusations of procrastination (morosidad) against an official who took over a decade to prosecute the case. AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 36, fol. 1-175.

(97.) See, for instance, the case of Jacinto Gonzalez, whose death sentence for stabbing his wife to death was reduced to 10 years in prison; and farmer Emigdio Pabon and boat paddler Tomas A. Sierra, who were sentenced to death by hanging or similar crimes but on appeal had their sentences reduced to 8 and 10 years in prison, respectively. AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 170, fols. 922-974; vol. 41, fols. 673-765; vol. 204, fols. 488-613.

(98.) Such was the case of Marfa T. Saavedra and her lover. The two were caught after their escape and spent two years in jail, but were later amnestied by a royal decree (indulto) issued in 1760. AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 108, fol. 951.

(99.) See, for instance, AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 117, fol. 298.

(100.) AHA, Criminales, Caja B-101, legajo 1800-1810, doc. 2, f.6v.

(101.) Weaver Maria del C. Martinez and white male hatmaker Martin Ruiz did not receive any leniency. Their death sentences were confirmed in 1799 and 1800, respectively. AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 61, fol. 550; ibid., vol. 181, fol. 51. The other woman whose death sentence was abrogated owed the reduction in punishment to the very fact that she was trying to defend herself. AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 117, fol. 298.

(102.) See AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, vol. 41, fol. 763; ibid., vol 204, fol. 606.

(103.) See Daisy Ripodaz Ardanas, El matrimonio en lndias. Realidad social y regulacion jundica (Buenos Aires, 1977), 383, 388; Nizza Da Silva, Sistema de Casamiento, 212, 219-231.

(104.) See "Real instruccion de Corregidores de 15 de Mayo de 1788" cited in Tapia, Febrero novisimo, 7:142; and, Vilanova y Manez, Materia criminal forense, 1:309.

(105.) Tapia, Febrero Novisimo, 7:141-142.

(106.) See Ibid.; Vilanova y Manez, Materia criminal forense, 1:309; 3:52.

(107.) See Partida 4, tit. 2, Ley 14 and 19. See Juan N. Rodriguez de S. Miguel, Pandectas Hispano-Megicanas, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1852), 2:425, 427, 475; Los codigos espanoles concordados y anotados, 12 vols. (Madrid, 1872), 3:419, 422.

(108.) Partida 7, tit. 17, ley 12 and 13, Ibid., 477. See also Rafael Serra Ruiz, Honor, honra e injuria en el derecho medieval espanol (Murcia, 1969), 236-237.

(109.) Ibid., 237. On the light punishment (i.e., banishment) of male compared to female adulterio (flogging and seclusion in a convent), see Asso y del Rio and Manuel y Rodriguez, Instituciones del derecho civil de castilla, ccxlvii.

(110.) Juan Sala, Sala Mexicano, a sea Ilustracion al Derecho Real de Espana ... ilustrada con noticias oportunas sabre el derecho romano, y las leyes y principios que actualmente rigen en la republica mexicana, 4 vols. (Mexico, 1845), 3: 427-428.

(111.) See Toro's law 82. Ibid., 477-478; Los codigos espanoles, 6:581; Sancho de Llamas y Molina, Comentario critico-jurdico-literal a las ochenta y tres Leyes del Toro, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1827), 1:333-341.

(112.) See lib. 12, tir. xxviii, ley v, in Los codigos espanoles, 10:95.

(113.) Socolow, "Women and Crime," 4; idem., The Women of Colonial Latin America, pp.148.

(114.) Alternative views for late colonial women can be found in Silvia Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, 1790-1857 (Stanford, 1985), pp. 46-48 . See also Socolow, Women of Colonial Latin America, pp. 65, 113-115, 126.

(115.) For an early formulation of the public/domestic analytic dichotomy to explain women's subordination see Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo, "Woman, Culture and Society: A Theoretical Overview," in Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds., Woman, Culture, and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 17-43 Anna Yeatman, "Gender and the Differentiation of Social Life into Public and Domestic Domains," Social Analysis, 15 (August, 1984): 32-49. For a historical discussion of the early cultural transformation of domesticity see Glenna Matthews, "Just a Housewife [23] The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America (Oxford, 1987), esp. chaps. 1-3. See also critiques and recent evaluations of the public/domestic split in Joan B. Landes, "The Public and the Private Sphere : A Feminist Reconsideration," in Johanna Meehan, ed., Feminists Read Habermas: Gendering the Subject of Discourse (New York, 1995), pp. 91-116 and Alejandro Lugo and Bill Mauer, "The Legacy of Michelle Rosaldo: Politi cs and Gender in Modem Societies," in Alejandro Lugo and Bill Mauer, eds., Gender Matters. Rereading Michelle Z. Rosaldo (Ann Arbor, 2000), 16-34. 1 thank my colleague Lara Kriegel for discussing with me some of the issues raised in this literature.

(116.) See Pedro Viqueira Alba, Propriety and Permissiveness in Bourbon Mexico (Wilmington, DE, 1999); William H. Beezley, Cheryl English Martin, and William E. French, eds., Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance. Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico (Wilmington, DE, 1994).

(117.) See numerous instances of this situation in Stem, The Secret History of Gender.

Table 1
Violent Crimes in Selected Spanish American Colonial Regions
                                     Homicides/
Years              place              assaults   Population
1780-1815   New Spain
             --Central Mexico           344        140,000 [a]
               (Mexico and Hidalgo)
             --Mixteca Alta             100
               (Teposcula)
                                         --
                                        444
1750-1810s  New Granada [*]             893        792,468 [b]
             --Santa Fe                 193         91,147
             --Antioquia [c]            247         46,366 [d]
             --Tunja                    126        236,429
             --Pamplona [e]             123         34,118
            Index per
Years        10.000
1780-1815
              24.5
1750-1810s    11.2
              21.2
              53.3
               5.3
              36.1
Sources: Colombia's Archivo General de la Nacion (hereafter AGN),
Colonia, Juicios Criminales, Indice; Taylor, Drinking, Homicide &
Rebellion, 75; Haslip-Rivera, Crime and Punishment, chapter 3;
Lozano Armendares, La criminalidad en la ciudad de Mexico, 43.
Judging by research on Antioquia, regional data are significantly more
comprehensive. When available they were added to the general data used
here. See, for instance, Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura
social, 257, 534. Misleading partial figures (i.e., 160 homicides, 72
injury cases) for the entire viceroyalty, based upon a sample of over
500 cases, are offered in Gabriel de Dominguez, "Delito sociated," 337;
McFarlane, Colombia Before Independence, 353.
(a)early nineteenth-century population of Mexico City
(b)1778-1780 population of New Granada
(c)data for 1750-1819 from regional archives used by Patino,
Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura social, 257, 534.
(d)1778-1780 population of Antioquia
(e)Including Giron
Table 2
Violent Crimes in Some New Granada Provinces, 1750-1810
Region                     Homicides  Spousal homicides
                                         absolute #
New Granada                  447             51
 --City of Arnioquia [*]      44             10
 --Province of Cartagena      36              3
 --Province of Los Llanos     11              4
 --Province of Mariquita      27              1
 --Province of Neiva           8              1
 --Province of Pamplona       88              9
 --Province of Santa Fe       94              7
 --Province of Tunja [**]     85             14
Region                                       Bodily Injuries
                           as % of homicid.
New Granada                     11.4%              436
 --City of Arnioquia [*]        22.7%              203
 --Province of Cartagena         8.3%               16
 --Province of Los Llanos       36.3%                8
 --Province of Mariquita         3.7%               19
 --Province of Neiva            12.5%               --
 --Province of Pam plona        10.2%               35
 --Province of Santa Fe          7.4%               99
 --Province of Tunja [**]       16.4%               41
Source: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales, Indice; Sosa Abella,
Labradores, tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146-47.
(*)Data from Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y estructura social en la
provincia de Antioquia, 376, 516.
(**)Data refer only to homicides in this region involving Indians
Table 3
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1754-1808, by Decade.
Years      Number
1750-1759     7
1760-1769     4
1770-1779     3
1780-1789     5
1790-1799    10
1800-1809    21
1810-1812     1
Total        51
Source: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales; Sosa Abella, Labroadores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146-47; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y
estructura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376, 516; Gloria Luna
Rivillas, "Documentos para el estudio de la criminalidad sexual en la
provincia y gobernacion de Antioquia (Siglos 17 y 18)." Tesis de
historia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellin, 1988, 554-564.
Table 4
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1756--1808, by Region
Province Town      Total Number  Percent of total
                                 spousal murders
Antioquia               10             19.6
Cartagena                3              5.8
Neiva                    1              1.9
Los Llanos               4              7.8
Santa Fe/Marquita        8             15.6
Tunja/Pamplona          23             45
Other                    2              3.9
Total                   51
Province Town         Percent of New
                   Granada populat. [*]
Antioquia                   5.8
Cartagena                  14.9
Neiva                       3.3
Los Llanos                  2.6
Santa Fe/Marquita          18.2
Tunja/Pamplona             34.1
Other
Total
Source: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales; Sosa Abella, Labradores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146-47; McFarlane, Colombia before
Independence, 353-363; Partifio, Criminalidad, ley penaly estructura
social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376, 516; Luna Rivillas,
"Documentos para el estudio de la criminalidad sexual en la provincia
y gobernacion de Antioquia," 554-564.
(*)data from 1778-1780 census.
Table 5
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1756-1808, by the
Defendant's Ethnicity
                        Percentage of   Ethnic Group
                        Defendants of  as a Percentage
Ethicity      Number     Known Race     of population
Whites           2          10.5            25.6
Indians          8          42.1            19.7
Mestizos         6          31.5
Mulattoes        2 [*]      10.5            46.4
Zambos           1           5.2
Blacks          --            --             8.1% [+]
Undetermined    33          63.4 [a]
                --
                52
Source: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales; Sosa Abella, Labradores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146-47; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y
estructura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376; Luna Rivillas,
"Documentos para el estudio de la criminalidad sexual en la provincia
y gobernacion de Antioquia," 554-564; "Padron general del Virreinato
del Nuevo Reino de Granada," in Jose Manuel Perez Ayala, Antonio
Caballero y Gongora. Virrey y arzobispo de Santafe, 1723-1796 (Bogota;
Imprenta Municipal, 1946).
(*)One was an accomplice in a crime committed by his lover, a white
woman;
(+)refers to black slaves. woman; + refers to black slaves.
(a)As percentage of total defendants.
Table 6
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1756-1808, by the Defendant's
Occupation
Occupation       Number   Percentage of Defendants
                            by Known Occupation
Chicha retailer    2 [*]            6.6
Cook               1                3.3
Day laborer        4 [*]           13.3
Laundress          1                3.3
Farmer             7               23.3
Hatmaker           1 [*]            3.3
Housewife          1                3.3
Miner              1                3.3
Potmaker           1 [+]            3.3
Salt retailer      1                3.3
Boat rower         1                3.3
Tailor             1                3.3
Shearer            1 [*]            3.3
Weaver             6 [*]           20
Unemployed         1                3.3
Undetermined      23               45 [a]
                  --
                  53
Source: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales: Sosa Abella, Labrodores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146-47; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y
estructura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376; Luna Rivillas,
"Documentos para el estudio de la criminalidad sexual en la provincia
y gobernacion de Antioquia," 554-564.
(*)at least one in each row combined this activity with farming;
(+)combined this activity with weaving; all of these are included
in the final total count just once). Table includes accomplices in two
of the murders.
(a)As percentage of total defendants.
Table 7
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1756-1808, by the Defendant Age.
Age           Number   Percentage of Defendants
                             of Known Age
20-25           5                19.2
26-30           5 [*]            19.2
31-35           3 [*]            11.5
36-40           5                19.2
40-45           2                 7.6
46-50           4                15.3
51-55           1                 3.8
56-60           1                 3.8
61-65           --                --
66-70           --                --
over 70         --                --
Undetermined    27               52.9 [a]
                --
                53
Source: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales; Sosa Abella, Labradores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146-47; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y
estructura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376; Luna Rivillas,
"Documentos para el estudio de la criminalidad sexual en la provincia
y gobernacion de Antioquia," 554-564. (*) includes at least one
accomplice. (a) As percentage of total defendants.
Table 8
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1756-1808, by Method
Methods         Number    Percentage of known
                                Methods
Stabbings          9             34.6
Fists, kicking     6              23
Machete wounds     5             19.2
Clubs              2              7.6
Rocks              2              7.6
Poison             1              3.8
Other              1 [*]          3.8
Undermined        25             49 [a]
                  --
                  51
Sources: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales; Sosa Abella, Labradores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146-47; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y
estructura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376; Luna Rivillas,
"Documentos para el estudio de la criminalidad sexual en 554-564,
(*)throwing burning coal on victim's face. (a)As a percentage of
total murders.
Table 9
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1756--1808, by Defendant's Gender
and Motive
Motive                                  Number
Males
  Constant unexplained fights             6
  Dispute over in-laws                    2 [*]
  Disobeying a husband's orders           5 [*]
  To run away with lover                  2
  Victim's infidelity                     4
  Victim's attempt to stop family         1
  feud
  Unclear                                 7
Females
  Response to verbal or physical abuse    7
  Victim's infidelity                     2 [*]
  To be with lover                        3 [+]
  unclear                                 5
Gender of Killer not known
  Unclear                                 7
Sources: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales; Sosa Abella, Labradores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146-47; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y
estructura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376; Luna Rivillas,
"Documentos para el estudio de la criminalidad sexual en la provincia
y gobernacion de Antioquia," 554-564.
(*)Specific motive associated with constant fights;
(+)specific motive associated with responses to verbal or physical
abuse.
Table 10
General Homicides in New Granada, 1756--1808, by the Defendant's Gender
Gender        Number  Percentage
Men            332       88.7
Women           30        8
Undetermined    12        3.2
  Total        374
Sources: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales.
Table 11
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1756--1808, by the Defendant's Gender
Gender        Number  Percentage of Defendants
                          of Known Gender
Men             29              65.9
Women           15              34
Undetermined     7              13.7 [a]
  Total         51
Sources: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales; Sosa Abella, Labradores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146--47; Patino, Criminalidad, ley penal y
estructura social en la provincia de Antioquia, 376; Luna Rivillas,
"Documentos para el estudio de la criminalidad sexual en la provincia
y gobernacion de Antioquia," 554--564.
(a)As percentage of all defendants.
Table 12
Spousal Homicides in New Granada, 1756--1808, by Punishment
of Defendants
Punishment                       Number [+]  Percent of same gender
Men
  1-5 years prison                    6               14.2
  6-10 years prison                  17               40.4
  11 years or more                   --                 --
  life in prison                      2                4.7
  death by hanging                    4 [*]            9.5
  pardon                              1                2.3
  undetermined                       12               28.5
Women
  1-5 years prison                    1                7.1
  6-10 years prison                   5               35.7
  11 years or more                   --                 --
  life in prison                     --                 --
  death by hanging                    1                7.1
  pardon                              1                7.1
  undetermined                        6               42.8
Gender of Defendant Unspecified
  Undetermined                        7
Punishment                       Percent of total
Men
  1-5 years prison                     10.7
  6-10 years prison                    30.3
  11 years or more                       --
  life in prison                        3.5
  death by hanging                      7.1
  pardon                                1.7
  undetermined                         21.4
Women
  1-5 years prison                      1.7
  6-10 years prison                     8.9
  11 years or more                       --
  life in prison                         --
  death by hanging                      1.7
  pardon                                1.7
  undetermined                         10.7
Gender of Defendant Unspecified
  Undetermined
Source: AGN, Colonia, Juicios Criminales; Sosa Abella, Labradores,
tejedores y ladrones, 60, 146--47; Luna Rivillas, "Documentos para el
estudio de la criminalidad sexual en la provincia y gobernacion de
Antioquia," 554-564.
(*)includes at least one woman's accomplice.
(+)The total adds up to more than 51 cases, for the table include both
the original sentence and the reduced one, as well as the punishment
met by two accomplices in these crimes.