The Kongolese Joan of Arc (sorta)

Thornton’s writing about the political and religious turmoil in Kongo at the close of the 17^th c., and the chronicle of Kimpa Vita (Kongolese), or Dona Beatriz if you prefer the Portuguese variant, is written to appeal to a large, non-academic, readership.  Indeed, the author writes that his primary goal “is not to break new interpretive ground but to present a narrative account of the movement in a way that is accessible to a non-academic audience.” (p. 7)  It seems that most of what is known about the Kongolese Saint Anthony and her [Antonian] movement, is through the accounts of Italian (Capuchin) priests.  These missionaries were certainly not impartial observers, and it is certainly understandable that a certain amount of guesswork is needed – as we have seen time and again throughout this term – and as we see in many places in The Kongolese Saint Anthony and what Thornton thinks is likely to have happened, as opposed to what we know happened based on evidence.  Thornton addresses this by saying “the modern scholar has little choice but to try to read between the lines and hope that the Kongolese viewpoint can be surmised.” (p. 3)  This book is a narrative based largely on eyewitness observations of the primary sources, and Thornton hopes the reader can “see beyond the prejudices of the missionary sources.” (p. 5)  It seems to me that a common theme of microhistories has developed as, forgive the comparison, “fill in the blank, ” at least when and where it’s necessary to interpret sources.  I did like this book, especially since I thought there was a strong tie to the Annales School in the detailed descriptions of landscape, ordinary life and work, and religious beliefs and practices.  This book really (fondly) reminds me of Le Roy LaDurie’s Montaillou.

          In side reading about Thornton’s Kimpa Vita, and Kongo, I came across an interesting comparison of the Kongolese Saint Anthony to Joan of Arc.  Considering Kimpa Vita’s prophetic mission to restore the politically and spiritually fragmented Kingdom of Kongo,  Simon Bockie at UC Berkeley compares the two heroines and their “prophetically inspired crusade to throw off foreign influences” as complementary.  I thought it was an interesting idea and thought I would share it.

Saint Anthony: Micro or Macro?

The question that occurs to me after reading The Kongolese Saint Anthony, at least with regard to the subject of our class, is how this book fits into our evolving concept of microhistory.

I felt like most of the book focused on setting out the historical context of the Dona Beatriz movement.  In the first half of the book, there were brief references to her in each chapter, but those references were infrequent and seemed forced, as if trying to place her in the story before she became relevant (for example, stating that while Dona Beatriz was "undergoing initiation" as a nganga, such and such else was happening  -- page 59).  The facts of her story do not begin until page 105 of a 214 page book.  Her life ends with 30 pages left in the book, so one can say that the majority of the book does not directly involve her story.  This does not harm the book or make it any less interesting, but it does make me wonder whether this is really a microhistory about Dona Beatriz or rather a macrohistory about a multi-decade period of Kongolese history that involved warring factions, religious conflicts, interfering priests, and a strange religious rebel who threatened both the religious and political establishment.

Does this book meet our definition of a microhistory: a social history that conveys personal experience and serves as a lens for larger issues?  With regard to being a social history, a large part of the book involves background information about Kongolese political maneuvering.  With regard to personal experiences, a majority of the book is a history of the Kongo rather than Dona Beatriz's personal experiences.  Finally, with regard to being a lens for larger issues, Saint Anthony does appear to fulfill this criteria.  The eventual focus on Dona Beatriz leads the reader to better understand what happened at this point in time in the Kongo and shines light on the origins of some American slaves.  If it meets some but not all of the definition, then perhaps this book can be best described as a hybrid microhistory.

By the way, perhaps I'll save some others the trouble of looking up two things that I didn't know: the word Capuchin is originally from the Italian word for hood, referring to the monk's habit, and the spelling of Kongo was later changed by the Belgians to the present day Congo.

Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance: The Good Wife

By several different standards, Francisco Noguerol de Ulloa was a prize idiot. Not only in political matters - like writing to the king to nitpick him about his policies in Peru - but in personal matters as well. Specifically his marriages - though if he were not an idiot, history probably wouldn't know his name. Now, by the standards of the time in which he lived, he was a fool for marrying his mistress before 100% knowing that his wife was dead. By modern standards, he was not only a fool for marrying where he did not love in the first place, but he was a fool for not divorcing his first wife before going off to sea.  

As with most of the other books, we got a good peek inside the legal system. Though this was different because, for Noguerol at least, this was a kinder legal system than the ones that have been used to judge the peasants that we've read about. This was the system that the nobles were used to, and a wonderful job was done within the text to create the role of the court in his life, and by extension, how the government affected the noble's lives and their standards of decency. 

One thing that I did find disappointing was how supremely the author was on Noguerol's side. To be fair, if one is writing a book about a subject, any subject, there is no doubt there will be an attachment there. But the treatment of Beatriz within the constraints of the text is extremely unforgiving. She is depicted as (how no doubt) Noguerol saw her - a vindictive shrew who, despite not hearing for her husband in 22 years except to finally hear that he is to be married to another woman - is a completely unforgivable road bump to his and Catalina's love. I'm aware that the author is intrinsically biased and the story is, for all intents and purposes, Noguerol's, but wouldn't it be interesting (at least from a historical perspective, if not for fairness' sake) to show how Beatriz must have been treated societally when the news breaks? 

Especially in light of the portrayal of Catalina, who is, again, seen as Noguerol would have seen her - an almost Venus-like savior, lighting his way out of his crappy marriage. This dichotomy reads like a terrible romantic comedy in parts, the way that the women are shepherded into tropes based on what one deeply selfish and extremely biased man thinks.  

The Cooks Found Treasure in the Archives

The Cooks’ use of evidence in Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance was nothing like we have read this semester. Compared to the other microhistories we read, it is clear that the Cooks had the wealthiest source base, and they definitely put it to work. They presented the evidence in the most transparent fashion of all the books we have read so far as well. Unlike Ulrich, who provided snippets of Martha Ballard’s diary to illuminate the issues of the chapter, the Cooks insert seemingly complete letters or full petitions to the court (8, 43-44, 49-50) in to the text. I think this strategy goes a long way to further their argument. Due to this use of sources, the reader gets a much more in depth knowledge of the subjects and the nature of the Spanish legal system.

The difference seems to be driven much by the sources available. Natalie Davis could not have provided near as much detail because she had only two source documents available and they were really secondary sources as well. The Cooks had a wealth of sources at their hands. Most of all, they used them critically. The problems in Noguerol’s story on when he knew that Beatriz was alive, or when problems with testimony that Catalina and Noguerol did not know one another before their marriage are well articulated and defended (82, 97). In short, the documents are brought to the forefront of the text frequently, but not uncritically, or in all reality to actually speak for themselves. They do, however, move the story forward, and provide an engaging prose style, for which one must also praise the translations by the Cooks as well.

Strong Willed Women

  Although Good Faith is based largely on legal records, it is not a legal history.  The book is a great example of how, by looking at daily life and experience (like in A Midwife’s Tale), we can learn about and better understand complex institutions and social customs / processes.  In Good Faith, as in the works this semester by Davis and Ginzburg, the lives of lesser known people (who probably would never have been known) are well documented in the court cases that were argued, in this case, before Spain’s Council of the Indies.  One of the key questions at the heart of this book by Cook and Cook is the question of whether or not an unconsummated marriage constituted a legal marriage.  Or, more simply, what in particular constituted a marriage at all?

  There is great detail of Francisco Nogeurol de Ulloa’s life on both sides of the Atlantic, and good portraits emerge of the women in Francisco’s life, all of whom appear as strong willed individuals with their own personal agendas and (seemingly) the resources to implement them.  For example, Beatriz never fully accepted the invalidation of her marriage.  She lived quietly until she heard of Francisco’s death in 1581, at which time she successfully appealed the ruling against the validity of her marriage.  She then filed suit to demand half of de Nogeurol’s estate.  In a way very familiar to us today, the wives settled to avoid a long battle – complete with Beatriz agreeing not to further pursue Catalina or her heirs.   This work made me wonder if one of the points was to highlight the ability of the rich to influence legal decisions.  Although I'm not sure the book is all about money;  I wonder instead - is Good Faith a 16th century love story, like Davis’s The Return of Martin Guerre?

The Noguerol Lens

Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance is an interesting approach to microhistory because it represents a change from the books we have read previously in this course. The first four books, Montaillou, Cheese and the Worms, Return of Martin Guerre, and Midwife’s Tale, all had peasants or commoners as their main subjects. Unlike these figures, Francisco Noguerol de Ulloa is a “lesser noble,” enjoying a certain level of wealth and privilege despite facing some hardships along the way. His position and connections were such that he had the audacity to write to Charles V advising him on his policies in Peru. Perhaps because of his status, or just because of his unchecked ambition and selfishness, I found him to be less relatable and admirable than the protagonists in our other histories. Even Arnaud du Tilh, the con artist who passed himself off as Martin Guerre, had some redeeming qualities that left us wondering if he might have had altruistic or laudable motives for his actions. Noguerol, on the other hand, showed few likable qualities. He abandoned Beatriz – a wife for whom he admittedly had no love – but as Chris Lemos pointed out in his blog post, this abandonment left her alone and with no options for having a family of her own. Beatriz was left virtually imprisoned in loneliness by her unfortunate marriage and her own piety. With no regard for the impact on Beatriz, Noguerol sailed for Peru in search of fortune and adventure. He found both, but along the way he vacillated between support of the crown and the rebellious factions, depending on which side seemed better poised to advance his ambitions; he treated the native population as chattel, imploring the king to “give Indians” (as slaves) to the conquistadors in reward for their services; he was granted an encomienda, and extracted exorbitant tribute from the native inhabitants. None of this was unusual, of course. Noguerol was behaving in exactly the same manner as his peers, and it’s important to avoid the “presentist” fallacy of imposing modern values on historical figures, but that does not make his actions any more palatable to the 21^st century reader.

This harsh analysis of Noguerol leads me to relate Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance to last week’s discussion about “historians who love too much.” Like Jill Lapore, writing about the unlikable Noah Webster, Alexandra Parma Cook and Noble David Cook take on Francisco Noguerol’s story as a lens on the human side of 16^th century imperialism. You don’t have to love Noguerol to see the value of his life as a means of understanding his times. This is the root of microhistory – gaining a broader perspective by looking through a smaller lens.

Doña Beatriz

I thought Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance was a great book.  I may have missed this while I was reading, but what was doña Beatriz doing for those decades while Noguerol was overseas?  The authors make it clear that she was pious, which, for women, was equated with honor at the time, and that she would not take another husband.  However, I wish the authors had delved more into her story.  While I felt sympathetic for doña Catalina and Noguerol since it seemed like they really had believed that their marriage was legitimate, I also felt really bad for doña Beatriz.  She had lived, according to the authors, piously for 22 years while her husband was overseas making a fortune, and yet she saw hardly any of that until the end of her life.  We saw when we read the Return of Martin Guerre how difficult it was for Bertrande to live while Martin Guerre had run off to fight for Spain, and how it was natural for her to want Martin replaced.  I also thought it was interesting how we saw similar rules about marriage in Martin Guerre, and how Bertrande's (supposed) honest belief that she was legally married was similar to Noguerol's.  However, I felt as though the authors in this book portrayed doña Beatriz in a somewhat negative light, as a nagging ex-wife.  Anyways, I would have liked to known more about doña Beatriz and more about how she had carried on with life while Noguerol was gone.

Money is the Root of it All?

On the surface, Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance is the engrossing tale of how an arranged marriage caused its participants years of turmoil.  Underneath that surface, one sees that money may be the greater tale.  If the great motivators in life are power, sex and greed, it seems that one thesis of this book is that money rules them all.

What an interesting twist to a microhistory, ostensibly about "a case of transatlantic bigamy:"  that it could also be a microhistory about the role of money in motivating the behavior of the participants in this transatlantic world.  Money concerns created Francisco's arranged marriage, dreams of money sent young Francisco to the Americas, in Peru, Francisco subjugated the indigenous peoples to extract money, Francisco's new wealth attracted a second wife and the attention of his spurned wife, and Francisco spent the rest of his life fighting to keep his money.  Even the King of Spain rose and fell on the issue of finances, which filtered down to affect Francisco.  The resolution of the bigamy charge, so contested for so many years, was ultimately paved over with a modest amount of money.  Francisco envisioned that he could create a legacy for himself with promises of money to the church.  Ironically, greed for his ill-gotten gains destroyed the chapel containing his and dona Catalina's remains, and proved divisive for his heirs.  Historians, always follow the money!

The Midwife's Life is Rife with Strife

Ulrich does some fascinating things with her sources in A Midwife's Tale. The work is both more far reaching and focused than I thought would have been possible. It touches on themes ranging from cottage industry, medical theories, gender roles and more all the while exploring the personal histories of a growing new England town in the days of the early republic. By doing so Ulrich demonstrates how microhistory can give us a snapshot of, "an era of profound change," while also showing how Martha Ballard's diary, "does more than reflect an era." (27) By comparing Ballard's diary entries with the writings of prominent male residents of Hallowell like Henry Sewall we see the complex daily reality that is invisible behind the more political concerns on which historians have traditionally focused. The "social medicine" practiced by midwives like Martha permeated throughout the networks of relationships of the community she inhabited, yet women like her are often hard to find, Ulrich argues, because healers like her were almost indistinguishable from the people they served. (61) This is before the so called professionalization of medicine that would develop in western capitalist society as the 19th century progressed. Ulrich's insights into the nature of gender relations in family production and the impact of seasonal changes are strengthened by her talent as a descriptive writer. But for me what makes this work so helpful as a microhistory is the way she structures her chapters. Beginning with the diary accounts she then constructs a narrative and then supplements that narrative with details from other sources. In doing so she manages to inform the reader of so much while not doing the blatant 'zoom-in-zoom-out' technique. I don't even want to think about how long it took to write something like this.   

Midwife's Tale

To me, the Midwife's Tale was a complete 180 from much of the history that I've been taught in school - mostly long sets of dates and various white men killing each other. Women's history is pretty much nonexistent in the mainstream canon, at least as far as I've experienced it. What I know about women in history is what I've learned myself, and even then it's been through the prism of another man's story or voice. So I found it extremely refreshing not only to learn about a woman, but to learn about a woman who was not in the upper echelons of society, and (mostly) in her own words to boot. I was particularly interested in the actual medicinal descriptions, mostly because the only thing that I know about medicine from this era is leeching, so getting a look into the ways that women conducted birth is fascinating. I was particularly interested in the part that described how Martha noted each of the births that she attended. The way that she not only described the mother's health and the fee paid, but how she got there was a revealing look into her lifestyle and what she could afford. (180) Also, discussing how rarely doctors were called in births was really fascinating, because today they're considered vital.

Our 'relationship' with the past

The article we read for this week as well as Ulrich’s work on Martha Ballard’s diary really got me thinking on what constitutes a microhistory and also helped me garnish a different viewpoint on the subject. A Midwife’s Tale reminded me heavily of the work of Kierner’s Scandal at Bizarre (which we will read later this semester). They both focus on the home life of women right after the American Revolution and the grand social, political, economic, and scientific/technological changes occurring during this period. They both even follow roughly the same timeframes from the 1780’s through the early nineteenth century.

In conjunction with the article by Jill Lepore, I really started to analyze what differs a microhistory from a biography. She lays out four ‘propositions’ that, in her mind, define a microhistory. I found such an analysis to be enlightening yet problematic. Each one of her propositions has its limits and in the end she seems to conclude that the lines between microhistory and biographies are blurred and ultimately come down to what one considers a microhistory to be. Seemingly, this brings us back to square one. However, I think what needs to be highlighted was brought up on the first day of class when we attempted to define (and still are) microhistory. Perhaps, it is why and how something is written that differs it as a microhistory. The purpose is what defines it.

In a sense, though as Lepore notes it cannot be an all-encompassing declaration, biographies tend to render the authors interpretation of a single individual for the sake of said character and importance. A microhistorian can approach a subject similarly, however instead they tend to ask larger questions in smaller places. In some ways this is sort of the inverse of many biographers. Whereas biographers tend to attempt to render their individuals on the global stage, a microhistorian, perhaps attempts to understand the larger theme/’global stage’ from the minute. Their approach differs drastically.

When it comes to the subject of biographers and microhistorians, Lepore touches on the love/passion an author/historian may acquire from so long an investigation. They tend to see a bit of themselves or something relatable in their focus. This subject REALLY intrigued me. On the one hand, such a passion/love can make us blind and thus diminish our objectivity. On the other hand however, if we relate or emotionally connect with our work, it seems we would have a better understanding of motive and larger interconnectivity. One must tread a fine line however, for our motive inherently differ from others.

Part of why I thought so much on that subject is that a couple years back I was doing research for the U.S. House Historian’s Office on the first Filipino Resident Commissioners in the House. My main subject was Benito Legarda. I spent weeks upon weeks in the basement of the Madison Library of Congress building reading through all of his letters to and from William Howard Taft. They started off as having a political alliance, yet quickly built an esteemed friendship. As I requested the microfilm, chronology became my best tool. By the end of my research, I remember almost feeling like I had built up a relationship with the man. I knew him, at least from the letters, better than just about anybody. When I read that last letter he sent and signed with something along the lines of ‘Forever your most affectionate and loving friend, Benito Legarda’ I nearly cried in-front of the microfilm machine. I knew he passed away a few months later. I had never really experienced anything of that sort before, especially of someone who I didn’t know from a long passed era. It’s very intriguing.

Family Economy and Labor in Everyday Life (late 18th / early 19th c.)

   Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s historical portrait of Martha Ballard seems to make history come to life.  Ulrich’s chronicle of Ballard’s diary does much more than decode the journal – it expands our understanding of the everyday actualities and nuances of the lives of women from a period where (still) little is known of women’s lives and thoughts.  A Midwife’s Tale is a fascinating account of women’s lives in pre-industrial America, representing a wonderful record of the vitality of women’s occupations in early America.  The daily dairy records Martha Mallard’s household and her life and experience as a midwife, and details the challenges Martha faced while raising a family and having a career working as a midwife.  I think a major focus of this work is family economy and labor.  The Ballard household on the (what is now) Maine frontier consisted of two economies:  Martha’s husband traded lumber, and she bartered vegetables and textiles with other women and settled accounts (for midwifery) with men.   Ulrich’s interpretation of Ballard’s diary points to the simultaneous separateness and interconnectedness of men’s and women’s work and trade in this period of American history.  “There were really two family economies in the Ballard household” Ulrich posits, “one managed by Martha, the other by Ephraim” (p. 80).  Among other things, we also learn from Martha Ballard’s daily experiences about courtship and marriage practices, and also about weaving, gardening, and tending to livestock.  It is noteworthy that Ulrich’ sources are not limited to the diary: she uses a wide variety of other records like wills, deeds, and court transcripts to give us a good look at the “mundane” details of women’s work and to point to the contributions of women as anything but trivial, rather as essential contributions to family economies and survival.  Ulrich also confronts the transformation of medical practice from a primarily female world of “social medicine” and “social childbirth” to the system of male physicians and female assistants.  The diary presents an evolving / complicated picture of the relationships between midwives and male doctors as childbirth was medicalized.  It seems that it was increasingly not uncommon for male doctors and female healers and midwives to collaborate, as evidenced by Martha Ballard’s attendance at autopsies performed by doctors.  Ultimately, Martha Ballard seemed to be operating at the center of a women’s economic and social network.  Midwifery seemed to give Martha the chance to make her own decisions, spend considerable time away from home, have a career and earn income, and exercise agency in her marriage and in her community.