Is Kongolese Saint Anthony a Microhistory?

Kongolese Saint Anthony reads to me as much more of a traditional history (for lack of a better term) than a microhistory. While Thornton tells the story through primarily two diaries of Luca da Caltnisetta and Marcellino d’Atri, as well as the writings of Bernardo da Gallo and Lorenzo da Lucca, they tell a much broader story. Most importantly, however, is the way the evidence is used. The microhistories we have read this semester focus on a single subject to illuminate the broader social, political, or cultural realities of the time. Le Roy Ladurie discusses the every-day life of medieval Langudocien peasants through the small community of Montaillou. Ginzburg exposes a lost oral tradition of peasant communities from the cosmos of a sixteenth century miller. The Cooks describe the mentalité of the upper middle class and middling nobility as well as the complex legal system of transatlantic Spain through the story of Francesco Noguerol de Ulloa and his two wives.

Thornton’s book does the opposite. Rather than using a particular event or particular individual to illuminate the history of the period and place, he uses the history of the period and place to illuminate the story of Dona Beatriz and her actions after she was possessed by the spirit of Saint Anthony. For instance, half way into the book (until page 104), we read very little about Dona Beatriz, except for her acceptance and later rejection of the Kimpasi rituals and nganga identity and her unhappiness in married life. This strategy does much for his argument that the Antonian movement was about bringing an end to the political war and strife that fueled the slave trade rather than ending the slave trade per se. But how he uses his sources and the lens through which he tells the story seems very different from the microhistories we have read. 

In addition, Thornton engages his sources much less critically than other historians we have read. How Thornton chooses to use certain diarists over others is lost in the narrative. One might compare Thronton’s sources (although in greater quantity) to those of Davis since they are in many ways participant-observers of the events, but Thornton’s level of engagement is almost non-existent. For instance, when Thornton states that Dona Beatriz felt “shame for what she had come to perceive as her great sins” asked to be rebaptized does not discuss why he thinks that was her motivation (175). Is that the motivation that the priests applied to her? If so, might there be a reason to question such an explanation—such as the diminutive manner with which European men thought about both women and non-Europeans in the 18^th century?

I greatly enjoyed Thornton’s work, and I think he does a good job telling his story, but it reads much differently than the other works that we have read.