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.