Choice, Persuasion, and Coercion: Social Control on Spain’s North American Frontiers

Brings together twelve original essays on Spain’s presence in North America to understand the circumstances and application of social control. ‘Social control’ refers to the use of coercion particularly in response to what dominant groups consider deviant behaviour among subordinates. Spain attempted to maintain control of vast areas through persuasion, coercion, or indoctrination to make subordinates accept colonial government and behave according to Spanish expectations. This volume considers how Spain’s monarchs faced competing economic, political, and racial interests. In the New World, others besides the rulers, authorities, and elites sought to effect social control. Ethnic groups and socio-economic classes within colonial communities also exercised control within their own circles. Institutions including the Church, schools, fraternal organisations, and families laboured to teach their members to understand their place in society. An examination of social control mechanisms shows how groups and individuals, including native peoples, formed and understood their options in response to colonial rule. These essays seek to understand how people negotiated their relationships with the Spanish state and institutions, and with each other, while conceiving of the frontier region as an incubator of cultural and economic interactions ranging from acceptance to rejection of European norms, often altering those norms in the process.