David M. Gitlitz's Living in Silverado: Secret Jews in the Silver Mining Towns of Colonial Mexico is an in-depth study of three extended families of New Christians and crypto-Jews who lived between the Iberian Peninsula and the Viceroyalty of New Spain (spread over Mexico City and the silver mining towns of Pachuca, Tlalpujahua and Taxco).
The overarching story is intertwined with the major events that affected the history of Jews in the Ibero-American world, a history that became very complex during the 1400s and 1500s. It starts in 1492 in Galicia, in Northern Spain, more precisely in a port city named A Coruña, when Lorenzo de Castellanos and his wife Blanca Lorenza, a young Jewish couple, crossed the border to Portugal following the Royal Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain. The story continues in Bragança, in the Northwest of Portugal, more precisely in a town named Freixo de Espada-à-Cinta, where that same couple settled towards the end of the fifteenth century. Even though their whereabouts between 1492 and the early 1500s is unclear, the Portuguese king's 1497 decision to impose the conversion of Jews to Christianity probably found them already in Freixo raising their son Gabriel Álvarez Castellanos. Given the fact that after 1497 an open Jewish practice was not allowed in Portugal, Gabriel grew up as a New Christian educated in crypto-Jewish practices by his parents (who were raised at a time Judaism was allowed in Spain). In the 1520s Gabriel was a widower with four children and a new partner, and during that decade he crossed the border again, moving with his entire family to Jarandilla in Cáceres, Spain. Furthermore, in 1534 Gabriel and his partner María Blanca Rodríguez (there is no record of a second marriage) crossed the Atlantic Ocean, migrating from Spain to the Viceroyalty of New Spain together with their children from both unions. As complex as it sounds up to here, this is just the beginning of the story Gitlitz analyses in this book. Along the following chapters we learn what happened from the 1530s, until the 1590s, when the offspring of these initial immigrants faced trials of faith under the Mexican Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, accused of the heresy of crypto-Judaism.
Even though this book is not a study of the Tribunal of the Inquisition, the chronological frame is deeply intertwined with the history of the tribunal, more precisely the establishment of tribunals of the Inquisition in Spain (1478), Portugal (1536) and Mexico (1570) and the issuance of the 1605 royal general pardon while some of the subjects of this book were undergoing trials of faith in Mexico. In other words, the Jewish families portrayed and analysed in this book experienced forced conversions to Christianity in the Iberian Peninsula; life as New Christians in both the Iberian Peninsula and the Viceroyalty of New Spain; different degrees of a crypto-Jewish religious practice developed before and after the establishment of local inquisition tribunals at both sides of the Atlantic; and trials of faith.
The book tells three main stories (three extended families), organised in 16 chapters and three appendices. In Chapter 1, Gitlitz explains the origins of the families in Portugal; in Chapters 2–14, he explores the lives and religious experiences in New Spain; in Chapter 15, the author analyses the trials of faith; and in Chapter 16, he offers general conclusions. The book follows the families as they participate in the colonial mining economies and get caught by the New Spain Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. As the author explains in the introduction, the protagonists of the book have three elements in common: their Spanish–Portuguese origin in different combinations, the Jewish–Christian religiosity in various levels of intensity, and the participation in the mining industry during the colonial period in diverse localities and specific activities.
The research is based on Inquisition records and other primary sources from several archives. The narrative is created by following topics such as trans-Atlantic migration, commercial activities in the New World, marriages, family lives and internal conflict, different levels of adherence to crypto-Jewish religious practices as an individual practice and as a clandestine community, trials of faith, and aftermaths.
In this book, Gitlitz is very successful in the level of detail he provides. Most studies of New Christians and crypto-Jewish families during the colonial period pay attention to the evidence of hidden religious practices and to the personal and professional networks of New Christians and alleged crypto-Jews. However, primary sources created by the Tribunal of the Inquisition do not always provide further details, which is why the scholarship always seems to be scratching the surface. By combining multiple sources, a large but clearly defined set of historical subjects, and following them for around a century, Gitlitz can use a very close lens. In addition to the discussion about commercial activities and hidden Jewish practices, he was able to identify different levels of adherence to such practices within extended families, including how marriage strategies affected the preservation of crypto-Jewish circles. In other words, the author explores how different degrees of endogamic (between New Christians and potential crypto-Jews) and exogamic marriages (with an Old Christian spouse) affected the preservation of crypto-Jewish circles. He was even able to include information about unhappy marriages and divorce as related to hidden religious practices. Other issues studied in the book include how a clandestine religious practice differed if sustained at the individual level or as a collective practice.
Finally, he can also follow up what happened to them after the resolution of the trials of faith, explain what happened to confiscated properties, and to children placed in foster homes after imprisonment. On the other hand, an aspect that could have been expanded is the historiographical discussion. The book analyses individuals that have already been studied by other authors (such as Eva Uchmany and Nathan Wachtel, whom Gitlitz abundantly cites), although in a different scale of analysis. While Gitlitz expands and contextualises the information, I think he could have been more specific in the discussion about how his work relates to that of these authors and how understanding the extended families improves the previous work done on these individuals. Despite this minor critique, I think Gitlitz wrote a phenomenal book that will be very useful for scholars and students interested in the topic.
