Labor and Love in Guatemala: The Eve of Independence

摘要

Analysis of shifting forms of labour during the colonial period is central to the historiography of Spanish America. In this meticulously researched monograph, Catherine Komisaruk expands our understanding of these processes by demonstrating how gender and family relations contributed to the erosion of both draft indigenous labour and African slavery in late eighteenth-century Guatemala. The book is a product of exhaustive research in Guatemalan archives. Notably, by cross-checking data on labour from diverse sources, including censuses, notarial records, civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions, Komisaruk is able to unearth hard-to-find data. Censuses, for example, generally undercount the paid work performed by women, but Komisaruk's method uncovers extensive details on occupations such as domestic service, teaching, and the production of food and alcohol. These sources also allow her to recreate richly textured portraits of daily life. Readers will encounter Guatemalans from diverse socio-economic and ethnic groups tending to the sick, nursing babies, moving between town and country, falling in and out of love, drinking, and fighting, as well as working.