Joan Cameron Bristol. Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches:
Afro-Mexican Ritual Practice in the Seventeenth Century.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007. xiv + 283 pp.
$24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8263-3799-3. Reviewed by Mark T.
Evans (South Carolina University, History Department) Published
on H-LatAm (February, 2012) Commissioned by Dennis R. Hidalgo
Joan Cameron Bristol’s Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches is a
fascinating exploration of ritual in the lives of colonial-era
Afro-Mexicans. She finds that seventeenth-century Mexican
society allowed for myriad forms of authority, and Afro-
Mexicans, understanding this, used ritual practices––both those
of which the Spanish approved and those of which they did
not––to make claims for power. In this way, the concocting of
love potions, the employment of magical cures, and the use of
amulets represent much more than signs of African culture in the
New World. Likewise, recitations of the Lord’s Prayer by Afro-
Mexicans were more than evidence of creol