Part 2: Struggle and Survival

By: Toni Gonzales

In the book “Struggle and Survival,” David Sweet and Gary Nash discuss the

journey of many individuals who faced difficulties and challenges in the New World, but

managed to make their mark in history. Many came with the hope of establishing a sense

of community that they felt was lacking in Western Europe. Colonizers were faced with

conflict with the Native Americans, but before long the New World had acted as a

powerful force on communal values and the behavior of European settlers within colonial

towns and cities. The extensive availability of land, laying claim to land for the purpose

of mining or faming, etc, were all aspects that could change anyone’s life during a time of

extreme struggle. Sweet and Nash discuss the adventures and difficulties of truly heroic

people who were transformed in ways unimaginable by the creation of European settler

societies.

One person’s story whom I found particularly interesting was Beatriz De Padilla a

mistress and mother that lived near Guadalajara in western New Spain. She was accused

of having caused mysterious things to happen to two of her lovers. According to charges

she had poisoned the first of them and several weeks later had driven the lord mayor of

Juchipila crazy through magic. Like her mother, she had led an active and somewhat

irregular private life. Beatriz had in her favor being attractive and the color of her skin

which allowed her to walk, talk, and dress pretty much any way she wanted. These kinds

of freedoms were not available to the “respectable” white woman who were always to

adhere to the social norms. The women of color in New Spain performed a fundamental

role in the historical development of Mexican society. These women were making

possible the survival of their own kind over the long period. They helped make life a little

less harsh than it would have been for the European immigrants themselves. They

brought domestic culture that gives a unique flavor to the home life of Mexican families

even today. Above everything else though, they guaranteed the survival of many races in

the new humanity that populates most of the Americas in our time.

Another heroic individual during that time was Antonio de Gouveia an Azorean

priest and adventurer. He endeared himself to people in high places, knew astrology,

alchemy, read fortunes, foretold happenings, practiced medicine, and believed that he had

the key to invisibility. He had predicted the deaths of various famous people and bragged

that he was in command of supernatural forces that could do exactly what he wanted

them to. Later, a widow had reported that Gouveia had never opened a prayer book.

During his hearing he had insisted that every year he had received holy communion, but

declared that he had no made good confessions due to a sin that he had made. He

admitted to knowing astrology and insisted that he did not have any help from the devil.

A few days later, he revealed that he had heard the voice of the devil several times.

Antonio de Gouveia was kept in jail for four years before his case was settled. Gouveia

felt forced to conform to customs and values that he did not agree with. He was a smart

man and even though he spent his life dealing with unfortunate events he was able to

show how broad the parameters were of thinking and feeling during the period of

transition between looser humanism of the early sixteenth century and the stricter ethic of

Tridentine renewal.

There are many more people in book that the book addresses, but they had played

some kind of role in that time frame and shaped history no matter how big or small their

accomplishments may have been.