Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Women’s Bodies
Abstract
In order to show this complexity, this study revised historical source that
ratifies Indian women was extracted and forcibly used as wet nurses. A
uses in a colonial order. It revealed that the production of Indian women bodies
the use of Indian women as wet nurses does not fit into waged breastfeeding
studies. It also determined that the source used is not enough to arrive at a
power’s relationship.
Introduction
Wet nursing has historical importance in children’s survival. The history has
approaches in Europe, the United States and Latin America. The case of wet
nursing in the United States was studied by Golden (1996) through a social
approaches, were associated with social mobility and milk kinship (Chacón,
In Guatemala, the country where this current study takes place, historians have
lectured the case of wet nursing of Jocotenango with a historical approach, the
method used in works developed by Webre (2001) and by Álvarez (1996). The
Álvarez’s study describes only the role played by each agent involved in the
2
The author of this study revised two files of documents found in the Archivo
General de Centroamérica (AGCA). These files have proven essential for the
study as they contain the controversy about Indian women used as wet nurses.
It has been assumed that these sources have not been enough to face the
Equipped with this panorama, the importance of the present study and its
bodies and their production and distribution as servants. This approach has
‘life’ as its most basic concern (2016: 231)”. Foucault has argued that there is
a particular moment where the power of give dead –in a sovereign way– is
population and health of humans as species (1995: 169). From this perspective,
the importance of wet nursing in Creole Guatemalan families has lied in the
3
also, and more broadly, in reproduction. Therefore, this study focusses on
The aim of this study is to show that Indians women from Guatemala
developed an interesting role in care and affective labor (Federici: 2010; 2011),
experience of Indian women facing the experience of being used as wet nurses.
To address this problem, the following question was useful: Why did the
practice of using Indian women continue until 1797 if it was forbid to use
them? Here, it is propitious reminding that King Felipe III emitted a Royal
Decree in 1609 stipulating that Indian women should not leave their village to
1
See Law 13, Title 17, Vol. 6. Recopilación de las leyes de los reynos de las indias. Madrid:
Julián de Paredes, 1681.
4
sources, including searching for private archives to problematize the issue of
It has been impossible to find another case of this kind registered in the
archives on colonial Guatemala; thus, this is a case study. The sources revised
consist of two files of edicts that constitute a controversy registered from 1797
to 1799 about the use of 21 Indian women used as wet nurses. These files are
The method used was a mixed one. It combined social and gender history, but
analyzing the normative way their bodies were produced. Normative was
women and the method of analyzing data came from analytical power,
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women's bodies. It used perspectivism as a feminist epistemology to theorize
subjectivity. As Harding argued, the selection of the object has an ethic and
political importance; it’s not neutral. At the same time, the theorization of the
object invites one to consider the ethical and political position of the researcher.
Both method and analysis must transform a researcher’s life. This relationship
between the method and the author also must transform and became another.
Thus, it could be possible to establish, as Haraway has done so: “to be one is
always to become with many” (2008: 4). A comparative history approach was
problems.
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Results and discussion
The first result discovered was that of Indian women extraction. This is
were treated like slaves, although they did not have slave’s condition. They
The source cited a study about women used as wet nurses in Nueva Guatemala
study, one can observe that there were 21 Indian women used as wet nurses in
some Creole families. These women forcibly left 28 children in their town.
Eight of the children died while their mothers were breastfeeding Creole
Indeed, the source showed the role of physicians in confirming the importance
of using wet nurses for feeding Creole children. They recommended the use of
wet nurses for the sake of the health of the Creole children. Physicians did not
2
AGCA, A1, leg. 254, exp. 3060, p. 13. Report crafted by Diego Casanga about Indian women
used as wet nurses in Guatemala City. Jocotenango, Guatemala, September 30, 1797.
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care about the Indian children’s health because Indian bodies did not matter.
According to the sources, this study found that the Decree about Indian women
was not obeyed. They have shown than some Indian women’s children died.
played a double role: life for Creole children and death for Indian children.
This fact comes into contrast with Agamben's point of view of Foucault’s
biopolitics. Agamben argues that there are moments in which decision about
life becomes a decision about death; when the biopolitical becomes death
Cristian order. Finally, this study also revealed two social functions of
femininity. Creole women fulfilled the role as producer uterus and the Indian
3
AGCA, A1, leg. 154, exp. 3063, p. 25. Don José Antonio de Córdoba: support for the
recommendations of the prosecutor Don José Domás y Valle. Nueva Guatemala, October, 06,
1797.
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It could be important to remember here that Scriebinger (2004) made a critical
political lens. She argued that Linnaeus focused his attention on the mammals
in a political time, when physicians and politicians began to extol the virtues
of mother’s milk over wet nurse’s milk. The current study considered this fact
important because it happened in the late eighteenth century, while at the same
time in Guatemala, the nurse’s milk was regarded more virtuous than of the
mother.
King Carlos IV. The Decree simply reminded the population about the
Felipe III in 16094. However, this data hasn’t proven important in confirming
Decree does not guarantee the practice was finished. It has thus not been
4
AGCA, A1, leg. 162, exp. 4884, p. 30. Royal Decree emitted by King Carlos IV. San
Lorenzo, December 1, 1798.
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possible to be sure when wet nursing was no longer used in infant-feeding. No
history to retell the history. This is interesting because it places the attention of
the controversy on the agents of the practice. Nevertheless, he did not focus on
bodies' production. Webre’s analysis therefore did not attest that gender is
related to social functions of the femininity, nor that gender is not natural.
also invents gender, or gender comes out of technology that produces it (De
Lauretis, 2000). Here, it is possible to observe that gender did not exist outside
a variety of technologies like cinema, medical discourse, laws, and norms, and
that this practice of using Indian women as wet nurses related to the practices
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It's important to mention that this case study has shown that wet nursing of
Jocotenango did not fit in a history of waged breast feeding, nor women's labor,
nor abandoned children, nor milk parents, nor social mobility. Indian mothers
never wanted to be wet nurses. In this sense, this experience resembles more
the experience of slave women used as wet nurses in the United States, as
shown by Golden. In addition, it's interesting that the medical discourse about
racial degeneration by milk did was not done in Guatemalan case. The source
also noted than the wet nurses from Jocotenango interrupts the normal way to
Conclusion
In this study, the author suggests that the case of wet nursing from Jocotenango
interrupts the form of addressing wet nursing in Women’s History and can offer
The author, at this time, can develop this study not only by concentrating on
infant-feeding and wet nursing in colonial Guatemala, but also, on the variety
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in a colonial period. It also suggests searching for a variety of historical sources
Acknowledgements
It thanks the support received from Cruz del Sur Project, Universidad de
Murcia and AVANCSO-Guatemala. Without this support this study would not
Sources
References
Valencia: Pre-Textos.
3-22.
12
Chacón, F. (2014). Mercenarismo. ¿Mito o realidad? Análisis del
Traficantes de sueños.
13
Haraway, D. (2004). Race: universal donors in a vampire culture. It’s
Minnesota.
University Press.
231-246.
Law 13, Title 17, Vol. 6. Recopilación de las leyes de los reynos de las
Press.
14
Soler, E. (2008). Parentesco de leche y movilidad social: la nodriza
15