Description
This humorous and sarcastic mid-eighteenth century treatise attributes a heavily anti-Spaniard perspective to Mexico City's
multiracial lower-class population, particularly in relation to themes such as peninsular privilege and racial discrimination.
Taking the form of traditional Spanish legal codes, the text describes the nature, attitudes and material conditions prevalent
in creole society, while ridiculizing peninsular or "Gachupin" tendencies through a collection of mock ordinances.
Background
Almost nothing is known about the text's purported author, Don Pedro Anselmo Chreslos Jache. Given the manuscript's extremely
critical nature, Chreslos Jache was surely a pen name for a highly educated individual that was undoubtedly very familiar
with the particularities of urban life in New Spain. Although the text takes on creole tendencies, several passages throughout
the narrative (and the introductory letter) suggest that its author may have in fact been a Peninsular Spaniard. At one point,
the "Ordenanzas" slip into first person in order for the narrator to admit his lower-class origins, when he declares "fui
zapatero" (I was a shoemaker). Nothing else is known in relation to Chreslos Jachme, with exception of what can be gleaned
from the manuscript.
Extent
1 Volumes
155 leaves: paper ; 235 x 165 mm. bound to 240 x 180 mm.
Restrictions
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Availability
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