Reforming birth in early colonial Mexico, or, did Mexican women really have a counter-reformation?

While the experiences of laywomen are increasingly central to the historiography of reform and counter-reform, childbirth has received little attention as a realm of religious activity and reform – despite important recent works on the transformation of childbirth in Protestant lands. Through the study of Inquisition cases involving midwives, this essay investigates the relationship between childbirth and reform over the first 150 years of the Mexican colony. Assessing the midwives’ cases, I find that the spirit of reform waxed and waned relatively independently of official emanations from Trent. Moreover, Inquisitors and the church in general withdrew their concerns over religious purity when faced with the medical realities of the colony, and in fact treated Spanish, African, and mixed-race (casta) midwives and particularly their childbirth practices leniently, even relative to Inquisitors’ treatment of other women. Finally, the paper suggests that Inquisitors’ lack of interest in penetrating the birthing chamber itself has implications for how we think about the effects of the Counter-Reformation in the everyday lives of women.