ABSTRACT
The lives of the Mexican Jesuit Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700) and the New England Pietist Cotton Mather (1663–1728) exhibit interesting parallels (Mayer), reflecting curious similarities in their reception histories. Both were seen as literary figures and in hindsight accused of a “Baroque” style. Politically, they were depicted as pre-Independence representatives of a religiously determined New Spain and New England exceptionalism in decline. This has led in subsequent historiographies to curious misreadings of their allegedly comparable roles in the veneration of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe and Boston, Massachusetts as a New Jerusalem. Reconsidering the question of rights in an early modern inter-American context calls for a multidisciplinary approach to research that is open to interdenominational comparisons. This ought to shed new light on the question of rights in relation to Protestant and Catholic sensibilities on the verge of modernity. Comparing the lives and work of these two early modern figures may benefit hemispheric studies of the Americas by helping us to trace the evolution of human rights in late modernity. Such an investigation may help us to differentiate present historical and theological understandings of the origins of modernity and the rise of human rights. It may contribute to a more differentiated history of modern Christianity regarding the use of early foundational narratives, which are currently being rewritten from both Catholic and Protestant perspectives (Noll, Bebbington, 2005; Noll, Bebbington, Rawlyk, 1994).
