ABSTRACT
In 1648 the Puritan preacher Thomas Gage published The English-American, His Travail by Sea and Land, or A New Survey of the West India’s, an account of his twelve-year sojourn in Spanish America, where as a young Dominican friar he served in Indian parishes in southern Mexico and Guatemala. A New Survey of the West India’s was written, in part, to raise support for Oliver Cromwell’s ambition to challenge Spanish control of the Caribbean. In this excerpt, Gage tells the story of discovering a case of idolatry outside his parish in Mexico. Writing years after his service in Guatemala, Gage, as a Puritan, compares Mayan paganism to Catholic rituals to honor the saints. The case offers an opportunity to explore two important themes in early modern history: the local social contexts for the transformation of ritual and the history of emotions among the rival religious communities.
