ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes various court cases from the Mariana Islands located at the Inquisition holdings of the General Archive of the Nation of Mexico, one "gachupín", four "criollos", and two Filipinos which reveal the social connections, relations, and transatlantic migrations of their protagonists. Bigamists constituted a heterogeneous population of "foreigners" who allow us to think of migratory flows and displacements as one of the defining characteristics of the Mariana Islands. Some bigamists, like Pedro de Sandoval, changed their name hoping to better conceal their previous marriage. The Spanish population of the Mariana Islands was never numerous. It was mostly integrated by the governor and the sergeant major and their families, the Jesuit missionaries, the presidio garrison, and retired soldiers and their families. The chapter shows that transoceanic migratory flows facilitated the occurrence of bigamy, especially in spatial boundaries where missionaries struggled to imposed Catholicism on the "pagan" and "new Christian" populations.
