On September 28, 1673, Catalina de los Reyes declared before the Royal Tribunal Court that she refused to surrender her property in Oaxaca's provincial capital of Antequera. Her land dispute with the bishop of Oaxaca shows how African-descended women navigated the court system in colonial Mexico and negotiated their social status in this Spanish colonial society. This article examines race and gender in colonial Mexico. It focuses on the ways in which local authorities attempted to confiscate one of the most valuable properties in Antequera from an African-descended woman named Catalina, as well as the strategies she used to challenge the social hierarchy in the city. By analyzing judicial records along with parish and census data, I argue that colonial women such as Catalina contested elite expectations of gender and race to redefine or secure their social status in colonial Oaxaca. My findings show that although colonial authorities marginalized African-descended women such as Catalina, these colonial women understood the judicial system in colonial Mexico, confronted authorities, and fought to retain their properties and their place in the social order. This article thus advances our understanding of the wide range of roles, experiences, and subjectivities of African-descended women in Spanish America.

1673 年 9 月 28 日，卡塔利娜·德洛斯·雷耶斯向皇家法庭宣布，她拒绝交出瓦哈卡省首府安特克拉的财产。她与瓦哈卡主教的土地纠纷展示了非洲后裔妇女如何在墨西哥殖民地的法院系统中游刃有余，并在西班牙殖民社会中协商自己的社会地位。本文探讨了墨西哥殖民地时期的种族和性别。它重点关注地方当局试图从一位名叫卡塔琳娜的非洲后裔妇女手中没收安特克拉最有价值的财产之一的方式，以及她用来挑战该市社会等级制度的策略。通过分析司法记录以及教区和人口普查数据，我认为像卡塔琳娜这样的殖民地妇女挑战了精英对性别和种族的期望，以重新定义或确保她们在殖民地瓦哈卡的社会地位。我的研究结果表明，尽管殖民当局将卡塔琳娜这样的非洲后裔妇女边缘化，但这些殖民地妇女了解殖民地墨西哥的司法制度，与当局对抗，并为保留自己的财产和在社会秩序中的地位而奋斗。因此，本文增进了我们对西班牙美洲非洲裔妇女的广泛角色、经历和主体性的理解。