Dress, faith, and medicine: Caring for the body in eighteenth-century Spanish Texas

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, new theories of human anatomy, disease, and illness intersected with Christian doctrines regarding spiritual well-being, Spanish imperial understandings regarding race and dress of colonizer and colonized, and culturally distinct medicinal practices for treating physical and spiritual sicknesses. To explore these admittedly complex entanglements of bodies, souls, and clothing, I place the physical and spiritual body at the center of analysis. My intent is to obtain a fuller understanding of the complete colonial body at the eighteenth-century Spanish presidio of Los Adaes. Located along the easternmost border of Spanish Texas, how did the multiethnic inhabitants of Los Adaes treat, mend, and cover their bodies through dress, practices of faith, and medicine? What artifacts (clothing, amulets, religious medals, and medicines), texts, and images were embodied when people from disparate backgrounds and life experiences cared for themselves and others at Presidio Los Adaes?.