The Insidious Case of Ignacia Gertrudis de Ochoa: Gender, Personal Relationships, Ethnicity, and Diabolism in the late Eighteenth-Century Diocese of Guadalajara

Abstract

The Inquisition case between María Gregoria de Herrera and Ignacia Gertrudis de Ochoa provides an entry point for discussion of broader social issues involving rural women of Jalisco in the late colonial period. In my thesis. I discuss the events that transpired between these women and charges of folk magic and pacts with the devil as they pertain to the economic and social pressures that were unique to this time and place. This case is an example of how gendered issues facing the rural poor population of this region differed from those of more elite urban populations. I consider the complications of mixed-race experiences of lower-caste individuals who came before the Inquisition. Finally, I press to complicate how religious practices tied to pre-Columbian belief systems continues to appear in the late colonial period in charges of witchcraft and diabolism before the Inquisition. The time and location of this case are of particular import for Inquisition studies for the attention they bring to the Inquisitorial shift from heretical concerns of witchcraft in favor of more modern problems facing the Church, and for highlighting the gap in the transmission of ideas from the elite class to the lower classes who continued to use language of witchcraft to alleviate social issues.