Abstract Across much of the Spanish empire in the Americas, indigenous and African-descent peoples lived in close contact. The entangled nature of labor, both in urban centers and on massive complexes, gave them the opportunity to measure themselves against one another. Law that developed across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries suggested an eventual clarity about their separate conditions, but experience revealed the muddiness of both definitions and enforcement. Indigenous and Black subjects used those colonial discourses about freedom and hierarchy to understand their own positions and to argue for comparable protections and privileges. Rather than consider indigenous and Black lives separately, the essay argues for a more integrative approach to reading legal documents produced by and about them.

Resumen En gran parte del imperio español en América, los indígenas y afrodescendientes vivieron en estrecho contacto. La intrincada naturaleza del trabajo les dio la oportunidad de medirse unos contra otros, tanto en los centros urbanos como en los complejos masivos. La legislación de los siglos XVI y XVII sugería una eventual claridad en la diferencia de sus condiciones, pero la experiencia reveló que había confusión entre ambas definiciones y sus aplicaciones. Los indígenas y negros utilizaron esos discursos coloniales sobre libertad y jerarquía para entender sus propias posiciones y exigir protecciones y privilegios similares. Más que considerar las vidas de indígenas y negros por separado, este ensayo propone una lectura integradora de los documentos legales producidos por y sobre ellos.

RESUMO Monarcas ibéricos medievais e do início da era moderna governavam por meio de uma delegação competitiva de certas formas de jurisdição. Isso criou uma forma tensa de convivência cotidiana, na qual os membros do grupo estavam muito cientes de aspectos das leis de outros grupos. O quadro analítico da convivialidade revela as maneiras pelas quais o consenso tinha que ser constantemente renegociado nas múltiplas dinâmicas de grupo, em vez de imposto ou alcançado.

ABSTRACT Late medieval and early modern Iberian monarchs governed through a competitive delegation of certain forms of jurisdiction. This created a tense form of everyday conviviality, wherein group members were intimately knowledgeable about aspects of the laws of other groups. The analytic of conviviality reveals the ways that consensus had to be constantly renegotiated within multiple group dynamics rather than imposed or achieved.