On Defining Nations

This is a really complex book, but it also isn’t so subtle, making it a bit easier to follow.

Here, Tamar Herzog is engaging in the debate about the evolution of “Spanish” (or “Castilian”) as an identity. To make sense of this, we must first recognize that “citizenship” (in Spanish, ciudadanía) basically did not exist as a concept until the French Revolution. Instead, there were two major ways of declaring Spanish identity, the first was through vecindad (which Herzog translates as “citizenship” but I would not) and the second was through naturaleza (nature, “nativeness”). As concepts, both vecindad and naturaleza emerged as socio-political concepts during the Reconquista.

Vecindad was originally a category given to Christians who abandoned their home and settled in lands that were conquered from the Moors throughout Spain. However, it lost its status to the process of migration and instead became entirely associated with a series of benefits and duties. However, vecindad was not a monolithic concept, and the specific benefits granted to and duties extracted from vecinos depended on time and place. To Herzog, vecindad is more similar to modern citizenship than naturaleza, but it is not the same thing. However, after the settling of Spanish America, vecindad there took on very different qualities from vecindad in Castile and expanded to include all Spaniards while rejecting all non-Spaniards.

Naturaleza on the other hand, was almost like a title of nobility—the people within this community held both political and ecclesiastical offices and only Castilian naturales were permitted the right to migrate to America and trade with the New World. In this sense, it was more exclusive. By 1596, naturales consisted of people from all of the Spanish kingdoms. In return for naturaleza, naturales primary duties were to be loyal to king and community. However, naturaleza came to include the indigenous peoples of the Americas while vecindad didn’t, meaning that there was a distinction between “neighbor” (“citizen?”) and “native” of Spain.

Neither vecindad nor naturaleza were fully codified, and these were fluid categories that shifted. Moreover, there was no list of who was a vecino or who was a natural meaning that people could be in either, both, or none of these categories at different parts of their life. Moreover, the two-tiered system of inclusion allowed the Spanish state to include “undesirables,” including Jews (even conversos, gypsies, and Africans. Moreover, it was generally required that an individual was Catholic to enter either one of these categories, permitting those holding the levers of power to determine who was and was not part of the body-politics.

Eventually, this system would come crashing down when Spanish citizenship (and nationality) was formally defined in the 1812 Cádiz Constitution.

Interesting book but it’s tough to read without a good sense of what came before (and without a sense of Spanish legal frameworks). That said, it was illuminating and it helps me understand better what it meant to be “Spanish” under the Habsburgs and Bourbons.