William B. Taylor, "Fugitive Freedom: The Improbable Lives of Two Impostors in Late Colonial Mexico" (U California Press, 2021)

Beyond the Margins: The University of California Press Podcast · Apr 19, 2021 · 1h 28m

Though poverty and vagrancy as social phenomena greatly preoccupied authorities of Colonial Mexico, the social and individual lives of vagabonds and strangers of Spanish American early modernity remain elusive to the historian. In his new book, Fugitive Freedom: The Improbable Lives of Two Impostors in Late Colonial Mexico (University of California Press, 2021), William B. Taylor uncovers the fascinating stories of two wanderers in Colonial Mexico. Joseph Aguayo and Juan Atondo were priest impersonators and serial liers whose lives of deceit are recorded in archives of the Spanish…