Republics of Difference - Religious and Racial Self-Governance in the Spanish Atlantic World

Republics of Difference is a groundbreaking study of Spanish imperial recognition of the jurisdictions of many self-governing corporate groups, including communities of Jews and Muslims, indigenous peoples, and enslaved and free peoples of African descent, that shows how religiously- and racially-based self-governance functioned in a society with many kinds of law and how this enabled communities in late medieval Spain and colonial Latin America to protect their practices and cultures over time.