Mulatto · Outlaw · Pilgrim · Priest: The Legal Case of José Soller, Accused of Impersonating a Pastor and Other Crimes in Seventeenth-century Spain (Published by Brill, 2020)
By John Moore

In Mulatto · Outlaw · Pilgrim · Priest, John K. Moore, Jr. lays out the legal case against José Soller, a transatlantic black-African man accused of impersonating a pastor in order to pass freely while on pilgrimage in seventeenth-century Iberia.

In Mulatto · Outlaw · Pilgrim · Priest, John K. Moore, Jr. presents the first in-depth study, critical edition, and scholarly translation of His Majesty’s Representative v. José Soller, Mulatto Pilgrim, for Impersonating a Pastor and Other Crimes. This legal case dates to the waning days of the Hapsburg Spanish empire and illuminates the discrimination those of black-African ancestry could face—that Soller did face—while attempting to pass freely on his pilgrimage from Lisbon to Santiago de Compostela and beyond. This bilingual edition and study of the criminal trial against Soller is important for reconstructing his journey and for revealing at least in part the de facto and de jure treatment of mulattos in the early-modern Iberian Atlantic World.

Read the articles "Story of jailed 17th-century Iberian 'mulatto pilgrim' told in new book by John K. Moore, Jr." and "Professor of Spanish publishes new book" in the UAB News. This book is available online via UAB Libraries.