{"id":13788,"date":"2020-09-16T08:35:27","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T12:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/?p=13788"},"modified":"2022-03-21T16:05:16","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:05:16","slug":"spanish-witch-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/spanish-witch-trials\/","title":{"rendered":"Fellowship Assures a Unique Look at Spanish Witch Trials"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rochelle
Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of History Rochelle Rojas, with help from an American Fellowship through the American Association of University Women, will finish writing a book over the next year titled Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witchcraft in Early Modern Spain<\/em> about Spanish witch trials that were conducted in Northern Spain during the Inquisition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In standing up to inquisitors, a local court from Pamplona in the Basque region of Northern Spain smuggled more than 150 people accused of witchcraft away from the Spanish Inquisition for the sake of conducting 30 independent trials in the 16th<\/sup> and 17th<\/sup> centuries.<\/p>\n

Left behind was one of the richest records of witch trials in Spain, said Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of History<\/a> Rochelle Rojas, with more than 3,000 pages of accounts from townspeople, prostitutes, net makers, priests, fathers, children and others, setting the stage for Rojas\u2019 latest research project.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 500 years ago, these people told the Spanish Inquisition that they could go pound sand,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cSo my project is amazing in that it\u2019s the first and only one dealing with witchcraft in Spain that isn\u2019t based on Inquisition sources. This brings to life those voices of people, mostly women, who had to endure terror and execution due to being labeled a witch by others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The voices will help Rojas write a book over the next year titled Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witchcraft in Early Modern Spain<\/em>. She has written three chapters and plans to complete two more chapters before traveling to Spain next spring to finish it. The excursion will be funded by an American Fellowship she earned from the American Association of University Women<\/a> (AAUW).<\/p>\n

The first six chapters of her book, she said, will be a straight-forward look into the history of these Spanish witch trials. Examples of people discussed in these sources, such as Graciana Belza\u2014meaning Graciana Black\u2014will help Rojas argue in the epilogue that there are similarities between the treatment of the accused witches, and how some groups, such as immigrants and other marginalized citizens, are treated in the modern-day United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1569, she was poor, and the entire village blamed her for everything,\u201d Rojas said of Belza. \u201cSomeone\u2019s kerchief was missing from the drying rack; it was blamed on her. Someone\u2019s daughter died; it must\u2019ve been her fault. A man became impotent; it must\u2019ve been because of her. Everybody blamed her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belza, in fact, was tortured and her jailers broke both her arms while the court demanded that she leave town within 10 days after her trial. However, with two broken arms, she was unable to transport her belongings. That led to her being jailed again, and ultimately dying from untreated torture wounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting in this case to see how people had a preconceived notion that she was a bad person and how she was treated very unfairly; just as someone today who might not speak English or someone who\u2019s Black,\u201d Rojas said.<\/p>\n

Labels such as witch were invented, predicated on fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t have the labels that we use now to label our undesirables, so they invented them,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cAnd the word then literally was witch or bruja.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stories like Belza\u2019s will be at Rojas\u2019 fingertips when she visits Spain thanks to the fellowship she received. The AAUW American Fellowship, started in 1888, is the oldest non-institutional source of graduate funding for women in the United States. It supports women scholars with up to $6,000 when they pursue full-time study to complete dissertations, conduct postdoctoral research full time or prepare research for publication.<\/p>\n

Thousands of women in academia from across the country apply for the fellowship and only about 200 were awarded it this year. The fellowship panel considers applicants like Rojas based on factors such as scholarly excellence, the quality of their project design, their mentoring of other women and teaching experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes It\u2019s hard to pitch the importance of something having to do with witches from 500 years ago in a tiny village, so I was happy that the AAUW was able to understand my vision of why this topic is relevant,\u201d Rojas said \u201cThis was the first post-graduation grant I applied to and it\u2019s a pretty hard one to get. That makes me feel really good, especially when people who support K can see that we as professors are actively engaged in trying to earn larger recognition for the College.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In standing up to inquisitors, a local court from Pamplona in the Basque region of Northern Spain smuggled more than 150 people accused of witchcraft away from the Spanish Inquisition for the sake of conducting 30 independent trials in the 16th and 17th centuries. Left behind was one of the richest records of witch trials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":13790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[233],"tags":[39,64],"post_formats":[],"class_list":["post-13788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","tag-faculty","tag-history"],"yoast_head":"\r\nWitch Trials: Fellowship Assures Professor a Unique Look at History<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A history professor has earned a fellowship that will help her finish writing a book about witch trials that were conducted in Northern Spain.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/spanish-witch-trials\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fellowship Assures a Unique Look at Spanish Witch Trials\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A history professor has earned a fellowship that will help her finish writing a book about witch trials that were conducted in Northern Spain.\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/spanish-witch-trials\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"News and Events\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KalamazooCollege\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-09-16T12:35:27+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-21T20:05:16+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/09\/Rochelle-Rojas-Discusses-Spanish-Witch-Trials_fb.jpg\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" 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aria-label=\"archive of category Faculty & Staff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/category\/faculty-staff\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Faculty & Staff<\/a>","tags_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/faculty\/\" rel=\"tag\">faculty<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/history\/\" rel=\"tag\">history<\/a>","social_share_info":"<a data-share=\"facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/spanish-witch-trials\/\" class=\"pl-facebook-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-facebook-f\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/spanish-witch-trials\/\" class=\"pl-twiiter-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-twitter\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"linkedin\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/spanish-witch-trials\/\" class=\"pl-linkedin-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-linkedin-in\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a>","wordExcerpt_info":"<figure id=\"attachment_13791\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13791\" style=\"width: 584px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-13791\" src=\"\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/09\/Rochelle-Rojas-Discusses-Spanish-Witch-Trials-600x426.jpg\" alt=\"Rochelle Rojas Discusses Spanish Witch Trials\" width=\"584\" height=\"415\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13791\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of History Rochelle Rojas, with help from an American Fellowship through the American Association of University Women, will finish writing a book over the next year titled <em>Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witchcraft in Early Modern Spain<\/em> about Spanish witch trials that were conducted in Northern Spain during the Inquisition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In standing up to inquisitors, a local court from Pamplona in the Basque region of Northern Spain smuggled more than 150 people accused of witchcraft away from the Spanish Inquisition for the sake of conducting 30 independent trials in the 16<sup>th<\/sup> and 17<sup>th<\/sup> centuries.<\/p>\n<p>Left behind was one of the richest records of witch trials in Spain, said Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/programs\/history\/\">History<\/a> Rochelle Rojas, with more than 3,000 pages of accounts from townspeople, prostitutes, net makers, priests, fathers, children and others, setting the stage for Rojas\u2019 latest research project.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbout 500 years ago, these people told the Spanish Inquisition that they could go pound sand,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cSo my project is amazing in that it\u2019s the first and only one dealing with witchcraft in Spain that isn\u2019t based on Inquisition sources. This brings to life those voices of people, mostly women, who had to endure terror and execution due to being labeled a witch by others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The voices will help Rojas write a book over the next year titled <em>Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witchcraft in Early Modern Spain<\/em>. She has written three chapters and plans to complete two more chapters before traveling to Spain next spring to finish it. The excursion will be funded by an American Fellowship she earned from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aauw.org\/\">American Association of University Women<\/a> (AAUW).<\/p>\n<p>The first six chapters of her book, she said, will be a straight-forward look into the history of these Spanish witch trials. Examples of people discussed in these sources, such as Graciana Belza\u2014meaning Graciana Black\u2014will help Rojas argue in the epilogue that there are similarities between the treatment of the accused witches, and how some groups, such as immigrants and other marginalized citizens, are treated in the modern-day United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 1569, she was poor, and the entire village blamed her for everything,\u201d Rojas said of Belza. \u201cSomeone\u2019s kerchief was missing from the drying rack; it was blamed on her. Someone\u2019s daughter died; it must\u2019ve been her fault. A man became impotent; it must\u2019ve been because of her. Everybody blamed her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Belza, in fact, was tortured and her jailers broke both her arms while the court demanded that she leave town within 10 days after her trial. However, with two broken arms, she was unable to transport her belongings. That led to her being jailed again, and ultimately dying from untreated torture wounds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s interesting in this case to see how people had a preconceived notion that she was a bad person and how she was treated very unfairly; just as someone today who might not speak English or someone who\u2019s Black,\u201d Rojas said.<\/p>\n<p>Labels such as witch were invented, predicated on fear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey didn\u2019t have the labels that we use now to label our undesirables, so they invented them,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cAnd the word then literally was witch or bruja.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Stories like Belza\u2019s will be at Rojas\u2019 fingertips when she visits Spain thanks to the fellowship she received. The AAUW American Fellowship, started in 1888, is the oldest non-institutional source of graduate funding for women in the United States. It supports women scholars with up to $6,000 when they pursue full-time study to complete dissertations, conduct postdoctoral research full time or prepare research for publication.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of women in academia from across the country apply for the fellowship and only about 200 were awarded it this year. The fellowship panel considers applicants like Rojas based on factors such as scholarly excellence, the quality of their project design, their mentoring of other women and teaching experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes It\u2019s hard to pitch the importance of something having to do with witches from 500 years ago in a tiny village, so I was happy that the AAUW was able to understand my vision of why this topic is relevant,\u201d Rojas said \u201cThis was the first post-graduation grant I applied to and it\u2019s a pretty hard one to get. That makes me feel really good, especially when people who support K can see that we as professors are actively engaged in trying to earn larger recognition for the College.\u201d<\/p>\n","comment_info":"No Comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13788"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13798,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13788\/revisions\/13798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13788"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_formats?post=13788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}