As social history becomes more comprehensive in its understanding of the Spanish American colonial world, the presence of women as subjects of their own destinies and as members of the family and the community at large becomes more obvious and more relevant.

No general study of women in all Spanish America throughout the colonial period has been attempted. Most works focus on a given geographical area. Judith Prieto de Zegarra, Mujer, poder y desarrollo en el Perú, 2 vols. (Lima, 1980) is a full-length study of women in Peru from Inca times to the end of the nineteenth century. An important narrative survey of women in colonial Peru is Luis Martín, Daughters of the Conquistadors: Women of the Viceroyalty of Peru (Albuquerque, N.Mex., 1983). For Mexico, Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Las mujeres en la Nueva España (Mexico, D.F., 1987) presents an overview of women’s history, with emphasis on the educational factors molding their lives. On Chile, less polished but still useful is Sor María Imelda Cano, La mujer en el reyno de Chile (Santiago, Chile, 1980). For Venezuela, Armila Troconis de Veracoceha, Indias, esclavas, mantuanas y primeras damas (Caracas, 1990) offers a general descriptive view of women in the colonial period and in the first half of the nineteenth century. A general treatment of some features of the history of women in New Spain is found in Asunción Lavrin, ‘In search of the colonial woman in Mexico: The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in A. Lavrin (ed.), Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives (Westport, Conn., 1978), 23–59.