An Evening with Martin Nesvig

A revealing look at colonial Mexico uncovers the lives of women whose spiritual practices crossed cultural, religious and geographic boundaries. Historian Martin Nesvig discusses how accusations of witchcraft illuminate overlooked histories of healing, resistance and belief in the early modern Atlantic world.

The conversation centers on Nesvig’s book The Women Who Threw Corn: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Mexico, which examines cases of non-native women accused of sorcery by the Inquisition. Drawing from archival research, the book traces how women from Spain, North Africa, Senegambia and the Canary Islands adapted Indigenous rituals and medicinal knowledge into hybrid spiritual practices. Through these stories of witches, midwives, and healers, Nesvig reframes colonial Mexico as a multiethnic space shaped as much by women’s knowledge as by imperial power.

An Evening with Martin Nesvig takes place Monday, January 26 at Books & Books in Coral Gables. Presented in collaboration with the University of Miami Center for the Humanities, the event is free and open to the public, with RSVP recommended.