ISABEL DE OLVERA
Realizing that as a mulatto she was subject to claims of slavery in New Mexico, she tool the precaution of getting this affidavit to protect her freedom. An interesting side note is that she states that she is “not bound by marriage or slavery.” For a woman the state of marriage meant the loss of most of her civil rights and was even then put in a similar category to slavery.
Isabel de Olvera was a free woman of mixed racial heritage in the 16th and 17th centuries. She lived in Querétaro, Mexico, and travelled on the Juan Guerra de Resa expedition to Santa Fe, sent to strengthen the Spanish claim to the colonised province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México. Olvera, the servant of a Spanish woman, filed a remarkable sworn deposition with the alcalde mayor of Querétaro before leaving on the expedition.
