“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

Arambillete drew the line between credible insider and outsider around distinctly local
conceptions of residence coupled with personal status connected to one’s trade. Cabral was
an outsider that had only recently appeared in the town and lacked ties to the existing local
elite. Cabral simply did not possess the requisite personal prestige to offer credible counsel
and evidence in the tribunal. Through these types of decisions, local courts could police
which individuals could establish political, social and economic ties with the forum. This
power to regulate membership in the local elite and access to justice went to the heart of
borderlands legalities. Rhetorical appeals to rights and justice linked up explicitly with the
internal logic of localized power networks and the trading relationships they sustained.
Vecindad
As the Cabral case and others suggest, these various strands of personal character,
economic status and connections to the local forum coalesced around vecindad. Vecindad was
a complex term conveying both physical proximity – literally meaning neighbor – and a form
of local citizenship and the status to match. Vecindad stood at the heart of the local systems
of justice at the center of borderlands legalities. The concept of vecindad originated in Castile
during the reconquest. It originally applied to settlers occupying lands recovered from
retreating Muslim communities on the Iberian Peninsula as Christian armies pushed
southwards. 91 As the reconquest ebbed, vecindad came to be associated more practically with
membership within the community. 92 This implied not only a number of political and
economic rights, such as the ability to participate in local elections, but also enhanced social
91 Tamar Herzog, Defining Nations Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and
Spanish America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 6.
92 The mechanisms to establish vecindad varied between local communities, but one
could generally acquire the status of vecino by possessing a fixed residence within a town,
practicing a trade, and/or serving in the local militia. Djenderedijan, "Roots of Revolution,"
647.
110