Anna M. Nogar’s Quill and Cross in the Borderlands addresses the fragmentary case of Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, a Spanish nun renowned for her bilocation to the Jumano tribe of eastern New Mexico in the early seventeenth century. While Sor María’s fame as the bilocating “Lady in Blue” has continued over the centuries, much of the nun’s historical and literary significance has been lost. Quill and Cross in the Borderlands presents Sor María’s transatlantic contributions as a woman religious—mystic, writer, and early missionary. Although Sor Maria’s tale of bilocation has long been disassociated from her historical personage, Nogar argues that a synthesis of these fragmented elements, particularly Sor María’s work as a writer, foments new discussions on the significance of convent writing in early modern Spain. This includes the impact of Sor María’s textual production on the theological and cultural landscape of colonial Mexico, as well as its far-reaching influences into twenty-first century U.S.-Mexico borderland relations.
Nogar divides Quill and Cross into six chapters that trace Sor María’s chronological and geographical trajectory through Spain and the Americas. Chapters 1 (“Seventeenth Century Spiritual Travel”) and 2 (“Rise as a Mystical Writer”) address the textual foundations of the nun’s popularity. The first chapter identifies early manuscripts that popularize Sor María’s evangelizing bilocations as the “Lady in Blue.” Some of the manuscripts, such as Fray Alonso de Benavides’s 1630 Memorial and Fray Gerónimo de Zárate Salmerón’s Relaciones (1626), incorporate the “Lady in Blue” narrative as integral to the historical framework of the region’s conquest and settlement. Others, such as Friar Joseph Ximénez Samaniego’s vita and a letter penned by Fray Benavides and Sor María conjointly (1631), explore the complex relationship between the nun, her ecstasies, and the nature of mystical writing in a time of Inquisitional power. Nogar’s second chapter explores this relationship more deeply, addressing the impact of Sor María’s writings on contemporary religious debates and her later beatification process. As a whole, both chapters identify the strong textual presence of the nun in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with Sor María’s writings on Marian theology and mystic evangelization significant contributors to the influence of the Franciscan Order in Spain, the growth of their missionary objectives on the New Spanish frontier, and the modification of religious and secular devotional practices in both locations.
Chapters 3 and 4 subsequently address Sor María’s transatlantic influence. “Publication, Reading, and Interpretation of Sor María’s Writing” tackles the expansion of the nun’s writings from Europe to New Spain, mapping a variety of genres in the dissemination of Sor María’s texts. Nogar traces how Mexican presses and editions of Sor María’s Marian La mística ciudad de Dios, not to mention prints, paintings, and homilies based on the text, comment on the broad access New Spanish citizens had to her writings across class and education. Chapter 4, “Writer and Missionary on the New Spanish Frontier,” reincorporates Sor María’s influence as writer back into the “Lady in Blue” narrative as seen in the missionary libraries of New Spain. Nogar compiles an extensive mapping of colonial-era libraries and their inventories to trace the readership of Sor María’s texts and their contributions to Franciscan missionary training. Missives including Fray Nicolás López’s Memorial (1686) and accounts (relaciones) by Fray Francisco Hidalgo underscore Sor María’s writings as sources of geographical and spiritual knowledge that informed Franciscan evangelization of indigenous groups on the New Spanish frontier. As Nogar demonstrates in both chapters, Sor María’s ubiquitous texts were not only a source of emulation for missionaries on the frontier, but were also verbal maps and ethnographic guides that sustained Christianizing efforts and the presence of the Spanish Crown at the northern frontier.
Chapters 5 and 6 conclude with the evolution of Sor María’s influence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter 5, “Blue Lady of Lore,” addresses the transition of Sor María’s “Lady in Blue” narrative to the folk tradition. Nogar investigates early to mid-twentieth century sources ranging from the textual (Carlos Castañeda, Jovita González de Mireles, Adina de Zavala) to the audial (New Mexican alabado “La mística suidá de luz”) and visual (mural Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Love for the Indian Race, Edward O’Brien). Rearticulations of the nun’s mystic travels associate her with new contexts, abilities, and affiliations, ultimately creating space to link the “Lady in Blue” narrative to contemporary dialogues. These include resistance movements of Mexican American and indigenous communities of the twentieth century. Chapter 6, “Sor María and the Lady in Blue,” culminates this turn with a look towards contemporary manifestations on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Nogar argues that the power of the “Lady in Blue” narrative lies in its ability to contribute to twenty-first century debates, including dialogues on Chicano cultural identity, the empowerment of women and indigenous communities, and the violence of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Quill and Cross in the Borderlands is a work of synthesis. Nogar weaves Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda’s roles as woman religious, author, mystic, and protomissionary into a vibrant historical trajectory that moves beyond fragmentary treatment of the nun as a predominately folk figure. Careful archival research and literary mapping calls new attention to the nun as author, presenting Sor María as an influential contributor to colonial public discourse that still resonates in the religious, political, and cultural debates of the twenty-first century. As with her contemporary Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Nogar presents the literary corpus of Sor María as a ripe area of scholarship in its contributions to convent writing, women’s writing, ethnopoetics, and folklore studies as they pertain to the cultural milieu of New Spain.
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[Review length: 930 words • Review posted on April 8, 2019]