Fugitive Freedom

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Cut loose from their ancestral communities by wars and systemic changes in expanding Europe, vagabonds and others out of place often remain overlooked in the turbulent history of early modern Spain and Spanish America. These shadowy figures, viewed with suspicion and sometimes charity, prompted a stream of decrees treating them as threats to public order. In colonial Mexico, the vagabonds and impostors are elusive in the written record, offering little more than commonplaces about their existence. This work focuses on two such individuals, Joseph Aguayo and Juan Atondo, both priest impersonators and petty villains in central Mexico during the waning years of Spanish rule. Their displacement brought pícaros to the forefront of Spanish literature—a diverse group of low-life characters, often seen as treacherous yet not violently so, navigating a hostile world with cleverness and self-interest. The narrative explores whether Aguayo and Atondo viewed themselves in literary terms, as heroes of their own stories, and questions if impostors could exist in everyday life without a receptive audience or supportive institutions. This examination provides a rare glimpse into the social histories and inner lives of two individuals on the margins of a colonial order in flux.