Juana Ines, a series based on a true story

In this excellent Netflix original series, set in late 17th century, the story begins with the expulsion of a beautiful, brilliant, and spunky young woman (Juana Ines) from her uncle's home.  She is sent to court to win the favor of the viceroy and the vicereine--just as the religious leaders are conducting an inquisition and burning all books not approved by the church.

Self-educated, Juana Ines is as well-read as the university-educated men charged with questioning her for her suitability as tutor to the viceroy's daughter. Before being quizzed rigorously by those men, however, she is warned that women "should remain ignorant for the better service to their husbands."

The monarch's wife had what we'd now call bipolar disorder--though there was no name for that in the 1600s.  She could go from giddy to rage in seconds.

She was also a lesbian, but there was apparently no name for that either: one of her maids said she "had the  devil between her legs."  She falls in love with Juana Ines, a "bastard child" who can marry no man because her illegitimacy makes her ineligible in the eyes of the church.

This is a fascinating story about the extreme control of women by the church fathers and the quest of one woman to live a life of an enlightened mind.  Convents provided the only real refuge for women like Juana Ines--but they, of course, had their own set of rules and powerful control.


The story is set in New Spain--and I had to check out Wikipedia to find out more:

New Spain (Spanish: Nueva España) was a colonial territory of the Spanish Empire, in the New World north of the Isthmus of Panama. It was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, and following additional conquests, it was made a viceroyalty in 1535. The first of four viceroyalties Spain created in the Americas, it comprised Mexico, Central America, much of the Southwestern and Central United States, and Spanish Florida as well as the Philippines, Guam, Mariana and Caroline Islands.

After 1535 the colony was governed by the Viceroy of New Spain, an appointed minister of the King of Spain, who ruled as monarch over the colony. The capital of New Spain was Mexico City.

New Spain lost parts of its territory to other European powers and independence, but the core area remained under Spanish control until 1821, when it achieved independence as the Mexican Empire— when the latter dissolved, it became modern Mexico and Central America