Women, Crime, and Law in Latin America's Nineteenth Century

ABSTRACT This article examines the literature on women as perpetrators of crime in 19th‐century Latin America, a topic largely overlooked in historical scholarship. While most studies focus on women as victims of domestic or sexual violence, this work explores women as perpetrators of crime, specifically reproductive crimes (abortion and infanticide), witchcraft, assault, and murder. In doing so, the article explores how, during the transition from colonial rule to independent republics, politics affected women's status and the law and how women interacted with the evolving legal system. It analyzes scholarly debates on patriarchy, autonomy, submission versus passivity, honor, agency, liberalism, and how the formation of modern states affected women's status. The article highlights how state surveillance of sexuality intensified after independence, culminating in late‐century legal codes that codified honor norms and criminalized female behavior. It also considers prosecutions for witchcraft and violent crimes as mechanisms of social control. Scholarship demonstrates that women navigated and sometimes subverted patriarchal structures, ignored the honor code, and aggressively pursued their interests, offering insights into gender, law, and nation‐building in Latin America's long 19th century.