Amérique du Sud coloniale, identité et race vues par un prêtre chaldéen de Bagdad

In the seventeenth century, a Chaldean priest from Baghdad, Ilyās al-Mawṣilī, set off on a trip to Europe. From there, he would embark on an epic voyage around much of South and Central America. How did this traveller, not Spanish, not black and not indigenous, understand his place within an unfamiliar social and racial economy? This article approaches global historical questions about identity, pre-modern ideas of race and how discursive frames inform our interpretation of the world around us.