This dissertation is concerned with three lines of inquiry. In what ways did local early modern practices of burial inform Caribbean populations’ engagement with modern regimes of the dead over the course of the nineteenth century? How did the growing influence of medical and public health officials over the dead alter relations between ecclesiastical and civil authorities? How did religious and medical conceptions of the dead compete, interact, and influence burial practice? This dissertation contends that understanding the changing attitudes toward burial on the islands is central to understanding how modern scientific practices and sensibilities infiltrated life in Caribbean port cities.

By reconstructing the evolving forms of burial in San Juan and Havana, this dissertation illustrates how the patterns established in the early modern period were refashioned in modern practice. Building on recent literature on death and dying in Latin America, I also argue that the adoption of general cemeteries and public health initiatives around the control of bodies were key to processes of liberalization in the region and became intertwined with debates about the role of ecclesiastical and civil authorities in the management of social life. I conclude that, rather than a turn away from religion, the populations of Caribbean port cities adopted hybrid conceptions of death and burial that incorporated both modern medical knowledge with traditional Catholic practice. Scientific and religious perspectives were not incompatible; instead they intertwined in policy and practice to respond to the needs of an increasingly heterodox population.