Wandering Peoples: Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces, and Ecological Frontiers in Northwestern Mexico, 1700–1850 (Latin America Otherwise) - Softcover

Radding, Cynthia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822318997 ISBN 13: 9780822318996

Verlag: Duke University Press, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Wandering Peoples is a chronicle of cultural resiliency, colonial relations, and trespassed frontiers in the borderlands of a changing Spanish empire. Focusing on the native subjects of Sonora in Northwestern Mexico, Cynthia Radding explores the social process of peasant class formation and the cultural persistence of Indian communities during the long transitional period between Spanish colonialism and Mexican national rule. Throughout this anthropological history, Radding presents multilayered meanings of culture, community, and ecology, and discusses both the colonial policies to which peasant communities were subjected and the responses they developed to adapt and resist them. Radding describes this colonial mission not merely as an instance of Iberian expansion but as a site of cultural and political confrontation. This alternative vision of colonialism emphasizes the economic links between mission communities and Spanish mercantilist policies, the biological consequences of the Spanish policy of forced congregación, and the cultural and ecological displacements set in motion by the practices of discipline and surveillance established by the religious orders. Addressing wider issues pertaining to ethnic identities and to ecological and cultural borders, Radding's analysis also underscores the parallel production of colonial and subaltern texts during the course of a 150-year struggle for power and survival.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Cynthia Radding is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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""Wandering Peoples" is an example of regional history at its best. Cynthia Radding is one of the finest practitioners in the emerging field of Latin American ecological history; indeed, she is playing a major role in shaping the field. This book is an important and innovative contribution to colonial Mexican studies and will resonate with scholars working on any part of the globe who are engaged with its key themes."--Ann Wightman, Wesleyan University

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Wandering Peoples

Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces, and Ecological Frontiers in Northwestern Mexico, 1700-1850

By Cynthia Radding

Duke University Press

Copyright © 1997 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8223-1899-6

Contents

About the Series, 
List of Illustrations, 
Figures, 
Tables, 
Preface, 
Abbreviations, 
Introduction: The Social Ecology of the Sonoran Frontier, 
Peasants and Indians on the Sonoran Frontier, 
Peasant Culture and the Reconstitution of Ethnic Space, 
Ethnic Discourse and the Multiple Voices of Cultural History, 
Part I Los Sonoras and the Iberian Invasion of Northwestern Mexico, 
1 Ethnic Frontiers in the Sonoran Desert, 
2 Amerindian Economy in Sonora, 
3 Native Livelihood and the Colonial Economy, 
Part II The Intimate Sphere of Ethnicity: Household and Community, 
4 Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Formation in Sonora, 
5 "Gypseys" and Villagers: Shifting Communities and Changing Ethnic Identities in Highland Sonora, 
Part III Rival Proprietors and Changing Forms of Land Tenure, 
6 Land and the Indian Común, 
7 Peasants, Hacendados, and Merchants: The Cultural Differentiation of Sonoran Society, 
Part IV Ethnogenesis and Resistant Adaptation, 
8 Cultural Endurance and Accommodation to Spanish Rule, 
9 Patterns of Mobilization, 
Conclusions: Contested Space, 
Peasants and Indians in Sonora, 
A Contested Hegemony, 
Notes, 
Preface, 
Introduction: The Social Ecology of the Sonoran Frontier, 
1 Ethnic Frontiers in the Sonoran Desert, 
2 Amerindian Economy in Sonora, 
3 Native Livelihood and the Colonial Economy, 
4 Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Formation in Sonora, 
5 "Gypseys" and Villagers: Shifting Communities and Changing Ethnic Identities in Highland Sonora, 
6 Land and the Indian Común, 
7 Peasants, Hacendados, and Merchants: The Cultural Differentiation of Sonoran Society, 
8 Cultural Endurance and Accommodation to Spanish Rule, 
9 Patterns of Mobilization, 
Conclusions: Contested Space, 
Glossary, 
Select Bibliography, 
Primary Sources, 
Secondary Sources, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Ethnic Frontiers in the Sonoran Desert

The most elderly Indians still alive tell me that the name Sonora comes from a marshy spring about half a league from Guépaca, where a large ranchería used to make their houses of reeds and maize husks, which they call sonot in their language. When the first Spaniards heard the word, they pronounced it "sonora," and from then on the whole province took this harmonious and pleasing name.

Jesuit document, 1730

The peoples whose history concerns us occupied an area of approximately 225,000 square miles located between 27° and 34° latitude and 108° and 115° longitude in the north-central portion of Sonora (Mexico) and southern Arizona (U.S.A.). The central feature of their territory is the Sonoran Desert, stretching eastward from the Gulf of California to the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Successive mountain ranges and valleys, running generally from northeast to southwest, constitute the zona serrana that rises from the arid coastal plain and culminates in the escarpment of the Sierra Madre. These Cordilleras create distinct ecological niches, differing in altitude, temperature, and rainfall. Five principal rivers flow out of the mountains toward the gulf, cutting through the hills and carrying in their courses fertile alluvial deposits. Flanking the eastern edge of the Sonoran Desert, the Río San Miguel and its main tributary, the Río Zanjón, join the Río Sonora just north of Hermosillo (Pitic) and turn westward to drain their waters in the flatlands leading to the sea. Moving eastward, the Moctezuma (Oposura) and Bavispe flow into the Río Yaqui, the largest river system in Sonora, followed by the Río Mayo which irrigates the southernmost alluvial valley in the state. The main river channels and their innumerable affluents and arroyos nurture human settlement and provide the soils and humidity needed for horticulture.

The colonial provinces of Sonora and Ostimuri extended from the Yaqui Valley, in the south, to the river basins of the Gila and Colorado in the north. They were shared (and disputed) by village agriculturalists, who settled in the river valleys, and by nomadic gatherers, hunters, and fishermen who camped along the gulf coast and in the rugged terrain of the Sierra Madre. Their sustenance came from the abundant flora and fauna of the desert and from the coastal estuaries; likewise, the low scrub forest of the hills and canyons of the sierras provided shelter, medicine, food, fiber, game, and small plots for cultivation. Nomads wandered in seasonal patterns near the established farming villages with whom they traded. All groups depended on a variety of resources in order to ensure subsistence, and climatic variations from year to year altered planting cycles and crop yields. For this reason, as well as the ritual visitations associated with ancient migratory patterns, the movements of different peoples blurred and altered the ethnic boundaries which crossed and recrossed the Sonoran map (Fig. 1.1). The tribal nomenclature used in reference to agriculturalists and nomads varied widely and changed over time, referring to linguistic and territorial features. The superposition of different criteria, added to shifting residence patterns and the fact that native languages appeared in clusters of dialects, led to some confusion in the documentary record. Colonial observers altered ethnic terminology: the O'odham became Pimas, the Cunca'ac became Seris, the Tegüima became Opatas, and the Yoeme and Yoreme became Yaquis and Mayos.

The O'odham occupied different ecological zones in both the desert and the highlands, and Pima-Tepehuán speakers formed a linguistic chain along the Sierra Madre Occidental extending from Durango and Chihuahua to Sonora and Arizona. Their geographic profusion and the endurance of their languages point to the antiquity of O'odham peoples in northwestern Mexico. The northern Pimas of Sonora proper were further divided among the Hiach-ed or S-ohbmakam (desert nomads), the Tohono O'odham or Papawi Ko'odham (the "bean eaters," whom the Spaniards would call Pápagos), and the Akimel (riverine farmers).

Jesuit missionaries who first encountered farming peoples in the piedmont region of the middle Yaqui River during the early seventeenth century called them Nebomes, distinguishing between the "upper" and "lower" Nebomes according to their geographic location at different altitudes of the sierra. By the eighteenth century these Nebome villagers were known as Pima Bajo, separated physically from the Pima Alto of northern Sonora by the Opata and Eudeve speakers of the central highlands. Pima agriculturalists formed a number of large communities and many more rancherías along the alluvial floodplains of the lower San Miguel and Sonora valleys. Their territory in the Sierra Madre extended eastward as far as the westernmost Tarahumara villages of Chihuahua. At higher elevations, where rainfall was abundant, Pima villagers planted on terraces and in arroyo beds; at lower elevations, during periods of drought, they carried water to their gardens from natural springs that drew on underground sources and seepage from the surrounding hills. In general, however, all serrano peoples relied on...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Duke University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0822318997
• ISBN 13: 9780822318996
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 432
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland