Indigenous Intellectuals: Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822356600 ISBN 13: 9780822356608

Verlag: Duke University Press, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Via military conquest, Catholic evangelization, and intercultural engagement and struggle, a vast array of knowledge circulated through the Spanish viceroyalties in Mexico and the Andes. This collection highlights the critical role that indigenous intellectuals played in this cultural ferment. Scholars of history, anthropology, literature, and art history reveal new facets of the colonial experience by emphasizing the wide range of indigenous individuals who used knowledge to subvert, undermine, critique, and sometimes enhance colonial power. Seeking to understand the political, social, and cultural impact of indigenous intellectuals, the contributors examine both ideological and practical forms of knowledge. Their understanding of "intellectual" encompasses the creators of written texts and visual representations, functionaries and bureaucrats who interacted with colonial agents and institutions, and organic intellectuals. Contributors. Elizabeth Hill Boone, Kathryn Burns, John Charles, Alan Durston, María Elena Martínez, Tristan Platt, Gabriela Ramos, Susan Schroeder, John F. Schwaller, Camilla Townsend, Eleanor Wake, Yanna Yannakakis

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gabriela Ramos is University Lecturer in Latin American History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow and College Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of Death and Conversion in the Andes: Lima and Cuzco, 1532–1670.

Yanna Yannakakis is Associate Professor of History at Emory University. She is the author of The Art of Being In-Between: Native Intermediaries, Indian Identity, and Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca, also published by Duke University Press.

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Indigenous Intellectuals

Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes

By Gabriela Ramos, Yanna Yannakakis

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2014 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8223-5660-8

Contents

FOREWORD Elizabeth Hill Boone, 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, 
INTRODUCTION Gabriela Ramos and Yanna Yannakakis, 
PART I. Indigenous Functionaries: Ethnicity, Networks, and Institutions, 
CHAPTER 1 - Indigenous Intellectuals in Andean Colonial Cities Gabriela Ramos, 
CHAPTER 2 - The Brothers Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Bartolomé de Alva: Two "Native" Intellectuals of Seventeenth-Century Mexico John Frederick Schwaller, 
CHAPTER 3 - Trained by Jesuits: Indigenous Letrados in Seventeenth-Century Peru John Charles, 
CHAPTER 4 - Making Law Intelligible: Networks of Translation in Mid-Colonial Oaxaca Yanna Yannakakis, 
PART II. Native Historians: Sources, Frameworks, and Authorship, 
CHAPTER 5 - Chimalpahin and Why Women Matter in History Susan Schroeder, 
CHAPTER 6 - The Concept of the Nahua Historian: Don Juan Zapata's Scholarly Tradition Camilla Townsend, 
CHAPTER 7 - Cristóbal Choquecasa and the Making of the Huarochirí Manuscript Alan Durston, 
PART III. Forms of Knowledge: Genealogies, Maps, and Archives, 
CHAPTER 8 - Indigenous Genealogies: Lineage, History, and the Colonial Pact in Central Mexico and Peru María Elena Martínez, 
CHAPTER 9 - The Dawning Places: Celestially Defined Land Maps, Títulos Primordiales, and Indigenous Statements of Territorial Possession in Early Colonial Mexico Eleanor Wake, 
CHAPTER 10 - Making Indigenous Archives: The Quilcaycamayoq in Colonial Cuzco Kathryn Burns, 
CONCLUSION Tristan Platt, 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, 
CONTRIBUTORS, 
INDEX, 

CHAPTER 1

Indigenous Intellectuals in Andean Colonial Cities

Gabriela Ramos

In this chapter I examine the background, position, and activities of indigenous intellectuals in the cities of Lima and Cuzco, and discuss the means by which they acquired, developed, and administered the knowledge that allowed them to stand out from their peers. Through the study of several individual cases I aim to show how they were positioned in society, either by gaining a place in the colonial administration, practicing a trade, or associating with others to meet specific ends. Whenever possible, I examine the social relations these individuals established, and assess their participation in and contribution to the production and dissemination of knowledge.

I start by assessing the conditions that allowed indigenous intellectuals to thrive. Briefly comparing the Andes and Mexico, I ask if cities and political centralization played a role in the formation of intellectuals in the period before the Spanish conquest, and hypothesize about the reasons behind the contrasting performance of indigenous intellectuals in the two main centers of Spanish colonial rule. Next, I compare the conditions under which the Andean cities of Lima and Cuzco were created after the conquest, and examine how they affected the position of Cuzqueño and Limeño indigenous elites. I argue that these conditions significantly shaped the kinds of indigenous intellectuals who emerged in each colonial city and the relationship they established with the colonial government and other groups in society. Finally, I consider the instances in which Andean indigenous intellectuals acquired and used the knowledge that allowed them to attain positions of leadership, an achievement that fortified and transformed certain sectors of indigenous society, but ultimately helped to strengthen the colonial system as a whole.

Intellectuals, Cities, and Political Structures

One of the most striking contrasts between pre-Columbian Mexico and the Andes at the time of the Spanish conquest is the abundance of urban centers in Mexico and a correspondingly decentralized political structure, compared with the small number of Andean cities and a governmental structure characterized by a powerful imperial state. To what extent did these differences determine the numbers, behavior, and influence of local intellectuals? Considering the distinct forms in which indigenous intellectuals engaged with Spanish colonial culture and politics in the years immediately following the conquest of Mexico and Peru, I hypothesize that the locations, functions, ways of producing and administering knowledge, and the social relations maintained by both local and imperial intellectuals were greatly influenced by their precontact urban experience and the form of doing politics that city states encouraged, which was dynamic and relied on specialized agents. Although in both Mexico and the Andes local rulers had to negotiate continuously with imperial authorities, it seems that the Inca were more successful than the Mexica at imposing themselves by force upon their neighbors. Perhaps aggressive Incan imperial policy left local Andean intellectuals with more limited means of survival after the Spanish conquest than their counterparts in Mexico. During the early colonial period, specialized knowledge in the Andes rested in very few hands, which, in contrast with the case of Mexico, appears to have limited its endurance and circulation.

The art of record keeping offers a useful comparison with which to examine this question. Although references to Andean cord keepers or quipucamayocs appear throughout the colonial period, they are not abundant; nor are they easy to find outside the obvious former imperial center of Cuzco. Compared to Mexico, in the Andes one is far less likely to distinguish a direct link between ancient record keepers and colonial indigenous scribes and notaries (see also Burns, chapter 10). It could be argued that the abundance of indigenous writers in colonial Mexico can be explained by the existence of a greater number of local bureaucracies charged with the rule of city-states and, more important, by the development in pre-Columbian Mexico of forms of representation that engaged better with European writing, drawing, and painting than did Andean devices. For their part, the Spanish were better able to understand Mexican recording systems and allowed them to survive, whereas their attitude toward Andean quipu was ambiguous at its best. In addition, precolonial Mexico's political decentralization must have favored the dissemination of knowledge and the formation of a pool of scribes and writers whose duty it was to pass on their skills to the next generation.

Andean Indigenous Power/Knowledge and Early Colonial Urbanism

The spatial reorganization launched shortly after the conquest to facilitate Spanish colonial rule led to the creation of cities and urban settlements in the Andes. Urbanization involved the relocation of both local and foreign populations, the creation of new jurisdictions, and the adaptation of those previously existing to the newly created spatial patterns. These changes were compounded by intense demographic transformations. It was not rare for new indigenous leaders to be brought into the newly created urban centers to take charge of various aspects of their administration. Thus the Andean political landscape was significantly transformed after the conquest. The changes effected had implications for the indigenous elites' participation in government as well as for population distribution and migration patterns.

Pizarro's decision to establish the main colonial...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Duke University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0822356600
• ISBN 13: 9780822356608
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 342
• Herausgeber: Ramos
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland