This document discusses colonial rule in Latin America, resistance to it, and the resulting racial mixing and caste system. It mentions silver mining in Potosi fueling the colonial economy under viceroys. It also discusses Palmares, an escaped slave colony led by Zumbi in Brazil, and Tupac Amaru II who tried to unite diverse groups against the Spanish. The document examines how the church organized mixed-race groups in a racial hierarchy and the process of transculturation that occurred under colonialism.
Diego Rivera, Disembarkation of the Spanish at Veracruz http://courses.csusm.edu/hist337as/hb/h37hbfr2.htm
Potosi (15,000 ft) became the largest city in the Americas for a time. Royal fifth = 20 percent tax on mining 4 viceroyalties were eventualy setup to administer the mining In Brazil, suger took the place of mining, but it could never take the place of silver. Portugal was outmatched by Spain, but managed to hang on to Brazil despite, in comparision , a lack of investment and interest in the colony
p. 67 – “When they accept the principle of their own inferiority and, “know their place”, they participate in their own subjugation” To go against the church was a criminal offense The church controlled books, the town bells, taxes, land, festivals, place names, etc. Male-dominated, contradictory society. Men’s wild oats weren’t considered. Only children of the mother could inherit patrimony.
In contrast, quilombos, great and small, existed by the hundred throughout Brazil. There was a particularly large and lasting one in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, for example. But none can rival the kingdom of Palmares, inland from the sugar coast of Northeastern Brazil, where African slaves fled from plantations and created backland village settlements governed by African social institutions. Palmares lasted for most of a century, but many tiny quilombos and palanques lasted only a few years.
This most important of colonial rebellions shook the high Andes and sent shockwaves throughout Spanish America. The mestizo who called himself Tupac Amaru II claimed Inca descent and took that name in memory of Tupac Amaru I, an Inca resistance leader and, subsequently, folk hero who fought a rear-guard action against the conquest in the 1500s. Like the 1810-1811 Hidalgo rebellion in Mexico, Tupac Amaru's uprising was initially "Americano," rather than indigenous, in focus—calling for an alliance among native-born whites, mestizos, and indigenous people against European-born Spaniards. Like Hidalgo's rebellion, however, Tupac Amaru's, once begun, became primarily indigenous and raged out of control, leaping south through the high plateaus like grass fire into Upper Peru (modern-day Bolivia), where it set off another, more stubborn revolt. Finally, like Hidalgo's rebellion, Tupac Amaru's showed that multiclass rebellions of Americanos against Spaniards could easily become more radical wars against the entire white ruling class. As a result, native-born whites in Mexico and Peru were among the last on the continent to embrace the patriot cause during the wars of independence Tupac Amaro's execution by being torn into four pieces, 1781. Source: An eighteenth-century illustration in the public domain. Found on http://webs.sinectis.com.ar/mcagliani/tupac.htm Evidently taken from Lucía Gálvez, Las mil y una historias de América , de editorial Norma. 1999. http://www.alleyezonme.com/2pacnews/tupacshakur/599/Pictures_of_Tupac_Memorial_Statue_in%20Atlanta.html
Colonial Latin America had an overt caste system whereby an individual's social identity as white, indigenous, African, or mixed was officially assigned in the baptismal register. In fact, the possibilities were many more than these four. Usage varied in different parts of colonial Latin America, and the system became more complex over time. "From Spanish and Indian, Mestizo ." "From Spanish and Black, Mulatto ." Such are the titles of paintings that were commissioned by colonial functionaries in the 1700s, often as souvenirs to be sent back to Spain, and frequently assembled in complete sets that were supposed to explore all the possible combinations. Caste paintings were partly reflections of colonial realities—that is, the fact that gene pools were merging—and partly an attempt to organize the imperial grip on those realities. Categorizing individuals in caste terms was important to colonial administration because different castes had different privileges and obligations. Some crosses were denigrated with animal names like Lobo (Wolf) and Coyote . One, Moorish , was a Spanish attempt to relate American realities to Spanish historical experience. While the number of sixteen theoretical caste categories is often represented, no more than four or five were commonly applied in practice.
