Voltaire's Alzire

Voltaire's short play, Alzire, was a surprisingly popular piece in colonial Haiti. Performed at least 7 times between 1765 and 1783, and in 3 of the important towns of the colony, the play must have resonated with audiences. Voltaire's sympathies for the Incas aside, the play seems to be praising a type of selfless Christianity represented by Alvarez, the father of the tyrannical, ruthless leader, Guzman. Unlike Guzman, Alvarez is critical of the Spanish thirst for gold and violence against the indigenous peoples of Peru. Moreover, Alvarez was saved earlier by Zamor, a rebel and the lover of Alzire, the princess (and daughter of Montezuma) who was pushed into marriage with Guzman. 

As one can likely imagine, the romances and sense of loyalty (to one's father, to one's people, and to one's faith) come to occupy a major role in the story, which ends well despite its tragic setting. The Incas, represented by Montezuma and the "cacique" Zamor of Potosi, are also intriguingly presented as both morally superior to the "barbarian" Spanish while at the same time, suffering from the delusions of their idolatry. Hence, the conflict between Montezeuma and Zamor, who was believed to have been killed earlier, is fueled by the former's acceptance of Christianity and submission to the Spanish while Zamor pledges vengeance. Those familiar with Haiti and Dessalines might feel their Spidey senses tingling here, since Zamor's position as the avenger of the Americas may have influenced the writers of Dessalines, who famously repeated the same proclamation. 

Perhaps the moral redemption of Guzman at the play's conclusion, which demonstrated to Zamor that Christianity could have virtue, may have hinted at a possibly fruitful future for Alvarez, Zamor and Alzire as Christianity and a benevolent regime developed. One could see this message appealing to people of color and some Creoles in Saint Domingue, who, while rejecting enslavement and the inevitable exploitation and abuses that accompanied it, still saw value in Christianity and European civilization. Indeed, perhaps Zamor and Alzire, with Alvarez representing the "benevolent" white father, could usher in a new world that, whilst still drawing from their past as the ruling elite of the old, promised a brighter new New World.

Inka History in Knots

Gary Urton's Inka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources proposes the idea of using khipu as primary sources for reconstructing the history of Tawantinsuyu, or the Inca Empire. Doing so would also make it possible for future historians to write a history of the Inca Empire in the style of the Annales school. That is why he focuses on administrative or numerical khipu found at various sites across the Inca domains. In addition, focusing on the khipu as 'archive' and accounting system connects it to systems of power and hegemony of the Inka state. Alas, how khipu may have been related to earlier, pre-Inca states, such as Wari, is unknowable. Unfortunately, Urton's hypotheses and speculative reasoning are just that, too speculative. For instance, he tries to view one khipu from Chachapoyas as a biennial calendar recording tributaries in the region based on early colonial records enumerating around the same number as recorded on the khipu. But his interpretation of the Chachapoyas khipu, as well as the interpretations of the data linking some Khipus to censuses and even population decline across during the colonial period is still too speculative. 

As much as I would love for historians and specialists to be able to use khipu as primary source "documents" to record a history of the Inka in the style of the Annales school, we are still so far from understanding the khipu. It also seems that "cracking the code" for phonetic or narrative khipus may be helpful for interpreting the administrative khipu, particularly when the some of the notation and meaning of much of the numerical ones are still up for debate? Nonetheless, Urton's work and the Khipu Database Project does represent a significant step forward. His attempts to match some of them with known colonial records and Andean systems (such as dualism, ayllus, etc.) and possible matching colonial-era censuses raises a number of exciting questions about what may be achievable by future specialists. 

History of the Inca Realm

History of the Inca Realm by Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco is a major study of the Inca Empire by an important Peruvian scholar. Rostworoski's scholarly contributions include careful research in the colonial archive for insights on political, economic, and social arrangements in precolonial Peru, particularly the coastal region. This work is a culmination of sorts of this scholarship, highlighting how the very specific conditions that enabled a rapid rise of the Incas as the largest state in the Americas were also the reasons for its rapid fall to Pizarro and the Spanish. For Rostworoski, the Andean tradition of reciprocity as the basis for one ruler to demand labor tribute or service from others meant that as the Incas expanded their state with Pachacuti and his successors, they required additional conquests to receive the necessary gifts, luxuries and women to receive service from vassal or conquered lords. In other words, due to the relations of reciprocity that required the Inca to have gifts, women, and feasts for the Inca nobility and provincial elites in order to extract labor and tribute, the state had to continue imperial expansion for additional areas to extract labor from. But, as the Inca state expanded, they needed more luxury goods, gifts, etc. to give to the newly conquered provincial elites in exchange for their tribute/labor. 

This created a situation in which the Lords of Cusco had to continue to conquer or incorporate other areas to maintain relations of reciprocity with areas they had recently incorporated. In order to counterbalance this tendency, the Incas used yana administrators who were entirely loyal to the Inca, thereby avoiding the expectations of reciprocity. But this administrative move would have angered or alienated some of the conquered peoples, who were already discontent with the the forced relocations of mitmaq laborers and tribute burdens. Ultimately, the discontented provincial elites and commoners, in addition to the competition for the throne among the Inca elites who could justify seizing the throne based on ability, meant that the vast Inca state system had not unified its heterogeneous population and fell as indigenous peoples opposed to Cusco joined or supported the Spanish.

Rostworowoski endeavors to support this thesis with a broad analysis of Inca imperial expansion's social, political, and economic conditions. To understand how the Inca state became a great empire from its humble beginnings as one Andean chiefdom among many, the historian draws on ethnographic evidence, the chronicles, archival sources and reports, and archaeology to make sense of the general patterns of Andean socio-political organization. With this background, one can then develop plausible models for understanding how the Incas, whose final victory against the Chancas during the reign of Pachacuti, paved the way forward for expansion. Intriguingly, Rostworowski suggests that it was via the plunder seized from the Chancas that Pachacuti was able to expand his state by receiving enough goods, gifts, and supplies to bequeath to Cuzco-area and neighboring chiefs and vassals for tribute. Then, with this system of reciprocity requiring further gifts in which the Inca had to provide food and goods to allies and subjugated leaders, the Inca state developed into a vast empire over the reigns of his successors. Throughout the text, Rostworoski proposes a number of interesting theories about this process and even early Inca origins, illustrating how much they were part of a broader Andean civilization. Indeed, perhaps the very name Pachacuti was derived from the Wari past in the highlands? The Incas also certainly borrowed from coastal societies in terms of importing artisans, and clearly built their state on past Andean practices that included coastal trade, herding, irrigated agriculture, and infrastructure projects.  

Despite its achievements in administrative efficiency, roads and census-keeping, and producing surpluses, the Inca state was unable to survive an ambush from a small Spanish party led by Pizarro. This part of Rostworoski's analysis focuses on internal factors rather than external for understanding the fall of the Incas. Since, as mentioned previously, the Inca state was not a cohesive one in which conquered peoples felt themselves a part of the state, it was no surprise they joined or supported the Spaniards. However, the other internal factor, dissension within the Inca ruling elite, was equally disastrous. The brutal civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa over succession to the throne after Huayna Capac's death exposed how fragile the political system was. According to Rostworoski, the conflict between the half-brothers reflected their different ayllu affiliations and how matrilineal ayllu ties were key for royal succession. The fact that succession could be justified by ability and the competition among various ayllus or panacas for the throne added another dimension to the collapse of the Incas. These competing factions with the Inca elites, plus the willingness of some provincial lords and conquered peoples to support the Spanish, helped seal the fate of the Incas. 

The Word for Farm Is Forest

One of the most fundamental words for understanding the culture and history of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean is conuco. Still used in Caribbean Spanish and Papiamento, conuco referred to the mound plots of yucca and other crops cultivated by the "Taino" in the Antilles. Among the Lokono or Arawak on the mainland, however, a forest is called kunuku. How is it that among the "Taino" in the Caribbean, a word for forest was used for agricultural plots clearly human-made? Some scholars, such as Sven Loven, interpret this as evidence that in their ancient past, the "Taino" used to construct their mounds after clearing a wooded area. This could be the case, yet it is intriguing that none of the other Arawakan languages spoken nearby have adapted the word for forest to an agricultural plot or mound. 

Let us take a brief look at words for related concepts in other languages spoken in northern South America, as well as Garifuna and Kalinago. In Garifuna, a farm is méinabu. The word for forest, however, is árabu. This same word is used for flora, too, while to cultivate is ábunagua. This latter term may be related to the word for to bury, ábuna. Looking to the Kalinago or "Island Carib" language, obviously similar to Garifuna, one finds a few more words. A garden, according to Rochefort, is maina. A forest is arabou, clearly the origin for the Garifuna term. Breton's dictionary, however, provides a few more words for garden. One word given in his dictionary is oubácali. Other synonyms for garden include máima, as well as Icháli. The second term actually survives in Garifuna as ichari, or large vegetable patch. To our knowledge, neither Rochefort nor Breton listed a word similar to conuco for farm, plot, soil or mound. However, one can see that Icháli is the "female language" word for garden, and presumably the Arawakan-derived term used in the Lesser Antilles before the expansion of Cariban-speakers in the archipelago. 

Examining South American languages may provide additional clues. The aforementioned Lokono, for instance, uses ororo for earth, according to Goeje's The Arawak Language of Guiana. To plan is abone whilst land or farm is o-horora. A tree is called ada and a planted field is kabuya. Only kunuku, or forest, is close to the "Taino" word. Indeed, Palikur, another Arawakan language provides few clues, too. Terre is translated as wayk, but forest is ahavwi. A farmer is called a wasevutne and wood is ah. In Wayuu, another Arawakan languages, selva is translated as wuna'apü, tree or wood is wunu'u and una'apü. To sow is in apünajaa and cultivo is pünajüt. The Wayuu term for forest may be related to the Kalinago and Garifuna words. The even more distant Ashaninka language of the Amazonian region uses inchatoshi for forest, and quipatsi for earth. Last, but certainly not least, the non-Arawakan Warao tongue uses daukaba for conuco and hacienda. Their word for wood or forest is dauna/daina. Intriguingly, the Warao use dau for wood and tree. Their word for tierra, Jobaji, is unlike other words we have encountered just as namú for sembrar is unique. Like the "Taino" in the Antilles, the Warao seem to use a word for conuco that ultimately derives from their word for tree and forest. 

Although we have barely scratched the surface, one wonders if the unique character of the "Taino" conuco deriving from a term for forest can be seen as a parallel with speakers of Warao. Although they did not share the same terminology for their plots of land, both languages seem to have adapted their words for forest for agricultural lands used for cultivating crops. This etymology also makes more sense than that proposed by Vescelius and Granberry, who sought to trace the origin of conuco to uku (meaning earth, soil, or terrain) and ko, for planting of crops. Is it possible that the early speakers of the "Taino" tongue, who we know interacted with Warao speakers they borrowed the word duho from, were similarly influenced by terminology or ideas traced to agriculture? A lot more work remains to be done. 

The Last of the Haitians

Whilst perusing Mollien's book (unpublished during his lifetime) on Haiti, we could not help but miss his strange summary of the history of Boya and the remnants of the indigenous population. Boya, which he miswrote as Baya, was said to be the bastion of the last "pure" Indians of the island. According to Mollien, about 40 years before his writing (and he was in Haiti from 1825-1831), the last "pure" Indian woman of Boya died. Since Mollien does not usually indicate his sources and he's problematic in other ways, one does not know how to interpret this strange view of the end of Boya's indigenous population. However, the idea that there were no more "pure" Indians in Boya is echoed by Thomas Madiou, too.

Exploring the Amazon

After finally reading Friar Carvajal's account of the expedition down the Amazon of Francisco de Orellana in The Discovery of the Amazon: According to the Account of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal and Other Documents, one is left with nothing but confusion. The brief yet exciting report includes numerous fights, close calls, multiple bouts of hunger, and, surprisingly, few deaths. One also suspects that Carvajal may have exaggerated the numbers of indigenous combatants they defeated, suggesting almost superhuman powers, military skill, and brilliant leader from Orellana. The reality was likely more complex, and as suggested by Carvajal himself, the initial successes of Orellana may have owed more to his ability to communicate in an indigenous language and a generous exchange of gifts with "overlords" or Indian rulers. However, what is even more interesting of the account are the numerous references to streets, temples, large settlements (large enough to be cities), fortified sites, monuments, and "overlords" with control of substantial areas, some quite densely inhabited. Machiparo, for example, was said to have as many as 50,000 men for war with many settlements, including one of about 5 leagues. 

With recent archaeologists and new technology uncovering evidence of cities in the ancient Amazon, Carvajal's writings have taken on more importance. However, it is often so vague or ambiguous (and problematic) to make sense of some of his observations. For instance, many of the "advanced" cultures he described seem more like the Incas or Peruvian highland cultures than Amazonian. Indeed, one powerful lord or ruler, Aparia, reported to the Spanish expedition that a very wealthy lord named "Ica" possessed gold and great wealth further in the interior. Well, Ica almost sounds like Inca. Some of the other advanced peoples either unseen or barely observed by the expedition also allegedly possessed camels, gold, silver, woven textiles, and even stone architecture. Moreover, some of these peoples allegedly possessed fine, multicolored or painted cups, jars and porcelain as well as idols made of woven feathers (featuring pierced ears resembling that of the Incas). They were also said to worship the Sun (called Chise in one context) and give chicha to the solar deity. 

With the exception of some Indians wearing golden attire who came to bring gifts to Orellana, receiving trinkets in exchange, these wealthy, gold-rich Indians are sadly enigmatic. Somehow, however, a powerful society of women rulers, living in stone homes, were able to conquer and impose tribute on various peoples closer to the Amazon River, including feathers from birds as part of their tribute exacted from vassals. Even more strange, these Amazon women were, according to Carvajal, white, tall warriors with long, braided hair. His legendary-like description of their society surely suggests more fiction than reality. Their society seems that of the Incas except with female rulers, even down to the temples dedicated to the Sun (caranain). According to Carvajal, some of these female Amazon women were actually killed by the Spaniards in their battles with vassal "overlords" closer to the river. But, the obviously fantastical nature of the Amazonian women plus their unreliable informant (an Indian male unable to communicate well with Orellana), suggests either a misunderstanding or perhaps a myth with European imagination filling any gaps in the miscommunication. 

So, was there an Inca-like civilization in the Amazon? Conditions were undoubtedly more complex, but one wonders if some Amazonian peoples paying tribute in tropical bird feathers may have been part of a process that began far earlier with long-distance trade connected to the Andes. Some groups in the vast region were definitely once more urbanized or had larger populations, and they may have woven cloth, built more temples, and designed "hewn tree" monuments in the center of large urban plazas. And certainly people were moving across vast distances along the River or via other routes, such as Tupinamba who reached Chachapoyas in 1549.

Gender and Class Under Inca and Spanish Rule

Irene Silverblatt's Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru is a provocative analysis of gender and class in Peru under two different imperial systems. The first, that of the Incas, drew from Andean traditions and kinship structures while "genderizing" class. The second, the more brutal Spanish colonial imposition, brought more destructive changes that included private land tenure and Christianity with a Judaeo-Christian patriarchal religious and social structure. Silverblatt's study, using chronicles, archival sources and the literature produced by Catholic missionaries and priests eager to extirpate idolatry in Peru, chronicles this development across time from Incan into colonial Peru. 

The early chapters establish the importance of gender parallels in kinship/ayllu structures, gender parallels in religion and increasingly, how the expansion of the Inca Empire promoted its own supremacy through kinship that was both gendered and class-based (yet used the discourse of kinship to mask exploitation). In its pre-imperial Inca phase, Andean gender parallelism was based on complementary principles, with gendered roles for men and women that included inheritance on female lines as well as a role for women as political and religious leaders. Inca imperial expansion, however, drew on the conquest hierarchies of ayllus as well as a gendered discourse that made conqueror ayllus or lineages "male" and the subjugated "female." The Incas, or Lords of Cuzco, drew on this plus their control of women as acllas to buttress their imperial ideology. 

In other words, that the Incas were able to expand their cult of the Sun and take women and girls from conquered provinces to later redistribute as wives (as a favor of the Inca) or as religious/ritual specialists in Inca imperial religion as part of their imperial ideology and class system. Through the control of the Cuzco elite of women's sexuality (by demanding virgin acllas or the privilege of the Inca to give them as wives to relatives, subordinates and vassals) and labor, class was heavily gendered. However, in spite of the gendered dimensions of Inca imperial ideology and expansion, women exhibited power in a number of ways. As mentioned previously, they could exert authority as religious leaders and political leaders at a local level. The Inca Queen, too, possessed power of her own that complemented that of the male Inca ruler. Nonetheless, the Inca imperial structure favored males as conquerors and their subjects as "conquered women" in the empire. This gendered dimensions is also clear due to the fact that Inca elites and favored subjects could possess multiple wives but the Inca Queen and female nobility were still restricted to a single husband. 

The chapters on women under colonial rule are a bit more interesting, although one wonders if relying too heavily on Guaman Poma may slightly distort the conditions in the colony. This is not to dispute the generally correct view of Guaman Poma of colonialism's negative impact on indigenous peoples in Peru, but rather to call to attention the class position of indigenous chroniclers like Guaman Poma who also profited from or exploited the conditions created by the Spanish conquest to enrich themselves. Either way, we can assume peasant women and poor Indian women were exploited in every way to a degree inconceivable in Incan or pre-Columbian times. As detailed by Silverblatt, this included forced labor, rape, taxation/tribute burdens, accusations of witchcraft, and the loss of political rights to own or bequeath land or exercise political leadership. Indigenous women of the elite, of course, were less disadvantaged by Spanish rule yet still faced drastic changes that limited their autonomy. This is expanded upon in subsequent chapters on witchcraft and Andean pre-Christian religion. Throughout the book, Silverblatt had already made reference to the role of women in religion and spirituality and how that position was undermined or came under attack from the Spanish colonial system and Church. 

The voluminous corpus of written sources on the attempt by the Jesuits to eradicate indigenous religions in the Andes, however, provides another perspective on the experience of indigenous women under colonial rule, however. One learns that women who fled to the puna to avoid the Church and/or Spaniards, for instance, played a key role in the survival of indigenous beliefs and culture since they were less "corrupted" than Indian men who were more likely to serve as curacas or be incorporated into the colonial administration as intermediaries. Women likewise resisted colonial rule and the Church through continued ritual practices that were outlawed or persecuted by the Church. Many women also continued to take their surnames from their mothers or bequeath land to female children, even if forced to act via male "tutors" the colonial regime expected. There is even a remarkable episode of women continuing Andean practices of confession that incorporated the quipu! Undoubtedly, much of the survival of indigenous religion, worldview and culture in the Andes can be attributed to the role of peasant women who upheld pre-Hispanic values and traditions against the utter destruction wrought by the Spanish conquest and colonial system.

Cemí and Religion

It looks like Jose Oliver was probably correct about the etymology of the word cemí. Rendered as chemíjn, chemijn in Breton's dictionary as the equivalent of God, the Kalinago word is undoubtedly related to the Taino cemí. Intriguingly, the word for sweet in Arawak is seme. Sweetness is translated as semehi while to cure is semechihi. A shaman is called semeti, a name whose use has been attested since the mid-16th century in Rodrigo de Navarrete's account of the Aruacas. As noted by scholars like Oliver and Goeje, a possible link to the word for sweet is very plausible in this case. 

However, we had not found a similar word for "sweet" in Kalinago or Taino to match the seme of Arawak or Lokono. Looking to Garifuna provided a possible clue. In that language, the word for tasty or delicious is semeti. Sweet is actually bimeti, which can be found in Breton's 17th century dictionary. However, the concept of sweetness definitely overlaps with that of tasty or delicious. Thus, it is possible that the word for "God" or spirits associated with positive attributes may derive from a word linked to tasty or delicious. We cannot say for sure what the Taino word for sweet or tasty was, but it was likely similar.

Looking to Taino words or concepts related to spirits and gods in the context of other South American languages is also worthwhile. For instance, goeiz as the equivalent of soul of a living person, does not have a close cognate in the other Arawakan languages or neighboring languages we consulted dictionaries for. However, Rodrido de Navarrete's account uses the word Gaguche, for souls. Ga may have signified great, and guche, soul. Perhaps a sense of this can be seen in yawahu, an Arawak word for Spirit in Bennett's dictionary? Intriguingly, Taino's word for the spirits of the dead, or hupia, has a close match in Kalinago or Island Carib's oupoyem or opoyem. In Wayuu, Spirit is aa'in while a phantom of spirit could also be called ayolojo or ayaluju. A demon or devil is yolujaa, which might be related to hupia. Garifuna uses afurugu for Spirit and mafia for devil, or fiend. Soul is uwani and ghost is ufioun. 

Palikur, on the other hand, uses uhokri and giwohkiga for God. A demon is wavitye which isn't particularly close to hupia. Surprisingly, one of the Palikur terms for God may be etymologically related to one of the Taino terms for God, Guamiquina (Great Lord, or God). This is quite different from the Hubuiri for the Great Lord in the Sky recorded by Navarrete in the 1500s for the Arawak. Indeed, we also wonder if the Palikur uhokri is also related to a part in Yucahu's full name, Yúcahu Bagua Maórocoti. Is the Maórocoti perhaps similar to uhokri, with the ma negating the rest? In Arawak, one term for God is wa-malhita-koanathi. This refers to God in the sense of our collective Father or begetter, while in Palikur, nahawkrivwi, refers to our grandparents. Perhaps the last part of Yucahu's full name really does refer to him as lacking a creator, since Yocahu was the first principle or Creator.

Blacks in Colonial Quito

Sherwin Bryant’s Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing through Slavery in Colonial Quito offers an analysis of slavery in colonial Ecuador to suggest the centrality of slavery to colonial development and the emergence of race as a modality of early modern colonial governance (29). Bryant suggests that scholars sometimes lose themselves in their focus on the labor metaphor of slavery so they do not heed adequate attention to slavery’s role in colonialism, social practice and race (28). According to Bryant, “This book argues, however, that race was inscribed and conditioned through early modern practices of differentiated rule, insisting that it is possible to recuperate an early modern history of race as constituted over time through a series of colonial governing practices” (35).

Fundamental to Bryant’s analysis is a theory linking the formulation of race as a constitution of Europe and non-Europe through systems of governance (37). The first chapter contextualizes this development through the history of Castilian expansion, an expansion based on war and making slaves out of captives. Enslavement and the encomienda were dual modes of establishing colonial authority, extracting labor, and extending Christian discipline (60). Moving on to colonial Quito, Bryant draws on examples of maroons, slave codes, and the use of slaves in the battles between royalists and Pizarrists in the 1540s and 1550s. Bryant concludes, “Laws governing slavery aided, therefore, in the extension of royal sovereignty” (69). The colonial government naturalized slavery’s association with blacks and to foreign African territorial subjection while indigeneity was associated with vassalage (72). Additional examples of his argument tie slaves to the development of markets, claiming new territories, and the gold-mining labor force of Barbacoas (90). The second chapter shifts to an analysis of of the slave trade, diverse origins of Africans, varying rates of arrival and points of entry. The mechanisms of slave trading to and within Quito helped form Castilian governance based on race relations (97).  Africans who entered the Americas were a people identified as having “black” territorial origins, dubious “national” affiliations and physical or moral qualities legitimizing their enslavement (98). This governance based on race relations marked by slave status formed the context in which Africans developed diasporic kinship practices (103). Thus, the “social death” of blacks relied on the living processes of racial governance through the marking, constitution, and governance of non-European bodies for the elaboration of imperial power (104). Blackening, branding, and baptizing became the constitutive practices of slavery (105). Blackening, in short, binds subjects to territorial origins and assemblages of power (105). Baptism served to incorporate blackened subjects as new but debased subjects of servitude. 

The third and fourth chapters shift to communities and enslaved rebels, fugitives and litigants. In the former chapter, Bryant analyzes black cofradias, the role of the Church in legalizing the status of slaves, and the racializing practices of Church baptism and marriage. To the author, African "nations" were productions of the racialized colonial gaze (167). The fourth chapter uses examples of civil cases and the strategies of slaves in political and radical ways before and after 1750. The combination of slave marronage, the use of courts for redress, and rebellion coexisted, with the threat of violent resistance shaping the legal system. Per Bryant, “The legal system thus served as a safety valve, allowing an avenue for redress so they did not have to resort to more violent, extralegal measures” (224).  

The overall thrust of the text is a call for the importance of slavery in the shaping of societies like Quito, where slaves were a minority of the population. Also important are the larger role of racialization and Spanish crown authority in the development of slavery in colonial Quito and Spanish America. Beyond its function as a source of labor for the development of markets and the economy, slavery also functioned as an assertion of crown rule and power. In order to legitimize their enslavement, the foreign territorial origins of Africans and their moral and physical qualities were used by pro-slavery voices to create a subject people. Slavery in colonial Quito, therefore, was vital to the foundation of the colony, the establishment of colonial governance, and the formation of race.

Black subjectivity in Rivers of Gold is best exemplified in chapters 3 and 4, where the focus shifts to slave marriage, family structures, sacred communities, and the legal system. In those areas one comes closest to glimpses of black subjectivity, of blacks as subjects whose lives were within, but not entirely defined by social structures. While the overall argument of the book appears to be one based on the structural factors of slavery in colonial Quito as related to colonial governance, black subjectivity was part of this process.

Slave marriage, family or kinship networks, and sacred communities provides some of the best examples of articulations of black subjectivity. Indeed, “Their processions, marriages, and baptisms reveal how the enslaved crafted moments to seize pleasure, repossess their bodies, fix kin, and pool resources as sacred communities.” (167). Although their African diasporic ethnicities reflected the colonial gaze, people of African descent created forms of kinship and belonging among themselves. For instance, in baptisms, enslaved people sometimes chose free blacks as godparents for their children, but not the other way around (184). This suggests the strategic choices made in determining kin that illustrate slaves choosing kin who could help their progeny. Examples of black women serving as godmothers to Indian children also complicate notions of kinship (187). Slave marriages additionally point to exogamous, or interethnic partners in Barbacoas (201). Moreover, slaves appealed to authorities to protect their conjugal rights, as in the case of Joachin and Ysabel Congo, who sought new owners (196). In the case of slave communities on Jesuit-owned plantations in the 18th century, one finds even more evidence of slave kinship and community formation. For instance, Jesuits did not disrupt families on the estates. However, after the expulsion of the order and the sale of their complex of plantations to various buyers, slaves were relocated or resold and estates were neglected. This led to a petition by Pedro Pascual Lucumin in 1778, alleging that the Concepcion estate was neglected and its enslaved laborers mistreated (212). The Jesuit-owned complex points to forms of kinship and solidarity among its workers that lasted for generations, as well as forms of collective resistance. Indeed, the 266  enslaved workers at the Quajara sugar plantation threatened to kill the new owner’s indigenous workers and flee to the mountains if he continued with plans to prohibit their movement and sell some of the estate’s labor force (230).

Using civil cases and testimonies from people of African descent also indicates examples of black subjectivity. According to Bryant, slaves used the courts in political and radical ways throughout the colonial period. They used their right to bring suit while also engaging in marronage and violent resistance. When presenting their cases to the audiencia, slaves quickly learned how to perform within what was European-derived and European-ordered spectacle to achieve their goals (232). One fascinating case from 1675 involved the free black, Adan Pardo, who defended his family honor after the alcalde ordinario of Cali forced his children to serve him (235). Thus, notions of family honor were also used by people of African descent in the colony. Or another case, from 1690, of a free black suing for the freedom of his wife, Phelipa. According to Bryant, “Pedro and his wife endeavored to showcase their honorable, law-abiding behavior while highlighting the deplorable actions and disposition of Phelipa’s master” (236). This discourse of honor in lawsuits of people of African descent predated the Bourbon era and suggests some of the ways in which people of African descent thought of themselves, their family units, and their place in a society. Undoubtedly, this discourse of honor shaped the case of Juana, who sued her master who promised to free her after purchasing her. Unfortunately for Juana, her lawsuit failed to win her freedom, but gave her an opportunity to find a new owner (251). 

Thus, black subjectivity, in Bryant’s account, is one in which black historical subjects, though constricted by slavery and racialized forms of colonial governance, asserted themselves in kinship choices, marriage patterns, and civil or criminal cases against abusive slaveholders or whites who they saw they as disrespecting their sense of honor. While still acting within the confines of the larger racialized structure of colonial governance, one finds glimpses of the interior lives, thoughts, and strategies of people of African descent in colonial Quito. They displayed agency as historical agents, but also as historical subjects with a consciousness and awareness of their own vocality.

Blacks, Indians and Race in Peru

The main theme of O’Toole’s Bound Lives: Africans, Indians, and the Making of Race in Colonial Peru is the construction of casta in northern colonial Peru, emphasizing the 17th and 18th centuries. Her study seeks to understand exclusion and exchange to illuminate how coastal Andeans (“Indians”) and people of African origin or descent understood casta in their quotidian existence (O’Toole 2). It also destabilizes notions of casta to distinguish it from modern ideas of race. The text additionally calls into question the framework of conflict to understand relations between Andeans and Africans, demonstrating how their interactions and behaviors shaped constructions, categories, and expectations of property and vassalage (4). The body of the text uses examples from notarized records, judicial cases, petitions, criminal and civil trials, sales, wills, and inventories to support its argument, which illustrates performative strategies as an example of agency (12). Her microhistorical and ethnohistorical techniques aid our understanding of how Africans and Andeans engaged with casta as well.

The initial chapter demonstrates the malleable nature of casta categories during the 17th century. According to the author, “By locating official articulations of black and Indian within colonizers’ anxieties about labor, this chapter demonstrates how the discussions of casta categorization were rooted in shifting material realities and the contradictory discourses of a crown checked by colonizers’ labor demands” (20). The chapter endeavors to illustrate this material dimension of casta by pointing to the labor shortage caused by the temporary end of the official Spanish trans-Atlantic slave trade, an era when the demand for labor on the wheat, sugar and other haciendas in the northern coastal region required more labor. This is occurring just as the rights of Andeans to communal land and water resources were challenged or revoked by white landholder elites. This chapter persuasively shows that material, economic conditions requiring labor, as well as the dispossession of Andeans, led to a destabilizing definition of assigned casta categories for “Indians” who engaged in the private market, worked for wages on estates or cities, and left their assigned “reducciones” (30). The following chapter shifts the focus to slavery, attempting to show how slaves engaged in acts that made them into property in the courtroom or marketplace, or performed their commodification, to influence outcomes in their favor (36). O’Toole uses the example of kinship and its elasticity, too. The extended period of time it took for Africans to reach the Pacific coasts of Peru created multiple opportunities for them to learn market conditions, laws, and form bonds among themselves (44). For instance, she cites the example of a slave named Maria, who, knowing her market value, threatened and attempted suicide and self-mutilitation to affect it and change masters (54). Examples of extended or new forms of kinships among Africans could be found in their marriages and baptisms, as Africans married criollas and people of other categories or included Andeans as godparents of their children (56). For O’Toole, “kinships were not merely familial or strategic, but articulations of identities and collectivities only superficially detected in civil and criminal cases, property sales, and personal wills" (62). 

The third chapter uses judicial records to show how Andeans assumed the role of “Indian” as performative acts in their own interests. Appeals against their dispossession, for instance, employ the rhetoric of Indians as vassals in need of the protection of the Spanish crown (86). The fourth chapter continues the focus on Andeans, looking at market exchanges and indigenous engagement with labor and urban spaces. In short, indigenous peoples engaged in regional marketeering, land markets, and the purchase of colonial goods. The example of Pedro Esteban Penaran, who participated in land markets and purchased colonial goods also serves to exemplify an “Indian” who continued to hold communal land but acted in ways unexpected for the “Indian” caste (107). In urban spaces like Trujillo and rural markets, blacks and Indians also interacted, selling each other goods. While her evidence does not prove it conclusively, O’Toole suggests that lower-status people may have ignored casta when it was not useful or profitable (119). Thus, blacks and Andeans may have interacted in ways that did not reinforce the social hierarchy when it was not in their interest. Undoubtedly, evidence of the two groups working together to subvert casta or promote their own interests is the sale by blacks of stolen goods to Andean middlemen (112). In addition, the chapter explores legal consciousness among slaves who attempted to use the Catholic Church and their ecclesiastical rights against demands of owners who made them work on Sundays or holidays (124). Attempts by slaves to regulate their labor or work schedule also contributed to black subjectivity. They exploited their relatively free mobility in northern Peru to search for new owners, or at least that was their excuse to engage in itinerant labor (135). The work culture among the enslaved suggest they were asserting their right to control their labor and time, an assertion of their agency on the plantation. One example cited by the author is of a conflict between an enslaved foreman, Sebastian, and a white overseer who criticized his management. The altercation ended with Sebastian fleeing the plantation, suggesting the importance African slaves attached to controlling their work schedules (128). 

The remainder of O’Toole’s text summarizes her aforementioned arguments. According to O’Toole, casta and its hierarchies were powerful because lower-status people employed them (161). There was also a connection between the racialization of Andeans and Africans, which illustrates how Africans played a significant role in the history of Andean South America. Moreover, “Casta articulated a colonial construction of difference and differential power relations” (164). However, scholars cannot assume casta accurately described different types of people who were intended to inhabit the same social plane. Casta categories were not fixed racial categories, despite some common features with the latter.

O’Toole’s study of the northern Peruvian coastal region enriches our understanding of black subjectivity in a number of ways. Moving beyond agency and structural constraints to the humanity and subjectivity of Africans and their descendants, O’Toole attempts to show the reader Africans within their own narratives in a number of ways, from kinship and market forces to commodification and work culture. Particularly evident in chapter two, O’Toole’s central argument asserts slaves acted in ways that made them into property, or performed their commodification, when it was in their own interests. This, of course, is related to the monograph’s larger argument about the power of casta deriving from lower-status people employing it. 

However, here she focuses on enslaved people to show how experiences of markets and kinship created the other. Kinship is not a static category, but forged in the diasporic setting in which Africans were commodified (37). Shipmate bonds among Africans who experienced the harrowing, extended voyages to colonial Peru could exert a significant influence, leading to new affinities beyond the assigned “national” origins to slaves. For example, an Arara or a Mina could forge new relationships to each other that thwarted attempts by slaveholders to use the diversity of the slave population against them. An example of kinship bonds among people of similar African “ethnic” extraction can be found in the criminal case of Juan Negro, among Mina slaves articulating hints of a junior age-set speaking to a senior kinsman  (59). The marriage and godparent choices of Africans also point to the complexity of kinship as articulations of identity beyond or against the expectations of slavery and casta. Take the case of urban Africans in the region, who were more likely to marry. The choice of godparents made by enslaved parents on the Facala and Ascope estates also show examples of expanding kinship networks beyond the “ethnic” labels attached to Africans. Maria Josefa, an Arara, and her Chala husband, chose an indigenous highlander migrant for the godfather of their child (56). Disconnected Andean migrants working on estates or in towns like Trujillo may have been just as interested in expanding their kinship networks as African slaves, who were likewise uprooted and forced to adapt or adopt new kinship practices. 

Besides adapting and adopting new kinship networks and practices, the use of the logic of the market and commodification by enslaved Africans  to subvert their bondage brings us closer to understanding the interior subjectivity of Africans. Not just as an example of agency, but as an attempt to highlight their lives, preoccupations, challenges and goals, O’Toole highlights the use of their commodification by slaves. The example of Maria, who attempted suicide to frighten owners, demonstrates an effort on her part to disrupt her market value (51). Enslaved people knew the costs of their purchase were higher by the time they reached the Pacific, and explicitly capitalized on their value to resist owners and abuse. While still enslaved, some of their goals and preoccupations can be seen historically. In so doing, enslaved people also participated in some of the same behavior as “Indians,” who also employed the rhetoric of their vassalage when convenient to do so.

Black subjectivity can also be gleaned from the participation of blacks in market activity, mobility and their work cultures. For instance, Africans often had to rely on trade with Andeans to supplement their food or clothing (112). In their interactions, Africans had to serve their own interests to clothe themselves and sometimes engaged in the sale or exchange of stolen goods. The 1697 example of Antonio Mina (112) selling wheat to Andeans to have it ground and resold stands out, showing how Africans engaged in the market across racial lines to pursue their own interests, perhaps especially aided by urban markets, networks, access to valuable goods, and the mobility enslaved people claimed for themselves. In other words, “They transformed their enslaved position into profit by strategically tapping into the networks of their free, Andean acquaintances” (113). The general mobility of enslaved people, often on the pretense of working for their masters or searching for new masters, also enabled them to engage in itinerant labor and control their time. This constituted an assertion of their rights to their own time (135-136), helping to reconstruct their preoccupations and subjectivity. Indeed, a simple gathering of enslaved people to drink and exchange news on holidays or Sundays elucidates the values and preoccupations of blacks, in spite of the alleged threat to public order their gatherings posed (129). 

In summation, O’Toole’s study of the northern coast of Peru uncovers new models for understanding Afro-Peruvians and casta. While it also destabilizes assumptions of casta as a fixed category, it demonstrates the ways enslaved people used both caste and their legal enslavement to, when possible, serve their own interests. By setting their own work schedules, displaying mobility, engaging in markets and trade with Andeans, and expanding or adapting kinship networks in ways that contradicted casta designations and chattel slavery, one can see how enslaved people not only exhibited agency, but asserted a subjectivity. Instead of viewing Africans and their descendants solely through the lens of agency or structural confines, a historical analysis of subjectivity demonstrates the nuanced nature of hierarchical relations in colonial Peru. Africans were “voices aware of their vocality” with regards to an interior understanding of their actions. 

Taino Words

A short but pleasant video on the Taino language. Unfortunately, I think they made an error with the Taino word for Moon. Overall, however, very well done and featuring cute graphics.

Behique or Bohiti

One word that was central to the culture and society of the "Taino" Peoples of the Caribbean was behique. Referring to the priests and healers, or shamans, the word appears to be etymologically linked to medicine and healing. This is not a great surprise, and based on what the Spanish accounts indicate, the behique was probably quite similar, at least in some ways, to South American mainland shamans and healers. Indeed, some of the methods of healing practiced by the "Taino" behique have similarities with Tukano healing practices or even Andean healers. For instance, Guaman Poma's vast letter includes a picture of a healer sucking on the wounds of a patient. Similar practices were described for other parts of South America, too. Even the use of the maraca and terms like piaje or piaye across vast areas of South America might indicate some deep, shared roots of South American healing and shamanism. While piaje or piaye appears to be of Tupi origin, the usage of the word by speakers of Cariban languages or other language families in South America is quite astonishing.

Let's take a brief look at words for heal, healing, shamans, and priests in different South American languages. In Ashaninka, an Arawak language not closely related to Taino, one sees the word sheripiari for shaman. Well, sheri in their language means tobacco, which implies shamans used tobacco in their rituals. This matches what we know of Taino and other South American cultures. One also wonders if piari may be linked to piaje. The Muisca language, in one reconstructed dictionary, gives chyky for shaman. This is clearly distinct, and we should probably consult bilingual dictionaries for various Chibchan languages to explore this. As for Quechua, an Andean language that one should expect to be quite distinct, a shaman is paqu. A curandero might also be called yachaq. For the Warao, however, one sees ibiji arotu as one word for doctor, and eributatu for shaman. Warao, also not an Arawakan language, appears to use a word for healers that is similar to the Arawak ibihi. This is not too surprising, since speakers of Warao and Arawakan languages have likely been interacting for several centuries. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see how the duho, derived from the Warao tongue, became a core part of "Taino" culture while the Warao borrowed words from Arawakan languages for core concepts like healers. 

Additional South American languages are worth exploring. In Palikur, for example, a shaman is called ihamwi. But to heal is rendered as piyih, which sounds close to ibihi. Faire soigner is translated as piyikhis in Palikur, which sort of resembles behique. In Garifuna, however, to heal is areidagua and a shaman is called a buyei. In Wayuu, another Arawakan languages, medicine is epi and to cure is eiyajaa. A curandero is called outshi. In Wayuu, at least, the word for medicine, epi, sounds somewhat close to ibihi. For Desano, a non-Arawakan Amazonian tongue, one sees oco for medicine and for shaman, cũmu.  In Guarani, pohanoha is used for medicine. A priest is a pa'i or avare. Magic is paje. One can see how Guarani has incorporated, at least in part, a word probably of deep Tupi origins for magic. 

In Kalinago, or the language of the "Island Carib" peoples of the Lesser Antilles, Breton is particularly useful. According to him, a priest was a bóye (boyáicou) or niboyeiri. Undoubtedly, Garifuna has retained this in their word for shaman. The word may be of Carib or Tupi origin, too, if similar enough to the Tupi paye with a b replacing the p. The word for medicine among the Kalinago was ibien, quite close to the Wayuu epi and Arawak ibihi. In the Arawak language of Guiana, according to Goeje at least, ibbihi signifies remedy or charm. Ibbihiki means to heal, which shows quite clearly the probable etymology of the Taino behique. But one wonders where Bohiti in Taino as a synonym came from? 

The fascinating thing about Arawak and Lokono in this case, however, is the use of a word for shaman that is quite distinct. According to John Peter Bennett's dictionary, a medicine man is called a semechichi, presumably related to the word for sweet, seme. One can even go back to the 16th century for a fascinating description of Aruaca shamanism in the writings of Rodrigo de Navarrete. According to this author, the Aruacas called old, wise men cemetu. This is an early attestation of the word for shaman, semeti, who, according to Navarrette, trained their students through a special process in which their myths of origin and beliefs were passed down. Navarrete also mentions the belief in gaguche (souls) and the Hubuiri, or Great Lord of the Sky. What Navarrete's account  tells us is that the use of the word semeti or similar words for shamans is probably at least 500 years old among the Arawak. What is most fascinating about this is that despite the use of different titles among Arawaks, Kalinago and the Taino for shamans, all seemed to share at least some common practices. The use of tobacco, for instance, was important. But the rattle or maraca was also important. Indeed, a word for maraca (or a similar instrument?) appears in Breton's dictionary as tatállaraca. Similar instruments were used by the "Taino" in the Antilles, too. The use of the word chemíjn in Kalinago, cemi in Taino, and seme in Arawak point to some broadly shared religious terminology. If it is true that the word is related to the concept of sweetness or delicacy, things highly desired or valued, and also associated with God, gods, or spirits, it is interesting to note that the word was only applied to shamans in Arawak. And why was the word for sweet in Kalinago bímeti, which sounds quite distinct from the Arawak term? Indeed, in Palikur, kitere is sweet. In the Wayuu tongue, sweet is püsiaa.

To conclude, one can see that the Taino word for shaman was etymologically linked to the word for heal and medicine. This makes sense, as a major function of such people among "Taino" peoples was to heal others. Intriguingly, the Warao appear to have been influenced by Arawakan languages in this regard when it comes to healers. However, the Arawaks were using a distinct word for healers or shamans several centuries ago. Their word for shaman, nonetheless, shares with Kalinago and Taino the same connection with cemi. Whether or not it is related to the concept of sweetness or delicateness is still unclear, but the "Taino" shaman was still quite similar to their counterparts in the mainland. One suspects the maraca was of great importance, as was tobacco and other substances. Much of tropical lowland South America seems to have shared in this broad set of customs of shamanism and healing, as reflected in the widespread usage of a Tupi-derived word for shaman across much of the continent. Nevertheless, a few mysteries remain about the behique and the concept of cemi. 

Daily Life in the Inca Empire

Michael Malpass's Daily Life in the Inca Empire is perhaps too short and addressed at a younger reading audience to be very useful. However, it functions quite nicely as a modern (1990s) update to Rowe's work on Inca culture at the time of Spanish contact. Malpass is able to draw from more recent archaeological excavations and research on important topics like gender, the ceques and Inca calendars to fill in some of the gaps in older scholarship. Interestingly, the tone of Malpass's work is also somewhat more critical of Inca imperialism against subjugated peoples. Rowe, on the other hand, saw Inca rule favorably in contrast to the tyranny of Spanish colonialism in Peru. But Malpass, quite justly, points to the likely negative perceptions of the Incas on the part of their subjects, whose lives could be entirely upended to benefit their rulers at Cuzco. Indeed, having one's daughter taken as a "Chosen Women" or being forced to labor on various projects or in military service, perhaps far from home, must have been disruptive and unpopular with some of the Inca subjects. Sadly, without more sources on rebellions against Inca rule it is difficult to go further. 

Cannibal encounters: Europeans and Island Caribs, 1492-1763

Philip Boucher's Cannibal encounters: Europeans and Island Caribs, 1492-1763 was something of a disappointment. Like Whitehead's Lords of the Tiger Spirit, the indigenous group in question is usually peripheral and often silenced in a book that is purportedly about their relations with, for the most part, the English and French in the Lesser Antilles. Boucher, of course, knew this would be a problem due to the nature of the sources, which do not give much of a voice to the "Island Carib" peoples. However, careful reading and intuitive analysis of the English and French sources indicate that the indigenes of the Lesser Antilles were rational political actors who sought to maximize their autonomy whilst playing a delicate balancing act with English and French interests in acquiring more of their lands for their burgeoning Caribbean colonies. 

Boucher also endeavors to understand the reasons for warmer relations between the Kalinago and the French than relations between the former and the English. The policy of douceur and the existence of French traders and missionaries among the Kalinago appear to have been major factors that often led to a stronger French-Carib alliance. Of course, both the French and the English were threats to the indigenous people of the region, but the French had deeper ties with them and pursued a policy of alliance that, according to Boucher, became less relevant after 1690 due to the demographic decline of the Kalinago. 

Sadly, after reading this rather detailed and occasionally fascinating short history, which includes some intriguing questions and comments on the European intellectual, literary, and anthropological view of the Island Carib, I do not feel like I have learned much about the Kalinago in terms of their own worldview, perspective, or actions. Unlike, say, the "Taino" of the Greater Antilles, we have some rather rich resources on their culture and perspective based on Breton's dictionary, various missionary relations, and ethnographies on their descendants in places like Dominica. Perhaps, if Boucher had been able to integrate sources drawing on language and ethnography/oral traditions more completely into the work, the Island Caribs would not feel so marginal or peripheral here. Obviously, the historian was arguing in favor of their agency as historical actors and provides examples of their consistent raids, negotiations, or political and economic behavior that show they were not passive victims. Nonetheless, the reader is left with a sense that they were marginal in major events that shaped their history. With the exception of the mixed-race Indian Warner, for example, no other Indian leader is clearly analyzed or very perceptible. Perhaps a study that includes both the "Black Caribs" and the "Yellow Caribs" would also be helpful for understanding the demographic decline of the Amerindian Caribs and the growth of the culturally related but seemingly distinct "Black Caribs" in St. Vincent.