Costumbres en disputa. Los muiscas y el Imperio español en Ubaque, siglo XVI

Santiago Muñoz Arbeláez’s work demonstrates convincingly that there is still much to be learned and written about the Spanish conquest of America. In his desire to deepen our understanding of a particular colonial society, the author presents a detailed study of the institution of the encomienda in the Muisca valley of Ubaque in the Andes southeast of Santa Fé de Bogotá. This focused analysis allows him to comment on the sixteenth-century Spanish imperial project and to compare that Hispanic context to other Atlantic systems, as he explores the interactions between particular native leaders (caciques), the encomenderos who were granted access to tribute in the valley, and the colonial church and state. To achieve this, he focuses upon the colonial reorganization of geographic spaces and landscapes, the evolution of a colonial economy in the valley and its eventual integration into the Atlantic economy, the ways the Muisca used the colonial legal system, and the various identities that were created through the conversion project. Counterbalancing the specificity of his frame (a sixteenth-century institution and place), he engages several literatures using interdisciplinary methodologies and approaches to reveal the cultural variables that influenced the elaboration of early colonial society in Nueva Granada.Reflecting on the functioning of encomienda through such cross-disciplinary methodologies and approaches, Muñoz Arbeláez also exposes the inner workings of the Muisca’s social, political, and economic structures. He argues that the early colonial period was a moment of hybridity and integration rather than imposition. Starting with a spatial analysis grounded in historical geography and an ethnohistorical approach, the author plumbs early colonial legal testimonies to uncover the customs that shored up social mores and epistemologies. This tactic enables him to study the daily interaction between encomenderos, indigenous leaders, and their subjects. He concludes that the encomienda was a blended institution that functioned through a complex transcultural framework enmeshed with what the Spanish called cacicazgo—a symbiotic power relationship shared by the cacique and the encomendero. The encomendero’s authority was intimately entwined with that of the cacique. This hypothesis challenges the notion of a passive indigenous population and frames his conclusion that colonial does not mean Hispanic imposition but represents a complex process of rearranging—a process in which both indigenous and Spanish participated. He further argues that a Black Legend historiography that portrays the encomienda simply as a destructive force inhibits our understanding of the dynamic functioning of the institution as a point of contact between indigenous and Spanish peoples.Along the way Muñoz Arbeláez’s elegant prose describes Muisca naming practices and their relationship to place, the role of physical geography in determining political categories, and the kinship relations that would perplex the Spanish and complicate their attempts to establish recognizable (for the Spanish) political frameworks. He pays particular attention to the practice known as biohote by the Muisca and translated to borrachera by the Spanish. These practices represented a moral economy that molded the cacique’s authority and legitimacy. The ambivalence of the Spanish imperial system as it sought to shore up the encomienda through the authority of the cacique is clearly outlined in this discussion. The author demonstrates that the cultural practices—the costumbres that were the foundation of cacique legitimacy—were the same customs being simultaneously and systematically disputed by the church and state. Important is the way the author demonstrates how different caciques responded to these challenges and in so doing traces the processes of transformation of colonial society through the sixteenth century.This is a beautifully researched, nuanced assessment of the encomienda that will surely influence the way in which I teach that institution. It is a welcome contribution to the growing historiography of Colombia, but also of colonial Latin America generally

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