Mestizaje, comercio y resistencia

La Guajira durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII

Bibliographic Data

ID2827437
AuthorsCaroline Williams (0000-0002-5528-1220, University of Bristol, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume83
Issue2
Pages400-401
Publication date2003-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-83-2-400
OpenAlexW2035730965
LanguageEN
Citations received9

Mestizaje, comercio y resistencia is a welcome contribution to the study of frontier colonization in eighteenth-century New Granada. Focusing particularly on the Wayúu—the Spaniards’ “Guajiros” and the largest native group inhabiting the Guajira Peninsula—this study sets out to throw light on the succession of rebellions and uprisings that took place there in the second half of the eighteenth century (p. 35). Although the reader must wait until the final chapter to discover the precise nature of the conflicts that form one of the principal themes of the book (mostly isolated cases involving small groups or individuals), the preceding three chapters offer a thorough and extremely useful examination of native economy and society before and after European contact. Here the author indicates some of the many causes of conflict between Indians and Spaniards in this region: access to land and water, control over the pearl fisheries, resistance to Capuchin missionization, and so on.Barrera Monroy’s key arguments are that the decentralized political organization of the Wayúu hindered Spanish efforts to dominate the region’s indigenous population, and that indigenous adaptation to “Spanish values” made possible a process of what he refers to as “mestizaje,” which in turn facilitated resistance to Spanish colonization (pp. 14–15). Broadly defined, the term refers to the phenomenon whereby indigenous peoples appropriated goods and products introduced by the Spanish and incorporated them into their own culture, thus giving them new meanings and functions. In so doing, indigenous communities increased their ability to resist the control of colonists and missionaries, and thus to maintain their autonomy and identity. The use of firearms and horses played such a role: the adoption of these imports enabled indigenous populations to control their own territory far more effectively. Of even greater significance was the Wayúu’s involvement with English and Dutch contraband on the Guajira coast, exchanging Brazil wood and pearls for firearms, gunpowder, knives, slaves, textiles, and foodstuffs. This trade was, as Barrera Monroy indicates, vital to their ability to subsist and resist: “Their understanding of the laws of foreign markets, and their capacity to respond to market expectations, is the precise origin and cause for their capacity for resistence” (p. 98).This is not to say, however, that Spanish-Wayúu relations in the Guajira Peninsula were invariably hostile. Although the various parcialidades experienced periods of acute conflict with Spaniards, so too were they often on peaceful terms with colonists and frequently established mutually beneficial alliances. Indeed, the author argues that the Spaniards would themselves not have been able to engage in the widespread contraband trade that took place on the coast of the peninsula without the aid and collaboration of the indigenous inhabitants, “since it was they who had control of the territory, and its roads and paths, which were indispensable in order to remove the products intended for market” (p. 146).Arising out of a dissertation, the book does at times suffer from overreliance on unnecessarily long quotations, mainly of official reports. It is also unfortunate that the author opens his study with a disclaimer: that he has published the book despite the fact that, since completing the study in 1992, his greater knowledge of the region and its problems has changed his original interpretation of some of the material. Overall, however, this should not detract from the undoubted value of the book. Studies of Indian-Spanish contact on the frontiers of settlement—especially in New Granada—are few and far between, and Barrera Monroy’s is both an early contribution and one that serves further to demonstrate the importance of the subject for all scholars concerned with colonization across Spanish America

Archaeology · Art · Economics · Economy · Ethnology · Frontier · Geography · Humanities · Indigenous · Peninsula · Political science · Politics · Population · Resistance (ecology) · Sociology · Argentine historical studies · Demography · Ecology · History · History and Politics in Latin America · Law

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