Questions for the RP article, Robert Patch

Questions for Robert W. Patch, "Indian Resistance to Colonialism"  from The Oxford History of Mexico.

1) The author divides Mexico into two regions.  What are they and what is the difference between them?  Why is it necessary, for this paper, to divide Mexico?

2) In addition to distinguishing regions, Robert Patch bases this discussion of the definition of some key terms: How does he define “resistance”?  (p. 12)  On p. 13, there is a distinction made between rebellion and revolution.  What is this distinction? 

3) After you finish this reading, why do you think that the “Spanish found it essential to preserve a great deal of the indigenous society” (p. 13)?

4) The author lists three primary ways in which the Spanish tried to preserve the indigenous society. What were these?   

5) How (why) is religion a “crucial area of resistance”?

6) What other areas of resistance does one find in the article?  

7) Why were the Yaquis “more successful than most Mexican Indians in resisting Spanish colonialism”? (p. 19) What difference would the existence of precious metals have made in the events?

8) On p. 19, the author discusses a “pattern” in southern revolts.  Discuss some of the common characteristics.

9) The article that we read by William F. Connell, “Because I was Drunk...” relates very closely to this reading.  Think about Connell  - In what region of Mexico did the events of 1692 take place?  In general do you think the events as described in Connell’s article follow the pattern established by Robert Patch in today’s reading? (see question 8 above).

10) Who were the Tzotzil and the Chol? (p. 21)

11) Who were the soldiers of the virgin and what happened in 1712 in Chiapas.  Please try to answer this question with some details that you consider significant – why are they significant? 

Olander, "Companion Reading for The Mission"

Dr. Marcia Olander
Rutgers -Latin American Studies 101
QUESTIONS:
1) As you do this reading, try to find points which support things you saw in the movie and points which make you doubt something you saw in the movie (or points which shed light on the movie). This is especially important for our class discussion. If you haven’t come up with 6 or more points, you have barely scratched the surface of what you might find.

Besides the general purpose for this article I laid out in question 1, I’ve just two concrete questions:
2) See the phrase highlighted on RP p. 6 below. Why did those two factors impede colonization?
3) How many Indians lived on the mission? How many Jesuits lived on the missions? How does this shed light on the missions? (A related question might shed light on what it was like to be a Jesuit priest: How many Jesuits priests were there by the 1770s?)

Companion Reading for The Mission
You saw the movie The Mission about colonial Paraguay. Geopolitical conflicts originating in Europe affected the Guaraní. The movie begins with a shot of a man, Altamirano, writing a letter; his narration is provides an important part of the film’s perspective. Altamirano is a representative of the Pope, sent to determine the future of seven Jesuit missions.
The Pope had originally legitimized Spain and Portugal’s possession of the New World as well as decided the boundary line between the colonies of the two in the New World (1493). Three centuries later, in 1750, the Pope had adjudicated a territorial dispute between Spain and Portugal and the latter had been granted control over the territory upon which seven missions had been built. The central drama of the movie comes about because unless the Pope specifically allowed these missions to continue to operate without changes, the Portuguese planned to dismantle them. This only makes sense if you understand that the missions enjoyed a unique status in Latin America; they were basically extra-territorial because the religious orders (regular clergy) were completely in charge. That is, the missions did not have any secular governor nor did the Indians have tribute or labor obligations outside of their work for the religious order. In the territory we are studying here, the Jesuits were the founders and leaders.

*Cast of Characters:
Altamirano: As I noted, his voice opens the movie. He corresponds to a historical person, Jesuit Father Luis Altamirano who was sent to Paraguay in 1752 to transfer the territories. He oversaw the transfer of seven missions, settled in the 1600s. In the movie we might say that Altamirano symbolizes the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
The Society of Jesus: This was a monastic order (usually called The Jesuits) founded around 1540 and characterized by its strong allegiance to the Pope. The mission to spread Christianity and fight the spread of Protestantism led them to establishschools in Europe as well as missions in areas as diverse as Japan and Canada. Their missions in South America, around the area occupied by Paraguay today, gained new prominence (and even popularity as a tourist destination) after The Mission came out in 1986. At the time of conquest, the recent establishment of the Jesuit order perhaps added to its zeal and appeal; Jesuit numbers grew from about 1000 in 1550 to 15,000 a century later.(1)
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p. 2 (RP 6)    
Like some friars from other religious orders, the Jesuit commitment to evangelization extended to serious study of the native languages. Indeed, a Guaraní version of the bible was being printed on the first printing press in South America in 1700. Jesuit numbers worldwide had increased to 23,000 worldwide2 when the Pope disbanded the order in the 1770s.(3)
Marquis of Pombal: He isn’t shown in the movie, but he is mentioned by his supporters (who oppose the missions). In 1750, he was newly appointed Prime Minister of Portugal (by King Joseph I of Portugal). He was against the Jesuits from the beginning; it is said that his government believed that the Jesuits were mining for gold on the missions. His antagonism toward the Jesuits grew after the conflict over the missions, and according to one official Catholic source, “The height of Pombal’s persecution was reached with the burning (1761) of the saintly Father Malagrida, ostensibly for heresy; while the other Fathers, who had been crowded into prisons, were left to perish by the score.”(4)
The Guaraní Indians: “The language of Guaraní, a language once spoken throughout most of the southern half of the new world by native Americans, now occupies a seat next to Spanish as one of the official languages of Paraguay. The name itself stems from a Guaranian word, guariní, meaning ‘war’ or ‘warrior.’”(5) As the name indicates, Guaraní were not new at warfare, and like many other South American tribes, they engaged in cannibalism. Both for warfare and for hunting, skill with a bow or a blow gun was very important, yet the Guaraní were sedentary agricultural tribes whose main staples were corn, manioc, and often maté. They, furthermore, had great artistry in pottery and woodcarving, skills which the Jesuits built upon in their mission settlements. Keep in mind that we are discussing a large area, with distinct groups with a number of Guaraní dialects. Nevertheless, an accepted generalization is that the Guaraní had no central government, just numerous village communities in which inhabitants shared communal houses of ten to fifteen families each. By the way, although Guaraní still has a half million speakers, especially in Paraguay, the indigenous language and actors in the movie are from a Colombian tribe (neither are Guaraní).

*General background information for the movie:
This region (modern Paraguay and bordering regions in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina) had a fairly large indigenous population which was not wealthy in European terms (no precious metals) and had not been organized into a centralized military empire like the Aztecs and Incas. These two factors combined to impede European domination. The town of Asunción was founded in 1537, decades after the “discovery” of America and that same year the Spanish made first contact with the Guaraní. Under the first Spanish governor a policy of intermarriage with indigenous women was encouraged, as well as the enslavement of native tribes who had no defenders. The crown, naturally, allowed the Indians to possess no firearms, so it was European weapons against blow guns, arrows; the other indigenous defense was escape into less accessible territory.
       However, the devastating toll that Spanish contact was exacting on the indigenous populations had catalyzed a debate in Spain regarding how to manage the Indians of the New World.(6)  Church thinkers like Bartolomé de las Casas argued that the Spanish treatment of the indigenous was a black spot on the nations’ its history, and successfully lobbied the Spanish crown for laws protecting the natives of America. The New Laws of 1542 prohibited Indian enslavement and forbade the creation of any new encomiendas. (We’ll talk about this in class).
      After The New Laws, the center of the Indian slave trade became the town of São Paulo in Brazil, a Portuguese colony. It is estimated that, in 130 years, two million Indians were slain or captured by
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p. 3 (RP 7)
Brazilian slave-hunters. While only Portuguese law permitted Indigenous slavery after 1493, Spanish and Portuguese alike used indigenous slave labor.
       The arrival of the Jesuits brought the first real change. In 1608, because of Jesuit protests against the enslavement of the Indians, King Philip III of Spain issued royal authority to the Jesuits for the conversion and colonization of the Indians in part of his territory. In 1610, the first mission was established. The Guaraní came to the Jesuits in such numbers and proved so peaceful in this setting that 12 missions rose in rapid succession. There were other missions in Latin America (and even in what is now the US), but none matched the success of those we are studying here.
       In Paraguay and surrounding regions there were 33 missions, with 78 Jesuits and some 144,000 Indians, and a million cattle. These were profitable business enterprises which produced and traded cattle and mate (an indigenous tea); the Jesuits ploughed most of the profits back into the missions so that the indigenous shared in the wealth in some fashion.
Life was very regimented under the tutelage of the Jesuits. Every day men women and children had separate jobs assigned to them. The population rose together; church services and prayer as well as meals and sleep times were all determined for the entire mission population by the Jesuits.

In each town there are one of two clockwork clocks, some made by the Indians, others purchased in Buenos Aires, through which we govern ourselves in the religious distribution of time. (We, here refers to the Jesuit). 7

Both critics and defenders of the Jesuit missions comment on the remarkable uniformity of life. A defender might see an idyllic life in a community in which the days began with a Catholic mass, including music (for all the missions had remarkable indigenous musicians), before the residents divided up into groups based on gender and age for their morning tasks. For the women it might be weaving and caring for the youngest children, and for the men it could be artisan work or tending the family plot (chacra). The older children might have the “very fun job” of scaring the birds from the community fields. Drum beats divided the day, reminding workers to move to their next task, calling children to catechism (instruction of principals of Christianity taught through questions and answers), calling upon anyone who “voluntarily wanted to pray the rosary” before dinner, or reminding the Guaraní to say their Ave-Marías before sleep. Around dinner, the men “take their portion of maté which is distributed to all through the common store” (as in warehouse), and some days of the week “the women come to seek their meat rations from up to forty cows that were killed in one day for just one reducción.”(8)
       One critic, Blas Garay, saw communism in this overwhelming uniformity, and claimed the Jesuit will was imposed even upon sentimental life. “…The Jesuits were concerned regarding the need to increase the population in their reducciones and had little confidence in the willingness of the Indians, who worn out by the tasks of the day, arrived home and ate and lay down to sleep until dawn when they awoke to go to church and then right back to work, without fulfilling” their duties as spouses. According to this critic the Jesuits resorted to playing drums especially toward dawn in order to wake the Guaraní and “remind them” to procreate.(9)
       Regardless of whether the above anecdote was true, there was a communal aspect to rituals which we would call sentimental life. Baptisms were done after mass on Sundays, marriages were done in large groups of couples (15 to 17 years of age) on predetermined dates. Families lived together in groups reminiscent of the Guaraní custom. Funerals were perhaps one area in which the Jesuits couldn’t impose a schedule or ritual (except for the time of day, after dinner). Not only were the Catholic rites observed but, in spite of Jesuit efforts to eradicate the practice, women continued to
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p. 4 (RP 8)   
lament the dead through “desentonos,” displays of long and ritualized wailing in which the deceased was praised for what he had been and done (or “at least for what he could have done and been”).10
       The physical infrastructure was also remarkably uniform. All thirty area missions (except for the last one constructed) were laid out identically: church, classrooms, workshops to the south of a main square.11 The other three sides of the square were surrounded by tile roofed long narrow dwellings, which were shared by several families in what Blas Garay called “shameful promiscuilty.” The cabildo (or administrative) building also occupied a prominent place on the square. To wrap up Blas Garay’s critical comments about the Jesuit’s missions, it is important to return to the important economic aspect of their work. The Jesuits engaged in highly profitable commerce of the same product (maté) whose trade by “unscrupulous” growers they had fought against.
      Unfortunately, the profitability and the concentration of experienced indigenous workers led slave raiders (known as Bandeirantes, a Portuguese word which reflects the origin of many of the raiders) to see missions as a place to get Indian slaves and conflict was inevitable. In 1692, an army of settlers from São Paulo with horses, guns and bloodhounds (as well as Indian allies), suddenly attacked one of the missions, set fire to the buildings, and butchered Indians. Other missions quickly met the same fate, and according to church sources, slave traders carried off 60,000 mission Indians during this period. The priests were usually spared out of fear of government reprisals, but several lost their lives while ministering to the wounded or pleading with the attackers. Two Jesuit priests even followed one captive train on foot through the swamps and forests, Jesuit priests even followed one captive train on foot through the swamps and forests, confessing the dying who fell by the road and carrying the chains of the weakest. They then unsuccessfully asked for the mediation of the governor-general of Brazil.
       This was a huge setback; the Guaraní lost faith in the Jesuits. The mission movement, however, began again in the 1630s, this time based on the less labor intensive cattle industry. The same story led to the same finale. The Jesuits were able to bring the missions to life yet again, and in 1638 even persuaded King Philip IV of Spain to allow the missions to arm themselves. Indeed, the Indians were to be trained by veteran soldiers who had become members of the Jesuit order. (It may seem remarkable that the Indians were given the right to bear arms, but not so surprising if one sees the missions as part of the geo-political struggle between Spain and Portugal). In 1641, a new invasion led to a fierce defense and the retreat of the Portuguese slave runners. There was a period of calm after this last event, which was not to say that life was easy on the mission.
       We’ll jump ahead a century to the events surrounding the 1750 border treaty. The treaty transferred territory to Portugal; Spain, in exchange, was granted land elsewhere as well as 4000 pesos for each mission (the worth of the land, livestock and buildings was estimated at over seven million). As you saw in The Mission, this was followed by a decision by the Church for the removal of the Guaraní.
       Did the Indigenous react with warfare in history as they did in the Hollywood version? Yes! When the Jesuits tried to lead them to new territory, the Indians of the seven missions rose in revolt under their own chiefs and defied the united armies of both Spain and Portugal. After a seven year guerrilla type war, resulting in thousands of deaths and the near destruction of the missions in question, the Jesuits were able to convince the Spanish crown to annul the boundary decision and restore the disputed territory to Spanish jurisdiction. But, the matter wasn’t really settled, as the Portuguese (remember Pombal?) continued their battle against the Jesuits.

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p. 5 (RP 9)
*The end of the movie = the end of the missions?
The end of the Jesuit missions (and not just the seven missions affected by the 1750 treaty) followed less than two decades after the events portrayed in the movie.
It wasn’t only the Portuguese who opposed the Jesuits; a number of European monarchs (including that of Spain) began to fear Jesuit power. Not only were the missions and other Jesuit endeavors financially successful, but Jesuits were in charge of prestigious schools all over the Americas. Jesuit wealth and power was creating a backlash. In different dates depending on the European country, the Jesuits were expelled by the Catholic hierarchy or the State. From Spanish America they were expelled in 1767. The missions were turned over to priests of other orders, chiefly Franciscans, but under divided authority, with uncertain government support, and without the Jesuit knowledge of the region and its inhabitants, the missions rapidly declined.



ENDNOTES
(1) “History of the Jesuits.” http://matrix.scranton.edu/admissions/jeshist.html
(2) Ibid.
(3) The Catholic Encyclopedia has a fairly complete discussion of the pope’s decision.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14096a.htm
(4) Quote on Pombal is from: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14096a.htm
(5) Nathan Page, “Guaraní: The Language and People.”
(6) Whether through outright warfare, through slavery, tribute or disease, the population of indigenous tribes that met up with Spanish had fallen precipitously by 1540. Most notably, in the first Caribbean islands that the Spanish attempted to colonize the death rate reached 90% or higher. (According to some investigators, this depopulation in the Caribbean happened before European diseases were introduced, and thus was the direct result of Spanish treatment).
(7) “La vida en las reducciones jesuíticas de guaraníes o el uso perfecto del tiempo.” In El barroco paraguayo, Madrid: Instituto de Cultura Hispánica, 1977. This article contains long citations from 18th century sources. Translations by Dr. Olander.
(8) Comments of praise all come from the above article.
(9) Blas Garay, “El comunismo de las misiones: la revolucion de la independencia del Paraguay,” Paraguay, 1975. (Translation by Dr. Olander).
(10) “La vida en las reducciones…”
(11) Larry Rohter, “Missions of a Lost Utopia.” The New York Times, Sunday December 3, 2006, section 5, p. 1 & 12.

Map of Patagonia

This map is copied from Wikipedia, which provides a real public service by including images for open and free use.

Don't use wikipedia as a "real" source for your research, but you may mine it for bibliographical leads and images.  If the only source you can find for certain information comes from Wikipedia and/or non-footnoted - "no author" sources, you are better off NOT using it.  (Do put wikipedia in the "bibliography" if you use it in this general way.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagonia

Trade Monopoly and Pirates. . .

Note: this is a very old article, but I have two motivations for including it in this class. First, it's a  window on a very different part of the colonial experience, and some of you may enjoy a class discussion about this.  Second, it gives us a chance to meditate on history as a field.  I sometimes read these older books to observe how different themes and approaches to history  cycle in and out of fashion.  Comments?

Questions:
1) Look at the World Map in your RP and trace a shipping route for something traded between Cuba and Mexico in the first half of the Spanish colonial period.   (Draw a rough picture and comment). (section 1)
2)  What sort of power did the Casa de Contratación have? (section 1)
3) Why was Spanish commercial policy with the colonies like a mother saying to her famished child, "Take no other milk but mine," when she has no milk to give?
4) Describe the convoy system that was in place between 1561-1748.  Why was it established and how much trade took place during the period in which it was in force? (See section 2, but also relevant information in other parts of this reading).
5) At the top of section three, a Chilean historian blames Spanish commercial policy for Chile's problems?  What is the argument behind this blame?  Do you agree?
6) Look at the short list of prices for goods in colonial Chile included in section 3.  Does the list suggest anything about the type of goods imported into Chile? 
7) What route did Spanish trade goods take to reach Argentina? (section 3)
8) Crow blames both the Spanish and the pirates (English, French, and Dutch) for Spain's inability to reach its full potential.  What error or "sin" does each side commit?
9) In section 7 (concluding section), find the figures for Spanish ship losses in the travel between Spain and the New World.
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VOCABULARY: 

Armada =  The famous Spanish navy which sailed against England in 1588.  Its superiority came partly from the recent inclusion of Portugal (and its navy) into the Spanish kingdom.  
Cromwell = Oliver Cromwell, a British military/ political leader... If you had been a college student in the 1940s, no explanation would be necessary!
Phillip II = King of Spain 1556-98.  (Became King of Portugal also in 1588.) 
Patagonia and Rio Plate - refer to geography in southern South America - Rio Plate is the river in Argentina (Buenos Aires founded here).  Patagonia is the southern tip of the continent (Chile and Argentine territory - indigenous tribes still live here also).  See Map (Dec. 22 post)

Please post a comment below if there are other vocabulary words/references in the article that should be in this section!
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section 1

Crow, John A. "Trade Monopoly and Pirates" in The Epic of Latin America. 3rd ed., expanded and updated. (Berkley: University of California Press, 1980).  p. 176-90.  (First edition was published in 1946).

     The underlying idea back of Spanish regulations controlling trade with the colonies was to insure the greatest possible profits for the home country.  Spain was like a prospector for gold who suddenly strikes it rich and then makes every effort to keep others away from his stake.  In order to safeguard her colonial "gold mine" she established a commercial monopoly: only Spaniards could trade with the colonies, goods must be carried in a convoy.  The colonies were not only prohibited from trading with other European nations but were not allowed to trade among themselves.  For many years goods sent from one colony to another had to go first to Spain and were transshipped from there.
       On the surface it sounded like an airtight system.  Every ounce of colonial gold and silver would reach Spain, and Spain, in turn, would furnish all the imports which the colonies needed.  England, Holland, and France had all established similar monopolies.  The main difference was that while these countries had strong productive industries which could supply the wants of their colonists at reasonable prices, Spain had a rapidly weakening industrial system, a declining navy, and a disintegrating merchant marine.  Her commercial policy, therefore,  was like a mother saying to her famished child: "Take no other milk but mine." when she had no milk to give. (22)  Nevertheless, many millions of dollars in trade passed across the ocean before this truth became evident.
     From its center at Seville the Spanish Casa de Contratacion, of House of Trade, established in 1503, directed all this colonial commerce.  It not only served as a clearinghouse through which all trade was channeled, but it had virtually dictatorial powers over all cargoes, customs, posts, permits, papers, and personnel having to do with ships sailing for or arriving from the New World.  Each vessel carried an official scribe of notary whose duty it was to keep a complete record of everything that happened on the trip, and in each port the House of Trade had its official representatives to recheck the cargo and report on its disposal. It also had charge of emigration and of the exports of seeds, plants, and animals, and was a sort of general storehouse and market which provided these essentials of colonial life. It had the further responsibility of compiling and keeping a complete file on the economic geography of all sections of the New World. Every discoverer, conquistador, or explorer was obliged to send in a report on the terrain, climate, peoples, and products of the regions which came under his inspection. The House maintained its own bureau of navigation, and among its first chief pilots were Amerigo Vespucci and Sebastian Cabot. Every employee of the organization was under severe restrictions and was not permitted to engage in trade. . .

       In 1524, when the House of Trade found itself swamped with more work than it could possible do, the Council of the Indies was established to direct the political, judicial, and military affairs of the colonies and to act as an advisory body in regard to all civil and ecclesiastical appointments. These dual bureaucracies functioned side by side throughout the colonial period. While Philip II was King (1556-98) he tried to be a virtual one-man dictator of this council, and, living as he did among suffocating piles of papers, el rey papelero, or “the king of paper-work,” nearly succeeded in his purpose.
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section 2   At first single ships or small groups of vessels were permitted to carry on colonial trade, but they were restricted to sailing from the ports of Seville or Cádiz (in Spain), and on their return all had to unload and pass inspection at Seville. When the wealth of incoming cargoes had increased to such an extent that those boats were attacked by corsairs or by Spain’s enemies, they were forced to travel in convoy. This system lasted from 1561 to 1748, and two such convoys were supposed to leave Spain every year. However, their departure was frequently delayed for many months until a sufficient number had assembled, or because warships to escort them were not at the time available, or because the country was at war. Even when none of these conditions prevailed, Spain finally became so destitute of both goods and ships that sailings were irregular. On the average a fleet of from forty to seventy vessels left Spain about once in every year and a half, but the average is misleading because sometimes many years passed without a single sailing.
           Their route was as follows: on leaving Seville or Cádiz they all headed for the city of Santo Domingo (Havana later became the port of arrival...) There the fleet divided into two sections, one going to Vera Cruz, Mexico, the other to Cartagena in Colombia and thence to Portobello, Panama. The first section was to take care of all the Mexican and most of the Central American trade, while the second was supposed to do the same for the entire South American continent. After many years of this, monopoly restrictions were relaxed, but the harm had already been done and contraband trade was widespread throughout the colonies.

        When merchandise had passed through all these hands, plus a long and hazardous trip across the Atlantic, plus a dozen different kinds of taxes, it was no wonder that the charges were exorbitant. The merchants of the fleet, having no competition, agreed beforehand on prices which would give them a return of two or three hundred per cent or even more on their investment. It was the first large-scale application of the vicious trust or cartel system against which the unorganized purchaser is powerless. Only a still bigger cartel, which would at best remedy the situation temporarily, or direct government action, could launch a frontal attack against such an arrangement. Damaging blows could be dealt by contraband trade, however, and these blows eventually (after two hundred years) destroyed the monopoly.
As early as 1624 the royal inspector placed in Panama reported that legally registered goods to the value of 1,446,346 pesos had passed through but that an estimated 7,597,559 pseos’ worth had been smuggled without paying any duty. Another authority estimated that for every 1000 tons of merchandise which entered Peru through legitimate trade channels, 7500 tons came in via contraband. perhaps the estimate is excessive, but beyond any doubt one half of all imports were smuggled in, and in some years the percentage of contraband goods was as height as eighty or ninety per cent. During most of the eighteenth century, after the backbone of the monopoly had been pretty well broken, an average of only forty ships a year came to America from Spain, but there were about three hundred ships from other nations.
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section 3    The fact that exorbitant prices were collected by the merchants of the fleet at Portobello was not the half of it. This was only the beginning. These same merchants banded together to buy native products at costs which were ridiculously low. The same double-barreled punch which soon laid low the Iberian Peninsula also kept the colonies in a state of relative poverty for over two centuries. For example, says a historian of Chile, in that country prices looked like this:
        a fanega of wheat (1.6 bushels)  cost two pesos
        a cow cost two pesos
        a package of paper cost over 100 pesos
        a sword cost 300 pesos
        a cloth cape cost 500 pesos
“Under such circumstances the colony was condemned to poverty” (Galdames, Luis. A History of Chile).
        It is easy to see that this practice would leave few people indeed in a position to purchase European products, and few individual workers in any frame of mind to exert themselves in the production of native goods. But the effect went farther than that. It meant that those few who, through their wealth, were able to buy would become more and more demanding of the Indians under them in order that they themselves might continue to live in some luxury. This constant driving and milking away of every possible cent of profit resulted in an exploited laboring class which was rarely able to achieve more than a bare subsistence. Built upon this tradition, Latin America is still a land of poverty and riches where the middle class, our own great bulwark of democracy, is only in its infancy.
        Under the monopoly Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, which were the greatest distance from Portobello, had to pay considerably higher prices than Mexico or Peru, which were near the points of debarkation. The route to Argentina was as follows. On leaving Portobello merchandise had to be carried by mule train overland to the Pacific side of the Isthmus of panama. here it was loaded into ships again and sent down to Callao, the port for Lima, separated from the inland Peruvian capital by only a few miles. From Callao it was reshipped to Argentina by mule train all the way over the Andes and across the continent, finally arriving at Buenos Aires or some other Argentine city.
        An intermediate fair for Bolivian and Argentine merchants was held at Potosí, Bolivia, the great silver center which for many years was the most populous town in the entire Western Hemisphere, and here again further costs were tagged on. An Argentine historian says: “In Potosí, prices were four times as high as in Lima; while in Tucumán [northern Argentina] prices were twice as high as in Potosí.” This meant that the region of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay came to depend almost exclusively on contraband trade, a fact that affected their whole society to its very core.
        The Spanish mercantile policy also restricted the free exchange of products among the colonies themselves, and, in order to safeguard further the monopoly of the mother country, it was prohibited to produce goods in the New World which might compete with the península. For example, grapes were not to be grown n the colonies and wine was not to be made there. However, as these restrictions were nonsensical and impossible to enforce they were gradually either lifted or disregarded until they became dead letters.
        Fleets, trading companies, caravans, and monopolies were institutions which served well enough “for the beginnings of trade, and for the lower stages of civilization; but Spain tried to perpetuate them in her colonies.” While other countries outstripped her in navigation, shipbuilding, and in the art of commerce, she doggedly persisted in the old manner of life. It was partly due to the psychology of the race which loved tradition and hated change; it was also a sort of religious reflex because Spain knew that a free importation of goods would also mean free entrance for Protestant and heretical ideas. This artificial adherence to the lower stages of economics meant that while the tiny island of Mauritius enjoyed a trade of 36,266 tons with England in a single year, the Spanish fleet, at its very height never carried more than 27,500 tons, which represented the total legal trade of all Spanish America. It would not be fair to dismiss the subject at this point, however, without showing that the other maritime nations of Europe practically forced Spain to follow the tightrope path of monopoly and isolation.
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section 4       The insignificant West Indies islands of Tortuga, San Cristóbal, and the larger ones of Jamaica and Santo Domingo were, at one time, alive with nests of corsairs or buccaneers from England, France, and Holland who lay in wait at these central vantage points to pounce on the rich gold and silver fleets of Spain and Portugal. For nearly two hundred years the corsairs made life miserable for the Spanish galleons. They were one of the primary causes for the peninsula’s poverty and decay after 1588, when British sea dogs swept the Invincible Armada from the coasts of England and delivered the deathblow to Spanish supremacy of the seas.
        Francis Drake, born in 1540, led the way. He was a sort of pioneer or precursor, and was one of the principal reasons why Philip II finally assembled the Armada. In the 1560s Drake and his kinsman, John Hawkins, engaged in the slave trade with the West Indies. The Spaniards were angered at these intrusions on their colonies and attacked the English ships so vigorously that all were sunk except Drake’s own vessel and one other. After taking a lesson in caution the hard way the Englishman came back with a vengeance. In 1569-70 he slipped into the Indies, spied on their ship movements and the size and location of their forts and garrisons, and in 1572, with only two vessels and seventy-four men, he headed for Panama. There he attacked and looted the trade center Nombre de Dios, port of arrival for Spanish ships in panama before it was displaced by Portobello, in 1584. After this successful venture he captured a ship in the harbor of Cartagena, then fell on Portobello, sacked it thoroughly, crossed the Isthmus, and seized three mule trains bearing thirty tons of silver. After his return to England with this loot Drake became a national hero and was made an admiral.
        Soon afterward Queen Elizabeth secretly gave him permission to raid the Spanish colonies on the Pacific, but this was denied officially, for England and Spain were not then at war. Drake left England in 1577, with a Portuguese pilot, and was the first foreigner to sail through the Strait of Magellan. He had started out with five ships, but by this time four of them had already been lost, two in the River Plate, one in the stormy Patagonian seas, and the fourth, not being able to find the commander after the storm, had returned to England.
Drake continued up the west coast of South America in his flagship, the Golden Hind. His first stop was at the Chilean port of Valparaiso, then only a small village, which he attacked and plundered. He captured a ship which was standing in the harbor ready to sail for Peru and took its cargo of gold, hides, and tallow, then he thoroughly ransacked all the warehouses and put out to sea again. At Callao he made another attack, cut all the ships loose from their moorings, but did not feel strong enough to take a chance against the Spanish forces which he knew would be dispatched immediately from Lima.
        From Peru he sailed northwest and, in his search for the northeastern passage back to England, went all the way up the west coast of the United States... In 1580 he reached England safely; the whole country went wild with celebration, and Queen Elizabeth, finding her official friendship for Spain unsuccessful anyway, came aboard the Golden Hine in person, knighted Drake, and received a treasure worth more than five million dollars.
Five years later, with a much larger fleet of nineteen vessels, the Englishman attacked Spain directly, plundered the port of Vigo and the town of Santo Domingo and Cartagena and forced the Spaniards to pay a huge ransom for the deliverance of the latter city. Spain began to prepare her revenge on a grand scale, and, getting wind of it, Drake decided not to await the attack which was certain to come.
        He entered the harbor of Cádiz (Spain) with thirty English ships and destroyed the entire fleet which the Spaniards were assembling. This was in 1587, and in the following year, when Philip did send his huge Armada against England, Drake served as vice-admiral of the English fleet which, with considerable help from the stormy weather, dispersed the one hundred and thirty vessels which were the pride of the Spanish navy, and ended for all time Spanish dominion of the seas. Only about half of the ships of the Armada ever got back to the peninsula. The year after this Drake invaded Portugal and tried to capture Lisbon, but was forced to retire.
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section 5        Drake, who died of dysentery off Portobello, was only the first of a long line of sea hawks called at various times corsairs, buccaneers, pirates, freebooters, or filibusters, and to the Spanish generally known as “those heretical dogs.” Drake did not stand alone among the corsairs of the sixteenth century; he was only the best known and a sort of justification for all the others. The French had begun their forays against the Spanish at about the same time, and several of their freebooters had looted settlements in the Hispanic New World, frequently putting all their prisoners to death. In 1625 a Frenchman and an Englishman colonized the little island of San Cristóbal near Santo Domingo. Several Frenchmen passed over to the larger island, and here they hunted down the wild cattle which had escaped from the Spaniards settled on the opposite extremity.
        These men made a living by selling the hides of the animals they killed to Dutch smugglers, and they depended mostly on the beef for their subsistence. These buccaneers and others of the same breed established a firm hold on the western side of Santo Domingo and were able to challenge Spanish supremacy in the Indies. The present-day country of Haiti... is the final result.
         Perhaps the bloodiest pirate of all was the Fenchman known as L’Ollonais, or L’Olonnoois, because of his birth in Sables d’Olonne. His real name was Jacques Jean David Nau. Beginning his activities as a buccaneer in 1650, this nefarious Frenchman coursed along Spanish American shores for over twenty years, tracing his path in fire and blood until his death at the hands of the Indians of Panama in 1671. . .
        The Dutch were not far behind. In the early 1600s they made life miserable for the Spanish and Portuguese trade fleets, and in 1624 they established themselves firmly in Brazil, capturing and occupying the cities of Bahia, Pernambuco, Olinda, and making a desperate attempt to colonize the entire northern Brazilian coast. They were finally driven out in 1654. The English preserved a certain secrecy about their piratical expeditions and, unless a state of open warfare existed, officially washed their hands of them. The Dutch, whose independence (from Spain) had never been recognized, had no such reasons for concealment, and their rich merchants and commercial companies openly made their plans for looting and colonization. As Portugal was under Spanish rule from 1588 to 1640, and as the Portuguese colonies were not well defended at the time, these Dutchmen first fell on the Portuguese possessions in the Orient and, meeting with considerable success, then decided to attack Brazil. They also came to the United States, where their colony of New Amsterdam was founded under the noses of the English in 1614.
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section 6        The English, for their part, went about singeing the beard of the Spanish King with organized persistence after the year 1655. In that year Jamaica fell into their hands, giving them a base from which to operate. Their original plans had been more ambitious still. Oliver Cromwell sent a flotilla of sixty vessels and ten thousand men into the Antilles under the command of Admiral Penn (the father of the colonizer of Pennsylvania). it was the purpose of these forces to take over a large portion of the Spanish colonial empire. They attacked Santo Domingo but were decisively beaten off, then they proceeded on to Jamaica, which they occupied –that is, they occupied the shore line, for many Spaniards escaped into the interior. In order to get rid of them the newly arrived English offered the native buccaneers a set reward for the head of any Spaniard brought in to them, and in this fashion Jamaica soon came entirely under their control.
         Only four years previously (1651) Cromwell had passed the famous Navigation Act, making the use of English ships a requirement for all British trade. This kept the British merchant marine built up to capacity at all times, and, now that it had a new center from which to operate, the attacks upon Spanish shipping became more frequent and deadly.
... After Henry Morgan had ransacked the Caribbean shores and obliterated Panama it would seem that few wealthy Spanish coastal cities could have remained. But there was still one great prize which had never been touched, and in 1683 a group of combined filibusters, mostly French and Dutch, delivered a devastating attack against it. This was the rich Mexican port of Vera Cruz. After occupying the town and locking the massed inhabitants up in the churches, where many suffocated or were trampled to death, they began to pile up their booty in the central plaza. There were twenty-five thousand pounds of wrought silver, enough silver coin to give each of the common soldiers six hundred pesos and the leaders many times that amount, worth many thousands of dollars, fifteen hundred slaves, and many other items. When the fleet sailed Vera Cruz was picked clean as a bone. Fourteen years later, in 1697, another group of filibusters captured the city of Cartagena, pride of Colombia, and escaped with ten million pesos, eighty pieces of artillery, and countless other articles of value.
        Those pirates of the Spanish Main, of course, did not always come out on top. In 1741 the English Admiral Vernon attacked Cartagena with fifty-one men-of-war and over twenty eight thousand men, but the city was in a state of complete readiness this time behind its thick walls. Vernon, with vastly superior man-power, was so certain of success that he had already had medals stuck in his honor on which appeared the figure of the Spanish governor in a kneeling position delivering his sword into the admiral’s hands. The legend read: The Spanish Pride Pulled Down by Admiral Vernon.  ... Vernon had stated as his reason for making the attack “the necessity of Great Britain undertaking the emancipation of the Spanish establishments in America, in order to open their markets to the merchants of London.” ...
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section 7         As a rule, however, the hit-and-run tactics observed by the corsairs gave them the advantage, and especially so since they took great pains to swoop down on centers not expecting an attack or which were poorly defended. There was not a coastal fortress of city in the Spanish or Portuguese colonies which did not at one time or another feel the weight of their destructive blows. The lure of rich gold and silver sleets was one which never ended, and many an insignificant island off the Latin American coasts is stills aid to conceal millions of dollars’ worth of buried treasure. Although these corsairs alone did not break the back of Spain or Portugal, they were one of the strongest forces holding back the development of their colonies.
        Exactly how much booty the pirates carried away can only be guessed. However, in the reign of Charles V a total of 2421 vessels left Spain for the New World and only 1748 returned. The difference of 673 was either taken by the corsairs or lost in storms. Then, even after the convoy system was established (1561), the Dutch alone captured around 550 Spanish ships within a period of only thirteen years (1623-36). What the European wars had left undone, these pirates accomplished thoroughly, that is, the utter destruction of Spanish sea power...

Because I was Drunk and the Devil Tricked Me. . .

Questions:
These will be more important for our student led class conversation on Monday.  I don't mind if you turn in your written homework based on the Mission reading and we can discuss it a bit (questions 2 & 3).  We'll postpone a deeper discussion of The Mission til everyone has seen the movie. 
By the way, the "sections" are inserted here just to make it easier to refer to specific parts of the text during class discussion or in your writing.  
 
1) In general terms, explain what happened on June 8, 1692?  (Where, when, who, what?)
2) How did colonial officials respond to the crisis?  Were they unified?
3)  What cause did the representatives of colonial government attribute the outbreak of rioting? Does the author agree with the official explanation?
4)  What alternate explanation might there be?  (Section 2 discusses what other historians have said, but what about the author's view?  This isn't really presented clearly in one concise paragraph - but look for references to the real cause.)
5) What is pulque and how did the Spanish view it?  
6) The Spanish officials who analyzed the riots saved special venom for "pulquerias" (taverns).  Discuss some of the specific problems they saw with this type of establishment.  Does it shed light on the Spanish colonists world view in the late 17th century?
7) In the author's opinion why would the Indians have had a motive to bring up their drinking?  Yet, how many of the riot participants who were brought to trial (89 total) brought up alcohol in their explanation of the day's events?    
8) What do you think happened to Melchor de Leon (the author of the quote about the devil)?  Don't worry about looking it up, just speculate.  Now explain why you think that might have happened?


Colonial Latin American Historical Review, Vol. 14, Fall 2005, No. 4
“Because I Was Drunk and the Devil had Tricked Me”: Pulque, Pulquerías, and Violence in the Mexico City Uprising of 1692.
William F. Connell, p. 369
section 1
       For several hours during the afternoon and early evening on Corpus Christi in 1692, a crowd of residents burned much of the urban core of Mexico City. During the summer that followed, viceregal and ecclesiastical authorities consciously constructed a political response to the disastrous uprising that exploited the commonly held stereotypes about native peoples and their alleged lack of control when under the influence of alcohol. The existing evidence produced by witnesses in their testimonies before the viceregal courts, however, contradicts the official narrative. Nevertheless, the story generated by viceregal and ecclesiastical officials remains far more influential, and shaped both contemporary and modern attempts to understand the uprising. Crafting an official story enabled those who stood to be blamed to strip away any implicit criticism of government policy. Instead, the revolt was cast as an aberrant event concocted by irrational natives who craved disorder when drunk.
       If the story used by officials were correct, the trials should contain regular discussions of pulque (a mildly alcoholic drink made from the maguey)—and they do not. Interested officials in Mexico City, nevertheless, found that by blaming the uprising on pulque, they could affirm for the Crown and Council of the Indies that the kingdom and city were ably administered by capable representatives. What follows will demonstrate how natives understood the use of pulque and reveal how collusion among officials in response to the emergency of the uprising led them to invent an explanation that the evidence from the trials does not support.
       Between 5 and 6 o’clock in the afternoon, well after the Corpus Christi processions on 8 June 1692, the main plaza of Mexico City erupted in violence. “Indigenous [men and women] and other peoples rose up together in tumult,” wielding stones, torches, and perhaps knives. The riotous mob, composed of thousands of people, filled the plaza and attacked the viceregal palace “pelting it with stones and smashing the windows.” When they met resistance from the palace guard, the crowd “set fire to the wooden front door and second-story balconies,” which opened into “the vicereine’s private chamber.”(1) The guards made futile efforts to settle the crowd but, even armed and ready to defend the palace, they could do nothing to stop what had begun. The emboldened crowd ruled the plaza once the guards barricaded themselves inside the palace. They attacked and destroyed the major civic symbols of power and commerce—the royal jail, audiencia and gallows, the viceregal palace, the ayuntamiento (city council building), and the flimsy wooden cajones, or stalls of the city’s principal market. According to the testimony of a Spanish alcalde de corte (first-instance ordinary judge) caught up in the midst of the mob, the crowd also looted the market, taking clothing, silver, and cash. One official reflected fatalistically two days later, stating that “the damage is irreparable, and even this morning the fire is still burning.” (2)
       The uprsing ended, but not with a heroic defense of the city by the militia or any act of leadership on the part of urban officials. Chaos reigned as municipal officials shrank away from the danger, leaving the citizens of the city to fend for themselves while some among them vented their rage, controlling the plaza for as long as they chose. Some looted, lit fires, and committed acts of grave violence—usually against other participants or bystanders—from 5:30 to 10:00 in the evening. The viceregal government could muster no force to restore order once the fires began. Rather than risk their lives, most of the noble residents of the city as well as the officials (city, viceregal, and ecclesiastical) hid together in the solid stone buildings at the core of the city to wait out the disorder. On their own, participants eventually returned to their homes, hiding the goods with which they had absconded. The wounded made their way to hospitals or presumably to the care of those who might help them.
The first organized attempt to restore order came well after the plaza had cleared and continued through the early morning hours the next day. Though in the opening moments of the conflict individual palace guards had apparently attempted to maintain order by drawing their swords and lashing out against a sea of angry, stone-wielding residents, these vain efforts seemed only to have made matters worse. (3) A small number of city leaders saw and apparently attempted to stop the violence—including notably don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, don Juan de Velasco (the conde de Santiago), and don Antonio de Deza y Ulloa—but to no effect. (4) Despite what these witnesses claimed to have done, they mostly moved carefully through an earsplitting din to find safety. The danger posed by the uprising was real for everyone in its midst. Deza y Ulloa, a treasury official (Contador Oficial de la Real Hacienda), sustained a serious wound when a large rock struck him in the back as he made his way through the plaza. (5)
       The conde de Santiago organized the main defensive force of the city—the militia—hours after the uprising had subsided naturally. In his testimony, militia captain don Domingo Montaño described the uprising as though it had still been in progress as he ventured out with fifty-three armed horsemen just before midnight. he claimed that his efforts and those of the conde de Santiago, prevented further outbreaks of violence and stifled a second wave of attacks, (6) although no evidence indicates that anyone in the city had plans for a new assault. Indeed, though city officials seemed to think that a full-scale revolution was underway, they were mistaken. What they did find, however, were solemn ceremonies, like the one at the church of San Francisco on the plaza of Santiago Tlatelolco at four in the morning on 9 June, described in the testimony of Deza y Ulloa, who rode with the militia despite his injury. The clergymen, presiding over an early funerary mass for some of those who had been killed during the tumult, rebuked the horseman for charging in to the massive church on horseback in the middle of the service.(7)
       The1692 uprising has received only modest attention from scholars considering the scale of destruction and size of the viceregal response.(8) This profound, tragic, and terrible even has left behind a large corpus of materials that provide insight into the political, social, and cultural worlds of Mexico City from multiple points of view. The uprising itself, “the most important in the history of the [Spanish] American kingdoms,” destroyed wealth, buildings, and city records, and left more than two hundred casualties (by conservative estimates) in its aftermath. More than a dozen suspected participants and looters received capital sentences in one of the largest displays of judicial violence in the history of Spanish America.(9) In their responses, viceregal officials laid the groundwork for modern understandings of the uprising by offering solutions that focused on three problems: indigenous people allegedly abusing pulque. . ., an insufficient corn supply, and the uprooting of indigenous groups from their communities who had thus lost their “natural pacifism.”(10) Officials, ostensibly to correct these problems, banned pulque and banished indigenous peoples to their pueblos of origin, suggesting the riot was an indigenous uprising. The viceroy and his ministers worked diligently to provide an adequate corn supply after the uprising, which suggests that they believed a lack of corn must have motivated the urban poor.(11)
       To accept the official explanation of viceregal officials assumes that the Viceroy and his able investigators understood what motivated these particular people on this particular day to rise up and burn the plaza. Many observers offered explanations in the summer of 1692 that, for political reasons, ignored the motivations. The uprising probably spiraled out of control mostly because of an incompetent initial response; the threat to their own political futures motivated office holders and investigators to identify problems for which they could supply solutions. As a result, seventeenth century observers could not provide a proper account that credibly implicated those responsible for the escalation of violence nor could they identify a leader or a direct cause. The lack of a credible “smoking gun” in the documentary evidence made it possible for the authorities to explain the uprising in ultimately self-serving ways.
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section 2
      Much of the early writing on the uprising insisted that this was a “corn riot,” but recent scholarship has moved away from the one-dimensional hunger–driven uprising and gravitated toward more substantial policy issues. Current studies take advantage of the trial testimony to explain the event as the manifestation of a larger political problem. The viceroy, don Gaspar de Sandoval Silva y Mendoza (ruled 1688-1696), the conde de Galve, and his ministers failed politically by deliberately choosing not to control the price of corn and thus caused privation for which the urban poor sought redress. Violence broke out only after the elaborate, expensive, and ultimately imperfect, system of grain distribution “faltered” in the days immediately preceding the uprising. Rioters, however, lost their cohesion and focus and became looters, destroying the promise of social revolution.
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section 3


       Such studies rely heavily on the evidence of the trials to raise questions about the viceregal and the ecclesiastical understanding of the riots. However, the trials were carried out within a climate in which the viceregal government failed to respond to a serious challenge; these trials were hastily constituted and rushed through under tremendous pressure to find villains to punish. When examined in light of the trials, arguments in the official discourse about indigenous abuse of pulque do not find significant support. The trials also reveal how viceregal officials and the clergy came together, coordinating their responses with only a hint of dissent from a small group that did not cooperate. Collectively disguising their identities under the title, “the most loyal vassals of your majesty,” dissenters were conspicuous because they stood alone, separate from, and perhaps drowned out by, the many other official voices. The very act of seeking anonymity, furthermore, suggests a climate hostile to what might be called “whistle-blowing” and indicates that this group feared retribution for expressing opinions contrary to the official line.(17)
       Viceregal and ecclesiastical officials understood that the very legitimacy of secular Spanish rule in the Americas rested upon the notion that the Crown represented justice and “good government,”(18) and had a vested interest in in controlling the story as it made its way across the Atlantic….Viceregal officials rejected the possibility that a massive government failure had precipitated a violent, politically motivated attack by the urban poor.(19) Such an admission would have made them culpable. Identifying pulque as a scapegoat, a convenient vice regularly employed by colonial officials, helped them to shift responsibility for the uprising to native peoples and away from themselves.
Rebellions in New Spain usually sought redress for local problems and often lacked a coherent plan, ideology, or group of leaders.(20) Yet, paradoxically, they also constituted a form of political discourse that germinated in communities in response to specific stimuli, usually to “restore a customary equilibrium.”(21) The uprising of 1692 in Mexico City seems to resonate well with this theoretical generalization. The communities of Mexico City perceived a failure in their government and responded through violent protest. The alternate explanatory discourse generated by viceregal and ecclesiastical officials served to remove any rational or legitimate basis from the actions of the urban poor. Stereotypes about natives and pulque thus served officials who could not find leaders to interrogate.
       The viceroy turned to pulque in his first attempt to explain the events of 8 June to the Council of the Indies. In a letter written just three weeks after the event, he discussed the lack of corn and the general malaise caused by shortages.(22) The uprising itself, however, according to Viceroy Galve, occurred on this particular day because of a strange mixture of circumstances. The festival of Corpus Christi brought many people from small towns and villages who came to celebrate in the festival atmosphere.(23) The distribution and heavy consumption of pulque occasioned by the holiday, however, made the real difference. Galve argued that “men of letters and experience conclude that general drunkenness among the common people that resulted from the abundance of the drink pulque” enabled a few disaffected individuals to sway the inebriated crowd. Thus, even after discussing the shortage of corn and the possibility that the upcoming crop in December would fail to alleviate the crisis, he reduced the complexity of this event to the simple straightforward, and direct explanation that natives, deprived of their reason by pulque, caused the outbreak of violence.(24)
       Explanations generated by viceregal officials supported the statements made by Viceroy Galve. Testimony given on 15 July 1692 by one ayuntamiento officer explained how the abuse of pulque by indigenous peoples caused the riot:
Even though the land has not experienced the customary abundance of other years [of the corn and wheat crops] there is little double that the drink pulque gives rise in them [the natives] drunkenness which precipitates violence and public sin of grave measure against our divine majesty for which they merit punishment.(25)
       This statement reflects yet another simplification of the riot’s cause. It also downplays the privation among the abject poor whose suffering increased as the food supply dwindled, rather, ungrateful and irresponsible indigenous peoples rioted because of the vices, weakness, and inability to resist pulque.
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section 4
       Seventeenth century intellectual and great critic of indigenous use of pulque, don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora sought to systematically undermine any possible rationale suggested by the urban poor in his description of the event.(26) He questioned the veracity of the story that emerged in trial testimony that, just before the violence erupted, an indigenous woman had been killed in the public granary by the corregidor (a local official - a mayor). Furthermore, he cynically argued that indigenous women who sold tortillas benefited from the conditions that ostensibly provoked the riot, earning more because of the high price of corn.(27) Don Antonio Fernández de Jubera, an attendant of the viceroy who passed the evening of 8 June, hunkered down in a well-fortified building . . ., described his experienced in a friendly interview with the court. Purposefully, he also stripped away potential motivation from those who rioted. He witnessed the early moments of the uprising and remarked that when he entered the plaza he found “wickedness committed by natives without motive or cause of any kind.”(28)
       In the months following the uprising, ecclesiastic officials of the city also made clear arguments that native abuse of pulque caused them to riot. On 30 June, Viceroy Galve amplified the power of ecclesiastical authorities to enforce moral order in the city. They oversaw the prohibition of pulque and monitored the movement of natives who had been ordered to return to their pueblos of origin. This reducción attempted also to relocate indigenous peoples living in the center of the city to the peripheral barrios.(29) Clergy who commented on the riot agreed with the viceroy and identified pulquerías- the taverns that served cheap drinks to the working poor-as the principle culprit in the outbreak of the riot.(30)
       Church officials argued in the wake of the riot that the abuse of pulque had a detrimental effect on the health of indigenous peoples and those of mixed racial heritage (castas), causing them to behave in socially inappropriate ways. To make this case, they drew on themes developed over the course of nearly two centuries. Indigenous peoples, according to the accounts of the clergy, often walked in the streets naked because they had pawned their clothing in the pulquerías.(31) The jeers and laughter from bystanders did not affect them in their inebriated state. Indigenous men under the influence of pulque allegedly exhibited criminal behavior more often. Echoing civic paternalism that classified indigenous peoples as children in the eyes of the law, ecclesiastical elites also perceived indigenous peoples as placid, peace-loving people who, under the influence of alcohol, became unruly and uncontrollable.(32)
       Pulquerías allegedly became places where small-time thieves could “fence” stolen goods in exchange for cash or credit at the bar, providing both an incentive to steal and a ready market for stolen goods.(33) Robberies, assaults, and homicides, the clergy argued, increased as a result of the abuse of pulque. Natives who frequented pulquerías regularly committed sins of the flesh, including mortal sins like sodomy and incest. Visitors to pulquerías sought out illicit affairs with women, sometimes even committing rapes in their drunken rampages.(34) The indigenous peoples and others among the urban poor, according to these clerical accounts, felt no shame because alcohol numbed their senses and removed their sense of dignity.(35)
Church officials who wrote tracts regarding native drunkenness imagined a simpler time when indigenous peoples had self-respect, behaved, did not abuse pulque, dressed in fine clothing, and used their money to express their faith through good works for the church. They contrasted this imaginary past with contemporary indigenous peoples who “walked naked and scorned in the city, neglected to care for their children and wives and had lost their desire to work.”(36) Even when indigenous peoples did work, their wages went straight to pulque and not to support their families, the critics argued, suggesting that beyond denying women and children monetary support, it also caused women to flee their drunken husbands who were prone to beat them. Pulque made indigenous peoples less productive. (37 38)

         The clergy argued that the social environment of pulquerías broke down the perceivd “natural” animosities among ethnicities, or, as they called them, “naciones.” Afro-Mexicans, chinos, Mestizos, and indigenous peoples—traditionally natural enemies in the eyes of Spaniards—came together in solidarity in pulquerías. (39) Furthermore, all manner of “vagabonds” frequented these establishments. In the words of one cleric, in the pulquerías the patrons “come together to drink, and in so doing become friends and brothers.” (40) Group identity was forged making pulquerias dangerous places where those so inclined could foster sedition. Thus, the clergy concluded, these pulquerias provided the ideal environment for the urban poor to hatch the plot of 8 June 1692.
         The bishop of Antequera, in his post-riot comments, took these arguments beyond the role of pulquerías and placed the blame squarely on native drunkenness. He drew on Saint Augustine to connect the riotous behavior of the indigenous and the abuse of alcohol. His letter universally blamed riots, brawls, quarrels, assaults without cause, the breakup of homes, and the inability to reason, on those who “call the tavern their home and whose only desire and active pursuit is to toss back a drink.” (43) Others followed his lead, suggesting that pulque facilitated the corruption of the soul, and thus make it easier for the devil to make pacts with indigenous peoples. (44) These arguments guided the thinking of the of the ecclesiastical hierarchy...
         After the smoldering flames had been extinguished and the rioters had spent their fury, city leaders must have been thankful to have survived the uprising that many in Mexico City had feared for more than a century. (45) Initially, it seemed, judicial officials cared most about finding those responsible. The audiencia and a military tribunal (the Auditor General de la Guerra) initiated criminal prosecutions.

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section 5
       The official discourse articulated by viceregal and ecclesiastic officials on native abuse of pulque as a major cause of the riot does not fare well when examined in light of the criminal trials. Of the eighty-nine defendents who faced criminal charges in the summer of 1692, only ten mentioned pulque or pulquerías in their statements. (47) This is particularly striking because inebriation could serve as a mitigating circumstance in the Spanish judicial system by making unclear the premeditation of the defendant’s actions. (48) By this logic, defendants had an incentive to claim drunkenness had caused them to participate. In addition, as the viceroy pointed out, the festival of Corpus Christi brought great revelry to the city and presumably more than the normal supply of pulque as well. (49) These two factors made it likely that many witnesses would have mentioned pulque in their testimonies and all the more striking that few did.
       The first trial involved Melchor de León, an indigenous choir singer in the chapel of Monserrate, who mentioned pulque in his deposition before a court scribe. He claimed that he arrived in the plaza highly intoxicated the afternoon of the uprising. Wandering towards his home, he claimed the noise (a howling roar) drew him to the plaza. He explained that he did not understand the commotion he found. In his disoriented state, he unwittingly became involved in the riot. He stated:
I was drunk, and I saw that many natives were climbing up to the balconies [of the royal palace] and because I was drunk and the devil had tricked me, I climbed up too and they [the palace guards] apprehended me.(50)

Archeology, Anthropology, Science, and our understanding of pre-Colombian America

AFTER READING THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES, what do you think about the recent angry division that emerged within the American Anthropological Society recently (Dec. 2010) when the group decided to drop the word "Science" from the description of  anthropology's future?

Link to Article #1   &  Questions for Article #1 "Mapping Ancient Civilization in a Matter of Days." by John Noble Wilford, New York Times, May 11, 2010, p. D1 &4.

Click here to read "Mapping Ancient Culture..." 

 Questions for "Mapping Ancient Civilization..."
1) Click on the "multimedia" graphic on p. 1.  You can use this image as well as the article to explain the advantage of lidar laser over satellite imagery (or "previous remote-sensing techniques".
2)  How many years had the husband-and-wife team of Arlen and Diane Chase spent in the "tropical vegetation" (i.e. on the ground) trying to determine the size of the Mayan settlement area of Caracol?  How long did it take the airplane to do the lidar survey?  How many square miles were measured in this way? 
3) Does your answer to question #2 mean the preceding years of slow research had basically been wasted?  Why or why not (use the article to support your answer).
4) The article mentions a number of technological "leaps" which aided our attempts to understand the physical lay-out of ancient cultures.  The first  dates from "about a century ago," and the second hails from the 1950s.  What were these discoveries and their applications?
5) When were Mayan hieroglyphics interpreted, according to the article?  Why might the information to be gleaned from Maya writing be of limited use in truly understanding the culture?
6) What were some of the specific conclusions to emerge from the lidar laser images (and the Chase's previous work)?


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Click here to see the article "Maya Intensively Cultivated..."   The article is included here (below), but if you are interested, the website contains interesting links to explore. 

 Article #2  &  Questions   "Maya Intensively Cultivated Manioc 1400 Years Ago"  Science Daily, June 17, 2009.

Questions for "Maya Intensively Cultivated ..."
1) What burning question about Maya civilization does this discovery answer?
2) How does the discovery highlighted in this article relate to the discoveries made in Caracol (article #1)?
3) What are the food staples that are traditionally attributed to the Maya? Why might this new staple crop have been important according to the researchers?
4) Would the lidar techqiue used in Caracol have made the work described in the article easier? Why or why not?
5) Have human remains been discovered in this site? In your opinion, what might this mean?


    A University of Colorado at Boulder team has uncovered an ancient and previously unknown Maya agricultural system -- a large manioc field intensively cultivated as a staple crop that was buried and exquisitely preserved under a blanket of ash by a volcanic eruption in present-day El Salvador 1,400 years ago.
     Evidence shows the manioc field -- at least one-third the size of a football field -- was harvested just days before the eruption of the Loma Caldera volcano near San Salvador [El Salvador] in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Payson Sheets, who is directing excavations at the ancient village of Ceren. The cultivated field of manioc was discovered adjacent to Ceren, which was buried under 17 feet of ash and is considered the best preserved ancient farming village in all of Latin America.
     The ancient planting beds of the carbohydrate-rich tuber are the first and only evidence of an intensive manioc cultivation system at any New World archaeology site, said Sheets. While two isolated portions of the manioc field were discovered in 2007 following radar work and limited excavation, 18 large test pits dug in spring 2009 -- each measuring about 10 feet by 10 feet -- allowed the archaeologists to estimate the size of the field and assess the related agricultural activity that went on there.
     Sheets said manioc pollen has been found at archaeological sites in Belize, Mexico and Panama, but it is not known whether it was cultivated as a major crop or was just remnants of a few garden plants. "This is the first time we have been able to see how ancient Maya grew and harvested manioc," said Sheets, who discovered Ceren in 1978.
     Ash hollows in the manioc planting beds at Ceren left by decomposed plant material were cast in dental plaster by the team to preserve their shape and size, said Sheets. Evidence showed the field was harvested and then replanted with manioc stalk cuttings just a few days before the eruption of the volcano.
     A few anthropologists have suspected that manioc tubers -- which can be more than three feet long and as thick as a man's arm -- were a dietary salvation for ancient, indigenous societies living in large cities in tropical Latin America. Corn, beans and squash have long been known to be staples of the ancient Maya, but they are sensitive to drought and require fertile soils, said Sheets.
     "As 'high anxiety' crops, they received a lot of attention, including major roles in religious and cosmological activities of the Maya," said Sheets. "But manioc, which grows well in poor soils and is highly drought resistant did not. I like to think of manioc like an old Chevy gathering dust in the garage that doesn't get much attention, but it starts right up every time when the need arises."
     Calculations by Sheets indicate the Ceren planting fields would have produced roughly 10 metric tons of manioc annually for the 100 to 200 villagers believed to have lived there. "The question now is what these people in the village were doing with all that manioc that was harvested all at once," he said. "Even if they were gorging themselves, they could not have consumed that much."
     The CU-Boulder team also found the shapes and sizes of individual manioc planting ridges and walkways varied widely. "This indicates the individual farmers at Ceren had control over their families' fields and cultivated them they way they wanted, without an external higher authority telling them what to do and how to do it," he said.
     The team also found that the manioc fields and adjacent cornfields at Ceren were oriented 30 degrees east of magnetic north -- the same orientation as the village buildings and the public town center, said Sheets. "The villagers laid out the agricultural fields and the town structures with the same orientation as the nearby river, showing the importance and reverence the Maya had for water," he said.
     The volcano at Ceren shrouded adobe structures, thatched roofs, house beams, woven baskets, sleeping mats, garden tools and grain caches. The height of the corn stalks and other evidence indicate the eruption occurred early on an August evening, he said.
Because it is unlikely that the people of Ceren were alone in their intensive cultivation of manioc, Sheets and his colleagues are now investigating chemical and microscopic botanical evidence at other Maya archaeological sites that may be indicators of manioc cultivation and processing.
     Sheets said Maya villagers living in the region today have a long tradition of cutting manioc roots into small chunks, drying them eight days, then grinding the chunks into a fine, flour-like powder known as almidón. Almidón can be stored almost indefinitely, and traditionally was used by indigenous people in the region for making tamales and tortillas and as a thickening agent for stews, he said.
     Since indigenous peoples in tropical South America use manioc today to brew alcoholic beverages, including beer, the CU-Boulder team will be testing ceramic vessels recovered from various structures at Ceren for traces of manioc. To date, 12 structures have been excavated, and others detected by ground-penetrating radar remain buried, he said.
     Sheets is particularly interested in vessels from a religious building at Ceren excavated in 1991. The structure contained such items as a deer headdress painted red, blue and white; a large, alligator-shaped painted pot; the bones of butchered deer; and evidence that large quantities of food items like meat, corn, beans and squash were prepared on-site and dispensed to villagers from the structure, said Sheets.
     Ceren's residents apparently were participating in a spiritual ceremony in the building when the volcano erupted, and did not return to their adobe homes, which excavations showed were void of people and tied shut from the outside. "I think there may have been an emergency evacuation from the ceremonial building when the volcano erupted," he said. To date, no human remains have been found at Ceren.


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Article #3  &  Questions:  "Recent Finds in Archaeology."  Athena Review, Vol. 2 No. 3, http://www.athenapub.com/incamum1.htm

Questions for "Recent finds...":

1) Describe what exactly was discovered, were any technological advances responsible?

2) What events led to this discovery and when was it made?

3) Has this work shed light on Inca settlements and society?

         When Francisco Pizarro toppled the Inca monarchy in the mid 1530’s with a few hundred Spanish adventurers, the popular culture supporting the Inca rulers of the Peruvian Andes sank into relative obscurity. While there are many accounts of the subsequent colonial period, and numerous architectural ruins at Inca sites from Cuzco to Machu Pichu, many aspects of the lives of the pre-Spanish Incan people - a major Native American civilization - have been little known from the period just before the Conquest.

         Now this is changing, with the discovery of thousands of Inca mummies near Lima from the period of about AD 1470-1535. About 2,200 mummy bundles of Inca men, women, and children, many in an excellent state of preservation, have been excavated at a shantytown named Tupac Amuru built over the Inca cemetery site of Puruchuco- Huaquerones, at the base of desert foothills on the eastern edge of the Peruvian capital. 

        The mummies were revealed largely by accident during the past decade, as the suburb of Tupac Amuru (named after the last Inca monarch, killed by Spaniards in 1572) grew from settlers fleeing 1980s guerrilla warfare in the mountains. Sewage from the new settlement disturbed the sleeping city of the dead just underground, well preserved until then by the typically dry, sandy conditions of coastal Peru. Salvage excavation led by archaeologist Guillermo Cock of Peru's National Institute of Culture, and partly funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, converted streets into excavation trenches, to recover this unparalleled sample of the late 15th-early 16th century Inca population. Overall cemetery size at Puruchuco is estimated by Cock at about 10,000 bundles containing 15,000 people, making it one of the two largest Peruvian  mummy burial sites known, and the largest for the Late Horizon, Inca period. An estimated 60 percent of the burials remain undisturbed.

         The excavations recovered over 1,200 burials in ten weeks last year, with Tupac Amaru residents assisting at the emergency dig. The archaeologists have been rewarded with a database that, quite literally, will rewrite our understanding of Incan culture. The several hundred Inca mummies examined so far represent two to three generations and a variety of social classes over a period of 60-75 years who died from a variety of causes ranging from malnutrition, anemia, and probable tuberculosis, to trauma and human sacrifice. The dead (many with hair, skin, and eyes still intact) were wrapped in cocoon-like bundles of raw cotton and woven textiles holding as many as seven individuals, some with both adults and children probably representing families. The bodies were dried or embalmed by being wrapped in fabric and buried upright in pits filled with crushed pottery shards and gravel, which rapidly leached out the moisture. Some 45 per cent of the buried individuals were children under 12 years old. About 40 of the larger mummy bundles, meanwhile, were topped with false heads (some with wigs) known to have been used for burials of Inca elite. Only one example of such “falsas cabezas” has been previously excavated. Many of the bundles contained artifacts, personal items, food, and utensils which were probably meant for use in the afterlife. One person, nicknamed “the cotton king,” holding a small child, was wrapped in over 300 lbs of raw cotton, along with a well preserved sack of coca leaves and brick of quicklime - a combination also  much used today as a stimulant. The richest source of elite burials occurred beneath the town schoolyard.

      The Inca empire, which spread north from Cuzco in 1438 to dominate the Andean region by 1450, has been considered an elite caste who took over local populations and imposed their imperial ideology on them. But the Puruchuco burial artifacts show a mixture of Inca and local styles, suggesting the creation of a unique synthesis around Lima. Given a relatively high proportion of elite burials mixed in with more modest mummy bundles, Cock believes there is evidence of a large Inca palace near the cemetery, and a perhaps as many as ten recognized Incan social statuses among the buried population. The well-preserved bodies will also allow detailed analysis of the diet, general health, and causes of death of the population, as well as their genetic relationships. Along with an estimated  50-60,000 artifacts from the mummy bundles, the Puruchuco burials represent a late Precolombian time capsule of incredible scientific value. Mummies and artifacts will eventually be displayed in a Puruchuco museum. 

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Article #4 "Incredible Discovery - The Last INKA (Inca) Has Be Found and He is Not Peruvian He is Chileno!!!" posted by Juan Carlos, December 2, 2010  
(http://www.tierraunica.com/tierra_unica/2010/12/incredible-discovery-the-last-inka-inca-has-be-found-in-lima-and-he-is-not-peruvian-he-is-chileno.html)

Question:

1) I copied this exactly as I found it.  What do you think?  Well, maybe later in the course, this will mean more to us.

Sebastian PiNera

Huayna

Atahualpa

    

That is right.  It has been revealed this week in Lima, Peru that Dr. Sebastian Piñera, multi-billionaire businessman and current President of Chile, is the direct descendant of the Inka (Inca) King Huayna Cápac.  Dr. Piñera said "he is very surprise and proud to be a direct descendant of such a great leader in world history like Huayna Capac!"  Birth certificates and genealogy records in both Peru and Chile have confirmed this finding.  Currently DNA examinations are being done for scientific verification.
Inka Huaya Capac, was the king and ruler of the Inca Empire from 1493 - 1527. He was the 11th Sapa Inca (King of South America) and 6th of the Hanan dynasty.  During Huaya Capac's rule, the Inca Empire was that largest empire in all the Americas in history.  His empire included present day Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Western Brazil.