Saturday, April 14, 2012
Week 13 -- Open post
You may post on anything you like that is related to the Stern book. Topics include Stern's sources, how Stern relates to other books we have read and the movie (does his interpretation match others? does it disagree? does he include similar/different information), his writing style, etc.
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Steve Stern chose an interesting title for his book about the Andean people in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries: Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest. The part I find interesting is “the Challenge of Spanish Conquest”. There are ways in which this ‘challenge’ can be interpreted: the challenge of the Conquest for the Indian peoples, the challenge of conquering for the Spanish, the challenge of defining the events of the fifteenth century in Latin America as a Conquest, or the challenge of deciphering and understanding what is known as the Spanish Conquest by historians.
ReplyDeleteI think Stern addresses all of these challenges in his book but one theme that I found continually throughout the book was that of cultural, political, linguistic, and religious hybridization.
On page 33, Stern writes “Collaboration with Europeans, despite the tolls of war, tribute, and labor, brought its advantages. A closer look at the Chancas of Andahuaylas shows how intelligent encomenderos cultivated working relationships with native elites and societies.” And on page 37, “As usual, the Indians, rather than isolate themselves from these economic developments, sought to take advantage of new trends and opportunities.” These examples show how the natives adapted to the intrusion and exploitation of the Spanish. Stern sums this up on page 39 by saying “Indians displayed an ‘open’ attitude towards European culture and religion.” The Indians had a “willingness to ally with the Christian pantheon of religious personalities (including saints), a policy which – from the Indians’ point of view – did not require abandoning the traditional haucas of native society.”
Though the natives were often forced to adapt to things Spanish, adaption was a two way street. “Under the terms of early alliances, the colonial economy continued to depend for goods and labor almost wholly upon an Andean social system, managed and controlled by Andean social actors, relationships, and traditions… Under such conditions, it was difficult to reorder the native economy. Instead, it seemed more feasible to the colonials to base their extraction upon long-standing Andean traditions (page 40).
Sterns focus on the changes within the Andean cultures, religion, and societies in his book and rather than painting them in the light of native desolation or complete conquest, he tries to present evidence of a bilateral hybridization.