30 - Intercultural Emblems of Violence in the Spanish Colonisation of the Americas

Summary

This chapter analyses four intercultural emblems of violence constructed by indigenous and Spanish artists in New Spain and Peru in the sixteenth century, when the region was under imperial Spanish rule. These highly stereotyped and conventional images combined the conventions of indigenous and European visual arts to present summarised and eloquent images of their violence, and this in turn facilitated Spain’s victory over the Aztec and Inca rulers, and also the imposition of Christianity over pagan religion. The detailed analysis of the contents, style and many layers of meaning of these emblems allows us to understand the diverse, even contradictory, cultural meanings of violence in this colonial situation.