Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:56:58.825Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Indian Communities, Political Cultures, and the State in Latin America, 1780–1990

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Florencia E. Mallon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In Tlatelolco, in the symbolically laden Plaza of the Three Cultures, there is a famous plaque commemorating the fall of Tenochtitlán, after a heroic defence organised by Cuauhtemoc. According to the official words there inscribed, that fall ‘was neither a victory nor a defeat’, but the ‘painful birth’ of present-day Mexico, the mestizo Mexico glorified and institutionalised by the Revolution of 1910. Starting with the experiences of 1968 – which added yet another layer to the archaeological sedimentation already present in Tlatelolco – and continuing with greater force in the face of the current wave of indigenous movements throughout Latin America, as well as the crisis of indigenismo and of the postrevolutionary development model, many have begun to doubt the version of Mexican history represented therein.1 Yet it is important to emphasise that the Tlatelolco plaque, fogged and tarnished as it may be today, would never have been an option in the plazas of Lima or La Paz. The purpose of this essay is to define and explain this difference by reference to the modern histories of Peru, Bolivia and Mexico. In so doing, I hope to elucidate some of the past and potential future contributions of indigenous political cultures to the ongoing formation of nation-states in Latin America.

As suggested by the plaque in Tlatelolco, the process and symbolism of mestizaje has been central to the Mexican state's project of political and territorial reorganisation. By 1970, only 7.8 % of Mexico's population was defined as Indian, and divided into 59 different linguistic groups.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 24 , Supplement S1 , March 1992 , pp. 35 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Barre, Marie-Chantal, Ideologias indigenistas y movimientos indios (Mexico, 1983)Google Scholar; Bonfil, Guillermo, ‘Los pueblos indios, sus culturas y las políticas culturales’, in Canclini, Nestor García (ed.), Politicas culturales en América Latina (México, 1987)Google Scholar; Contteras, Jesús (ed.), La cara india, la cruz del 92: Identidad étnica y movimientos indios (Madrid, 1988).Google Scholar

2 For the percentage of the Indian population see Barre, , Ideologias indigenistas, p. 59Google Scholar; for the treatment of the Náhuatl group see Hill, Jane H., ‘In Neca Gobierno de Puebla: Mexicano Penetrations of the Mexican State’, in Urban, Greg and Sherzer, Joel (eds.), Nation-States and Indians in Latin America (Austin, 1991), pp. 72–94Google Scholar; Friedlander, Judith, Being Indian in Hueyapan: A Study of Forced Identity in Contemporary Mexico (New York, 1975).Google Scholar

3 Morelos is one of the most-studied regions of central Mexico. See, for example, De La Peña, Guillermo, Herederos de promesas: Agricultura, politicay ritual en los Altos de Morelos (México, 1980)Google Scholar; Warman, Arturo, …y venimos a contradecir. Los campesinos de Morelos y el estado nacional (México, 1976)Google Scholar; Crespo, Horacio (ed.), Morelos: Cinco siglos deHistoria Regional (México, 1984)Google Scholar; Womack, John Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York, 1968).Google Scholar For the debate between ‘campesinistas’ and ‘proletaristas’, see Bartra, Roger, Estructura agrariay clases sociales en Mexico (México, 1974)Google Scholar; Bartra, Roger, Campesinado y poder politico en Mexico (México, 1982)Google Scholar; Pare, Luisa, El proletariado agricola en Mexico: Campesinos sin tierra o proletaries agricolas? (México, 1977)Google Scholar; Esteva, Gustavo, Eatalla en el Mexico rural (México, 1980)Google Scholar; Warman, Arturo, Ensayos sobre el campesinado en Mexico (México, 1980)Google Scholar; Redclift, Michael, ‘Agrarian Populism in Mexico - The “Via Campesina”’, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 7 (July 1980), pp. 492–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Works on Mexican anthropology are too numerous to cite except for a representative list. On the Yucatan see Farriss, Nancy M., Maya Society Under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (Princeton, 1984)Google Scholar; and the critical-analytical study by Sullivan, Paul, Unfinished Conversations: Mayas and Foreigners Between Two Wars (New York, 1989)Google Scholar, which summarises the experiences of other anthropologists in the region, including the classic works by Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas. On Chiapas, the classic study and one of the original works on the cofradias is Cancian, Frank, Economics and Prestige in a Maya Community (Stanford, 1965).Google Scholar More recent works that attempt to historicise indigenous and rural processes are Wasserstrom, Robert, Class and Society in Central Chiapas (Berkeley, 1983)Google Scholar; and De Leon, Antonio Garcia, Resistencia y Utopia, 2 vols. (México, 1985).Google Scholar Critical studies on the cofradias are Rus, Jan and Wasserstrom, Robert, ‘Civil-Religious Hierarchies in Central Chiapas: A Critical Perspective’, American Ethnologist, vol. 7, no. 3 (Aug. 1980), pp. 466–478CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Chance, John K. and Taylor, William B., ‘Cofradias and Cargos: An Historical Perspective on the Mesoamerican Civil-Religious Hierarchy’, American Ethnologist, vol. 12, no. 1 (Feb. 1985), pp. 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On Oaxaca, an excellent revisionist work is Carmagnani, Marcello, El regreso de los dioses. El proceso de reconstitución de la identidad étnica en Oaxaca (México, 1988).Google Scholar A good review of the literature on the isthmus of Tehuantepec appears in Campbell, Howard, ‘Zapotec Ethnic Politics and the Politics of Culture in Juchitán, Oaxaca (1350–1990)’, PhD diss., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, 1990.Google Scholar Other relevant works include: for Tlaxcala and the De Puebla, Sierra, Nutini, Hugo and Isaac, Barry L., Las pueblos de habla ndhuatlde la region de Tlaxcala y Puebla (México, 1974)Google Scholar; Nutini, Hugo and Bell, Betty, Ritual Kinship: The Structure and Historical Development of the Compadrazgo System in Rural Tlaxcala (Princeton, 1980)Google Scholar; Nutini, Hugo, Ritual Kinship: Ideological and Structural Integration of the Compadrazgo System in Rural Tlaxcala, vol. 2 (Princeton, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nutini, Hugo, Todos Santos in Rural Tlaxcala (Princeton, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Arizpe, Lourdes, Parentezco y Economia en una Sociedad Nahua: Nican Pehua Zacatipan (México, 1973)Google Scholar; García, Bernardo, Los pueblos de la sierra: El poder y el espacio entre los indios del norte de Puebla hasta 1700 (México, 1987).Google Scholar On the Yaqui see Spicer, Edward, The Yaquis: A Cultural History (Tucson, 1980)Google Scholar; Hu-Dehart, Evelyn, ‘Peasant Rebellion in the Northwest: The Yaqui Indians of Sonora, 1740–1976’, in Katz, Friedrich (ed.), Riot, Rebellion and Revolution: Rural Social Conflict in Mexico (Princeton, 1988), pp. 141–175.Google Scholar

4 Indian population figures come from Barre, Ideologías indigenistas, p. 49. Concerning the process of mestizaje and ethnic relations, one of the classic original works is Fuenzalida, Fernando et al. , El indioy el poder en el Peru rural (Lima, 1970).Google Scholar For an original and new perspective see De La Cadena, Marisol, ‘“Las mujeres son mas indias”: Etnicidad y géero en una comunidad del Cusco’, Revista Andina, vol. 9, no. 1 (July 1991), pp. 7–29.Google Scholar

5 Representative examples of the literature from the 1960s and 1970s are: Mar, José Matos et al. , Dominación y cambios en el Perú rural (Lima, 1969)Google Scholar; Bourricaud, Fraçois, Power and Society in Contemporary Peru, translated by Stevenson, Paul (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Coder, Julio, Closes, estado y nación en el Perú (Lima, 1978)Google Scholar; Keith, Robert G. et al. , La hacienda, la comunidad y el campesino en el Perú (Lima, 1970)Google Scholar; Alberti, Giorgio and Sánchez, Rodrigo, Poder y conflicto social en el valle del Mantaro (Lima, 1974).Google Scholar For the literature on proletarianisation, see Víctor, Caballero M., Imperialismo y campesinado en la sierra central (Huancayo, 1981)Google Scholar; Mallon, Florencia E., ‘Microeconomía y campesinado: Hacienda, comunidad y coyunturas económicas en el Valle de Yanamarca’, Andlisis, no. 4 (Jan. –April 1978), pp. 39–51Google Scholar; Mallon, Florencia E., The Defense of Community in Peru's Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition, 1860–1940 (Princeton, 1983).Google Scholar For the Andean Utopia, see Burga, Manual, Nacimiento de una Utopía: Muerte y Resurrection de los Incas (Lima, 1988)Google Scholar; Galindo, Alberto Flores, Buscando un Inca: Identidad y Utopía en los Andes (Lima, 1986).Google Scholar

6 Cusicanqui, Silvia Rivera, Oppressed But Not Defeated: Peasant Struggles Among the Aymara and the Quechiva in Bolivia, 1900–1980 (Geneva, 1987)Google Scholar; Mercado, René Zavaleta, Lo nacional-popular en Bolivia (México, 1986)Google Scholar; Langer, Erick, Economic Change and Rural Resistance in Southern Bolivia, 1880–1930 (Stanford, 1989)Google Scholar; Langer, Erick, ‘Rituals of Rebellion: The Chayanta Revolt of 1927’, Ethnohistory, vol. 37, no. 3 (1990), pp. 227–253CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langer, Erick, ‘Persistencia y cambio en comunidades indígenas del sur boliviano en el siglo XIX’, in Bonilla, Heraclio (ed.), Los Andes en la Encrucijada: Indies, Comunidades y Estado en el siglo XIX (Quito, 1991), pp. 135–168Google Scholar; Izko, Javier, ‘Fronteras etnicas en litigio. Los ayllus de Sakaka y Kirkyawi (Bolivia), siglos XVI-XX’, in Bonilla, (ed.), Los Andes, pp. 63–132Google Scholar; Ostria, Gustavo Rodriguez, El socavony el sindicato. Ensayos históricos sobre los trabajadores mineros, siglos XIX–XX (La Paz, 1991)Google Scholar; Ostria, Gustavo Rodriguez, ‘Entre reformas y contrarreformas: las comunidades indigenas en el Valle Bajo cochabambino (1825–1900)’, in Bonilla, (ed.), Los Andes, pp. 277–334Google Scholar; Larson, Brooke, Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia: Cochabamba, 1550–1900 (Princeton, 1988)Google Scholar; Platt, Tristan, Estado boliviano y ayllu andino: Tierra y tributo en el Norte de Potosi (Lima, 1982).Google Scholar

7 The anthropological literature includes, Platt, Estado boliviano; Platt, Tristan, ‘The Andean Experience of Bolivian Liberalism, 1825–1900: Roots of Rebellion in 19th-Century Chayanta (Potosi)’, in Stern, Steve J. (ed.), Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries (Madison, 1987), pp. 280–323Google Scholar; Harris, Olivia, ‘Complementarity and Conflict: An Andean View of Women and Men’, in Lafontaine, J. S. (ed.), Sex and Age as Principles of Social Differentiation (London, 1978), pp. 21–40Google Scholar; Harris, Olivia, ‘El parentesco y la economia vertical en el ayllu Laymi’, Avances, no. 1 (1978)Google Scholar; Harris, Olivia, ‘The Dead and the Devils Among the Bolivian Laymi’, in Bloch, Maurice and Parry, Jonathon (eds.), Death and the Regeneration of Life (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar; Abercrombie, Thomas, ‘To Be Indian, To Be Bolivian: “Ethnic” and “National” Discourses of Identity’, in Urban, and Sherzer, (eds.), Nation States and Indians, pp. 95–130Google Scholar; Abercrombie, Thomas and Dillon, Mary, ‘The Destroying Christ: An Aymara Myth of Conquest’, in Hill, Jonathan D. (ed.), Rethinking History and Myth: Indigenous South American Perspectives on the Past (Urbana, 1988), pp. 50–77Google Scholar; Rasnake, Roger, ‘Images of Resistance to Colonial Domination’, in Hill, (ed.), Rethinking History and Myth, pp. 136–156Google Scholar; Rasnake, Roger, Domination and Cultural Resistance: Authority and Power Among an Andean People (Durham, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Literature on the revolution and the proletarianisation process includes Ostria, Rodriguez, ‘Entre reformas y contrarreformas’Google Scholar; Nash, June, We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us. Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Dandier, Jorge, El sindicalismo campesino en Bolivia: Los cambios estructurales en Ucureña (México, 1969)Google Scholar; Malloy, James, Bolivia: The Uncompleted Revolution (Pittsburgh, 1970).Google Scholar Attempts to synthesise the material are few, but include, Cusicanqui, Rivera, Oppressed But Not DefeatedGoogle Scholar; and Albo, Xavier, ‘From MNRistas to Kataristas to Katari’, in Stern, (ed.), Resistance, pp. 379–419.Google Scholar

8 For information on the COCEI see Campbell,‘Zapotec Ethnic Politics’; for the Yaqui see Hu-Dehart, ‘Peasant Rebellion'. The link between the Indian problem and the land problem is made in Mariátegui, José Carlos, Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (Lima, 1978).Google Scholar For the Andean Utopia see, especially, Flores Galindo, Buscando un Inca. Concerning Katarismo, see Rivera Cusicanqui, Oppressed But Not Defeated; and Albo, ‘From MNRistas to Kataristas to Katari’.

9 My summary of the Mexican case is based on the following sources: Hamnett, Brian R., ‘Royalist Counterinsurgency and the Continuity of Rebellion: Guanajuato and Michoacán, 1813–1820’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 62, no. 1 (Feb. 1982), pp. 19–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hamnett, Brian R., Roots of Insurgency: Mexican Regions, 1750–1824 (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar; Taylor, William B., Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford, 1979)Google Scholar; Van Young, Eric, ‘Moving Toward Revolt: Agrarian Origins of the Hidalgo Rebellion in the Guadalajara Region’, in Katz, (ed.), Riot, pp. 176–204Google Scholar; Tutino, John, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 1750–1940 (Princeton, 1986).Google Scholar The comparison between the movements of Tupaq Amaru and Tupaj Katari is a hypothesis based on the following sources. For a general overview, see Stern, Steve J., ‘Introduction to Part I’ in Stern, (ed.), Resistance, pp. 29–33Google Scholar; Campbell, Leon, ‘Ideology and Factionalism During the Great Rebellion, 1780–1782’, in Stern, (ed.), Resistance, pp. 110–139Google Scholar; and Mercado, Zavaleta, Lo nacional-popular en Bolivia.Google Scholar For Peru, see especially Mörner, Magnus and Trelles, Efraín, ‘A Test of Causal Interpretations of the Tupac Amaru Rebellion’, in Stern, (ed.), Resistance, pp. 94–109Google Scholar; Godoy, Scarlett O'phelan, ‘La rebelión de Túpac Amaru: organización interna, dirigencia y alianzas’, Histórica, vol. 3, no. 2 (1979), pp. 89–121Google Scholar; Godoy, Scarlett O'phelan, Rebellions and Revolts in Eighteenth Century Peru and Upper Peru (Köln, 1985).Google Scholar For Bolivia, see Rasnake, , Domination and Cultural Resistance; Larson, Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation.Google Scholar

10 The analysis in this paragraph is a hypothesis based on the suggestive essay by Katz, Friedrich, ‘Rural Uprisings in Preconquest and Colonial Mexico’, in Katz, (ed.) Riot, pp. 65–94.Google Scholar See also Taylor, William B., ‘Banditry and Insurrection: Rural Unrest in Central Jalisco, 1790–1816’, in Katz, (ed.), Riot, pp. 205–246.Google Scholar At the same tine, it is important to recognise that the relationship between the colonial state and Indian communities in central Mexico was not reproduced in the mining regions of the ‘north’ where the rebellion had its origin. See especially Brading, David A., Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763–1810 (Cambridge, 1971)Google Scholar; Brading, David A., Haciendas and Ranchos in the Mexican Bajio: León, 1680–1860 (Cambridge, 1978)Google Scholar; and Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution.

11 For the colonial system in Peru, see Stern, Steve J., Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640 (Madison, 1982)Google Scholar; Spalding, Karen, Huarochirí: AnAndean Society Under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford, 1984)Google Scholar; and Silverblatt, Irene, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru (Princeton, 1987).Google Scholar Exceptions are the valleys of Mantaro and Cochabamba, treated in Mallon, The Defense of Community; and Larson, Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation.

12 Hamnett, , ‘Royalist Counterinsurgency…’; Reina, Leticia, Las rebeliones campesinas en Mexico (1819–1906) (México, 1980)Google Scholar; Hart, John M., ‘The 1840s Southwestern Mexico Peasants’ War: Conflict in a Transitional Society’, in Katz, (ed.), Riot, pp. 249–268Google Scholar; Guardino, Peter, ‘Peasants, Politics, and State Formation in Nineteenth Century Mexico: Guerrero, 1820–1856’, PhD diss., Univ. of Chicago, 1991Google Scholar; Mallon, Florencia E., ‘Peasants and State Formation in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Morelos, 1848–1858’, Political Power and Social Theory, vol. 7 (1988), pp. 1–54Google Scholar; Mallon, Florencia E., ‘Peasants and the Making of Nation-States: Mexico and Peru in the Nineteenth Century’, (manus., n.d.), chs. 5 and 7.Google Scholar

13 In addition to the references in note 9, see Cusicanqui, Rivera, Oppressed But Not DeflatedGoogle Scholar; Bonilla, Heraclio and Spalding, Karen (eds.), La independencia en el Perú (Lima, 1972)Google Scholar; Galindo, Flores, Buscando un Inca.Google Scholar

14 Mallon, , ‘Peasants and the Making of Nation-States’, chs. 6 and 8.Google Scholar

15 Cusicanqui, Rivera, Oppressed But Not Defeated, p. 21Google Scholar; Platt, , Estado bolivianoGoogle Scholar; Platt, , ‘Liberalism and Ethnocide in the Southern Andes’, History Workshop Journal, no. 17 (1984), pp. 3–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Platt, , ‘The Andean Experience…’Google Scholar; Demelas, Marie-Danièle, ‘Darwinismo a la criolla: El darwinismo social en Bolivia, 1880–1910’, Historia Boliviano, vol. 1, no. 2 (1981)Google Scholar; Mercado, Zavaleta, Lo national-popular en Bolivia.Google Scholar

16 Metcado, Zavaleta, Lo national-popular en Bolivia, p. 122.Google Scholar

17 For the role of ‘the popular’ in the revolution, see especially Womack, Zapata; Gilly, Adolfo, La revolución interrumpida: México, 1910—1920: Una guerra campesina par la tierra y el poder (México, 1971)Google Scholar; Knight, Alan, The Mexican Revolution, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar; Córdova, Arnaldo, La política de masas del cardenismo (México, 1974).Google Scholar For post-revolutionary indigenismo and mestizaje, see Villoro, Luis, Los grandes momentos del indigenismo en Mexico, 2nd edn. (México, 1979)Google Scholar; Knight, Alan, ‘Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910–1940’, in Graham, Richard (ed.), The Idea of Rate in Latin America, 1870–1940 (Austin, 1990), pp. 71–113.Google Scholar For the continuity of the popular agenda and racism as an arm of repression see Mallon, ‘Peasants and the Making of Nation-States’, chs. 8 and 9.

18 Malloy, Bolivia; Dandier, El sindicalismo campesino en Bolivia; Albó, , ‘From MNRistas to Kataristas to Katari’Google Scholar; Cusicanqui, Rivera, Oppressed But Not DefeatedGoogle Scholar; Kohl, James V., ‘The Cliza and Ucureña War: Syndical Violence and National Revolution in Bolivia’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 62, no. 4 (Nov. 1982), pp. 607–628.Google Scholar

19 Stepan, Alfred, The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective (Princeton, 1978)Google Scholar; Lowenthal, Abraham F. (ed.), The Peruvian Experiment (Princeton, 1975)Google Scholar; Lowenthal, Abraham F. and McClintock, Cynthia (eds.), The Peruvian Experiment Reconsidered (Princeton, 1978)Google Scholar; Escobar, Albert (ed.), El reto del multilingüismo en el Perú (Lima, 1972)Google Scholar; Escobar, Alberto (ed.), Perú, país bilingüe? (Lima, 1975)Google Scholar; Caballero, M., Imperialismoy campesinadoGoogle Scholar; Winder, David, ‘The Impact of Comunidad on Local Development in the Mantaro Valley’, in Long, Norman and Roberts, Bryan R. (eds.), Peasant Cooperation and Capitalist Expansion in Central Peru (Austin, 1978), pp. 209–240.Google Scholar

20 The best source on Andahuaylas is Sánchez, Rodrigo, Toma de tierras y conciencia politica campesina. Las lecciones de Andahuaylas (Lima, 1981).Google Scholar The transition to the second phase is discussed in Stepan, The State and Society.

21 On the COCEI, see Campbell, , ‘Zapotec Ethnic Politics…’.Google Scholar

22 Abercrombie, , ‘To Be Indian, To Be Bolivian’, p. 120.Google Scholar

23 For the current situation in Peru, see NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America), Special Number on Peru (New York, 1990)Google Scholar; Galindo, Alberto Flores, Tiempo de plagas (Lima, 1988)Google Scholar; Degregori, Carlos Iván, Sendero Luminoso: I. Los bondos y mortales desencuentros. II. Lucha armada y Utopia autoritaria (Lima, 1986)Google Scholar; Manrique, Nelson, ‘La década de la violencia’, in Márgenes, nos. 5 and 6 (1989), pp. 137–182Google Scholar; Kirk, Robin, The Decade of Chaqwa: Peru's Internal Refugees (Washington, 1991)Google Scholar; Poole, Deborah and Rénique, Gerardo, ‘The Chroniclers of Peru: U.S. Scholars and Their “Shining Path” of Peasant Rebellion’ (manus., n.d.).Google Scholar

24 For Nicaragua, see Diskin, Martin, ‘Ethnic Discourse and the Challenge to Anthropology: The Nicaraguan Case’, in Urban, and Sherzer, (eds.), Nation-States and Indians, pp. 156–180.Google Scholar For the situation in the Amazon, see Hendricks, Janet, ‘Symbolic Counterhegemony Among the Ecuadorian Shuar’, in Urban, and Sherzer, (eds.), Nation-States and Indians, pp. 53–71Google Scholar; Barre, , Ideologias indigtnistas.Google Scholar For Guatemala, see Smith, Carol A. (ed.), Guatemalan Indians and the State, 1540 to 1988 (Austin, 1990).Google Scholar

28 Galindo, Flores, Buscando un Inca.Google Scholar