Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T09:57:32.373Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

In Search of Tinterillos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Marc Becker
Marc Becker*
Affiliation:
Truman State University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The tradition of intermediaries negotiating conflicts between Indigenous and Western worlds in Latin America can be traced back to the colonial period. Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, semiprofessional or petty lawyers known as tinterillos assumed a seemingly ubiquitous presence in rural communities in Ecuador. Often local elites with some education, tinterillos commanded respect among their largely nonliterate Indigenous neighbors because of their ability to read, write, and handle documents. These intermediaries commonly exploited their privileged position for their own economic, social, and political benefit. Nevertheless, Indigenous peoples came to rely on tinterillos to petition the government and to challenge landholder abuses. On occasion, rather than feeling disempowered or victimized, Indigenous peoples learned to negotiate these relationships to their advantage. Tinterillos provide a convenient medium through which to examine how power relations were negotiated between different cultures and across deep class divides.

Resumen

Resumen

El papel de intermediarios en la negociación de conflictos entre indígenas y el mundo occidental en América Latina se remonta a la época colonial. A partir de mediados del siglo XIX, abogados semi-profesionales conocidos como tinterillos adquirieron una presencia aparentemente ubicua en las comunidades rurales en el Ecuador. Muchas veces tinterillos fueron elites locales con algo de educación. Ellos inspiraban respeto entre los indígenas quien en gran parte fueron analfabetos, debido a su habilidad al manejar documentos escritos. Estos intermediarios comúnmente explotaron su posición privilegiada para su propio beneficio económico, social y político. Sin embargo, los indígenas llegaron a depender del apoyo de los tinterillos para denunciar ante el gobierno los abusos de los terratenientes. A veces, en lugar de sentirse impotentes o como víctimas, los indígenas aprendieron a negociar relaciones con intermediarios en su beneficio. El estudio de tinterillos proporciona un medio conveniente para examinar las relaciones de poder que se negociaron entre diferentes culturas y a través de profundas divisiones de clase.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , 2012 , pp. 95 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

The research for this study was funded by a 2008 Truman State University Faculty Summer Research Fellowship. Earlier versions of this article were presented on the panels “Gender, Ethnicity and Class in the North Andes,” at the 2008 meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory, and “The Law and Its Uses? A View from South America,” at the 2010 meeting of the American Historical Association. Thanks to Karen Powers and Robert Smale for organizing those panels and to Kimberly Gauderman and Carlos Aguirre for their excellent and useful commentary, which strengthened this article. Additional thanks go to Cassandra Mundt and Jeff Naylor for their helpful comments, as well as to the members of my reading group, Hena Ahmad, Jason McDonald, Rubana Mahjabeen, Bonnie Lynn Mitchell, and Daniel Mandell.

References

Aguirre, Carlos N.d. “Speaking for the Subaltern? The Role of Legal Intermediaries in the Shaping of Legal and Political Cultures in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Peru.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Albornoz Peralta, Osvaldo 1988 El caudillo indígena Alejo Sáes. Cuenca: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales and Asociación de Historiadores del Ecuador.Google Scholar
Balarezo, M. R. 1930 “Mensaje del Presidente de la Corte Suprema de Justicia al Congreso Ordinario de 1930.” Gaceta Judicial: Órgano de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, 5th ser., 39 (26, August 22): 532.Google Scholar
Baud, Michiel 2007 “Liberal Ideology, Indigenismo and Social Mobilization in Late Nineteenth-Century Ecuador.” In Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, edited by Clark, A. Kim and Becker, Marc, 72–88. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Marc 2008 Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous Movements. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Botero, Luis Fernando 2001 Movilización indígena, etnicidad y proceso de simbolización en Ecuador: El caso del líder indígena Lázaro Condo. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala.Google Scholar
Buitrón, Aníbal 1948 “Vida y pasión del campesino ecuatoriano.” América Indígena 8 (2): 113–130.Google Scholar
Cadena Arteaga, Manuel Eduardo, and Arturo, V. Cabrera, M. 1927 Anotaciones a la jurisprudencia del código de enjuiciamiento civil ecuatoriano. Quito: Editorial Chimborazo.Google Scholar
Campo, José del 1944 “La movilización indígena y campesina.” Ñucanchic Allpa 2 (16): 1.Google Scholar
Castillo Cárdenas, Gonzalo 1987 Liberation Theology from Below: The Life and Thought of Manuel Quintín Lame. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.Google Scholar
Cevallos S., Arturo 1990 “Sublevaciones y conflictos indígenas en Chimborazo, 1920–1930.” In Estructuras agrarias y movimientos sociales en los Andes ecuatorianos (1830–1930), edited by Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, 264–370. Quito: Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Consejo Nacional de Universidades y Escuelas Politécnicas: Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Consejo Nacional de Universidades y Escuelas Politécnicas.Google Scholar
Coba Robalino, José María 1929 Monografía general del cantón Píllaro. Quito: n.p.Google Scholar
Conferencia de Cabecillas Indios 1936 “Indicaciones.” Ñucanchic Allpa 1 (8): 2.Google Scholar
Ecuador 1896-1897 Diario de debates de la Convención Nacional. Guayaquil: Imprenta Registro Oficial.Google Scholar
Ecuador 1907 Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial. Quito: Imprenta Nacional.Google Scholar
Ecuador 1911 Código de Policía de la República del Ecuador. Quito: Imprenta y Encuademación Nacionales.Google Scholar
Flores Galindo, Alberto 2010 In Search of an Inca: Identity and Utopia in the Andes. Edited and translated by Aguirre, Carlos, Walker, Charles F., and Hiatt, Willie. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Foerster, Rolf, and Aguirre, Sonia Montecino 1988 Organizaciones, líderes y contiendas mapuches, 1900–1970. Santiago, Chile: Ediciones CEM.Google Scholar
Foote, Nicola 2004 “Race, Gender and Nation in Ecuador: A Comparative Study of Black and Indigenous Groups, 1895–1944.” Ph.D. dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar
Guerrero, Andrés 1997 “The Construction of a Ventriloquist's Image: Liberal Discourse and the ‘Miserable Indian Race’ in Late 19th-Century Ecuador.” Journal of Latin American Studies 29 (3): 555–590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guerrero, Andrés 2010 Administración de poblaciones, ventriloquia y transescritura. Quito: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales.Google Scholar
Ibarra C, Hernán 1984 La formación del movimiento popular: 1925–1936. Quito: Centro de Estudios y Difusión Social.Google Scholar
Ibarra C, Hernán 1990 “Cambios agrarios y conflictos étnicos en la sierra central (1820–1930).” In Estructuras agrarias y movimientos sociales en los Andes ecuatorianos (1830–1930), edited by Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, 143–263. Quito: Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Consejo Nacional de Universidades y Escuelas.Google Scholar
Ibarra C, Hernán 1992 “La identidad devaluada de los ‘Modern Indians.‘” In INDIOS: Una reflexión sobre el levantamiento indígena de 1990, edited by Menacho, Diego Cornejo, 319–349. Quito: Instituto Latinamericano de Investigaciones Sociales.Google Scholar
Ibarra C, Hernán 1999 “Intelectuales indígenas, neoindigenismo, e indianismo en el Ecuador.” Ecuador Debate 48 (December 1999): 71–94.Google Scholar
Kincaid, Kenneth R. 2005 “Currents of Dissent: Water, Identity and the State in North Ecuador, 1924–1945.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas.Google Scholar
LeGrand, Catherine 1986 Frontier Expansion and Peasant Protest in Colombia, 1850–1936. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Lentz, Carola 1986 “De regidores y alcaldes a cabildos: Cambios en la estructura socio-política de una comunidad indígena de Cajabamba/Chimborazo.” Ecuador Debate 12 (December): 189–212.Google Scholar
Martínez, Nicolás 1993 “La condición actual de la raza indígena en la provincia de Tungurahua.” In Indianistas, indianófilos, indigenistas: Entre el enigma y la fascinación; Una antología de textos sobre el ‘problema’ indígena, edited by Trujillo, Jorge, 207–243. Quito: Instituto Latinoamericano de Investigaciones Sociales.Google Scholar
Muratorio, Blanca 1977 “Los tinterillos o abogados callejeros: El papel de los intermediarios judiciales en una comunidad boliviana.” In Procesos de articulación social, edited by Greenfield, Sidney M., Hermitte, Esther, and Bartolomé, Leopoldo J., 112–135. Buenos Aires: Amorrortu.Google Scholar
O'Connor, Erin E. 2002 “Widows' Rights Questioned: Indians, the State, and Fluctuating Gender Ideas in Central Highland Ecuador, 1870–1900.” Americas 59 (1): 87–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Connor, Erin E. 2007 Gender, Indian, Nation: The Contradictions of Making Ecuador, 1830–1925. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Páez, Federico 1936 “Ley para el juzgamiento de los tinterillos.” Registro Oficial 1 (210, June 10): 360–361.Google Scholar
Restrepo Jaramillo, Marco Antonio 1958 El rey de la leña. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos Capricornio.Google Scholar
Rodríguez Sandoval, Leonidas 1949 Vida económico-social del indio libre de la Sierra ecuatoriana. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Rubio Orbe, Alfredo, ed. 1954 Legislación indigenista del Ecuador. Mexico City: Instituto Indigenista Inter-americano.Google Scholar
Sáenz, Moisés 1933 Sobre el indio ecuatoriano y su incorporación al medio nacional. Mexico City: Publicaciones de la Secretaría de Educación Pública.Google Scholar
Szasz, Margaret Connell, ed. 1994 Between Indian and White Worlds: The Cultural Broker. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Thurner, Mark 1997 From Two Republics to One Divided: Contradictions of Postcolonial Nationmaking in Andean Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagley, Charles 1964 “The Peasant.” In Continuity and Change in Latin America, edited by Johnson, John J., 21–48. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric R. 1956 “Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society: Mexico.” American Anthropologist 58 (6): 1065–1078.CrossRefGoogle Scholar