The task of rethinking the South from an anti-imperialist perspective is
still a pending subject in our latitude, which, of course, will not be
carried out by the governmental powers, but which there are no signs of
addressing in depth from the societies of this old Europe. Whenever the
date of October 12th of our calendar approaches, neocolonialism is
renewed with a rancid and ultra-nationalist discourse. This colonial
heritage is still alive through the exploitation and extractivism of the
Latin American territory in the 21st century. And it is not only alive
in the material question, which is undoubtedly the bloodiest of all, but
also in the triumphalist narratives that celebrate the conquest of the
American continent defending this brutality as the only possible
civilization. In recent times we have seen that, from the Ministry of
Culture headed by Ernest Urtasun, the "Directorate of Cultural Rights"
has been launched to review and overcome the colonial framework in state
museums. This initiative is based on the sensitivity of the passage of
time regarding this issue, but it is completely limited as it is defined
exclusively by the cultural framework. In addition, this vision does not
incorporate a critique and fight against imperialism, but only against
certain issues of a decolonial nature.
Every few years, news such as the official Colombian claim to the
Spanish State of the Quimbaya Treasure, a gift received in the 19th
century by Queen Maria Cristina, a collection of 122 pieces of gold
belonging to an indigenous community centuries ago and found in the
Museum of America, appears on the international media scene. There is
also the official request made by Mexican President Manuel Andrés López
Obrador for a pardon from the current Spanish State for the 16th century
conquest of the Mesoamerican territory. We wonder if these requests are
reasonable and have an anticolonial meaning in the 21st century. And
probably the clearest and most forceful answer is yes, but there is also
the criticism that they are a political weapon of the interests of
governments with a neo-reformist tactic in Latin America today, where
internal colonialism and massacres of indigenous populations continued
to occur after the independence of the metropolis from the 19th century
onwards.
However, in this article we will rethink the concept of conquest,
because the dominant story has always been written around the idea of a
rapid and overwhelming conquest in the 16th century of all American
social communities. The documents of indigenous origin studied in detail
tell us about the resistance in colonial times of these peoples who
never gave in to domination and who, in some cases, kept their
territory. Despite being in a framework of generalized domination, and
although in many towns the population decreased drastically, they
carried out rebellions against Spanish colonization. Sometimes some
military battles or legal battles became small victories for these
peoples in different latitudes of the immense continent. These studies
allow us to break the myth of the simple, continuous and totalizing
Spanish domination of the American territory, putting the focus on two
processes: the Mesoamerican, specifically the resistance in Mexico; and
the South American, particularly the Wallmapu, or Mapuche territorial
autonomy.
The concept of indigenous and the resistance of the peoples in Mexico.
The idea of Indian was born from the contact of the conquerors with the
Mesoamerican peoples, and as a product of a geographical error of that
time. This historical concept changes its meaning over time; it is
resisted, assumed or redefined from the perspective of the native
peoples. For example, in the period opened in Mexico from 1994 to the
present, the term self-determination of the Indians or indigenous people
has been adopted, redefining that concept from the negative, that is,
they recognize themselves as Indians and become aware of themselves as
such, because they aspire to stop being Indians in the future.
In the 16th century, there was a loss of autonomy of the native peoples
in Mexico. The first news that reaches the western Mesoamerican region
about the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors are stories full of
violence. The direct sources of these peoples are not too numerous,
given the oral nature of the communities in many cases, and also because
of the premeditated destruction of these sources by the Spanish. The
historical narratives are contaminated by the concepts in use and
functional for the dominant ones. The documents are already filtered by
the format of those who govern, and these are the sources that remain
for historians. Official protocols and symbolic submission are already
inscribed in the documents that are subsequently studied, so in order to
make a study of the native peoples we must go deeper beyond what these
documents simply tell us. The imaginary in the historical account is
based on an imaginary already pre-constructed from the colonization of
mentalities, culture and society.
However, we affirm that they lost their autonomy because they have left
testimony of a whole series of violent events such as being direct
witnesses of the destruction of their beliefs and sacred places, or
suffering the direct dispossession of their labor force to satisfy the
imposition of tax burdens. They also experienced the theft of land and
territories, acquired as war spoils by encomenderos and other
colonizers. They experienced death by war in numbers that far exceeded
any previous ritual conflict, and unknown forms of violence. They were
stripped of their language, their clothing, and primary goods; just as
their dignity was taken away from them, and the loss of the balance
between health and illness.
The rebellion of the indigenous peoples was a historical constant to
recover their autonomy or as an active resistance to dispossession. Some
examples of these rebellions would be: The Miztón War (1540-1542), the
Chichimeca War (1548-1598), the Tepehuan Rebellion (1616) or the Huichol
Rebellion (1702). On the other hand, some native peoples such as the
Coras managed to maintain their territory without the presence of
colonizers until 1722. The application of community justice has been
evidenced in writings, and documents of civil disobedience to Hispanic
justice have been recorded.
The American independence continues to perpetuate colonialism and
indigenous extermination.
In the 19th century, the Mexican national state was built in the midst
of a conflict with the indigenous peoples, since independence in many
territories meant a mere nominal change, which legitimised domination by
other institutions inherited from the colonial ones. The struggles for
the autonomy of the indigenous peoples in the 19th century against the
Mexican liberal state have resulted in local cultures and communities
with specific resistances. The history of resistance to the process of
formation of the various Mexican states is noteworthy, whose origin is
therefore located in the violence exercised against the indigenous
population, and the numerous campaigns of extermination of native
populations.
A constant conflict develops between two types of antagonistic social
and political models, the project of liberalism inherited from Hispanic
colonialism, versus the indigenous peoples. The Mexican state does not
recognise indigenous groups, the struggles of the communities are
silenced and crushed, remaining in the realm of clandestinity. The
impoverishment of indigenous groups occurs, however, these struggles
strengthened the horizontal and supportive organization, and linked ties
of political identity with great strength of the ethnic component. A
re-Indianization begins as a key process for survival, and to avoid
being diluted in the imposed oblivion. These groups do not join the
formation of Mexican citizenship, they endanger the delimitation of
borders, the effective occupation of the territory by state authorities,
and they reject the assumption of a common national identity that makes
them invisible and threatens their customs.
The resistance in Wallmapu, territory of the Mapuche peoples.
The territory of Wallmapu is a millennial social reality still present
today, a territoriality prior to current national concepts. This
territory suffered the conquering aggression of the Hispanic world and,
however, they did not succumb in this conflict to the invasion of their
territories, they managed to twist that continental American destiny.
Twenty Mapuche parliaments held with the Hispanics from 1641 in Quilén,
until the one in Negrete in 1793, are testimony to this resistance. They
were political meetings between Spanish authorities and Mapuche leaders.
Borders and territories of self-determination were established,
interspersed with periods of war and battle. The American emancipation
processes, specifically those in Chile and Argentina, were established
as republics that ignored Mapuche autonomy. Towards 1860, the Chilean
state entity closed ranks around the idea that the Mapuche territory
belonged to them, and included it as a Chilean province.
From that date until 1885, the Chilean conquest of a significant part
of Wallmapu took place, as well as an occupation and open war against
the Mapuches south of the Biobío River, putting an end to Mapuche
self-determination. The mechanics of the Mapuche parliaments and
negotiations could not be practiced, due to the strength that the
Chilean State took. At the end of the 19th century, Mapuche society
began a colonial relationship with Chile, introducing a logic of social
domination, dispossession of the territory and attacks on their ways of
life and basic survival. The Mapuche people have always reached out to
negotiate and fight to recover their territory in an agreed manner
because that is their millennial essence.
The weychan, or the struggle, is installed in long memory, in the
dispossession of their territory at the end of the 19th century from
military campaigns such as the Desert Campaign in Argentina or the
Pacification of Araucanía in Chile, and the founding of cities and towns
of control. Today, coloniality is represented by large capitals and
companies that occupy the territory for exploitation purposes. The
radicalization of the Mapuche struggles or war of self-defense has
provoked a strong aggression by liberal governments, whether they are
more conservative or progressive. The Mapuches wish to return to their
own communal lifestyles, articulating vindicative discourses around
autonomy.
The learning of the struggle of the indigenous peoples of Latin America.
Spanish colonialism was followed by internal colonialism after the
famous American independence. The extermination of indigenous peoples
cannot be reduced to a question of their not knowing how to integrate
into the process of building the national State, because this unjustly
makes them responsible for their misfortune. In the face of this
victimizing discourse on the indigenous peoples that places them as
those who suffered the consequences of their lack of adaptation, it is
necessary to confront a system that adds all the responsibilities of the
violence that has its exclusive origin in the dominators and not in the
dominated.
The learning of the resistance of these peoples who have not managed to
be defeated, is the construction of the history of the oppressed. They
have marked the historical path against colonization, and then against
capitalism, the history of the indigenous peoples for centuries is a
history of survival. The dispossession of knowledge is an irrecoverable
gap in history, an incalculable loss that has prevented us from gaining
greater and deeper knowledge. However, lamenting is of little use;
defeat is overcome by building strong peoples; our job is to organize
ourselves to build offensives against capital, to take advantage of the
strategies that in today's global world we can share with the peoples in
America who fight for their self-determination and against imperialism.
Article inspired by one originally published in Todo Por Hacer in 2022
Ángel Malatesta, Liza activist
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/10/12/ni-vencidos-ni-dominados-la-resistencia-indigena-a-la-conquista-espanola/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
still a pending subject in our latitude, which, of course, will not be
carried out by the governmental powers, but which there are no signs of
addressing in depth from the societies of this old Europe. Whenever the
date of October 12th of our calendar approaches, neocolonialism is
renewed with a rancid and ultra-nationalist discourse. This colonial
heritage is still alive through the exploitation and extractivism of the
Latin American territory in the 21st century. And it is not only alive
in the material question, which is undoubtedly the bloodiest of all, but
also in the triumphalist narratives that celebrate the conquest of the
American continent defending this brutality as the only possible
civilization. In recent times we have seen that, from the Ministry of
Culture headed by Ernest Urtasun, the "Directorate of Cultural Rights"
has been launched to review and overcome the colonial framework in state
museums. This initiative is based on the sensitivity of the passage of
time regarding this issue, but it is completely limited as it is defined
exclusively by the cultural framework. In addition, this vision does not
incorporate a critique and fight against imperialism, but only against
certain issues of a decolonial nature.
Every few years, news such as the official Colombian claim to the
Spanish State of the Quimbaya Treasure, a gift received in the 19th
century by Queen Maria Cristina, a collection of 122 pieces of gold
belonging to an indigenous community centuries ago and found in the
Museum of America, appears on the international media scene. There is
also the official request made by Mexican President Manuel Andrés López
Obrador for a pardon from the current Spanish State for the 16th century
conquest of the Mesoamerican territory. We wonder if these requests are
reasonable and have an anticolonial meaning in the 21st century. And
probably the clearest and most forceful answer is yes, but there is also
the criticism that they are a political weapon of the interests of
governments with a neo-reformist tactic in Latin America today, where
internal colonialism and massacres of indigenous populations continued
to occur after the independence of the metropolis from the 19th century
onwards.
However, in this article we will rethink the concept of conquest,
because the dominant story has always been written around the idea of a
rapid and overwhelming conquest in the 16th century of all American
social communities. The documents of indigenous origin studied in detail
tell us about the resistance in colonial times of these peoples who
never gave in to domination and who, in some cases, kept their
territory. Despite being in a framework of generalized domination, and
although in many towns the population decreased drastically, they
carried out rebellions against Spanish colonization. Sometimes some
military battles or legal battles became small victories for these
peoples in different latitudes of the immense continent. These studies
allow us to break the myth of the simple, continuous and totalizing
Spanish domination of the American territory, putting the focus on two
processes: the Mesoamerican, specifically the resistance in Mexico; and
the South American, particularly the Wallmapu, or Mapuche territorial
autonomy.
The concept of indigenous and the resistance of the peoples in Mexico.
The idea of Indian was born from the contact of the conquerors with the
Mesoamerican peoples, and as a product of a geographical error of that
time. This historical concept changes its meaning over time; it is
resisted, assumed or redefined from the perspective of the native
peoples. For example, in the period opened in Mexico from 1994 to the
present, the term self-determination of the Indians or indigenous people
has been adopted, redefining that concept from the negative, that is,
they recognize themselves as Indians and become aware of themselves as
such, because they aspire to stop being Indians in the future.
In the 16th century, there was a loss of autonomy of the native peoples
in Mexico. The first news that reaches the western Mesoamerican region
about the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors are stories full of
violence. The direct sources of these peoples are not too numerous,
given the oral nature of the communities in many cases, and also because
of the premeditated destruction of these sources by the Spanish. The
historical narratives are contaminated by the concepts in use and
functional for the dominant ones. The documents are already filtered by
the format of those who govern, and these are the sources that remain
for historians. Official protocols and symbolic submission are already
inscribed in the documents that are subsequently studied, so in order to
make a study of the native peoples we must go deeper beyond what these
documents simply tell us. The imaginary in the historical account is
based on an imaginary already pre-constructed from the colonization of
mentalities, culture and society.
However, we affirm that they lost their autonomy because they have left
testimony of a whole series of violent events such as being direct
witnesses of the destruction of their beliefs and sacred places, or
suffering the direct dispossession of their labor force to satisfy the
imposition of tax burdens. They also experienced the theft of land and
territories, acquired as war spoils by encomenderos and other
colonizers. They experienced death by war in numbers that far exceeded
any previous ritual conflict, and unknown forms of violence. They were
stripped of their language, their clothing, and primary goods; just as
their dignity was taken away from them, and the loss of the balance
between health and illness.
The rebellion of the indigenous peoples was a historical constant to
recover their autonomy or as an active resistance to dispossession. Some
examples of these rebellions would be: The Miztón War (1540-1542), the
Chichimeca War (1548-1598), the Tepehuan Rebellion (1616) or the Huichol
Rebellion (1702). On the other hand, some native peoples such as the
Coras managed to maintain their territory without the presence of
colonizers until 1722. The application of community justice has been
evidenced in writings, and documents of civil disobedience to Hispanic
justice have been recorded.
The American independence continues to perpetuate colonialism and
indigenous extermination.
In the 19th century, the Mexican national state was built in the midst
of a conflict with the indigenous peoples, since independence in many
territories meant a mere nominal change, which legitimised domination by
other institutions inherited from the colonial ones. The struggles for
the autonomy of the indigenous peoples in the 19th century against the
Mexican liberal state have resulted in local cultures and communities
with specific resistances. The history of resistance to the process of
formation of the various Mexican states is noteworthy, whose origin is
therefore located in the violence exercised against the indigenous
population, and the numerous campaigns of extermination of native
populations.
A constant conflict develops between two types of antagonistic social
and political models, the project of liberalism inherited from Hispanic
colonialism, versus the indigenous peoples. The Mexican state does not
recognise indigenous groups, the struggles of the communities are
silenced and crushed, remaining in the realm of clandestinity. The
impoverishment of indigenous groups occurs, however, these struggles
strengthened the horizontal and supportive organization, and linked ties
of political identity with great strength of the ethnic component. A
re-Indianization begins as a key process for survival, and to avoid
being diluted in the imposed oblivion. These groups do not join the
formation of Mexican citizenship, they endanger the delimitation of
borders, the effective occupation of the territory by state authorities,
and they reject the assumption of a common national identity that makes
them invisible and threatens their customs.
The resistance in Wallmapu, territory of the Mapuche peoples.
The territory of Wallmapu is a millennial social reality still present
today, a territoriality prior to current national concepts. This
territory suffered the conquering aggression of the Hispanic world and,
however, they did not succumb in this conflict to the invasion of their
territories, they managed to twist that continental American destiny.
Twenty Mapuche parliaments held with the Hispanics from 1641 in Quilén,
until the one in Negrete in 1793, are testimony to this resistance. They
were political meetings between Spanish authorities and Mapuche leaders.
Borders and territories of self-determination were established,
interspersed with periods of war and battle. The American emancipation
processes, specifically those in Chile and Argentina, were established
as republics that ignored Mapuche autonomy. Towards 1860, the Chilean
state entity closed ranks around the idea that the Mapuche territory
belonged to them, and included it as a Chilean province.
From that date until 1885, the Chilean conquest of a significant part
of Wallmapu took place, as well as an occupation and open war against
the Mapuches south of the Biobío River, putting an end to Mapuche
self-determination. The mechanics of the Mapuche parliaments and
negotiations could not be practiced, due to the strength that the
Chilean State took. At the end of the 19th century, Mapuche society
began a colonial relationship with Chile, introducing a logic of social
domination, dispossession of the territory and attacks on their ways of
life and basic survival. The Mapuche people have always reached out to
negotiate and fight to recover their territory in an agreed manner
because that is their millennial essence.
The weychan, or the struggle, is installed in long memory, in the
dispossession of their territory at the end of the 19th century from
military campaigns such as the Desert Campaign in Argentina or the
Pacification of Araucanía in Chile, and the founding of cities and towns
of control. Today, coloniality is represented by large capitals and
companies that occupy the territory for exploitation purposes. The
radicalization of the Mapuche struggles or war of self-defense has
provoked a strong aggression by liberal governments, whether they are
more conservative or progressive. The Mapuches wish to return to their
own communal lifestyles, articulating vindicative discourses around
autonomy.
The learning of the struggle of the indigenous peoples of Latin America.
Spanish colonialism was followed by internal colonialism after the
famous American independence. The extermination of indigenous peoples
cannot be reduced to a question of their not knowing how to integrate
into the process of building the national State, because this unjustly
makes them responsible for their misfortune. In the face of this
victimizing discourse on the indigenous peoples that places them as
those who suffered the consequences of their lack of adaptation, it is
necessary to confront a system that adds all the responsibilities of the
violence that has its exclusive origin in the dominators and not in the
dominated.
The learning of the resistance of these peoples who have not managed to
be defeated, is the construction of the history of the oppressed. They
have marked the historical path against colonization, and then against
capitalism, the history of the indigenous peoples for centuries is a
history of survival. The dispossession of knowledge is an irrecoverable
gap in history, an incalculable loss that has prevented us from gaining
greater and deeper knowledge. However, lamenting is of little use;
defeat is overcome by building strong peoples; our job is to organize
ourselves to build offensives against capital, to take advantage of the
strategies that in today's global world we can share with the peoples in
America who fight for their self-determination and against imperialism.
Article inspired by one originally published in Todo Por Hacer in 2022
Ángel Malatesta, Liza activist
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/10/12/ni-vencidos-ni-dominados-la-resistencia-indigena-a-la-conquista-espanola/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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