Spanish and Indigenous Relations October 24, 2009

I thought the chapter on the indigenous Andeans in the book Spanish Peru was interesting because the relationship there was much different than I would have thought. The native people actually in many ways had much fewer rights and lower standing in society than did even the Africans. The Africans, obviously as we have discussed, were able to work their way out of slavery and even were used on more equal terms in the military and a few other facets of society. The natives were not seen even as high as the Africans and I think it must have been the fact that they were unwilling to transition fully into Spanish culture and ways. I know Lockhart alludes to this in the book, but it does seem like it would have been true. It would have been much easier for the Africans who were forced into a foreign land to change their ways than for the indigenous people to do so. They had lived in that area and with their people for years and it was what they were accustomed to. I know that if someone invaded and took over Tennessee I would have no desire to learn the invading group’s language or customs or traditions. I would not want to even mix into a new society with them. I think there had to have been bitter if not hostile attitudes toward the Spanish from the natives and this was completely justified.

It is unfortunate that the native people from other areas like Mexico and Nicaragua were actually treated better than the local natives. The whole way that the Spanish saw these people and used them is just so bizarre to me. I know that some men married higher ranking indigenous women, but other than that I feel like they were just ignored in terms of rights and used for all they could possibly give. It is strange what an invading group can do to an existing people. Life was completely turned upside down for them. It is amazing the amount of power the Spanish truly have. And it is also strange to consider the fact that all of this truly was not THAT long ago, and the effects of this time period of invasion, killing, change of rule, and hispanic transition are seen today in what South America is and has become.

Purchasing Whiteness October 16, 2009

I found the Pedro de Ayarza: The Purchase of Whiteness article very interesting. Ayarza was a very wealthy and dark-skinned man who had a lot of connections and was actually more or less treated like he was white. His son did not get accepted into a university because of his race which made Ayarza go on a many year quest to attain white status and the title of “don” for himself and his three sons. As it turned out, the oldest son was granted whiteness and the rest of the family was not. This created a huge divide in the family and certainly would have caused many problems. I think the authorities must have thought if they did make this exception for this dark-skinned family it would set a precedent that they were not willing to make.

This whole idea that individuals could buy whiteness is just amazing to me. If you simply had enough money, persuasion,  and connections you could improve your status in society by legally becoming white. This says so much about what was valued in this culture and how race was seen. Something I had never thought about until class the other day is that people did not see race in that time the way we do now. The scientific evidence for biological reasons for race and nature determining that aspect of our humanity for us did not exist back then. Race was something that they considered able to be changed- which is far from true in our society today. I wonder what it would be like if that kind of thinking had continued.

Although the basis for this system is that being white is the ultimate status in society, it could potentially make race relations better. If we could let a mixed or light skinned person buy whitness in America and legitimately then saw them as such, would prejudice and racism exist so intensely? Would the 1960s have been different in America? I know that fully black African Americans would perhaps never have the ability to really be high status in this system, but it would give a lot more people the ability to be out of the minority. It would even the playing field in ways that can never really be achieved in this day and age. I suppose the major drawback would be that poor and impoverished people would never have the ability to get out of their place in society. Money meant a lot more in terms of status than it does today, where in America we are at least all theoretically seen as equal. I do not agree, obviously, that whiteness is the ultimate achievement in life at all, but I cannot help but notice that it is more difficult in a lot of ways to be born into the minority in American society and I wish that this was not the case.

Mining the Andes October 10, 2009

After the Spanish conquest of the Andes the focus became very clearly the accumulation of wealth from the region’s natural resources. Indigenous towns were left alone as long as they continued paying tribute to the Spanish. Mining became a major need/industry because obviously this is how many of the resources were attained. I thought the whole idea of how the Spanish went about getting laborers for these mines was really interesting. They would require people in a town to work for two months straight at a mining site and then they got to go back to their village. The workers would work for absurd amounts of times, along the lines of twenty hours a day. They barely had time to eat and sleep. They also had to be away from their family and friends for these lengths of time.

There were many risks involved with mining, as there still are today, and there was obviously no regulation of it. The workers would have worked and lived in less than acceptable conditions. They also had the risk of cave-ins and therefore the potential for death. In the longer term, many of the workers who worked in mercury mines would have experienced toxicity from the handling of it as well as breathing it in. All of these things were more or less disregarded by the Spanish, though, because all that really mattered for them was the accumulation of the resources so they could send them back to Europe. It is amazing to me that this is the way that the resources from South America were attained. I think it seems like the Spanish would have gone and sought out the resources and found them themselves, but it does actually make a lot more sense that they would have used an alternate source of labor. This really changed the way of life for many indigenous people and their communities. I wonder what effects this really had on them, and what their view of the Spanish really was. I wonder if they preferred the new way of things over the ways of the Inca? Or not? It is interesting to consider.

Arbitrary power and rule October 1, 2009

Aguirre, the Wrath of God was actually an incredibly insightful film. Regardless of its exact historical accuracy, it portrayed a very real sense of what the actual intentions of the Spanish conquistadors was. They wanted El Dorado- they wanted gold; they wanted to “convert” natives to Christianity. These things were all amazingly accomplished in some ways, but this exact expedition seen in the film was obviously very unsuccessful in their conquest. 

Aguirre, in the film, was absolutely perfect in his embodiment of a corrupt, power hungry white European conquerer. It was such a vision of what some men did and would have done to gain their fortune. Although in reality Aguirre was not known to be insane, it was an interesting take to see the film character exaggerated in such a way to cause even more disgust with what the Spanish did in South America.

The whole idea of ruling authority, law, and order is very interesting to look at in a situation like what was shown in the film. Literally, the men “overthrew” their leader- by killing him and his supporter. Once that was taken care of, it was easy for the second-in-command Aguirre to take over. Since evidently he could, Aguirre decided to put someone else on the “throne” as emperor. I just think it is completely crazy and amusing that rule could have been as arbitrary as that. Someone is appointed, and so they are. It is hard for me to even imagine something like that with our extravagantly complex political system in the United States for electing rulers. It is an interesting perspective to see the eventual overtake of the Incan Empire from this. It is so much less “official” in my mind than I would have thought it had to be. It would have been actually very easy for the Spanish to have controlled Manco Capac as their puppet ruler. The political intricacies of today were not actually in existence!

It seems like the world was just completely different in that time, although only a few hundred years ago. I know today there are still many ruthless leaders and power hungry criminal types, but we have come so far to be able to hold rulers accountable and enforce justice in the developed world. History of events like the Spanish conquest of the Americas and how it was gone about paints a very clear picture as to why institutions such as the United Nations are so vital and necessary in our world today. I think people in power really might go to any extreme to attain their goals if not held in check, mentally insane or not.

Viewing the film Aguirre, the Wrath of God, was overall a very effective way to begin to really understand the reality of what it is we are studying. The Spanish conquistadors were men, just like men today. Most of them were probably not mentally disturbed and yet they still did the ruthless things we know about today, similar in many ways to the actions of Aguirre.