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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

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.

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Research Article
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

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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. 1948CrossRefGoogle 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. 176204Google 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. 2933Google Scholar; Campbell, Leon, ‘Ideology and Factionalism During the Great Rebellion, 1780–1782’, in Stern, (ed.), Resistance, pp. 110139Google 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. 94109Google Scholar; Godoy, Scarlett O'phelan, ‘La rebelión de Túpac Amaru: organización interna, dirigencia y alianzas’, Histórica, vol. 3, no. 2 (1979), pp. 89121Google 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. 6594.Google Scholar See also Taylor, William B., ‘Banditry and Insurrection: Rural Unrest in Central Jalisco, 1790–1816’, in Katz, (ed.), Riot, pp. 205246.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. 249268Google 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. 154Google 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. 318CrossRefGoogle 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. 71113.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. 607628.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. 209240.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. 137182Google 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. 156180.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. 5371Google 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