Introduction

The colonization of the subcontinent that is now called Latin America first took the form of exploitation colonies. It was aimed at the exploitation of natural resources in favour of the European colonial powers, especially Spain and Portugal. With the massive immigration of European migrants and the recruitment of slaves from Africa, the colonies in this subcontinent gradually changed to settler colonies. They were at first dominated by the minority of invaders and colonists who saw themselves as ‘whites’, and took the right to exploit the indigenous so-called Indian and black populations at their own expense. In contrast to North America, Australia and New Zealand, where separation prevailed, the conquest of the southern subcontinent from the beginning went hand in hand with an extensive biological intermarriage between the colonists on the one hand and the indigenous and African populations, predominantly their women, on the other (Spanish mestizaje, Portuguese mestiçagem). This mixing continued after the formation of independent Latin American republics from the beginning of the 19th century, but without first changing the supremacy of the descendants of the ‘white’ conquerors (criollos). This fact has led critics to emphasize that the ‘first’ must be followed by a ‘second’ independence, in which their racist legitimacy is ended.

Similar to the colonization of Africa, the European conquerors have equated the colonized population with children (see Ashcroft, 2001: 36– 53). In the Viceroyalty of Peru, for example, the Spanish authorities – the state as well as the ecclesiastical – have often characterized the indigenous peoples of the Andes as childish. The cultural historian Carolyn Dean (2002: 21) describes this as follows: