Chiefdoms under siege : Spain's rule and native adaptation in the southern Colombian Andes, 1535-1700 / Luis F. Calero.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Calero, Luis Fernando.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indians of South America--Colombia--Government relations.

Indians of South America.

Colonies.

Administration.

Encomiendas (Latin America).

History.

Chiefdoms.

Politics and government.

Colombia.

Indians of South America--Colombia--Politics and government.

Indians of South America--Land tenure--Colombia.

Indians of South America--Land tenure.

Chiefdoms--Colombia--History.

Encomiendas (Latin America)--History.

Spain--Colonies--America--Administration.

Spain.

Colombia--Politics and government--To 1810.

Colombia--History--To 1810.

America.

Physical Description:

xiv, 233 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, [1997]

Summary:

Most of what we know about Spain's New World encounters with native peoples comes from contacts in the mineral-rich areas of Mexico and Peru where Indians living in large, complex state systems were easily adapted to Spain's tribute needs. This book looks at an entirely different area -- the economically marginal Pasto region in the southern Colombian Andes. This is the first detailed ethnohistory of Spain's conquest of peoples who were not easily incorporated into the imperial order.

In the Andean region of Colombia, economies based on hunting and gathering and small-scale agriculture dominated; local chiefdoms exercised extensive political control. Spanish rule disrupted the centuries-old cultural, economic, environmental systems of the Pastos, Quillacingas, and Abads. It also provoked various forms of resistance among the drastically reduced native population against overzealous local elites who abused Indian workers by unrealistic labor and tribute demands.

Contents:

The tropical mountain setting

The original inhabitants

The sixteenth-century society

The ecological impact of the conquest

The land

Labor and tribute

The encomienda in the seventeenth century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-224) and index.

ISBN:

0826317723

OCLC:

35262223