The history of a periphery : Spanish colonial cartography from Colombia's Pacific lowlands / Juliet B. Wiersema.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wiersema, Juliet B., 1967- author.

Series:

Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long series in Latin American and Latino art and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cartography--Colombia--History--18th century.

Cartography.

Cartography--Colombia--History--19th century.

Land use--Colombia--History--18th century--Sources.

Land use.

Land use--Colombia--History--19th century--Sources.

Colombia--Maps--Early works to 1800.

Colombia.

Genre:

Early works

History

Maps

Sources

Maps.

Physical Description:

xii, 168 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps (some color) ; 29 cm

Scale not given.

Edition:

First edition.

Cartographic Data:

Scale not given.

Place of Publication:

Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2024.

Summary:

"Wiersema examines a group of maps from a remote gold-mining region in the Pacific lowlands of Colombia, known in the colonial period as New Granada. Although it was discovered in the early sixteenth century, the topography of mountains, heavy rivers, and dense jungles made it difficult to traverse and virtually impossible to establish urban centers from which to govern the area--the nearest ones such as Cartagena often took weeks if not months of overland travel to reach. While gold, extracted from rivers in the Pacific lowlands, was a major source of revenue for the Spanish Crown, it remained a region that was difficult to control. Maps of these areas were made at a time when the indigenous populations in these lands were being decimated, which allowed the Spanish Crown to claim, partition, and distribute territory as private property. It was not long before territorial disputes in this mineral-rich land became prevalent, and maps accompanied written legal appeals to negotiate these claims. Many of these maps survive today in the national archives of Colombia, but few have been published or studied systematically. These maps documented the land titles that their owners held, along with routes of communication and the locations of mines and haciendas. These maps also identify the settlements of free Africans, while others locate the existence of unincorporated indigenous groups and thus reveal how contact with European diseases caused their numbers to decline. By combining these maps with eighteenth-century archival documents, nineteenth-century explorer accounts, and more recent historical maps, Wiersema reconstructs this remote and yet economically important corner of New Granada"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

New Granada's topography, demography, and economy

Coming into view : the Pacific lowlands in manuscript maps

The Map of the Atrato River and pueblos of Cuna Indians : the Atrato vigía and the short-lived Cuna reducción of Murindo, 1759-1778

The Map of the province of Chocó, Panama, and Cupica : a Pacific port of unrealized potential, 1777-1808

The Manuscript map of the Dagua River Region : Las Juntas, Sombrerillo, and African agency in the Pacific lowlands, 1739-1786

The manuscript Map of the Yurumanguí Indians : the "discovery" and decimation of the Pacific lowlands' indigenous inhabitants, 1742-1780

Conclusions and final observations

Appendix A. Transcribed text from manuscript map legends

Appendix B. Technical study of the Manuscript map of the Dagua River Region.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Wiersema, Juliet B., 1967- History of a periphery.

ISBN:

9781477327746

1477327746

OCLC:

1382396630