In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1 From Meticulous Oblivion to Unexpected Return The Variable Fate of Indigenous People in the Uruguayan Imaginary of the Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-First Centuries Gustavo Verdesio Unlike other already extinct indigenous groups, the Charrua, who once inhabited what is currently modern-day Uruguay and part of the Argentine coastline, did not perish as a result of forced labor. There was no massive or exploitative agricultural development in the territory they occupied nor was there knowledge of any gold or silver mines at the time. Since they did not inhabit urban centers (unlike other, more prestigious and frequently studied Amerindians, for example, the Andean and Mesoamerican people), the Charrua did not live in concentrated circumstances nor fixed and determinate places, thanks to which they had very little contact with Europeans during the first two centuries of settlement by the latter. As a result, they were not very adversely affected by the new bacteria and viruses brought by the invaders. Their disappearance was the result of a series of actions that began as a great barbecue and ended as a betrayal. In 1831, one of the first measures taken by the newly independent government of Uruguay was to ambush the few Charrua Indians who still inhabited the territory. Those very same Amerindians had been quite loyal to different leaders during various time periods throughout the long process that brought about what we now call “the independence” of the modern nation-state known as Uruguay. Among the leaders who were “friends of the Indians” was the charismatic Fructuoso Rivera, who at that time was president of the new Republic of Uruguay. Unfortunately, in the opinion of the criollo (native-born) elite, capitalism and the notion of private property were incompatible with the lifestyle of the Charrua, who moved freely about the territory in its entirety without requesting permission to set up camp or to remain wherever they pleased. For this reason, Rivera, the first constitutional president of the republic, organized an enormous outdoor 16 / Gustavo Verdesio picnic with the intention of inviting and then ambushing the Charrua. Once at the barbecue, the Charrua were urged to relinquish their weapons so they might more joyfully partake of the succulent, grilled meat in an atmosphere of peace and relaxation. When they got drunk, Rivera gave the order for his men to start freely and openly killing his guests. Immediately after that, the criollo establishment erased this event from memory, resolving to meticulously forget the prolonged massacre it had initiated—in reality a continued process of extermination that lasted for about one year. Perhaps this tendency to forget an ignominious past can partly explain why neither the colonial period nor indigenous history has been the object of systematic or continuous analysis in Uruguay. After all, it is unpleasant to recall massacres perpetrated by one’s ancestors. It is always simpler to try to effect pious and tranquilizing forgetfulness. What is certain, though, is that the debates that took place about the viability of Uruguay as a country among the intellectuals and politicians of the time, among men such as José Pedro Varela and Carlos María Ramírez, during the decade of Colonel Latorre’s ascendancy (the 1870s), never included discussions about the Indians who remained in the territory (mostly Guaraní from other bordering countries, particularly Paraguay) after the extermination of the Charrua. In the aforementioned debates, Uruguay is imagined as a European and Western nation free of any indigenous contribution (or of any other nonWestern influence, such as an African one). It must be said of this other minority group, the Afro-Uruguayans, that it has been much harder to forget them, since they can still be found living within the republic’s borders and enjoying Uruguayan citizenship, a label that seemingly establishes everyone’s equality before the law in Uruguay but still permits and makes possible other kinds of socio-economic inequality, too. Demographic reports differ about the actual number of Afro-Uruguayans who currently live in the country, but it is safe to assume that they are somewhere between 2 percent and 6 percent of the total population. In any case, not being exterminated like the Charrua has not been enough to allow the citizens of these communities to develop their potential with regard to economic, social, and cultural equality, particularly when compared to the rest of the predominantly Europeanized population. Ironically, the candombe, a musical form created and developed by the Afro-Uruguayan community has been adopted as a national musical...

Share