The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Vol. 3: South America, Pt. 2 (review)

This massive tomo succeeds to a large degree in surveying the colonial and modern histories of the native peoples of the Andes until the end of the twentieth century. Scholars from Latin America, the United States, and Europe write on broad unifying topics, such as nation building and ethnogenesis. Their contributions are not restricted to a particular nation or a group of nations, per se, but focus on cultural and ethnic groups, even when they straddle two sides of a modern international border. This means that there is some overlap in the topics and temporal and geographic scope of the 13 chapters of this volume, but such an approach gives a much closer picture of the ethnic reality than any other method. In a comparison of the chapters, the reader will perceive the apparent "laissez faire" attitude of the editors. There is no one model of organization, approach, or content, and even leeway in the spelling of certain words (for example, guerrilla versus guerilla). In the following pages, I will first briefly summarize each chapter's story and then move on to some general considerations about the entire volume.

Juan Carlos Garavaglia's opening chapter on the La Plata Basin between 1535 and 1560 marks the beginning of an odyssey through the humbling wealth of details in this volume. He presents the history of the peoples variously denominated as the Carios, Aracaré, Guaraní, Pulares, Quilmes, and Talombones as well as their interactions with the Spanish invaders. These peoples were stateless and lacked strong power structures. They had not developed a tributary or semitributary system. Garavaglia makes the point that because there was no centralized state, there was no "conquest" as usually imagined when telling of Cortés's two years of battles to take Tenochtitlán in central Mexico or Pizarro's half-day skirmish with the forces of Atahualpa in Cajamarca, Peru. In this theater, instead, there was a campaign to "pacify the territory" (p. 1), where each succeeding group encountered had to be overcome in turn. Only then could the Spanish build a system of "personal service" to exploit scarce native labor. He paints a picture of early mestizaje and bilingualism. Natives gave women to the Spanish as a sign of alliance in return for iron hatchets and fish hooks. For a short time (1537-55), Spanish men averaged ten women each. This gave them access to the labor of the women and their male relatives, as the women's fathers and brothers were traditionally obligated to "help" their sons-in-law and brothers-in-law. But relations were not always peaceful. Many problems resulted from a lack of understanding of each other's culture and miscommunication. The Aracaré, for example, stopped serving the Spanish. The Spanish interpreted this action as rebellion and hanged two brothers. But from the native perspective, they were no longer obliged to serve because the Spanish had not reciprocated with the accustomed and anticipated largesse. The Spanish violated the gift-counter-gift ethic and imposed an asymmetrical system that was insulting to the natives. Such tales of cultural insensitivities make this chapter superb.

Garavaglia further documents the imposition of the more familiar colonial institutions: the encomienda, reducción, Franciscan and Jesuit missions, yanaconazgo, enganche, and the indigenous reactions to these, which ranged from initial acceptance and complaisance to uprisings, rebellions, and flight. In the process, he mentions such indigenous leaders as Juan Calchaquí, whose resistance succeeded in deterring further Spanish colonization for over 20 years. He also mentions the founding of the cities of Buenos Aires and Asunción, as well as the jurisdictional wrangles over Tucúman. In sum, he tells a story of social disruption, demographic disaster, loss of...