Guaman Poma De Ayal A Literary Analysis

Matthew Restall, a Professor of Latin American History, Women’s Studies, and Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. He also serves the Director of the university’s Latin Studies. Throughout “Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest,” he discusses many false truths that have been passed down through history. For instance, he discusses, “The Myth of Exceptional Men.” “The Myth of Spanish Army,” and “The Myth of Completion.” For the sake of time, I will discuss three myths that correlate with class lectures and serve as the topic of this paper, “The Myth of Exceptional Men,” “The Myth of the King’s Army,” and the “Myth of the White Conquistador.” It should be noted that Restall speaks to his audience assuring us that his “...his purpose is not to degenerate this technique of historical writing completely...Nor do I mean to create a narrative in which individual action is utterly subordinated to the larger structural forces and causes of social change.” (4). He states that his intentions are to react to more than just the works of Columbus, Pizzaro, and Cortez.

The film “The Mission” (1986) was written by Robert Bolt and directed by Roland Joffe. It explores the various relationships distinguished between Spanish Jesuits and Indian (Guarani) civilization situated along the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil around 1750. Although, as stated in the beginning of the movie that “The Mission” is “based on true historical events”, Bolt and Joffe distort the portrayal of the Guarani and Jesuit relationships. This essay will examine the distortions of the Guarani tribe and the inaccurate “historical” events that took place within the movie.

Convinced of the superiority of Catholicism to all other religions, Spain insisted that the primary goal of colonization was to save the Indians from heathenism and prevent them from falling under the sway of Protestantism. The aim was neither to exterminate nor to remove the Indians, but to transform them into obedient Christian subjects of the crown. To the Spanish colonizers, the large native populations of the Americas were not only souls to be saved but also a labor force to be organized to extract gold and silver that would enrich their mother country. Las Casas’ writings and the abuses they exposed contributed to the spread of the Black Legend-the image of Spain as a uniquely brutal and exploitative colonizer. This would provide of a potent justification for other European powers to challenge Spain’s predominance in the New World.

For decades, the history of Latin America has been shrouded in a cover of Spanish glory and myth that misleads and complicates the views of historians everywhere. Myths such as the relationship between natives and conquistadors, and the individuality of the conquistadors themselves stand as only a few examples of how this history may have become broken and distorted. However, in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest Matthew Restall goes to great lengths to dispel these myths and provide a more accurate history of Latin American, in a readable and enjoyable book.

Dawson, Alexander S. “From Models for the Nation to Model Citizens: Indigenismo and the ‘Revindication’ of the Mexican Indian, 1920–40.” Journal of Latin American Studies 1998 : 279-308. Print.

“Victors and Vanquished,” through excerpts of Bernal Diaz del Castillo The True History of the Conquest of New Spain and indigenous testimonies from the Florentine Codex, represents the clash between European and indigenous cultures and how there was no simple “European” or “indigenous” view. Rather, there were a variety of European and indigenous opinions and interpretations that were influenced by personal interests, social hierarchy and classes, ethnic biases and political considerations.

separate how De Las Casas might have been an outspoken critic of the Spanish’s treatment of indigenous people, and how he was still a part of a repressive institution. Finally, I

Myths of Harmony by Marixa Lasso is a harrowing account of racial tension and deceit in the Age of Revolution in Colombia. The main theme of the book is that racial harmony is a myth that was cultivated during Colombia’s fight for independence (9). The author states that the lower classes were not any better off after the Revolution than before (4). The culture was known for caciquismo (patron-client relations) and fraudulent elections. These claimed racial equality, but in reality discriminated against certain races (4). Lasso discusses the role of the pardos - free Africans - community as a whole and their role in the political landscape. Racial identities were formed during the Age of Revolution by the struggles of the time period (152). The colonial wars during the Age of Revolution shaped the racial identities of numerous nations. Through racial visionaries, these nations chose a racial identity.

Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala was an ethnic Andean, deeply inspired by the injustice of the colonial regime, he wrote a massive manuscript in 1615 about the history of the Inca Empire to the King of Spain. His masterpiece includes 1,200 pages, of which 398 were images full of details, that are clearly considered by the artist to be the most direct and effective way of communicating his ideas to the audience. Felipe de Ayala focused on the conflicts between the settlers and the natives to reveal, in his powerful drawings, his wider purpose of a desire for a colonial reformation that will bring stability and justice to the Andean people. Two major reasons that motivated Ayala to write the manuscript are broadly seen in his drawings: the first

Comprised of landowners, lawyers, judges, priests, military officers and public officials, the creole and mazomba leaders of Latin American society found insatiable inspiration from the American and French Revolutions of the eighteenth century, and flooded Latin America with a liberal movement for independent nations. Conservatives, in contrast, sought to preserve the traditions of the colonial period, and the Orthodox rule of both the church and foreign-born royal authorities. Yet Old World flavor soured bitterly in a New World teeming with liberal thinkers and daring rebels. Desiring to surpass Old World peninsular and reinós rulers, creole and mazomba won control over local resources and economic development.

During the Spanish conquest of the Incan Empire the role of the Kuraka was crucial in gaining control over the Andean society. The role of the Kuraka could be thought of as “provincial nobility”[1] whose main job was to control the labor and tribute made and delivered from the natives to the state. In order to do this job the Kurakas had to maintain respect from the natives while maintaining good relations with the colonial state. This could be difficult considering that too much affiliation with the state could lead to a loss of status to the natives, and a loss of respect from the natives would make one useless to the state. “The Indian who broke entirely with his own culture

“Thus were the Peruvians made the sad victims of a greedy people who at first showed them only good faith and even friendship” (Gaffigny 10).

Even from our own cultural perspective of the last half of the 20th Century, we have cast a different light on some artifacts of our progress such as the long-term effect of the imposition of the United Fruit Company in the region described in the book or the encounter between Francisco Pizarro and the Inca emperor Athualpa in the Andean highlands.

Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997

Inka, was a community that used to live in the area of Cuzco, which is located about 10,000 feet in the mountains of Southern Peru. The word “inka” means “ruler”. The state inka was created during the time of wars. Inka’s population was 800,000km squared in 1438. Their wars were pretty big back in the days, they had around 200,000 soldiers, which of course was considered the largest and best armed in the region. Their transportation was “walking” through the highways because they had no cars to transport to their wars. They also carried their supplies on the backs of llamas. Once they settled down and marked their territories for their troops, they were instructed in the “Quechua” language. The “Quechua” language became the lingua franca of the state” (Duiker 177). The inka culture did not have a writing system, instead they recorded their communications by a knotted string called “quipu”. This was able to record numerical nature and whatever they needed to communicate, instead they just memorized it and then recite it when needed. Even though they had a lack of writing system, they still had a high level of cultural achievement. They had a highly developed tradition, also some poetry and music.