A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture. Группа авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ practice since the 1530s” (Romano 2004, 268). These drastic policies were enacted not only in response to the spread of literacy among the Indigenous people, but also to the existence of clandestine circles reproducing texts independently of the Church (Gruzinski 1993, 56).

      The decline in support of native higher education was also precipitated by a shift away from pro-Indian policies. The era of debate about the natural right of natives, promoted by Bartolomé de Las Casas in 1552, was closely followed by an era of anti-Indian crown policies, with a series of royal orders mandating the confiscation of all works concerning Indigenous antiquities. In Peru these policies spurred Viceroy Francisco de Toledo to campaign to discredit the Inca rulers and Las Casas’ doctrines (Keen 1990, 108). Las Casas’ pro-Indian policies were also muffled by the Council of Trent (1563). Ultimately, Spain became a model for the Counter-Reformation, in which Christian orthodoxy was carefully controlled by the Tribunal of the Inquisition (1571), and economic motivations would favor colonizers’ rights to continue Indigenous exploitation (Keen 1990, 108).

The native population declined in numbers during the 1570s as a result of devastating epidemics of disease, while growing populations of criollos (Spanish born in America), mestizos (offspring of Spaniard and natives), and other ethnically diverse individuals additionally reduced their profile in society. Hispanicization, first advocated at the first Provincial Council, gained increasing support from religious and secular factions. They feared that continued study of Indigenous affairs without controlled official supervision might only encourage resistance to acculturation. This view is reflected in a royal decree in 1577 in which Sahagún was ordered to submit to the Crown his Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España and suspend all research on Indigenous affairs. Economical support for the Colegio decreased, contributing to its decline as a higher education institution.

      Evangelization and Its Consequences: A “Spiritual Conquest”?

      The Franciscans’ disappointments went beyond the struggles of the Colegio project. They had started education to convert the majority of the Indigenous population. The successes of the first schools had proven the Indigenous capacity for learning, but the friars had erred in thinking that Nahuatl culture was inert clay to mold as they pleased. However, views of the conversion achievements by the monastic orders were varied. Behavior in compliance with Christian doctrine was enough for some friars, even if it was not based upon understanding on the metaphysical and philosophical levels (Buckhart 1989, 184). Even by the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries some missionaries such as the Franciscans Geronimo de Mendieta (1526–1604) and Juan de Torquemada (1550–1625) overstated the successes of evangelization, perhaps contributing to an assumption of a “spiritual conquest” (Ricard 1966; Kobayashi 1996).

      Other missionaries viewed the failure of conversion not in the understanding that Indigenous agency was an inherent element in the dynamics of cultural negotiation, but as an example of the Indigenous people’s negative behavior. This view perceived an Indigenous tendency to deceive and a stubbornness to accept what was good for them. Sahagún’s disappointments are explicit in his Prologue to Book IV of the Historia general. He recognizes that the first friars did not perceive that Indigenous conversion was not sincere, and so maintains the Church in New Spain was established on a false foundation (León-Portilla 1990, 61). That Sahagún did not publish the Coloquios, the dialogues between the wise men and the Franciscans, in which introduction he describes the successful efforts of conversion by the first missionaries, even when granted permission, might be an indication of his disappointments (Klor de Alva 1988, 83–92). The Dominican Diego Durán at the end of the sixteenth century recognized that Indigenous “Christian” festivals disguised ancient rites, and in the seventeenth century Hernando Ruíz de Alarcón and Jacinto de la Serna would see superstitions, vices, and barbarism (Rabasa 1993, 85). Enough research on Nahua testimonies and other sources have contributed to a reevaluation of the degrees of conversion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries so as to question a “spiritual conquest” as held by Ricard in his Spiritual Conquest of Mexico (Buckhart 1989; Gruzinski 1993, 152; Klor de Alva 1982; León-Portilla 1990).

      The Diffusion of Writing and the Written outside the Colegio Letters of Appeal

The advantages of learning European negotiation techniques were quickly perceived by the conquered lords. In pre-conquest times, alliances between city-states were pragmatic means to further economic and political interests; for example, Texcoco and Tlacopan sided with the more powerful Tenochtitlan, forming the so-called “Triple Alliance.” After the conquest, the Indigenous elite developed alliances with the Spaniards to negotiate their place in the new society and to preserve their privileges. In addition, the imposition of Spanish law introduced the natives to the rights of private property, legitimacy, and inheritance, which could be disputed, defended, or appealed (Borah 1982, 272). A corpus of letters offers evidence that even before the Colegio was founded, former tlatoque (dynastic rulers of city-states) and the Indigenous elite were already acquainted with Spanish legal procedures and were using them to their own benefit.

      Letters written by native elite and intellectuals after the three Provincial Councils held between 1554 and 1562 suggest they were aware that colonial policy changes were increasingly affecting their social status and political participation. The letters also show that the native elite were in close contact with the friars, since they continued to advocate in favor of Indigenous welfare. A letter signed in 1554 by educated nobles of central Mexico shows that their services to the king had been recognized only by the Franciscans; in another letter written in 1556 the same nobles petitioned the king for Bartolomé de Las Casas to serve as their protector (La nobleza indígena del Centro de México, 2000, 191–194).

      Some gramáticos wrote letters that display a sophisticated use of knowledge, the very thing so criticized by many colonizers. Letters by two of the gramáticos, Pablo Nazareo, rector, teacher, and translator, and Antonio Valeriano, also a translator and teacher and later governor of Tenochtitlan, were written in Latin and present clear evidence of the well-versed knowledge of the art of rhetoric. The use of Latin over Spanish or Nahuatl not only allows these subjects to display their great capabilities for commanding the language but also to share a common ground with the European educated elite. As trained rhetoricians, these gramáticos construct persuasive arguments tracing their genealogical and territorial rights to pre-conquest times through the collective memory of their own ethnic groups. The pragmatic use of the collective memory is astutely combined with European discursive practices. These letters also reveal that if the gramáticos had helped the friars, they were also actively using their knowledge to help their communities and themselves.

      The Emergence of an Intellectual Circle on Indigenous Matters

      Between 1540 and 1570, mainly under the efforts of the Franciscans, there is an emergence of works whose authorship was recognized as that of some former students of the Colegio or linked in some other ways to the highly educated elite. Among them, Tadeo de Niza wrote a history of the conquest of Tlaxcala that unfortunately has been lost (1548–1554); Don Pedro Ponce de León, ruler of Tlaxcala, authored Breve relación de los dioses y ritos de la gentilidad; Francisco Acaxitli, ruler of Tlalmanalco, wrote about the mission of viceroy Mendoza to fight the Chichimecs; Don Alfonso Izhuezcatocatzin Axayacatzin, governor of Texoco, wrote in Spanish and Nahuatl the history of his ancestors; and Don Antonio Pimentel Ixtlilxochitl authored Memorias históricas del Reino Acolhua (Garibay 1954, 1: 227–30). However, following a pre-conquest tradition, some historical compilation continued to be anonymous, such as the Codex Aubin (1576), the Annals of Cuauhtitlan (1560–1570), Legend of the Suns (1558), the Annals of Tlatelolco,⁴ and the Historia Tolteca Chichimeca (1544), just to name a few.

From the 1560s to well into the seventeenth century research on Indigenous cultures and languages continued in spite of harsh colonial policies. The prohibitions of 1577 seemed to have developed СКАЧАТЬ