B. Grunberg [ed.], SUMMARIES THE CONTROL OVER THE RELIGIOUS LIFE IN
AMERICA
Ÿ The first trials of the apostolic Inquisition : the case of the blasphemers
(Mexico 1527), Bernard Grunberg. Fray Domingo de Betanzos appears as the real settler of the Apostolic Inquisition in Mexico, despite the lack of contemporary mentions. It seems that, as a Dominican, he wrote, on March 31st 1527, an “edict of grace” and/or an “edict of faith” that initiated the first Inquisition trials in Mexico. During a few months, the cases concerned only around twenty blasphemers and did not differ from the Spanish trials. The Mexican Inquisitors, willing to tame the wild world of the Conquistadores and the settlers, apparently intended to punish systematically, even lightly, just to show that such misdemeanours were not only reprehensible, but that they also could lead those who said so, as well as their audience, to heresy.
Ÿ Strategies of conversion in Indian Population of the Province of Oaxaca in
the XVIth century, Eric Roulet. If a major part of the Indians in New Spain were converted to Christians during the XVIth century, idolatry faith stayed in their hearts, according to the clergy. Apparently, they understood how to accommodate Christian faith in adopting strategies of conversion, showing that they kept a power of decision regarding their religious choice. The example of the leaders of the province of Oaxaca, recently christianised, can help in understanding the religious identity of the Indians : they had to come to terms with the new power, accepting Spanish rules and Christian rites, but, for political and social reasons, they also had to maintain their ancients habits and rituals, to strengthen their authority on the communities they led.
Ÿ Indian hospitals in Michoacan : survival and cultural appropriation at New Spain (15361639), Sara Sánchez del Olmo. Indian hospitals started their development in Michoacan diocese under performing of Agustin and Franciscan religious orders, especially through the first diocese bishop, Vasco de Quiroga. Epidemics and Illnesses were suffered in this land under XVIth and part of XVIIth centuries. Need to stop them caused the start up of Hospital institutions. It must be considered a third part for the successful of this institution, self-interest provoke to the Indians. Hospitals, a Hispanic and complete foreign institution, it was fully accepted and assumed by Indians who provide it with a new character. Flexibility
of the institution to fit different needs and capacity to combine Hispanic, pre-hispanic cultural issues made it key focus of the Michoacan Indians living along diocese first century life.
Ÿ The franciscan missionaries facing Indians on the boarder (North of New Spain, XVIth - XVIIIth),
Mylène Péron. In the North of New-Spain, the conquest of the deserts and mountains inhabited by the “Chimimeque” Indians turned out to be slower and more fragile than in the Mexico area. The apostolic mission of the Franciscan monks, which started in the middle of the XVIth century and lasted until the end of the XVIIIth, tried to convert to the Christian faith nomadic populations, scattered in warring tribes that were fiercely attached to their lifestyles and pagan beliefs. In their advance the missionaries had to face several revolts with many monks dying as martyrs for little result. Indeed, the efforts of a handful of missionaries did not suffice to win the Indians over and most of the monks had lost the fervour of the early times. In the far North, evangelization remained superficial whereas the rebel enclave of Nayarit in the North West of Guadalajara, witnessed an astonishing interpenetration of beliefs. After over two centuries of contacts , those “chimimeques” refused to yield to colonisation and evangelization.
Ÿ The Priest and the Collinago : French Missionaries in the Antilles during the
XVII th century, Benoît ROUX. Christianisation of the Indians in the Lesser Antilles has to be reconsidered : surely the mission in the Caribbean Islands quickly reached a limit because of scarce funding from the religious authorities, internal quarrels between the holy orders, conflicts with the Indians and miscomprehension between the priests and the Callinagos. Despite of these bad conditions, some missionaries, especially Dominicans, extended their part, turning from clergymen into diplomats and precious advisers for the Amerindians as well as for the settlers. Therefore, their role should not be neglected during the first fifty years of the West Indian colonisation. VARIA Ÿ The Tepetlaoztoc Codex or how indians denounced the abuses of the encomenderos, Anne Marie ViéWohrer. The author presents some pages of that manuscript written in 1533 and directed to the king of Spain by the indian governor of that city which used to belong to Texcoco. The bad treatments from the “encomenderos” and the impossibility of the Indians to pay the tributes are exposed. It is asked, to the royal justice, to reduce the tributes.
Ÿ The Rope and the Sword : Nuño de Guzmán and New Galicia (1527-1537), Aristarco Regalado Pinedo. The study of social relationships appears most interesting during the first years of the Conquista, when institutions were not yet settled, when the world of the Conquistadores stayed unstable and when the voice of a leader weighed more than the royal decisions coming from the Spanish Court. For instance, the way Nuño de Guzmán and his men managed to give birth to New Galicia shows the importance of social network. Yet Panuco, Mexico and New Galicia present very different environments, pointing out various means of social interaction, as we can see it through the life of Nuño de Guzmán and his relationship with other Conquistadores or with his enemies. The study of social relations also stresses the way the recent monarchy exerts its new power, far from the Spanish territory.
Ÿ Indian weaving in the manuscript of Don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala
(1615) : an example of Inca classification ? Claire Perin. This paper intends to point out the fundamental role of Indian weaving motives in the pictographic text of the Indian Guaman Poma de Ayala, as an image of the social class and geographic system of the Incas. This study confronts 43 of the motives worn by the Indian women and the social hierarchy of Tahuantinsuyu. Some scholars, fascinated by the logical organisation of the drawings, tried to interpret them as an unknown writing code. But confronting the symbolical sense with archaeological
material leads to an interpretation of some of the illustrations given by Guaman Poma de Ayala, as well as of different motives woven by the Indian women.
Ÿ The acquisition of African slaves in New Grenada during colonial times :
smuggling and other frauds, Hélène Vignaux. The study of the legal organization of slave trade by Companies or by individuals allows a better comprehension of smuggling in slave trade. Numerous examples show that, despite some form of royal control, contraband was widely developed. As long as productivity and profitability led the exchanges, many elements prove how very frequently theft, fraud or deception soiled the slave trade, showing that, apart from the official “business”, numerous and illegal means were used to get slaves. The opening of the free slave market in 1789 and, finally, the abolishing of slave trade, at the end of the XIXth century, put an end to this situation. In New Grenada, slave trade was abolished in 1851, thirty years after Independence.
Ÿ Politics repercussions on Havana of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, Dominique Goncalvès. The Napoleonic Invasion and its political consequences for Spain constituted a double blow for the Creole slave owners of Havana. The vanishing of their traditionally strong links with the monarch, established since 1763, and the compulsory acceptance of the new Liberal power sitting in Cadiz constituted the most important immediate consequences of the above mentioned events. Nonetheless, the Creole Sacharocracy was able to find adequate answers to this challenge, first avoiding a transition towards an autonomic regime –likely to degenerate into a civil war- and then giving the impression to disappear in front of the Liberal representatives that took over the Cabildo. As a result of these experiences, in 1814 the Creole elite’s came out of the crisis with a renewed strength and more determined than ever to support the Absolute Monarchy.
Ÿ246Permanence of a countervailing power in Latin America: Ernesto Cardenal and “El estrecho dudoso”, Modesta Suárez. Published in 1966, Ernesto Cardenal’s El estrecho dudoso fits into the list of these poetical works that question the official versions of the Spanish Conquest in the second half of the XXth century. The collection performs this dispute since the verses of exteriorist poetry and an intertextuality that undermines the dominating speech from within, letting loose in this way the emergence of the historical actors’ voices that have been forgotten or reduced to the role of observers. The textual heterogeneity characterising this long poem guarantees its subversive aspects. We are on the limits of historiography. We are on the limits of the poetical text when the latter is freed from all constraints in order to incorporate history better via the anachronism or the canonical text via orality.
Ÿ Reviews on the evolution of the Latin American studies in France
(1829-1968), Mona Huerta Since the time, already distant, when the intellectuals regretted the absence of American books in France and the little of interest of the French people in the works produced on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, considerable progress was able to be observed, during last hundred years, in the mutual distribution of the French and Latin American cultures. The reviews, in particular, were active suppliers of images of the subcontinent. Some of them, important players in the evolution of the French research and the construction of the Latino-Americanism in France, are presented in this article.
