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Title: Our Indians Author: Manuel González Prada Date: 1904 Language: en Topics: indigenous, Indian, Indian Sovereignty, racism, colonialism Source: Retrieved on march 2021 from https://evergreen.loyola.edu/tward/www/gp/english/Indians.htm Notes: “Nuestros indios” did not become part of Horas de lucha until the second edition in 1924. Manuel González Prada, “Nuestros Indios”, Horas de lucha. Second edition (Callao: Tip. Lux, 1924, pp. 311–338); Translation: Harold Eugene Davis, “Our Indians,” Latin American Social Thought (Washington: The University Press of Washington, 1961), pp. 196–208. For original footnotes, please consult Davis’ original text. The editor has slightly modernized this translation as well as cleared up a few ambiguities. Prepared for WWW by Dawn DeLeonardis.
The most eminent sociologists consider sociology a science in formation
and call for the advent of its Newton, its Lavoisier, or its Lyell. Yet
no other works pullulate such dogmatic and arbitrary assertions as those
produced by the heirs and disciples of Comte. [1] One might call
sociology not only the art of giving new names to old things but also
the science of contradictory assertions. If one great sociologist
announces a proposition, we may be certain that another no less great
sociologist will advocate the diametric opposite. Just as some
pedagogues remind us of the teachers of [Eugene] Scribe, so many
sociologists make us think of the physicians of Moliere — Le Bon [2] and
Tarde are not far from Diafoirus and PurgĂłn.
We might mention the question of race as one upon which the authors
differ most. While some see it in the principle factor of social
dynamics, others reduce ethnic influences to so small a scope that they
say with Durkheim: “We know no social phenomenon which falls
unquestionably under dependence upon race.” [3] Novicow, in spite of
considering the opinion of Durkheim exaggerated, does not hesitate to
assert that race, like species, is to a certain point a subjective
category of our spirit, without external reality; and in a generous
burst of humanity he exclaims: “All those pretended incapacities of the
yellow and the black people are chimeras of sick spirits.” Whoever dares
say to a race, “Thus far you may come and no farther,” is blind and
stupid.
How convenient an invention ethnology is in the hands of some men! If
one grants the division of humanity into superior and inferior races and
recognizes the superiority of the whites and their consequent right to
govern the planet, nothing is more natural than the suppression of the
Black in Africa, the Redskin in the United States, the Tagalog in the
Philippines, or the Indian in Peru. Since the supreme law of life is
fulfilled in the selection or elimination of the weak and unadaptable,
the violent eliminators and suppressors are merely accelerating the slow
and indolent labor of Nature. They abandon the pace of the tortoise for
the gallop of the horse. Many, like Pearson, do not write it but allow
it to be read between the lines, as when he refers to the “solidarity
among civilized man of the European race against Nature and human
barbarism.” Where you read “human barbarism,” it is to be translated
“man without white skin.”
But not only is the suppression of black and yellow people decreed.
Within the white race itself, classifications are made of peoples
destined to live and prosper and peoples condemned to decline and die.
Since Demolins published his book A quoi tient la supériorité des
Anglo-Saxons, the fashion has been revived of glorifying the Anglo
Saxons and depreciating the Latins. (Although few Latins can really be
called so — for example can Atahualpa be called Galician, or Montezuma,
Provençal?) [4] In Europe and America we see many Cassandras flourishing
who live by prophesying the conflagration and destruction of the New
Troy. Some pessimists, believing themselves the Deucalions of the next
deluge or even the Supermen of Nietzsche, decree the disappearance of
their own race as if dealing with prehistoric beings or inhabitants of
the Moon. It has not been formulated, but an axiom follows [from this].
Crimes and vices of the English and the North Americans are things
inherent in the human species and do not forecast the decline of a
people. On the other hand, crimes and vices of the French or Italians
are anomalies and indicate racial degeneration. Fortunately Oscar Wilde
and General MacDonald were not born in Paris and the round table of the
Emperor William was not held in Rome.
It seems unnecessary to say that we do not take seriously dilettanti
like Paul Bourget nor mystifiers like Maurice Barrès when they thunder
against cosmopolitanism and weep over the decadence of the noble French
race because the daughter of a syphilitic count and a consumptive
marquise allows herself to be seduced by a healthy and vigorous youth
without a noble pedigree. In respect to Monsieur Gustave Le Bon, we
should admire him for his very vast knowledge and his great moral
elevation, even though he represents an exaggeration of Spencer, much as
max Nordau does of Lombroso and Haeckel of Darwin. He deserves to be
called the Bossuet of Sociology, but that is not to say the Torquemada
or the Herod. If he had not made himself worthy of consideration by his
observations upon occult matters (sobre la luz negra) we might say that
he is to a sociology what doctor Sangrado [the ignorant physician of Gil
Blas] is to medicine.
Le Bon warns us not in any way to take the term race in an
anthropological sense, because pure races have long since almost
disappeared, except among savage peoples. And to give us a secure road
to march on, he decides: “Among civilized people there are only
historical events.” According to the Le Bon’s dogma, Hispanic American
nations constitute one of these races, but a race so exceptional that it
has passed dizzily from childhood to decrepitude, covering in less than
a century the course run by other peoples in three, four, five, and even
six thousand years. “The twenty-two Latin American republics of
America,” he says in his Psichologie du socialisme, “although all
situated in the richest regions of the Globe, are incapable of
developing their immense resources.... The final destiny of that half of
America is to return to primitive barbarism unless the United States do
it the great service of conquering it.... To debase the richest regions
of the Globe to the level of the black republics of Santo Domingo and
Haiti, this is what the Latin race has accomplished in less than a
century with half of America.” [5]
It might be argued with Le Bon that he mistakes the skin eruption of a
child for the senile gangrene of a nonagenarian, the hebephrenia of a
youth for the homicidal mania of an old man. Since when do revolutions
indicate decrepitude and death? None of the Hispanic American nations
today displays the political and social misery which reigned in the
Europe of feudalism. But the feudal epoch is considered a stage in
evolution, whereas the era of Hispanic American revolutions is looked
upon as an incurable, final state. We might also answer by confronting
Le Bon the pessimist with Le Bon the optimist, [pitting] as one might
say St. Augustine the Bishop against St. Augustine the pagan. “It is
possible ,” affirms Le Bon, “that after a series of profound calamities,
convulsions almost never seen in history,” the Latin peoples, taught by
experience, “may attempt the arduous task of acquiring the qualities
they lack in order henceforth to achieve success in life.... Apostles
can accomplish much because they succeed in changing public opinion, and
public opinion is queen today.... History is so full of the unforeseen,
the world is undergoing such profound changes, that it is impossible
today to foresee the destiny of empires.” If it is impossible to foresee
the fate of nations, how then announce the death of the Hispanic
American republics? What the Latin Empires can achieve in Europe, may
not the nations of similar origin attempt in the New World? Or are there
two sociological laws, one for the Latins of America and another for the
Latins of Europe? Perhaps. But happily, the assertions of Le Bon
resemble nails which drive out each other.
It appears, then, that while August Comte intended to make of sociology
an eminently positive science, his heirs have converted it into a heap
of ramblings without any scientific basis.
In his Der Rassenkamph (Race Conflict) Ludwig Gumplowicz says that every
important and powerful ethnic element seeks to make serve its ends any
weak element found in its radius or which penetrates into it. [6] First
the Conquerors and then their descendants in the countries of America
constituted an ethnic element sufficiently powerful to subjugate and
exploit the indigenes. Although the statements of Las Casas are marred
by exaggeration, it cannot be denied that in some American countries,
thanks to the avaricious cruelty of the exploiters, the weak element was
almost extinguished. The ants which domesticate grubs in order to milk
them do not imitate the lack of foresight of the whites-they do not
destroy the productive animal.
To the theory of Gumplowicz should be added a law which has great
influence in our way of life-when an individual rises above the level of
his social class he usually becomes its worst enemy. During the time of
black slavery there were no crueler overseers than the Blacks
themselves. At the present time there are probably no harsher oppressors
of the Indian than those very Indians who are Hispanicized and invested
with some authority.
The real tyrant of the masses, who uses certain Indians to exploit and
oppress the others, is the half-caste, including in this term not only
the cholo or mestizo of the sierra but also the mulatto and zambo of the
coast. [7] In Peru we see an ethnic stratification. Excluding Europeans
and the small number of national or Creole whites, the population is
divided into two parts, very unequal in quantity, the dominating
half-castes and the dominated indigenes. One or two hundred thousand
persons have been placed over three millions.
There is a real offensive and defensive alliance based on exchange of
services between the dominant group of the capital and those of the
province. The political bosses (gamonal) of the sierra act as political
agents for the overlords in Lima, and the overlords of Lima defend the
political bosses of the sierra when they barbarously abuse the Indian.
Few social groups have committed such iniquities or have such a black
record as the Spaniards and half-castes of Peru. Revolutions,
squandering, and bankruptcy seem like nothing compared with the glacial
cupidity of the half-castes to squeeze the blood out of human flesh. The
suffering and death of their fellow creatures matters very little to
them when that suffering and death yields them a gain of a few soles.
[8] They decimate the Indian with their assessments and forced labor
(mitas); [9] they import the Black to make him groan under the lash of
the overseer; they swallow up the Chinese, giving him a handful of rice
for ten and even fifteen hours of work; they bring the East Indian from
his islands to let him die of nostalgia in the slave quarters of the
haciendas; today they are trying to bring in Japanese.... The Black
seems to decline [in numbers], the Chinese is disappearing, the East
Indian has left no trace, and the Japanese gives no sign of lending
himself to slavery. But the Indian remains, since three hundred to four
hundred years of cruelty have not succeeded in exterminating him. The
vile creature obstinately insists on living!
The viceroys of Peru never failed to condemn the violations nor spared
any effort to achieve the protection, good treatment, and relief of the
Indians. The Kings of Spain, yielding to the compassion of their noble
and Catholic souls, conceived humanitarian measures and backed those
initiated by the viceroys. There were more than enough fine proposals in
royal cedulas. We do not know whether the Laws of the Indies formed a
pyramid as tall as Chimborazo, but we know the evil continued unchanged,
even though some were punished as examples. And it could not be
otherwise. The exploitation of the conquered was officially ordered, but
humanity and justice were asked of the executors of the exploitation. It
was pretended that it was possible to commit iniquities humanely and to
carry out injustice with equity. To stamp out the abuses it would have
been necessary to stamp out the repartimientos and mitas, in a word, to
change the whole colonial regime. Without the forced labor (faenas of
the American Indian the coffers of the Spanish treasury would have been
empty. The wealth sent by the colonies to the Metropolis was merely
blood and tears converted into gold.
The Republic continues the tradition of the viceroyalty. In their
messages the presidents urge the redemption of the oppressed and they
are called protectors of the native race. Congresses elaborate laws
which go beyond the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the ministers of
government issue decrees, send notes to the prefects, and appoint
investigating commissions, all with the noble purpose of assuring
guaranties to the disinherited class. But messages, laws, decrees,
notes, and commissions are nothing more than hypocritical jeremiads,
fruitless words, and overworked measures. The authorities who send
threatening orders from Lima to the departments know they will not be
obeyed. The perfects who receive the warnings from the Capital know that
nothing will happen to them for not carrying them out. What the Marquis
of Mancera said in his Memoria in 1648 could be repeated today, reading
governors and hacienda owners for corregidores and caciques. “These poor
Indians have as their enemies the greediness of their corregidores, of
their priests, and of their caciques, all trying to grow rich on their
sweat; it would take the zeal and authority of a viceroy for each of
them. Relying upon the distance [from authority] they falsely pretend
obedience and there is not enough strength or perseverance to register a
second complaint.” The phrase falsely pretending obedience has great
significance in the mouth of a viceroy. But even more significant is the
statement which escaped from the defenders of the Indians of Chucuito.
There are many friends of the Indian who in their individual and
collective capacities behave like the government in its official action.
The groups formed to free the unredeemed race have been no better than
political contrabandists, hiding behind a philanthropic banner.
Defending the Indian, they have exploited the public pity as others have
traded on patriotism by invoking Tacna and Arica. For the redeemers to
act in good faith they would have to experience an overnight
transformation, repenting the terrible measure of their sins,
formulating a steady purpose of obeying the dictates of justice,
becoming men of tigers. Is this conceivable?
Meanwhile, as a general rule, the dominant group approach the Indian
only to deceive him, oppress him, or corrupt him. And we should remember
that not only the national half-caste acts with inhumanity and bad
faith. When Europeans become wool traders, mine owners, or hacienda
proprietors, they show themselves fine exactors, extortionists, rivaling
the old encomenderos and the present day hacendados. The white skinned
animal, wherever he is born, is afflicted with the disease of gold. In
the final analysis he yields to the instinct of rapacity.
Does the Indian suffer less under the republic than under Spanish rule?
While neither corregimientos nor encomiendas exist, forced labor and its
recruitment remain. What we make him suffer is enough to call down upon
us the execration of humanity. We hold him in ignorance and servitude,
we debase him in the garrisons, we brutalize him with alcohol, we set
him to destroying himself in civil war, and from time to time we
organize hunting parties and massacres like those of Amantani, Ilave,
and Haunta.
It is an unwritten axiom that the Indian has no rights, only
obligations. In his case a personal complaint is considered
insubordination, a collective claim, a plot of rebellion. The Spanish
royalists killed the Indian when he tried to escape the yoke of his
conquerors; we republicans exterminate him when he protests against
onerous taxes or tires of enduring in silence the iniquities of some
satrap.
Our form of government is in essence a great lie, because a state in
which two or three million individuals live outside the law does not
deserve to be called a democratic republic. While in the coastal region
one sees a shadow of protection under a feigned republic, in the
interior the violation of all rights under a feudal regime is open. Here
neither laws nor courts of justice rule, because hacienda owners and
political bosses (gamonales) settle everything, arrogating to themselves
the role of judge as well as executor. The political authorities, far
from protecting the weak and the poor, almost always help the strong and
the rich. There are regions where justices of the peace and [provincial]
governors are servitors of the hacienda. What governor, what
sub-prefect, what prefect, even, would dare oppose a hacienda owner?
A hacienda consists of small farms taken by force from their rightful
owners. A landlord exercises the authority of a Norman baron over his
peons. He not only influences the selection of governors, mayors, and
justices of the peace, but also arranges marriages, designates heirs,
divides up inheritances, and imposes what is frequently a life-long
servitude upon children to pay the debts of their parents. He imposes
punishments that are terrible such as shackles, flogging, stocks, and
death; or are ridiculous, such as shaving the head and cold-water
enemas. It would be a miracle for one who respects neither life nor
property to respect the honor of women. Any Indian woman, married or
single, may be the object of the señor’s vicious desires. Violation and
rape mean little when one realizes that it is necessary to take the
Indian women by main force. And despite all this the Indian never speaks
to the landlord without kneeling and kissing his hand. It cannot be said
that the lords of the land act in this way through ignorance or lack of
culture. The sons of some hacienda owners go to Europe in childhood to
be educated in France or England, returning to Peru with all the outward
aspects of civilized people. But once ensconced in their haciendas, they
lose the European varnish and proceed with more inhumanity than their
fathers. When the son dons his sombrero, poncho, and spurs, the beast
reappears. To sum up: the haciendas are kingdoms in the heart of the
republic; the hacienda owners rule as autocrats in the midst of
democracy.
To justify governmental negligence and the inhumanity of the despoilers
some pessimists of the Le Bon stamp a degrading stigma on the forehead
of the Indian; they accuse him of being refractory to civilization.
Anyone could imagine that if splendid schools could be built in all our
towns, with competent well paid teachers buzzing around in them, that
the rooms would be plenty empty because the children, obeying the orders
of their parents, would not hasten to receive education? Could one
imagine, moreover, that the natives would fail to follow the fine moral
example of the ruling class and crucify without a scruple all who preach
elevated and generous ideas. The Indian received what they gave him —
fanaticism and liquor.
Now let us see what is understood by civilization. Over industry and
art, over science and learning, morality gleams like a shining light on
the apex of a great pyramid. Not theological morality based on
punishment after death, but humane morality which seeks no sanction far
removed from the world. The essence of morality, for individuals as well
as for societies, consists in transforming the struggle of man against
man into a mutual accord for living. Where there is no justice, pity, or
benevolence, there is no civilization; where the struggle for life is
made the law of society, barbarism reigns. What does it avail to acquire
the wisdom of an Aristotle if one’s heart is that of a tiger? What is
there worthwhile in having the talent of a Michelangelo if one has the
soul of a pig? It is better to go through the world distilling the honey
of goodness than shedding the light of art and science. The societies
that deserve to be called highly civilized are those in which the
practice of the good has become an habitual obligation and the
beneficent act instinctive. Have they any right to consider the Indian
incapable of civilization?
The political and social organization of the ancient Inca Empire
astonishes revolutionary reformers today. True, Atahualpa did not know
his Pater Noster, nor had Calcuchima pondered the mystery of the
Trinity. But the cult of the Sun was perhaps less absurd than the
Catholic religion, and the high priest of Pachacamac scarcely exceeded
Padre Valverde in ferocity. If the subject of Huayna Capac accepted
civilization we see no reason why the Indian of the republic is inferior
to the native encountered by the conquerors; but moral depression
because of political servitude is not the same as an absolute incapacity
by organic constitution to achieve civilization. In any case, upon whom
should the blame fall?
The facts give the lie to the pessimists. Wherever the Indian is
educated in schools or simply by contact with civilized persons, he
takes on the same level of morality and culture as the descendant of the
Spaniard. [10] We constantly meet yellow men who dress, eat, live, and
think like the suave gentlemen of Lima. We see Indians in legislatures,
municipal governments, magistracies, universities, and scientific bodies
who seem no more venal nor more ignorant than those of other races. It
is impossible, in our national politics, to trace the lines of
responsibility in totum revolutis [sic] so as to say what evil is caused
by mestizos, mulattoes, and whites. There is such promiscuity of blood
and color, each individual represents so many licit or illicit mixtures,
that most Peruvians would be puzzled to figure out the dose of black and
yellow they carry in their veins. [11] No one deserves the qualification
of pure white, even though he may have blue eyes and blond hair. We need
only recall that out president who had the broadest viewpoint belonged
to the native race and was called Santa Cruz. [12] There were a hundred
more, valiant to the stage of heroism like Cahuide or loyal even to
martyrdom like Olaya. [13]
Novicow is right in saying that the supposed inferiority of Yellows and
Blacks is a chimera of diseased minds. Actually, there is no cultural
activity which cannot be performed by some black or some yellow man,
just as the most infamous act may be committed by some white. During the
invasion of China in 1900 the yellow men of Japan gave lessons in
humanity to the whites of Russia and Germany. We do not recall whether
the Blacks of Africa ever gave such lessons to the Boers of the
Transvaal and the English of the Cape; but we do know that the
Anglo-Saxon Kitchener showed himself as ferocious in the Sudan as
Behanzin in Dahomey. If, instead of comparing white-skinned masses with
dark-skinned masses, we compare one individual with another, we see that
savages and redskins at heart abound in the midst of white civilization.
Suppose we name as flowers of the race, or representative men, the King
of England and the Emperor of Germany. Do Edward VII and William II
deserve to be compared with the Indian Benito Juárez and the Black
Booker Washington? Those who lived in taverns, barracks, and brothels
before occupying a throne, or from the summit of power ordered the
pitiless massacre of children, women, and old people may be white in
skin but hide blackness in their souls.
Does the lowliness of the native race result merely from ignorance?
Certainly national ignorance is fabulous when it is recalled that in
many towns of the interior not a single man is found able to read or
write, that during the War of the Pacific the Indians believed the
conflict of the two nations was a civil war between General Chile and
General Peru, and that not long ago representatives of Chucuito went to
Tacna imagining that there they would encounter the president of the
republic.
Some pedagogues (rivaling the sellers of panaceas) imagine that if a man
knows the tributaries of the Amazon and the median temperature in
Berlin, half the road to the solution of all social problems has been
traversed. If, by some superhuman phenomenon, our national illiterates
should arise some dawn not only knowing how to read and write but with
university diplomas, the problem of the Indian would not be solved. A
proletariat of bachelors and doctors would merely replace that of the
ignorant. [Even] in the most civilized nations physicians without
patients, lawyers without clients, engineers with nothing to build,
writers without a reading public, artists without buyers, and teachers
without students abound, making up a numberless army of shining
intelligences without bread for their stomachs. Where the coastal
haciendas run to four or five fanegas and the estancias of the sierra
measure thirty or even fifty [square] leagues, the nation must be
divided into lords and serfs.
Education does indeed usually change an impulsive brute into a
reasonable and magnanimous being, teaching him and lighting for him the
path he should follow in order not to get lost at the crossroads of
life. But to see a path is not the same as to follow it to the end;
firmness of will and toughness of feet are also necessary. A proud
rebellious spirit is also needed, not the submission and deference of
the soldier and monk. Education may keep man in [a state of] meanness
and servitude — the eunuchs and grammarians of Byzantium were educated.
It is the right of every rational being to occupy on the earth the
decent place due him instead of accepting that which is assigned, to ask
for and get his daily bread, to demand a roof and piece of land.
Nothing changes the psychology of man more quickly or more fundamentally
than property. Upon escaping the servitude of hunger he grows a hundred
palms. By merely becoming the owner of something the individual rises
several steps on the social ladder, because classes are essentially
groups based upon the amount of wealth. Quite the opposite of a balloon
— the more he weighs the more he rises. To one who says the school,
reply the school and bread.
The problem of the Indian is economic and social more than educational.
How is it to be resolved? Not long ago a German conceived the idea of
restoring the Inca Empire. He learned Quechua, made himself known among
the Indians of Cuzco, began to gain supporters and might, perhaps, have
attempted an uprising if death had not surprised him when returning from
a voyage to Europe. But is there any place for such a restoration today?
If it were attempted and carried out the result would be a petty
imitation of past greatness.
The situation of the native can improve in two ways. Either the heart of
the oppressors relents to the extent or recognizing the rights of the
oppressed, or the spirit of the oppressed acquires sufficient vigor to
chasten their oppressors. If the Indian were to spend for rifles and
bullets what he wastes on alcohol and fiestas, or if he were to conceal
a weapon in the corner of his hut or on the hollow of a rock, he might
change his situation, making his property and life respected. To
violence he might then reply with violence, punishing the patron who
steals his wool, the soldier who levies in the name of the government,
and the bandit who robs his cattle and beasts of burden.
To the Indian one should not preach humility and resignation but pride
and rebellion. What has he gained by three or four hundred years of
conformity and patience? The less he is subject to authority the more
injury he escapes. It is a revealing fact that there is more well being
in the regions most remote from the big haciendas and that the towns
least often visited by the authorities enjoy greater peace and order.
To sum up, the Indian will be redeemed by his own efforts, not the
humanization of his oppressors. Every white, more or less, is a Pizarro,
a Valverde, or an Areche.
1904, 1924
[1] Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857) was a French philosopher who developed a
new social science, what he called positive science, and what he
eventually labeled sociology. He is thus, the father of sociology.
During González Prada’s time, many sociologists were Comtian one way or
another. His two foundational sociological works were Cours de
philosophie positive (1830–1842) and Système de politique positive ou
Traité de sociologie (1851–1854) [TW].
[2] Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) was a French psychologist and sociologist
whose writings were well known for the explosive race theory they
contained. Essential to his thought were analysis of national features
that oftentimes degenerated into racial and even racist propositions.
Among his popular books can be found Psychologie des foules (1895)
translated into English as The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897)
[TW].
[3] Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) was a French sociologist roughly
contemporary to González Prada. Durkheim was interested in behavior as
exterior to the individual or as the result of individual consciousness,
his favored view later in life. Like González Prada, he viewed morality
as integral to social organization [TW].
[4] González Prada signals a problem with calling people of Latin
American heritage “Latins” or “Latinos,” Latin being the language of the
Ancient Roman Empire and the people that were descended from it. Since
people of indigenous origin such as the Inca Atahualpa were never a part
of the Roman Empire nor were they even aware of Europe, calling them
“Latinos” is assigning them to a category to which they cannot possibly
belong [TW].
[5] Santo Domingo is now called the Dominican Republic [TW].
[6] Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838–1909) another of the creators of sociology.
Being a Jewish man from KrakĂłw (then an independent republic, later
Poland) he became aware of ethnic strife between Germanic and Slavic
peoples and of course the treatment that Jews received [TW].
[7] The use of such explicit racial terminology can be shocking to the
modern ear. Yet it was quite common during González Prada’s time,
appearing in other important contemporary essayists such as JosĂ© MartĂ
and Eugenio MarĂa de Hostos. The paradox consists in González Prada
using racial terminology to attack race theory. This seems clear to us
today, but at that time (before civil rights and the advances of the
theories of heterogeneity, multiculturalism and diversity), it was hard
to see the colonialist forest for all the racist trees. Getting beyond
the language problem, one can see that González Prada continues a line
of argument first established by the early seventeenth-century
chronicler Guamán Poma de Ayala who tells us that priests and mayordomos
(stewards) “and their companions all have mistresses”, the result, of
course, being that “they have crowds of little mestizo sons and
daughters” (Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, The First New Chronicle and
Good Government, trans. & ed. David Frye (Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing, 2006, pp. 150, 185). Like Guaman Poma before him and José
Carlos Mariátegui after him, González Prada seems to prefer pure-blooded
indigenous peoples over mestizos in his plans for society [TW].
[8] The Sol or “Sun” was based on the Incan deity, “Inti.” Times change
and the Sol in González Prada’s time and in our time is the unit of
currency in Peru. The paradox in this is that what was once a spiritual
entity is now a material count [TW].
[9] The mita was a form of tax labor in the Andes during the period
before the arrival of the Spanish. After the conquest it became simply
forced labor and in time grew into an institution called debt peonage
[TW].
[10] González Prada does not refer here to the elevated morality of the
inhabitants of the Tahuantinsuyo state. He is simply referring to the
degraded condition in which the decedents of the Inca’s subjects
continued to live [TW].
[11] “licit or illicit mixtures,” meaning offspring resulting from
marriage or from concubinage, from marriage or rape [TW].
[12] Andrés de Santa Cruz (1792–1865), the Bolivian president between
1829 and 1836, had the foresight that in a political union Peru and
Bolivia would be stronger politically. Thus, he formed and presided over
the ConfederaciĂłn Peruano-Boliviana during the years 1836 and 1839.
Unfortunately, Chile opposed this union, as did many Creoles from Lima,
setting the stage for its failure. Prophetically, down the road when
Chile declared war on Bolivia and Peru in 1879, these twin nations would
have been better prepared to wage war on the British-supplied Chile and
would not have both been destroyed economically and carved up
geographically [TW].
[13] José Olaya was a martyr in the Peruvian war for independence. A
fisherman from Chorrillos, he swam with messages from there to Lima. He
was captured and executed in the Plaza de Armas in the capital [TW].