Conquests: Rereading New World History from the Margins

To avoid contributing to the limited and distorted view of the colonial Latin America that scholars have created around the three imperial cultures (Inca, Maya, and Aztec) which conform best to our modern world conceptions, Gustavo Verdesio has set out to study the territory and aborigines of a neglected geographical area north of the River Plate, in what is today Uruguay, and whose indigenous forms of social organization (tribal, nomadic, etc.) are representative of what was practiced by the majority of the population in the pre-Columbian era.  In order to accomplish this enterprise, Verdesio draws on recent theoretical advances to produce a study of refreshing originality that serves as a significant contribution—of the kind that fills an unjustifiably longstanding lacuna—to Latin American colonial studies.  Verdesio’s aim in this book is twofold: first, he aims at exposing the discursive construction of the referents “territory” and “peoples” denoting the region in question and how these entered the cultural framework of western civilization through the texts produced during three centuries of colonization; second, he attempts to disinter and bring to prominence that which was buried during the construction of these referents, namely the agency of the Other as constituted by Amerindians, African slaves, women, and the Gauchos.  The objective is to present, against the official accounts produced by nationalisms and Criollo culture, alternative histories of the colonization of the northern shore of the River Plate that give agency to what Europeans consider the Other.  Furthermore, the author subtly ventures to suggest that these alternative histories are representative of the many other such histories taking place in the greater part of the colonial Americas and thus characterize the true nature of the process of conquest and colonization more accurately than the accounts built around the three imperial cultures.  Accordingly, this text qualifies as essential reading for a more complete understanding of Latin American history.

In a context of disciplinary changes and of cultural decolonization, and impelled by the theoretical approaches of Walter Mignolo, Jacques Derrida, Pierre Machery and others, Verdesio proposes a “new mode of knowledge production” in which the “selective tradition” that excludes or silences other meanings and practices that do not fit the hegemonic cultural paradigm is itself discarded in favor of a reconstruction of a universe of discourse that manifests the ideological conflicts (and its mechanisms) that underlie the production of any text.  With this as the methodological infrastructure, the author studies texts that have been overlooked by Latin American colonial studies along with those that belong to the canon but in which passages alluding to the northern shore of the River Plate have been ignored.  This method effectively distances itself from the Western European episteme and is thus able to present a more inclusive and objective account of this period of history than the traditional versions.  This entails the constant effort, conspicuously present throughout the book, to avoid falling into the nationalist trap of referring to the territory under study as “Uruguay.”  Consequently, this account is rendered more universal in nature and appeals to not only the Uruguayan national but to any reader of any background.

The six chapters that comprise the book allow for a notably inclusive survey of a wide variety of colonial texts that are ordered chronologically and divided categorically by each chapter.  The first chapter closely examines texts related to and about the first and failed expeditions into the region led by Juan Díaz de Solís, Diego García, Sebastian Cabot, and others during the sixteenth century; these include fragments of diaries, official documents, and chronicles by Francisco López de Gómara, Bartolomé de las Casas, Antonio de Herrera, and numerous others.  Through these texts Verdesio looks at the construction of the referents “discovery” and “Amerindians” and rescues the traces that give insight into the indigenous reaction to the Encounter.  What follows in the second chapter is an analysis of early colonial texts that have been excluded from the canon for being written in languages other than Spanish, such as those written by the German expedition soldier Ulrich Schmidel and another by the Portuguese sailor Pero Lopes de Souza; there is also a close look at the indigenous agency present in Martín del Barco Centenera’s epic poem La Argentina.  Chapter three deals with a series of texts related to the “pacific penetration” of the region during the seventeenth century that was made possible by further expeditions and settlements such as the Franciscan and Jesuit missions; it also provides insight into the European subject’s change in attitude, from the chivalric ideal of the conquest to the more pragmatic view of colonization.  Chapter four follows with a very insightful interpretation of the texts, which include those by Simão Pereira de Sá and Silvestre Ferreira da Silva,  that relate and give an important role to the indigenous peoples in the struggles between the Spanish and the Portuguese for appropriation of the territory surrounding the River Plate.  Chapter five examines encyclopedia articles of the eighteenth century that, being often based on inaccurate or biased evidence rather than testimony, helped define and establish as historical constructs the referents “territory” and its “peoples” that were to be incorporated into the European episteme.  The last chapter deals with various travel accounts that provide other non-Spanish subjectivities, most of which were produced during the eighteenth century by scientists, diplomats, and priests from different European nations.  Finally, the book closes with a conclusion that departs from the study of textual artifacts to suggest that cartography and territoriality are equally important tools in understanding the construction of all the previously mentioned referents.  Here the author reexamines both the history of the occupation of the territory and the modern and erroneous conception of it as a pre-Columbian blank page by bringing to light archeological evidence of forgotten groups of indigenous inhabitants and by reinterpreting the history of those that are known and of their relations with Europeans.

One of the most important accomplishments of this book is that it discredits the restrictive European gaze that until recently has monopolized the study of colonial texts.  Throughout the book Verdesio traces the provenance of distorted conceptions of the Other; he also exposes and challenges the rhetorical devices that have silenced or repressed its voices.  Dismissing the supposed monologic nature of the textual artifacts under study, the author assumes a polyphonic conception of them and shows that the Other as represented in these texts is not a mere ornamental artifact but rather an agent that is determinant in the creation of its own history.  Against, for example, the European gaze that represents the Amerindians as violent and barbarous, Verdesio notes that they are merely defending their lands from foreign invaders.  In this manner he rescues them as agents whose volition impinges on and is determinant in the history of colonial America.  Thus within this framework the Amerindians are no longer mere passive elements on which European concepts have been obtruded.  Verdesio presents many other cases of active indigenous interaction with Europeans to support the attribution of agency to them.  In another interesting instance the author digs up and presents evidence that subverts the conventional civilization/barbarism paradigm by instead presenting the Europeans as barbarous and noxious.

The basic formula of analysis that forms the backbone of this monograph combines theoretical explanations with hermeneutical understanding; this expository technique is a constant in every chapter and is applied in a manner that renders persuasive the arguments put forward.  The result is a penetrating and innovative study that challenges the tenets of Colonial studies and rescues it from cultural homogeneity by revealing the more complex and polyphonic histories that have been silenced by the firmly established official interpretations.  In this book Verdesio proposes a new method of inquiry that he fully lays out and that is sure to help lead Latin American colonial studies in a new direction.  Though the book deals with complex cultural theory and numerous obscure colonial texts, it is written in a clear and precise manner that is accessible to both the specialist and non-specialist.  It is an ambitious project that entails and successfully involves input from a wide gamut of disciplines: anthropology, cultural and literary theory, and Latin American studies, among others.  This interdisciplinary nature makes it appropriate reading for a wide audience and an essential piece of scholarship for specialists in Latin American colonial studies.