From the section FLIP OF THE MYTHS
...
During that twilight of the Spanish Empire in the American
continent, the Creoles, seed of the power structure for all future independent
republics, experience contradictory emotions and feelings. The successful
rebellion of the English settlers in North America fascinates them. They also
have antagonistic feelings towards the imperial metropolis. They aspire to
exercise all power, to have all the honors, instead of having to bow to the
tutelage of Spain exerted by peninsular officials. But at the same time, as
masters of an enslaved society, they know they are surrounded by enemies. Not
only by the seemingly submissive Indians, who from time to time break out in
rebellion, as in Peru in 1780; or Mexico in 1624 and 1692[1]; but also by the barbarous
and violent Blacks and the humiliated and resentful Pardos[2].
In fact, during the mutiny of 1692, the Black slaves, the Pardos, and
even the poor Whites, called in Mexico zaramullos, to distinguish them
from the proud Creoles, made common cause with the Indians in an explosion of
anger against authority and all wealth.
[1] On June 7, 1692, the Indian people of Mexico City, hungry and
exasperated by the rumor that an Indian woman had been flogged to death,
stormed and burned the viceregal palace, cheering the King of Spain and shouting
“Death to the Viceroy.”
[2] “In the West Indies seven castes were recognized,
namely: (1) Spanish born in Europe (White); (2) Spanish born in America, called
Creoles; (3) the mestizos, descendants of White and Indian; (4) the Mulattoes,
descendants of White and Black; (5) the Zamboes, descendants of Indian and Black;
(6) Indians; (7) Blacks, and the subdivisions of Black Zambos, product of Black
and Zamba; Quadroon, of White and Mulatto, quinteroon, of White and Quadroon,
and Jump-Back, the mixture in which the color is darker than that of the
mother. In Venezuela, all who were not purebred (that is, were not White,
Indian, or Black, but one of the indicated mixtures were usually called Pardos,
a caste that at the end of the colony made up half of the total population.” Enrique Gil Fortoul, Constitutional History of Venezuela.
Faced with a massive and dark enemy composed of
slaves, serfs, and the free lower castes, the Creoles may have been (and
probably were) the executioners of Túpac Amaru. Creole also is the pen that
drafted the proclamation in Cuzco after the uprising was crushed: “Because of
the rebel, it is hereby ordered that all natives dispose of or hand over to
their magistrates as many clothes as they may own, as well as paintings or
portraits of their Incas, to be inevitably erased as they do not deserve the
dignity of being painted in such places.
Because of the rebel, these same magistrates will
ensure that in no town of their respective provinces there shall be any
representation of comedies or other public functions that the Indians often use
to commemorate their ancient deeds.
Because of the rebel, all trumpets or bugles used by
the Indians in their functions which they call potutos, and which are
sea snails with a strange and lugubrious sound, shall be banned.
Because of the rebel, it is ordered that all natives wear
their garbs prescribed by law, adopt our customs, and speak the Spanish
language, or be subject to the most rigorous and fair penalties against
disobedient people."
But the same Creoles who issued (or signed) that occupier
proclamation in 1781, from 1810 onwards began to declare themselves
"honorary Indians", heirs and avengers of the Noble Savage. The
independent Peru anthem names Lima (the most Spanish, along with Mexico City,
of Spanish-American cities) heir to the hatred and revenge of the Inca, its
rightful lord, and liberated once again after three centuries of foreign
oppression. The Argentine anthem ensures that, with the war of independence,
the Incas in their tombs quivered with emotion upon seeing "their
children" renew "the ancient splendor of the homeland." In
Ecuador, José Joaquín de Olmedo, a poet laureate of sorts from Gran Colombia, envisions
(in 1825) the Inca Huaina Capac, mounted on a cloud, jubilant after lamenting
from beyond the grave over
“the course of three centuries
of curse, of blood and serfdom”
as he now sees the awaited hour for
“the new age vowed to the Inca.”
Meanwhile, the situation of the Indians not mythical,
or dead and buried before their discovery, but alive, present in flesh and
blood, continues everywhere to be the same or worse than before the rupture from
Spain. The Spanish colonial administration had been run by peninsular bureaucrats
with no private interests in America, no blood ties or prolonged familiarity
with the Creole oligarchy. For these officials, viceroys, mayors or captains or
captains general, the Latin American castes were a political condition, to be
handled with the pragmatism of a prudent mediation between them. In addition,
although there was no concern for social fairness as we understand it today in that government and it is obvious that in an arbitration between castes the
Creoles had the best odds by far, there was concern for justice and traces of
the controversy (in Christian Spain during the 16th century about
humanity and the rights of America’s aborigines) that had led to the
promulgation of the so-called "Laws of the Indies," which included numerous
provisions aimed at protecting the Indians.
In contrast, the republican governments of Spanish
America will all exclusively represent implacable Creole landowners or (in countries
socially convulsed by war) even more implacable Pardo landowners;
oligarchies that will have no other concern or goal than to keep intact the received
social structures based on giant haciendas and peonage. The frequent changes of
government, the so-called Latin American “revolutions,” will be nothing more but
surface ripples in stagnant water.
Adding insult to injury, when towards the end of the
19th and beginning of the 20th century the Latin American
ruling classes begin to articulate explanations or excuses for the failure of
their societies as compared to North American ones, it is the Indian, the Black
and the miscegenation upon which they will lay the blame; and that
explanation will first precede, and then coexist for some time with the one
that is fashionable today and that attributes the backwardness and frustration
of Latin America exclusively to North American imperialism.
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