Annotated Bibliography - Maria Diaz-Gonzalez

Basic:

Ortega, Antonino Vidal, and Jorge Enrique Elias Caro. "LA DESMEMORIA IMPUESTA A LOS HOMBRES QUE TRAJERON. CARTAGENA DE INDIAS EN EL SIGLO XVI Y XVII. UN DEPÓSITO DE ESCLAVOS." Cuadernos De Historia 37, (December 2012): 7-31. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed September 16, 2016).

This academic paper - which is available through the Academic Search Premier database - details the role of Cartagena in the Latin American slave trade. It provides an overview of the actors involved in the transport and sale of slaves, the composition (racial, class, etc.) of Cartagena’s society, and the various roles performed in it by the enslaved. Although it provides only an overview, this source has useful leads to primary accounts about the city left by Europeans. It is in Spanish, which I can read but requires more effort for me to understand.

Gates, Henry Louis. 2011. Black in Latin America. New York: New York University Press.

This book documents black life and history in several Latin American countries and will serve as a sort of initial and reference text for the basic facts on the topic.

Gates, Henry Louis. Black in Latin America. 2011. Posted September 16, 2016. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/.

This video source was recommended to me by Adan Griego, and archivist at Green Library. It is a series of documentaries about black life in several Latin American countries. This source explores the deep roots of blackness in Latin America and will help me get a sense of the significance of enslavement to the development of the region, as well as of the human experiences of the people that I hope to write about.

Luis, William. 1984. Voices from under: Black narrative in Latin America and the Caribbean. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.

This source is a compilation of essays about the representation of black narratives in Latin America. This book offers very useful reflections on some of the primary sources I am using for my thesis (ex: The Autobiography of a Slave). Additionally, it has several bibliographic references to primary and secondary sources that will be of use to me for this thesis.

European Accounts [Primary : 15^th-17^th Centuries]

Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de. The general history of the vast continent and islands of America, commonly call’d, the West-Indies : from the first discovery thereof, with the ... Volume 2. London, 1725-1726. 441pp. 6 vols. Sabin Americana. Gale, Cengage Learning. Stanford University Libraries. 12 September 2016 http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/Sabin?af=RN&ae=CY105497701&srchtp=a&ste=14

This source is available through the database Sabin Americana, which provides texts relevant to the Americas in several languages from the 1500s to the 20^th century. This is a translation of a Spaniard’s attempt at a sweeping natural history of the Americas and Caribbean. This source is useful primarily for its cursory descriptions of the Natives of the Colombian Pacific, and of their methods of warfare and trade.

Barcía Carballido y Zúñiga, Andrés González de. Historiadores primitivos de las Indias Occidentales : que juntò, traduxo en parte, y sacò à luz, ilustrados con erudìtas notas, y copiosos indices. Volume 2. Madrid, 1749. 559pp. 3 vols. Sabin Americana. Gale, Cengage Learning. Stanford University Libraries. 12 September 2016 http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/Sabin?af=RN&ae=CY110882164&srchtp=a&ste=14

This source is also available through Sabin Americana. Similar to the first one, this is also a natural history. It has entire sections dedicated to descriptions of the native and black people, which I will use to hopefully have some basic facts about them. I am very concerned however about using a European source as a basis for “facts” since even factual descriptions of black and native peoples will be inaccurate by virtue of applying Western frames and logics to non-Western peoples.

Ulloa, Antonio de. A voyage to South America : describing at large the Spanish cities, towns, provinces &c., on that extensive continent : undertaken by command of ... 4th ed. Volume 1. London, 1806. 510pp. 2 vols. Sabin Americana. Gale, Cengage Learning. Stanford University Libraries. 13 September 2016 http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/Sabin?af=RN&ae=CY112014424&srchtp=a&ste=14

This is the European source that I have read the most extensively; once again it is available through Sabin Americana. This source had extensive descriptions of the city of Cartagena as well as detailed explanations of the racial hierarchies of its inhabitants. This also brought to my attention specific topics that I would need to further investigate in my thesis, such as the lives of people of mixed black-indigenous ancestry in colonial Latin America.  

Casas, Bartolomé de las, and Nigel Griffin. 1992. A short account of the destruction of the Indies. London, England: Penguin Books.

This source was also recommended to me by Adan Griego as well as by Alex. It is Casas’ account of the genocide of native peoples in the Americas and the Caribbean, which was the crux of his appeal to the Spanish crown to recognize the natives as humans and end the legality of their enslavement. I have no sense of the savagery and atrocity of the genocides perpetrated against Native peoples in the Americas, which this source gives a glimpse of. The source is distorted by Casas’ very racist lens and clear belief in a child-like inferiority for natives but from it I hope to understand and eventually be able to convey some of the horrors of colonization.

Zenú

The Zenú are one of the groups of indigenous people that occupied that Colombian Pacific coast near to Cartagena. In the 16^th century the earliest settlers in the area regularly desecrated Zenú graves to steal golden objects from the remains. Since part of my story will revolve around the trading and desecrating of dead bodies, having some understanding of the Zenú people is crucial.

https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/2005-061.pdf#page=88

This source is a study about the role of indigenous Colombian women as protectors of the nation’s biodiversity. Although this source is modern, I hope to gain an idea about the relationship that the Zenú people have to their land. I am having difficulty finding sources written by Zenú people (ancient or modern) and this study is not an exception to that, which worries me.

Puche Villadiego, Benjamín. 2001. El sombrero vueltiáo: la cultura zenú : el gran imperio. [Barranquilla, Colombia]: Ediciones Gobernación de Córdoba, Secretaria de Cultura.

This book details the history and culture of the Zenú people and I am hoping to use it as a basis for creating the indigenous characters in my work.

Afro-Colombian [Modern]

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/colombia/who-indigenous-who-afro-colombian-who-decides

This source in particular speaks about the tensions in the current legal parameters that define Afro-Colombians. It speaks about this in the context of struggles over the mineral-rich lands that Afro-Colombian and indigenous people control on the Colombian Pacific Coast. This website in general has a wealth of information about indigenous people; it has generous amounts on Afro-Colombians because their legal status is very similar to that of native people (in terms of rights to lands, etc.). From here, I am trying to strengthen my understanding of the current land issues that I hope to at least allude to in my thesis.  

Black and Indigenous Narratives [Primary]

Manzano, Juan Francisco. 1996. The autobiography of a slave = Autobiografía de un esclavo. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

This primary source is considered the only surviving slave narrative from Latin America. This source is crucial because it will give me a way to insert the voice of an enslaved black person into my thesis. It would be a grave insult to write about a people without consulting their own voices and I am hoping to address that with this source. I have several concerns about it however. The primary one is that it was written under the auspices of a white patron who believed in the possibility of benign enslavement and is thus a censored piece of writing. The second is that this narrative corresponds neither to the time period nor geographic location that my thesis will operate in.

Dulfano, Isabel. 2015. Indigenous feminist narratives: I/we: wo(men) of an(other) way.

This source is a collection of essays by indigenous Latin American women scholars. It is undoubtedly a modern source far beyond the time period that my project encompasses but it lets me hear an indigenous voice. I don’t expect to extract facts from this source, but rather I am reading it for the indigenous world-view that it presents. 

Menchú, Rigoberta, and Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. 1984. I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian woman in Guatemala. London: Verso.

This book is an extremely influential account of the life of an impoverished indigenous woman in Guatemala. Again, this source fits neither the time period nor geographic location of my research, so I am reading it primarily for the indigenous voice it provides. 

Walker, David, and Peter P. Hinks. 2000. David Walker's appeal to the coloured citizens of the world. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press.

This primary source is a powerful call to action to the black people of the world. It is an attempt at building their collective consciousness about their own power and the depravity, hypocrisy, and ultimately weakness of the white race. The source is written by David Walker, a black American; it gives voice to the hate and anger of many enslaved people in 19^th century America.

Slave Ship Journeys

Rediker, Marcus. 2007. The slave ship: a human history. New York: Viking.

This source is available from the Stanford libraries, and I am in the process of having it delivered. This source was recommended to me by Alex, and from it I hope to learn about the Middle Passage so that I might at least imagine the horrors of those who lived it. As of now, I plan for my story’s protagonist to be born on a slave ship, so I will read this source to try to depict what my ancestors survived as viscerally as I can.

Rediker, Marcus. 2012. The Amistad rebellion: an Atlantic odyssey of slavery and freedom. New York: Viking.

This source will also give me some insight into the lives of survivors of the Middle Passage. Beyond that, it will help me better understand the acts of resistance that happened aboard the slave ships. I am concerned that this source, like many does not fit the context of my thesis and am a bit worried that perhaps I am spending too much time on such sources for lack of ones that specifically address my topic.  

Maroon Communities

The rebellions and communities of the enslaved will be a crucial part of my thesis. In order to investigate this, I will read parts of the following two works. Both of these are available in print from the Stanford libraries, but will take some days to deliver. Their titles tell me that they give an account of Palenque, which was one of the major maroon communities in Colombia. From these sources, I hope to get a clearer sense of the struggle involved in the process by which black people claimed and defended Latin American land as their own. Additionally, these might provide some insight into the relationship between maroon communities and the indigenous communities they have traditionally coexisted with.

Cassiani Herrera, Alfonso. 2014. Palenque Magno: resistencias y luchas libertarias del Palenque de la Matuna a San Basilio Magno 1599-1714.

Arrazola, Roberto. 1970. Palenque: primer pueblo libre de América. Cartagena: Ediciones Hernández.

PRIMARY SOURCE - BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS

A description of the Spanish genocide in the colony of Nueva Granada (Present-Day Colombia) 

*****Trigger Warning: Graphic Violence*****

The year 1539 saw a number of adventurers set out from Venezuela, Santa Marta, and Cartagena for Peru. Others, already in Peru, set off inland to explore further. What they found, three hundred leagues inland from Santa Marta and Cartagena, was a vast fertile tract of beautiful country, home to a teeming population of people every bit as docile and virtuous as the natives of other parts of the New World, and extraordinarily rich both in gold and in those precious stones known as emeralds. This land they dubbed the kingdom of New Granada, because the first adventurer to clap eyes on it hailed from Granada in Spain.¹³⁵ The names of the Spaniards who come from all over to ‘explore’ this region figure high on the roll of honour of master butchers and experts in the spilling of human blood. Those concerned were veterans of some of the earlier bloody campaigns in other parts of the New World which we have already described; yet their appalling record in this new kingdom was such as to put all their previous exploits in the shade, for they now proceeded to commit outrages of a truly fiendish nature and on a quite unprecedented scale.

I shall give a short account of only one or two of the numberless crimes perpetrated over the last three years (and there is no indication of any let-up in such activity even today). It so happened that the then governor, determined to preserve for himself a free hand in plundering and murdering throughout this kingdom, baulked attempts made by one of these adventurers to get his hands on a share of the spoils. The individual who found himself thwarted in this fashion reacted by gathering together a number of eye-witnesses and compiling an official report of what was going on. This report, listing atrocities, outrages and widespread murder, was then laid before the Council of the Indies where a copy of it is still held to this day.

The witnesses swear that the whole kingdom was at peace and that the people were happily attending to the Spaniards's every need, continually bringing them things to eat that they had grown for themselves, tilling the soil for them, building houses, and presenting them with gold, the precious stones known as emeralds, and everything else they possessed or could obtain. To realize their long-term purpose of seizing all the available gold, the Spaniards employed their usual strategy of apportioning among themselves (or encommending, as they have it)¹³⁶ the towns and their inhabitants – ordinary people and leaders – and then, as ever, treating them as common slaves. The man in overall command of the expedition seized the king of the whole territory for himself and held him prisoner for six or seven months, quite illicitly demanding more and more gold and emeralds from him. This king, one Bacatá,¹³⁷ was so terrified that, in his anxiety to free himself from the clutches of his tormentors, he consented to a demand that he fill an entire house with gold and hand it over; to this end, he sent his people off in a search for gold, and bit by bit they brought it to him along with many precious stones. But still the house was not filled and the Spaniards eventually declared that they would put him to death for breaking his promise. The commander suggested they should bring the case before him, as a representative of the law, and when they did so, entering formal accusations against the king, he sentenced him to torture should he persist in not honouring the bargain. They tortured him with the strappado, put burning tallow on his belly, pinned both his legs to poles with iron hoops and his neck with another and then, with two men holding his hands, proceeded to burn the soles of his feet. From time to time, the commander would look in and repeat that they would torture him to death slowly unless he produced more gold, and this is what they did, the king eventually succumbing to the agonies they inflicted on him. The Lord sent a sign of His own abomination of such barbarity by burning down the entire town as they were in the very act of applying the torture.

Each of the other Spaniards in turn, versed as they were in nothing save the science of tearing hapless victims limb from limb, imitated his fine commander by devising fresh tortures for the cacique and lord of the town under his jurisdiction, even though these leaders and all their people had done nothing but minister to the Spaniards' every need and bring them more and more gold and emeralds. Such gifts were repaid by the donors' being tortured and having demands made of them for yet more gold and precious stones, and in this fashion the lords of the entire region were burned and dismembered.

A local lord, by name Daitama, was so terrified of the reputation for outrageous cruelty enjoyed by one such Spaniard that he took to the mountains along with his people in an attempt to escape such inhumanity. The local people see the mountains as a refuge and flight as a solution to their plight (though it is seldom an effective one); the Spanish term such action an ‘uprising’ and a ‘rebellion’. When the villainous commander-in-chief heard what had happened, he sent reinforcements to help the very butcher whose ferocity had driven the peaceful and long-suffering natives to flee. They eventually tracked them down (for even in the bowels of the earth these people are not safe from the Spanish), and proceeded to hack to pieces over five hundred souls – men, women and children – slaughtering all and sparing none. Eye-witnesses record that, before the massacre, the local lord, this Daitama, presented his Spanish tormentor with four or five thousand castilians, but they killed him and massacred his people all the same.

The commander-in-chief arrived one night in another city where a large number of local people had offered their services to the Spaniards and had, with their customary humility and simple innocence, been ministering to their every need. Thinking it a good idea to do something that would terrorize the entire territory, he ordered his men to put the entire local population to the sword as they slept or ate their evening meal or rested from the day's labours.

In a separate incident, four or five hundred souls perished when the commander carried out a census to ascertain the numbers of caciques, lords and common people each Spaniard had as part of his household, and then ordered them all to be paraded in the square where he had them beheaded. According to witnesses, his notion was that this measure would cow the entire territory into submission.