Anti-Colonial Movements, Latin America

From the early nativist revitalization uprisings to the wars of independence, Latin America has been the stage of numerous, variegated, and complex anticolonial movements. Reflecting the multiethnic, multicultural, and conflictive nature of their societies, anti-colonial struggles were propelled by an impressive diversity of political views and utopian agendas. Insurgents did not always look for a radical break with colonialism, and demands for equal treatment, better living and working conditions, or religious recognition did not necessarily imply repudiating the monarchs across the Atlantic. Anti-colonial programs were often contradictory, exclusionary, and in need of a great deal of improvisation. They evidenced the complicated nature of relations of resistance and domination under colonialism and the multiple sources of anti-colonial thought and activism in Latin America.

As early as 1564, the Spanish Crown faced a movement, the Taqui Onkoy, which aimed to end European domination and restore the supremacy of the ancient gods. The Taqui Onkoy (“dance of sickness”) was a [Page 128]Pan-Andean movement of revitalization that broke out near Cuzco and soon expanded from La Paz to Chuquisaca, Huamanga, and even to Lima and Arequipa. The taquiongos, for the most part Indians who had become Christians, danced and trembled while being possessed by huacas (Andean gods). Using the taquiongos as mouthpieces, the huacas reprimanded the Indians for abandoning them and threatened to kill all those who did not leave Christianity or stopped cooperating with the Spaniards. At its peak, the movement allegedly gathered 8,000 individuals. Its revivalist message exposed a moral crisis of old patterns of reciprocity that had been undermined by Spanish colonialism. Although the Taqui Onkoy aimed at a solidarity transcending old ethnic divisions, it did not succeed in building a Pan-Andean coalition and was brutally repressed by Spanish authorities.

Like the Taqui Onkoy, many other rebellions had a limited impact because of their incapacity to build a united front against the colonizers. In 1680, however, the Pueblo caciques of Taos, Picuris, San Lorenzo, Santo Domingo, Jémez, and Pecos set aside their differences to rebel under the leadership of a medicine man named Popé. The Puebloans had endured years of drought, famine, pestilence, and death, and Popé blamed the colonizers for their suffering. Only after killing the Spaniards and their God, he claimed, would the katsina (the ancient gods) return, bringing along a new era of prosperity. On August 10, 1680, an army of 8,000 Indian warriors razed churches and pillaged Spanish settlements, killing more than 400 settlers within hours. After several days of resisting in Santa Fe, the Spaniards fled south toward El Paso. They would not come back until 1692, when Diego de Vargas, New Mexico's new governor, succeeded in subduing the rebels.

During the 18th century, a number of popular rebellions and insurrections made evident the social and racial tensions and economic inequalities that riddled the colonies. Many of these movements were protests against the absolutist policies of the Bourbons in Spain and Sebastião José de Carvalho, the Marquis of Pombal, in Portugal. Implemented to rationalize colonial exploitation, strengthen the colonies' links to the metropolis, improve tax collection, and revamp the entire colonial administration, the Bourbon reforms also discouraged popular expressions of piety and collective devotion as unnecessary and extravagant. The combined impact of these socioeconomic, political, and religious reforms brought together different social groups against the government. For instance, between 1749 and 1752, cacao producers of Venezuela rebelled against the imposition of belowmarket prices by the monopolistic Guipúzcoa Company. A few years later, in 1765, an anti-tax movement rose in Quito in the context of a decline of the textile industry. In 1788 and 1789, a similar anti-tax revolt took place in Ouro Preto, in the mining district of Minas Gerais. Most of these movements looked for reforms and rarely challenged colonialism per se. This was not, however, always the case.

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