Conflicts in a Colonial Contact Zone: Violence, Coercion, and Mediation in Spanish-Indigenous Relations in the Sixteenth-Century Gobernación of Popayán

Abstract

This article studies the conflicts between conquerors and conquered in the Gobernación (governorate) of Popayán (modern Colombia) in the second half of the sixteenth century. The conflicts were arguably part of a negotiation process between the different groups which played a significant part in shaping the colonial societies. The article also studies the attempts of the colonial bureaucracy to intervene in inter-ethnic relations, and transfer the negotiation process to the colonial institutions. The relationships were not fixed, as the interethnic dynamics constantly changed. The colonial contact zone was a place of negotiation, but also a place of struggle, where the indigenous subjects constantly challenged the conquerors' aspirations. Struggle and negotiation were not mutually exclusive as forms of interaction. Violence and threat of it were part of the negotiation process. The interethnic conflicts were a dynamic force through which the colonial society took shape. In this article, I use diverse source material from several colonial archives, including demographic, judicial, and administrative documents, looking especially for clues revealing indigenous agency in colonial society.