THE UPPER AMAZON IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE (PERU, ECUADOR).
Item
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Title
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THE UPPER AMAZON IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE (PERU, ECUADOR).
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Identifier
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AAI8302511
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identifier
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8302511
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Creator
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GOLOB, ANN.
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Contributor
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Eleanor Leacock
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Date
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1982
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural
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Abstract
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This dissertation is a study of the Upper Amazon region of Peru and Ecuador during the colonial era. The study is based on documents written by the Jesuit missionaries who worked in the region from 1636 to 1767. Three major topics are studied in depth: the Jesuit program and personnel; contact with and "pacification" of the Upper Amazon; and Indian life in the mission villages. While a study of the Jesuits themselves is intrinsically interesting, it also serves the need for ethnohistorians to develop a clearer understanding of the background of the missionaries on whose writings they often depend for their research.;The second topic deals with the process of contact and pacification in the Upper Amazon by the Spanish explorers, the settlers and slave raiders as well as by the Jesuits. The Indians under both the Spanish and the Jesuits experienced continual raiding of the interior to bring them to the riverine mission villages and Spanish settlements. The growth of the missions was in fact based on the continual raiding of the inland regions. As a result, hostility and aggression became the dominant relationship between the two regions during the colonial era.;The third topic is life within the mission villages established by the Jesuits. Three aspects of mission life are studied: the growth and decline of the mission villages, that is, the population dynamics that can be reconstructed from demographic records and descriptions by the missionaries; the reorganization of production and social life for the Indians, in particular the structuring of new lines of factionalism that permeated every aspect of mission life; and the social relations within the villages.;The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the implications of the historical data for reconsidering analyses of the Amazon that do not take into account the extent to which historical events transformed the nature of relationships among and within Indian settlements.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Anthropology
