The Art of Being In-between: Native Intermediaries, Indian Identity, and Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca

by Yanna Yannakakis

In The Art of Being In-between Yanna Yannakakis rethinks processes of cultural change and indigenous resistance and accommodation to colonial rule through a focus on the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, a rugged, mountainous, ethnically diverse, and overwhelmingly indigenous region of colonial Mexico. Her rich social and cultural history tells the story of the making of colonialism at the edge of empire through the eyes of native intermediary indigenous governors clothed in Spanish silks, priests’ assistants, interpreters, economic middlemen, legal agents, landed nobility, and “Indian conquistadors.” Through political negotiation, cultural brokerage, and the exercise of violence, these fascinating intercultural figures redefined native leadership, sparked indigenous rebellions, and helped forge an ambivalent political culture that distinguished the hinterlands from the centers of Spanish empire. Through interpretation of a wide array of historical sources—including descriptions of public rituals, accounts of indigenous rebellions, idolatry trials, legal petitions, court cases, land disputes, and indigenous pictorial histories—Yannakakis weaves together an elegant narrative that illuminates political and cultural struggles over the terms of local rule. As cultural brokers, native intermediaries at times reconciled conflicting interests, and at other times positioned themselves in opposing camps over the outcome of municipal elections, the provision of goods and labor, landholding, community ritual, the meaning of indigenous “custom” in relation to Spanish law, and representations of the past. In the process, they shaped an emergent “Indian” identity in tension with other forms of indigenous identity and a political order characterized by a persistent conflict between local autonomy and colonial control. This innovative study provides fresh insight into colonialism’s disparate cultures and the making of race, ethnicity, and the colonial state and legal system in Spanish America.

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 4, 2008

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Between the Spanish conquest and Latin American independence about three centuries passed, a period which most history leaves behind as quickly as possible. The popular image of the era is of a series of unpronounceable viceregal names, along with the occasional person of interest--say, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz--in what is otherwise an unrelieved parade of brutality inflicted by Spanish landowners and the Inquisition. The focus, then, is on the Spanish, who were, despite their power and the dramatic decline of native populations, always a small minority. What Yanna Yannakis' book does is to focus on the native response to the Spanish--in this case, late in the viceregal period and limited to a handful of Zapotec towns in Oaxaca. While Yannakis narrates a native uprising with apparent roots in a desire to maintain clandestine religious customs, his main focus is on a group of enterprising Zapotecs who used their bilingualism and ability to write--neither trait in great supply in the early 1700s--to represent clients before the Spanish courts and not incidentally, defend themselves against charges brought against their enemies. It was an era when documents, and the ability to keep or even read them, was a source of power by itself. By focussing on these enterprising agents, by no means free of ambition themselves, Yannakakis reminds us although the Spanish were largely those who wrote history, they were by no means the only people who made it.

[Romina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Villa Alta district of Northern Mexico has maintained a reputation as a place where tradition is preserved. Yanna Yannakakis, a scholar the legal and ethnohistory of colonial Mexico, would agree that the people of the sierra have continued up to the present-day a culture of resistance against the state (either colonial or by the Mexican state) to curtail autonomous control of their district. However, Yannakakis notes that, “a colonial framework largely defines the political culture of the sierra (xiii).” In her book The Art of Being In-Between: Native Intermediaries, Indian Identity, and Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca, Yannakakis researched the legal developments between native intermediaries and Spanish brokers from the years 1660 to 1810. By doing so, Yannakakis exposes the agency and tactics used by native intermediaries who attempted to negotiate native autonomy. At the same time, she reveals that as native communities became better versed in their legal battles, they found themselves further tied and reliant on the state for solving their problems. Yet, native intermediaries gave local communities the political space needed to maintain autonomous and multiethnic recognition.

Yannakakis begins her narrative by discussing the impacts of two rebellions: the Tehuantepec Rebellion of 1660 and the Cajonos Rebellion of 1770. She highlights the 1660 rebellion as one that exemplifies the native contiguous struggle for autonomy. The 1770 rebellion is noted as a watershed because the Spanish response was to further their colonial domination through the expansion of parishes and by increasing the number of priests, led by the Dominican order (90). The other response by the Real Audiencia was to organize a semi-public execution of its native defendants and, in turn, memorialize the two native (“buenos indios”) fiscales who were disappeared by the native community. According to Yannakakis, the Spaniards interpreted the rebellion as a larger threat than in actuality. For the communities involved in the Cojonos Rebellion, their prime motivation was to restitute the betrayal against them by the fiscales. According t0 Yannakakis, the Cojonos Rebellion represents the end of Pax Hispanica in Villa Alta(9) and the initiation of a system of contestation between the state and, in what she coins, “the shadow system.” The “shadow system” was carried out by native intermediaries who combined “native forms of social organization” with Spanish colonial forms in which “[p]ueblo-based parcialidades appear to have intersected with and crosscut interpueblo parcialidades (58).”

Part 2 of The Art of Being In-Between looks deeper into how the shadow system was played out. Yannakakis shows that this bilateral and bicultural system exposed the tug-a-war between Spanish rule and native communities. The Spanish state was seeking to further centralize their control over Villa Alta that was viewed by them as a chaotic, multi-loci system in need of a cabacera-sujeto (106, 116). The native rebuttal (tactic) was to highlight “ancient customs” in a way that did not contradict Christianity. The indio ladinos played a legal and performative role in mediating the inherit contradiction of the parallel existence of a Spanish and native republic. Yannakakis gives as an example the legal battles between the Tanetze and Yae communities, which underscore the ethnic disputes over autonomy and control (104). In other words, some communities used the Spanish courts as an avenue to legitimize control over neighboring lands or communities and others used litigation to maintain autonomy.

While native intermediaries gained importance throughout the 18th century, by the late part of the century their place declined due to the Spanish Crown’s intent to solidify their economic and political control over their American colonies through the Bourbon Reforms. Part 3 of The Art of Being In-Between analyzes how this manifested in Villa Alta and how the reforms affected the place of native intermediaries and their communities. Yannakakis notes that the Bourbon Reforms pushed for further centralization of the region by eliminating “alcaldes mayors with subdelegados” to tie the chain of command deeper into the state bureaucracy (163). The Spanish state confiscated community treasuries and sought to end the cultural and political autonomy asserted by the native communities. Most notably, the role of native intermediaries declined due to the change in what the Spanish state accepted as a legitimate chain of command and the imposition of a Spanish-speaking policy as a requirement for state sanctioned positions and court representation (174-175). This highlighted the Spanish Crown’s last push to finish their evangelization of their native subjects. Yannakakis explains that the view of a Spanish-speaking native shifted from inauthentic suspicions to “a sign of obedience (174).” These reforms also pressed for the erasure of ethnic autonomy in local matters and the historical legacy of native participation in the Spanish conquest. The loss of privileges bestowed to native conquerors by the Spanish state ceased as native peoples identities and histories were homogenized into the all-encompassing “indio.” The further centralization of the state instituted by the Bourbon Reforms and the development of a binary discourse that eliminated multiethnic identities are important factors that influenced the onslaught of independence and the development of a “raceless” discrourse (30, 224). Yet, according to Yannakakis, Oaxaca has maintained this legacy of ancient and multiethnic custom that has set itself apart from other regions of Mexico (226).

The Art of Being In-Between offers a new vista of Mexican and Oaxacan state formation. Through the course of the 18th century, native intermediaries were essential to maintaining a multi-loci and multi-ethnic organization through the shadow system. However, the Bourbon Reforms brought an end to this legacy. While native communities embedded a reliance on the Spanish courts as legitimate voices in their disputes, that “reliance” was based on a history of colonial violence. The decline of native conquistadors and the homogenization of “indios” greatly implicated the politics that would define Mexican nationalism. Yannakakis notes that, “native intermediaries have shaped a tension that remains at the heart of Mexican nationhood: multiethnicity versus indigenismo (226).” If native intermediaries are central to this tension, The Art of Being In-Between does not only imply the need to study these figures during the colonial period, but the roots of their implications and their erasure by the Spanish Crown which transitioned into the political narrative base for Mexican nationalism and supposed “racelessness.” While I find her over emphasis of intermediaries as unfounded, her intent to write a history about people living and confronting colonialism in the peripheries is thought provoking. I would have given her five stars if it wasn't for her writing style and laxidasical use of theory.