Historia Crítica

Hist. Crit. | eISSN 1900-6152 | ISSN 0121-1617

“The Indians in this Encomienda Have No Women”: Fertility and Gender Systems in the Face of the Indigenous Demographic Collapse. Three Emblematic Cases

No. 77 (2020-07-01)
  • Susana E. Matallana Peláez
    Universidad del Valle, Colombia
https://doi.org/10.7440/histcrit77.2020.02

Abstract

Objective/Context: This work takes up Suzanne Alchon’s historical approach by problematizing the theoretical model that postulates virgin soil epidemics as a sufficient cause of the American demographic collapse, paying special attention to indigenous women of reproductive age and the way in which they were affected by the encomienda system. Methodology: Using a differential gender approach, we examine the demographic information provided by Captain Diego de Ospina’s visits to the encomiendas in the Timaná region (New Granada), between 1628 and 1629. The data obtained is compared with two similar studies carried out in the Americas: one based on a U.S. Government census carried out in 1860, among 17,798 Native Americans of California, and a second, on the demographic patterns of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. Originality: This study aims to contribute to the problematization of the theory of virgin soil epidemics by applying a differential gender approach to the analysis of colonial demographic information. Conclusions: The preliminary results of this triangulation suggest that personal service or related modalities especially affected indigenous women of reproductive age, which had a disastrous impact on the mortality rate of the most fertile female population in the face of epidemics and, therefore, on the indigenous birth rate. This situation slowed down the demographic recovery of the native population and forced pre-Hispanic gender systems to reconfigure to face the demographic collapse.

Keywords: California, fertility, indigenous women, Jesuit missions, New Granada, Paraguay, virgin soil epidemics

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