¿Conquistar indios o evangelizar almas? Políticas de sometimiento en las provincias de las tierras bajas del Pacífico (1560-1680)

Abstract

This article analyzes how changes in subjugation policy impacted the different indigenous nations inhabiting the Pacific lowlands and under the judicial jurrisdiction of Santafe, Quito, and Panama. In their eagerness to obtain riches, colonial authorities, along with the vecinos (neighbours) of Andean urban centers, constructed a series of negative discourses about the Indians that legitimized a brutal war lasting almost a century. The failure of this policy in the mid-seventeenth century permited the establishment of a series of missions in this territory that sought to dominate the indigenous population, but now through evangelization, a seemingly "softer" technique. Despite the differences between these two policies of subjugation, both sought to include indigenous peoples in part of the colonial economic system.

Keywords

• Indians
• war
• evangelization
• settlement
• Pacific lowlands
• conqueror.