Mestizaje y frontera en las tierras del Pacífico del Nuevo Reino de Granada, siglos XVI y XVII

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the different relations of miscegenation that occurred in the Pacific territory of the New Kingdom of Granada during the first two centuries of European occupation. The study reveals that, contrary to what a broad sector of historiography has sustained, the Conquest was not unilateral and compact, but rather a discontinuous and heterogeneous process that permitted the rise of new groups such as the Mestizos. When these groups were educated in the colonial world, they participated actively in the wars against the Indians, but when they were brought up within the indigenous societies, they also knew how to attack the Conquistadors. The study uses different sources to analyze the process of miscegenation not only from the biological perspective, but from the cultural perspective as well. It is thus possible to understand how an intense process of racial-mixing known as mestizaje took place on both sides of the colonial boundary line.

Keywords

• Frontier
• war
• Pacific (Thesaurus); mestizaje
• Ladinos
• conquest