Imagining Indigenous Consent and Indigenous Right to Resist in Colonial Latin America

Abstract

This text examines Portuguese and Spanish documentation to show that Iberians invoked a variety of ways by which the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas could consent to their presence and domination. According to these sources, indigenous consent could be explicit or implicit, and it could be free or coerced, with each one of these situations giving rise to a distinct assessment of indigenous right to resist. By observing developments both in the colonies and in Europe, and by surveying both legal doctrine and practice, this article asks: how did Iberians structure and use consent, and what could it do for them? Why and how did they insist on consent when there was little to no possibility to refuse? This article is part of the special theme section on Consenting to Early Modern Empires, guest-edited by Sonia Tycko.

Keywords

• colonialism
• resistance
• consent
• indigenous
• treaty
• coercion