This presentation seeks to contribute to the debate on the position of the Society of Jesus in the face of the process of conquest and Christianization that the Spanish empire tried to implement in the southern regions of Chile, where the Mapuche Indians maintained secular military resistance and political autonomy. This position oscillated between, on the one hand, hope and enthusiasm at any sign from the indigenous people that pointed to what they understood – or wanted to understand – as an eventual acceptance of the Gospel and Christian rites; and, on the other hand, missionary frustration at the evidence that the indigenous “agency”, which had established itself in an autonomous and rebellious territory since the great revolt at the end of the 16th century destroyed the entire Spanish presence south of the Biobío river, it would end up being included in the behavior of a human universe described as “barbaric” and “savage”, incapable of being incorporated into Christian salvation… although it was possible to be baptized.
Speaker
speakers
Jaime Valenzuela-Márquez
Jaime Valenzuela-Márquez has a PhD in History and Civilizations from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and Full Professor at the Institute of History at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. His research interests include indigenous migrations in the south of the Peruvian viceroyalty, Mapuche slavery in the War of Arauco, the urban ethnohistory of colonial Santiago de Chile and imperial circulations and connections. Your book in preparation is part of this last line: The captain Eraso and his connected world (1571-1617): a biography in his game of scales.
Among his books are: The liturgies of power. Public celebrations and persuasive strategies in colonial Chile (1609-1709); Fiesta, rite and politics. From borbónico to republican Chile; Colonial America. Denominations, classifications and identities; It is America in diasporas. Slavery and forced migrations in Chile and other American regions (16th-19th centuries).
He was a visiting professor at academic institutions in Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and France, and was a resident researcher at universities in Canada, Spain and, more recently, in Portugal, where he is currently on a combined mission between ICS and Universidade Nova of Lisbon, within the scope of the RESISTANCE project (RISE 778076, Horizonte 2020).