Native Americans & Adaptation of Dominant Cultures

This paper examines the ways in which native American peoples and people of African descent resisted, revolted from, escaped, adapted, and incorporated the dominating culture in Mesoamerica and Peru during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. The conquest of the Americas by the Spanish was among the most complete and oppressive in all the New World, managing to overpower and, in some cases, eradicate the existing cultures. However, the oppressed minorities were able to retain some elements of their own identities, often creating elegant adaptations and responsive solutions to the efforts of their conquerors. An ongoing nativist movement was also part of their attempt to retain their individuality in the face of powerful invading forces.

Within a few decades of European discovery of the New World, the Spanish had already laid claim to substantial portions of Mexico, Mesoamerica, Peru, and other contiguous areas, dominating the existing cultures and imposing their own rule over the lands. This domination lasted until 1821 but continues to have a profound effect on the area. By the 18th century, Spanish conquest had created a unique society in which those most resistant to Spanish influence were the most oppressed and impoverished. Yet some native peoples managed to evade the worst of these oppressions and even learned to thrive in a predominantly Hispanic culture. Steve J. Stern writes, "The growing poverty of Andean peoples by the early seventeenth century could

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re, most opted for some form of adaptation or incorporation. One of the most striking examples of this response can be seen in the way Catholicism came to the New World. Many Catholic missionaries considered it their calling to bring Christianity to the heathens of America: "The majority of the missionaries believed that the Spanish conquest, despite its attendant evils, was justified precisely because, and to the extent that, the native people were brought into the Christian fold" (Carmack 164). Yet transforming native beliefs proved to be a more complicated task than the missionaries had expected. The Indians could not simply abandon the underlying mindsets that informed their own practices, and Christianity became a kind of overlay, adapted to the fundamental ways of thinking already in place. For example, the concept of religion itself was foreign, so the idea of giving up one set of beliefs in order to embrace another was alien to the Indians. Instead, they added Christian ceremonies and rituals to those they already practiced, finding the common elements in which worship of the Virgin Mary, for instance, was compatible with veneration of their own gods. Appearing to be "more Christian" made the natives more accepted

Category: History - N