Florencia E. Mallon, Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906-2001, Radical Perspectives (Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 2005). By N. H. Gill (May 17, 2019) – Florencia Mallon’s 2005 book, Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906-2001, examines… Read More Florencia Mallon, Courage Tastes of Blood: Review
Indigenous elites stood at the intersection of political subjugation and cultural survival in Spanish and Portuguese America. Over more than three centuries they acted as intermediaries between their communities and outsiders, as defenders before the law, and even as collaborators with local power groups in the exploitation of their own people. As such, they wielded… Read More Indigenous Elites, Subjugation, and Cultural Survival in Colonial Latin America
Asunción Lavrin, ed. Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America. 1. paperback print. Latin American Studies Series. Lincoln, Neb.: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1992. Asunción Lavrin’s edited volume, Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, presents a series of perspectives on what Lavrin calls the “conquest of the mind,” the means through which the Spanish… Read More Asunción Lavrin, Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America: Review
Like many global hotspots of the twentieth century, the Andes is marked by its history of structural inequality, racial conflict, and legacies of poverty and violence. Tensions between urban and rural areas as well as between descendants of European and Andean ancestry still exist and remain a source of scholarly interest in the region. In… Read More Surveying the Field: Peasant Power in Andean History
When historian James Lockhart published his renown article “Encomienda and Hacienda” in 1969, the modern historiography on haciendas was already more than forty-years-old.[1] Yet even after decades, historians were only beginning to understand these New World estates in terms of their origins and functions as colonial institutions. Early twentieth century scholars debated the extent of… Read More Between Two Worlds: Andean Haciendas in Colonial History
(Published originally in Mediato) Nathan Gill — 21 mayo de 2018 La mina de oro y plata Río Blanco, atacada y quemada este mes por manifestantes de la comunidad, es emblemática en la industria minera ecuatoriana por todas las razones equivocadas. Haciendo caso omiso a la resistencia de las comunidades locales, del Municipio de Cuenca y… Read More Minería: del dicho al hecho
(Published originally in Mediato) Nathan Gill — 19 de Marzo de 2018 El informe borrador –el cual aún no es concluyente– de la Contraloría sobre la deuda pública, presentado el 14 de marzo pasado, es un triunfo estratégico para el presidente Lenín Moreno. No solo permite responsabilizar al expresidente Rafael Correa del despilfarro fiscal, sino… Read More Correa, China y la Asamblea, afectados por el informe de la deuda
(Published originally in Mediato) Nathan Gill — 19 de febrero de 2018 El referéndum del 4 de febrero fue significativo. En su nivel más obvio, le dio al presidente Lenín Moreno una sólida victoria política y al expresidente Rafael Correa una derrota asombrosa. Pero más allá de las reacciones en Quito, los votantes en las zonas… Read More Ecuador habló: La minería es peor que Correa
Karen Spalding, Huarochirí, an Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1984). Karen Spalding’s history of colonial Peru, Huarochirí, begins with the origins of Andean society, following social changes from pre-Inca days until the height of colonial rule. Written in the mid-1980s amidst a brutal economic crisis that inordinately impacted… Read More Karen Spalding, Huarochirí: Review
Golte, Jürgen. Repartos y rebeliones: Túpac Amaru y las contradicciones de la economía colonial. Translated by Carlos Degregori Caso. Primera edicón. Estudios históricos Colección clásicos 6. Lima: IEP, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1980. Jürgen Golte’s Repartos y Rebeliones, published in German in 1977 and translated into Spanish by Carlos Degregori in 1980, analyzes the implementation,… Read More Repartos y Rebeliones: Review
Bakewell, P. J. Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosí, 1545-1650. 1st ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984. Peter Bakewell’s Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosí, 1545-1650 makes a targeted intervention into Andean colonial history by analyzing evolving labor systems at the colonial silver mines of Potosí.[1] Given the… Read More Miners of the Red Mountain: Review
Stern, Steve J. Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. Steve J. Stern centers his monograph on colonial Huamanga, a strategic military and economic region along the route between Lima and Potosí. It was the location of the Huancavelica and Castrovirreyna mercury and… Read More Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Review
By N. H. Gill In 1503, the Spanish monarchy issued its first decree for the resettlement of indigenous groups in the Caribbean so that they would “live together” and “not remain or wander separated from each other in the backcountry.” [1]As the European conquest spread to North, Central, and South America, these new settlements –… Read More Moving to the Suburbs: Reducciones in Recent Latin American Historiography
Alejandro Velasco, Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2015). Alejandro Velasco’s Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela (2015) uses the Caracas superblock housing complex, known today as 23 de Enero, to analyze Venezuela’s transition from the dictatorship of Marcos… Read More Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela: Review
Daniel James, Doña María’s Story: Life History, Memory, and Political Identity, Latin America Otherwise (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000). Imagine you have thirty hours of interviews, nine months of work, more than seven decades of oral history from a privileged witness to the rise of Peronism and the Argentine labor movement…and then you start… Read More Oral History: Ventriloquism or Privileged Interpretation?
Thomas D. Rogers, The Deepest Wounds: A Labor and Environmental History of Sugar in Northeast Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Thomas Rogers’ The Deepest Wounds argues that Pernambuco sugar planters “saw no distinction between land and labor” (8). Enslaved and free workers on cane plantations were demoted in elites’ eyes to… Read More Brazil’s Last Slave: The Captive Environment in Pernambuco’s Sugar Fields
Pavilack, Jody. Mining for the Nation: The Politics of Chile’s Coal Communities from the Popular Front to the Cold War. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011. When Chile granted literate men over the age of 21 the right to vote in 1925, a new era marked by the rise of mass society… Read More Digging Out of Darkness: Labor, Capital, and the Chilean State in the Age of Mass Society
Charles F. Walker, The Tupac Amaru Rebellion (Cambridge, Massachussetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014). Charles Walker left few stones unturned in The Tupac Amaru Rebellion, an impressive analysis of Spain’s largest colonial rebellion. This essay briefly examines two original arguments and two secondary claims made by Walker that help shape our understanding… Read More How the Story Ends: Chronology and Gender in the Tupac Amaru Rebellion
Bloomberg Businessweek, March 28 — April 3, 2016 Susan Lamy and her husband, Jean Pierre, owned a successful interior design business in Westport, Conn., but they still worried about how they would make ends meet in retirement. “Just paying for the basic necessities was killing us, and we could see that there was no way… Read More Greetings From Gringolandia
By Nathan Gill April 19, 2016 (Bloomberg) — Before a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Ecuador on Saturday, the South American nation’s finances were already in tatters as the government struggled to meet payments to municipal authorities, oil companies and even cancer hospitals. Cut off from global bond markets, President Rafael Correa must now find enough money to… Read More Bailout Risk Grows for Ecuador After Worst Earthquake in Decades
By Benjamin Bain and Nathan Gill April 16, 2016 (Bloomberg) — World leaders from the Vatican to Washington offered support to Ecuador as casualties mounted following one of the strongest earthquakes to strike the South American country in decades. By Sunday evening, the number of dead had climbed to at least 246, from 77 earlier… Read More Ecuador Quake Death Toll Rises as World Leaders Offer Support
By Nathan Gill and John Quigley April 12, 2016 (Bloomberg) — The victory by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former finance minister, for second place in Sunday’s Peruvian president elections sets up a showdown between two business-friendly candidates, part of a regional backlash against left-wing politicians. Kuczynski, a 77-year-old Oxford-trained political economist who’s spent more than 50… Read More 77-Year-Old Wall Street Favorite to Face Fujimori in Peru Runoff
By Nathan Gill and Andrew Willis April 8, 2016 (Bloomberg News) — Oil-producing countries must take the necessary steps to stabilize the global crude market in a bid to improve prices, Ecuador Foreign Minister Guillaume Long said on behalf of Latin American nations after a gathering in Quito. Waiting for the market to balance itself would… Read More Latin America Oil Producers Call for Action to Improve Prices
By Nathan GillNovember 18, 2015 (Bloomberg) — Ecuador is poised to do something it’s never done in its more than 180-year history: repay a bond. “What’s positive is that Ecuador has a new chance to honor, for the first time, the payment of its bonds,” said Santiago Mosquera, a former Fitch Ratings analyst who is… Read More Eight Defaults and 180 Years Later, Ecuador to Repay Bondholders
By Nathan Gill August 24, 2015 (Bloomberg) — As emerging markets come unhinged around the world, few nations face tougher challenges than Ecuador, a dollarized oil producer in El Nino’s path, where street protests are flaring up alongside one of the planet’s most dangerous volcanoes. “Sometimes it makes you want to laugh,” said Jose Hidalgo, director… Read More Everything Is Going Wrong in Ecuador
By Nathan Gill July 9, 2015 (Bloomberg) — Pope Francis asked for forgiveness for crimes committed by the Catholic Church during the colonization of the Americas at a summit in Bolivia, home to one of the region’s largest indigenous populations. “I say with sorrow that the church has committed many serious sins against the indigenous… Read More Pope Apologizes for Church Abuse in Conquest of the Americas
By Nathan Gill and John Follain July 5, 2015 (Bloomberg) — Pope Francis arrived in Ecuador Sunday, starting a nine-day visit to South America in which he’s expected to focus on the poor and challenge policies on oil drilling that damage the environment.“In the words of the gospel, we can find the keys that will… Read More Pope Francis Brings Focus on Poor to South America
By Nathan Gill (Bloomberg) — This year’s climb in crude prices, however slight, brought relief to Venezuelan and Ecuadorean bondholders after last year’s crash decimated the oil producers’ revenue and prompted concern they were running short of cash. Now, the pessimism is back. While New York oil futures have surged 36 percent from a six-year… Read More Venezuela Bonds Trapped by Oil’s New Normal as Relief Rally Ends
By Nathan Gill (Bloomberg) — Ecuador, the world’s biggest grower of flavored beans used in fine chocolate, will probably lose about 15 percent of this year’s cocoa crop after heavy rains hurt farms in the Andean nation’s coastal region, the National Cocoa Exporters Association said. Anecacao, as the association is known, reduced its 2015 forecast… Read More Ecuador Cocoa Forecast Cut to 230,000 Tons After Rains Hit Crops
By Nathan Gill (Bloomberg) — Ecuador President Rafael Correa’s attempt to defuse nationwide protests by back-tracking on two controversial tax proposals failed to prevent opposition supporters marching for a ninth straight day Tuesday. Protesters gathered in the capital city, Quito, less than 24 hours after Correa called for calm and announced he would delay plans… Read More Correa’s Back-Track on Tax Bills Fails to Halt Ecuador Protests
By Nathan Gill (Bloomberg) — Ecuador’s home-grown digital currency is nothing to fear. At least that’s the conclusion of analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co. to Credit Suisse Group AG and Nomura Securities International Inc. The country’s bonds fell last week after the government ordered banks to start accepting a new electronic tender it created… Read More JPMorgan Says Not to Worry as Ecuador Promotes Digital Currency
By Nathan Gill (Bloomberg) — Ecuador, which uses the U.S. dollar as its official currency, will require banks to offer services tied to a government-created electronic coin. Lenders with assets greater than $1 billion as of Dec. 31 have 120 days to fulfill the requirement, while smaller banks will get as long as a year,… Read More Ecuador Requiring Banks to Offer Electronic Currency Services
By Nathan Gill (Bloomberg) — Enrique Perez, who’s been building homes for most of his life in Ecuador, is finally going to make one for himself. Perez is an unlikely beneficiary of the plunge in crude prices. That prompted Ecuador, an OPEC nation, to offer mortgage subsidies to people like Perez, a construction worker. Ecuador… Read More South America’s Commodity Rout Spurs Public Spending on Housing
