Missionaries: From Alaska to Patagonia · Episode 6 of 10 · 34 min
Andean Resistance and the War on "Idolatry": Missions in the Inca World
In the Andes the Spanish found the devout remnant of an empire and later discovered that people declared Christian were still feeding their mummified ancestors in mountain caves. The Church answered with the Extirpation of Idolatries. The episode follows the parish system, the mines of Potosí, the use of Quechua and Aymara, and Felipe Guaman Poma's letter to the king.
Who's who
- Felipe Guaman Poma de AyalaQuechua noble who wrote a 1,200-page illustrated letter to the king
- Francisco de ToledoViceroy whose 1570s resettlements created the parish grid and labor draft
- Toribio de MogrovejoArchbishop who led the Third Council of Lima
- Francisco de ÁvilaInfamous extirpator of idolatries
- Roxana Quispe CollantesScholar who defended the first doctoral thesis in Quechua in 2019
Where it happens
- Potosí, Bolivia+1 more episodeSilver mines fed by the labor draft
- Lima, Peru+2 more episodesWhere the first South American book was printed in 1584
- Vilcabamba, PeruNeo-Inca state that fell in 1572
- Copenhagen, Denmark+2 more episodesRoyal Danish Library holds Guaman Poma's manuscript
Timeline
- 1570sToledo's resettlements create the parish grid and Potosí labor draft
- 1582-1583Third Council of Lima standardizes Quechua and Aymara for the faith
- 1584Doctrina Christiana printed in Lima, first book printed in South America
- Early 1600sExtirpation of Idolatries campaigns begin
- c. 1615Guaman Poma completes his chronicle
- 2019First doctoral thesis written entirely in Quechua defended
Still debated
Standardizing Quechua both preserved the language in print and flattened dialect diversity. Records of the Extirpation, often written by the extirpators, make its scale hard to fix, and Guaman Poma's chronicle is both testimony and a strategic plea. How Christian the Andes really became remains debated.