Forging Space in the Missionary Borderlands of the Atlantic World: Indigenous Appropriations of Cartographic Discourse in the 18th century

WILDE, GUILLERMO

Londres

Conferencia; Cross-cultural transformations in the Atlantic World (16th-19th centuries); 2018

King´s college - Universidad de Londres

Cartographic production was a crucial device of territorial recognition and control used by Jesuit missionaries in the exploration of the borderlands of Iberian Empires. Maps production considerably increased in the second half of eighteenth century, when the project of resettling indigenous populations living in the most remote regions of Latin American expanded. Members of the indigenous elites rapidly incorporated the technology of cartography and got involved in the creation of maps in the framework of land conflicts between mission towns. As a result, divergent styles of visual representation of space associated to different and simultaneous levels of interaction emerged. One level related to the interaction between missionaries and observers in both sides of the Atlantic. Another level linked to local interactions between missionaries and Indians. This presentation examines these divergent styles of cartographic production, identifying their elements and confluences, and pondering their influence in the shaping of South Atlantic territory and law.