|
...been harvested ... and ... great many Indians perished of hunger, lying dead along the roads, in the ravines, and in their huts." He continued in a similar vein stating, "The greatest misfortune of all is that they [the colonists] can no longer find a bit of leather to eat, for their herds are dying" (Hackett 1937: 272). Despite these cries of distress, colonists throughout the early colonial period (AD 1598-1680) managed to construct homes, estancias (ranches), the capital (Santa Fe), and Franciscan conventos (missions) in Pueblo villages. Although the colony was not particularly robust, it did persist for nearly one hundred years and was not abandoned until the Pueblo Rebellion when native peoples rose up in revolt, destroyed the conventos and estancias, and forcibly expelled the colonists.
During the early colonial period, Spanish colonists settled among Pueblo villages; planted crops; raised livestock; and imported cloth, ceramics, and tools. Some fortunate individuals and imported sugar, cinnamon, wine, and chocolate (Ivey 1993; Scholes 1936: 329, 1937; D. Snow 1993), and most consumed the Old World crops they grew, as well as foods appropriated from native peoples. Colonists not only created a functioning society for themselves, but also attempted to incorporate the Pueblo peoples into their social and economic systems. Although they had a well-established cuisine based largely on maize, the Pueblos eventually adopted European-introduced crops such as wheat, peaches, and watermelons and today consider some of these introductions to be traditional foods.
Reports from colonists, such as those quoted previously, suggest that finding sufficient food to meet the caloric needs of the colonists and Pueblo peoples was a challenging aspect of early colonial life, but perhaps nearly as important as the nutrients were the social meanings that their foods imparted (Douglas 1997). The choices that colonists and Pueblo peoples made regarding the foods they ate and how they prepared meals had important implications for their social identities. Since social structures in colonial situations are often flexible, an examination of the foods that people prepared and consumed allows us to explore the changing cultural relations accompanying colonization. Using archaeological and documentary analyses of food and cuisine, we can begin to investigate such changes in early colonial New Mexico.
SOCIAL MOBILITY AND CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONS
For colonizers around the world, colonization represented an opportunity for upward social mobility, an escape from economic or social problems at home, and a chance to develop a new social identity (Elliott 1989; A. Smith 1994). New Mexico offered such possibilities because the Spanish government gave colonists land for raising livestock and crops, two enterprises that had proven lucrative to colonists in Mexico. In addition, some settlers who agreed to provide military service were granted an encomienda--the right to collect tribute from converted indigenous peoples. Finally, those original colonists who resided in New Mexico for five years were granted the rank of hidalgo, or nobleman, not a small concession in a hierarchically organized society such as Spain's where such status was valued. Historian Marc Simmons (1991: 65) observed that the privilege associated with hidalgo standing was "something which all commoners craved with unquenchable passion." Although colonists sought upward social mobility, they were faced with novel physical and social environments that challenged their abilities to reproduce Spanish culture. Other than the governors' wives, many of the women colonists in New Mexico were mestizas (women of mixed Spanish and Native American parentage), who brought aspects of their Native American heritage to their families' lifestyles. There were few educational opportunities through which colonists could formally learn about Spanish history, culture, and values, and most New Mexicans were illiterate and unschooled (Scholes 1935: 100). Commenting on life in the seventeenth century, historian France Scholes (1935: 99) notes, "New Mexican life was characterized by a roughness, a lack of luxury and refinement, a crudeness, and a striking degree of ignorance." Because colonial women were unaware of aspects of peninsular Spanish culture (through lack of personal experience or education) and added their own native cultural practices and preferences, archaeologist David Snow (1992:188) argues that "[the women's] ability to recreate and maintain in the Rio Grande a typical or traditional 'Spanish' household or lifestyle can be doubted." In addition to the social difficulties in maintaining Spanish ideals, the harsh environment and the patchy distribution of natural resources such as water and arable soils posed a challenge to the successful production of crops, particularly the European introductions such as wheat, which could be grown only under irrigation. Although Spanish culture helped to define the foods colonists considered palatable, individuals adapted to the novel conditions in the colony by modifying their food choices and the social structures that guided those choices.
Pueblo peoples were also faced with a situation that challenged their traditional values. In contrast to some colonizing countries, Spain considered the indigenous peoples in its dominion to be subjects, although they lacked some of the privileges of the Spaniards (Cutter 1986; Elliott 1989: 52). Since they were incorporated into the empire, native peoples were expected to become "civilized," which meant behaving according to ideal Spanish standards in manners, dress, and customs. Priests, particularly those living at the conventos in Pueblo villages, were aggressive in challenging aspects of Pueblo life that were fundamental to their cultures, such as labor roles and religious practices. (1)
Many of the interactions between the Pueblo peoples and the colonists generated substantial disruptions in the Pueblos' ways of life (Lycett 1989, 2002). The introduction of Old World diseases, for example, devastated their numbers, which had profound effects on their societies. The rapid population loss may have compromised the functioning of their religious structures, which were intimately tied to the political control within communities (Gutierrez 1991). Gutierrez has argued, moreover, that the priests' efforts to convert young men to Catholicism by giving them livestock had a substantial impact on traditional power relations within villages. "The Franciscans' assault on the religious (political) structure of the Indian community to impose their charismatic authority was consciously coupled with an effort to disrupt the system of calculated gift exchange between juniors and seniors that structure inequality in Pueblo society" (Gutierrez 1991: 66). There is no doubt that the colonization of New Mexico substantially altered the Pueblo peoples' traditional values.
While colonization frequently resulted in exploitation, some native peoples were able to manipulate the situation to their benefit. In her analysis of the colonization of the Aztecs in Mexico, anthropologist June Nash (1980: 136) wrote, "Indian women became wives and concubines of the conquerors and often enjoyed treatment preferential to that of the men." Further, "Some women took advantage of the opportunities offered by marriage or concubinage to the Spaniards during the first few decades of colonization when the scarcity of European women enhanced their value among the conquerors" (139). Pueblo individuals, both women and men, wishing to enhance their standing with the colonists may have chosen to take on the trappings of Spanish culture, including its cuisine. Spanish officials may have facilitated this transformation by favoring the most compliant Pueblo people, regardless of their standing in the village, with political roles.
Many Spanish customs and legal practices encouraged close contact between the colonists and Pueblo peoples. The Franciscans constructed conventos in Pueblo villages and lived among the people, forcing them to engage in Spanish pursuits and encouraging them to adopt Spanish customs and Christianity. The priests also established estancias for cultivating crops and livestock, and indigenous people provided much of the labor to staff both the conventos and the estancias. Recognizing that native peoples' labor was critical to the success of the colony, the viceroy specifically encouraged Governor Onate to treat the Pueblos with kindness so that they would willingly provide labor for constructing buildings, irrigation canals, herding, plowing, planting, and harvesting. The Pueblos did provide some of this labor for wages, but those who were reluctant could be legally forced to work in the colonists' households and in the conventos. As punishment for crimes, such as theft or the uprisings at Las Humanas and Acoma, Indians were enslaved to individual colonists. Work in the colonists' households provided what archaeologist David Snow (1992: 187) has called a "microfrontier of interactions."
In addition to labor, the Pueblos supplied colonists with provisions, which were especially important during early years of the colony when the colonists could not produce enough food to support themselves. Throughout the early colonial period, encomenderos, a small group of colonists who were allowed to collect tribute in exchange for past service and future military support, received additional subsistence goods. "Each Indian repairs once a year to his encomendero with a fanega of maize, which is worth four reales, one cotton blanket a vara and a half square, which is valued at one peso, or, in lieu thereof, a raw buffalo hide or deer skin, either of which has the same value" (Petition of Francisco Martinez de Baez, 1639 in Hackett 1937: 120). These goods provided the foundation of the colonists' barter economy and perhaps allowed the encomenderos to achieve even greater standing in the colony (Snow 1983).
These interactions--the deliberate attempts to change Pueblo cultures, the labor provided by native peoples for crop and livestock production in the colonists' households, and the provisioning of colonists with Pueblo food stores--allowed for knowledge of and perhaps access to one another's cuisines. This does not mean, however, that individuals automatically adopted new foods, because such additions needed to be evaluated and brought into concordance with each culture's values. In discussing this process among the Hopi, anthropologist Hartman Lomawaima (1989: 97) states, "The synthesizing process by which an idea or thing became imbued with Hopi values may be called 'Hopification.' This is a process by which Hopi view, test, analyze, and make decisions about the actions or impositions of alien cultures...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from Journal of the Southwest
The origins of Navajo pastoralism., June 22, 2004
The construction of Anglo-American identity in the Republic of Texas, ..., June 22, 2004
The ghosts of frontiers past: making and unmaking space in the borderl..., June 22, 2004
An artists' home: gender and the Santa Fe culture center controversy., June 22, 2004
Land, culture, and sovereignty in the Pueblo Dance Controversy., June 22, 2004
Looking for additional articles?
Search our database of over 3 million articles.
Looking for more in-depth information on this industry?
Search our complete database of Industry & Market reports by text, subject, publication
name or publication date.
About Goliath
Whether you're looking for sales prospects, competitive information, company
analysis or best practices in managing your organization,
Goliath can help you meet your business needs.
Our extensive business information databases empower business
professionals with both the breadth and depth of credible,
authoritative information they need to support their business
goals. Whether it be strategic planning, sales prospecting,
company research or defining management best practices -
Goliath is your leading source for accurate information.
|
