@ 20OS byWalter D.

Mignolo

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c om
 Contents

Acknowledgments vlu

Preface: Uncoupling the Name and the Reference

1 The Americas, Christian Expansion,

and the ModernlColonial Foundation of Racism

2 "Latin" America and the First Reordering of

the Modern/Colonial §/orld 51

3 After "I¿tin" America: The Colonial'§Vound and

the Epistemic Geo-/Body-Political Shift 95

Postface: Aft er i'America" r49

Notes 163

Index I82
 l
i

Preface: [JncouPling the l\ame

and the Reference

regarding the
An excess of confidence has spread all over the world
be debated whether
ontology of continental üvides'l'While it could
is unquestionable that the
there are four, six, or seven continents' it
subdivision of
count of six or seven includes the basic four-way
Asia, Africa, America, and Europe' That
undisputed division under-
1i", oo, only debates over continental divides
but also ideas of East
hierarchical categories
and'\Xi'est, North and South, and explicitly -Worlds (the last a term
such as first, Second, Third, and Fourth
invented to accornmodate Indigenous people
in the Americas' New
practice to buy a.plane
Zeúand,and Australia). It mayle conunon
opposed to "north
ticket to "Austrafia" o, ",ob-'S'haran Africa" as
designations
Afri.r," but the wide acceptance of those geographical
hidesthefactthatthedivisionofcontinentsandthegeo-political of the
,oo.*r", imposed upon them are all imperial constructions earth and
prr, nrr" hunired y"r,,' A god did not create the planet
"America"'
divide it, from the very b"ii"i"g, into four
continents'
been imagined in
the fourth, *", ,pp"oied Io the-three thet had
Chrirrirrriry *hich St Augustine articulate d in
The City of God' es
we will see in chaPter 1'
The narrative and argument of this book' then'
will not be about
the "idea" of Latin
an entity called "Latin ¿\merica," but on how
is to uncouple the
America came about. One of the main goals
nameofthesubcontinentfromthecartographicimage.w.eallhave
ofit.Itirrr"*.r*tionoftheimperial/colonialfoundationofthe
 Preface

"idea" of Latin America that will help us unravel the geo-politics

of knowledge &om the perspective of colonialiry the untord and
unrecognized historical counterpart of modernity. By "perspective
of coloniality" in this case, I mean that the center of ábservation
will be grounded in the colonial history that shaped the idea of the
Americas. I refer to the process as an excavation rather than an
archeology because it is impossible to simply uncover colonialiry
insofar as it shapes and is shaped by the processes of modernity.
After all, the Americas exist today only as a consequence of European
colonial expansion and the narrative of that expansion from the
European perspective, the perspective of moderniry.
You can tell the story of the world in as many ways as you wish,
from the perspective of moderniw, end never pay any attention ro
the perspective from coloniality. I am here referring to something
important and much more than a mere "conflict" of interpretations.
To illustrate, consider that a chrisrian and a Marxist analysis of a
given event, say the "discovery ofAmerica," would offer us different
interpretations; but both would be from the perspectiue of modernity.That
is, the "discovery of America" would be seen in both cases
from the
perspectiue of Europe. A Fanonian perspective on 'othe discovery of
America," however, would introduce a non-European perspective,
the perspective grounded on the memory of slave-trade aná shrre-
labor exploitation, and its psychological, historical, ethical, and theo-
retical consequences. In this case, it would be a perspective
from
aloniality and from the Afro-caribbean rather than from Euro?te. Readers
will be more familiar with christianity and Marxism than with
Fanonism - a critical currenr of thought (parallel with and comple- I

mentary to, but not reducible to, "Mar:rism") that is producing a !

decolonial shift in the domain of knowledge and action, inspired by

the twentieth-century Martinican intellectual and activisi Frantz
Fanon, discussed in the following chaprers - which should already
point to an important aspect of the issue that structures my entire
argument. Of course, I could have organized my argument from a
European perspective, even if I was born and educated in South
America. All I would need ro do would be to embrace the philo-
sophical frame of reference that is already in place and locate myself
within a paradigm of knowledge thar, in spite of conflicting inrer-
prctations within it, is based on the geo-historical location of Europe.

xi
 Preface
Instead, I situate my argument within the decolonial paradigm of
knowledge and understanding enacted by'W'aman Puma de Ayala
(see chapter 3), as well as orher intellectuals after him belonging to
the sphere of society that anthropologist Eric Wolf identified as
"people without history."
From the sixteenth-century spanish missionary Bartolomé de Las
Casas to G.'\M E Hegel in the nineteenth century, and from Karl
Marx to the twentieth-century British historian A. J. Toynbee, all
we can read (or see in maps) about the place of the Americas in
the world order is historically located from a European perspective
that passes as universal. Certainly, every one of these authors acknowl-
edged that there was a world, and people, outside Europe' Indeed,
both people and continents outside of Europe were overly present
as "objects," but they were absent as subjects and, in a way' out of
history. They were, in other words, subjects whose perspectives did
not count. Eric Wolf's famous book title, People without History,
became a metaphor to describe this epistemic power differential. By
"people without history,"Wolf did not mean that there were people
in the world who did not have memories and records of their past,
which would be an absolutely absurd claim. He meant that,'w'esternaccord-
in
ing to the regional concept of history as defined the
world from ancient Greece to twentieth-century France, every
sociery that did nor have alphabetic writing or wrote in a language
other than the six imperial languages of modern Europe did not
have History.In this view, History is a privilege of European moder-
nity and in order to have History you have to let yourself be
colonized, which means allowing yourself,, willingly or not, to
be subsumed by a perspective of history, life, knowledge, economy,
subjectiviry family, religion, etc. that is modeled on the history of
modern Europe, and that has now been adopted, with little differ-
ence, as the ofiicial model of the US. Perspecfives from coloniality,
however, emerge out of the conditions of the "colonial wound," the
feeling of inferioriry imposed on human beings who do not fit the
predetermined model in Euro-American narratives.
To excavate colonialiry then, one must always include and analyze
the project of moderniry although the reverse is not true, because
coloniality points to the absences that the narrative of moderniry
produces, Thus, I choose to describe the modern world order that
xlt
Preface
has emerged in the five hundred years since the "discovery of
America" as the modern/colonial world, to indicate that colonialiry
is constitutive of modernity and cannot exist without it. Indeed, the
"idea" of Latin America cannot be dealt with in isolation without
producing turmoil in the world system. It cannot be separated from
the "ideas" of Europe and of the (JS as America that dominate even
today. The "Americas" are the consequence of early European com-
mercial expansion and the motor of capitalism, as we know it today.
The "discovery" ofAmerica and the genocide of Indians andAfrican
slaves are the very foundation of "modernity," more so than the
French or Industrial Revolutions. Better yet, they constitute the
darker and hidden face of moderniry"coloniality."Thus, to excavate I
the "idea of Latin America" is, really, to understand how the'West
was born and how the modern world order was founded.
The following discussion is, thus, written within the frame of
what Arturo Escobar has called the modernity/coloniality research
project.2 Some of the premises are rhe fbllowing:
1 There is no moderniry without coloniality, because coloniality
is constitutive of modernity.
The modernlcolonial world (and the colonial marrix of power)
originates in the sixteenth century and the discovery,/invention
of America is the colonial component of moderniry whose
visible face is the European Renaissance.
The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolurion are derivative
historical moments consisting in the transformation of the colo-
nial marix of power.
4 Modernity is the name for the historical process in which
Europe began its progress toward world hegemony. It carries a
darker side, coloniality.
Capitalism, as we know it today, is of the essence for both the
conception of modernity and its darker side, colonialiry.
Capitalism and modernity,/colonialiry had a second historical
moment of transformation after'W'orld'War II when the US took
the imperial leadership previously enjoyed at different times by
both Spain and England.
Following these presuppositions, I organize the narrative and the
argument of this book around three heterogeneous historico-
xlll
 t
Preface
structural moments that link the empires and the colonies. The first
is the entry of America into the European consciousness (the
Renaissance). The second (the Enlightenment) is the entry of
"Latinidad" - "Latínityl' "Latinitée": see chapter 2 - es a double
identiry imperial and colonial. In the third moment (after the Cold
'§?'ar),
I change gears to focus on radical shifts in the geography of
knowledge that we are witnessing now around the world and that,
in the Americas, are questioning the ontology and the ideology of
a continental divide between "Latirr" and "Anglo" Americas.
Chapters 1 and 2 tell the story of the silences created by the
entangled narratives that begin in the sixteenth century and cross
the five hundred years since then to make modernity appear as the
innocent point of arrival (the secular translation of Paradise in
Christian cosmology) toward which History flows. Given this, I
attempt a decolonial shift in the domain of history. Chapter 1
describes the building of the colonial framework and the invention
of the idea of "America," while Chapter 2 follows the emergence
of the specific idea of "Latin" America.
Chapter 1 examines the consequences of the various narratives
that underlie the "idea of Americal'which subsumed the histories
and cosmologies of the people living in Tawantinsuyu and Anáhuac,
the territories of the Aztecs and Incas, when Europeans arrived.
Christian Europeans could imagine the "discovery and conquest" of
America as the most outstanding event since God created the world
(a widely accepted view that even free-trade theorist Adam Smith
and radical critic of capitalism Marx could agree on), but the
Aymara of what is now Bolivia and Peru saw it as a Pachakuti, a
total disruption of space and time - a revolution in reverse, so to
speak, that did not yield the "progressive" consequences of the
American, French, and Industrial Revolutions. We could say, meta-
phorically, thtt a Pachakutihts been taking place in Iraq since March
of 2003. Christian cosmology, as we will discuss, organízed the world
into continents revolving around Europe. The fact that those in
Ctzco or Tenochtitlan, capitals of the Inca and Aztec Empires, con-
ceived of themselves as living in the center of space would have no
bearing on the maps that were drawn.
The geo-politics of continental division are also of key impor-
tance for understanding the way that "Latin" America could
xlv
Preface
subsequendy be imagined as parr of the w'est and yet peripheral to
it. America, as a continent and people, was considered inferior in
European narratives from the sixteenth century until the idea was
refashioned in the us after the Spanish-American war in 1g9g,
when "Latin" America took on the inferior role. chapter 2, there-
fore, goes on to explore the divisions within ..America,, after the
revolutions of independence (North/south, Anglo/Latin), in which
"Letin" America would come to be seen as dependent on and infe_
rior to the united states. The concept of "Larini dadl' en identity
asserted by the French and adopted by creole elites to define them-
selves, would ultimately function both to rank them below Anglo
Americans and, yet, to erase and demote the identities of Indians
and Afro-south Americans. These are, in a nutshefl, the history,
meaning, and consequences of the "idea of Latin, America that I
explore in more detail in the next two chapters.
Many secular scholars, intellectuals, world Bank oflicers, state
functionaries, and journalists believe that "modernity is an incom-
plete project." In my view, coming from the perspective of colonial-
iry to complete the incomplete project of moderniry means to keep
on reproducing coloniality, which is our current reality at the begin-
ning of the twenty-first century.'while we no longer have the overt
colonial domination of the Spanish or British models, the logic of
coloniality remains in force in the "idea" of the world that has been
constructed through modernity/coloniality. Examining the evolu-
tion of the "idea of Latin America" should show that while
its materialization belongs precisely to the manifestation of that logic
in particular moments of imperial/colonial restructuring, the
Perspective of those who have been silenced by it can open up
possibilities for radical change. chapter 3, rhen, will focus o, ,rro.,r.-
menB among Indigenous people and Afro descendants irt "Latin"
America, as well es among Latinos,/as3 in the us who are unfolding
new knowledge projects and making the "idea of Latin America"
obsolete.
I did not write chapter 4 because of the limited length of the
books in the "Manifesto" series. If I had had the charce to write
ánother chapter, it would have dealt in more depth with the tense
oppositi«»r hetween the idea of "Latin" America and the ideas of
"tature" arrd "cullture." Tt) look bricfly at their evolution now
xv
 Preface preface

however, should provide a good overüew of the ways such European community bond. Rerigio comes from
the Latin re-rigare,,,to unite.,,
categories shape the "idea" of Latin America both from inside (the In ancient Rome, ,e_ligare *r, .o.r..ived as U.,i, *.*p.ral, insofar
Europeanized component of its population) and from outside as religio arso meanr traditio("rradirion"), and ,p^ti,-^r'riigio
(the "othering" to which Latin America has been subjected by the those with common beliefi i, united
'W'estern
European and US gaze),and of how they are being changed
, girr., area. .W.hen a term was
needed to designate a new
rype of Iommunity not based on faith,
today by emerging perspectives. In the sixteenth century there was it was necessary to ,ra prt into practice a new institurion,
a sense of admiration for the novelry and the exuberance of"nature." "the community of111c9ive
birth,, o, ,t. ,rrriorr_rrrr., which
Spanish Jesuit José de Acosta, who spent several decades in the in conjunction with "nationar .,rrtrr"" in was defined
order a .*r* subjects
Andes, wrote in 1590 that to know and understand "nature" was to with "national identity.,, Imperial nadonal
identities, i, th"i. trrrr,
understand its creator. However, a few decades after Acosta, Frances established a measuring sdck
,o ,rrk and (de)varue rhe nadonar
Bacon changed gears and conceived "nature" as something men identities of the ,,independer,
,rrr.rli-fro* ,t. century
managed"*.r..*f,
have to conquer and dominate. The opposition was settled betr,veen until today. Imperial national identities
nature and humanity. "Latin" America has been conceived on both served to redraw, since the nineteenth
by the state have
century, the coronial differ-
sides of that opposition. Thus, Creole intellectuals in the nineteenth ence, and the .,idea', of Latin
a_.ri., was part of such imperial
century,like Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in Argentina and Euclides redrawing.
Da Cunha in Brezll, used the "nature" versus "civilization" paradigm "culture," in other words, created
nadonar unity: nationar ran-
to define the Creole elite against the "barbarian" indigenous inhab-
itants of South America. As we will see in chapter 2, however, the fl iff :;Hi'"",H,"1ff ':i.;,ffiJ,1,i:?J.:l,r,,1.#áil*,T:"#
Creole elites were simultaneously self-colonizing by taking on a insdtute the homogeneity of the
nadon-state. Flowever, insofar
French idea of themselves as "Latinl' which opposed them to the the term emerged in the ,irr"t".rth as

Anglo, who represented civilization, and located them more on the

...rrrry when England and
France were embarking on ,t
,..orrl wave of colonial expansion,
side of "nature." At the same time, intellectuals from the French "
"culture" also served the coroniar
naturalist Georges comte de Buffon to the German philosopher those alien and inferior "curturesi'
ffir" of naming ,.rá á.i.rruirrg
thrt *o,rld be Inder Errop.",
Hegel, and including the US president Thomas Jefnerson, were "civilization."'While European civilization
was divided into national
articulating an opposition between'onature" and civilized man that culrures, mosr of th1. re¡t of tn.
pop,rlrtio, of the world would be
put all of America on the "nature" side of the opposition. These conceived as havins .,culture,, U.rt
rát civilization.,,Latin,,Americans
debates saw the New World as younger and immature; therefore, had a cultur., .r.ád.in parr l"
the American population was expected to evolve accordingly to a
..-pl.rry with the French ideo_
logues of "Latinidad," but not ,
.i";li;;;.n, since rhe ancienr Aztec,
state of civilization.a Inca' and Maya civ*izations *.r.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century and through the nine-
,;;;;y consigned ro a forgotren
Past' consequentry, "Latin" Americans were considered
teenth, nature, as Godt creation, was opposed to culture as mant second-class
Europeans who lacked th. ,.1.rr..
ana sophirti.rt.¿ t irio.y of
creation. Consequently, the opposition befween nature and human- Europe. During the Cold Wa, thai
ity was not abandoned but simply redrawn. "Culture" (from Latin
;;;" was still in place and it
was exrended to the entire Third
World]
colere,o'to cultivate or to inhabit") surfaced as a necessary concept Yet these macro-narratives elide
the fact that in Indigenous cos_
during the process of secularization because "culture" meant "to nrology' nature and humanity do
not necessar,y oppose each other,
cultivate" in the sense of human production and creation. In the and "civilization " is nothing nror"
rrr*-, E.rropeair^ serf-description
senseof inhabiting, "culture" is the dwelling place, the inhabitation of its r«rlc in history. ro¡ ihc l"dig.,;;;,
oppositions can co_exist
of what is created. "Culture" was needed to replace "religion" as a with*t rregatirrr' "Trrc A,.reau *.rla ir -rupporr.a
by complc¡nsn¡ary
xvi
xvii
 Preface preface

dualisms," writes intellectual Kichua activist Ariruma Kowii from mind. The future can no longer be thought of
'western as the ,,defense of
Otavalo, Ecuador.s This simple logical difference is crucial to per- civilization," constantly waiting for the barbarians.
As bar_
forming a decolonial shift in knowledge and understanding (e.g., barians are ubiquitous (they courd be in the plains
or in the moun-
looking at the world from the perspective of Kichua and not from tains as well as in globar cities), so are the civirized.
There is no safe
that of Greek and Latin, although with the "imperial" presence of place to defend and, even worse, berieving that
there is a safe place
European principles of knowledge since the Renaissance). Such a thar musr be deGnded is (and has been) the direct
road ro killing.
shift is fundamental in changing the perception of the world and Dialogue, proper\ speaking, cannot take place
until there are no
sociery as we know them through the categories of knowledge of more places to be defended and the power differential,
consequentlv /
modern/imperial European languages rooted in Greek and Latin. can be redressed. Dialogue today is i utopia,as we
are *ir".;,,;;;l;1
Kowii dismantles the above oppositions in the very title of his article Iraq, and it should be reconceived as utopistic: a
double _.;";.;;l
"Barbarie, civilizaciones e interculturalidad" ("Barbarians, civiliza- composed of a critical on the past in order ro imagine ,;J I t(
tions and'interculturalidad' ['interculturality']").6 Today, then, the constru* future possible -rake
worlds. The decolonial shift ; .f rh; I
category of "barbarie" is being questioned by an Indigenous intel- essence if we would stop seeing ,.modernity,,
as a goal ,rtt., ,frrr l
lectual, whom Sarmiento would have considered a barbarian Indian. seeing it as a European construction of history
iri Europe,s own
Next, "civilizaciones" (in Kowii's title) is plural, which affirms the interests. Diaiogue can only take place once "modernity,,
is decolo-
t, historical civilization of Indians that was disqualified by the singular nized and dispossessed of its mythical march toward
the future. I am
model of the European civiltzíng mission. The terms of the conuersa- not de*nding "despotism" of any kind, oriental or occidentar.
tion, and not just the content without questioning the terms, are redressed
I
am just saying that "dialogue" can onry take prace
\§ when the ,.mono-
in a civiizational dialogue that opens the monologue of civilization logue" of one civilization ('Western) i, ,o lárrg.r enforced.
\.l and the silence of barbarism. Once the terms are reconceived as This book can be read in two different, but Jomplementary,
ways.
dialogical instead of based on a logic of contradictory terms (civili- l\eaders not familiar with current academic deiates
zation vs. barbarism), barbarism is put on hold and relocated: the
.rr, ..r,.,
thrgush the argument that America was nor discovered
but invented,
civilization that Creoles and Europeans had in mind has been geno- and from there follow the path that made of ,,Latin,,
America an
cidal and, therefore, barbarian. If X and non-X co-exist, the question extension of the initial imperial/colonial invention.
Those who are
becomes how different civilizational structures can put barbarism familiar with conversations in the humanities courd
see the argu-
aside. That is precisely the work of intercultural struggles and dia- ment itself as an atemptto_shift the geography, and the
geo_politics
logues, which we will discuss further in chapter 3. sf knowledge, of criticar theory (asl"tio¿r..¿ by the" Frankfurt
There is one proviso: at this point in time, the colonial difference
'§chool in the 1930, to , ,.* rerrain of decoroniarity. The first
must be kept in view, because Creoles in the Americas of European reading can still be performed within the paradigm
oi moderniry
descent (either Latin or Anglo), as well as Creoles of European that emphasizes the linear evolution of .orr..pá and,
above all,
descent around the world, may still see civilization and barbarism newness. The second reading, however, demands
to be performed
as ontological categories, and therefore they may have trouble within the paradigm of (de)coloniality that impries moderniry
but
accepting Indian (or Islamic, for that matter) civilizational processes eurphasizes "co-existence" and simultaneity
instead. I will introduce
and histories when entering into dialogue. There are no civilizations § concept of historico-structural heterogeneity at the end of chapter
1
outside of Europe or, if there are,like those of Islam, China orJapan t«¡. locatc the argument in that paradigm
of co_exist.rr.. ,o
(to follow Huntingon's classification: see chapter 1), they remain in e'ritiquc' thc paradigr, of newness ancl historical progression. "rrd
the past and have had to be brought into the present of Western
within
the. li¡rrits rrf Errnrpca, krcar hist.ries, criticar
throry pirhrd h,manists
civilization. That is the colonial difference that should be kept in enrl criti.rrl st¡r'i.l st'icl¡tists tr¡ward criti«:al exflorations .f
thc
xvlll xix
 Preface

conditions that make events and ideas possible, instead of taking

ideas for granted and seeing events as carrying their own, essential,
meaning. A critical theory beyond the history of Europe proper and
within the colonial history of America (or Asia or Africa; or even
from the perspective of immigrants within Europe and the uS who
have disrupted the homogeneity) becomes decoronial theory.That is,
it is the theory arising from the projects for decolonization of
knowledge and being that will lead to the imagining of economy The Americas, Christian
and politics othen»ise. By going to the very roots of modern colo-
niality - the invention of America and of '.Latin,, America this
- Expansion, and the Modern/
book is a contribution to that decolonization of knowredge and
being; an attempt to rewrite history following an-other logic, an- lonial Foundation of Racism
other language, an-other thinking.T

grica has been discovered,

conquered and populated by
eivilized European races, who were carried
forward by thá
law that.moved Egyptian people from
their primitive
to bring them to Greece; lri.. tr, the same law
moved
inhabitants of Greece to civilize tt ltJirn
peninsula; and
" to civüze the
lly the same law morivared the G¡eeks
bar_
inhabitants of Germany who chang.d
*itf, the remains
Roman world, the virility of its ülood illuminated
by
,, Juan Bautista Alberdi, Bases y puntos de partida
para la organización nacional, 1g521

rof the foremost differences separating white and Indian

dmptl one of origin. \Mhites derived frredominantly from
Europe . . . Conversely, Indian, hrd always
been in
:rn hemisphere. LiG on this conrinent and views
dng it were not shaped in a post_Roman atmo_
. , . The western hemisphere produced
wisdom,western
ptoduced knowledge.
Vine Deloria,Jr, Custer Dieilforyour Sins:
An Indian Manfesto,19O9 (iialics added)
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The "Atnericas" on the Colonial l{orizon
of ModernitY
Before 1,492, the Americas were not on anybodyt map, not even
on the map of the people inhabiting Anáhuac (the territory of
the Aztecs) and Tawantinsuyu (the territory of the Incas). The
Spanish and Portuguese, as the sole and diverse European occupants
in the sixteenth century named the entire continent that was
under their control and possession. It may be hard to understand
today that the Incas and the Aztecs did not live in America or, even
less, Latin America. Until the early sixteenth century, America was
not on anybody's map simply because the word and the concept of
a fourth continent had not yet been invented. The mass of land
and the people were there, but they had named their own places:
Tawantinsuyu in the Andes, Anáhuac in what is today the valley of
Mexico, and Abya-Yala in what is today Panama. The extension of
what became "America" was unknown to them. People in Europe,
in Asia, and in Africa had no idea of the landmass sooll to be called
the Inüas Occidentales and then America, or of all the people
inhabiting it who would be called Indians. America came, literally,
out of the blue sky that Amerigo Vespucci was looking at when he
rcalized that the stars he was seeing from what is norv southern
Brazil were not the same stars he had seen in ihis familiar
Mediterranean. What is really confusing in this story is that once
America was named as such in the sixteenth century and Latin
America named as such in the nineteenth, it appeared as if they had
been there forever.
o'America," then, was never a continent waiting to be discovered.
Rathe¡ "America" as we know it was an invention forged in the
process of European colonial history and the consolidation and
expansion of the'Western world view and institutions.The narratives
that described the events as "discovery" were told not by the inhabi-
tants of Anábtac or Tawantinsuyu, but by Europeans themselves. It
would be four hundred and fifty years until a shift in the geography
of knowledge would turn around what Europeans saw as a "discov-
ery" and see it as an "invention." The conceptual frame that macle
possible this shift in the geography of knowledge, from discovery to
The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
came from the Creoles' consciousness, in the Spanish_ and
ins world.
rcourse, we should briefly note that
Indigenous and Afro
'' of mind in continental South
America had not yet inter_
in these public debates from their own broken histories. The
'America" and subsequently of "Latin,, and ..Anglo,, America
issue in the minds áf nrr.op.rn and Creoles of Errrop.r,
Inüans and Creoles of African descent (men and women)
out of the conversation.Afro-Caribbeans had been working
¿ similar and complementary shift in the geography o?
lge, but in English and French. For Creoles ofAfrá áescent,
arrival in the islands that today we call Caribbean was
concern: A&ican slaves were brought to the conti_
was already called America many decades after it was dis_
or invented. In the Indian genealogy of thought, whether
was an existing continent discovered or a non_existing
that was invented was not a question.
historian and philosopher Edmundo O,Gorman strongly
cingly argued many years ago that the invention of
irnplied the appropriation and integration of the continenr
Euro-Christian imaginary.2 The Spanish and portuguese,
and diverse European foreign intruders in the sixteenth
cleimed for themselves a continent and renamed it at the
fre-as
they began a process of territorial organization as they
,bt Spain and PortugaJ. Vespucci could pull America our of
,whcn he realized that, navigating the coasts of what is today
b was in a "New'W'orld" (new for Europeans, of coursej,
in "lndia," as Columbus thought about ten years before
Itory is well known that sinceVespucci conceptually.,dis_
(in the sense of "discovering for oneself,, or ,.rej zing,,)
were confronting a New World, the continent was
rtAmcrica" after Amerigo Vespucci
himself,, with a slight
r the cnding to make it fit with the already exisring nJn-
§ontinents, Africa and Asia.
Éünry" and "invention" are not just different interpretations
'llBlG event; they belong to two dffirent paradigms.The line
the two paradigms is the line of the shift in the
of knowledgel changing rhe rerms and nor only the
l
I
,l
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The Americas, Christian Expansion,
and Racism
content of the conversation. The first presupposes the triumphant
European and imperial perspective on world history an achievement I,T.j.' and a goal. More recenrly, since rhe late 19g0s, peruvian
that was described as oomodernity," while the second reflects the Quijano. .rrrrr.il.á', ioio,,iairy,, as rhe darker side
H:1.r-^:,yibal
modernity and as the ristorical
critical perspective of those who have been placed behind, who are perspective of the wretched, the
from history told from th.-pe.rp..tive
;casts
expected to follow the ascending progress of a history to which of _.d";it F;
perspecrive of moderniry colonialiry
they have the feeling of not belonging. Colonization of being is is difficuh ,;-;";;
conc.epr. ior the second ser of
nothing else than producing the idea thar certain people do nor ::jj:Í^:y 1,!"r1.^:*e
erni.bl is unavoidabl. atr, o,gr, ;;il;ü
acrors,
belong to history - that they are non-beings. Thus, lurking beneath ,IIjT|} ::^l of O"Y:O*-. and
mg perspective
;fl d;
the European story of discovery are the histories, experiences, and history. For the firrí ,.torr,
nity ir one-sided and-of single densiry.
silenced conceptual narratives of those who were disqualified as for the second, moder_
is double-sided and of douüle densiry
human beings, as historical actors, and as capable of thinking and To ,rrrd".rt"nd the co_
lnce of these two major paradigms
understanding. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the is to understand how the
i1
"wretched of the earth" (as Frantz Fanon labeled colonized beings) fe geo-graphy and the geo-ioritics or howte¿ge is rakino
were Indians and African slaves. That is why missionaries and Yr"f-:::l: t: .oil*hf
pn, in the double density-of '*'dly
modelnity/..ú;rh;
I ;ñ;;;:
r".,,.á'i,, ; uvev'u P4
men of letters appointed themselves to write the histories they
thought Incas and Aztecs did not have, and to write the grammar
of Kechua/Kichua and Nahuatl with Latin as the model. Africans
*:*::as T:^
f,Xtogether rwo :ljiy]:9,
.
sides of the""..p',,
-3 derni ry and oro niari ry
same ,.rfrry i" ,ír;;;;'.ri
c

rica" in the sixteenth century and

were simply left out of the picture of conversion and taken as pure of ,,Letin,America in the
labor force.
th? Modernity has been a rerm in
years. In spite of differences
¿.iiIill ili:
"r. and áefinitions,
Toward the end of the seventeenth century, a new social group in opinions
ere some basic agreements about iis
surfaced, and when they surfaced they were already outside of _.rrirrg.;;;;
refers to a period i" i"aa-r"rr..y
history: the Creoles of Spanish and Portuguese descenr. Although has:1,::-"0,"":T,,T?_d.::ity
been ffaced back either ," ,fr. ftrápean v
their marginalization was far from the extremes to which Indians Renaissance and
and Africans were subjected, the Creoles, between the ümits of .'{;:.:::L,.ofÁmerica
(:hr: i, .orn_on among schotars
th. of Europe, Italy,"r_.*
Spain, ,"d-p*;;rü':r1;";'.
humanity (Indians and Africans) and humanity proper (Europeans), loy.rl
ean Enlightenmenr (this view is
were also left out of history.The geo-political configuration of scales held by scholars and intel_
and assumed by the media ln Anglá_Saxon
that measured the nature of human beings in terms of an idea of counrries _
r.l*.0, -..Td o.,. i,rto country, France).
history that Western Christians assumed to be the total and true ,f::T1lrlliÍ
G other side of the colonial differerce,;;r,
one for every inhabitant of the planet led to the establishmenr of a the ex-Spanish and ex-portugu.r.
#^#;.#
colonial matrix of power, to leave certain people out of history in .oíoJ.s in South America
order to justify violence in the name of Christianization, civilization,
bcen advancing the idea that th" ..h;;;;;ffiffif;Hi;
nd in hand with the violence of colonialiry.
and, more recently, development and market democracy. Such a The difference, to
r,lies in which side of each tocal hisd"í;
geo-political configurafion created a divide between a minority of ion ofAmerica', theory.was a turning point
;;i;.6;;r#;
people who dwell in and embrace the Christian, ciüüzing, or devel- that put on the
¡ perspective that was absent ,rrd no"t recognized
oping missions and a majority who are the outcasts and become from the
and.imperial narrarives. Let,s agree
the targets of those missions. :I-Tjip.:"
vicible a dimension of history rhar
rhar O,Gorman
Max'W'eber has been credited, after Hegel, with having concep- was occlluded by the;;;;i;i
tet's also agree thai it is an example
tualized "modernity" as the direction of history that had Europe as §:I':T:r,,T:,:y
things may look from the u*i.a".*p.ri*;;".r"rr,ffi.
of

-:-:-;éE=- .
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The Americas, Chrktian
Expansion, and Racism
America, as a concept, goes hand in hand with that of moderniry
colonial; and. if
and both are rhe self-represenrarion of imperial projects and global
designs that originated in and were implemented by European
actors and institutions. The invention of America was one of the
hr :? ffij: !,",1 1r[.*; :, ii.:ff.
#; i1#:.:,,.J[tT
ffi:' i *:ffi '**3
tr**": j#=:;::: ::"Ho',l"*appropriated
nodal points that contributed to create the conditions for imperial
European expansion and a lifesryle, in Europe, that served as a model -*::lT
and of people to
for the achievements of humanity.Thus, the "discovery andconquesr
conve*ed ,. a?l,l::l,-': be

of America" is not just one more event in some long and linear
coroniariry ;,
nity" and many people tend
;::lHTff:f ,J3LJ::ñ ;:;,Í i:r**:l
historical chain from the creation of the world to ih. present, ,o .orrrr" it with
,.co10niarism.,,
leaving behind all those who were not attenrive enough to
,;[l]are retated, of course. wfr¡" ,,.oforrllfirri,,"ráárs ro The
¡,r-p #: spe_
onto the bandwagon of modernity. Rather, it was a key turning
;;;#:;ilt, n,#ffi fJ:ffi:Hi:f;{
point in world history: It was the moment in which the demands
of modernity as the final horizon of salvation began to require the
century), ..coloniaüfy,,
fl ,,1,,,:i:
üi,ffi::
," ,fr._logical
refers
,r.rlrrr. of colonial
imposition of a specific set of values that relied on the logic of ip,"i,n, L,,.,,, B.i;;," ;;; ü, .o,,,,o,
coloniality for their implementation.
#ruX;J:o:',r,;g,r,.
The "invention of America" thesis offers, instead, a perspective
from coloniality and, in consequence, reveals that the advances of
ll'#fi1Ttr[,. #:X,:ilü¡Éq, ;r*i ÍiT":l':l r;
modernity outside of Europe rely on a colonial matrix of power
that includes the renaming of the lands appropriated and of the
;l,'ffi*,',r,",,.,,..;;;,,#,1iii.JJ;r#:#,?_trt?
people inhabiting rhem, insofar as the diverse ethnic groups and
civilizations in Tawantinsuyu and Anáhuac, as werl ,r lhor. fro,n ;ril:*"i;,J?#t'Y:*ÍvilJ',#:[,*x{,m;3i:il
some would say (mainiy
Africa, were reduced to "Indians" and "Blacks."The idea of..Am erica,, before the g/11 attacks
the us was not an-imperiar on rhe US) that
and of "Latin" America could, of course, be accounted for within
those of Spain or::gt*l
.";;;;';..ause ir has no coronies like
the philosophical framework of European moderniry even if that ñI.
nialism" with havlng ..colonies,, ";;:", however, confuses ..coto_
account is offered by creoles of European descent dwelling in the
physical presence of
in th sense of maintaining
institutio;, ;;.: the
colonies and embracing the Spanish or portuguese view of events.
'what colonizeá counrry or region.A,a
counts, however, is that the need for telling the part of the
"coloniaritv'" c ortnialiri]r rh;
i, .",l]llXTi: ::j,J,TlLf*:i;
story that was not told requires a shift in the geography of reason
eolonial rlorld, beyond
i;;i."#ao.oirrrion in rhe modern./
and of understanding. "Coloniakty," therefore, points toward and the A.ri?r, ,i,
intends to unveil an embedded logic that enforces control, domina-
w¡s once spain, thán England
elong,side political ,ra
rrJ;;;;:ffi.'iif:*ffi,:H
tion, and exploitation disguised in the language of salvation, progress, .Jo.ro_i. ,.rl".Lrrrg in the
the twentieth century, has second half of
modernization, and being good for every one. The double register made ;;';;;,
olcl, nrore obvious, manner.
of modernity/coloniality has, perhaps, never been as clear as it tery bases in straresic pr",
stiü, the T::t? f.:*rTr1:Jill:
has been recently under the administration of us president George
§,uth Anrerica). r_if.*11., ,tr. "iif,.;.r, ",
(e.g., the Middle Easr
and
W. Bush.
pressure by thc us
o..rp"rr,lr^.f Iraq and consequenr
Pedagogically, it is important for my argument ro conceptualize for rt'" ,ppoiriá.nr-or.
governmenr favorable
".,
"modernity/coloniality" as two sides of the same coin anJ nor as
two separate frames of nlind: yo, cannot be moc{ern with.rrt being
li,I' ill' I li,l]il:, ::
n
:"i ;' il;" *'n
"a
r-'"i;;;i;',o0.,
riar isrr ¡,,;J ;,.;,;'.,, ;l';::,:' i,lI_Yi,,Tt:'l,i:;.::;,::m
"
(r +:i llf -
7
 t
The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The Americas, Christian
Expansion, and Racism
or "light" imperialism. No matter what it is called, imperialism underpinning,to-a decentered
implies colonialism in some form, as it is difiicult to imagine any one that is geo-politicary rooted
the histories of the borders, in
empire without colonies, even if colonies take different shapes at "J
by European and US .rprrrrio;r;.;
;;; in territorial histories creared
different points in history.a As a mafter of fact, the geo_politics
The idea of America, therefore, is a modern European invention alreadv in the sixreenth ..rrur|
of knowledge emerged
and limited to Europeans' view of the world and of their own r, ; ;.;;i";;,;ffi.i:ounrerins
the impricit "Roman artitude"
history. In that view and in that history, coloniaiiry naturally, was that Rémi Brague attributes
history of Europe; see chapter to the
(and still i$ ignored or disguised as a necessary injustice in the name 2) when men of wisdom
of the s',te, in and from a"afr.J. and officers
ofjustice. Coloniality names the experiences and views of the world with the question of how to
,ri fr*rrrrinsuyu, needed to deal
and history of those whom Fanon called les damnés de la terre ("the ,..o-iodate their system of knowl-
edge, accumulatecl informrtiorr,
wretched of the earth," those who have been, and continue to be, rrJ'o.grrrizationáf _._ory ro
system that was alien to their
subjected to the standards of modernity).The wretched are defined rived experience and corecdve "
past' They needed to think shared
by the colonial wound, and the colonial wound, physical andlor psy- ir, , ao,rbt" framework that reveared
differentiar in power relations.
chological, is a consequence of racism, the hegemonic discourse that orr. or the frameworks was intro_a
duced by Europeans who
questions the humanity of all those who do not belong to the locus ,pot" árrcular imperial languages
thoughts in-Greek ,,ri rrtir. and
of enunciation (and the geo-politics of knowledge) of those who filTj.fl#Jir E,r.op.*,ji g..,.rrt,
assign the standards of classification and assign to themselves the
right to classify.The blindness toward histories and experiences lying llknowred;"',*,T;',:':J::,f, ::.H,lT.-#f:'nx:i,1.ü:I.f;
Africans úansporred to the
outside the local history of-Wesrern Christianiry as shown by secular N.* rxi*ra¡, rhe situation was different.
They had no choice bur ro
Europeans, grounded in the Greek and Latin languages, and unfolded i"...i.*r" European languages and
frameworks of knowledge
in the six vernacular imperial languages (Italian, Spanish, portuguese, into ,fr"i o*rr. One of the unavoidable
consequences of
French, German, and English), has been and continues to be a 11dern/coloniar
tions for border thinking _expansionism is that the condi_
were created, the theo-politics of knowr-
trademark of intellectual history and its ethical, political, and eco- edge (in sixteenth-century Tawantinsuyu "rd
nomic consequences. ego-politics of knowredge (in and Anáhuac) and the
The shift in the geo-politics of knowledge (the perspective of French and British Africl) "r".r..,rii-.;;;rñ;u*h' tia¡^
modernity is also geo-politically grounded, although it is disguised *.r" ;h;;; ^na
decenrered. Thus, rhe evenrs
that led ro rhe idea of .Á:n".i;r;,1-.';;mulaneously,
as the natural course of universal history) began with the recogni- Bnce of a new rvoe o.f thinking to the appear_
tion that even the postmodern endorsement of pluralities of inter- ,rrá'rra.rrtanding that could not
be suppressed bv iheotogy (or
pretations cannot be celebrated as long as it is restricted to a diuersity lng' The only way posibre
ñ.; ;;y egology) - border think-
of interpretations within the one Eurocentric frame of knowledge, which was ro conrror it by suppressing
the
has been shaped and governed over time both by theology, in the il:,'fi,$ji"*Lf trestatio,l 1' g-- puutishing' k Jig",o.,,
"o' .
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and by "egology" (a frame of H;;;;,;;;;;':?;',;i#:?:f,"?,r#:i[,Trffirr"#,"T[:]
knowledge having "rgr," instead of "theo," as the center and point ere parr of life. U"1O:, thlnkilq
of reference), the growing European consciousness since René is exploding now in the Andes
under the name of inter-curturafiíad
Descartes.s To account for experiences, feelings, and world views lncluding the parts of Furope
rriru over rhe world as well,
beyond the center of European narratives and its philosophical frame rh;;";;;..om]ng the dwe,ing place
of Africar, Asiar, S<¡uth A.rerican,
of reference, it is necessary to shift from a conception of knowledge ,rltrrrUUean migran$. Border
thirrkirrg, which wrs rrrc rri*u,ri..i[
grounded in theology and egology, which hides its geo-political Ittrli¡¡err«rus ¡rc.plc, sr¡rfl¡r.cr{
inavoicrabre
"*,, concrition for
i,, l;;;;,, ,,,,,r,,¡E Afric:arr slavcs
IJ
I
 'V
The Americas, Christian Expansion'
and Racism :,ii
as among Creoles of Spanish
and Creoles of African descent, as well
is less important than the
and Portuguese descent' The name here
is a new way of think- .ta
phenomenon I am ,,V-g to describe' which
and the necessary
+.1
irrg pro-pted by -odJ" imperial expansion
colonial matrix of power that Lodern
expansionism-implies,.
historical grounding of
The geo-potiti", oi kt'o*ledge (the local
knowledge) go", t r.,á in ha"d ílttt tt"
body politics of knowledge
grounding of under-
(i.e., the personal ,.ri to[tt'ive biographical
standing). The view of events and
the conception of the worid
(or later on' by a French
provided by a Spanish Jesuit or soldier
and bio-graphically
or British rraveler o, piiloropher) were geo-
histories not shared in the
grounded in largu,ge', *t*á'itt' iid or
íi"*, ,rrd .or."ptiárs of the world experienced by Aymara-
Nahuatl-speaking intellectuals whose
geo- and bio-graphies were
rs a dffirence in this
grounded in other memories and histories'There
apparent symmetry: the Spanish missionary
and the French.philoso-
languages and experi-
pher did not have to i"tá'po'ate Indigenous
frame of thinking' The
ences into th"i, tt.otogittl o' egological
Bolivia' Mexico'
;ñr; or Nahuatl inte"llectuals o? -h't are now
because Spanish and French
and Central America had no choice'
on top of and around their
institutions were set up in their territory'
border thinking is the
dwelling places. po. ih't material reason'
under modern/colonial con-
consequence of the power differential.
colonial dffirencL
áir-;, a power didrential that constitutes the America beyond the
It is not easy to;;ic,tt the idea of "Latin"
discovery) and to enter
rhetoric of modernity (celeb'atory of the
of coloniality means to
the logic of coloniú To -enter the logic
think from what Pachakut{ rrreant *itñi" Indigenous meant for
people and
"invention"
their own .orr."pá memories; and what
of thought' The map of
O'Gorman within the Creole tradition
redrawn' The question is
knowledge and unde'standing has to be
and a reference
ti-Ñ that of a name (Aáerica' Latin America)Mexico)'
".i
(tL" p"i:trraped form, plus the stem connecting
but that
process'The idea that"America"
of the naming agents inálved in the
navigators belongs to the
was a continent discovered by European
and "America" zs inven-
rhetoric of (European) moderni q' Pachakuti
matrix of power)
tion reveel th. rogit oi tolo"i'liry (the colonial
hidden beyond the rhetoric of moderniry'
10
The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The logic of coloniarity can be understood as working
four wide domains of human experience: (1) the ..o.ro*I.,
through
priation of land, exploitation of labor, and control
appro_
of finance; (2)
the political: conrrol of.authoriry; (3) the civic: conrrol
and sexualiry; (4) the epistemic and the subjective/personal:
of gender
conrror
of knowledge and subjectiviry. The logic oi .oloniality has
place from the conquest and colonizarLn of
been in
Mexico and peru untir
and beyond the war in Iraq, despite superficial changes
and agents of exploitation/contrál in the past five
in the scale
hundred years of
history. Each domain is interwoven with tli. oth..r,
since afpropria-
tion of land or exploitation of labor also involves the c'átrol
of
finance, of authoriry of gender, and of knowledge
and subjectivity.s
The operation of the colonial matrix is invisiblá to distraJted
and even when it surfaces, it is explained through
eyes,
the rhetoric of
modernity that the situation can be icorrected" wlth ,,development,,,
"democracy," a "strong economy," etc.'what some will
see as ..lies,,
from the LJS presidentiar administration are not so much
of a very well-codified "rhetoric of modernity," promising
lies as part
fbr everybody in order to divert artenrion froÁ the irrcreasingly
salvation
oppressive consequences of rhe l0gic of coroniality.
To implement
the logic of coloniality requires the celebratory rhetori.
of'-od.r-
niry as the case of Iraq has iilustrated from day one. As capital
and
Power concentrate in fewer and Gwer hands and poverty ir.r.rr.,
tll over rhe word, the logic of colonialiry becáme, á,r.. _or"
oppressive and merciless. since the sixteenth century,
of modernity has relied on the vocabulary of saruaion,which was
the rhetoric
¡tcompanied by the massive appropriation of land in the
world and the massive exploitation oilrdir, andAfrican slave labor,
New
Jurtified by a belief in the dispensabiliry of human life - the lives
of the slaves. Thus, while ,o*. Chrirtiáns today, for example, beat
the drum of "pro-life values," they reprod,r.. ih"toric thai
tttention from the increasing "devaluation of "human life,, that
diverts
lhousands dead in Iraq demon strate. Thus, it is not modernity
the
that wiil
ayercofie coloniality, because it is precisery modernity that
needs oid prodrr*
aloniality.
As a, illustration, let us foflow the genearogy ofjust the
.
ft¡trr clornairs rncr see how the roglc of .olonirriry has
first of
Ehe
evolved
ln the ;¡rea ,f land, l.b,r, arcr finarrce. iiero* I wiil complement
rhe
1t
 The Arnericas, Christian Expansion, and Racisrn
brief sketch of this first quadrant by going deeper into the fourth
one (knowledge and subjectiviry) to show how knowledge trans-
into
formed Anáhuac and Tawantinsuyu into America alnd then
Latin America and, in the process, how new national and sub-
continental identities were created. But, first, think of the massive
appropriation of land by the Spanish and Portuguese, the would-be
U"A"r¿t of the Americas during the sixteenth century and the same
(from
by the British, French, and Dutch in the extended caribbean
salvador de Bahia in Brazil to charleston in today's South carolina,
and including the norrh of colombia andvenezuela in addition
to
went hand in hand
the CaribbeÁ ishnds).fhe appropriation of land
with the exploitation of hbár flndians and African slaves) and the
control of finance (the accumulation of capital as a consequence
of
the appropriation of land and the exploitation of labor)' Capital
concentrated in Europe, in the imperial states, and not in the
colo-
nies. You can follow this pattern through the nineteenth century
when England and France displaced Spain and Portugal as leading
imperial lount ies. The logic of coloniality was then reproduced'
into
,rrá, of course, modified, in the next step of imperial expansion
Africa and Asia.
You can still see the same projects today in the appropriation of
areas of "natural resources" (e.g., in the Amazon or oil-rich
lraq)'
Land cannot be reproduced. You can reproduce seeds and
other
,,products,' of land; but land itself is ümited, which is another reason
*fry tfr. appropriation of land is one of the prime targets of capital
,..o-olrtián today. The "idea" of Latin America is that of a latge
mass of land with a wealth of natural fesoufces and plenty
of cheap
labor. That, of course, is the disguised idea' What the rhetoric
of
modernity toured by the IME the world Bank, and the washington
consensus would say is that "Latin" America is
just waiting for its
turn to ,.develop."You could also follow the exploitation of labor
from the Americas to the Industrial Revolution to the movement
of factories from the US to developing nations in order to reduce
costs. As for financial control, just compare the number
and size of
banks, for example, in NewYork, London, or Frankfurt' on the one
hand, versus the ones in Bolivia, Morocco, or India' on the
other'
Thus, if we consider "America" from the perspective of colonial-
ity (not modernity) and let the Indigenous persPective take center
12
The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
another history becomes apparent. The beginning of the
"Manifesto from the Lacandon Jungle" gives us a
,itüe are a product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery
then during the'W'ar of Independence against Spain; then to
rvoid being absorbed by North American imperialism, then to
l,,promulgate our constitution and expel the French empire from
our soil; later the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz denied us rhe
rijust application of the Reform laws and the people rebelled
Ir ¡nd leaders like Villa and Zapata emerged, poor men just like
r,,tls.'W'e have been denied by our rulers the most elemental
r {onditions of life, so they can use us as cannon fodder and
illage the wealth of our country. They dont care that we have
Slnothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over hour heads,
&r no land, no work, no health care, no food or education. Nor
tlr ffe we able to freely and democrarically elecr our political
ttpresentatives, nor is there independence from foreigners, nor
.i¡ there peace or justice for ourselves and our children.e
"Manifesto from the Lacandon Jungle" precedes a long history
from an Indigenous perspective (as opposed to the per-
of Mexican Creoles and Mestizos/as or French or US
" on Mexican and "Latin" American history). you may
whether the Indigenous people had a perspective because
i,magine that history is history and what happened just happened,
ergue that there are of course "different interpretations" but
"different perspectives." Different interpretations presuppose a
and shared principle of knowledge and of the rules of the
while different perspectives presuppose rhar the principles of
gwledges and the rules of the game are geo-historically located
the structure of power of the modern colonial world. To show
this works, we need something such as "dependency theory"
the epistemological domain.lo "Dependency theory" showed the
of power in the economic domain insofar as it described
structure of differential power in the domain of the
But it also proved the epistemic differential and the dis-
of labor within an imperial geo-politics of knowledge in
13
 The Americas, Chrktian Expansion, and Racism The Amerims, Christian Expansion, and
Racism

which political economy moved in one direction: from First to türe LJniversidad Autónoma de México)
who narrares. Legitimate
Third'World countries and to contain Second'W'orld communism. d interesting objections, rhese. Ho*.,rár, such objections
remain
In this sense, dependency theory is relevant in changing the geo- rngled in the web and the perspective
of modeiniry; ,frr, ir,l,
politics of knowledge and in pointing toward the need for, and the by the h.s¡1""1. perspecive of modernity
posibility o(, different locations of understanding and of knowledge ru:r,:o:::,:::ir:d
To unfold this last statemenr,let's takelnoiher -
step p.J"p',
production. .- "ra
The first part of the "Manifesto from the Lacandon Jungle" is a ]:',:11
ied ':-"
in the very li'o
idea of ln..t193nr,on
of the togtc of ."r."iairy
both ..ALe rica,, and,,Latin,, America.
history and a des.ription of the current economic and social situa-
tion in Chiapas, subdiüded into the "First'Wind" and the "Second
'Wind" in emulation of sixteenth-century Spanish chronicles of the
The First ,,Barbarians,, were not
New World. Cast in terms familiar to those conversant with global- r'Latin" Americans:
The fnvention of Racism in
ization, the first wind is the wind from above and the second that the Modern/Colonial
from below.The declaration, then, outlines the direction of a project
to rewrite the colonial history of modernity from the perspective : complex articulation and disarticulation of diverse histories
of coloniality (instead of writing the history of colonialiry from the the benefit of one, the history of the discoverers,
conquerors,
perspective of moderniry). This framing is subject to questions and I colonizers, left to posterity a lirrear and homogeneous
criticisms by critical and inquisitive readers. ProGssional historians history that also produced the "idea,, of America.
árr..p,
But in order
could argue that there is litde historical rigor in this "pamphlet" one history to be seen as primary, a system of
classification to
and that what we need is serious and rigorous histories of how ginalize certain knowledges, largu"g.s,
and beings needs to be
things "really" happened. Again, that argument assumes that the rplace, Thus, colonization
and theluslification fo, In" rppropri"_
events caruy ín themselves their own truth and the job of the his- rir of land and the exploitation of
l"bo, in the pro..r, oi th.
torian is to discover them. The problem is that "rigorous historio- America required the simultaneous ideological
graphy" is more often than not complicitous with modernity (since fon 1f
ion of racism. The emergence of the Indians in
con_
theiuropean
the current conceptualization and practice of historiography, as a tousness, the simultaneous expulsion
of the Moors ,"d i;;;
üscipline, are a modern rearticulation of a practice dating back to the Iberian peninsula in the late fifreenth century
,rj th.
- again - Greek philosophy). In that respect, the argument for dis- ion of the African Blacks in slavery prompted a
specific
ciplinary rigor turns out to be a maneuver that perpetuates the myth lion and ranking of humanity. The pÁumpruous ..model,,
of modernity as something separate from coloniality. Therefore, if ideal humanity on which ir was tased was nor
esrablished by
you happened to be a person educated in the Calmemac in Anáhuac d as a natural order, but according to the perception
of Christian,
and were quite far away from the legacies of the Greeks, it would and European males. The geo- and iody potitics
be your fault for not being aware what civilized history is and how
!e, ,f k;;;;rdg,
h:O!r: and sublimated into an ibrma uniuersal coming
important it is for you. the transcendental ego. C""r^.gy.ltl¡ the geo_poháá
from Cod or
and body
Other criticisms may stem from the fact thet the diüsion of above
and below still originates in the concept of the "above." Indeed, it :::^llf:ledges
that yfolded from th". borde,,
'iences in the colonies (that is, imperial/colonial "f
i;t;t;
experi."..9
was the Dominican &iar Bartolomé de Las Casas who first described not only a new and distinct episremology (i.e., bord'er
(but did not enact himself) the perspective now being enacted by logy), but also a perspective from which
.pirt.l
to anaryze the limirs of
the Zapatistas.The most suspicious reader would add that it is Sub- regional universalizing of understanding based
on both theology
Comandante Marcos (a Mexican Mestizo who studied anthropology egology (i.e., theo- and ego-politics oiknowledge).fhe
oveá
t4 15

¡
 The Amerims, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
,Ethniciry referred to communiries nor necessarily defined by physi-
classification and ranking of the world do not just reveal 1 reüry
They also lhl attributes.
out.there, in the world, that they refect, like in a mirror'
, IVhen "race" (mainly in the nineteenth century) replaced "eth-
hide the fact that such classification and ranking are valid
only
- the " and, thus, placed the accent on "blood" and "skin color"
from a "given perspective" or locus of enunciation geo-
bio-graphical experience of the knowing subject of of other attributes of community, "race" became synony-
historical and
with "racism." "Racism" emerges when members of a given
thephilosophicalprinciplesoftheology,thehistoricalexperiences
world as " or "ethnicity" have the privilege of classifying people and
of ú.rt.rn Christians, and the way of looking at the
in the words and concepts of the given group. "Racism" was
a male.
Of course, the hierarchy depends on who is in a position of still is a classi$ring matrix that not only encompasses the physi-
r.elati1t3 characteristics of the human (blood, skin color, etc.) but also
power to decide the model and where ":: it located in
to the interpersonal realm of human actiüties like religion,
it. In the case at hand, Incas, Aztecs, or Mayas were not ln a
posl-
in (ranked with Greek,Latin, English, German, and French
tion to classify people around the planet, or were not interested
ltalian, Spanish, and Portuguese second; Arabic, Russian, and
doing ,o, b."",rJ. túey did not havsthat kind of understanding'That
third; and then the rest), and geopolitical classifications of
*r, i, the hands of tL. Portuguese and Spaniards'Thus it happened he- world (e.g., East-\Vest, North-South; First, Second, and Third
that the European Renaissarrce model of humanity became
second- ; Axis of Evil; etc.). The complex "racial" matrix continues
gemonic ,rrd th" Indians and African slaves were considered
here about be in place today, as we can see if we look around or listen to
Ihrs h,.r-rn beings, if human beings ar all.'we are talking
of the modern/ rhetoric of neo-liberalism that has been advanced most recently
the historical, demographic, and racial foundation
question of President Bush's administration.'V7hat is important to remember
colonial world. "Ra;,"t of course, at this level is not a
according that raciahzation is applied not only ro people, but to language,
skin color or pure blood but of categolizing individuals
igions, knowledge, countries, and continents as well.
totheirlevelofsimilariry/proximitytoanassumedmodelofideal
..Race,, would b..o*" interchangeable with ..ethnicity,,, To be more specific about the formation of race as part of the
humaniry.
of genotypes' or of "Americx" and of "Latin" America, let's look at one of the
as race iiself refers only to a genealogy of blood'
and tional moments of the racial classification of the worid.
of skin color, while ".ihri"ity; inciudes a language' memories'
that is, it also refers to a cultural with previously unknown groups of people, the colo-
shared past and present
""p.,itt't"'; is precisely Christians in the Indias Occidentales (or simply the Indias)
sense of community, *haipeople have in common'That
determining individuals on the basis of their relation ro theo-
what "ethnos" mean and why it is also equivalent and complemen-
community of principles of knowledge, which were taken as superior to
tary to the concept of "nation" (from Latin natio"'a
(which originally other system around the world. Las Casas oft-ered, toward the
blrth"¡.After the merging of politics and religion
meant tradition ,rd 1o*o'ity) in the Roman Empire
under of the sixteenth century a classification of"barbarians" which
word to designate of course, a racial classification, although not based on skin
iorrrtrrrtirr. (third century AD), religion became a

communities of faith, while nation (natio) designated

communities It was racial bemuse it ranked human beings in a top-down scale
the ideak of Western Christians as the uiteria and measuring
ofbirth..W'ithsecul¡rizationintheeighteenthcenturyandthe
"religion"to bring for the ranleing. Racialization does not simply say, "you are Black
emefgence of the modern state,"nation" replaced
of..culture', Indian, therefore your are inferior." Rather, it says, "you are not
about a new kind of imagined community.The concept
culture" (language' literature' flag' me, therefore you are inferior," which in the Christian scale
was resignified to express "national
history)I People beg"t to identify themselves as members of a humanity meant Indians in America and Blacks in Africa were
of a given religion' Las Casas made a key contribution to the racialized
nation-state .rd, ,J.orrdarily, as members
t6 l7
 The Americas, Christian Expansian, and Racism The Americas, Christian Expansion,
and Racism

imaginary of the modern/colonial world when he defined, lt lhat it should be clear thar a person or people
could be
the end of his Apologética Historia Sumaria (c.7552), four kinds «rf'
"barbarians." using Aristotle as a basis and point of departttrc,
ifdo.("sage_and sophisticared"), r.JJus or cruer, and
".r lack .,litera-l
dered "barbarous,, because they
locution.,,
Las Casas proposed the following categories in order to have a clear ,kind of barbarians were those
who lacked basic forms
sense of how a nation or part of it could be properly considerctl ntality. This third rype was closely
relared, then, to rhe
"barbarous."11 for rationa] foSs oi thought and organi_
:-:iifT::t,no:_*1,.'n.cifically
The first of the four kinds of "barbarians" could be identifictl
when a human group showed signs of strange or ferocious behavitll' wnat §io,
.1i11 lhomas
tack the iJwaiiHffi,
Hobbes orJohn Locke would later
theo_
and could be proven to have a degenerate sense of justice, reasoll, state of nature. The fourth criterion
for ,.barbarians,,
manners, end/or human generosiry (benignidad). The term "barba' those who were rarional and hrd ,
,tr,r.irre of law but
rous" could thus be applied to a person or a people who acted <lt¡ j.Hlrr and pagans because rhey.,lack true
religion
the basis of opinions that were not clear or that were attained in a hn:t faith," even when_they are ,.rrg" ,íd
quick, not altogether rational manner, or who showed tumultuotts politicians" (II, p. 645).
v frudenr
r philoso_
and unreasonable behaüor. In the same vein, Las Casas believed tlrat Casas, then, "there is no nation (with
the exception of
some peoples, once rational rules and generosity were forgottctt, nor lack somerhins o, thrt is exempt
would fall into ferocious behavior and forget the generous alttl 'defects l3l *.
T:ITI such as in rheir law, cosrum"r,"rrár[i"
cordial manners (blandura y mansedumbre) that should characterizc lll p, ó45). Thke his example of the
;a ffiii:
Tirrks and Moors as bar_
civilized human social behavior. They would "become in some wly re fourth rype. Remember that
at the endof the fifteenth
ferocious, hard, rough, and cruel because barbarous means a stranlde- Moors had been expelled from the ,orrh
of ,h. Iberian
ness and exorbitance or novelty that does not accord with hutttlttt the north of Africa, and those who remained
nature and common sense" (II, p. 637).
in rhe
eme "moriscos',; that is to say, Moors
in Castilian and
The second meaning of "barbarous" or "barbarian" is narrowcr: ,ds. The situarion was similar to
what happened to
all those people who lacked a "literal locution that responds to theif 1848 when the frontier of the US
morrea south _ rhe
language in the same way that our locution responds to the Lttill o.remained_ in their place became
Mexicans in the ter_
language" are "barbarous" (II, p. 638).What Las Casas implied, thctl, Us, Regarding the Tirrks and Moors, Las
Casas wrote:
was that "the Latin language" is the ultimate condition for the trtte
warranty of any statement. On the basis of such principles, Spaniarelt rnd the Moors, in our times, are undoubtedly
would be able to assert, for instance, that the Indigenous people of le-lifestyle is urban and settled. But
how many and
the New World "lacked" the proper words to name God, an entity of defects do they, in their ,rbrriry
that was properly and truly named in and through the Latin lalt=
.rrry with
how irrational are úieir laws and what kind
of flaws
guage. By extension, Arabic and Hebrew would also be langtragel tings do they have? How barbarous are
rtreir habits?
that "lacked literal locution." Similarly Las Casas considered "bar[ra= fnuch sin and unreasonable ugliness i,
,*orrg them?
rous" all those people who lacked the practice and study of "letterr,t' for their tendenc"y to tet go and engage
of poetry, rhetoric, logic, history, and every aspect of knowlecl¡¡e l ilj::*n
l¡¡civious pleasures; the TüÁs
called "literature" in the broadest sense of the word, meaning any=
ií.nr.¿ ro the
vice [sodomy] as well as orher"r" ignominious vile_
thing written in alphabetic writing; that is, every "writing with tugh it is said that they surpass uI in every
thing
letters" of the Latin alphabet. Las Casas nuanced his characterizatioll Jurtice and governn¡enr. (lI, p. 646)tz

18
19
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Americas, Christian Expansion,
and Racism

Briefly, then, Las Casas recognized that the Turks and the Moors to refer ro rhose who fight against the
West and its ideals:
were above the Castiüan Christians in matters of law and statehood, mocracy,i treedom,
freedom, and modernity.
although for him they (Moors and Turks) failed miserably in terms But Las Casast major goal in introducing
these criteria was to
of Chiistian morals and were to be considered inferior. Las Casas's able to decide what kind of barbarians
the Indians of the New
conclusion was that the first, second, and fourth kinds of "barbar- d were, because he had already demonstrated
their rationality.
ians" are secundum quid barbaro.s ("next to barbarians") because they those of the Aztec and Inca n-pir.r,
-
lack something - mainly, they "lack our Christian fatth" (II, p. 653).
1:$ifff,"ticularly
They governed rhemselrr., ,rá ;;.1,;;*;;fi
*.ri
The proper "barbarians" are those who fall under the third type,
illl' ,.negarive.barbarians,, ,:ü:r:
either, since they
who are without the rule of law. As for the fourth lype, Las casas i:.Ii.¡^.:.::
know abour the"",r
church of Christ
üd
insists that this corresponds to the infidels and that there are t'rvo ""rii,t."ipr"*,r"*ril
positioned.them in rhe Ér"a á"rrr,
kinds of infidels: those who lived peacefully and owe nothing to )::X"^riI_T:h.e
e lacking Christianiry tp.,
and in the seconJ,rp.llrr.i.';;.ffi;
the Christians, and those who are enemies and persecutors of the ral locution." The first ,,barbarians,, of ,hJ;;;;;;.;#;
Christian faith.
After he defined the four kinds of barbarians, Las casas came up *..r.:"f
;J;Jil:;:il:Jr#
ll"l*: .:oyr1e,
dift-erent from the stories thar could be
with an unannounced fifth one that he called barbarie contraria.While in Latin. But little by lirtle, after 1500, the only and ffue
srory
the four types of barbarism responded to specific criteria, barbarie andin European imperiat trrrj-r"g.s. AII
contraria ("enemy barbarism") could refer to anyone. Barbarie contraria ies were l"
:r-r-r:i !.ti"
buried and denied-,,authenticiry,, the
;., l

frtñe"ti. ,y ,frrt
identified all those who (like today's "terrorists") actively worked to >pean stories were endowed with.
The 'tonquest and col0niza-
undermine christianity. It was called "enemy barbarism" because of ofAmerica" was, among other things, a
conquest and coloniza_
,,barbarians"' hatred of the christian faith. It would apply to all
the rhar,.of cour"r., *... coded in languages
those infidels who resisted and refused to accept the Gospel. They
:l.f::::*,Il"It.9,*,.r
non-literal locurion." Indian ranguages became obsorete
ic terms. The epistemic domaiÁ ád practices rri.pir-
resisted evangelical preaching, Las Casas concluded,"out of the pure of Indians and
hatred they have toward our faith and to the name of christ; )s were subsumed into the universal
hisiory conceived from the
and they not only refuse to receive and to hear the Christian faith !-ecti]/e
and experiences of'western christians,
rater secularized
but they mainly impugn and persecute it; and if they could - just {.S.t ar rhe inception of the imperial dominance
frd;a
to elevate and expand their own sect - they would destroy it" (II, . France. "f
p. 6al. Las Casas did not clarify who "they" were, beyond examples You may be wondering ar rhis point what
all of this has to do
laken from Thomas Aquinas. Las Casas wrote, "Barbarous are all tI:.,,]*:- and of Latin America. Lett try to move
rhose who are ourside the (christian) Roman Empire; all those, that that direction."r*-.:i..,
The ..idea,, of America ;;;;; ;;;;."
is to say, who are beyond the lJniversal church, since beyond the the^naming of the continent from people
Universal Church there is no Empire" (II, p'643).The genealogy is t:T,":,:1r"r":::Ij*rl
had inhabited the land for
here estabüshed in retrospect. The empire is defined as coterminous s13ver1d_' it. This phenomenon has
-riy ...rt.rri., U.for.-é"fI_T*
been described as,,deculrurr_
with the universal church, whiTe barbañe contraria encompasses every " "dispossession,, (both material
and spiritual), and more
,as
act against the church or against the empire. Thts barbarie contraria " n:.-ajron o f knowtedge.,, and,, c olo,rirrtio
; ; ñ.;;;.,,
subsumes the imperial and colonial differences, insofar as both
:jr"fl
the ::T
first and second generltion .f Cr;;i;;;;r;';:;
non-Christian empires, Indians and Black Africans, are "barbarous." in what are today the fwo Americas, Latin and
Anglo, came
Throughout the centuries and throughout the making of the power' the creoles appropriated the
name of ,rr" iíriá,
modern colonial world,"negative barbarism" has been redefined and themselves, labeling thlmseives,,Am.ricarrs,,
or,,Americanos.,,
20 2t
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The Americas, Christian
Expansion, and Racism
Indians and Blacks were definitively put out of the game. Today, the
continental Indigenous movements, from the Antarctic to the Arctic
pole, are claiming "Abya-Yala" as the name of the continent they
inhabit (see chapte, 3).'o This means that "Latin" America is the
name of the continent inhabited by people of European descent.
This may be difficult to understand, because of the success of the
logic of colonialiry in making it seem that "Latin" America is at
once a subcontinent and the idea in the consciousness of everybody
who dwells in the territory thus named. There is no claim yet, as
far as I know, being made generally by Afro-Americans (that is, in
North and South America and the Caribbean) as to how they will
locate themselves in relation to a subcontinental name that was
invented by Europeans and appropriated by Latin and Anglo Creoles.
In Ecuador and Colombia, though, the term la gran co-marca - the
idea of a large, shared (co-, as in co-operation), marked territory with
a colrlrnon root - is being used by Afro-Andeans. The moral is that
the "idea" of Latin America is, ontologically, the "idea" in the con-
sciousness of the Creoles and Mestizos/as identified with European
descent and histories. It may have been assumed at some point in
the past by Indians and people ofAfro descent that they too inhab-
ited "Latin" America - but this is no longer the case (see chapter
3)."Latin" America is not their dwelling place, although their daily " ¡'¡; \l;5

life grew, changed, and unfolded over a mass of land identified as the ninth_century ecrtron
:,T,ffi:,:lL
:'s Etymologies. ?"::1,*T,:.
The .L"r*,^,'i-^;::::-::'l*'v
edition of rsidore
Isidore olof
Latin America. The mass of land could be renamed any time, but
the consciousness of being "Latin" American cannot be changed or I_" y.k in this map:;:T3r,TI;:r-.Tr.TlrI:"
>n of an observer who
*r;;:;;
.s r) rrtlm rne pnvrleged
at once,-rocared ," iir.i"Ij:.j----------------#j.ffj
renamed that easily. The first is a question of naming that requires d the
rhe three ¡n¡ri-^--- (Courtesy
thre" continen*. ,rs,
consensus in international law.The second is a question of conscious-
.rrr,. ¡¡.*i*TffiH ¿rA:;
ness that requires self-examination by the people who identify them-
selves (or are identified) as "Latin" Americans.

Occidentalism and the "Americanity" of Arnerica

But how did we get to this point of universal acceptance of the

ideas of America and Latin America? What was the geo-political
and geo-historical framework in which this idea of America came
to life? Behind the apparently neutral description of the "discovery"
22
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism

observe the famous "T-in-O" map shown on p. 23, which was

published in the ninth-century edition of Isidore of Seville's
o
o rü ts
orH!
o!
Etymologies (originally compiled in the early seventh century).1s The .o
=!a.=
tripartite division is obvious, with Asia occupying the top part of o
o.
the circle and Europe and Africa dividing among themselves the F€ E a

bottom half. You might ask who divided the world into these three or
.oñxo
4) P,

continents before the "discovery" of the fourth one. If, prompted na

'o -z
f.c
o
by that question, you were to look back into world histories, you
would realize that no other of the existing sixteenth-century civili- sOoe
o
YÓ
zations (China, India, Arabo-Islam,Japan, Inca, Maya, Aztec) divided oiE
o.
d
dO üi
the world into three continents and identified them as Asia, Africa,
¿u o..:
\ri OV
and Europe. It would become apparent that onlyWestern Christians I
"Ú ,:
had divided the world into three parts. Moreover,'W'estern Chris- .it
t! (dC+
t-i (.,
oX xP
ai
tians had assigned each of the parts to one of the three sons of E¡ dl
d
Noah: Asia to Shem, Africa to FIam, and Europe to Japheth. -ifalóD
!-
bo9
Two questions arise from Isidoret map: how did this imaginary, o 'u
i bo'6
bo-
the correspondence between continents and Noah's sons, get to be ¿,
,L o
¡i

uy
articulated? And, more important for our discussion, what were the LñR
¡-5 lp
5q
ró)OrC)
consequences of such an imaginary? The idea of "America" cannot ,-O9a)I
e-.Ó

be understood without the existence, previous to the discovery/ ri¡

L¡j
::'5 -: u
,.9:
Yd
invention, of the tripartite division of the world, with the corre- 1J
!g ^=
,o
sponding Christian geo-political connotations. It is not excessive to ^o
7 at
Jt
o
remind the reader that there was no reason why people in China, =6 Or
!
in Islam, in the empires ofTáwantinsuyu and Anáhuac would believe O!
a

that the world was divided into three and that each division has to pJL
OÁ tÁ
Uü i3.
be related to a son of Noah! This reminder is necessary because oUO /,
after the discovery/invention and from the sixteenth century onward, Irq
.r].'l
there would be an overwhelming belief in the fact that the planet E
,áO,¡ i .4
i3
was actually and naturdlly diuided into four con.tinents - Asia, Africa, !
6
!
^o o
6
! U
Europe, and America. -uig O9
F o
.! k.-
When we look at the world maps of Gerardus Mercator (1542) d iu o
and Abraham Ortelius (c. 1575),16 we see, for the first time in the !
4)
]E aa)
|C
d
''a
history of the human species, the world now divided into the four
o
major continents recognized today. ("Australasia," which includes
Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea, doesn't have in ..o
o
Q !
the imaginary the force of one of the four major continents. Of : !i
o

course, Papua New Guineans do not see the world in those terms.) 5q
5r óÁ
Ktr
u-.-ú\
'I

And we see the mass of lands and water in Ortelitts' ntap not b1

24

a*
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Americas, Christian Expansion,
anil Racism
because the planet is divided into four continents, but because the Augustine, writing in rhe early
fifth century contributed
T-in-O malt has been inuisibly imposed upon Ortelius'"Orbis Uniuersalis cantly to continental
Terrarum.tt .raciahzator.¿lrtorrgh the term,,rece,, in
sense is from the eighteenth.century,
tlíe ¡dea of rrp.rlo.iry
The shift from the three continents in Isidore's map to the ¿ddi- ed in the christian crassification
.f
implicit in rhe T-in-O map. The ;.;1.
by continenr was
tion of a fourth one at the end of the fifteenth century is interesting
for several reasons. First and most obviously, the division of the r's. three sons (Shem,
g.ffirri.A - distribution
world into continents according to Christian cosmology was simply iltr speaks ro rhe wavs in whichIr-, ,"¿ lrpñ.rfi,-ár. i, each conri_
Japh.ih'*r, considered in rerarion
an isolated Christian invention that was applied and later accepted
l[:"::l íh.,. ,h"di f"-;; ,,.p,ir., rherefore, in rhe
globa[y. Next, when America was invented and appended to the -1,-.
!that seventeenth-cenrury
triad, Tawantinsuyu and Anáhuac disappeared. It was as if they had
world -rp, hr;';;'#;H d:;
right, and Africa ,r,i a*.ri.a ar
not existed before, and only began to do so at the very moment of :ffj .1!¡ "pf:'
represented by naked or semi_naked women).
the boftom
their disappearance (invasion).That is to say, they lost their autono- ion ofpeople and conrinenral di"irlorriilo
If that is not
nor undersrand
mous history. From the beginning of the sixteenth century onward, racism is. Before Augusrine such
a link had nor been clearlv
the histories and languages of Indian communities "became histori- shed. In oth., *o.dr, there *.r.
obrio.rrt, ,o natural con_
cal" et the point where they lost their own history. They became, ¡ whatsoever between Asia
and Shem, afri., and Ham, and
in other words, museum cultures as they ceased to be human history. *:*_9
:*J::I*j:-1',0.^* it in his r:-in_o map. rn
!*;;;;;: ;;ñrir.,l;i.
When Gerardus Mercator drew his world map in 7542 and repre- Ci.ty of Gol, Augustine
@ook xvD
sented the New'World as an independent continent, he contributed city could be traced in .,a contir.ror^
Urr. from the flood or
to an "American" identiry that ignored and suppressed Anáhuac, by inrervening periods of irreligion
Tawantinsuyu, and Abya-Yala. This kind of suppression would ,tj^r^Y*rted
üimes when nor one man emerg., ,, *..rruif;;:;;.""".1'r';.
rhat there
become conceptualized as "modernity," as if moderniry was a neces- l" (book xVI, 1, 64e). Thus, ññ;;;eculares:
sary historical force with the right to negate and suppress everything
that did not fit a model of world history that is seen as "an essential trn fact, from the time of Noah, whom with his wi* and his
historical process." and their wives was A""J^*rrfry
Be that as it may, Mercator labeled the two landmasses as North IT l -1"r,
the devastation of the Flood Uy rn."rrr-of
ro be rescued
the ark, we do
and South America ( p ars Sep t (entrio nali s) end p ars Meri d (io nalis) respec- find, until the time of Abraham, ;;;;Jwhose
devorion
tively) and separated the Americas from the other three continents ,proclaimed any statemenr in the inspired
-by Scriptures _
(Asia,Africa, and Europe), following the already existing idea of the
Old and the New Worlds. America, because of the colonial differen- ';,*::. I:'., :': r' ? d: h^,, o ni s7, *,*á
f; :#,f benediction,.since
Y;is prophetic i,ii,'n
he knew, by Orr,*rrr' ,iiifíiÍíí'i,
tial effect, has always been conceived as a continent that did not co- to.h,ayfen in thefar ilistantfuture.
ú.;.; ii *r, rhat he also
exist with the other three but came into being late in the history of i his middle son, that is the or. yorrrrg.r than the first_
o'New'W'orld" and, by the
the planet. For that reason it was called the .f^.I*r jhan the lasr, because fr. fr"J'J,_rrred against his
eighteenth century Buffon and Hegel really saw its nature and . He did nor curse him in hi,
culture as "young." History - that is, ofiicial and canonical narratives t of his son, Noah's grandson; and ";;;;;, ffii,,'tr,.
he used those words:
of a chronological successions of events and their location in space - It'A curse on Canaanl He shall be ,-
rtr.r", a servant to ¡ri,
placed a similar gulf between the history of Europe and that of its ,broühers," Now Canaan was
the son of Ham, who had not
colonies, as if they were independent entities always "trailing behind" nakedness.of his sleeping átf,er,
:i:f1--the but instead had
the triumphal march of European, supposedly universal, history. cdlcd aftenrion to it. This is also ín,
ñ"rir'#;ffi; ff;
26
27

J
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Americas, Christian Expansion,
and Racism
on his two sons, the eldest and the youngest, saylng,
a blessing territory of the Chaldeans, ,,a land which
"Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his formed part of the
ian Empire" @ook XVI, 12,670).
slave; may God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the
Now, this information i
thar secrion tz or uo-ok"xí,^*"á?#r'
houses of Shem." In the same way the vineyard planted by ng Gentile empires.,, And here is where
r"".,il:"n :
Noah, the drunkenness resulting from its fruit, the nakedness we find, several
before Isidore of Seülle, the explanation
of the sleeping Noah, and all the other euents recorded in this story, of tfr. confinental
in the T-in-O map.
were laden with prophetic meanings and couered with prophetic ly extended review of,the.famgus, and yet
forgorten, history of
ueils.17 tripartite continental division has fwo
,ltimrte purposes. One
underscore the fact that the planet
At this point, Augustine begins a hermeneutic argument (that was not ontologically
I into continen*, but that the continerrrJlir¿
is, an argument about meaning, not about causes) by which the was a Chrisrian
ntion. Second,I want to show that the
meaning attributed to each of the names of Noah's sons will be the
meaning of America (and
Indias cant be undersrood outside the christian
"prophetic insight" that illuminates "the distant future," a future that -o-ccidentales)
lnental divide. If, in a hypothetical revision
was in fact Augustine's present. He argues: "Now that the historical of history (an exer_
inthe logic of ,.possible worlds,,), the lump
fulfillment of these prophecies has come about in the posterity of of land into which
bumped had been ,.discovered,, irrt..d
these sons, the things which were concealed have been abundantly by the Moors,
or the Chinese, you can be absolutely
revealed" (book XVI,2,650). So what were the "prophetic mean- sure that there
today, and even less tikely would
of?.a ,.1*.:..r"
ings" covered with "prophetic veils" in each of the names? be rhe
"Latin"America. Of course, tirtory-i,
based on what
and nor on whar could have happened.
The name Shem, as we know, means "named" and it was in ¡ed on possible worrds and on
Éhilorophy, rh";;,
Shem's üne that Christ was born in the fesh. Japheth means ,that have been
at*ir asking about the arterna-
left our by that which ..really,, happened. In
"enlargement" and "in the houses of Christ"; that is, the "enlarge- iü words, "historical reality,'is not only what happe";á
ment" of the nations dwells in the church.The name Ham means t";;;.
rn. sheer facts of *hrt happened nesare.
"hot" and Noah's middle son was separated from the other f::,lli.:
happened lnrr,has
much to do with the inireasing complicity
two and, by keeping his position between them, was included ianity (and christian knowledge) *iti,
neither in the first fruits of Israel nor in the full harvest of the capitalism and its consequences in the
ii. force of dever_
Gentiles. He could only stand for the hot breed of heretics:
cultural i"a"rr.y, _rp
"Thry are hot, because they are on fire not with the spirit of wisdom, l*f.flltt * and circutation, rhe authoriry of
e1c.. Witfou,t thar parrnership,
the printed
the ourcome of capitalism and
but with the spirit of impatience; for that is the characteristic feruor in rrld in which we are living in
today, *irf, ifr. Americas, would
the heart of heretics; that is what makes them disturb the peace of the cortainly been different. Hisrory is an institution
t'
saints. that l"grti-
oy i o.Lns',i*.,lt",,.orrry,il*3i-rg
.:}, itY:.-,'"t^'^'::]":
stories, as well as srories"rof! th" sileice
To understand the implications ofAugustine's argument, let's remem- üffi;:
frirr"ri.r.lt
come_ rogether"fin America? rndeed,
ber that he was following the line of descent from Shem to show lr:lg ^11t :rlt:rism
the unfolding of the City of God after the Flood (book XVI, 10, ::!.*p!! camecenrury.togerher before, more clearly toward
But America propelted capital
665). A second important moment after Shem's is the "development apitalism,:, H.jjtiej).1-th
How come? Again, the massive
of the City of God from the epoch marked by Father Abraham" 'messive exproitation of rabor, and massive ñ;ñ;
srave ffade"T'"í,
(book X.Yl, 72,670). Abraham was born, Augustine informs us, in with a conmlon goal (to produce the comnrodities came
of a
28
29
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
global market, from gold to tobacco and sugar) and a dramatic
(the expendabiliry - dispensability - of human lives
"orrr"qr".t.e
in the pursuit of commodity production and capital accumulation)'
Capital turned into capitalism when the radical changes in land
appropriation, labor exploitation, and massive commodity produc-
tion were conceived in the rhetoric of modernity as an advance-
ment of humaniry (in the eighteenth century Adam Smith would
be the first in theorizing poütical economy starting from the Adantic
commercial circuits).The consequences of the conversion of capital
into capitalism were the devaluation of human lives and and the
naturalization of human expendability. That is the beginning of a type
of racism that is still well and aliue today (as evidenced in the treatment
áf i--igrrnts in Europe and the uS, as well as the expendabiliry
of people's lives in Iraq).
The commercial circuits in the expanding mercantile economy
had been forming beftveen 7250 and 1350.1e But a new dimension
- the justification of the possession of land, ports, and places -
appeared with the Roruanus pontifex bull of 1455, the bull. Inter caetera
iit+gl, the Tfatado de Tordesilla of L497, in which the pope dis-
tributed the "new" discovered lands between Spain and Portugal,
and the Requerimiento of 1512. These declarations foreshadow the
constitution of the modern/colonial world. For example, the early
Romanus Pontifex bull responds to the "üscoveries" made by the
Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator (1395-1460) and states:
And so it came to pass that when a number of ships of this
kind had explored and taken possession of very many harbors,
islands, and seas, they at length came to the province of Guinea,
and hauing taken Ttossession of some islands and harbors and the
sea adjacent to that proünce, sailing farther they came to
the mouth of a certain great river commonly supposed to be
the Nile, and war was waged for some years against the peoples
of those parts in the name of the said King Alfonso and of the
prince, and in it very many islands in that neighborhood were
subdued and peacefully possessed,as they are still possessed togethet
with the adjacent sea.Thence also many Guineamen and other
negroes, taken by force, and some by barter of unprohibited
30
J:@
The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
or by other lawful contract of purchase, have been sent to
said kingdoms. A large number of these haue been conuerted to
:Catholic faith, and it is hoped, by the help of divine mercy,
!' if such progress be continued with them, either those
will be converted to the faith or at least the souls of
of them will be gained for Christ.2o
bulls clearly linked the christian church wirh mercanrilism
a new and important element: the right of the Christians
possession." Experts in modern/colonial history and the
y" ofAmerica are familiar with the famous Requerimientozl
of the Castilian crown and the church read to the
in order to enact possession of their land. The combination
cxpansive ideology (that ofWesrern Christianity), on rhe one
with the transformation of the mercantile trade by the em_
,on land possession and the massive exploitation of labor to
commodities for a newly global market, on the other,
the colonial matrix of power.22 The point here is that
ence of the Atlantic com¡nercial circuit (in the ,,discovery
ization" of America) established the links between faith,
rssession, and the massive exploitation of labor (serfdom,
in the Americas, in mines as well as in plantations producing
globat market.
thirteenth-century mercantile world-system economy was
i. First, it was not driven in conjunction with a global design,
the one Christians began ro envision and implement towi'rd
of the fifteenth cenrury. Abu-Lughod has remarked:
what is noteworthy in the world system of the
century is that a wide variety of cultural systems
and cooperated, and that societies organized
from those in the West dominated the sysrem.
Confucianism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and numerous
tmaller sects often dismissed as "pagan,, all seem to have I
and, indeed, facilitated lively commerce, production,
risk-taking and the like.And among rhese, Christianity I
r relatively insignificanr role.23 I
31
J
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racisrn

that ility for decolonizing knowledge. That is, if "discovery,, is

cannot account in detail here for the radical transformation
'\x/'e
ial interpretation, "invention" is not just a different inter-
in two centuries led to the assumption of imperial control of
the
to convert but a move to decolonize imperial knowledge.'Which one
modern/colonial world by Christianiry, and the design true one is a moot question. The point is not which of the
byforceandbypossessionallbarbariansoutsideit..\I/-hatisrelevant interpretations better "represents the event" but, rather, what
fo, ,r, is a second observation made by Abu-Lughod' She notices ,Power differential in the domain of knowiedge is. And whar we
by China
and rnalyzes a decline of navai and commercial control here are two interpretations, one offering the imperial vision
and India, toward the end of the fourteenth century: event, and the other the decolonial vision. Both co-exist in
with paradigms: the imperial paradigm imposes and maintains
The withdrawal of the chinese fleet after 1435, coupled ,dominant view (which all students learn from elementary ro
the overextension into the tvvo easternmost circuits of
the
school and which is disseminated in popular cuhure and the
IndianOceantradeoftheArabandGujaratilndianmerchants' . The decolonial paradigm struggles to bring into intervening
power in
neither protected by a strong navy, left a vacuum of an-other interpretation that brings forward, on the one
the Indian O..rr. Eventually, this vacuum was filled first a silenced view of the event and, on the other, shows the
by the Portuguese, then by the Dutch' and finally the by
of imperial ideology disguised as rhe true (and total) inter-
túe British . . ''What decisively transformed the shape
of
take- ion of the events.
"rnodern" world system was not so much the Portuguese
incorporation of idea ofAmerica that complemented the idea of "discovery,,
over of the "old world" but the Spanish into being at the intersection of Christian cosmology, the
the
the "new world." This geographic reorientation displaced capitalist economy, and the decolonial responses of
center of gravity in a decisive manner and' if Marx's
contention
populations in Anáhuac and Tawantinsuyu, who tried
isaccepted,prouidedthroughprimitiueaccurnulation,thewindfallsof to expel the invaders and later to find strategies of survival
wealth that euentualty weie spun into industrial
gold.Thrs perhaps,
been fixated with rejection of the invaders and preservation of their own
is why European ,riolo,s have in the last analysis
belieñ, and ways of social and family life. The initial ten-
on the sixteenth cerftirY'24
between the diversity of Spaniards and Portuguese and the
of Indians was complicated later on by the arrival ofAfrican
Confronting Abu-Lughod's narrative with the perceptions
that
will help and, still later, by the emergence of the Creole consciousness
emerged i, ,rid fro* th"" colonial history of the Am-ericas mid-seventeenth century. That sixteenth-century intersection
,r, ,rid.rrr"nd the co-existence and the conflict of interpretations marked by the fact that, then and there, Christianity gained
not only within one paradigm but across paradigmatic frameworks over Moors andJews and became "the" religion of the capi-
ofthoughtandacrosstheepistemiccolonialdifference.Wewillsee r{ilorld, which turned into liberalism in the eighteenth century
laterthatthisgeneralphilosophicalproblemhasseriousimplications ilco-liberalism (that is, political conservativism) in the second
kind of
for power relaiions ,.ri, -o'! specifically' for one particular Of the twentieth and the first part of the fwen§-firsr cenruries.
po*", relations, the "colonialiry of power" (i'e'' imperial appropria- complicity berween the US and the srare of Israel since irs
control
tion of land, exploitation of labor, and control of finance; cannot be detached from the long history of the modern/
of knowl-
of authority; control of gender and sexuality; and control world, which includes the expulsion of the Jews from Spain
the dominant' imperial version
edge and subjectivity). "óiscovery" is
vcry moment in which Spain was becoming the imperial
ofíhrt happened (iúe ,r.rsio" that became "reality)'the ontological
of the modern/colonial and capitalist word, as well as
the inter-
dimension of history that blends what happened with- chrnging faces of the idea ofAmerica, from the fourth continenr
fr.rrrion of what happened), while "invention" opens the window
32 33
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Americas, Christian Expansion, and
Racism

in Christian cosmology to the exceptionality of America-as-lJS to ¡lrevolution and the condition that made possible,
three
save the world from the axis of evil. ies later, the
invention of..Orientalism,,in the iÁperial
O'Gormant thesis is located within the Creole decolonial gene-
;*_r_
of Britain and France into Asia and A&ica..,Occiáentalirrri,,,
alogy of thought. As we will see in chapter 3, similar decolonial ¡rman's thesis on the .,universalism ofWestern
,,
culture,, r,rggarrr,
discourses grounded in the "colonial wound," and in the genealogies two interrelated dimensions: First, it served to
locate ,hñ";:
of thoughts and experience of Indians and Afro descendants, >rical space of Western culture. But, less
obviously, it *o ñ*.a
surfaced more or less at the same time as O'Gormant. The Afro- privileged locus of enunciation. It is from
the west that the rest
descendant decolonial genealogy of thought was clear§ and loudly re world is described, conceptuali zed.,
andranked: that is, moder_
manifested in and for the Americas by Aimé Césaire in Discours sur ry is the self-description of E.rropet role in history rather than
le colonialisme (1950) and Retour au pays natal (1956), and by Frantz -ontological historicar process. \úithout a locus of
enunciation
Fanon in Peaux noires, masques blancs (1,952).In parallel with deco- eived as Occidental, the Oriental could
not have been
lonial discourses articulated after World War II, Aymara intellectual out_-"
and activist Fausto Reinaga, in América India y Occidente (7974),was rgelt philosophy of history is a striking
example in which the
also articulating a decolonial discourse embedded in Indigenous and is both a geo-historical lotation and
th"e center of enunciation.
Andean colonial experiences and genealogy of thoughts. Observing moves from East to West. In that move,
the very idea of
the colonial history of the Americas, then, helps us understand the civilization became the point of reference
for the rest of
co-existence and the conflict of interpretations across paradigmatic rWorld, and the goal as well.
How was it that the ...W.est,, came
frameworks and across the epistemic colonial difference;. that is, the Ecupy the "center" in terms of political theory,
political economy,
decolonial epistemic shift means understanding moderniry from the )hy, arts, and literature? And when?
Up to the fifteenth
perspective of colonialiry while, for instance, postmoderniry means Western Christendom (or Europe in Creek
understanding moderniry from within modernity itself. üy the "'\Xl'est" - but .,West,, of what? Of -ythology¡ _r;
Wos the center of the Christian world.
J..";;;,;;7;";r;
Athens and Rome *erJ
as the part of the o,"W'est,, that offered
the foundation of
The Historical Foundation of , social organization, and the consolidation of the
'the church
Occidentalistn and its EPistemic, state under Emperor Constantine, three
centuries ao. Thus,
Political, and Ethical Consequences [tern Europe" did not begin to occupy the .,center,,until
the
Eence of the "Indias Occidentaler,, ftt., called America and
The "idea" ofAmerica came into being deeply rooted in the "idea"
.r::::
*r:, and Angto America) i" ir,. Ct *;;;;;;
of Occidentalism. After all, "Indias Occidentales" was the name ¡ness. The very idea of a West (Occidentalism)
anj the
attributed by the Spaniards to their newly possessed lands. America, of'Western expansion since 1500 ,lro b.g".,
with the iden_
as a name, co-existed for three centuries with "Indias Occidentales" ¡n and invention of America. From that moment
on, the
before that name fell into desuetude after the Creoles gained Occidentales defined the confines of the .West
and, as its
independence from Spain. O'Gormanb thesis on the "invention of cfy, were part of the West nonetheless. Those
confines were
America" and "the universalism of Western culture" revealed not ftom a locus of observation that placed itself at the
center of
only that the idea of discovery is an imperial interpretation but also d being observed, described, and classified. This allowed
that America as the extreme West is rooted in Christian cosmology, Europe to become the center of economic
and political
in which the destiny of Japheth, the son located in the'W'est, was tstion, a model of social life, an exemplar of fru*r,
to expand. "Occidentalism" was one of the consequences of the lnd, above all, the point of observation and classificadon
ñ;;;
of
34 35
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The Americas, Chrktian Expansion' and Racism
'Western
of
the rest of the world. Thus the idea of "'w'est" as "center"
became expansion and civüzation. The Occidental is,
political economy' philosophy' ily, the place of hegemonic epistemology rarher than a geo-
dominant in European political theory,
was conquering :al sector on the map. Samuel Huntington demonstrated as
arts, and literaturg i, the process by which Europe
the world and classifyirrg it. world being conquered'
The hubris of when he placed Australia in the First World and in the West
naturalized point of obser- leaving Latin America out.28 Foq after all, .,(Latin) America"
the zero-point becaáe the legitimate and
an "entity" that can be observed and experienced, but an
vation iri cartography (as in Ortelius' map) and in theology'
The
sixteenth is the centáry in which the eye of God is
in complicity " that arises in the conflicts of interpretation across the colonia-l
the rence.The "differences" between Latin America and Europe and
with empirical observations provided by navigations-around
.US are not just "cultural"; they are, well and truly, ,,cólonial
g1obe. Ttreology provided the authoriry of the
locus of observation
." That is, the links between industrial, developed, and
írd .rrtog.rpiry it. truth of the world being observed'26
"Occide.rialism," more than a field or domain of study
like countries, on the one hand, and could-be-industrial, under_
"Orientalism" in the hands and pens of French and British , and emerging countries, on the other, are the colonial
intellectuals since the late eighteenth century is itself
the in the sphere where knowledge and subjectiviry gender
peñpective from which the Orient can be conceived' For how iry laboa exploitation of natural resources, and finance,
authority are esrablished. The notion of culturai differences
iori¿ "Orientalism" become a geo-political concept without the
the relation of power while the concepr of colonial dif-
presuppositionofan..occident,'whichwasnotonlyitscounterpart,
but also the very condition for the existence of "Orientalism"? is based, precisely, on imperial/colonial power differentials.
concept and t can deepen our understanding of the functions and implica_
Furthermore,,ooccidentalism" was both a geo-political
of thought of the idea of Occidentalism by contrasting it with the forma-
the foundation of knowledge from which all categories
emerged and all classifications of the rest of the world
were deter- of the ideas of other areas that were constructed vis-i-vis a
,.Orientalism" did not have this privilege.\Ü'estern people ic idea of Europe.The contrast betweenAsia orAfrica and
mineá.
have disciplines and Eastern people have cultures to
be studied by icas can also illuminate the importance of the emergence
.W.esterndisciplines.The.Westwas,andstillis,theonlygeo-historical lentalisml' as part of the ideology of colonization during
issance, and of "Orientalism" as its counterpart to justifi
locarion that is both part of the classification of the world
and the
only perspectiue that has the priuilege of possessing dominant
categories oJ ;r expansion of England and France. Both rely on the image
can be described, clas- world put in place in the sixteenth century when,,America,'
tlrough* fro* which and whire the rest oJ the world
,i¡ri, uidrrttood, and "irnProued' "27
in the European consciousness and in the global designs
ist empires.
Theenchantingpowerofoccidentalismresidesinitsprivileged
geo-historicrl locrtiorr, a privilege that was self-attributed
by the "How Does Asia Mean?" Sun Ge presents a compelling
philosophic' Nent that from the beginning Asia:
!ro*i.rg hegemonic belief in its own rucial'
religious'
One of the most devastating consequences
Lrd scientifii superiority.
world to be what inot only a political concept, but also a cultural concept; it
of such a system of üefief is that the seems
European lrrrd lrte, US) categories of thought allow you
to say it flot only a geographical location, but also a measure of value
is. Túe rest is simply wrong and any attempt to think
otherwise The Asia question itself does not bear any necessary
opens one up to ú"irrr-.nt, demonizing, and, eventually' elimina- to the question of hegemony and counter-hegemony,
tion. The idea of America (and subsequently of Latin and
Anglo r the attempts to tackle this question have brought into

America) is a product and a consequence of this Occidentalist considerations of hegemony of the East and the \Vest.

36 37
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Americas, Christian Expansion,
and Racism
More specifically, Sun Ge frames the problem as follows: in the sixteenth century that there was a
ica learned, also
ent named "America.,' And what about Africa?
For a long historical period, Asia has not been treated as a rg" curve can be ffaced. people from the
A similar
self-contained geographical concept,but has only been putforward of Mali, the kingdoms of the ñg., Bend
fvfrghrib, ii.
and ofLnrj, .t..
ideologically in opposition to Europe.The discussion ofAsia involved to learn, in the fifteenth and sixleenth centuries,
not only the quesrion of Eurocentrism, but also the question that they
of hegemony within the East. As difiicult as it is to sort out i:2"'-,-:;:'ll'"'',""T
for .:!,d"Arrica!'
the dffirent people. of.,,Africa',
rhere was no sooh
* ,pr*ronrorrrr"'ir"*rir""¡
the question of Asia, it remains an underlying thread running laes as they were conceiuid of by the
Eírropron Christians! The
through the intellectual history in the modern world.Hence,we >n of an image,Africa, which belonged
.ro, ,o their memories
still have to grapple with the question of Asia as one that the memories of Christian Er.op.l..ompanied
constitutes a totality in itself.2e
the increas_
rce of the colonial maffix of power, which
as we have seen
into the picture with the ,,discovery of America,,
The general statement that Asia has "been put forward ideologi- and the
m maps locating the ,.barbarians,' of the
world.
cally in opposition to Europe" already reveals the fact that "Asia" project subjacent ro and invisible under
surfaced out of the political project of European agents more than P"l1d.d, rhe conti_
division has important consequences for
contemporary intel_
from the spirit imbedded in the ontology of a continent. In the debates. Sun Ge appropriately brings
same way as the people living in Tawantinsuyu and Anáhuac did
ro rhe forefront the
a raAc,.revrsitingáf Éa*ri Said,sloncept
not know that they inhabited a continent named America, the ,!1 of orientalism
r8r[mg to radlcalize the concept, and not
to árro, the Bernard
people of China, Japan, and India did not know that they were h¡ of the world rhar have b-een atracking Said for his
living in a continent named Asia (and, of course, the equivalent .of Orientalism and of Israel). ,,Asia,,,
.riú;;
holds for Indigenous people in what later came to be called New ,,term that "has emerged to
*r'ir., Sun Ge, is a sin_
name collectively a plurality of
Zealand and Australia). Who really knew that Incas and Aztecs were aies and regions." Flowever,,,in the
hands ofAsians, Orientalism
living in America and that Chinese and Japanese were in Asia? The s different from that which Said criticizes,
for it is directed
Western Christians, who drew the maps and named the areas, were the only the Asian Occidentalism.,,3l Recognizing
And how and when did Chinese and Japanese and
the fundamental
ones who knew. ion made by Said, she calls for"an .í""[V fundamental
other people in o'Asia" know that they inhabited a confinent named S":.9.-makes an epistemic geo_politiá _orr. (that
Asia? To determine the precise moment or period in which the is, a
et shifts the geo-politics of knáwbdge) ,,to
rake a different
different people and institutions in China, Japan, India, etc. accepted ive from that of 'Western intellectuJs on
the idea that they were living in a continent named "Asia" and the question of
F e question that deserves greater attention
from inte[ectuals
began to associate a particular territory with that specific name, we
jh.,'West.,,l2 Sun Ge oúr.r,,.r, rightly in my
would need to do further investigation. One answer, however, can *^:n:.:irj*
when Said declares:
be taken as a given: not before 1582.Why? Because it was in the
decade of 1580 that Italian Jesuit Mateo Ricci presented a world of scholarly_specialization as a geographical,,fieId,, i15,
map (presumably Ortelius'"Orbis [Jniversalis Terrarum") to the lqeak
intellectuals and officers of the Ming Dynasty.3o'We can be almost 3:^.::-"lO.rieniatism,fairtyr"""rf i"f ,ir?;;.;iil;
a field symmeffical to it called Occidentalism.
certain that it was only then that people inhabiting China and Japan the. special, perhaps even eccentric attitude
"learned" for the first time that they were living in a space called of
becomes apparent. For , . . there is no
real analogy
Asia, just as the Indigenous people and African slaves transported to ng a fixed! more or less total geographical positio'á
38
39
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Amerims, Christian Expansion, and
Racism

towards a wide variety of social, linguistic, political and histori- h missionaries decided that the Indians did not
have hisrory
cal realities.33 they, the Spanish missionaries, were God_appointed
to write
history that Indians did not have. spanish missionaries
courd not
Here, Sun Ge goes on to make a weighty observation: :.said "our" or "my" when they wáre writing
the history of the
)rnca people, as rhey could with the memories
and subjectiviry
what Said fails to understand is that thete is another side to this their own past.
problem. That is,for the Asians engaged in the discussion of the Asia And how does "Africa,, signify, then? A substantial answer has
question, though one cannot say there is precisely something called tn advanced in two of varentin Mudimbet crassic books: Tfte
1'Occidentalisla" worked out by them, there indeed exists' and Afiica (1983) and The ldea of Africa (1.994).36A,
not without reason, in abstraction an ambiguous single entity
"tj1n^of
"Africa" was not the name ,"¿ ifr" spatial image o,Africans,,
*. frrrl
...West.,,
named the Although it is no longer meaningful today of their territory. It was a growing and changing
,''w'est" as a single entity, occidentalism had, at cánceptualiza_
to consider the from the times of Strabo and ptolemy (who used
the name
least in the modern history of East Asia, once played a key "), and a construction of theirs and'o,ir". Greek
and Latin
role in mediating the self-knowledge of the nations within phers and historians. Thus, the invention
of Africa has its
the East with important questions being stirred up in the lation in the "Greek paradigm of thought,, (as
Mudimbe ana_
process.3o it in The ldea oJAfrica).. Th_e Greek prráig- was subsequently
into the "Christian,/Lattn, one. The legacies of Greek
Sun Ge is correct to point out that Said only saw half of the F were translated into the T:in_O map wiih a clear articu_
problem and did not stop to wonder how orientalism couid have bft between the three continents and the three sons of Noah,
L*erged without a previous notion of Occidentalism. The problem tr described above. However, with the discovery,/invention
of
in Said,s argument, which is very clear in the statement just quoted, ¡rica, Africa went through a redefinition and
this dme through
is that h. ták s for granted that the "beginning" of modern history edaptation of the Christian T:in_O map to accommodate
the
(and the very idea of modernity) is located in the eighteenth ce of a fourth continent: the inventiÁn of Ameri
ca forced a
century. He, along with many others, particularly scholars in post- ition of the idea of Africa. The ..idea,, of Africa was
trans_
colonial studies, was blind to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ro rhe emergence of the Atlantic commercial circuirs
:9 9".
and the consequences of the "discovery" of America' This means' displaced the "centrali ty" that the Mediterranean
had for the
really, that the emergence and configuration of the colonial matrix lation ofWestern Christians. From the sixteenth
century on,
of pL*.. of "Orienialism" are but a second round of world-order n Africa became the location of the Moors who
had been
transformation. ¡lled from European territories, and sub-saharan Africa
became
Asia or (Latin) America are, to paraphrase Sun Ge, mediums tcrritory where African slaves could be found ,rra orrrpo.i.a
through which u)e are effectively led to ourhistory, and it is precisely he Americas. One of the consequences of
the transformaáon of
be.ause of this historical significance that it is important we keep "idea" of Africa was that slavery came to be more
identified
asking how Asia (or "Latin America") signifies.3s I take we -tnd our Africanness and Blackness. For ,,,rr., .rot every
slave was Black;
in the previous sentence to refer to the inscription of the geo- ytr: slaves roo, particuiarty in the earty
politicaliy identified subject (that is, the geo-politically marked loci ,y.j:. ]1tlti" i:d
ü. period, but "reality,, does not
always match ih" id., o, th.
of The history of Asia or (Latin) America could be that people make for themselves oi that ,.reality.,,
"rr*rrr.irtlons). Slaves in
written by someone for whom it is not "our history" but "theirs." and Rome, of course, were not defined by ,kin
color or
This is precisely what happened in the sixteenth century when ttal provenance. Rather, they were people who
were not
40 41
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Americas, Christian Expansion,
and Racism

considered competent for other kind of labor and roles in

the :n I say "from where,, (both as a location
and as a starting
organization of society. The massive slave trade prompted by the I am assuming that knowledge is not something produced
cJonization of America changed that ftame of mind and those e postm-odern non-plac:: O".-rh.
contrary krro*led!e';J;;;;
assumptions.
$1i,#::{ s¡i-n.titically. located i.ros the epistemic
Thus, the "'W'est," evolving from its very inception as a marker ü difference. For that ,.rror,'the geo_polirr*
Jilffi;;:t
of the Christian T:in-O map, implied Europe ftasically Spain and ffi"".j'j7^l::p*,1* ,1
Srp.1
rhe Eurocent.ic assumptln
portugal at that point) and the New'\x/orld, the "lndias occide- valid and legitimare knowledge shall be ;r".rt;;;;*.t#;
ntalesl, The fact thet a significant sphere of modern history
has
F1t, i" ways similar to those in which the World Bank and
been silenced is a consequence of the perspective of European F sanction the legitimacy of economic projects
around the
moderniry (of occidentalism as a locus of enunciation), from
where Here Eurocentrism is equivalent to
O..identalism, as both
"no
the history of modernity has been written.'when Said says that
one is like$ to imagine a field symmetrical to it [orientalism] called ¡nderstanding, even if theie ,r. iie-.árr.es
within ir such as
Occidentalism," many intellectuals thinking from the underside of )etween Christirnc
;r befween l;h^-^I. and
Christians, liberals, r {-
^-r Marxists. Of course, it is
history - like myself - would remain on Said's side and support
his enough to live in Asia or America
to inscribe oneself in a
scholarly arrd political project while disagreeing with this particular that.implies the language, and also
¡^;l:.r|r^o¡q! tfr. *.igf,r
had to
statement. And this *"".rr, precisely, that decolonial projects ,1. memory and in the knowleag."or
be pluriversal, not universal like the imperial projects of-\Western
:ilfff: f:T: ll
inhabiting rhar parricular language. Of
cou.s., ñ;'.': -
moáerrrity. The issue at stake here is not to make a claim
for atter, because if you live in Boháa
or in China you will be
occidentalism to be a remembered, symrnetrical field of study. To so to speak, in the language, the
memory, the conc.rrr, tha
the contrary, Occidentalism is not a field of study (the enunciated) of that particula, phcá.yo,, ,rr,
but the locus of enunciation from which orientalism becomes a
3ll:;5lollI*
hn abstraction of it and devote y";r-liá,;;;";;:'r;ffi;l ".,rrir{
field of study (with Saidb critique of its Eurocentric underpinning). lt:r:::I:y.".r, wharever yo, .á., ¿o with Leibnitzin
Botivia,
,,America" was part of "occidentalism," and the idea that you are nor a German person lt_"g
The idea of
,,Letin,, America became problematic later when south America who was born and educated in Bolivia
;ñ;;ff;
of and whose native
and the Caribbean were progressively detached from the increasing was Aymara or Spanish, will difter
from what someone
identification of occidentalism as a 10cus of enunciation with born and raised in Germany, hm a phO
fro., ff.ia.fU.rg,
'western Europe and the us. To review, the decisive points for my , German, and has learned 'Latin
,i"..-p;;;;ñffii
matrix
argument, as well as for the understanding of the colonial
¡uld not be
of po*"t (i.e., coloniality of power), are that: _taken
lighrly, rhen, rhar rhe claim for a
geo_
reconceptualization of knowledge came,
precisely, from one
1 occidentalism was the name of the sector of the planet and the imperial/coloniar histories, thar o? the
Americas. Argentinian
epistemic location of those who were classifiing the planet and
pher Enrique Dussel and clearly argued for such an
continue to do so. in his Philosophy of:trongly
Liberltlnl| ,,I t y,:os to rake space,
2 occidentalism was not only "a field of description" but was
(and ü snacg,¡griously," stated Dussel in^*'
hrr, .frrpr.r, titled
the
still is) also and mainly the locts of enunciation; that is, the itics and.Philosophy."To be born ar
the Norrh pore or in
epistemic location from where the world was classified and is not the same thing as to be born in
New york,
ranked. ín 1977 when he laid out a diagram ofthe world he
order.

43

J
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism
The Americas, Christian Expansion,
and Racism
In that diagram, the two Americas are split. The center of economic,
by European scholars and area
political, and epistemic power is located in Europe, supported by 1*.:1.9 studies specialisrs,
the US and Japan. The periphery of economic, political, and ,^,,lrl,lr!,,,
"Latin" into ii{^lyr^nr:
.,Nuestra,,Aleric
.of ,ro_ José Martí
decotonizatior.
epistemic power is located in underdeveloped, dependent, and _,1,1ou¡,^*#i"": ;til:
to José^
non-aligned geo-political spaces. Latin America has a place in the llj,:T,r::lll_.."r1,, carro, Mariátegui in the
Iocating his discourse in the í.gr.i.,
underdeveloped and dependent sector ofthe periphery and nexr ro
t":fl1r.r,"^1 o.f US
;i"rffirT::i:friff
imperialism,,,í^rinl,Á_.ri.,
the non-aligned. rurned into a
reflection for intellectual decolonirrrir"
Access to and accumulation of knowledge, like access to and ;;;#;:::.'T:i
awareness (or tack of it)
accumulation of economic wealth, are not exact§ there to grab on :ii:::*1ns.The
ial of power in the geo_politicai'.o"nglrr*on of the coloniat
a first-come, first-served basis. Both depend on what part of the of knowledge
creoles ofwhite European descent,
globe you were born in and educated in, and what language you solme of them Mestizos./
speak.You may have been born and raised in a high-class family in ::.th. conremporary critical and decol,onizing discourse
'ibbeans and Andean_Aymaras. of
Bolivia and studied in Heidelberg. Certainly, your situation and t'invention
struggles in life will be different from someone born and educated
ofAmerica. iould be read, then,
ng project of .,Nuestra,,America 'tt. as closer to the
in an Aymara community, whose chances of getting a fellowship to '' t¡rrr, consentrng one of
I\T^,-^--L -r
Arn.ri^^ Neverrheless,
America.
study in Heidelberg are very low. Economy, politics, and social Martí,s rfiil;;;;'.i'r"'Xillr."j
conditions put heavy restricrions on individual intelligence. The ,o á. .,r,.,
chances are still 98 to 2 that you would not have the same possibil-
;_:'1,::.:T:11y.,io,,
just Latin. Afros and ,*r",_.fi;;;;'"?lü;f,ffi
.Latin,,
^_erica,
rhe Angto,

ities and conditions as a middle-class German who has spoken rhe Áoi.,i.",, tegacy lefr,
,::".:::,|1r:,:r::
Ta legacy of despair thar was fett in ,h"
German from her infancy and studied in Germany (or in Englanrl 1é;0r;;.rri:lrir.jl;
or France or the US, for that matter). I call the uneven distribution
of knowledge the geo-politics of epistemology, just as I call the uneven
lil:.*":.1f:if_r*Trt ri, down
that many countriei haa had fr",_
the,."r. or .xnec_
;;;A#;' :frT;
distribution of wealth the geo-politics of economy. The 'oidea" of' financial .,¡i, oirür. st,.. then, rhe
,1 :11r:Z,f lh:
n*o.d has awaken.d ¿.li;;;ñú:ii
America and of "Latin"America emerged and has been maintainecl ::*.
lorrty among .*.?
"Latin, Americans displaced Uy ifr.i.
in the field of forces in which knowledge and wealth are unevenly ,"i
turopean.The initial sentence of
distributed, and where the colonial difference has been silenced by HectorÁ. Murenat El prÁ
the trumpeting and celebration of cultural differences. *l*Í::,ttrs+) re5af ," i"¿;i;;ü .o_pr.* whose seed
u¡ted in the second of tt. ,rirr.t""rth ..rt,rry
I America was foroed
,, ," i;;;;;lri".orao.rtation *h.rl
_hatf
with
Euápe:..These ,..I.?.rs:
The "Americanity" of America lld a land, named
we inhabited
there was a dme
"Y^"::t Europe, inseminated by the
In the 1950s, intellectuals in have been f.m her, and we
South America and the Caribbea¡¡ *:f l ludden,we ""p"U.J
, brudsh uoa,,,oiíoi'r,"t''i,,,
began to express - as we have seen in the previous secfions - a
l'*;;|111;'" ;l il:
subcontinental concern about national as well as subcontinenhl
the "invention thesis,, actually did
identities. They introduced the "invention of America" theory that after its articulation,
we have been expounding here and began to question the imperinl Hr:^T-r,11T_y}r,,runinrended:itofferedanepistemic
of something that, hatf
foundation of "Latinidad" (discussed in chapter 2). For lack of ¡r a centut hr;;;;;"'iJ;i::
better term, "Latin" America continued to be used, not only as arr ,,Si!T: rnÍ us. sociotosi,; i;;;;;er waflerstein
44
tdcntify as "Americani ry."a,, Wú-;;;ffi#'#il:I[:
45
.-.,:::i:i;¿i¡;iEG::
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Americas, Chrktian Expansion,
and Racism

distinction berween Anglo and Latin Americanity is not an essential Americas, was the consfitutiue
act of the modern world_
distinction that somehow emanates from the particular Spirit of
Latins and Anglos, since it is something that emerged together with capitalist world-economy. There
the formation of the modern/colonial world system. The common capitalist world-economy without
could not ilffii
the Americas. aI
history of the Americas, including their own name, lies in their historical
we know it today, icaniry and coloniility are murually
founiatiin: the colonial matrix of power, or capitalism as imbricated from the
and moderruity as the imperial ideology ofWestern Europe.In that process, tg'The singularity of the Americas
áiá"r'i" several erasures
the Americas were shared out in the margins, and the degree of European colonial expansion enacred:
.ñ;;;"l;iTJ::
marginality depended on whose sector ofWestern European popu- their *.iJ ;;;
.;onomic
lation and institutions was making history. Americaniry grounded in *::::":y,,?T:rr.as
concepts of life, justice, and happiness; on the organization
histories, lan_
the idea of the modern/colonial world, starts from different premises Á'ri,.,;;, and on the marginar_
and invites the reader to look for the silences in official histories in :i1#,i.::,:.:l_,.,Ttranted
il, of the population of sorrth.r'
E"r.pL""-¿;;..* ;Tff?;
books, in encyclopedias, and on the web that assume historical nar- o?, ,: ,!;;*"reenth centurv
rative and what happened are one and the same thing. The concept ,the ;11*::j::':?,:1:l
;; first generadonof'r{/hite ér."i.r.V.r, e"V;;'H;.
of 'oAmericanity" is one necessary corrective to the excessive belief of the Americas U.yorra the US #
1"11,.,:1"rylariry still resides
in one and only one history of the world, which happens to leave lmentally in the massive exploitation oil"bo,
,¡r., *r,lriii""i-a
out a significant part (what became known as America) that was ii tr,.^ii." ;;. expendabliry of
unknown to those who were writing universal history. Consequently, f",,?":i::::::1,:l,h
li* that, under rhe concept of inferior n"ffiT.§;ilfr.:
the idea of "America" belongs to the European historical narrative, in the J;", and the pranta_
since millions of people inhabiting the "land" were not allowed to
tell their own stories; they had different narratives about the origin
Ti3:*:::"*g
f,*.
irliry also resides
n.:o"itivity
:lf:::lyiná;its a_.,i.,,, ;;# il..rlJi:.r,9,3t
being ,h; ;;;;;:;;
and process of human beings, about the very concept of "human,"
:l
ffiffi:ffi
of knowledge, of social organization etc. But difference was disabled HlL,lX"" 5:':.:: *:ined,,n¿rndence
is, and reproduced
from the impe-
the logic of colonialiryñ;;:;
by the colonial matrix of power. certainly, christianity and, later N":,h and the south againsr
on, European secular history and philosophy were successful in ::::TiT:'jl
íenous and the Afro f.,h,,h:
populations. fhrrs, the ór.J'd;;:
eliminating and subsuming the "other histories." ú..r-., in South America and the
The emergence of America marks three major global economic I".r:1.:l
m, .r.r..1r:.
the master while remaining the slave with respect
to
changes, which are: (1) the expansion of the geographical size of the Europe and the US.
*orlJ; (2) the development of variegated methods of labor control insofar as-rhe first srrucures
of internal colo_
for different products and different zones of the world economy;and f..r:^rrig:lar
(3) the creation of strong state machineries at the imperial end of [, jn:#.dernlcororud.*:Itó;;;;;;";í:::':;:?;
-.""'"",*',ff;'
the colonial specffum.In theirjoint article "Americanity as a Concept; ,Y:*""Y::
from t'-111,'*
q;,"
British, French, and J;:::
, ód¡rtgu
'W'orld German colonialism
Or the Americas in the Modern System," Quijano and
tlPy, the example. .,Coloniality,; ¡is the
logic that put in
Wallerstein made the following claim:
i.j::..r.^.,1;'it.hierarchicar'rñ;;di;ffi :r:::?
The modern world-system was born in the long sixteenth :#J:,',*=1^":'-"j,:i':""".ir,...o"il,i;J'J,';,i;
century. The Americas as a geo-social construct were born in I jl.,::.:r.,!;b_1am¡rica.Bur*i;;;##;,iJil;::? ;;';;*,;;,7
the long sixteenth century.The creation of this geo-social entity, " episremic principles ttut i.gitímir;-rí;';d; out of
46 47
 The Americas, Christian Expansion, and Racism The Americas, Christian
Ex7tansion, and Racism
differential economies. The colonial matrix of power, still invisible
tark abour modernity and
under the triumphant rhetoric of modernity and modernization,
yesterday and today, was and is precisely the capacity of the machine
:lr:: I¡trJ:fr.::i: coroniarity as

ing this step moves us away from

to transform differences into non-existences and racialize (human) the Bibret sacred and
t;i,..11i::"1irtu r. and also oft^er,, .rá.rr departure from
life into dispensable entities. To embrace Americanity is to dwell in Marxt canonization of .,histori.¿-r*tffi;::
the erasures of coloniality. ffi;
The important observation to make here is not simply whether Because history seen as a
there are other perspectives about the "same event" but that series of nodes ;"";T:r;"{:::::r:r_
an-other paradigm emerges across the epistemic colonial difference.
j:,::i:l:i'v,
3 ,ective of
i:
denr3red p;;;' ;;;;;;.# ;ffi;;
local histories,1ana Ungurg;rl-rrr*."d of grand
The dominant theo- and ego-politics of knowledge is being con-
tested by the emerging shift to the geo-politics and body politics :f,,.^."^,:
;,ical ;f.",,"d,lpt.
^Tl.. 'We
processes. -,,í ;;;iá, d,,g p ersp e cives
.r., tlr"r, f""t ,t fr¡rró ";:',;";;
of knowledge: knowledge produced from the geo-historical and
bio-historical perspective of recialized locations and people. The set lLi::i,"L::r_oslneif1 that are ,r,. .o,,,.quence of a
of evenrs beins cesr and interpreteá;;;n;;H.';"J:r:
deeper problem is that all existing different interpretations about the
same event are still within the same overarching paradigm of l;':'f ,tl::qT"
of colonialiry
I h'ppi',.,,, ;á;)-
]á" *. the c o n s ti t u t iy e
-
European moderniry and its continuity and transformation in US
lstagnarioi,
.a.rtfr,
a triumphat ¡i,to,iái;;'.'.,,,
n.".*)
r*r. ::;t :;';::ff:;
government, universities, and media.'What I have been arguing here liTy::
llq happiness to needy children, ;tr;"';;;"""' a\s
like raura
santa (-raus
ctaus
is that an-other paradigm (the decolonial, globally diverse one) is at
work; and rny own argumenr is intended to be inscribed in it. lir*i* jL:.!ñarsuchdreams"r;#,'j:,'l-*f ;.-;
at the cost of enormous sacrifices
"America" becomes a "conceptual node" around which not only of h,rmm lives (Indian
th: conquesr ofAmerica), and
do different interpretations within the same paradigm come into co ,q:Y11.: l:
(as in the üves lost
wil
the .,miscal.ri*"a,, war in lraq)
ir
conrinue
conflict but, more radically (and I mean here at the roots of the as
epistemic principles underlying different conceptions of knowledge l::"'f,:ff.:lT"o:1"iry
I idea
k ;;;;.lir,,,,*
and enrorc_
and understanding), multiple paradigms are at war at the other end
that history is a linear p;"r;,
*;;;;_rrililrfT:;
of the colonial difference. Once you get out of the natural belief ly' as the "idea" of America,
as well as of Asia and Afiica,
that history is a chronological succession of events progressing is
toward modernity and bring into the picture the spatiality and [T:::' j:**,
in" America is-r'r-"'?'-ed
thro ugh neo -tib eral
stobatiza_
a place fo*fr.'."pf"-iritli,*#;fi1X;
violence of coloniüsm, then modernity becomes entangled forever
with coloniality in a sparial distribution of nodes whose place in i,ll,Ilr: yT.rhe cotonia _rr,ii oiro*., continues
t]-_.r":.Í, and the
history is "structural" rather than "linear." Further, since modernity _appropriatio, ,rrá ;";;í; ;;r;;.:'ü:;
,l^., of the new fo,m or.oro,ri¡ism
and coloniality arc two sides of the same coin, each node, in addi- ::::: developing
ol1:"1g ::: since rhe
we have
tion to belng structural and not linear, is heterogeneous and not earry 1990s. The contror of
.;so1,.*s, as capitarism
homogeneous.: Thus, the point here is not so much "the end of' ro by :|;:::':'l:^1'T':':",I
;Tail; the appropriation o^f.knowr.dJ;:J#ffii;?;j
srows
history" as "the end of Hegelian concepts of history." If instead ol'
r
e{g? p o,,.,, a thro u gh th e
accumularion ofL:..
o
conceiving of history as a linear chronological process we think ü;r".:L,*:,:,.1*,.^ \no¡vl
instead of"historico-structural heterogeneiry" (heterogeneidad histórico-
the.people i"t"Uitirig il;;;rr-,
"
il il:
in the ;, ;¡ k;;;j".dge become
structural),42 of historical processes interacting, we will better under- lL,*it-,:ITl':,,
in the area of war.In
rr¡ simlar
co¡troll;ñ;:;;;;ffi;iffiT
stand the role of the "idea" of America and of "Americaniry" in it, rnd the appropriation or howt.ig.-irü ao*nins of the
48
19
 The Amerims, Chrktian Expansion, and Racism

colonial matrix of power) come together to maintain capital accu-

mulation in particular hands and to increase the marginaüry and
dehumanization of others. "Latin"America, together with Africa and
certain sectors of Asia, including South Asia, Central Asia, and the
Middle East, form the sector of the globe where the tentacles of 2
imperial expansion continue to be extended under a flourishing
rhetoric of moderniry a rhetoric of whichTony Blair has given the
world outstanding examples before, during, and after the invasion "Latin" America and
of lraq. The above mentioned are significant areas of the planet
where human lives become more expendable. They are part of the the First Reordering of
"rest" - those whom the neo-liberal economy cannot account for
as subjects precisely because the survival of neo-liberal economic
the Modern / ColonialWortd
principles means that more and more people in the planet become
disposable.
Tod.y, the "Americas" are diüded. One is the temple of neo- talking about societies drained of their
essence, cultures
liberalism while the other provides the land, natural resources, and led underfoot, institutions undermined,
lands confi scated,
cheap labor, as well as emerging, contesting states and myriads of smashed, magnificent artistic creations
destroyed,
social movements. Let's turn now to the emergence and formation ín1ry possibilities wiped, our . . .I
am talking abour
of the idea of"Latin"America on the colonial horizon of moderniry of [women and] men torn from thei. godr, their
land,
and then move on, in the third chapter, to turn our attention to habits, their life - from life, from
;h". ;;:';;;
the consequences of coloniality and the emergence of social actors
contesting and transforming the idea of America and of "Latin" iern hlking about millions of
[women and] men in whom
America. cunningly insrilled, who have been
H:1":: complex, to tremble, taught ro have
ryérlonty kneel, despair, and behave
,f,unkies . . .
talking about natural economies that have
been destroyed
onious and viable economies _ adapted
to the indigenous
ion - about food crops destroyeá, malnutritio"
agriculturat derreiopment ári.rt.¿
;;;_
:lt:.*:*
the benefit of the metropolita" .oror.i"r,;J;:
solely

of products, the looting o? rr* materiJ,

Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 1955

ttvital
breath" of 'Western thought is reason;
reason of
ünear time." From Socrates to Kant and
from Hegel to
reeson marches in a straight line.
This thought orglrir.,
:nt. And Occident arrives at the atomic
bomb . . .
in the New World is not ,,genocidal reason,,;
it is
50
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial
Wortd
"cosmic reason," vital reason. . . . Thought in the New World
is Maya-Inka, that is to say, is Indian thought.
Iil.I of Mexico) after the arrival of the conquistador
Cortés, or, even earlier, in the place of the Taino population
Fausto Reinaga, I-a América India y Orcidente, 7974 ,rrü Cfr.i""fir.,
f*_1!-!¡,r,
isiands after the
witness the arrival of a group "f
Affiñ;
of unknown people and,
tfrat,l_1e four populatio-n JVi"g, killed,
The Point of No Return: raped, .*ptoit.d,
{i,uli:h will be experienced ,r', ,lrrrirr. ,"rrtlrrtio, "rrd
Frorn Pachakuti to Revolution of iirr,rp_
nd destruction. Thus, the ..foundation,, that allowed
Ineurs, monarchs, and bourgeois
Errop.i,
to fulfill their ,"pp;;;;
A series of in the Atlantic world
unprecedented events occurred was, for people in Tawantins.ryu and
Anáhuac, a piiakuti:
between 1776 and 1830 that would decide the future of world I destruction, relentless invasion, and
disregard for th.i, *ry
history - unprecedented because before the sixteenth century the - a convulsion of all levels of existence and the moment of
modern,/colonial structure that they would shake did not even exist. ding colonial wound of the modern/colonial
world. Indigenous
Thus, the transformations sought by the "revolutions" for "indepen- in the Americas harre not stopped sruggling
with that inirial
dence" that took place over that span of fewer than sixty years were and are ¡naking rheir pr.r.ri. f.lt toá"'y.
responding to a historically invisible revolution, a drastic reversal rvrrry
y *- uurcl¿u
ofiicial ano
and canonlcal
canonical narratives
narrative, of chronological
.hrorrological
that has been conceptualized among Kechua/Kichua and Aymara § of events in particular locations in rime ,rrd ,pa.J _ suc_
phces
speakers, then and now, as Pachakuti. the, history. of Europe and rhat
Iry.:" of its colonies, as if
In chapter 1,I introduced the concept of Pachakuti. It is time now : independent entities with Europe always in front
and the
to return to it and to enter"Latín" America from the shadow of its who wrote of universat
td"1,§
history
negated specter. One of the meanings of Pacha, as I registered in :lnlike
at his feet in le8el,
Germany, those of us speaking from
as
the
chapter 1, is close to "mother earth" (like "Gaia" in the recent Gaia ,of the ex-colonies see simultaneous occurrences
science); but it can also mean "world," since the very conception of
in time,
I not necessarily space, which are interconnected
by the ,r.r._
the world was grounded on the assumption that "life" is the thread pow€r differential. By power differential,
as we saw in chapter
that links "earth" (as "nature" in European languages and the source t not only in the accumulation of riches
and military tech_
of life) with all living organisms. Kuti rneans a sudden and dramatic of death but in the control of the very conception
change in the order of things, an extreme turnaround, üke what
of liG,
of human being and labor.There is no time
to dispute
happens when you lose control of your car and it flips upside down ih we cannot ignore him).The time has indeed arrived
several times until it stops with the wheels toward the sky and the e different game rhan rhe one that makes it possible
roof on the road. That was the experience (still being felt today) of io
that the collapse of the soviet (Jnion iailed
rhe end of
Pachakuti for the people of the Americas in the long process of thc
Spanish conquest and reorganizetion of life and social fabric. scale (magnitude and range) of modernity,s
imaginary, the
The conquest and colonization ofAmerica have not traditionally importance of revolutioni would begin after
the Glorious
been seen as "revolution." From the European perspective, thc lion, with the French Revolution ,, ,ñ. key
historical event
process was, and confinues to be, simply the "foundation" upott linea¡ unfolding of History. Ir would be folowe¿
which future revolutions would take place. Flowever, if you put by the
Eln Revolution, Spanish_portuguese independen rr,'
yourself in the perspective of people in Thwantinsuyu after thc
3:.T:::f_t_.:tutron f*itl, tr,.irtt", u"ing seen as periph_
^o-d,
arrival of the conquistador Francisco Pizeruo, or in Cemenahuac lagging behind in time and followirrg-rh"
lead of the

52
53
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World

locomotive of History).Yet, in the nodes constituted simultaneously trade in slaves was recognized as a fundamental
and natural
by imperial/colonial expansion, by the rhetoric of moderniry and : ofEnglishmen. In the same year,
the MerchantAdventurers
by the logic of coloniality in which those expansions are conceived were deprived of their monopoly of the exporr
f,o1do1
and justiáed, there are no ranking priorities of events, since each le in clorh, and a year later the
-orropály of the Mrrcory
.rr.rri hm a similar range and magnitude in the historico-structural ,mpany was abrogated and trade to Russia made
free. Only
heterogeneiry linking imperial centers with peripheral colonies. one parricular did the freedom accorded in srave trade
diffei
After all, the imperial center cannot exist as such without the colo- the freedom accorded in other ffades _ the commodity
nies. The French Revolution can be understood as a phenomenon ed was man.l
internal to the history of Europe only if it is read from the perspec-
tive of modernity and of empire; that is, as part of the historical ly, English merchants and government were
not sorery
narrative that is linear, progressive, limited, and Eurocentric. But, for the transformafion of certain human lives into
com_
really, how could the Glorious and the French Revolutions be ies. In different periods.of intensiry the
Spaniards, portuguese,
understood independently from the accumulation of wealth in t,. and Dutch also worked from that saáe
templ"t.. L fr.t.
England and France from their plantations in the colonies? Both ntire Atlantic economy, from the sixteenth century
until tie
the Glorious and the French Revolutions "depended" on the of the twenty-first, was founded on the increasing devaluation
colonies. did.not sustain capital accumularion. Mititary defense
when ,,history" is conceived of in the simultaneity of events in institutions were based on the assumption
that human
the metropolis and the colonies, not only through the national expendable in the set of global designs. British
and French
history of the metropolis or the colonial history of the colonies Éon of the Caribbean was ,, gr..dy as the
attitude that
alone (as told by metropolitan historians), we can see the heteroge- g͡me countries attributed
to Spanish conquistadores. The
neous historico-structural links (which are spatially temporal rather Legend" of Spanish corruption, which the -British
initiated
than temporally spatial) between the two sides of each event and, nize the Spanish Empire in a ploy ro get a grip
on rhe
.orrr.q.r.rrtly, the two sides of modernity/ coloniality' Independence economy during the seventeenth century was part
of a
in the colonies was, in fact, a consequence of the changing eco- n family feud over the economic, political, and inlteflectual
nomic and political structures in Europe. The "revolutions" for general sense of accumulatior, ,rá control
of knowledge,
independencá by the Spanish, Portuguese, British, and French colo- tg science and technology, of course) riches of the ,.N;
nies in the Americas that took place between 7776 and 1830 should Therein originates the imperial dfference that would
become
be understood, in their singularities, as pert of a socio-economic imd in the eighteenth century and shape the conception
of
srructure of the Atlantic world with its global implications, in rela- America.
tion with and distinction from European revolutions. For example, French Revolurion inrroduced a raücar change in
the regal
the Glorious Revolution brought about the victory of free tradc ltical system ofWestern Europe that complemented
the eco_
over mercantile monopoly. The Glorious Revolution has beell ¡nd financial changel that took ;il.# Engtand with
the
described from the Caribbean perspective by Eric Williams: r Revolution. concepts of rights and of the
cirizens in France
tcleas of personal and collective independence,
autonomy,
One of the most important consequences of the Glorious lion, freedom, etc. which bore directly on the understand_
Revolution of 1688 and the expulsion of the stuarts was the "revolutions" in the Americas. Immanuel Kant's conception
impetus it gave to the principle of free trade' In 1698 the l¡Etcnment as emancipation expresses one such formative
idea.
Royal African Company lost its monopoly and the right of a piece "What is Enlighten*.nt?', Kant explained
that:
54 t5
 Firsf Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial
Worltt

Enlightenment isman's emergence from his self-imposed Emancipation belonged to the rise of a
new social class (the
nonage. Nonage is the inabiliry to use one's own understanüng trgeoisie) whose members were mostly .W.hite,
educated in
without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its n cosmology and in the curriculum of the Renaissance
cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and soon to be transformed with the advent
of the Kantian_
lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's than university of the Enlightenment. One of
the conse_
guidance. Dare to know (Sapere aude): "Have the courage to of such ideas of "emancipation,, was that while celebrating
use your own understanding" is therefore the motto of the economic and political emancipation of a secular
bourgeoisil
enlightenment.2 r the tutelage both of the monarchy
and of the church fuírticu_
in France, where the separation of the church and iire state
You can hear the echoes of Kant's statement today in daily conver- greater than in Germany and England),
that same bourgeoisie
sations about freedom and democracy and even in the very concept its intelligentsia appointed themselrr., io take
into their hands
of the "free" market. Insofar as the statement has become a given "emancipation" of non-European people in the
rest of the
and crucial part of the rhetoric of moderniry it elides the critique d. In general, these new directiorx worked in two
different
of its self-contradiction. That is, to follow Kantt recommendation rs: colonialism and imperialism, direct
or indirect. The emer_
to the limit would require the questioning of Kant's own authofity of "Larinidad" and of ,,Latin, America, then,
is to be under_
to "establish guides" that promote "understanding without guid- in relation to a European history of growing imperialism
ance." In other words, understanding without guidance requires an led in a capitalist economy and the d.sir"
to determine the
acceptance of Kant's guidance. when I tatk about decolonizing of "emancipation" in the non_European world.
knowledge, then, I am doing ít with and against Kant, which is what
critical border thinking as decolonization of knowledge is all about.
As wars of independence spread all over the Spanish and "Latinidad": From the ..Colonial Creole
Porruguese colonies in South America beginning in 1810 (six years Baroque Ethos,, to the ..National Creole
after the Haitian Revolution), republican ideas being discussed and I-atin American Etüos,,
implemented in France occupied the minds and bodies of Iberian
Creoles as well as African Creoles in Haiti and what later became á,merica is actually a hyphenated concept
with the hyphen
the Dominican Republic. However, African creoles had an extra n under the magic effect of the ontology of a subconii.r.rrr.
burden upon them. It was easier for creoles of Spanish and u'mid-nineteenth century, the idea of-Ámerica
as a whole
Portuguese descent to be "recognized" as having a right to inde- to be divided, not so much in accordance with the
emergent
pendence; but it was not so easy or clea\ at the time, to accept that r$ates as, rather, according to their imperial
histories, *ñi.h
Black people could take their destiny into their own hands. It was lan Anglo America in the North and
a Latin America in the
expected that freedom for the Blacks and Mulattos./as, slaves and in tl_. new configurarion of the'Wesrern Hemisphere.At.that
ex-slaves, would be "given" by the White man. Kant's dictum appat- nt, "Latin" America was the name adopted to
identifii the
ently only applied selectively. Yet the "revolutions" for "indepen- »n of European Meridionar, catholic,
and Latin,.ciirkza-
dence,, that took place in the Americas demonstrate that Blacks South-America and, simultaneously, to reproduce
absences
fighting for freedom didn't need Kantt dictum. In fact, it workecl t rnd Afros) that had already
begun áuring ihe early coloniar
to the Haitians'disadvantage to rely on it insofar as it pre-empted The history of "Latin,' America after in'dependerc.
is the
their own creativity and originality and replaced it with the legiti- history of the local elite, willingly or not, embracing
macy and authority ofWhite European philosophers. '" while Indigenous,Afro,
and pooitvt.rtirola peoples ger
56
57

J
 First Reotdering of the Modern/Colonial World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World

poorer and more marginalized. The "idea" of Latin America is that appropriation of vast swaths of territory from Mexico.'white
,"d or. of the elites celebrating their dreams of becoming modern and Mestizo,/a elites, in South America and the
Spanish
while they slide deeper and deeper into the logic of coloniality. ¡bean islands, after independence from spain
adopted.,Laffird"
The idea of "Latin" America that came into view in the second iate their own postcolonial identity. Consequently,I
am arguing
half of the nineteenth century depended in varying degrees on an "'*l'Latin" America is not so much a subcontinent as it is
the
idea of"Latinidad" - "L atinityl"'Latinitée" - that was being advanced project of creole-Mestizo/e elites. However,
it ended up
by France. "Latinidad" was precisely the ideology under which thc ¿ double-edged sword. On the one hand, it created
tÉ
iáentity of the ex-Spanish and ex-Portuguese colonies was locatecl e new (and the fifth) continenral unit (a fifth
side ro rhe
(by naiives as well as by Europeans) in the new global, modern/ rtal tetragon that had been in place in the sixteenth
century).
colonial world order.'W-hen the idea of "Latinidad" was launched it other hand, it lifted up rhe pápulation of European
d.s.át
had a particular purpose within European imperial conflicts and a the Indian and the Afro populations. I¿tin America
was
particuiar function in redrawing the imperial difterence. In the six- eretore - a pre-existing entiry where modernity
arrived and
ieenth century, Las Casas contributed to drawing the imperial dif- questions emerged. Rather, it was one of the
áonsequences
ference by distinguishing Christians from the Ottoman Empire' By remapping of the modern/colonial world prompted
by the
the nineteenth century the imperial difference had moved north, to and interrelated processes of decolonization in
the Americas
distinguish between states that were all christian and capitalist. Irr ipation in Europe.
the Iberian ex-colonies, the "idea" of Latin America emerged as a h-century Colombian intellectual Torres Caicedo
was
consequence of conflicts between imperial nations; it was needed re in justi§ring and pushing forward the idea
of ,.Larin,,
by France to justify its civilizing mission in the South and its overt i¿. In Caicedot opinion, ,.There is Anglo_Saxon
America,
conflict with the US for influence in that area. France, as a country 'America, Dutch America, etc.; there
is also Spanish America,
that joined the Reformation, could count itself in the same camlt ,America and portuguese America;
and therefore to this
as England and Germany; but it was, at the same time, predomi- ,l group whar orher scienrific
name applies but Latin?,,3
,r.rtf Ladn and, hence, in historical contradistinction to tht' *1 Francophile, spent much time in Frr.r.., and main_
"_
Anglo-Saxon. ,od relations with governmental and ofticial spheres in that
In the late nineteenth century, France faced a British Empire that lIf his is one of the names that readily come to mind when
had just colonized India and parts of Africa and was in the process Itmerica is mentioned, the implication is clear. He was
not
of strengthening its control over the commercial and financial one with such interests and he defended a very
cofitmon
markets in south America. Evidence of the competition posed front al p-osition along the lines of French imperial inrerests.
Britain can still be seen today in the presence of remnants of its he does not "represent,, everything that *, b.irg
thought
raiftoad system in Latin American countries. The position ofiicially but he certainly "represents,' a ,ecto, of the intelligenÁla
assumed in France at that moment has endured and it is still present until recently, France 'orepresented,, the ideal in p-oti,i.,
in the conflicts, tensions, and complicities within the Europeatt culture. "Latinidad" came to reGr to a Spaniih
and
union and in the European Parliament today. The concept of government and an educated civil society in
America
"Latinídad" was used in France by intellectuals and state officers ttl its face to France and its back to Spain and porrugal.
take the lead in Europe among the configuration of Latin countries way asJohn Locke and orher British thi.rk.rr,like
Oavld
involved in the Ameiicas (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France itself), rlnd Thomas Hobbes, are associared with the political
.ultrr"
and allowed it also to confront the United States'continuing expatt= 'US, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire are
sion toward the South - its purchase of Louisiana fiom Napoleott with the political culturc of ,,Latin',America.
58 59
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 First Reordering of the Modern/ColonialWorld
In the first half of the nineteenth century, after several nation-
states originated as a consequence of gaining independence from
Spain, the idea of them wasnot of"Latin" but of "Spanish"America'
If "Latiritée-Latinidad" was simply a global design imagined and
implemented from France, how did it come to displace and replace
Simón Bolívar's "Confederation of Spanish American Nations"?
One interpretation, advanced several years ago by eminent lJruguayan
intellectual Arturo Ardao, held that the idea of "Latin" Americr
materialized in a triangular complicity between French, Spanish, and
Spanish American Creole intellectuals. In his opinion, Latin Americr
came into being as part of the orientation of the Creole elites
toward the intellectual leadership of France after Spain missed the
train of modernity in the eighteenth century and France became
the model even for Spanish intelligentsia.a What has been insinuatecl
but not explored in detail is that the subjective foundation for a
"Latin"American identity among the post-independence Creoles of'
Spanish descent was already being articulated in the colonies in thc
late seventeenth century. That moment was the colonial Baroque ill
the Spanish colonial possessions, and was different, for sure, from thc
continental Baroque in Spain as well as in France, Italy, and Germany.
The idea of a "spanish American Confederation" was a political and
administrative identification, while "Letin" America touched differ-
ent cords. It touched upon the subjectivity and it became the ethos
of the emerging Creoles elites: it was the colonial Baroque ethos
translated into a national l-atin American ethos.
The Baroque period, in European arts and ideas, is known as I
moment of seventeenth-century splendor between the Renaissance
and the Enlightenment. If the Renaissance has been characterizetl
by symmetry of forms in the visual arts and humanism in letters
and ideas, while the Enlightenment is known for secularism, for tlre
celebration of Reason, for the emergence of a new social class alttl
a new form of government (the nation-state) together with that of
the political economy associated with free trade and overcomittl¡
mercantilism, the Baroque was a period of the celebration of exu'
berance. In the.history of ideas, it is associated with a consolidatiott
of the autonomy of the subject in relation to the legitimacy of clas'
sical authors (Greek and Latin) as well as the church and Gotl,
In this sphere, the Baroque was a "rest area" before the era of
60
i:.É-
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
1" and the call for emancipation launched
by Immanuel
graph quoted above. In Spain, Miguel de
Cervant es,s Don
is associated wirh the Baroque. The questioning
of authority
,. past is debated in the prologue as well
as in the ,..orá
:n Don Quixote reads his own adventure in
a narrative
published. That mirror effec, noted by
Michel Foucault,
Out the moment of an epistemic break, in the history
oi
t thought and culture, in which the relation between the
its reference is placed in question. For some,
the Baroque
oiated with the "birth,, ofmodernity. Economically,
nurope
th century (and particulars Spain, portugal, France,
was enjoying the enormous wealth generated
in its
in the "Indias Occidentales,, and the ,,\i/est Indies,, (as
named its Caribbean possessions), and in .,les
Antilles,, ias
named its own). The splendor in arts and ideas
in Europe
lthe European colonies goes hand in hand with the wealth
d in gold and silver mines, in the plantations of
sugar, coffee,
.?tt"lin the appropriation of land and the ."plJitrtio, oi
¡nd African labor.'\X/hile the sixteenth cenrury was one
in
ronly Spain and portugal were the imperial
powers in the
'ldiscovered lands" and wealth *r,
-airly generated by the
ion of gold and silver, the seventeenth was the ..rrrry
in
le slave trade and Caribbean plantations peaked ,rrd
frroi.rn
'countries enjoyed fully the benefits oicolonial
labor.
and beyond the colonial exploitation of labor,
there was
rque in the colonies, mainly in the viceroyalties
of Mexico
Baroque archirecure can be found in tther places
like
, or Quito in Ecuado¿ as well as Salvador de Bahia
and
eto in Brazil. At the surface level, the colonial Baroque
in
ish and Portuguese colonies responded to the g.rr.rJl
,"r_
of the continental Baroque in Spain. But there were ,otwo
1," really, in the colonies. The siate version
was basically a
Itatio¡" of the Spanish and portuguese elites in poier,
for themselves the wealth g"r.rrr.j by the colonial eco_
Ehe Baroque of the state-was also a lifesryle
of consumpfion
j Glite in power, from
the Iberian perár,rlr. Spanish and
dominions in America had created, by the mid_
century, important urban centers with complex
61
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 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial
Worlil

demograptry. Mexico ciry built over the ruins ofTenochtidan;

was orian philosopher and essayist Bolívar
Echeverría explained
tne .Jo"ii city of Cuzco in Peru was built over the ruins of the the appearance of the Creole identiry
an identity thar was
Inca Empire. Beyond rhe spaces controlled by the colonial adminis- r^Spanish or Porruguese bur p-p.rty
Spanish American
tration ,rrd ,h" peninsular elites in power, however, something else American. Echeverría obr".lr.á thrt,'
was burgeoningln the streets, in the plazx,in the market as well as
in the peripheries of centers of intellectual production like monas- ) were the Creoles from low social levels,
the Indian and
teries, ,.-irrrr, and, in the case of Lima and Mexico, universities'
A Mestizos, those whom, without knowing
it, would end
marginal society of displaced creoles existed alongside Indians and doing what Bernini did wirh the classical
canon of painting:
Mes=tizos/as, Blacks, and Mulattos/as (see the graphic below'
p'73)' mixed groups of lower social strata endeauored
11 to re_
In the colonies, the Baroque was the expression of protest, com- blish the most uiable ciuilization, which
was the dominant o,ne,
plaint, rebellion, and critical consciousness by socially and economi- European.They intended to wake it
up and then to restore
.Uy airptr.ed Creoles of Spanish descent.s It was indeed the cry of o:iginal vitality. In doing so, in invigá."tirrg
the European
the White Creoles feeling the pain of the colonial wound' ló over rhe ruins of the p.e_Sprnisñ .oa"
lrrra with the
The Baroques of the Indies - at the level of the state and of civil alnders of the African slaves, codes
brought by fo.ce into
society - .rrr.rot therefore be placed together as one more chapter *o1lq fi¡d themselves bitdin; ,o_.rh;;
of ths European Baroque. They formed a Baroque that emerged out Illl?:-tl:y,
nr.Ío- their original intention; they *orii#il;:
of the colonial dffirenci of a displaced Spanish elite in power and of raising up a Europe that o.lr., .*ist.d
before them, a
a wounded Cr.ót. population. It was a Baroque pretending-to-be Europe, a "Latin American,, Europe.T
for the Spanish elite in the colonies and of anger and decolonial
impulses for the white creoles and some Mestizos/as. It was, prop- the fact that"LatinAmerican,, here is
an anachronism (there
er[, a,'Baroque Other," a heterogeneous historico-structural moment such a thing as ',Latin,, America in
the colonies, but vice_
in ihe .o-p1.* structure of the modern/colonial world. It was the united thq concept of the..Indias Occidentales,,),
ln ir must
moment irrwhich, after the final defeat of üe Indigenous elites at , noted that this polirical
project in pracrice as well as in
the beginning of the seventeenth century6 the emerging Creole Itsness was srill defined by the Spanish
and portuguese Creole
poprrhlio, felt the colonial wound and took over the conflict of kept their backs ro'the rndian ,"tÁ;;;;"
popularions
tn" atr r"rce, the colonial difference, racial, political, social, and among them. The mixed group of
the lá*!, srrara,
economic. Of course, and as always, there were Creoles who did Echeverría identified as the main
actors of a
their best to assimilate and gaín a position among the Iberian elitc project throughout spanish America "rrid;;;;
and to a certain extent
in power. Assimilation has been and still is a response to the colonial was a
_demographic reality clearly managed ,rd ,.pr.rr.J
difference, since "you are not one of them" but you want to Creole. consciousness was in¿e"e¿ a
e€T-.*r.
,,become one of them." Dissension is the other type of response to singular case
consciousness: the cons-ciousness of not
being who"they were
the colonial wound.. In the first case, the colonial wound is repressecl, (E-aropeans).That being as riot_being
is the mark of
!..be
while in the second case, it offers the starting point not only for of being. Afro-Creoles and Indians jo ,ro,
have the
acts of rebellion but for thinking-otherwise.The "Barroco de Indias" Their critical consciousness emerged from
not even
(,,Baroque of the Indies") was precisely the angered expression, itl n¡idered human, not from not being .oÁid.r.d
Erropronr.
,rt ,rrd ideas (e.g., phitosophy), built upon the colonial differenc§ rycnlef cenrury rhe situation gottore complicated
and the colonial *orrrd. It was the sprouting of the creole criticrl t*ing influence of the us. The 'ilatinola" ideirtificarionwith
in
consciousness. ¡s we will see in chapter 3, brings this
to rhe fore: while
62 63
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
World
First Reordering oJ the ModernlColonial
receding in the nineteenth century, and the individual, the
do not want or cannot
"Latirt"American Creoles and Mestizos/as ,in Descartesb terminology, was taking center stage along with
descent"' Latinos/as in
pretend to be "Creoles of US (American) political theories. The "idea" of Latin America came into
the US have cut the éo'dian knot
with Europe' This is one- of thc
in the process of the transformation of the colonial Creole
lines cutting across l-ntinos/as in
the IIS and l¡tins in South America"
ethos into the postcolonial Creole "Letin" ethos. In that
the second are not' Latinos/
whiie the first are ofr"oft'" descent' ion, Spain receded and France and England gained
as in the US cut tf* "-Uiiital
cord that still connects Latins' in
tension was reconfigured when'
in the minds and the pockets of postcolonial Creoles.
South America, ,o E"op"' This and liberalism displaced the colonial ideology under
after 7970," HlrpmiJ; "L'ti"os/as" were tecogruzed as a minor- the Spanish Empire organized, controlled, and sustained its
"'á US'Thus';lor the imperial
iry (that is, an inferi;t;;;J;'up) in the The "Latin" American ethos was a product and a conse-
second-class Europeans while
imaginary, "Latin" Americans ne of the transformation from the dominance of theology and
Latinos/asintheljsaresecond-classAmericans.Inshort,..Latinidad,,' spiritualism to the dominance of egology and secular
century was arr ideology
from its very inception in the nineteenth as much as it was the transformation of the critical and
in the US are now
for the colonization of being that Latinos/as (see chapter 3)'
consciousness of the Baroque ethos into the assenting
project
clearly turning into a decoloáizing of the postcolonial Creole elites. "Postcolonial" here
return to the formation of
But let's not get ¿t*'f"¿' "'d ñ'L'á the period following rhe shift from the colonial regime
Echeverúa's argument' thus'
the Creole ,rrUrfr""' iátntity' Bolívar &om the metropolis to a national regime ruled by the
explains how the idea of Latin
America became entrenched in
and, consequently, alien
In that shift, internal colonialism was born. And "Latin"
creole/Me stizo/eñ;ú and subjectivity as a political and ethical project was the ethos of internal
as to the European
to the Indigenous p"opit and Afros' as well of Creoles/Mestizos/as
populations' The di"""t communities the Creoles moved from being a subaltern group to
(Catholics of diffe'ent f"""'io-"" liberals
of different convictions'
a dominant elite, the only anchor they had was the "Baroque
straa of sociery and of differ-
socialists of diverse faiths, in different i which, at that point, was more a blurred memory than a
,t*o'l "t'g'g"*t't) were in the position of having
ent gender í1idtp"'dence"'and they dld of political energy. Closer to their memory was the so-called
"rd engag'
to invent tt on the New World" in the course of which the Jesuits had
"rnr"t""' 't"' =-by
ingintherestoratio"of'f"mostviablecivilization(saidEchevarría)
Inüan civlliza- from South American countries in the second half
the Indigenous or African'
- the European, and notAfro-creations in the New World took on ,cighteenth century. If the Baroque moment created the con-
dons became ruins, and ,for the Creoles to come out of their shell, the expulsion of
"reügions" of Candomblé in
their own id.rrtiuo. iie Afro-based (all of them Creoles, cerrainly) inflamed their hatred not
Voodoo in the Frenclt
Braz:l,Santeúa i""tf"-ip'nish Caribbe"'' S*inst the Spanish colonial authoriry but also against the
and, lately, Rastifarianism in the
British colonies aü reach
colonies, coalition between the Spanish crown and the Catholic
energy that was tragically erasecl
toward a dense, poit" civilizational When military action for independence was followed by the
consciousness'
by the surfacing of the critical Creole put their house in order, the Creole elite put their past in
The movement; for independence took
pt':: tolgHY T:1 :::
and joyfully looked for political ideals toward France,
of the Creole Baroque
hundred and fifty ye'rs aftei the emergence ,thry found the republican emphasis on rhe "res publica" (the
Cr'eoles found themselves
critical consciousne"' Áf"' independen-ce' imd the important role of the state in the coordination of a
colonial elites'
in power and no lon-ge' st'balá¡"t. 3f ,the Spanish peaceful society (with a long history going back ro plato,
eüte'While theology was the
They becam", irra""i,?it pátttor""id i, Bodin, Hobbe$.And they also found liberalism, a newer
overall framework in which the
Baroque ethos materialized, it wa*
I
ó5
64
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
doctrine or ideology, propagated by Locke and the Glorious
Revolution in England arrd theotized by Adam Smith, that pushed
the freedom of the individual and free trade rather than state man-
agement:8 However, for the Creole elite of Spanish and Portuguese
became
descent, France was closer than England, and Montesquieu
the central figure from whom republicans and liberals would draw
their ideas.e
I am telling these stories for two reasons, mainly' The first is to
show the ,t.oggl. to identify the historical grounding of the creole
consciousness, since Creoles could not claim the past that
belonged
to the Spaniards, to the Indians, or to the Africans' Creoles of
imag-
Spanish and Portuguese descent were, indeed, closer than they
ined to African slaves and Creoles of African descent - they were
all cut offfrom their pasts and they were living in a present without
history. Flowever, *hil. Blr"ks invented "religions," creoles of'
spanish and Portuguese descent lived under the illusion that
they
were Europeans too, although they felt their second-class status.
The ..Baro^que ethos" and the expulsion of the Jesuits from the
New\Iy''orld were receding from their consciousness. By the mid-
nineteenth century the British railroad made it clear that a new
economicerawasdawning.ThehistoricalfoundationofCreolc
identity under colonial rules was quickly stored away, and the Creolc
.tt. ,íie.r"ted itself in its effo¡t to adopt and adapt republican antl
liberal projects. Republicanism and liberalism' in Europe' emergecl
borrrg.áis projects against the monarchy and a despotic-form of'
",
gorr.rrri.nt; they were also against the Christian church' which was
Iurtailing the sovereignty of the individual; and, finally' they werc
against Áonarchic .ortrol of the mercantile economy, which
was
hátang back the benefits that free trade was promising to the
.*.rgirrg social-economic class, the bourgeoisie' None of theser
.orrditior§ obtained in the ex-Spanish and ex-Portuguese colonies,
The creole eüte really missed the point. And instead of devoting
themselves to the critical analysis of colonialism (in the same
way
as European intellectuals devoted themselves to the critical analysis
of the morar.hy, the despotism, and the church that preceded antl
surrounded them), the Cieole elites of the newly independent antl
emerging countries devoted themselves to emulating European intel-
lectoal, and imagining that their local histories could be redressed
66
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial Worlil
wing the example of France and England and hiding colo_
* in which France and England were becoming more and
implicated - under the carpet. Republican and riberal ideas
leals took the place of what did not happen: the critique of
and the building of a decolonial project that would be
republican nor liberal. This failure lasted almost one hundred
years and shaped the socio-economic as well as intellectual
of "Latirt" America, until dissenting social movements, par_
'those led by Indigenous andAfro descendants not
- impieg_
,with the republican,liberal, and socialist traditions _ b.g* to
he way that Creoles and then Latin Americans did ,ol fird
second reeson to tell this story is to dispel an illusion that
d today everywhere, among scholars and intellectuals based
úsh- and Portuguese-speaking countries, in South America,
the Caribbean, as well as among area studies scholars in the
"Americanists" in Europe
- the assumption that ,,Latin
" is a geographical entiry where all these tLings..happened.,,
int here is, on the contrary that the ,,idea of Latin,, Ámerica
the past, on the one hand, and made it possible to frame
iallcolonial period as proto-national histories, and, on the
made it possible to "make" into ..Latin America,, historical
that occurred after the idea was invented and adapted. In this
e creole elite responsible for building nafion-states according
new dictates of the European idea of modernity needed tJ
¡n their identity. As I have said, I am not writing here ,,about,,
ica in an "atea studies" framework, but on how Latin
0 came about. As a result, the debates among republicans and
(the parties took many narnes, such as federalists and unitar-
:ralists and centralists, conservatives and liberals) worked
with the search for a subconfinental identity. The ..idea of
?America allowed the creole elites to detach themselves from
ish and Portuguese past, embrace the ideology of France,
; the legacies of their own critical consciousness. As a
"Latin" American Creoles turned their backs on
L and Blacks and their faces to France and England.
b dways the case, there were dissidents among Creole Latin
Anrong these was the Chilean Francisco Bilbao. Dissidents
67
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial
Worlil
like Bilbao were restricted by the need to work within the secular Sfaniards, Portuguese, French, and British
were removed.
political framework defined by republicans and liberals. Karl Marx y" did not vanish; it was simply restructured. This
was unknown, and the ideas that Saint-Simon, the founder of' between.,,coloniaü;,, and,.coloniality.,,
French socialism, advanced at the beginning of the nineteenth ^r1.,***:tion
has different historical and geographical
locations.
century were not widely known. Bilbao, like the rest of his con- iry rl. underlying marrix of .olorrlal power
temporaries, did not necessarily want to imitate France or Englancl 1
in the US and in South America and the
rhat was
- Caribbean,
in his actions, but, rather, in his ways of thinking. Therein lies the
underlying cause of one of the most radical mistakes made by post- changed hands.
,iil i; pt;;,
colonial scholars and intellectuals - the attention given to the ,;idea of "Latin"America belongs to a sphere of
the colonial
"thinking" rather than the "doing" and consequently to the local i f power thar touches rhe of
historical connection befween doing and thinking. This is one of
!,r.rtio,
lvity * knowledge in the sense rhat a new world
knowledg. ,rrJ
the main differences befween the attitudes ofAnglo Creoles in the
*rp *rf b.i;g
wtd subjectiui{ because a identiry was emerging. At the
US and Latin Creoles in the South. Latin Creoles sei themselves _new
ds of¿ dissenting newsubjectivity ,rri
th. remapping of the
in dependent relations (political, economic, and intellectual) with w.1s c¡i1rca] and n""iri impe-
ofEuropáan, (JS,
France, England, and Germany. Instead, early on in the US Thomas :f:^"11,r"parricularly focused
:t "1.d on French advances in Mexico
Jefferson concocted the idea of "the'W'estern Hemisphere," precisely t efforts to control ,,Latin,, America, since Spain was
to establish the American difference with Europe. Creoles and Latin out of the picture and England was concentrating
on Asia
Americans could not or did not want to cut their subjective depen- ica. In 1856, in his Iniciativi de la América,
Bilbao srares:
dency on Europe; they needed Europe as Indians needed their past
and Blacks needed Africa and the memories of suffering under ¡y we are witnessing empires that are trytng to
renew the
slavery. For that reason, in defining their own terms and identities, idea of global domination. The Russiai Empire
and the
Indians, Afro descendents in South America and the Caribbean, ancl ,;¡re both endties located et geographic
extremes, just as
Latinos,/as in the IJS are doing what Creoles of European descent É¡re located ar rhe political fri"g..
Ore aim, ,t erpiodirg
should have done two hundred years ago. n serfilom under the mask of pan_Slavism,
and the other
Bilbao was pointing in that direction, and he did succeed in U§ _ at expanding its dominion under the banner of
bringing about a new epistemic perspective and making visible thc individualism. Russia draws in its claws,
waiting in
geo-politics of knowledge grounded in local histories. He argued but the (JS extends them more every day in
that hunt
that colonial legacies in the New'W'orld needed analysis and solu- has initiated against the South.We
,l..rd), witnessing
tions different &om monarchic and despotic legacies in Europe. Of rnts of America ñlling into the "r.
Saxon jaws of the magi
course, the local histories - that of the ex-colonies and that of post- boa constrictor that is unrolling iis tortuous
coils.
Enlightenment Europe - were not independent of each other. They it was Texas, then the north of Mexico, and then the
were linked by a clear structure of power, and the "idea" of Latin that offered their submission to a new master.10
America was a consequence precisely of this imperial/coloninl
structure, which did not vanish after new nation-states came in sight, !in$y enough, in 1856 Bilbao felt that a second j
indepen_
Independence, in all the Americas incluüng the US, ended external Uns needed - this time by ,,la reza latinoamericana,, 1
ti
(,.the
colonialism and replaced it with internal colonialism, The Creolc rican race"), or by South America as a unit.
In La América I
elite, in America and also in Haiti, sat in the driving seat fronr published in 1863, Bilbao confronred the
imperial and

68
69

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World

global designs of the French civilizing mission, as well as its local triumphal march ofWestern European civilization
led by the
version being trumpeted by "natives" such as the Argenrinian , German, and English languages. A major obstacle
to reach_
Domingo Faustino sarmiento. Bilbao understood, by then, that the that goal was rhar civilizatioi*lrrd progr.rs radiated
from the
civilizing ideals and the idea of progress as a march toward civliza- Itries whose official lranguages wele not Spanish
and Portuguese.
tion were really sophisms hiding the fact that, in its triumphal rrr,;_:-^.:^_- : the
ization in .1 IJS was indeed
a continuation of what
march, civilization eliminated people from the surface of the earth had already began, and the English language
was a support
and pushed backward the "dignity, prosperiry and fraternity of inde- than an encumbrance. In Haiti, the lrrrlrrg.
issue resulted
p"rrá.rrt narions." He underscored the civilizational fallacy behincl adoption of Creole as the national lrrr"grrg..
Spanish and
France,s invasion of Mexico, and he denounced its promoters in tese were degraded from imperial hegeÁonic
languages to
South America, like Sarmiento and the Argentinian jurist and politi- languages supersed.Jby
1. 1rr!:rirl _and French, Ge-rman,
cian Juan Bautista Alberdi. Bilbao already understood something No one knew that the raciahzation of trrrgrrrg., ;rra
that is still at work today:'oConservatives call themselves progres- y: ": stake, (raciüzation,as we know, operares at many
sives . . . and make civüzed calls for the extermination of the indig- rand not just in the of your skin). Languages, and thá
_color
enous people."11 liation of the hierarchy among them, ..r. ,r.rr., outside the
Bilbao was necessarily working and thinking within the liberal ,of the civilizingmission andihe idea
of progress.As a matter
ideology that engendered the civilizing mission as a way to justifli languages were at the center of Christian
ization,the civiliz_
colonial expansion. But he was located at the receiving end and not ,on, and technology and development.
Kichua/Kechua and
at the giving end of the equation. Modern liberalism, in France ancl speakers in South America, foi example,
would be rwice
in Europe, emerged as a solution to the problems of Europe's owrl and erased in the hierarchy of knowleáge
conceived in the
history which was not, of course, a history of decolonization. As rt tment. Language would be a constant
barrier to ,.Latin,,
critical liberal from the margins, Bilbao had to come up with his n intellectuals confronting the dilemma of
wanting to be
critique of the legacies of Spanish colonialism and the imperial and, at the same tjme, realizing that they
were consigned
moves of France and the uS from the very same liberal ideology of moderniry as.the lvleican philosopher
i*";;
as was implemented by France and the us in their global designs,
Í:C.:
ú? clearly analyzed it in his classic boil, n "f
1? e n-ob of
In his struggle, he revealed a discontinuity in the emerging colonial- in History.l2
liberal political philosophy, a disruption that came from the shecr' observing these changes in capitalist and liberal
history
fectthat he had no choice but to engage in a version of liberalisrlr gal8ins of its margins, denounced not only French aná
without grounding, a liberalism out of place. Bilbao's discontinuity ial designs, but the absolutism of Orthodox
Russia as well.
opens up a critical perspective with the potential to uncover thc words, he was denouncing the imperial
differences in
párrrasive rearticulation of the coloniality of power in the nineteentlt igns (France, LJS, Russia) while inhabiting the
colonial
century through "Latinidad." the historical location of South American countries
Reaüng Bilbao today reminds us that, for nineteenth-century independence from Spain at rhe moment in
which Spain
intellectuals, statesmen, and politicians, "modernity" was cast itt rg out of"modernity,, and SouthAmerica was
experiencing
terms of civilization and progress. Some saw civilization and progrest ences. Bilbao also made visible what would
be describeá
as the final destination for nation-builders who had liberated thenr- 1960s as "internal colonialism,,r3 when
he denounced
selves from the Spanish and Portuguese Empires and whose literate ) as a defender of the civilizing mission and called the
culture was still cast in the Spanish and Portuguese languages. lrt mission a new instrument of imperial expansion.
He could
the eighteenth century, Spanish and Portuguese were falling behirrtl tÉe the desrructive compliciry oi the nadve elites
(in this
70 7t
i
,-;É:,---. ,,1
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial
World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World

in promoting imperial expansiotl

case Creoles of Spanish descent) Blanco (White)
and, thereby, enacting self-colonization'

The Fifth Side of the Ethno-Racial Pentagon: Mestizo (mixed)

"Latins" in Southern Europe and in

South America and the Caribbean
(Black) Indio (Indian)
InsouthAmericaandthecaribbean,"Latinidad"wasatransnx*
colonies thlt
tional identiry unitinf ex-Spanish and ex-Portuguese the racial classification by blood-mixture in sevenreenth-cenrury
The French Caribbealt
considered themselvef the heirs of France' ica reached a numerical level that defied common sense, the basic
and differelrt
*rr- A*ry, marginal to "Latin" America' for several re contained in this diagram. "'Whites" in South America were
reasorls. ln norop", "Latinidad" wes
a transnational identity unitirrg ics and spoke Latin (or Romance) languages; this classification
the ürect heirs of being superseded by a ".W'hiteness" based on Protestanrism and
Southern countries that considered themselves
in the Latir¡ languages. In the US the diagram was much simpler, reduced
the Roman Empire, with a "LLtíd'ethos embedded
(French' ltalian' Spanislt' Black. (adapted from Norman E.Whitten,Jr, and Diego Quiroga,
language and its ,",tt"ol"' offspring
became curiously f in Minoriry Rights Group, ed., No Longer Inuisible: Afro-latin
Portuguese). But in South America"'Latinidad" Tbday. London: Minority Rights Publications, 1995, 287 -318)
pentagon' far removcd
enough the fifth side of the global ethno-raciai
Empire' "Lztín" America was certainly
- indeed - from the Romáthan to Rome itself - "Latins" in the llAmerica, all of a sudden, became a new "racíal" category
closer to a Roman colony
legacy that "Latins" by blood or skin color but by marginal status (deter-
Americas were far ,.*o*d from the Roman
"Latins" ill a myriad of markers such as geographical location and
in no-p" rightly claimed for themselves' However' was their legacy artd
America bought into the illusion that Rome
in relation to Southern Europeans, and in the shadow of
colonialism that they were ¡ide of the ethno-racial pentagon. Being'White "Letin"
overlooked the three hundred years of
(instead of Latin French, for instance) was nor being
reproducing by doing *' L *" "ot tlt"t at
that point that"Latinidatl"
in South America "i¿ Caribbean would become the fifth sitle , as is made clear today when "'\ñ/'hite" LatinAmericans I

'f'"
of rfr" global ethno-racial pentagon' which Kant
set
lJ l"Ottt' the US. "Latinidad" associated with Whiteness, in South l

continent
"'a given color dightly remapped the colonial racial landscape.'Whitten
I

people to continents and atlributing to each

views of hunt¡n 's draw a usefirl diagram (reproduced below) of the
l

of its people. Kant suggested, in his anthropological

Black in Africa' Red i¡t racial spectrum in Ecuador that, mutatis mutandis, is valid
races, that Yellow pJJpft were in Asia' i

he attributed tt¡
America, and White itt Et"opt, and of course ¿ll the Spanish colonies. j

- the superiority
I
nineteenth century Whites were mainly Creoles, and so
fr-p"*, - mainly French, English' and Germans sublime'l4 i

of reason, and the ,eost of tht"beautifi'l and the of European descent. Racial formation in the viceroyalty l

and' for that

"Latins" in South America came in several colors Granada, for example, between 7750 and 1810, had main- l
1

principles of "purity of blood" and introduced the color I

I
reason,üdnotfittheracialmoldofthenineteenthcentury.Tltat
o'Latinos/as" entered int6 i
instead of the strong religious configurations ofJews and
i;;";;'*rt carried over to the US when in chaptct
¡
I

ethno-racial pentagon (which I will address

!
Spain.¡6The key issue here was that whileJews and Moors
its national I
I
I

72 73

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 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
had the wrong religion, in the prevalent Christian conception,
Indians (and Africans) had no religion.lT Furthermore, peninsular
Spanish and Creoles were both consideredWhite but ranked accord-
ing to their imperial or colonial belonging. Thus, mixture of blood
was translated from belief to skin color.\Xi\en Kant distributed
people by color and continents, he was deriving the principle not
from pure reason but well and truly from the Spanish colonial
experience in the New World. While the Inquisition in Spain hacl
"purity of blood" as a legal principle to control and separate
Christians from Moors and Jews, and in the New'W'orld pursued
the same goals, the local Creole elite translated the principle into a
de facto social difterentiation befr,veen Spanish Creoles on top,
Mestizos/as and Mulattos/as in the next social group down, ancl
Indios, Zambos, and Negroes at the bottom of the pyramid. Thr
colonial wound is precisely the consequence of racial discourse . Frantz
Fanon expressed the experience as "suffocation" and Gloria Anzaldúrr
called it an "open wound" ("1a frontera es una herida abierta" - |
will return to these issues in chapter 3).18 The colonial wound in
both appeared as a new location of knowledge, the shift toward thc
geo-politics and body politics of knowledge. (Latin) America has
not yet healed the colonial wound and has not yet freed itself fronl
"internal colonialism" and "imperial dependency."
The division of America into North and South also mirroretl
similar divisions within Europe, and France's articulation ot'
"Latinidad" should be understood through its assumed position witlr
regard to those üvisions. Up to the time of Hegel's philosophy of'
history, Europe was basically the land of the "tvvo races" (instead of'
"three religions," as it became known after the French Revolutiorr)l
o'race"
the of the Gallo-Romans and the "race" of the Franks. More
simply put, the tension was between Roman and Germanic culturcs,
But it was France that took the lead, to its own advantage, of course,
in bridging the gap caused by-"racial tension" between the Ron:rtt
and the German "races" of Europe. In 1831, the French historiurt
Jules Michelet stated that "Rome included in itself the opposirrg
rights of rwo strange races, that is, the Etruscan and the Latin. FrallcÉ
has been in its ancient legislation Germanic up to La Loire antl
Roman toward the South of this river. The French Revolution
married together both elements in our Civil Society."re
74
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
'course, we (you and I, dear reader) know that this is not
xily a vrew most French intellectuals would promote today.
would like to stay a litrle bit longer wirh rhf topic and
see
lt€rrmants of the distinctions survive in discourses around
nen identity. Rémi Brague recently published a successful
:hat put forth a direct, and sometimes indirect,
attempt to
and solidify the place of France in the European Unfun.ro
argues and defends the thesis that Europe is essentially
and that the borders (atterités) by which Europe defines
itseíf
,strmmarized around the very concept of ,,Letinitée.,,
Brague,s
s the following: "Europe is not Greek only, and not ;nly
and not even Greco-Hebrew, but it is above all Roman.
and Jerusalem,' true, but also Rome . . . Three ingredients
up with Europe: Rome, Greece, and
lJ, 3 come
"-' lJrague goes so far as to claim that there is indeed
\oman attitude" (remember what I was saying about the
of the o'Baroque ethos" for Creoles claiming their own
that defines Europe's borders. pursuing this argument,
he
to show that Europet connections with the OlJTestamenr
" link; that is, Christian and ,.Latin.', By the same
can distinguish itself from rhe Muslim world. Brague
huge effort to convince his reader that Europe in its
ñnk
ient Greece is also Roman/Latin and, therefore, different
from Islam but also from the Byzantine world.
is a temporal dimension to the Europe defined as
í/Latinité," and it is what Brague calls the ..Roman atti_
believes that what Europe received from the Greeks
and
rs is the Greek and Roman attitude of improving
upon
took from the barbarians. He states:
trme dynamic nourishes European history. And this is
I define as the "Roman attitude,' . . . The European
adventure, after the age of great discovery in Africa;
ple, has been felt as a repetition of Roman coloniza_
There is a rich French historiography that draws a parallel
EGn the colonizarion of the Maghrib by the incient
and the more recent, French colonization . . . Colo_
rnd European humanism after the Italian Renaissance:
75
J
 First Reordering of the Modem/Cotonial World
will they not be linked as compensation for the sense of inG-
riority vis-i-vis the Greeks and the Jews? One could risk the
following hypothesis. The European impulse toward conquest
and colonization, since the Renaissance, perhaps has its strong
motivation in the desire and the need to compensate, through
the domination of people considered inferior, for [modern
Europeans'] own inferiority complex in relation to antiquity,
whicht humanists in the Renaissance were eager to re-
hearse . . . And, at the other end of the spectrum, the ending
of the dominant role enjoyed by classical studies after World
War II was simultaneous with the planetary movements of
rlecolonization.22
While thinking about the meaning of the "Roman attitude," wc
should keep in mind the "colonial wound" among Indians antl
African slaves, among Latinos/as in the uS, and among Creolcs
under Spanish colonial rule, as well as among leading "independent"
nations under the intellectual and economic management of Francc
and England. We have here a blueprint, a cognitive map, of Europc
as Roman and Latin from the Renaissance to the end ofWorldWar
II.Yet we can find an earlier version of the very same map as Bragrte
uses in place and activated by the Creole elite who worked witl¡
the French to assert "Latinidad" in the Americas. In 1852, Julrtt
Bautista Alberdi began his classic treatise Bases y puntÓs de partil,t
para la organización nacional with the following statement:
America has been discovered, conquered and populated by the
civiüzed European races, who were carried forward by the
same law as moved Egyptian people from their primitive land
to bring them to Greece; later on, the same law moved the
inhabitants of Greece to civilize the Italian peninsula; and
finally the same law motivated the Greeks to civilize the
barbarous inhabitants of Germany who were changed by the
remains of the Roman world, the virility of its blood illumi-
nated by Christianity.23
Alberdi, an intellectual leader of the Argentinian history of post-=
colonial nation-building, offers here a clear example of tlre
76
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial
World
ction - in the ex-colonies of a genealogy of
- thought and
formafion that was ,,natttral,, to Erlropear, úirtory.
f,í.op.r,
and subject formation should ,át be confused
with
;rism, in the same way as race, in the sense
of ethniciry
not be confused with racism. Eurocentrism only
arises wheí
:ticular history of Europe (and, in rhe second
half of the
century, of the US) and its concomitant subject
formation
rted and enforced as a universal model,
,rá ,r. accepted
.oted by colo¡rial subjects embracing a
model of being whai
noj.Jhe colonialiry of rbeing op.irt", by conversion (to
of Christianity, to ciülizatioi rrd progr.rs, ro moderniza_
development, to XVestern democracy lrd
the market) or
tion and assimilation (the wiilingness of the native
elites
colonies to embrace imperial designs and values
leading to
I subject formation). That is, it
-.-rrx accepting dwelling in
iality of being by narcorizing the colonijwound,
ignoiing
all sorts of painkillers. Lett suspend this scenario for
a
, and go back to the first half of rhe nineteenth century
an idea of "Lattrf'America became thinkable.
in fact, a little-known French intellecrual, Michel
Chevalier,
:r of Michelet, who contributed ro the imprinting of
,9" o, the Spanish Americas. Chevalier, who
was bori, in
in 1806, went to the US in 1g33 and remained there until
trip by visiting Mexico and Cuba. In 1836,
"i*q hisrwo
published volumes of lerters he had writren during
in the US, titled Lettres sur l,Amérique du NoriL There is
be said abour how Chevalier foretelis rhe furure,
one or
uries after his own day; but I will limit myself
to his obser_
prognosdcations about the Americas. For
Chevalier, as
, "our Europe" had a double origin as Latin (Roman)
and Jbutonic (Gerrnan) Europe, wilh the
f"r_., U.irrg
d of the counrries and peopletf the Midi and the ,..orrá
of the conrinenral counrries and people of the Norrh,
England. Latin Europe is Catholi., dr;toric Europe
is
In mapping that distincion onro America, chevarier
lhe two branches, Latin and German, reproduced them_
the New World. South America is, like Meridian
Europe,
¡nd Letin. North America belongs ro a population
thai is
77
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial
Worlil -
Protestant and Anglo-Saxon."24 It's not surprising that Chevalic'r and South America are filled with new branches
talks about Anglo Americans and Spanish Americans, given that both ng up from the roots of 'Western civilization
on both
Bolívar's vision of a "Confederation of Spanish American Nations" the side that looks toward
varo -¿1sla
Asia and the side that
rhat looks
loolrs
and Jefferson,s idea of a'w'estern Hemisphere had been advanced by ourselves. The US will soon extend
itself from one
that time. But chevalier's vision for spanish America is not very to the other . . . Thus it is clear from this point
of view
encouraging: America is located befween the fwo civilizations
and
it has a privileged desriny.26
The republican principle has produced the US, although the
same principle has generated also those miserable republics of t articulation of ',Latinidad', and cultural imperialism
takes
Spanish America. . . . Apparently the Anglo Americans will be I clear function of maintaining a presence in
this area of
appointed to continue, ürectly and without foreign interven- ed destiny." chevalier made this clear when he wrote:
tion, the progress that the civilization to which we belong has is the trustee of the destinies of all of
the Latin nations on
accomplished since it [the civilization] abandoned the orient, I continents. It alone can prevent
the swallowing of this entire
its cradle. . . . meanwhile, the Spanish American seems to be of peoples by the twin encroachment of the Germans
or
nothing other than an impotent race without future, unless it or by the Slavs."27
receives a wave of rich and new blood coming from the North, was responsible for .,Latinidad,' on both
continents it
or from the East.2s Spain had been completely marginalized..As
Leopoldo
,ed,28.after the eighteenih
..átrry §p; r; RJ,];"JJ.
There is a very interesting geo-political imaginary unfolding here, for different reasons, positions ar rh; margins
of the West,
since "East" in the last line does not refer to the Orient. Let's follow rically and geo-politically. Spain (and the Iberian
penins.rlaj
up a little bit further. Chevalier was one of the ideologues of the territory of Catholic Christians, and Russia was
órthodox,
ascending bourgeoisie and the new European political economy. He Protestant Christians in rhe process
of taking t.ra"rrili
-w¡r9
taught an introductory course on political economy at the Collégr 'particular stage of global coloniJity.
de France between 1842 and 1850. His geo-political concerns wcrf been recently argued2e that at the ,.origin,,
of the idea of
not romantic imaginations of the New'W'orld order. The Romlll ' was the result of another, related "historical event in
and German division of Europe was no longer a question. Tlle :rica: the incidents, tensions, and conflicts
surrounding
problem he saw in front of him, instead, was how the nineteentlt in 1850. Rather than a fronrier dispute, the problem wí
century would be marked by the confrontation between the tw(l rntrolljng the place of encounter ará
crosing:betw.en the
gr.rt.ri civilizations in history the Orient and the Occident. Arrtl and the Pacific, as an advance announcement
of the 1g9g
i, that confrontation, he was particular§ concerned with the rolé American'War. The incidents and conflicts
in panama illu_
that France and countries of "Latin seed'l would play. He was alstl tensions between rwo opposing forces that,
in the terminol_
aware of the emergence of the "Slav Race" as a third group that Ie time, were named ,.the
Anglá_Saxon race,, and the .,Latin
was beginning to encroach on "our Europe," meaning the Eur«lpe I Colombian wrirer and diplomatJosé
MaríaTorres Caicedo,
of Latin and Anglo-Saxon peoples. He knew the Anglo-Saxon alld Paris, was nor alien to rh; panaÁ^ incidents
and made his
slavic countries were dealing with the orient, with Asia, and lte ItÉrtd on several occasions. This crucial moment,
the conti_
worried that Latin countries were losing that contest. Chevalief 'conficts around 1850, was the moment in which Bolívar,s
foresaw, then, that the bridge between the East and the West worlld of the "Confederation of Spanish American Nations,,
began
be America. He said: nruleted into "Latin America" in the sense of
the domain of
7fl 79
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
the "Latin race." Aims McGuinness revisits the reproduction, in the
Americas, of the division in Europe between the North and thc
South, and states:
Torres Caicedo's articulation of the antagonism bet'rveen
"America del Norte" and "America del Sud" also reliedon the
opposition between the "Saxon race" and the "Latin race,,that
owed more to theories of race circulating in the 1850,s than
to Bolivar and included notions of pan-Latin racial unity
similar to those advanced in France by Saint-Simonians such
as Michel Chevalier. By the mid-1850s . . . Chevalier had
developed a vision of pan-Latin üplomacy that pitted the Latin
nations of Europe (including Belgium, Spain and porrugal, and
led of course by France) against the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon
peoples of northern Europe and the Slavic nations of Eastern
Europe. A similar opposition bet'w.een the Latin and Anglo-
Saxon "races" found its expression in Torres Caicedo's 1856
poem "Las dos Américas" . .
.
The race of Latin America
finds itself confronred by the Saxon Race
Mortal enemy who now threatens
To destroy its liberty and its banner3o
McGuinness's conclusion allows for a sum¡nary of my argumenl
on the reorganization of the logic of colonialiry and the redistribu-
tion of the world among changes of imperial leadership.The distinc-
tions between the North and South of Europe and the North and
South of America were not simply "cultural" differences. Thcy
masked the colonial power differential that was translated from its
construction in Europe and imposed on the Americas. It is precisely
the differential of power that permits us to see that what are mord
generally understood as "cultural differences" are indeed "imperirl"
and "colonial" differences that have been dictated by leading impe.
rial designers. It was in France, Germany, and England that the dis.
tinction between the South and North of Europe was imaginetl
(imperial difference). And it was in spain and portugal, first, and irr
England, France, and Germany, later, that the differences betweerr
80
i--::;,=;¡:ii
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
and the two Americas were defined, described, and
imple_
(colonial difference). Imperial and colonial differences
work
rthe same logic: the devaluation of the human
conditions of
to be dominated, exploited, controlled * the objects
On the other hand, the differences are established
subjea of the dffirences
- rhe authoriry of the imperial voice
ser imperial voices and, above a[, over coronial
voices.
differentiation berween Europe and the Americas,
on the
td, and befween North and South America, on
the other,
only spatial brrt temporal as well.The French Enlightenment
,d the idea of a young and immarure
NewWorld that would
üen totally alien to Spanish missionaries and men
of letters
¡ixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The ,.barbarians,,
who in
ueenth century were located in space became
the.,primitives,,
i. From here to the idea of Latin America as an
underdevel_
,bcontinent, there is just one step and a change
of global
from British civilizing ro rhe US developing arrd *"ri"tirrg
Hegel is, once agein, behind s,rch assurnptions. He
had l
.g capacity to convert what borders on nonsense into
a
World is divided inro Old and New; rhe name of
New
tg originated in the fact that America and Australia
have
lately become known to us. But these parts of the
world
not only relatively new, but intrinsically so in respect of
I cntire physical and psychical constitution . . . I will not
rthe New 'W'orld the honor of having emerged
from the
I the worldt formation contemporaneously with the old:
Archipelago between South America and Asia shows
a
immaturity . . . New Holland shows a not less immarure
rhical character; for in penetraring from the settlements
English farther into the country we discover immense i
which have not yet developed themselves to such a
as to. dig a channel for themselves; but lose
themselves
L-- 31
the impression that if one speaks from the perspecrive
of
even to criticize it, one can demonstrate ihat nature
'É,
in
81
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
certain parts of the world is younger than others or that there arc
weapons of mass destruction even if one cannot find them. The
changes in the idea of "nature" paralleled the changes in the ideas
of continental divides and world order.'When development replacetl
the civilizing mission as a project of the developed countries, thc
Third'W'orld was (and still is) equated with "nature"; that is, not
with the "industries" and "sciences" of progress that put the First
'W'orld
ahead in the temporal imagination. If, in the sixteenth century'
"nature" was conceived in terms of lands and territories to bt'
mapped or as the spectacle of the world through which its Makcr
could be known, from the beginning of the nineteenth century
"neture" became the fuel, the raw material, for the Industrilrl
Revolution and the forward-moving engine of progress and capitrrl
accumulation. This transformation put a premium on the already-
existing continental division, and "nature" became increasingly asstl*
ciated with South America, Africa, and Asia. Thus, the idea of "Latitt "
America was coetaneous with the increasing value of South Amerit'rt
as "nature" and the increasing value of Europe's new imperial coull-
tries as the sources of "culture" (the universiry the state, philosophy'
science, industry, and technology).
Colonialism, The Missing Ideology of Moderniry
and "Latin" Arnerica: The Reconfiguring of
the Logic of Coloniality
To understand the intricate web in which differences are tralls=
formed into values, and the colonial matrix of power naturalizcrl
and disguised under the triumphal project of modernity, let's look
more closely at the rhetoric of modernity and its darker sitle,
Sociologist Immanuel'Wallerstein has suggested that the "modt:rl¡
world system" did not have its own imaginary (i.e., a series of idcl¡
giving it conceptual coherence) until after the French Revolutirrlt,
He describes that imaginary as relying on the emergent configura=
tion of three competing, and at the same time complementar¡
ideologies: conservatism, liberalism, and socialism. Looking from tlre
empire to the colonies, or from the march of moderniry toward tlre
rest of the word, the three ideologies seem adequate.32 Looking frotll
82
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
úes to the empire, or at the invasive march of modernity
rest of the world, it is clear that the full story cannot be
within these rhree Enlightened European ideoiogies alone.
one important ideology missing that is crucial for an
ing of the "idea" of Latin America and that dates back
r sixteenth cenrury: colonialism. The display
of the four ideol-
of the modern/colonial world togethei makes visibre the rift
the former three and the latter, which is important to an
ing ot
mcung of how they funcion in the geo-politics (moderniry,/
rhey function
ity) of knowledge, rarher than simply
siml in the internal history
rn political theory and its underlying epistemology.
the internal history
historv of-Wesrern n^liti..l theory
oflX/esfern political d-^^*., and
^^A episte_
colonialism is a mere derivative, an unpleasant process that
to a better world. Colonialism is, precisely, whai remained
and unnamed, covered by the three acceptable ideologies
visible face of the empire, which itself hid the colonies ánd
them marginal in time and space. Colonialism as the fourth
is a vital distinction to make if we are to comprehend
imperialism since the sixteenth century and US imperial_
World War II. Colonialism (and I am referring here io the
' forms that emerged in the modern,/colonial world and
instance, in previous Roman or Inca ,.colonies,,) refers
to
t of imperial actions that have capitalism as the principle
lation of "modes of social life and organization; Thri ir,
m/colonialism are one and the same, like modernity/colo_
insofar as they are linked with mercantilism, free tráe, and
economy. Imperialism/colonialism characterizes
moments in history ftke the Spanish, the British, or rhe
imperial/colonial empires), while moderniry/coloniality
,fowald a set of principles and belie6 in which certain impe_
üonial empires are framed.33 colonialism is the historicaily
complement of imperialism in its diverse geo_historical
ions, just as coloniality is the logical complement of
tty in its general principles. Coloniüsm as ideology is imple_
by coloniality as rhe logic of domination.
nialism" es the hidden ideology has two aspecrs that dis_
it from the three visible ones. First, it is arr ideology that
wants to promote and everyone claims to want to end.
83
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
colonialism is the shameful member of the family - it',s always therc,
people know about it, but they preGr not to mention it, like talkirrg
,uo", money with an aristocratic f"-ily.As such, colonialism is llot
a project of which imperial leaders and global designers could be
p-rá _ and they opeJy declared themselves againsr it. The explicit
p-¡..* are described in positive terms, like civilization' develop*
*.rrt, or democracy, but not as colonization, even if colonizatiorl is
the necessary step to "bring" Good to deserving and wanting people',
,,
Civilization,', " áevelopment," " mo der nizttion," and " socialism," fi r
t ity and on the tirne/space/nature configuration thar
instance, are all p§ects that conservatives, liberals, and Marxists
are
eager to promote and carry to üstant places - but not colonialisrlrl
(Rece.rt situations such as the post-9/11 period, when even gootl
liberals accepted colonialism as a necessity of US foreign policy' nrrry
be exceptions to that observation.) colonization, in that view it
something that cannot be avoided if you want to "bring" prosperity'
d.*o.rrry and freedom to the world' Eurocentrism could be
defined precisely in those terms - a view of history in whit'lt
modernity is there to supersede traditions and colonialism is a mealli
to a better end.
Second, in that forward movement of moderniry, colonialisrn
works to cover up its own ideological trail by erasing and displacirrg
that which differs from the ideal or opposes the march of modernity,
Thus, modernity can be defined and conceived, in terms of
"reasoll,
progress, political democracy, science, commodiry production' ncw
.o.r-..ptio.rs oftime and space and rapid changes,"3a without acknowl'=
edging the erasure of both what preceded a given moment withirt
tnJ to!i. of moderniry (that is, the colonization of time - Midtlla
Ages, early modern period, modern period, postmodern period'
etc')
,á what-differed from a given moment outside the logic of modcr'=
nity. Fanon in the tqOOs said it very clearly in a way that is still valitl
today for the new form of neo-liberal colonialism:
colonialism is not simply content to impose its rule upon thc
present and the future of a dominated country. colonialism is
not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip anc{
empfying the native's brain of all form and content'By a leind
of fr*ui logic, it turns to the past -of the oppressed people'
ancl
áirtortr, disfigures and destroys it.35
84
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
Aztec and Inca Empires, before the Indias Occidentales and
ing with them for a short period, came under the erasure
imperial, noble mission. Colonialism - the hidden ideology
istianity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the
secular ideology - allows us to conceive of moderniry in
, of its irrationaliry its disruption and fractures of other forms
(e.g., look at the current situation in sub-Saharan Africa and
America), and its totalitarian tendencies based on the myth
ity dismembered and destroyed (and continues to destroy)
name of industrialism and technology. Of course, Indians in
ricas, slaves from Africa, and later on people in Africa and
the "arrival" of modernity with a wide spectrum of reac-
went all the way from the opportunity to jump on the
n of modernization to the painfirl process of decoloniza-
either of those perspectives, "modernization" was some-
'1'coming from" elsewhere and not something that "was" in
past. The simple difference was how global designs were
- not conceived - by people imbued with other hisrories
to colonialism as ideology and practice and to the underly-
of coloniality that the first wave of decolonization in the
responded. All the "revolutions" of this wave were in the
of co-existence rather than in the paradigm of newness
ined in the preface). US independence (called theAmerican
in 1776, the rebellions in what was then part of Peru
Bolivia) led by Tomas Katari and Túpac Amaru (1780-1),
Revolution in 1804, and the first set of Hispano and
ican independences berween 1810 and 1830 were all
to "colonialism," as the imperial ideology projected toward
ies. Decolonízation at this point, as well as in the second
World War II, meant political and, in a less clear way,
decolonization - but not epistemic. The theological and
frames of mind in which political rheory and political
had been historically grounded were never questioned.
h precisely the crucial difnerence between older forms of
ization and the struggles since Césaire and Fanon and more
since the 1990s. Now decolonization of knowledge and
n5
j
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
subjectivity, through the imagination of alternatives to capitalism antl
alternatives to the modern state and its reliance on military power,
and through the creation of new ideologies other than the four
mentioned, is taking place. Yet all the "successful" movements ol
decolonization in the Americas were in the hands of Creoles <¡f
Spanish, Portuguese, English, and African descent, and it was not otl
their horizon to imagine ways of thinking beyond what the Europeutt
tradition offered them. Colonialism should have been the key ideol..
ogy targeted by decolonial projects. However, in the first wave «rl
so-called decolonization, colonialism as ideology was not dismantlerl,
as the goal was to gain ostensible independence from the empirc,
There was a change of hands as Creoles became the state and eco .
nomic elite, but the logic of coloniality remained in place.
The only social movement initiated by the natives (the Indians)
"fa7led" in terms of pushing the colonizer out of the territory. Ar
a matter of fact,Indians in the viceroyalcy of Peru had a doublc
force to fight against: the Creoles and the Spanish imperial admin
istration, which, although decadent, was still in piace. In the hypo=
thetical case thatTúpac Amaru had come to power, most likely thcrc
wouldnt be a"Latín" America today.The Haitian Revolution offerctl
also the posibiliry of an epistemic delinking but instead was reduccrl
to silence, as Michel Rolph-Trouillot has convincingly arguecl. "'
When Chevalier was writing that France was responsible for all tlrc
nations of the Latin group in both continents, Haiti was not in ltir
mind. Haiti belonged to "Africanidad," not to "Latinidad"! Strangcly
(or not), Haiti never clearly counted as part of "Latin" Amerir'l,
"Latins" were supposed to be not Black but'White Creoles or, ;tt
most, Mestizos/as or perhaps Mulattos/as in blood but Europertnl
in mind.
To conceive of themselves as a "Latin" race (as Torres Caicerkl
put it), Creoles in"Latirf' America had to rearticulate the cololtill
difference in a new format: to become the internal colonizers vis=
i-vis the Indians and Blacks while living an illusion of independerrr'e
from the logic of colonialiry. Internal colonialism was indeecl E
trademark of the Americas after independence and was directly
linked to nation-state building. Nation-states in the colonies wcrÉ
not a manifestation of moderniry leaving colonialism behind.'l'lre
roads of (and not toward) modernity/coloniality in the Americrtt,
86
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
in instance by US independence and in another by
_one
:r
_Spanish/Porruguese colonies, differ both among them_
r'and also, considerably, from the road of modernity/cioniarity
brought about the Haitian Revolution. In an thr.. ."rer,
; coloniality was reinscribed almost immediately in the
colonialism enacted by nation-stares emerging from
'lVhile decolo_
US independence also led to inárnal colonialism,
Ity here is that the US became at once a postcolonial
a-country with imperial ambitions, and a country anchored
.al colonialism. The imperial ambitions, inherited
from the
r country, mark one specific difference between the US and
America and the Caribbean in the subsequent reorganization
global order during the nineteenth century.
urope, racial differences did not funcrion as internar
colonial-
rn nation-states in Europe, after al7, did not arise with
tal independence and politicar decolonization as a
goal. Their
of origin was, instead, a struggle for the emancipation of a
ial class, the bourgeoisie, and not a colonial second_class
n. In Europe, internal colonialism courd be used as a
rnet^-
class exploitarion linked ro rhe Industrial Revolution,
but
>rical conditions of inequality were quite distinct from
the
the Americas: the European bourgeoi-sie did not
decoronize
y its emancipation from monarchic and despotic regimes,
to the decolonizing srruggles by Blacks in Haiti. The iise of
,eoisie paralleled the broadening reach of the Industrial
n and the constitution and control of the state.The
control
and the state by a new social class had generated
oppressed srrarum of the population (the proletiiat);
but
w:s part of the problem. Class differences, nor racial
1ot ones,
the European political scene. The proletarirt ,, *r. iA"rrtrry
ial class was defined by conditioo, óf hbo, and capitar
rather
racial classification, which came into its fufl fo.ce as
a con-
of the transformarion of the exproitation of rabor in the
There is no doubr that a crass distincrion is embedded
in
lification and internal colonialism in the Americas, but
the
of classification is not based on a social class formed out
of workers employed in the industries emerging from
.
i¿l Revolution. It hinges, instead, on a social strátifrcation
87
 I

First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World

First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
that emerged from colonialism. Of course, the social classificatiott rfnoney, supported by a Creole elite eager to cut the umbilical
was not "naturally embedded" in the group of dift^erentiated people¡
Spain and Portugal, and join the club of emerging empires.
it was - rather - an epistemic classification foundational for tlre r, while class division was shaping the life ,rrá irrtit.rtor^
establishment of the modern/colonial world.3'This is precisely how
ns, racism continued to shape the life and institutions in
the colonial matrix of power is "glued" together by racism, by the
discourse that demonizes entire populations by portraying them ilt
-
ries and not only the new colonies of France and England
the new, apparently independent nations in the pro.Ás of
inferior human beings, if human at all. themselves as "Latin" American nation-states.
Jamaican philosopher Lewis Gordon summarized the divergence
befiveen the historical logic of moderniry/coloniality as experiencl.rl
in Europe and that of modernity/coloniality in the Americas. For The Many Faces of ..Latinidad,,
Gordon, class is so indigenou.s to Europe that it emerges even in
European efforts toward socialism. One can "feel" class in Europe lt
ary"Laanidad" is the consequence of imperial and colonial
the air that one breathes, observes Gordon, looking at Europe fnlnt
in the nineteenth century and the way in which the impe_
his subjective understanding and personal location in a Caribbe¡ur
colonial differences have been consrrucred.'While in EuÁpe
history rooted in slavery, racism, and European colonialism. In tlte
ad" allowed French politicians and intellectuals to establish
Americas, Gordon continues, race became an endemic motif of Ncw
'W'orld ial difference with the competing forces of the Anglo_
consciousness, and that is why one can "feel" race here in the
ld in Europe (England and Germany), in South America
same way as in Europe one can "feel" class.38 However, the issue i¡
of "Latinidad" was useful to spanish creole intellectuals
not to dwell on that distinction, but to be attentive to the conse= ians defining themselves in confrontation with the com_
quences of it. These are crucial to understanüng that, today, tlte
of the Anglo-Saxon world in the Americas - the US.
"idea" of Latin America is being refurbished against the very back- "Latin" America came into the new world order as a
drop of the modern/colonial world. Gordon observes that:
historico-political and cultural configuration. In other
colonial üfference that ideologues of the Spanish Empire
The agony experienced globally, then, is not simply one of'
I to justi§, the colonization ofAmerica (e.g., the inGrior_
intensified class division but also one of an asserted NewWorld
Indians and the non-hurnanity of the African slaves) was
consciousness on those not indigenous to it . . .
[-and intensified by the ideologues of the new, indepen_
Something new is being formed. Just as a new oppressive
lics. Thus, the colonial difference was reproduced, afte,
relation emerged when Europe expanded wesfward (and sub-
ndent republics' formation, in the .,internal,, colonial
sequently, eastward), so, too, are new oppressive relations emerg-
"Latinidad" contributed to disguise the internal colonial
ing as the New West goes global. Is it racism? Classisn-r? under a historical and cultural idenrity that apparently
Sexism? In my view, it is none of these uniquely, but instead
a peruasiue ethos against humanistic solutions to any of them. In .all while, in realiry producing an effect of totaliry that
the excluded. "Latinidad" produced a new type of invisibil_
short, it is the ethos of counter-revolution and anti-utopia.3"
Indians and for people of African descent in .,Latin',
,,

The quotation encapsulates the predominant ethos of the modenr/ ¡d" worked to define the identity of a community i
colonial world, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. T'lt6 l

Mestizo/a elites and, later on, the people descendeá I

"idea" of Latin America, in the nineteenth century, was forged in

European immigrants who began to arrive in South I

the movement of imperial institutions for the control of meanilrg

in the second half of rhe nineteenth century. The ethos of
88
89

J
 First Reordering of the Modern/ColonialWorld
"Latinidad" encouraged European immigration' It was one of the
measures to promote progress and civilization and, indirecdy,'whitert
the nation-states. New economies developed in the South as the
need for crops and meat complemented the exploitation of the
tropical plantations that, no longer in the hands of Dutch, British'
or French colonizers, were now in the hands of a Creole elite, whtr
transformed "colonial exploitation" into "modern exportation'"
since the second half of the nineteenth century, "Latín" Americrtrt
countries have continued a consistent descent in the world econonly
in relation to Europe and the United States.
The last decade of the nineteenth century was a turning poirrt
for world history even though the events of this decade took place
in the "periphery" (Spain, Latin America, the lJS, and Japan), antl
remain tti[ o, the margins of the triumphal history of modernity
from the French to the Russian Revolutions and to the differellt
manifestations of totalitarianism in Europe. During that decatlc,
Spain lost its last colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific (tlre
f-hilippine$ and the US started its imperial march after the defc'¡rt
or spal" in the Spanish-American war of 1898, while Japan also
initiated imperial iont.ol of China in 1895. 'oLttirt" America slirl
down one more step, in relation to the world order around 19()(),
not only economically but in the North Atlantic imaginary. That it,
"Latin"America became darker and darker in relation to the increlts=
ing discourse ofwhite supremacy that was implemented during the
last decade of the ninereenrh century in the uS by the ideologtrer
of the Spanish-AmericanWar.In parallel fashion to the way Spaniartlt
*.r. ,..r, by Northern Europeans (as darker skinned and mixerl
with Moorish blood), "LatíÍ¡" America began to be perceived nltx€
,,Mestizo /a"; that is, darker skinned. And althou¡¡h
and more as
"Latifl" American Creoles and elite Mestizos/as considered thclll=
selves \Vhite, particularly in relation to the Indian and Afro poptrla"
tion as well as to the Mulattos/as and cholos/as (Mestizos/u
perceived,
-perspective
by ethniciry or class, as closer to the Indians), from tlte
of Northern Europe and the {JS, to be "Latin" Americln
was still to be not'W'hite enough. This was the waiting room fpf
the next step, to come after'w'orld war II: 'oLetiÍt" America becatllé
part of the Third world, and the Indian and the Afro populatiotl
remained invisible.
90
First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World
vever, also in the last decade of the nineteenth century
José
a Cuban writer, activist, and ideologue who lived a ,igrrifi-.rrt
of his life in New York, launched a new ,rrd
-o".. open
of "Latinidad" with his famous political p.oclamation
América." Martít program turned its back on Caicedo,.s
i's project and on France and Greece as the emblems of
historical foundation, and turned toward Mesoamerican
s (Maya, Inca, Aztec) as the emblems of ..Nuestra
a"'s historical foundations.After Martí, and after the peruvian
and political leader José Carlos Mariátegui in the I92Os,
of LatinAmerica underwent a radical change in the 1960s
both the philosophy of liberation and dependency theory
by philosopher Enrique Dussel. Also in the 1960s,
description of colonialism, quoted above, changed the terms
conversations in which French imperial designs had shaped
e of "Latinidad."The idea of ..Latin,,Americá that .-.rg.d
the coldwar and from the historicar perspective of colonial-
unlinked itself from the French idea of ,,Latinidad.,,
"Latin America is in effervescence,,, as Maniére de uoir/lt
diplomatique proudly announced in paris in the summer
of
And indeed it is.In the last decade, major transformations have
place. Aymara acrivisr and intellectuJ victor Hugo cárdenas
vice-president of Bolivia in August 1 993. Though they
completely share Cárdenas's polirics, Felipe
euispe ftr"r.,
Morales, as intellectuals and leaders of Indigenous social
have climbed through the institutional aperture that the
y opened. "All of them Aymaras, but so different,, is
of Xavier Albó's political analysis of the parts played by
Morales, and Quispe Huanca in the transformation of thé
state and society in recent decades. The leading role and
ective on the future that we see in the Indian ,oiid ,rrorr._
Bolivia is mirrored in Ecuador. The intellectuar and activist
of Nina Pacari (currently the minisrer offoreign relations)
Alberto Macas (recently reappoinred president of the
ión de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador, and ex_
Ér of agriculture and president of the newly formed Amawray
or universidad Intercultural de las Nacionalidades y pueblos
plus the significant number of Indian members in the
91
 First Reordering of the Madern/Colonial World First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial
World
Congress and the presence of Indian administrations in more thall path toward the future conduct of
the state. And this case is
thirty cities in Ecuador, all clearly show that although forrnal govern- imporranr in.the history of ,,Latin,,
ment is in the hands of pro-neo-liberals, the state is no longer thc lr::T:
has been, since the time of Sim¿n
America, since
indisputable domain of the "'White/Mestizo/a" elite.
Bolíra. and the wars of
in a,,Latin,America whose image was
No less significant have been the emergence ofAfro social move- 1"1.:::l: -',:.p.:ld
'lSpanish" than,.portuguese.,, Frrthermore,"i;;
ments, and their presence is giving new meaning to something that his "spanish"American pr.r.r..,
;;',"i* ;,
d*lXg
we (in Latin America, the IJS, or Europe) always knew was part of the possible paths
the future; he is doing the same with
Latin America. From the Andes to Mexico, and from Argentina tcr the É,rrop"rrr.
American "Marxists" who have enormous "rrJ
the Caribbean,Afro rhythms have always been beating and conrinuc difficurties articulat-
and class in the history of ex_colonial
to beat (and they have come to be known all over the world as countries. He is on
any posrmodern debat., i" E;;;,
'Latin American music').\Ve (the same as above) also always knew ,t;.,-T1*g_:T".1.,"
making Lenin useful again á. the future J;.;"_";i;
that from the north of Brazil and the northeast of Colombia and
in all the Caribbean Islands, o'exotic" religious practices (Candombli.,
j:*:'"ll_1.*..":i, has also.. taken a signifi crrrt airr"rtirf
¡rward to show, with Lula da Silva, that
th"ere .;. ,".,il;?
Santería, Voodoo, Rastafarianism) were practiced and disrupted the organization and poritics that are not
necessar,y those dictated
application of Christianity. Afro religious practices that "absorbecl" r IME the Wbrld Bank,
or the European srares of the Gg that
christianity and turned it into somerhing that chrisrians could nrt the rights of their imperial p"rtr. irrl,
recognize, and often reject or fear, have not, like music, been sub-
de Silva seems ro be
g froT the very colonial history ofBraziland of theAm"ri."i
sumed under "Latinidad" since, as we have seen, Christianity ancl
lT:.1::,tnuals based^ á: -od.., history of rurope
"Letinided" are two sides of the same coin. How then could onc lndustrial Revolution. As"".the Indian
(in "Latin" America or Europe or the US) not take seriously the ers have shown, it makes more sense
,"d;;;'i";;#;i,
fact that Afro religious practices are key elements both for resistance to think from the
¡res of colonial history and the colonial
to oppression and for creative survival? Not every Christian speaks differential .i;;;;
rh" sociologicat rr¿..orornic manuats teling
Latin, but the foundation of Christianiry in the modern world is *::t:"l|:y
th" about the world promote. And if L;;;;;;
"Letini'As Derrida reminded us, "We all speak Latinl' and he supporting "data" for a radical transformation,
il;:
ciaimed a "global Latinization""While many in Europe and in South the World
Forum,whose pastty took place in i"rr; Al;;.
America will look at such a claim with enthusiasrn, I suspect thlt controlled by the pTl Lula,s T..._lings
Working party¡, has contributed
it will awaken less enthusiasm among Indigenous, Afro-Andearr, ing "Larin" America reflectinlg on its underbelly and
and Afro-Caribbean critical consciousnesses. After all, it was globll ition as the victim under ":, !I
únclet torí .rbi.r, bur as the loca_
Latinization from the sixteenth century on that repressed the cor¡* 'a shared
world leadership working,,roward an_orher
tribution that Indians and Afros were making to the globalizatiort globJ_
of the Atlantic economy. Felipe Quispe Huanca, Rigoberta Menchír, economic
j,]:
i"il:},i" bloc X,.lf:",y..o,,,i.,;;;, abour consriruring
(Brazil, South Africa, and India)
and Bob Marley - to give some exemples - may not agree with ,,an_orher
*i[ *;;:
a proacrive
¡,rv4uLrvci in
role rn
rure an_other giobalization;,
globalization,,
Jacques Derrida on this point. i"^:i:-rl.r :oyrrd
of the subalrern role that about a hundred ,rrd lrirr"ry
As if the examples in the previous paragraphs were not enou¡¡h .orrrr_
the world seem ready to accept.
to show tbe point of no return, epistemic as well as political, beirrg hile "Latin" America remains a comfortable
name
enacted by the Indians and Afros, the democratic victory of Ignacio ft the level of the control of land, of labor, and ofthat func_
authoritv.
Lula da silva in Brazil adds to the radical scope of current tranr=
formations. He is leading rhe way and showing the possibiliry of'l
rpheres of the cotonial maffix .lr;;;; ;#fi.ffi[f
y and knowled¡¡e, the legacies of Europ"rn
colonialism in
92
93
 First Reordering of the Modern/Colonial World

South America are being challenged and displaced by Indian antl

Afro legacies disputing languages, knowledges, religions, memorics,
In the US, the parallel struggle is being delivered by Latinos/as irt
both theoretical and artistic production. While at the level of the
state - in South America and the Caribbean - economic and politi-
cal control remain in the hands of Creoles, the possibility of trans-
J-,
forming the state by an open dialogue with the sectors of society
that have been marginaltzed because of race, gender, and sexuality Aftrr "Latin"
America:
is today opening up in new ways. Ecuador is a case in point. Othcr
changes, however, are also revealing that "Latin" political proJectr The Colonial Wound and
(liberal, neo-liberal, and socialist) are not in a one-to-one relation-
ship with the ontology of the subcontinent, as we will see in the the Epistemic Ceo- /Body-
next chapter. When the relation between the name and the sub-
continent is called into question, the political projects that brought Political Shift
"Letin" America into being have to co-exist with political projectl
originating among the silenced population, who do not see thent-
selves as they have been constructed and do not care to belong tu
the "Latin" ethos.
U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abiertawhere
the Third
grates against the first and bleeds.
Gloria Anzaldúe, Borderlands/I-a Frontera, 19g7

to articulate "interculturalidad', within the limits

of
ry ^?d of the producion of knowledge? How to
to the adventure for human knowledgfe from new

a Cycle of Indigenous Sciences. This cycle

-Yachaikuna:
objective the socializarion of inügenous knowledge,
so
can re-affirm their identities and strengthen
their self_
ce; that is, f,or learning to be.
Luis Macas, Amawtay Wasi (Universidad Intercultural
de las Nacionalidades y pueblos Indígenas),
Boletin ICCC-RIMAI, 2/ lg, ZO0O

of the present srate of radical political thought are

lded in a Western episteme that-revotrves around
rwo
ü events, the 1789 French Revolution and the tgll
Revolution. Even those who proclaim the death
of
94

_:=#=ffi:-, d
 Postface

the decolonial task of the present. They join forces with Frant:
Fanon's dictum - "At the conclusion of this study, I want the w«rrld
to recognize, with me, the open door of every consciousness" - iutd
with Latina Gloria Anzaldúa's conjecture:

En the future will belong to the mestiza,

unas pocas centurias,
Because the future depends on the breaking down «rt'
paradigms, it depends on the straddling of wvo or more cul* I\otes
tures. By creating a new mythos - that is, a change in the way
we perceive realiry the way we see ourselves, and the ways wc
behave - la mestiza creates a new consciousness.6

Preface: Uncoupling the Name and the Reference

r'lvlartin 'W Lewis and Karen E.'W.iggen, The Myth of Continents: A

Critique of Metageograplry. Berkeley: University of California Press,
'1997.
,Arturo Escobar, "'World and Knowledges Otherwise': The Latin
',,American Moderniry/Colonialiry Research Program," Cuadernos del
,CEDLA, 16 (2004), 3L47.
For the European reader unfamiliar with this term, "Chicanos" and
l'Latinos" (the canonical forms) are terms of self-identification by
a population in the US of Mexican descent and Caribbean
descent, respectively. "Latinos" has been generalized and includes
"Chicanos," without erasing the particular history of each group
l,(e.g., Puerto Rican, Cubans, Mexicans). Furthermore, the strong
, intervention of women has led to the need, because of the gender
: firarkers in the Spanish language, to speak of "Latinos/as." All these
; variations are, as I have said, self-identification, in contrast with the
' identification "Hispanics," which was imposed from above by the
Anglo-government of Richard Nixon.
the question of "nature" in the imperial Spanish mentaliry see
my "Commentaries" to José de Acostat Natural and Moral History of
¡the Indies, trans. Frances López-Morilla, ed. Jane E. Mangan. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 451-519. For a current view
'on the question of o'nature" and "Latin," see Arturo Escobar, El final
del saluaje: Naturaleza, cultura y poltitica en la antropologá contemporánea.
Bogota: CEREC, 1989; and Gabriela Nouzeilles, ed., La naturaleze en

t62
 xui-7 Notes to pp. 8-13
ñotes to PP.

l-atina' Buenos Aircsl One of the deGnders of "empire light" is former socialist Michael
disputa: Retórieas del cuerpo y del paisaje en America
Ignatieff. See www.wsws.orglarticles/ 1999 / novl 999lkoso-n27 .shtml;
Paidos, 2002. and www.counterpunch.orglneumannl.2082003.htrnl. Another is
Ariruma Kowii, "Barbarie, civilizaciones
e interculturalidad"' i¡t
'Walsh, ed., Pensamiento crítico y matriz (de)colonial' Sebastian Malla\: see his article published in Foreign Afairs, March-
Catherine -Qtritrt; April (2003), www.foreignaffairs.org/20020301facomment7967 /
27 7 -96' Aymara intelle c t I I
Universidad Andina and Abya-Val a' 2005'
r r

work on Aymara ctltt = sebastian-mallaby / the-reluctant-imperialist-terrorism-failed-states-

Marcelo Fernández Osco has done extensive " and-the-case-for-american-empire.html;2.
cepts of law and justice, extremely
relevant to an understandin¡¡ ol'
the mainstream "Latill" r I explore these issues in detail in "Delinking: The Rhetoric of
scholarly intellectual production, that -contest Modernity, the Logic of Colonialty and the Grammar of De-
of national and state ttitt
American conceptions, and show the limits colonialiry," in Ramón Grosfoguel, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and
ratives about education, democracy' equality' etc' See. Marct'kl
pmn' ZOOO; see also' by tlte r Rarrrón Saldívar, eds., Coloniality, Tiansmodernity and Border Thinkíng.
FernárdezOsco, Iz Uy aa '4U"' L^ i^zt "Descolonizirc ioll NC: Duke University Press, forthcoming.
"Laley dei'Ayllujosacia deacuerdos" and 'W'aman Puma de Ayala, analyzing the colonial viceroyalty of Peru in
same author,
(2001)' 11-2ll
jurídica," Tinkazo: pevisia báh'iono de ciencias socíals'9 the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, is one ofthe earliest
and 41-4. cases. See chapter 3.
of "irltct'=
6 A recent and sophisticated theorizatíoo af the concept Pachakuti is a complex Aymara word. Pacha could be interpreted as
culturalidad,,isCatherineWalsh,..Interculturalidad,conocinrictlttli Ithe energetic confluence of space and time, and therefore the radia-
v" fJ"j".f"Calidad," l.aor" delivered .tlt'i H:"X:J:'11!=
it *:"t':
h':;;ít"*t;' a. ii".r.l.n t:*'.^?'i1l
Intercultu'l' ion of life. Kuti could be interpreted as a violent turnaround, a
lóóí-ir-*^il cwalsh@uasm'edu'ec)' See chapter 3 for morc ]l:
ttll ,llrevolution" in\n'estern terms. Andean people described as Pachakuti
happened to them and their way of life with the arrival of the
"interculturalidad." I will come back to the significance of the Indigenous
postface to- the Err¡alhlt
7 This arguments has been advanced in the €onceptualization ofthe "discovery and conquestl' and its significance
Coloniality,-,Sulnlt¡¡¡l
edition of my l-ncal Histories/Clobal Designs: the colonial histories of South America and the Caribbean, in
NJ: Princeton Univctttt]
Knowledges and BorderThinking' Princeton' r2.
Press, 2000; and in the "Prefalio
a la edición castellana" of the srttF
conocímientos ¡nll= important political-economic factor in the configuration of the
book, Hislorias locales/diseños globales: colonialidad, ial matrix of power has been explained byArgentinian economic
y pensamiento
alternos Madrid: Editorial Akal' 2003'
Jronterizo'
historian Sergio Bag6, Eeonomía de la sociedad colonial: Ensayo de historia
de Amérka Latína. Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1949.The signifi-
of the global transformation in land appropriation has been
the Modern/Colonial ibed by German political theorist Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the
1 The Americas, Christian Expansion' and
in the International ltw of the Jus Publicum Europaeum [1950], trans.
Foundation of Racism
L. Ulmen. New York: Telos Press, 2003. Notice that these tr;vo
is specified' preceded O'Gorman's thesis on the invention ofAmerica. For
I A1l translations are mine unless a translator ,ltudy of international law, colonial expansion, and land appropriation
u'¡"'5alftmo ie!,
2 Edmundo O'Gorman, I-a inueneión de América:
''
Autónoma de México' I 95ll' a perspective opposite to Schmitt's (that is, the perspective from
cultura occidental. México: Universidad geo-political space of colonial histories and sensibilities, closer to
The imperi"t .t"rr.t"i J *t" US surfaced f"t,:h",:"*Roo¡eu
:i- jl and O'Gorman in revealing the politics of knowledge), see
Cold'Wlr. for example, Neil Smith' American Empire:
See,
N'Zatioula Grovogui, Souereigns, Quai Sovereigns, and Africans.
pretude to Global.izatlon' BerkeleYl^".,:t:ii-':l
Geographer and the is: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Since the war in lraq' there has been
talk u[
California Press, 2003.
National Liberation Army, "Manifesto from the Lacandon
imperialism" and "light imperialism" in
the pagcs ol'
"reluctant "January, 1994. English translation in J. Beverley,J. Oviedo, and
International Rcview' etc'
NewYork Timis, Foteign Afairs, Hartlard
165
164
 Notes to pP. 1j-22
M. Aronna, eds., The Postmodernism Debate in l-atin America' Durltirttl¡
NC: Duke University Press, 1995, pp' 31'l-13'
10 As is well known, the idea of dependency was introducetl hy
Argentinian economist RaúI Prebisch, in the late 1950s' to exl)llin
wliyThird'\fi/orld countries could not develop economically likc tlre
First'w'orld countries. Prebisch was not a Marxist, but a liberal c|o=
nomist from the Third world. The idea was taken up by a grotrl)
tlf
sociologists and econornists mainly in Brazil, chile, Peru, and Mcxtt rt,
and transformed into "dependency theory," to explain also the powef
relations between imperial countries like the US and ex-colonics ltkÉ
Latin America' For ,,r-*r.y and update, see Ramón Grosftrgttel¡
"
"Developmentalism, Modernity and Dependency Theory in l''¡tlll
America," Nepantla: Víews from South, 1'/2 (2000), 34714'
11. Bartolomé de Las casas, Apologética Historia sumaria (c.1552) M('xtr rli
Universidad Autónoma de México, 1967, vol' II, pp' 637-54'
'1.2 Two and a half centuries later, Immanuel Kant was updating Las ( l'ttdr;
TheTürkswerethecoÍlmonground,butKantwaslookingltllt€
barbarians in the North'West: "Since Russia has not yet devclo¡rg¡l
definite characteristics from its natural potential; since Poland ll'rr tttl
'lirrkef
longer characteristics; and since the nationals of European
,relrl. hrrr. had a character nor will ever attain what is necesslrry fttf
a definite national character, the description of these nations§ llláy
properly be passed over here" (Immanuel Kant, Anthropology .lrom c I "Disavowal" is a fundamental mechanism in the production and
pragmatic Point oJ View, trans. victor Lyle Dowdell. carborrrl¡l€:
( l¡rgl
southern Illinois Press, 1996, p.233)."Barbarous habits" in Las
beceme "national characters" in Kant, and the measuring stick rrp,'rttuf
which to rank people according to their degree of reason arrtl tllelf
limitations in grasping the beautiful and the sublime'
73 The reader should keep in mind that there is no such a thilrg'
"Latin America" at this point ofWorld History only the colottir't
Spain's and Portugal's empires in the Indias occidentales lrrrl,
lttt
sáme contemporaries, in America or in the New World'
1,4
..Abya-Yala" is a Kuna lndian word meaning "Place of Life."'lir,l¡y lc
hr. t".., adopted by the Indigenous people from Chile to lsrra*
( Atlantic commercial circuit, see Walter D. Mignolo, lnml Histories/
..continent of Llfel' co-existing with what the Etrnrpearü
to mean
called "America." The co-existence of two names is only a pn
for Europeans who believe that there is a one-to-one relation tretvt
a word and the object that the word names' Naming was crtl(:i§l
European colonization of the mind, since they "appropriate(1" fha
cont;ent by denying existing names and giving it a name that li*eé
into the Christian cosmology.
166
Notes to pp. 24-j1
Isidore of Seville, Etimologiarum siue origínum: Libri X, ed.'\U M.
Lindsay [191U, repr. London: Oxford Universiry Press, 1957.
Gerardus Mercator, c. 1540, has "India Nova" as the name for
l'what will become America: www.henry-daüs.comlMAPS/Ren/
Renl/406C.htm. Abraham Ortelius mapped the fourth part of the
world in his famous "Orbis lJniversalis Terrarum." www.artbeau.
; corn/ images*world,/Ortelius_World*z jpg.
St Augustine, Concerning the City of Cod against the Pagans (first printed
t X467), trans. Henty Bettenson, intro.John O'Meara. London: Penguin,
1984. Italics added.
,O'Gorman's "invention" insteadof "discovery" is a case in point.
Haitian historian Michel-Rolph touillot made a similar point by
ishifting the geography and the geo*politics of knowledge and showing
that the "silence" around the Haitian revolution prevented the full
],story from being told, and therefore let the Eurocentric version of
the revolution pass as the full story (Michel-Rolph Tiouillot, Silencing
'i the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press,
' 1995). Sibylle Fischer took touillot a step further by showing that
'l silencing was in fact disavowing, meaning that the Haitian Revolution
'was indeed "recognized" but at the same time "negated" (Sibylle
"lFischer, Moderníty Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the
'Age of Reuolution. Durham, NC: Duke
(Jniversity Pres, 2004).
i reproduction of the colonial and imperial difference in the sixteenth,
.nineteenth, and twenty-first centuries, a process that maintains the
'W'estern
'hegemony of the imaginary. (Remember, the imaginary
formed around Greek and Latin and the six modern European impe-
'rial languages, disavowing, precisely, the potentiality of all other lan-
iguages and their respective epistemologies
- that is, their knowledge
''potential -in the making of the world order.)
On the world commercial circuits before 1500, seeJanetAbu-Lughod,
Before European Hegemony: The World System, ¿.o. 1250-l-750. New
York: Oxford lJniversity Press, 1989. For the emergence of the
Global Designs: Colonialíty, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thínking.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton lJniversity Press, 2000.
www. nativeweb. or g/ p ages /legal/indig-romanus-pontifex. html.
http: //usuarios.advance. c orn.ar / pfernando/DocsIglLA/
Requerimiento.htm.
Anibal Quijano, "Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin
Anrericr," Nepantla: Vicws.from South,l/3 ( 2000), 533-80.
167
 Notes to pP. j1-8 Notes to pp. j8-48

23 Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemon'y, p' 355' sung, "Discourse on East Asia in Korea and Asian Identity,,, www.
24 Abu-fughod, Before European Hegemony, pp' 361'-3' waseda-coe- casjp / e / symposium03 1 2,/sympo03_s2jarrg_..pai'
(in hir
25 "Orientalism," as popularized by Edward Said since 1978 see walter D' Mignoro, The Darr<er §iai o¡ the Reiaks)nce: Literacy,
Orientalism.New York Vintage Books), but dready
being debated .ilt Territoriality and coloniz ation. Michigan:
universiry of Michigan press,
then Abdelkebir Khatibi'
north A.frica and in French before (see second edition, 2004, chapter 5.
pluriel' Paris: Delrocl'
"Uorientalisme desorienté l' ín Khatibí, Maghreb Sun Ge, "How Does Asia Mean?,,p. 14.
conceived without a previottr Sun Ge, "How Does Asia Mean?,,p. 14.
1983, pp. 1|3-46),couldn't have been
id." of "Occidentalism." "Occidentalism," however' and contrlrryof Said quoted by Sun Ge,,,FIow Does Asia Mean?,,
p. 13.
to "Orientalism," was not an object of study but 'fte locus Sun Ge, "How Does Asia Mean?,, p. 13.
enunciation. Sun Ge, "How Does Asia Mean?', p. 14.
For the most recent critical revisiting of the "idea" of
Europe, reé VY Mudimbe, The Inuention
26 of Afríia: Gnosis, philosophy and the Order
Univcrsify
Roberto Dainotto, Eurolte (inTheory)' Durham' NC: Duke of Knowledge. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University press,
19gg; and
Press, forthcoming. Dainotto shifts the epistemic center of knowlcrlge The ldea of Afrka (African Systems oJ Thought).
tlt*t
blooÁgror, iñ,
grounded in eigh-teenth-century France' England' and Germany Indiana university press, 1994. In Africa, there
is also a deb-ate going
Orient and of the South of Eunr¡re' on over the historicar assumptions of continental divides
iroduced the iáea both of the proript.d
he locates the epistemi c gaze in the history of the South- and c¡ttet= by neo-liberal imperialism. Afier Mudimbe, see Achille
Membe,,.Ar
rions the assumed ,ert.diry of the geo-politics of knowledge
fi'otli the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality
,rd So.r...íg.rty
where the Orient and the South were defined and categorireri' in Africal' Public Culture 12:1 (2000), www.newsch ool.edu"/g!/
ttf
Furthermore, this historical moment witnessed the concurrent.c publicculture/backissues/pc3O,/mbembe. html.
t¡l'th€ t' see-,ül'alter Mignolo,"The Geoporitics
the division of the world into four races and the rearticulation of Knowredge and the coronial
,Difference," South Atlantic
sixteenth-centuryideaoffourreligions(ChristianiryJudaism,lslutt¡ euarterly, I01 / 1 e}OO)-, 57_97.
awa, The lnuention ofworld Re/iqittlli i Enrique Dussel, philosophy
and.,the rest,,). See Tomoko Masuz of Liberaiion [1g77],trans.Aquilin a Martinez
language of Plurulllttlt
Or, How European (Jniuersalism was Preserved in the ; and Christine Morkovsky.
Eugene, On, Wrpf and Stock, 19g5.
you ciltl tec
Chicago: Universiry of Chicago Press, forthcoming'Thus' 'Hector A. Murena, Er peudo oiiginat de Améria.Buenos Aires:
Editorial
,.idea of iatin America,, cut§ across the secular conti,c'td Sudamericana, 1,954, p. 163.
that the
and the religiotil
racialization attributing one skin color per continent Anibal Quijano and ImmanuelWallerstein,.,Americanity
as a Concept;
rearticulation of the ratio between religion and continents' Or the Americas in the Modern World_System,,, ISSI, I:134
(1992),
27 Fernando Coronil, "Beyond Occidentalism: Toward Nonilrr¡rcrld 549-s6.
(1955)' 52
Geohistorical Categories," Cultural Anthropology' 11:1 ijano and Wallerstein, ..Americaniry as a Concept,,, p.549.
and
'\X/'alter
Mignolo, "Post-Occidentalismo: el argumento (
to apotogize.ro readers who dislike¡;;;.i;',{0"*í"
lr^l*: *.,a
America Latinall Cuaderno s Americano s, )r'll / 1 (1'998)' 1 43-66' as far as possible, but there are limits
i,
23 samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the
Remakin'q ol not introduce this concept, I could not""itfri,
get out of"". "i;;;.;; ;r;
the frame of mind
world order. NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1996. See chaptcr 'l that current and non-jargonistic l.rrgrr.g"-rhrt me inside.
Consider this
more on Huntington. concept' as well as that of coloniariry as the key
that opens the door to
..How Does Asia Mean?', lnter-Asia Cultural Stu¡lig, ll
29 Sun Ge,
pttt ll"* r.r., 1T.* thar was blocked by a huge black gate and an even
(2000), 13-47,1/2 (2OOO),320-41JIhe end of the Cold War bigger black fence.We should rrot. th"t rh. ft;;;i;ril;;;;;;;
q,r"*iá" of continental divides onto-the-geo-political.age*' !': ' neterogeneity itself arose not in discussions and reflections
on the
Wan¡¡
§rrn Ge is not an isolated case. See for further discussions: F¡ench or Industrial Revorutions by European or
us schorars, but from
"Imagining Asia: A Genealogical Analysis," www'lse'ac'uk/collecf ir the experience of the colonial dir.or.ry/ir,,r.ntion/construction
2Hui' pdf; and g of
rsBiuUf clecturesAndEve nts/ p df / 200 405 1 J a t t
America as analyzed by peruvian sociolojist Anibal
euijano.

168 169
 55-66 Notes to pp. 66-74
Notes to PP'
and free trade. what really is at stake in this complex picture is riberar
Reordering of support for individual freedom. Individual freedom is being curtailed
2 "I-atin" America and the First on several fronts: by the control justified in the name of national
the Modern / Colonial World
security (e.g., racial and geo-political control of immigration) and by
ol the control jusfified by the administration's moral values (e.g., control
Chapel Hill' NC: IJniversity
Eric Williams , Slauery and Capitalism' of gender and sexuality by banishing gay marriage).
North Carolina Press, 1944' P' 32' Gay' ctl' For nineteenth-century Argentina, see Natalio Botana, l¿ tradición
l17g2l' in Peter
Immanuel rrrrt, "Wf"i t' É"tgt"""ment"? republicana: Sarmiento, Alberdi y las ideas politicas de su tiempo. Buenos
and intro., Th' ndig;rcn*'n''
Á Co*p"h'nsive Anthology' New Yrrhl Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1984. And for a larger view of nine-
ná*"t¿o Mendieta observed tlu¡t
Simon and Schuster,';;:;;';1s+'
i'";-;;tt standard translation of Krrrrt'r
teenth-century Latin America, see José Antonio Aguilar and Rafael
"self-imposea -"t"'iy; Rojas, eds., E/ republicanismo en Hisytanoamérica: Ensayos de historia inter-
Unmudigkeit. lectual y politica. México: Fondo de Cultura Econímica,2OO2.
Cénesis de la idea y el nombre de América Latina' Carlt'lrl
Arturo Ardao, , Quoted in Miguel Rojas Mix, I-os cien nombres de Amériea l¿tina: Eso
Rómulo Gallegos' 1()()J'
Centro de Estudios"i'i1""'*"ticanos que descubrió Colón. San José: Editorial lJniversitaria de Costa Rica,
1,991,p.352. For a recent explorations of the consequences of Bilbao's
['i];, bv the same author'
cene si sisee also' "'
^*'::o^2-t :,:o^'','lo'i"
de México' 1993' observation, see Walter D. Mignolo and Madina Tlostanova, ,.The
Nacional Autónoma
dad. Mextco:U"i'""üi Logic of Colonialiry and the Limits of Postcoloniality,,, in Revathi
consciousness in the Spanish
crtkr=
, For the emergent" ;i;ht Creole 'plebe tan en extr('**r Krishnaswamy and John Hawley, eds., The postmloníal and the Global:
y
;i;, ;"" Sam"Cogdell, "Criollos, Gachupines' le Connections, Conflicts, Complícities, Universiry of Minnesota press,
plebe': Retórica . J;t;;;*c;[^'
Atbo*to v motín de Méxio
"n del Barrttt'o dF forthcoming.
Cóngora)'in úabel Moraña' ed''
Reíecturas
Siguenza y Quoted by Rojas Mix, Los cien nombres
Norte' 1992'pp'245-80; and for
tlte de América l-atina, p. 350.
lndias.iFrattove't n¿i"¡'"' del , Leopoldo Zea, The Role of America in History U9571, ed. and intro.
portuguese colt.ri"s see Lucía Helet¡É
creole consciousness in the i AmyA. Oliver, trans. Sonja Karsen. NewYork: Rowman and Littlefield,
Costigan,"L" b"t'ot" y el nácimiento de la conciencia crirtll¿
-iuf""f''
Relectutw del Barroeo de htll¡t'
"t'tt"' 1992.
en el Brasilj' i" Rodolfo Stavenhagen, "Class, Colonialism and Acculturation,,, Studies
'Lo ,,
pp' 303-24' 1- ^*^^ñ many' see chaotcr ,1, in Comparatiue International Deuelopment, l:7 (1965), 53J7; pablo
6 waman Puma de Ayala is one
example among -^-., Se-e.chaptt l:tl' G onzalez Casanova, "Internal Colonialism and National Development,',
México: Editorirl
de lo Barroco'
7 Bolívar Erh'u"n ,'[i *ii'n¡ao¿ Studies in Comparatíve International Deueloytment, l:4 (1965), 27-37.
7998, P. 82 (italics added)' the lristttrf trmmanuel Kant, Obseruations on the Beautful and the Sublime [written
It may be a little tt;il;; for the reader not familiar with
8 definitlol of republicanism antl lih'
X763], trans.. John. T Goldhwait. Berkeley: University of California
of political theory to face these 'i Press, 1960, esp. section IV
experience' the original defirlitirrlll
eralism. On the basis of current
upsid" 9"Y"' or' if wc paf Norman E.'Whitten, Jr, and Diego Quiroga, "Ecuador," in Minority
of republica"i"' ;;; tiU"'¿i"" sound ights Group, ed., No l-onger Inuisible: Afro-I-atin Arnericans Tbday.
attention to the 'J*it'i't"tion
of Geotge'W' Bush' we may rt'llil€
tradc Álld London: Minority Rights Publications, 1995, 287-318.
that "neo-libt'ili';L i;;eed a coordit'itiot' of both: free l§antiago Castro-Gómez, p.c. based on his current research on racial
state
individual enterprise with a sftong :"*roTiC-Y'..t:1:c;:':ll=
But not onlv th*E configurations in Colombia in the seventeenth century
contri over rhe world.
ffi:i#:ffiH;, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, oral presentation in the undergraduate
of secular'"p"iUt^"tt-,
the legacy
;;;;;,til Tl,YtIl::':::i:t;:::ifi
;" ideorogv based on :* inar "The Clash of Empires," co-taught by Ebrahim Moosa and
ffi":JJ#
ls'"Le
G,
.s"V"ti'ft'"
¡av'
ll' ?:T',l:::i
i"tl"i"i"* *::::1"'l:t:]ii* Walter D. Mignolo, Duke Universiry spring,2004.
Chnstramty)' That
of Christianity)' rnar rs
; Fanon observed: "lt is not because the Indo-Chinese has discovered
,n. ,r"r", ásguised by a secular a1i ambiq uíus discourse in wlrich
'
]rra for cotrtlltelt'li* I r culture of his own that he is in revolt. It is because 'quite simply'
state centralization goes together with a §trong push
171
170
 Notes to pp. 74-Bj Notes to pp. 8j-97

it was, in more than one way, becoming impossible for hirlr ttt colonialism" to talk about empires based on capitalist economy
and
breathe,, (Frantz Fanon, Black skin,white Masks Í1952), trans. charlcr located in the Atlantic (Spain, Holland, France, England, and the
US)
Lam Markmann. NewYork: Grove Press, 1967, p'226); and Anzaldíla in the past five hundred years. During that period, there were various
in the same vein noticed that "The U.S.-Mexican border es una hcril¡ imperial and different coroniar historicar moments, in the Americas,
'\Morld in Asia, and in Africa. My premise is that there is no imperiarism
abierta where the Third grates against the first and blectlr"
(Gloria Anzaldúa, Bordeilands/La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt [,t¡te without colonialism; colonialism is constitutive of i-p"rialir- ,,
Books, 1987 , P. 25). coloniality is of modernity. On the other hand, I am also using.,colo_
19 Paris: Denoel' 11)()()' nialism" as the hidden or disguised ideology of the modern/"colonial
Jules Michelet, Histoire et philosophie [1831]'
pp.734. world - of christianity and the monarchic Spanish Empire during
2A Ré*i B."goe, Europe, la uoie romaine. Paris: Gallimard, 1992' the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (disguised as .,ionversion,,
2l Brague, Europe, p. 40. and as "castilanization"); and of secularism and the nation-state
22 Brague, Europe, p. 53. empires (e.g., those of England, the US, the Soviet Union),
disguised
la the civilizing mission, socialism and the dictatorship or the
¡uari Bautista ,tlb.tdi, Bales y puntos de partida para
23 otganizadótt as
f,role-
cultura Argentina, 1915. Notice ltow
nacional [1852], Buenos Aires: La tarian class, or market democracy. Briefly, imperialism/coloniarisL
are
Alberdi is placing himself in Greece where the Egyptians movetl ttt, both historical projects (spanish imperialism,/coroniarism is different
and how the same law-"moved" the Egyptians to Greece and "movctl" from British and US).AI the same time, the three of them are
con_
the Greeks to civilize ltalY. nected through the rhetoric of modernity (salvation, progress,
well_being
for all) and the logic of coroniarity (racism that
24 Quoted in Ardao, Cénesis. ¡ustiñes exproitation,
oppression, marginalization, appropriation of land,
25 Quoted in Ardao, Génesis, pp. 153-67 - of
authoriry). "árrtrol
26 Quoted in Ardao, Génesis, P. 54.
27 Quoted in Ardao, Cénesis, P' 165. Jorge Larrain, Identity and Moilernity
in Latin America. London:
28 Zea, The Role of America in History, pp' 121'-36' Not by chrtttt'é' Blackwell, 2000, p. 67.
the same issue has been rethought by a scholar based in Galicla' Fralatz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
Ug61), trans. Constance
, Farrington. New York: Grove Weidenfeld,
See Ángeles Huerta Gonzilez, La Europa petférica: Rusía y España
tttlé 1991, f. il.
el fenórleno de la modernidad. Sartiago: (Jniversidad de Santiagrt rle Michel-Rolph touillot, sirencing the past: power anir the production of
Compostela, 2004. History. Boston: Beacon press, 1995.
,Anibal Quijano, "Coloniality of power,
29 Aims McGuinness, "searching for 'Latin America': Race ,rrtd Eurocentrism and Latin
,America," Nepantla: Wews
sovereigrry in the Americas in the 1850s," in Nancy P. Appeltrltttut from South, 1/3 (2000), 533_g0.
Anne S. Macpherson, and Alejandra Rossemblat, eds', Race and Nnhn Lewis Gordon, Existentia /fricana (Jnderstanding AJricana Existentiar
in Modern l-atin America. chapel Hill, NC: university of car«rlint ' Thought. New York: Routledge, 2001, pp. 159_60.
Press, 2003, PP. 87-107. Gordon, Existentia Africana, pp. 159-60 (italics added).
30 McGuinness, "searching for'Latin America,"'p' 99' Boaventura de Sousa Santos, "The world social Forum: Toward
31 G.-W: E Hegel, The phiosoplty of History. Bufiálo:
prometheus l¡r,kr¡ a- Counter Hegemonic Globalization,', www.ces.fe.u c.pt/bss/
1.991, p. 81 (italics added). documentos/fsm_eng.pdf.
32 Spanish conservative José Donoso Cortés published in France in ll{$t
(that is, the same year Karl Marx published The Eighteenth tsrwndll
of l-ouis Bonaparte) a book tiúed catholicism, Liberalism, socialism,
j After "Latin" America: We Colonial Wound and the Epistemk
33 f am using here the same word, "colonialism," in two distinct conte*E Geo- / Bo dy_politícal Shft
(or univÁes of discourse, to use an expression from analytical pltl=
losophy). In one context, colonialism is the complementary s¡llteil See Global Tiends 201j, http:/ /www.cia.govlniclNlC_
of imperialism as a historical project. I am also using "impcriali¡rltl globaltrend2O 1 5. htrnl#link 1 3h.

172 173