Faculty Seminar: Staging the Incas in Colonial Lima

María Soledad Barbón, associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, presented her research at a Faculty Seminar titled “Staging the Incas in Colonial Lima” on Tuesday, February 19, 2019.

In a presentation moderated by Ian Almond, GU-Q professor of world literature, Barbón traced the history, significance, and evolution of Amerindian participation in monarchical processions that allowed the Spanish royals to exert control over their holdings despite never setting foot in the American territories.

These performative rituals, which involved the participation of the various vassals of the monarchy in the public spectacle of a grand parade, were also an opportunity for the colonial subjects to protect their interests by affirming allegiance to the crown.

Barbón explored the impact of the unprecedented move to allow Amerindians to participate as an ethnic group, rather than the tradition of organizing the procession around guilds, the result of a direct request from the indigenous subjects.

While several processions honoring successive monarchs reflected this new format, they were eventually stopped in response to the rumblings of rebellion in the colonial territories and the colonial power’s rising suspicion of the indigenous participants. This was due in part to the fact that the Inca were not only one of several ethnic groups of vassals comprising the crown’s colonial subjects, but were nobility with legitimate claims to power in their own right.

Marisol Barbón holds a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of Cologne, Germany. Her research and teaching interests include the literature and cultural history of colonial Latin America, transatlantic studies, hemispheric studies, anthropophagy and colonial festivals. She is working on a book manuscript about monarchical celebrations in Lima under the Bourbon rule.