Colonial Consecrations, Violent Reclamations, and Contested Spaces in the Spanish Americas

Abstract

During Spanish colonization in the Americas, Catholic evangelizers often purposefully consecrated spaces that were already sacred to Indigenous Americans. In many regions, however, Indigenous deities, spirits, ancestors, and their devotees, rebelled. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 killed and evicted Spaniards while claiming Christian constructions and objects for native usage. Yet the end result of this revolt was not just the re-consecration of sacred spaces to once again welcome Indigenous spirit beings. Rather, in its wake, the line between the pure and the contaminated cannot be neatly drawn; indeed, such sharp distinctions make little sense within Indigenous epistemologies wherein binary opposition is rarely found. Comparative materials from Mesoamerica and the Andes help complicate the commonplace narrative of conquest and resistance.