The History of a Periphery: Spanish Colonial Cartography from Colombia's Pacific Lowlands

Juliet B. Wiersema

Book

The History of a Periphery

Spanish Colonial Cartography from Colombia's Pacific Lowlands

Juliet B. Wiersema

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2024

Published by

View more publications by University of Texas Press

To Publisher Page

About this book

2025 ALAA Book Award, Association for Latin American Art/Arvey Foundation, College Art Association

An exploration of Colombian maps in New Granada.

During the late Spanish colonial period, the Pacific Lowlands, also called the Greater Chocó, was famed for its rich placer deposits. Gold mined here was central to New Granada’s economy yet this Pacific frontier in today’s Colombia was considered the “periphery of the periphery.” Infamous for its fierce, unconquered Indigenous inhabitants and its brutal tropical climate, it was rarely visited by Spanish administrators, engineers, or topographers and seldom appeared in detail on printed maps of the period.

In this lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched volume, Juliet Wiersema uncovers little-known manuscript cartography and makes visible an unexamined corner of the Spanish empire. In concert with thousands of archival documents from Colombia, Spain, and the United States, she reveals how a "periphery" was imagined and projected, largely for political or economic reasons. Along the way, she unearths untold narratives about ephemeral settlements, African adaptation and autonomy, Indigenous strategies of resistance, and tenuous colonialisms on the margins of a beleaguered viceroyalty.

Author / Editor information

Juliet B. Wiersema is an associate professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is the author of Architectural Vessels of the Moche: Ceramic Diagrams of Sacred Space in Ancient Peru.

Reviews

This fantastic book examines a wide range of never-published maps from colonial Colombia, with unique representations of the Pacific Lowlands that make up the current departments of Chocó and parts of Valle, Cauca, and Nariño, plus slices of eastern Panama and northwest Ecuador. This vast region (the 'Greater Chocó') is barely studied by historians, even less by art historians, and thus this book is something entirely new and very exciting. Via Wiersema’s book, we are (from one perspective) entering the outermost edge of empire, the periphery of the periphery.

— Kris Lane, Tulane University, author of Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the World

Through a careful and original study of four fascinating maps, Wiersema provides an insightful examination of the late colonial history of the Pacific Lowlands of Colombia that uncovers revealing details of local politics and aspirations, as well as key forgotten aspects of the Indigenous past. This accessible book will inspire others to use cartography as a source for Latin American history; historians, geographers, and anthropologists will enjoy and profit from reading it.

— Claudia Leal, Universidad de los Andes, author of Landscapes of Freedom: Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia

Wiersema’s The History of a Periphery is a sensitive, thorough, and clearly articulated investigation of manuscript maps that shed new light on the history of Colombia’s Pacific Lowlands in the eighteenth century. The book is an excellent demonstration of how close readings of the details of maps, together with their archival contexts, can reveal important evidence not available in other sources.

— Chet Van Duzer, University of Rochester, author of Frames that Speak: Cartouches on Early Modern Maps

Wiersema’s well-researched and elegantly argued book is a sterling addition to the scholarship of the Spanish colonial empire, Indigenous and African peoples, and colonial frontiers. The author's focus is on manuscript maps, which were included with written reports, and directed at a limited audience of imperial officials. Their purpose was not purely illustrative; nor were they meant to serve as charts to guide seamen, travelers, or administrators. This multidisciplinary study allows the reader to perceive the ways in which the managers of the Spanish Empire incorporated the local knowledge held by Indigenous people and the African and European sojourners at the empire’s far periphery into their systems of planning and thought. As such, the maps were akin to Columbus's letters, or the narratives of the conquistadors—many were aspirational in depicting a hoped-for colonial future.

— Ignacio Gallup-Díaz, Bryn Mawr College, author of The Door of the Seas and Key to the Universe: Indian Politics and Imperial Rivalry in the Darién 1640–1750

Wiersema’s book is a remarkable study of the long-overlooked narratives that these select manuscript maps and their documentation provide...[with] impressive interdisciplinary scope.

— caa.reviews

The book brings alive a borderland...[and] paves the road for new studies that consider in more detail Indigenous and African peoples’ political projects, and how they shaped these contested landscapes.

— HAHR

Wiersema does a great job distinguishing the functions of printed maps (which served imperial interests) and manuscript maps (which reveal complicated local stories with diverse actors seeking control and access to its resources).

— H-Net

[The History of a Periphery] sheds new light on the significance of peripheral places within the larger framework of the Spanish Empire...Wiersema's study of little-known manuscript maps is one of the book's most important contributions...By situating each map within its historical and legal context, Wiersema reveals the human stories behind the geography...[and] how manuscript maps, while advancing colonial ambitions, inadvertently preserved aspects of Indigenous identity.

— Journal of Historical Geography

The History of a Periphery offers a carefully crafted analysis of four little-known eighteenth-century manuscript maps of various areas in the Pacific Lowlands region of the Viceroyalty of New Granada...This slim book is both scholarly and, at the same time, a joy to read.

— Terrae Incognitae

Wiersema has created a brief, well-researched monograph on an area of the world that, to this day, is not well-known or well mapped.

— Western Association of Map Libraries

This [is a] well-researched and elegantly produced volume...While providing enormous insight into Chocó in the eighteenth- century, Wiersema has also made a strong case that professional cartographers can no longer ignore the insights found in manuscript maps...The product of seven years of scholarly research, The History of a Periphery is an outstanding accomplishment.

— Journal of Global South Studies

The precision of details that illustrate concrete historical situations or point out seemingly insignificant details, such as the course of a river, the boundary of two parcels of land, or the influx of canoes at a river mouth, are a kind of data that allow us to interpret social, economic, political, and environmental facts that, at first glance, seem not to be intertwined. This is the principal strength of the book.

— The Americas

This fascinating study is more than a cartographic analysis but reveals the contribution that manuscript maps can make to local histories, especially for regions where other sources may be lacking.

— Bulletin of Latin American Research

Topics

History Miscellaneous

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Glossary Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. New Granada: A Categorically Different Viceroyalty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2. Coming into View: The Pacific Lowlands in Manuscript Maps Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
3. The Map of the Atrato River and Pueblos of Cuna Indians: The Atrato Vigía and the Short-Lived Cuna Reducción of Murindo, 1759–1778 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
4. The Map of the Chocó, Panama, and Cupica: The Unrealized Potential of a Pacific Port, 1777–1808 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
5. The Map of the Dagua River Region: Las Juntas, Sombrerillo, and African Agency in the Pacific Lowlands, 1739–1786 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
6. The Map of the Yurumanguí Indians: The “Discovery” and Decimation of the Pacific Lowlands’ Indigenous Inhabitants, 1742–1780 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
Conclusions: What Manuscript Maps Contribute to the Study of Colonial Latin America Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Appendix A: Transcribed Text from Manuscript Map Legends Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Appendix B: Technical Study of the Manuscript Map of Dagua River Region, Colombia Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

January 9, 2024

eBook ISBN:

9781477327753

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Main content:

256

Other:

one 8-page color insert, 66 b&w illustrations

https://doi.org/10.7560/327746

eBook ISBN: 9781477327753

Audience(s) for this book

Professional and scholarly;

The History of a Periphery

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Bibliographic data