This chapter analyses the way in which extreme, destructive violence between different societies has been transformed by historical memory into the foundation of a new colonial order which integrates the groups that perpetrated it and those that bore its brunt.
It will argue that complex emblems were constructed which described, commemorated and ritualised this violence, turning it into a sacred phenomenon. This created the foundation of a new social and cosmic order, which allowed the disparate collectivities existing in the Americas after the Spanish conquest to negotiate their participation in the new colonial order.
In particular, it will analyse four intercultural emblems of violence conceived shortly after the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica in Central America in 1521 and the Andean region of South America in 1533. First is the figure of Santiago Matamoros in both Mesoamerica and the Andean region; second and third are the parallel and contrasting representations of massacres produced by the Mexica1 and their neighbours and enemies, the Tlaxcalans, in central Mexico; and finally there are the Andean images and ceremonies related to the beheading of the last Inca ruler of Peru. After they were conceived, these emblems were institutionalised, further developed and maintained until the early nineteenth century, as long as Spain ruled over New Spain and Peru; the first and the last emblems remain prevalent today in many indigenous communities of both regions. All four included explicit depictions, descriptions and ritual re-enactments of battles, massacres, executions and sacrifices carried out during the years of the conquest. As paradoxical as it may seem, these brutal acts were presented as incontestable sources of legitimacy, and were used to bolster and embody the colonial political order; to confirm the supremacy of Spanish power; and to negotiate the places occupied by different native [899] peoples and sectors under its aegis. This was made possible by the importance Spanish and Mesoamerican and Andean cultures attached to warfare and ritualised violence.The kingdom of Castile became dominant in the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth century only after a long series of wars with its non-Christian neighbours.
These wars were presented as an inexorable conflict between opposing religions. ‘Just war' carried out against infidels was regarded as the legitimate source of all kinds of privilege and rights for the Christian sovereign and his warriors, and of subservience and even slavery for the defeated enemies. The most violent acts were justified as punishment for the sins and crimes committed by ‘infidel' Muslims and Jews, and later in the Americas by ‘pagan' and ‘barbarous' Indians.In sixteenth-century Mesoamerica the power of the ruling Mexica, and also of their main rivals, the Tlaxcalans, was conceived as a reflection of the power of their warlike patron gods. Warfare was regarded as a religious duty, its aim being to capture victims that would then be sacrificed to the deities. As such, it was to be conducted according to a rigorous political and ritual protocol that institutionalised violence as the main source of political legitimacy. The Inca also extended their domination throughout the Andes by military means, and established a close identification between their sovereignty and the power of the sun god they represented. Though their ideology of reciprocity underplayed the importance of warfare and conquest in political relations, components of ritualised violence were key elements of their political ceremonies, such as the display of real or symbolic trophy heads. These traditions clashed and combined in the conflicts between the powers that dominated much of Mesoamerica and the Andes in the early sixteenth century, the conquistadors and their indigenous allies. The Spanish conquest was, first and foremost, a naked act of military aggression and reckless violence. The Spaniards massacred unarmed civilians in Cholula, one of the main religious centres of Mesoamerica; in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica; and in the Andean city of Cajamarca. They imprisoned, tortured and executed the ruling Inca Atahualpa in 1533 and his rebel successor Tupac Amaru in 1572, as well as many other native dignitaries.
The siege of Mexico- Tenochtitlan in 1521 led to the razing of the city and the near annihilation of the Mexica people, a kind of ‘total' warfare without precedent both in Spanish and Mesoamerican traditions.Strikingly, from this brutality emerged two remarkably stable Spanish colonial regimes that lasted nearly three centuries. Throughout this period, the emblems we will be analysing operated as compelling representations of the violence that had constituted this order. They were undeniable reminders of the superior military prowess of the Spaniards, their allies and their divine companions, and compelling proof of the finality of the conquest and the legitimacy of Spanish domination. They also served as threatening admonitions to any who would dare confront them. Finally, they offered assurance to their indigenous allies that they too were part of the winning side and enjoyed the protection of powerful victorious deities. The continuing visual representation, oral and written narration, and ritual performance of battles and massacres, beheadings and sacrifices, were ways to reaffirm the alliances that had constructed the colonial order and to assert ideologically and confirm performatively the currency of Spanish domination.