Transforming Gender Roles in the Colonial Andes: Native Andean Women and Female Resistance

Ashley Reeves

Research Question

Did native Andean female resistance against Spanish gender roles during colonialism contribute to cultural preservation efforts of the larger Andean people?

The Pre-Columbian Andes

•Cycle of conquest

•Geography

•The Inca Empire

Gender Roles

Pre-Columbian Period

• Parallel Descent

• Trial Marriages

• Female leaders

• Female Priestesses

• Female Inheritance/ownership

Colonial Period

• Patriarchy

• Christian marriage

• Eradication of female rulers

• Religious authority controlled

• Male inheritance/ownership

Resistance Methods

• Religious

• Passive

• Violent

Religious Resistance

Religion and Gender

Andean

• Powerful female gods

• “ Founding couple”

• No Devil figure

• Female confessors

Iberian

• Submissive female figures

• “Founding Father”

• Women – witches

• Male confessors

From “Virgins of the Sun” to “Wives of the Devil”

• Religious revival

• Female cult leaders

• Witchcraft

• Taki Onqoy movement (1560’s)

“Rejection of the Spanish world entailed, in some measure, the use of ideological forms imported by the Spanish: thus, Iberian gender ideologies made women witches, and Andean women turned witchcraft into a means of resistance.” - Irene Silverblatt

Passive Resistance

• Reproductive Resistance

– Mutilation of male children

– Contraception

– Abortion

– Infanticide

Labor Resistance

• Census fraud

• Evasion of tribute

• Refusal of marriage

• Women of the puna

Working Within the System

• Law suits

• Colonial wills

• Requests for divorce

Military Resistance

• Tupac Amaru Rebellion

– Micaela Bastides

– Curaca Tomasa

– Common women

• Local Rebellions

Violent Resistance

Reaction to forced marriages = Rebellion

Cultural Preservation