Relações interétnicas na pampa-bonaerense: os indígenas no discurso da Colección Acuerdos del Cabildo de Buenos Aires [1753-1776]

Abstract

The present work is a research about the speech formulated in the Cabildo of Buenos Aires about the indigenous populations of the pampa of Buenos Aires, in the period from 1753 to 1776. The Cabildos were colonial institutions that had the role of supervising and giving progress to various issues local, legal, administrative, economic, political and social. The Cabildo of Buenos Aires produced minutes that summarized its meetings and which, during the republican period, were compiled and published under the title Colección Acuerdos del Extinguido Cabildo de Buenos Aires. One of the recurring themes in the Acuerdos is the “problem” that independent indigenous groups, in the mid-18th century, showed to be for the “elites”, the Buenos Aires social groups represented in the Cabildo de Buenos Aires. Thus, through the analysis of the Acuerdos, this research seeks to understand the interethnic relations in the “frontier”, or contact zone, the actions and speeches carried out by the cabildantes in the face of the challenges imposed by indigenous groups. The analysis is based on the understanding that the discourse reflects the dynamics of the relationships that occurred in this historical process, being a phenomenon of transculturation in the contact zone (PRATT, 1999), and it is also about the construction of alterity in front of the indigenous considered as “barbarian” (CERTEAU, 2000; HARTOG, 1999; TODOROV, 1993; 2019). This dissertation also intends to reflect on the implications of the archiving process of the sources used here. The Colección Acuerdos del Cabildo de Buenos, which I had access to build this research, was organized and published by the Archivo General de la Nación, in the 19th century.