Hist 465 Post 2-Role Metamorphosis

It is interesting to examine the extent to which Incan society adapted and transformed as a result of contact with the Spanish conquerors, specifically the impact on gender relations. Obviously the amount of contact with the Spanish varied from region to region and from rural to city landscapes, but it is obvious that in densely populated regions the two cultures clashed, resulting in definite alterations on previous gender relations. According to some historians like Elinor Burkett, indigenous women actually achieved greater influence in comparison to indigenous men. She attributes this phenomenon to several factors, including opportunities in marriage with Spanish men and an overall more allowing attitude towards indigenous women as a result of “sexism mitigating racism”. Irene Silverblatt, on the other hand, argues that Spanish law removed the rights of indigenous women previously held, particularly in marriage. She points out that under Andean customs women had independent rights over all goods that she inherited, a privilege removed under the the Spanish system where all decisions on such goods had to go through her “male tutor”. So that while indigenous women perhaps had greater contact with Spanish men, their overall rights were reduced in relation to men.

To settle the question of how exactly gender roles changed from the Spanish conquest, specifically for women, it is essential to examine just how coercive indigenous women were in marriages with the Spanish. Did they simply conform to Spanish way of life and the “destructive forces of colonialism”, or did they exert enough control in a marriage as to preserve former Andean traditions and culture? Frank Salomon proposes that women were able to use their position to continue Andean lifestyle under Spanish rule. He cites an indigenous womanVilcacabra as an example perpetuating Burkett’s idea of women having influence: “The startling audacity of this Indian woman’s ploy to manipulate marriage among the Spanish elite suggests she was in no way intimidated by her nominally servile position” (338). Although there were select cases in which women were coercive in marriage, the evidence is lacking that majority of women experienced such privileges, and overall the indigenous women were likely another way in which the Spanish could implement their system. Silverblatt explains that sexual abuse was very common, destroying the “ayni” (harmony) that defined Andean relationships. Guaman Poma writes in a primary source that “a man who rapes a woman shall suffer the death penalty” (51). Yet such important Andean traditions were spit upon by the Spanish, and despite a few instances where indigenous women were coercive in marriages, as a whole the rights of women decreased as a result of the Spanish colonization.