Abstract
The settlement founded by Sebastian Cabot in 1527 is not represented in most American history manuals, despite the fact that it is considered an iconic event in the history of Argentina. When it does appear, Sancti Spiritus is mentioned only in relation to its founder, as an anecdote within the seaman’s explorations along the Paraná River. Evidently, the metanarrative of Spanish imperialism does not allow the settlement built by the Spanish expedition to be considered a colonization episode or a part of colonialism in general. However, archaeological excavations provide an entirely different view. From the moment the Spaniards landed, there was a clear intention to dominate that moves this case study away from the sphere of cultural contact and exploration and brings it closer to the field of cultural conflict and colonialism. This leads us back to an idea postulated by postcolonial studies: Conventional literature and historiography reflect and represent the colonial ideal, whereas archaeology documents colonial actions and goes into the nature of ‘contact’ in greater depth. The case study presented allows us to reconsider the relationship between history and archaeology and to evaluate the need for an independent narrative for archaeology in line with the recent stance taken by European historiographers.
The original manuscript was written in Spanish and has been translated into English by “Traductores-Intérpretes GDS, S. L.”
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Notes
- 1.
The archaeology that deals with the gap starting in the sixteenth century is still the least developed in European archaeology, despite enjoying certain dynamism and concerning the period that is most well-represented in the archaeological record. As well as being the time period that has given rise to the lowest amount of historiographical production in European archaeology, its representation in academic works is also minor and even residual. To make matters worse, postmedieval archaeology is currently immersed in an identity crisis, which has resulted in the creation of many labels to refer to archaeology after 1500, such as historical archaeology, recent historical archaeology or archaeology of the recent past.
- 2.
“Una vez desembarcados, colonizaban una parcela reducida y cuando el territorio ganado a la geografía americana y a las comunidades indígenas resultaban ser insuficientes como consecuencia del aumento demográfico o la llegada de nuevos colonos, se procedía a una expansión del área por medio de una nueva conquista” (Pérez Herrero 2002, p. 62). [Once they disembarked, they started to colonise a small plot and when the territory won from American geography and the indigenous communities was not enough, as a result of population growth or the arrival of new colonists, a new conquest was started to expand the area].
- 3.
While for some definitions the role of intercultural domination is sufficient and defining (Jordan 2009, p. 32), others also view it as necessary to consider its duration (Gasco 2005, pp. 69–70; Stein 2005, pp. 8–9). In other cases, such as Gosden (2004), the use or otherwise of violence is decisive when classifying the different types of colonialism.
- 4.
If we accept that the relations were initially friendly, it is clear that the colonisers must have given the native people reasons to resist their demands and for the relations to have become conflictual or vice versa. In this case, colonialism would have emerged during the course of this episode, now on Argentinian soil. If we do not accept their account or if we have doubts about a discourse that seems limited, we could argue that as soon as they disembarked they did so with a will to dominate the local societies.
- 5.
For further discussion of this issue, although concerning another timeframe and geographical area, see Azkarate 2011, p. 246.
- 6.
The pottery items recovered from a fill level associated with the use of the moat confirm the coexistence of local and European pottery (Azkarate et al. 2013b).
- 7.
This is one of the questions which we are currently working on; we are trying to understand whether the space occupied by the fort became an icon of resistance for the natives, a space for the traumatic memory, or if it was the material actor that sparked the process of cultural hybridisation in the area.
- 8.
There was well-known controversy between Cabot and Moguer about who had the right to explore in the Plata River, and their later agreement is equally widely known. There is also information about conflict between the Guarani and the other local societies. On top of this, it is assumed that the Spanish expedition members received help from some of the local communities, such as the Guarani, but that the others were opposed to them.
- 9.
In fact, schools of thought as powerful as those derived from the postcolonial theory are exclusively based on this procedure, that is the critical reading of literature produced by the colonial powers. Since, as M. Foucault (1992, p. 5) warns, “in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organised and redistributed according to a certain number of procedures, whose role is to avert its powers and its dangers, to cope with chance events, to evade its ponderous, awesome materiality”. It is precisely this observation that encouraged Foucault to make discourse a priority subject of study and not to reject it.
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Acknowledgments
Our participation in the investigations in Sancti Spiritus was made possible thanks to funding from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, through the calls for applications for grants for excavation work outside Spain and help from the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU). It would not have been possible if the Argentinian team that discovered Sancti Spiritus had not accepted our collaboration or, of course, without the work of our project partners from the UPV-EHU. For this reason, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to Iban Sánchez Pinto and Verónica Benedet as well as to the team led by Guillermo Frittegotto, Fabian Letieri and Gabriel Cocco. Their efforts have made it possible for us to write this chapter, and without their work it would never have been possible.
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Azkarate, A., Escribano-Ruiz, S. (2015). The Early Colonisation of the Rio de la Plata Basin and the Settlement of Sancti Spiritus . In: Funari, P., Senatore, M. (eds) Archaeology of Culture Contact and Colonialism in Spanish and Portuguese America. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08069-7_3
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