Keywords

Decolonization is quite simply the “replacement of a certain ‘species’ of men by another ‘species’ of men”. The replacement of a species of being is the replacement of the world constituting and defining that being. Decolonization, whose object is the transformation of the world, can then be seen as a cosmological process, since the world is transformed when the order of relationships defining the world is transformed. We can then see how the decolonization process as here defined is the essence of primordial politics, since its goal is the creation of a world, a new order. If decolonization is the description of primordial politics, then it follows that every relationship within the world becomes immediately politicized (Amoda 1974, p. 38).

1 Prologue

The day was October 12, 2004, during the commemoration of Columbus Day (Día de la Raza)Footnote 1, now officially renamed in Venezuela as the ‘Day of Indigenous Resistance.’ On the same day that in Spain a great parade celebrating Spanish culture was taking place, in Caracas a large multitude of indigenous activists and university students pulled down Rafael de la Cova’s bronze statue of Cristóbal Colón from the pedestal where it had been erected over 100 years ago. The statue was brought down with ropes and was dragged to the Teresa Carreño Theater in the center of Caracas where hundreds of people had gathered to commemorate the ‘Day of Indigenous Resistance’ with songs and dances. Various groups openly took responsibility for the symbolic lynching of the statue of the famous navigator, whose head had been painted blood red to produce dramatic effects (Fig. 4.1). The participants proclaimed to the governmental authorities and the television cameras that the statue was a hateful symbol of colonialism, invasion, and genocide. Following these events, a large crowd of indigenous peoples—in a further act of emblematic resistance—performed a symbolic trial of Colón. They inscribed the pedestal of the statue with anticolonial messages and used the occasion to present a formal request to the government for the demolition of every single image of Colón in the country. Also, the National Indian Council (CONIVE), in representation of the 36 Venezuelan indigenous peoples, requested these to be substituted by statues of the great Cacique Guiacaipuro, known for his resistance to the Spanish invasion. Following these events, the remains of the sculpture have been shot, broken, painted, and exhibited in pieces to produce a sense of defiance and repudiation to his role in the discovery and colonization of America. In 2009, the last standing statue of Colón in Caracas was dismantled and removed.

Fig. 4.1
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Pedestal of the statue of Cristobal Colón following its toppling, October 2004. (Photographed by Franz Scaramelli)

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2 Introduction

A comparison of the archaeology of modern Spanish colonialism as it played out throughout the world provides a fascinating opportunity to contrast and compare strategies and tactics of colonial intervention, their transformations through time, and local actions, interactions, and negotiations that ensued throughout the extremely diverse geographical and cultural situations encountered. Much attention was turned to these issues following the quincentennial of the arrival of Colón to America. From a different perspective, a comparison of the kinds of archaeologies developed to investigate colonial situations offers an opportunity to reflect on the uses of the past in the dynamics of nation building and identity construction of states attempting to shed their colonial guise. As archaeologists have become increasingly aware, the past, as we know it, is a social construction of the present that is deeply influenced by political interests and ideologies. As these interests and ideologies change, different archaeologies arise and different pasts are created. Historical archaeology, especially the archaeology of modern colonialism, is particularly susceptible to political and ideological influence since its referent is more recent and often more emotionally charged than the more remote past. In this chapter, I use the Venezuelan case to illustrate the manner in which the interplay between politics, national identity, and changing attitudes toward the past and its protagonists has affected the definition of cultural and historical patrimony, on the one hand, and influenced the types of archaeological research that prevailed at different conjunctures, on the other. I pay particular attention to the effects of the past 15 years of the Bolivarian Revolution in its attempt to redefine and reconstruct the foundations of the nation-state as well as to promote a new vision of the past and its contribution to the present. To contextualize the founding of the Fifth Republic of Venezuela, I refer to the theories of decolonization that have inspired a rethinking of Latin American constitutionalism and the place of subalterns in the production of knowledge and power. I then explore the trajectory of historical archaeology in Venezuela as it evolved from an essentially colonialist archaeology (Trigger 1984) that sought to describe the civilizing effect of the Spanish occupation to more nuanced approaches to the archaeology of colonialism that attempted to shift the emphasis away from the Occidental gaze to perspectives that recognize the devastating, asymmetrical relationship of the impact even while recognizing the role of local agency and negotiation in different situations of colonialism. Finally, using case studies, I illustrate the impact on archaeological practice of the two foundational discourses that have served to legitimize the Bolivarian Revolution: Bolivarianism and Indigeneity, or Guaicaipurism, as coined by Angosto (Angosto 2008), the first referring to Simón Bolívar’s figure as liberator, and the second seeking to glorify the indigenous resistance to colonial rule.

The Venezuelan case is illustrative of the colonial process on the periphery of the main thrust of Spanish intervention in America. Although Venezuela was the site for one of the earliest cities built by Spanish colonizers, seeking to exploit pearl fisheries in Cubagua, off the eastern coast of the mainland in 1511 and recognized as the city of Nueva Cadiz in 1528, this enterprise lasted only for 30 some years and was abandoned once the pearls, and the indigenous labor, were exhausted. The mainland of Venezuela was of minor importance to Spanish colonial plans, especially when compared to the undertakings in the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru. Following the futile search for the fabled gold of El Dorado, colonial Venezuela settled into an agricultural economy based primarily on cacao plantations employing slave labor on the coast and ranching in the central regions of the country. Commerce, much of it illicit, thrived with neighboring Dutch and English holdings. The colonization of the southern part of the country, including the Orinoco basin, was divided between religious orders that established a series of missions aimed at reducing the indigenous population to settlements and indoctrinating them to Catholicism. More secular aims in this region included the maintenance of a fluvial connection between Santa Fe de Bogotá and the Atlantic Coast, and the prevention of English, Dutch, and Portuguese expansion from their colonies to the south and southeast.

The indigenous inhabitants of what is today known as Venezuela were primarily agricultural societies, with predominantly non-stratified sociopolitical systems, although more hierarchical polities, sometimes referred to as chiefdoms or cacicazgos, have been described for the western Llanos and sub-Andean areas. The reaction to the European conquest varied through time and space, depending on the intentions and attitudes of the colonizers, and ranged from cooperation, trade, retreat to less accessible areas, resistance, and outright warfare. The indigenous population in northern Venezuela was drastically reduced through violent conflict, exploitation, disease, and assimilation, whereas in southern Venezuela and on the western borders between modern Venezuela and Colombia, where geographical conditions were less accessible and attractive to the Spanish colonizers, over 36 recognized indigenous peoples survived the conquest and continue to maintain their identity, constituting 2.7 % of the population today.

This brief characterization of the Venezuelan colonial situation serves as a backdrop to understand prevailing attitudes to both the pre-Columbian and the colonial past and to its study. Put bluntly, neither the pre-Columbian nor the Colonial periods served as a source of national pride nor as a symbolic component for the construction of national identity prior to the advent of the recent Chávez Revolution (Tarble 2001). Rather, it was the figure of Bolívar, the liberator, and the period of the War of Independence that epitomized the nationalistic feelings of Venezuelans, and that marked the significant starting point of Venezuelan history in the collective imagination. The attitude toward the indigenous past can be summarized by official history texts of the twentieth century that flatly denied the indigenous contribution to the conformation of Venezuelan culture, aside from its “torrent of blood” and a few elements to be found in the folklore.Footnote 2 Likewise, the colonial period was viewed as a time of oppression and restraint that was heroically overthrown by the republicans under the leadership of Simon Bolívar. An ideology of mestizaje dominated the discourse of national identity following independence that proclaimed a nation drawn from three sources—African, European, and Indian—but which purportedly had no significant racial distinctions (Fig. 4.2). This discourse served to veil structural asymmetries that hailed back to the colonial caste system in which status was ascribed from light to dark, with power and resources concentrated in the lighter, upper strata.

Fig. 4.2
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Mural in downtown Caracas showing multiple racial components of Venezuela helping to build a new nation. (Photographed by Franz Scaramelli)

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Following growing disillusionment with the traditional political parties that had governed in Venezuela for over 40 years, Venezuelans elected Hugo Chávez Frías as president in 1998 by an overwhelming majority. The adoption of the Constitution of 1999 marks the foundation of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, also known as the Fifth Republic. The Constitution and ensuing laws grant full recognition to the popular sectors that constitute Venezuelan identity and guarantee respect and recognition of the equality of cultures, in this way counteracting the prevailing ideology of mestizaje and homogeneity. Furthermore, these laws promote local agency in the recognition and conservation of cultural and historical patrimony. The implications of this legislation have had profound and far-reaching consequences for the conception of the past, its actors, its study, and its conservation.

3 The Constituent Assembly and the Refounding of the Venezuelan Republic

Following the victory of President Hugo Chávez, in 1999, a constituent assembly drafted a new constitution that was approved by a large majority of voters. It was widely proclaimed as a model for its inclusiveness, refounding the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a ‘democratic, participative and protagonistic, multiethnic and pluricultural society, in a just, federal, and decentralized State’ (Preámbulo de la Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999; my translation). At the center of the refoundation of the Venezuelan Republic, and the move to distance it from the neoliberal policy of the preceding republics, was a shift in discourse in which the indigenous populations, past and present, were recognized as being the first nations (pueblos originarios), to whom an enormous historic debt was owed. The constituent assembly explicitly recognized the rights of heretofore-marginalized sectors of the population. It acknowledged indigenous rights to language, culture, religion, economic practices, and territory (Articles 9, 119, 121, 122, 123). At the same time, it guaranteed interculturality and respect for collective knowledge (Article 124) and the right to political participation of all sectors.

Although Afro-Venezuelans did not figure as a distinctive sector in the Constitution, in spite of efforts to be included (interview with Jesus ‘Chucho’ Garcia, 2004, http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/322, consulted March 2013), the Chávez government enacted several policies to increase the visibility of this sector: a law designed to counter racial discrimination (Law against Racial Discrimination, 2011), the inclusion of Afro-descendants in the national census, and recognition in the Organic Law of Education, which stipulates that Afro-descendant history shall be included in the official curriculum, and the establishment of a Liaison Office for Afro-descendants at the Ministry of Popular Power of Culture. Indigenous rights were further defined and protected through the enactment of various laws and ordinances including the Law for Demarcation and Guarantee of the Habitat and Land of the Indigenous Peoples (2001), the Organic Law for the Indigenous Peoples and Communities (2005), the Law for Indigenous Languages (2008), and the Law for the Cultural Patrimony of the Indigenous Peoples and Communities (2008). The Presidential Decree 2028 (2002) declared that the celebration of October 12th, previously commemorating Colón’s arrival to the Americas, was to be redesignated the Day of Indigenous Resistance.

The 1999 Constitution also proclaimed Venezuela to be a participative democracy. This new project was designed to provide grassroots participation in policy- and decision-making at the municipal level, specifying the rights of each municipality to organize, govern, and administer according to local geographic, historic, and cultural conditions, with explicit reference to auto-determination in the case of those municipalities with indigenous population. In accordance with more recent legislation, communes and community councils were declared to be responsible for the identification of local needs and the development of projects to address them (Ley de Consejos Comunales 2006). This was to go hand in hand with the numerous ad hoc ‘missions’ designed to address nationwide issues such as adult literacy, health care, housing, nutrition, aid to single mothers, children, and the homeless, culture, and sports. New ministries, all designated with the prefix of Ministry of Popular Power (Ministerio del Poder Popular), were created to oversee and institutionalize these different missions as a part of long-term plans to achieve goals of autonomy, economic growth, and well-being for the people, an example of which is the Ministerio del Poder Popular para los Pueblos Indígenas (Ministry of the People’s Power for Indigenous Peoples) created in 2007.

4 Decoloniality and Empowerment

The tone of the new constitution and the policies that followed clearly reflect the theoretical underpinnings of decoloniality that had been gestating in Latin America in recent decades (Coronil 1996, 2007; Mignolo 1996, 2012; Lander 1997, 2000; Quijano 2000; Walsh 2007). It marks a radical break with previous neoliberal conceptions of the state, of the people, and of the geopolitical structures of power that had prevailed in earlier regimes. Decolonization embraces the recognition and empowerment of the disenfranchised, the marginalized, and invisible sectors of society. This political project recognizes several axes of coloniality (power, knowledge, self) that permeate Latin American society in spite of the 200 plus years that have passed since the Wars of Independence. The perception of the coloniality of power present in the independent, but still unliberated Latin American nations, as proposed by Quijano (2000), recognizes the living legacy of colonialism that is expressed in discrimination based on the generic “racial-gender” classes or castes that were forged in early colonial times when capitalism and labor were interlocked and naturalized in the pervasive hierarchical scheme: white/mestizo (male) (owner/capitalist), Indian (serf), and black (slave). This colonial power structure resulted in a caste system, with Spaniards ranked at the top, while Indians and blacks, whose phenotypic traits and culture were presumed to be inferior, were placed at the bottom. This globalized racial/economic scheme dominated the social and economic structure of the colony and continues to be reflected in these structures of modern postcolonial societies, despite efforts to overcome itFootnote 3 (Fig. 4.3).

Fig. 4.3
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Denominations of the Bolívar Fuerte, new bills issued during the Chávez government

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The new Venezuelan Constitution signals a break with the neoliberal ideology of the Venezuelan population conceived as a melting pot of three additive parts: white (European), Indian, and black, and the idea that the mestizo result was the normative, civilized, whitened product of the mix. The last 15 years in Venezuela have witnessed an awakening of ethnic, racial, and class-consciousness, as gender relations have also come under scrutiny and a reevaluation of the past and its role in the present has surfaced (Navarrete 2005). An emphasis on interculturality (Walsh 2007), as opposed to multiculturality, and the ground-up ideal underlying a participatory democracy, as set out in the Constitution, opens the door to the option of self-government and acceptance on equal grounds of alternative forms of justice, economic enterprise, and knowledge.

This is not to say that theory equals practice. The constituent assembly of 1999 had to deal with conflicting views on sovereignty, nationalism, and territory that were irreconcilable, and even today, the failure to comply with the demarcation of indigenous lands or to recognize indigenous systems of justice has much to owe to these discrepancies and ambiguities (Mansutti 2006; Zent and Zent 2006; Caballero 2007; Angosto 2008).Footnote 4

Another axis of the decolonial political project underlying many of the constitutional reforms and later legislation in Venezuela revolves around what is perceived as the Coloniality of Knowledge, understood as the privileging of Western, universal, rational, scientific pursuit of knowledge, its centers of production, and its languages of production, predominantly English and French (Mignolo 1996, 2012), whereas epistemic alternatives are considered prescientific and inferior. This axis of coloniality is also manifested in the asymmetrical relationship underlying the geopolitics of knowledge in which Latin America has typically been construed as the consumer rather than the producer of knowledge. Along similar lines, locally produced knowledge typically has been incorporated into the center (First World academia) as data to be redistributed later as components of grand syntheses or models. The links have historically been between individual researchers in Latin American countries with US or European mentors, with little or no horizontal networking among Latin American researchers themselves. Increased access to the Internet has been a useful tool in overcoming these asymmetries and difficulties in communication beyond national boundaries, and recent efforts to create Inter-(Latin) American intellectual and academic circles underlie much contemporary academic activity and the exchanges among decoloniality theorists themselves (Lander 2000).

5 Decoloniality and Politics of Patrimony in Venezuela

In Venezuela , only in recent years have the politics of empowerment begun to impact policies related to historical and cultural patrimony. Throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth century, patrimony was given an object-oriented definition as something material that exists and that can be identified, protected, and conserved. As stated in the 1945 Law of Protection and Defense of Cultural Patrimony, ‘The artistic and historic patrimony of the nation is constituted by the historical and artistic monuments and other works of art correlated or not with National History that are found or enter into the territory of the Republic, regardless who is the owner’ (1945, Law for the Protection and Defense of Cultural Patrimony; my translation). During this time, monuments were privileged as the recipients of the distinction as patrimony, especially those honoring Bolívar, the Venezuelan liberator. Only when threatened with total destruction were the few remaining architectural elements of the colonial period given attention and restored in different parts of the country. Perhaps due to their non-monumental character, other archaeological remains, of both pre- and post-European contact eras, were underplayed in official definitions of patrimony, and archaeological research in Venezuela was relatively undeveloped up until the mid-twentieth century. This disregard for the indigenous past was clearly expressed by one of the ideologues of the Pérez Jiménez regime in 1957, who claimed that the country would be better off if the ‘insignificant bits of ceramic plates and idols’ were turned under by a tractor and replaced by real cities and agricultureFootnote 5 (Vallenilla Lanz 1957, cited in González and Vicente 2000, p. 164). As Molina (2007, pp. 137–138) points out, this Western conception of patrimony did not make any reference to the cultural, ethnic, and regional diversity of the nation or to discourses related to different conceptions of the past held by the non-elite sectors of Venezuelan society. Nor did it recognize the existence of divergent or even conflicting uses of cultural patrimony, nor its potential role in the definition of non-hegemonic identities. Even the more recent law of 1993 (Ley de Patrimonio) maintains the definition of patrimony as a given rather than as a dynamic and changing cultural construction (Molina 2000b, p. 150, 2007, p. 138).

The 1999 Constitution takes into consideration some changes in the definition of patrimony even as it maintains a top-down and static vision of patrimony (Molina 2007). In the arena of cultural and historical patrimony, the new constitution designates the state as the entity in charge of guaranteeing the protection, preservation, enrichment, conservation, and restoration of the tangible and intangible cultural patrimony and the historical memory of the nation (Chap. VI, Article 99). The popular culture that constitutes Venezuelan identity is given special attention, respecting interculturality under the principle of the equality of cultures (Article 100), and indigenous languages are explicitly recognized in Article 9, Title 1, as ‘cultural patrimony of the Nation and Humanity.’

Although the 1999 Constitution recognizes both tangible and intangible patrimony and the rights of communities and local organizations to participate in its conservation, by law, the authority to officially recognize and declare patrimony remains in the hands of the Institute for Cultural Patrimony (Instituto de Patrimonio Cultural, IPC). In an attempt to amplify and democratize the concept of cultural and historical patrimony, the IPC, in conjunction with different municipalities, undertook a census of objects, constructions, individual creations, oral tradition, and collective manifestations (Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural 1997), which were then declared to be cultural patrimony (Fig. 4.4). This was an important step away from the previous conception of patrimony as tangible, constructed, especially architectural, entities. Nonetheless, several difficulties arose with the new policy. First, although laws exist to protect this newly defined patrimony, there is very little local infrastructure to guarantee its protection, conservation, or diffusion. At the same time, the census created expectations as to the possible economic benefits to be derived from the declarations, for example, through tourism, that neither the IPC nor the municipal governments were able to follow up on. Furthermore, although the census strove to broaden the definition of patrimony and involve the people in its definition, in practice it freezes that which in reality can better be understood as a dynamic, living, and changing set of traditions (Molina 2007). In the case of archaeological remains, other problems arose. By placing the recognition of historical patrimony in the hands of local communities, with little or no background in archaeology, many sites were not identified or included in the census, and when they were, the criteria utilized were often object or collection based, rather than related to any problem-related research design, and with no regard to context or systematic collection and excavation protocols (see, e.g., catalogues of declared cultural patrimony by municipalities http://www.ipc.gob.ve/images/stories/animacionmapa2.html, consulted 26 April 2013).

Fig. 4.4
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Page from the Censo de Patrimonio, Miranda State. Instituto de Patrimonio Cultural (http://www.ipc.gob.ve/images/stories/mapa/RegionCentroOriente/Miranda/Guaicaipuro.pdf.)

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As the centralized entity charged with defining the nation’s patrimony, the IPC has undertaken several projects that align with the two ideological underpinnings of the Fifth Republic mentioned above: Bolivarianism and Guaicaipurism. As part of the celebration of the 200 years of the War of Independence, the IPC has sponsored a project entitled ‘Pueblo Admirable’ and has sponsored archaeological investigations at sites relevant to the life of Simón Bolívar, such as his birthplace (Molina Centeno 2010a) and the War of Independence such as Angostura, San Mateo, San Isidro, Casa el Balcón, Hacienda Palacios, among others. The artifacts recovered in the archaeological investigations formed the basis for the exhibition En los Tiempos de Bolívar: Una Evocación Arqueológica de la Vida Cotidiana durante la Época del Libertador (In the Times of Bolívar: An Archaeological Evocation of Daily Life during the Epoch of Bolívar), inaugurated in Caracas on December 17, 2006, the anniversary of Bolívar’s death (Navarrete 2006; Fig. 4.5). The exhibition celebrated aspects of daily life characteristic of the times of the liberator, including the foods prepared and consumed, tableware, beverages, medicines and tonics, commerce, agriculture, industry, and warfare, with the goal of bringing the figure of Bolívar closer to the citizens of today.Footnote 6 The IPC also sponsored an ambitious archaeological survey and excavations designed to substantiate and justify the projects to declare as Patrimony of Humanity the early colonial sites of Cubagua (http://www.ipc.gob.ve/index.php/acciones/postulaciones-a-patrimonio-mundial/nueva-cadiz-de-cubagua) and Ciudad Bolívar at Angustura del Orinoco, a pivotal region of indigenous and colonial settlement and stage for the later independence movement (Navarrete Sánchez 2004b).

Fig. 4.5
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Commemorative plate honoring Simón Bolívar. (Colección Bolivariana: Año bicentenario del natalicio del Libertador Simón Bolívar, 1783-Fundación John Boulton, Caracas, Editorial Arte, 1983, p. 59)

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An example of Guaicaipurism or the focus on indigenous values and ancestral rights can be found in the IPC’s campaign to return the Piedra Kueka, a 30-ton boulder of jasper exported to Germany for exposition in a public park. The Pemón, an indigenous people who occupy the territory where the boulder was originally found, claim that it represents the grandmother Kueka, an ancestor converted into stone. The Pemón qualify this act as ‘kidnapping, torture and death of a sacred being of their community and recalls the colonial practices of yesteryear, when the imperialist countries took the patrimony from the American peoples with no respect for ancestral rights nor international agreements’ (http://www.ipc.gob.ve/index.php/acciones/piedra-kueka, consulted 29 January 2013, my translation).

6 Historical Archaeology and the Changing Faces of the Past

As mentioned earlier, archaeology as a profession became established only recently in Venezuela (Gassón and Wagner 1992; Navarrete Sánchez 1998, 2004a; Vargas Arenas 1986, 1998). Important precursors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries laid the groundwork for the advent of systematic archaeology in the 1930s and 1940s. Although the study of the pre-Columbian past has dominated the field, historical archaeology, understood in Venezuela as the investigation of the period following European colonization, has had its own evolution in the country. Early work was dominated by a chronological/descriptive approach that laid the foundations for the identification of sites, chronological types, and the reconstruction of social and economic aspects of colonial Venezuela, with an emphasis on the impact of Spanish/European culture (Cruxent 1955, 1969, 1971, 1980; Cruxent and Vaz 1975). This type of descriptive work has continued in Venezuela and lays the foundation for subsequent interpretive studies (Molina 1999; Zucchi and Navarrete 1991; Sanoja et al. 1995; Zucchi 2010b). In the 1990s, World Systems theory inspired the archaeological analysis of the centers of colonial development in Venezuela , with an emphasis on the role of technology and the control of resources as the key to the establishment of European and Criollo domination (Molina and Amodio 1998; Sanoja 1998a, 2006; Molina 2000a; Sanoja and Vargas-Arenas 2002, 2005). More recent work has introduced notions of ethnogenesis, agency, identity, resilience, and negotiation, with greater attention to rural (Arvelo 2000), indigenous (Scaramelli and Tarble 1999, 2000; Navarrete 2000; Vidal 2000a, b; Zucchi and Vidal 2000; Tarble and Scaramelli 2004; Scaramelli and Tarble de Scaramelli 2005; Zucchi 2010a; Tarble de Scaramelli and Scaramelli 2011, 2012), and Afro-descendant sectors (Rivas 2000; Altez and Rivas 2002). Gender differences, as they played out in the colonial endeavor, also began to be taken into account at this time (Tarble de Scaramelli 2012; Tarble de Scaramelli and Scaramelli 2012). This recent work coincides chronologically with the emphasis on politics of empowerment discussed above.

6.1 Archaeology of the Colonial Period (Chronological Descriptive Investigations)

The most outstanding contributor to pioneering work on colonial sites in Venezuela was J. M. Cruxent, a Catalan who immigrated to Venezuela following the Spanish Civil War. Between 1955 and 1961, he carried out extensive excavations in Nueva Cádiz, Cubagua, the first city founded in South America that flourished briefly due to a rich pearl fishery (Cruxent 1955, 1969; Rouse and Cruxent 1963). Cruxent’s collaboration with John Goggin resulted in a sound chronology based on ceramic remains that served for the rest of the Caribbean area and beyond (Goggin 1968). At Cubagua, Cruxent’s team exposed and consolidated the masonry walls of the site, leading to hypotheses about the occupation of the site by Europeans, Indians, and African slaves. A new ceramic style, characterized by simple forms and coarse-painted paste, was defined for the site and interpreted to be a simplified indigenous ware resulting from contact. Cruxent continued his interest in the Spanish conquest and colonization of Venezuela (Cruxent 1971, 1980; Cruxent and Vaz 1975) and other parts of the Caribbean (Deagan and Cruxent 1994, 2002). The IPC is currently in the process of nominating the site of the city of Nueva Cádiz on the island of Cubagua as World Heritage site, with a radically different ideological justification for its historical significance that places emphasis on its role in the rise of the global capitalist expansionFootnote 7 (http://www.ipc.gob.ve/index.php/acciones/postulaciones-a-patrimonio-mundial/nueva-cadiz-de-cubagua; Fig. 4.6).

Fig. 4.6
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Plaque placed by the Instituto de Patrimonio Cultural at the site of Nueva Cádiz, Cubagua. Photograph found on the website of the Instituto de Patrimonio Cultural, Caracas, Venezuela, May 2012

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Other descriptive work on colonial sites in Venezuela was carried out in the context of rescue work at historical monuments and other buildings undergoing architectural reconstruction, most of them in Caracas. Molina has recently published an excellent summary of these investigations (Molina 2011). Archaeological investigations in the city of Caracas include: Simón Bolívar’s birthplace (Molina Centeno 2010a), Teatro Ayacucho (Vargas 1994), Teatro Municipal (Vargas et al. 1998), Escuela de Música José Ángel Lamas (Sanoja et al. 1998), Cuartel San Carlos (Sanoja and Vargas 1998; Flores 2007), Cathedral of Caracas (Molina 1989a), etc. (Fig. 4.7). Archaeological research on areas peripheral to the urban center of the city includes sugar mills (Molina 2005), estates dedicated to coffee production (Molina 1989b), suburban areas of Caracas (Molina 2006; Molina Centeno 2010b), and the network of roads connecting Caracas to the port of La Guaira on the northern coast (Amodio et al. 1997; Fig. 4.8). Important information on the early foundations of Caracas and later occupational sequences has been derived from these relatively limited opportunities to excavate. Unfortunately, archaeological investigation was not incorporated into some of the more extensive development projects in Caracas, such as the construction of the Metro.

Fig. 4.7
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Archaeological investigations on historical sites in the center of Caracas. Figure from Molina (2011)

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Fig. 4.8
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Archaeological investigations on historical sites in the periphery of Caracas. Figure from Molina (2011)

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In many of these studies, imported materials and industrial items have received much more attention than those of local manufacture, and the emphasis has been on the dominant European/Criollo sector of the population, with little attention given to subalterns. Nonetheless, increasingly, excavations have gone hand in hand with the examination of archival sources, leading to more accurate interpretations of the sequences and occupational history of the sites (Molina 2011). In an attempt to amplify and diversify the type of archaeological investigation on the post-contact period in Venezuela , which had concentrated its efforts on ecclesiastical, military, or other public and private edifications, Molina proposed the need to investigate units of production (Molina 1999). Molina’s own archaeological and archival research on sugar production has focused on the definition of ‘technological schemes’ that were developed to process the cane and on their impact on the landscape of Caracas and outlying valleys well into the twentieth century (Molina 1999, 2000a, 2005).

Limited archaeological excavations have been carried out on historical period sites outside of the metropolitan area, permitting the development of local occupational sequences in Falcón (Zucchi 1997, 2010b), the Andes (Wagner 1967), the lower Orinoco (Sanoja et al. 1995; Sanoja 1998b; Sanoja and Vargas Arenas 2005), the middle Orinoco (Scaramelli and Tarble 2005; Scaramelli and Tarble de Scaramelli 2005; Scaramelli 2006), the Rio Negro (Zucchi 2000), Lara (Arvelo 2000), and the northern coast (Altez and Rivas 2002).

6.2 Venezuela as Part of the World System

Once a basic occupational sequence had been worked out in Caracas and the Lower Orinoco, interpretive frameworks followed close behind. As a part of the influential Latin American Social Archaeology program, Sanoja, Vargas, and others throughout Latin America adopted historical materialism as their interpretive framework (Politis 1995; Vargas-Arenas and Sanoja 1993). Sanoja and Vargas, invoking World Systems Theory, have been concerned with the forms of control developed by the European colonists as they imposed a capitalist mode of production, especially through the monopolization of key resources such as the access to water in Caracas (Sanoja 1998a; Sanoja and Vargas-Arenas 2002) and the exploitation of mineral and agricultural resources in Guayana (Sanoja 1998a, b). Under the auspices of their Urban Archaeology Project , these authors tied several of the rescue projects into an analysis of the transformation of the city of Caracas from what they have defined as the Tribal Mode of Life through the Colonial Mode of Life, and finally the National Mode of Life (Vargas Arenas and Vivas Yépez 1999). Through a comparative analysis of the geo-historical regions they defined for Venezuela based on archaeological and documental sources, they argue that, since the sixteenth century, the dynamics of the production of space and power structures were characterized by a process of accumulation dominated by mercantile capital that propitiated and consolidated relations of colonial and neocolonial dependency (Vargas Arenas and Vivas Yépez 1999; Sanoja and Vargas-Arenas 2002; Sanoja Obediente and Vargas Arenas 2004). Because the territory that was being colonized had already been occupied for millennia, these authors have proposed that the significant geo-historical variations of Indo-Hispanic and modern day Venezuela have their foundation in pre-conquest configurations. Nonetheless, the Spanish sector gained prominence through indoctrination, coercive tactics, and outright violence in an effort to impose a new colonial order while, at the same time, decimating indigenous population and deteriorating the environment.

According to these authors, the spread of the Spanish language permitted the imposition of a normative code that was to give order to the domestic and public daily life of the new society (Sanoja Obediente and Vargas Arenas 2004). They maintain that in spite of the superficial homogeneity of common language and other cultural institutions, the relations of power and dependency established between the elite and lower classes led to naturalized, asymmetrical relations and a (neo) colonial ideology of self-deprecation and passive resistance in the work-place.Footnote 8 These authors consider this negative synergy between sectors to be a dead weight and an impediment to the construction of a ‘truly just, democratic and sovereign society’ (Sanoja Obediente and Vargas Arenas 2004). Founded in a Marxist analysis, these studies offer an elegant explanation for the expansion of capitalism and the appearance of a global economy based on asymmetrical relations between the so-called Centers and Peripheries , and coincides with the growing decoloniality literature that was gaining ascendance among the anti-imperialist, anticapitalist political movements of recent decades throughout Latin America. Their emphasis on the role of dominant sectors of the Colonial period, characterized as an oligarchy of consumerists, especially of European imported goods, on the one hand, and as absentee landholders unconcerned with the development of local production beyond cash crops such as cacao, animal hides, or raw materials for export, on the other, places the blame for current relations of dependence on this small, elite sector of the Venezuelan population. This is the sector demonized in the Chávez government’s discourse as ‘escuálidos,’ ‘oligarcas,’ and ‘vende-patrias’ (squalid, oligarchy, and sellers of the country) even while the middle class, made up of professionals and small business owners, are accused of upholding the (neo) colonial ideals of private property and succumbing to the lure of exogenous materialist values. As ideologues for the Fifth Republic, and in line with their Marxist theoretical framework, these authors have used their archaeological findings of imported glassware, pottery, alcoholic beverages, perfumes, and medicines as evidence of a consumer-driven elite that exercised its power to monopolize land and resources and exploit the vast majority of the mestizo, landless poor (Vargas Arenas 1995; Vargas Arenas and Vivas Yépez 1999).

These models have, nonetheless, been criticized for being Eurocentric and have obscured the active role of indigenous and subaltern sectors in the conformation of the World System itself (Sahlins 1988, 1996; Dietler 1995, 1998; Scaramelli 2005; Scaramelli and Tarble de Scaramelli 2005). In the case of the research cited earlier, it is noteworthy that the archaeological investigations have centered on the dominant sector, both in Caracas and in Guayana (Sanoja 1998a, b; Sanoja and Vargas-Arenas 2002, 2005), where the excavations concentrated on edifications, fortifications, and mission sites. Through a research strategy that focused on major constructions and infrastructure, the material evidence for the life ways and spatial configurations of the subalterns was largely ignored. Locally produced ceramic wares, for example, are simply lumped as colono-wares, or indigenous wares, with no attempt to delve into the actual relations that played out between the makers of these wares and the colonial elite. The voice of the slave, the neophyte, or the poor mestizo is not sought in the archaeological record, and the resulting analysis portrays the colonial process as a one-way imposition and an unsuccessful resistance. This blame placed on a small, dominant elite of the past and onto imperialist, capitalist forces of the present has fostered the resentment so clearly voiced by sectors that feel victimized by this process. The politics of empowerment feed on the bitterness and anger of historically under-recognized sectors while summarizing their role as one of resistance rather than as active social players.

7 Agency, Identity, Resilience, Negotiation

Following the quincentennial anniversary of European contact, historical archaeology throughout the Americas refocused its efforts to comprehend the process of colonization and its impact. A move away from unilinear models of culture change directed attention to ethnogenesis, indigenous agency , the creative reinterpretation of novel artifacts into existing categories of meaning, and the role of material culture in the construction of identity. Without denying the coercive and often violent mechanisms used by European powers to impose new social, political, and economic regimes, some archaeologists have begun to pay closer attention to different indigenous strategies that included cooperation, negotiation, passive and active resistance, and outright opposition. In Venezuela , several archaeological projects have centered on the subaltern and the diverse colonial processes that played out in different regions of the territory, with an eye on transformations in settlement pattern, demographics, productive regimes, and trade (Arvelo 2000; Navarrete 2000; Rivas 2000; Altez and Rivas 2002; Gil et al. 2003; Arvelo and Ruette 2005; Díaz 2005; Rodríguez 2005; Scaramelli 2005, 2006; Scaramelli and Tarble de Scaramelli 2005). At the same time, the ideological shift in Venezuelan politics that promoted an alternative view of indigenous, rural Criollo and Afro-Venezuelan resistance has had profound influence on the attitude of these sectors toward the past and their role as curators of cultural patrimony. Archaeologists and communities have engaged in projects aimed to clarify territorial claims and to promote local history and identity. Below, I offer a few examples of the recent research that illustrate these trends.

7.1 Afro-descendant Identity and Archaeological Objects

The Archaeology of Carruao Project is one of the few projects that have been carried out in Afro-descendant communities in Venezuela . Altez and Rivas (Rivas 2000; Altez and Rivas 2002) have worked in several communities on the northern coast of Venezuela where Afro-descendant slaves and indigenous peoples labored in the cacao plantations. Unequivocal archaeological evidence for the presence of Afro-descendants has proven elusive since only imported materials have been found in the excavations. This has led Rivas to state that rather than investigating slave communities, they may have only found remains of the administrators or owners of the production units and that the slaves may have made their artifacts from perishable materials such as wood or bark that were not preserved in the record (Rivas 2000, p. 88). Altez and Rivas expressed surprise at several of their findings. On the one hand, one of the present-day communities denied any participation in slavery in the past and claimed to be a ‘pueblo de negros libres’ (a town of free blacks) in spite of documentation that attests to the presence of slavery in the area (Fig. 4.9). The other unexpected finding was the claim on the part of the members of the Afro-descendant communities that certain archaeological remains that are most probably attributable to the original indigenous inhabitants of the region, such as petroglyphs and stone hand axes, had been manufactured by ancestral Afro-Americans. In another case, the Afro-descendants claim Amerindian origins rather than African, despite strong phenotypic characteristics that would point to the latter (Rivas 2000, p. 89). These findings resonate with investigations carried out in Palmares, a maroon settlement in eastern Brasil, where contradictory visions of the past of the quilombo derive from different theoretical models and from diverse political intentions (Allen 1998; Funari 2004, 2006). The lesson to be learned here is that archaeological evidence, while concrete, does not ‘speak for itself’ but rather is susceptible to multiple readings and even conflicting conclusions, congruent with the inherent contradictions of society itself.

Fig. 4.9
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Mural on wall of the town of La Sabana, declaring it to be a town founded by free blacks. (Photographed by Franz Scaramelli)

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7.2 Mapoyo Territory and Mukuruni Museum

For over two decades, Franz Scaramelli and I have collaborated with the Mapoyo indigenous community of Palomo in the Bolívar state of Venezuela. In 1992, we were invited to carry out archaeological research in the area following a territorial dispute with the neighboring Piaroa. The captain, Simón Bastidas, and several other members of the community have taken an active part in the regional survey and site recordation in their ancient territory, and the archaeological remains we recovered allowed us to construct a sequence that spans the late precontact occupations up to recent times. This sequence based on settlement location, local and imported ceramics, and lithic, glass, and metal items attests to the continuity and transformation of settlement pattern, productive practices, and forms of organization and interaction through time. Archaeological remains bear witness to the impact of Jesuit and Franciscan missions in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries and the interchange of goods, technologies, and ideologies. The archaeological findings gave voice to the indigenous inhabitants of the area in and beyond the missions . They attest to the crucial role of native knowledge of forest products, hunting, fishing, agricultural production and food processing, construction materials and design, modes of transport, and other essential technological systems in providing sustenance to the incipient mission settlements and, at the same time, giving the indigenous neophytes leverage in the decisions as to settlement location and activities (Scarameli and Scaramelli 2015). These were settlements in which the well-being of the neophytes decided the eventual decision to stay or to flee, and the missionaries often expressed their frustration as to the fickleness of their charges (Tarble and Scaramelli 2004). Following the expulsion of the missionaries after the War of Independence, the archaeological remains trace the regrouping of local communities and their participation in different productive and commercial activities that promoted the maintenance of certain subsistence forms, indigenous identity, and territorial continuity even while engaging in cash cropping and extractive activities that gave them access to desirable trade goods (Falconi 2003; Scaramelli 2005; Tarble de Scaramelli and Scaramelli 2011, 2012; Torrealba 2011; Meza 2013; Scaramelli and Scaramelli 2015). These findings support the proposal that in this part of the country, as in others, the colonial project cannot be conceived as the unilinear imposition of a new regime, but as a negotiated interaction, albeit asymmetrical, of different actors with clashing interests and goals that continues even to this day.

The Mapoyo have taken active interest in the archaeological investigations undertaken in the area as a means to demonstrate territorial continuity in the face of different invasions of their traditional territory and expropriations by state owned mining corporations (CVG, BAUXILUM). Through the intertwining of oral tradition, written sources, and archaeological evidence, a solid case supporting territorial claims has been submitted to government authorities, resulting in a land grant finalized in 2014. Throughout the project, community members actively sought out new sites and have offered comments on the function of different materials obtained. These collected objects and collective knowledge led to increased interest and curiosity, as well as occasional suspicion and animosity, as some members of the community feared for the loss of the ‘evidence of the Mapoyo past’ as it was now perceived. In response to these sentiments, once the materials had been catalogued, classified, and analyzed, we offered to transfer the collection to the community and to aid in the design of a community museum, where the results of the research could be displayed. The communal council prepared a project that eventually received financial support from two institutions, resulting in the construction of the museum and the transfer of the collection for display (Fig. 4.10). Texts, created by members of the community and translated into the Mapoyo language, bear out their interpretation of the archaeological remains as informed by our research and their oral history. The Chávez government celebrated the creation of the museum, and in December 2012, Captain Simón Bastidas was invited to Caracas to display the sword and dagger that was purportedly given to the Mapoyo following their participation in the War of Independence on the side of the Republicans (Fig. 4.11) in an act that recognized their heroic contribution to the construction of the new republic. In 2014, following joint efforts by the community, linguists, anthropologists, and archaeologists, UNESCO included the language and oral tradition of the Venezuelan indigenous community Mapoyo of Bolívar State in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (http://www.avn.info.ve/contenido/unesco-recognition-mapoyo-triumph-cultural-struggle-venezuelan-indigenous).

Fig. 4.10
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Murukuni Museum, Palomo, Bolívar State. (Photographed by Franz Scaramelli)

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Fig. 4.11
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Capitán Simón Bastidas with sword and dagger from the War of Independence. (Photographed by Franz Scaramelli)

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This example documents two aspects of the politics of empowerment . On the one hand, it shows how indigenous collaboration in archaeological projects contributes to a ground-up appreciation of cultural and historical patrimony and a sense of empowerment in the face of territorial invasions and attributions of acculturation and loss of indigenous identity (Henley 1975; Perera 1992). On the other hand, the use of the Mapoyo past by the government illustrates the Guaicaipurismo discourse mentioned earlier in which valiant resistance, in this case to royalist forces, is exalted. It is ironic that in the case of the Mapoyo, it has been precisely their capacity to negotiate and take advantage of different opportunities for interaction (commercial, educational, intermarriage, etc.), rather than violent resistance, that has been a key to their long-term survival and the maintenance of their indigenous identity.

8 Final Remarks

This brief review of the trajectory of historical archaeology in Venezuela illustrates the powerful role of politics in the construction of the past as it is used politically in the present. The earliest projects, originating in the 1950s, focused on Spanish colonization and the civilizing aspects of the colonial process. Archaeological research focused on early colonial occupations and routes of penetration. Monumental architecture, in the form of colonial period churches, forts, and other edifications, overwhelmingly dominated the roster of declared patrimony (Molina 1999, p. 48). The emphasis on these features of the colonial past reflects the ideology of mestizaje and the valorization of the Spanish language, religion, and cultural norms in the foundation of the Venezuelan Republic. In the 1970s and 1980s, this ideology came under scrutiny, and archaeological research was directed toward the colonial origins of the asymmetrical relations characterizing the World System. Archaeologists explored the technological systems and the monopolization of resources that promoted the relations of domination characteristic of emerging capitalism (Molina 2005). Following the quincentennial, increasing attention was given to social and political factors in the analysis of the diverse responses to conquest and colonization. These studies attempted to account for the roles played by subaltern and less visible sectors in the colonial situation as it evolved in different regions of Venezuela . A greater appreciation for the diversity of the process in time and space grew out of this research. This coincides with the launching of the Bolivarian Revolution, which, in its desire to refound the republic and to radically alter the homogenizing mask of mestizaje, sought to assert influence on the construction of the past that empowered indigenous , Afro-Venezuelan, and marginalized Criollo sectors that had heretofore been silenced or ignored while, at the same time, exalting Bolívar as the anti-imperialist, nuestroamericano (Our American)Footnote 9, liberator. The discourses of Guaicaipurismo and Bolivarianismo permeate newly inaugurated museums, exhibitions, magazines, textbooks, and websites created to promote the new version of decolonized history and cultural patrimony.

This is not to say that the decolonizing process has achieved its goals or that it has evolved without opposition. Turning 500 years of history on its head is no easy task, and deeply entrenched prejudices and structural inequalities are not readily overcome. Contradictions in the very mechanisms of governance have created impasses on many fronts. Even while espousing participative democracy, the Chávez political policy was concentrated in the patriarchal figure of the president, who ruled more as a Caudillo than as a facilitator of local initiatives. Indigenous leaders have had to face physical violence, intractable bureaucracy and powerful military and economic interests that have effectively impeded the materialization of indigenous territorial claims (Mansutti 2006; Bello 2011). Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples still struggle with discrimination and prejudice that is manifest in all spheres of life and face increasing pressure to accept centralized forms of governmental control in order to gain access to funds and services (Consejos Comunales, Comunas) that contradict local forms of organization (Kelly 2011). The laws regulating patrimony, in its definition and management through the IPC, continue to operate as a top-down process and promote a static conception of patrimony as something to be declared by authorities rather than defined, displayed, disputed, and deployed by different sectors of the population (Molina 2007). Even more revealing is the emphasis still placed on postcolonial history through the postulation of colonial centers such as Coro, Nueva Cádiz, and Ciudad Bolívar as World Heritage Sites and a nationalist archaeology (Trigger 1984) that continues to reify Bolivarianism through generous financial support for research on the life and times of the liberator while relegating archaeology of the vast indigenous period to the back burner, in spite of lip service to Guaicaipurism.

Other aspects of decoloniality bring to mind questions regarding the study of the past and the role of archaeology in the process. In rejecting a Eurocentric perspective on knowledge and knowledge production, what is proposed to take its place? How do we ‘re-imagine’ the world from an indigenous perspective, or an Afro-Venezuelan, or a ‘from-the-barrio’ perspective without slipping into essentialism? Are ‘emic’ interpretations necessarily the most valid? Does this imply that only local communities should have access to investigate the archaeological sites in their territory or that they are the only persons who should give authorization to archaeological work? What happens in the case of multicultural communities, where several indigenous and Criollo groups may be present, each with different agendas? What will be the role of the professional archaeologist, and how will we guarantee high standards of excavation, recordation, analysis, conservation, and diffusion? Should all collections be returned to the communities where they were found? Who is the ‘rightful’ owner or curator of remains that may or may not derive from ancestral communities? And in the case of very ancient remains, can any of these criteria be applied?

As political factors increasingly take a forefront in archaeological research, we must reflect on the long-term consequences of the decolonization of scientific endeavors. By rejecting the ‘universal’ languages and venues of publication, how do we guarantee the widespread access to results? At this point, which languages are not related to colonial enterprise, including the Spanish language? A focus on the local or ground-up tends to anchor research to local communities with local concerns. Who will ask the larger questions and how can we place local work into a broader context? How do we deal with the inevitable contradictions that will arise from the different versions of the past without declaring a postmodern ‘anything goes’ attitude? Successful partnering with various constituents will challenge archaeologists to explore the different agendas of the various participants in order to comply both with high standards of research and with local interests. These and many other questions arise when we face the challenges of inclusion and empowerment . The ground is shifting, and as a profession we would be wise to prepare for situations that will require negotiation and compromise in the construction of new versions of colonial entanglement.