Far from the Crown: Currents of Opportunism along the Dagua River during the Late Spanish Colonial Period (Nueva Granada)

Summary

Throughout the late Spanish colonial period, the Dagua River in Colombia’s Cauca Valley was a multi-cultural backwater. Its shores were inhabited by mestizos, mulattos, slaves, and free slaves, with a minority of Indians and Spaniards. While this area was mined for gold and offered one of few routes to the Pacific from Colombia’s interior, the Dagua River region was largely cut off from global trade and colonial currents due to its geographical remoteness. 50 days distant from Cartagena and 14 from the nearest town, Cali, it was just beyond the reach of Spanish colonial authorities. For the Dagua’s largely self-governing and self-sustaining inhabitants, including African slaves, topographical challenges such as steep cordilleras, dense tropical jungles, and torrential rivers gave rise to social, cultural, and economic opportunities. Spaniards, who theoretically were in control as hacendados, merchants, and miners, depended on forasteros—French doctors, Italian notaries, and African slaves. African slaves in the Dagua region came to wield great power and autonomy, controlling terrestrial and river commerce, effectively fighting royal aguardiente and tobacco monopolies, buying their freedom, and building free slave communities. Their descendants would inhabit this area into the early twentieth century. Methods are art historical, historical, cartographic, and ethnographic.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 19987