Kris
Lane’s The Colour of Paradise
alternates between large statements about global history and, for example,
carefully documented details of the prolonged struggle between the Muzos and Spanish
conquistadors. In his introduction Lane
spells out his argument that Colombian emeralds “help to reveal slow shifts in
a deep current of global political economy.”
I find this statement to be rather romantic, “deep currents”, and at the
same time unclear, Lane does not explain what he means by political economy,
unless it is the rapacious behavior of the Spanish conquistadors. Lane goes on in his introduction to argue that
at the time of this history, Europe was a backwater and Asia was the center of
the world economy. He clearly refers to
Andre Gunder Frank’s history, ReOrient:
“’reorienting’ early modern global trade necessarily relegates European
seaborne merchants – even ‘merchant empires’ – to the role of helpmeets of
Asian economic development, pulled into a more powerful gravitational field
than their own.” (8) It is noteworthy
that in this section of his introduction, Emeralds
and Early Modern Globalization,
Lane uses no footnotes. He assumes his
readers are familiar with the argument against a Euro-centric mindset and the veracity
of Gunder Frank’s assertion about the overwhelming dominance of China in early
modern history. There is no suggestion
that although most historians and economists agree that in 1500 China had the
world’s largest economy and the world’s largest population (and the two usually
go together; it is only when you look at GDP per capita that you can get a
rough idea of comparative standards of living), there is disagreement about
when China’s economic dominance was overtaken by some European economies.
Lane
states “that emeralds raise questions rarely asked by economic
historians”. (12) He suggests we “expand ‘economy’ to include
all human relationships mediated by material goods.” When we do this we will see the particular
significance of emeralds which he claims link individuals, tribes, states and “ties
between humans and deities.” Mintz wants
us to accept that at its heart capitalism is a form of slavery, LaViega wants
us to expand the definition of science to include the actions of peasants who collected
barbasco, and Gootenberg is a “reformed economic historian” who wants us to
applaud the entrepreneurial skills of Colombian drug traffickers. Our authors seem to be determined that we
should not explore economic exchanges from other than a cultural perspective. I find this very frustrating, but I take
comfort in the fact that each book we have read this semester has provided me
with knowledge about how different people lived at different times in the
past. The authors we have read have collected
historical information from sources I will never see, and I am grateful to them
for sharing their findings. At the same
time, I don’t always agree with their big ideas.
I
would like to discuss briefly Lane’s discussion of the interaction between the
Muzos and the conquistadors because this is an example of what I think he does
well, and it is an example of what I value in his history. Lane highlights two sources for this
encounter, both are Franciscan friars.
He seems to find Fray Pedro de Aguado who lived in Colombia not long
after Spaniards first encountered the Muzos to be the more reliable source, but
he also uses Fray Pedro Simón. A reader
can get a sense of the difficulty of using multiple sources and using sources
written by men with Christianizing mindsets describing indigenous people. The Muzos are important in this story because
they controlled the emerald mines that were the source of the world’s finest
emeralds, the commodity that ties this global history together. The Muzos were very fierce adversaries who
used guerilla tactics to terrify and destabilize the invading conquistadors. They poisoned arrows and stakes which they
placed in the ground; both caused death or great suffering. If as has been suggested in some of our classes,
the common perception of Amerindians in Latin America is one of weakness, Lane
demonstrates the ferocity and power of this tribe of Amerindians. The Muzos guarded the secret of the mines probably
realizing that once the mines were found the Spanish would never leave, and
they must have recognized that the Spaniards would destroy their way of life.
It
took the Spaniards almost ten years of effort to subdue the Muzos. The conquistadors were men of great determination
motivated by a desire to seek their fortune and earn honor and status in New
Granada. As they waged war they used
every resource they could obtain including greyhounds and mastiffs trained to
hunt down and kill men. This “hellish
chase” was illegal but used nevertheless. (61)
The conquistadors were saved from starvation by recruits and supplies
sent from Bogotá. A parallel story
during the struggle between the Muzo and the Spanish is one of colonization. Spain established a local seat of government,
audiencia, in Bogota in 1548. The
Spaniards created a town near the mines with carefully plotted parcels of land
to be distributed to the conquistadors.
Despite the mayhem of the conflict between the Muzos and the
conquistadors the relentless pressure of colonial control persisted. It is not clear why the Muzos were eventually
subdued, but it may have been the impact of disease which Lane suggests could
have come from the Muiscas, a more peaceful people who had earlier been subdued
by the Spaniards. The Muzos raided the
Muiscas and took them as captives. It is
possible the Muiscas passed Spanish diseases to the Muzos, or a more direct
transfer was also possible.
Lane
concludes this brief section of his book by explaining that within a hundred
years of their initial encounter with Spaniards, the Muzos were extinct. The failure of consumers to understand the
terrible costs of producing the commodities they desire is one theme that has
run through this course. Lane has made
us vividly aware of the price paid by the Muzos for the world to enjoy Colombian
emeralds. He goes on to describe the dreadful
conditions Amerindians, many of them Muiscas, and Africans endured working in
the emerald mines. Lane like other authors
we have read this semester gives us powerful descriptions of the people
involved in commodity production. This
is reason enough to read his book.
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