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| Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala | |
|---|---|
| Name | Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala |
| Birth date | c. 1535 |
| Birth place | near Cusco, Viceroyalty of Peru |
| Death date | c. 1616 |
| Occupation | Chronicler, artist, activist, indigenous noble |
| Notable works | La Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno |
Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala was an indigenous Andean nobleman, writer, and artist of Quechua and possibly Inca lineage who produced one of the most important early colonial chronicles of the Americas, combining detailed criticism of Spanish colonial rule with ethnographic description of Andean society. He is best known for the illustrated manuscript La Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, a lengthy petition to King Philip III of Spain that attempted to document pre-Columbian institutions, colonial abuses, and propose reforms. His work sits at the intersection of encounters involving the Inca Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Catholic Church, and Andean communities under the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Born near Cusco in the decades after the fall of the Inca Empire, he belonged to an indigenous noble household implicated in the colonial adjudications following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. His family claims and social position connected him to institutions such as the panaca lineage system of the late Inca rulers and to local officials operating under the Audiencia of Lima and the Viceroyalty of Peru. During his youth he witnessed transformative events including ongoing disputes born of the Encomienda system, the imposition of the Repartimiento, and the spread of Christianity by religious orders like the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits. His perspective was shaped by encounters with colonial authorities including magistrates from the Casa de Contratación and clerics from the Archdiocese of Lima.
He was literate in Spanish and conversant in Quechua, the lingua franca of the former Tawantinsuyu and colonial Andes, enabling him to mediate between indigenous interlocutors and colonial bureaucrats such as officials attached to the Viceroy of Peru and the Royal Audience of Charcas. His manuscript demonstrates familiarity with European palaeography, rhetorical forms current in the Habsburg Spain court culture of Philip II of Spain and Philip III of Spain, and with legal language used in petitions to bodies like the Council of the Indies. He navigated institutions including the Royal Chancery and corresponded indirectly with Spanish officials and ecclesiastics, reflecting education that blended Andean oral traditions, Christian catechesis from orders such as the Dominican Order, and colonial administrative practice.
His principal surviving work is La Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno, an extensive illustrated petition compiled ca. 1600 and directed to the king, modeled after petitionary traditions used by indigenous elites in appeals before the Council of the Indies and the Viceroy of Peru. The manuscript runs to several hundred pages and contains hundreds of drawings; it engages with precedents such as Inca accounts noted by chroniclers like Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Pedro Cieza de León, and Bernabé Cobo, while also intervening in contemporary debates alongside writers such as Bartolomé de las Casas and Francisco de Vitoria. The Corónica addresses institutions including the Ayllu, the mit'a labor system, and colonial fiscal practices, proposing reforms comparable in aim to petitions submitted to the Cortes and royal administration in Madrid.
The Corónica blends historical narration, ethnography, legal argumentation, and satirical polemic; its themes include pre-conquest political organization of the Inca Empire, the moral critique of abuses under the Encomienda and by corregidores, and recommendations for a more equitable administration by Crown officials and clergy. Its illustrations combine Andean iconography with European visual tropes familiar from prints circulated in Seville, Antwerp, and Rome, depicting scenes that reference figures such as Atahualpa, Spanish conquistadors connected to Francisco Pizarro, and colonial officials like corregidores and alcaldes. Guamán Poma invokes legal and moral authorities including papal precedent associated with Pope Paul III and juridical theories debated by scholars at the University of Salamanca and the University of Alcalá, aligning some arguments with humanist petitions advanced by figures such as Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda's interlocutors while opposing vindications of conquest.
Although the manuscript was never delivered to or formally acknowledged by the Spanish Crown in Guamán Poma's lifetime, it circulated in certain bureaucratic and intellectual networks and was preserved in collections connected to officials and collectors in Denmark before its rediscovery. Modern scholars trace its reception through archives associated with repositories like the Royal Library of Denmark and its eventual introduction to historians of the Americas in the 20th century, situating Guamán Poma alongside chroniclers such as Bernardino de Sahagún and José de Acosta as central witnesses to early colonial Andean history. The Corónica has been essential to debates about indigenous testimony, colonial legality, and indigenous agency in scholarship developed in institutions like Harvard University, the University of Oxford, and the National University of San Marcos.
After composing the Corónica, his later years remain partially obscure; archival traces place him in correspondence and local matters tied to communities around Cusco and possibly Lima, subject to the same pressures faced by indigenous petitioners in the Viceroyalty. His legacy has grown through editions, translations, and scholarly analysis by historians such as Rolena Adorno, John V. Murra, and Terence D'Altroy, and through exhibitions at institutions like the British Museum and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The Corónica continues to inform disciplines and fields including ethnohistory, colonial legal studies, visual studies of the Americas, and indigenous intellectual history, influencing contemporary discussions at universities and cultural institutions across Latin America, Europe, and North America.
Category:16th-century Peruvian people Category:Peruvian chroniclers Category:Quechua people