INDIGENOUS PROTAGONISM AND AGENCY ON THE COLONIAL FRONTIERS OF THE CHACO.

18TH CENTURY

Abstract

This paper aims to describe, explain, and analyze, through a particular case focused on the reconstruction of a reduced indigenous parental group in the Jesuit missions of the Chaco during the 18th century, both indigenous agency and Amerindian protagonism. The discussion centers on debating indigenous agency by rescuing the Amerindian experience as an individual and collective field of actions; that is, considering individual and communal actions that express a rational decision-making process not exempt from conflicts between particular subjects as well as between different parental groups roughly associated with ethnic groups, as is the case with the Abipones. In turn, Amerindian protagonism is discussed through an examination of the Indian wars that devastated borderlands, predominantly during the analyzed period. Finally, in the conclusions, an observation is formulated on how to overcome certain limitations inherent in the chosen documentary body, composed of writings produced by the Society of Jesus as well as secular documentation produced from colonial border power devices.