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The Construction of a Ventriloquist's Image: Liberal Discourse and the 'Miserable Indian Race'in Late 19th-Century EcuadorAuthor(s): Andres GuerreroReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Oct., 1997), pp. 555-590Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/158352 .

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J. Lat. Amer. Stud.29, 555-590 Printed in the United Kingdom ? I997 CambridgeUniversity Press 5 5 5

The Construction of a Ventriloquist'sImage: Liberal Discourse and the'Miserable Indian Race' in Late I9th-Century Ecuador*ANDRES GUERRERO

In the image, the body loses its corporeal reality;in the rite, the non-corporeal becomes flesh.Octavio Paz (1969: I20)Abstract. How are images constructed from one of Ecuador's politicaldiscourses? This article analyses: (i) the transition in I857 from a state-centredform of administration of indigenous populations (the tribute system) to adecentralised form in the hands of private and local powers which effectivelyrendered these populations invisible; (2) the ensuing power-game betweenConservatives and Liberals which aimed to forged a symbolic analogue of theindian and create a political field; (3) the manner in which the Liberal Revolution(I895) implanted a 'ventriloquist's' political representation which became achannel for indian resistance; (4) the research problems which 'invisibility' of theindians and the 'ventriloquist's' voice pose for historians.At dawn on Wednesday 6 July I990 Ecuador was informed by radio andtelevision that a great indian uprising was blocking the roads in theAndean region, above all in the centre and the North. In the provinces,various capitals were besieged by a population estimated at hundreds ofthousands, women and men of all ages. That day, and the following, theurban markets remained empty. By force, but without violence, the indianorganisations took control of radio transmitters in the cities, so as topublicise their programmes. They further requisitioned supplies anddistributed them. Finally, they called the provincial authorities to themarket places to listen to their demands: directly and in person.That morning, confronted with a political situation of such magnitude,which would paralyse the country for several weeks, the President had to

Andres Guerrero is Professor of the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales-Ecuador.* Translated by Tristan Platt.Abbreviations: AB/FL, Archivo y Biblioteca de la Funci6n Legislativa; ANH/Q,Archivo Nacional de Historia, Quito; BE/AEP, Biblioteca de Autores EcuatorianosAurelio Espinoza Paez.

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556 Andres Guerrerointervene. In a speech charged with indignation, Dr Rodrigo BorjaCevallos gave his version of the facts by putting forward an image of theindian:Agitatorswithout patriotismor nationalfeeling are trying to split the country,making malicioususeof thehighlandndians.(...) I want to say to the peasants of myFatherland, ...) that in five hundredyearsno government,whether colonial orRepublican,has done more to solve the problemsof the indian communities hanmy government, seeking a solution to theirproblemsand obliging everyone totreat them as humanbeings,as Ecuadoreanswith the same rights and duties(emphasisadded).1

In these words we can perceive a mental schema rehearsing the topicsof an image preserved for over a century in the unchanging recesses of thewhite-mestizo politicians' historical memory. It consists of imagesinherited by children from their parents, by grandchildren from theirgrandparents, persisting through generations of families made up ofpoliticians, senators, deputies and ministers, until at last there emerges aPresident. Thus the great-grandfather of Dr Rodrigo Borja Cevallos hadalready sketched a similar image of the indian at a congress towards theend of the last century:My father2was indignantwith thefalseredeemersf the indianrace,and exclaimedin one of the Congresseswhich he attendedas Senator: these Reformsarebeingcarriedout, not from love of the indians but from hatredof the whites.' And DrBorja(the President'sgreat-grandfather),s is well known, was distinguishedbyhis feelingsof pietyandcompassiontowards the indianrace.(...) And therehavebeen,andare,other landowners ike Dr Borja,generally hose who belong to thebetter social classes, who have treated the indianas a humanbeing ... (emphasisadded).3

This discourse projects an image with two sides. On one side, theindians appear as simple-minded beings, ingenuous creatures who havenot yet reached adulthood, since they remain the object of 'malicious'strategies and manipulations. On the other side, the image is that of thedominant classes, with a strategy of condescension: the magnanimity -noblesse oblige - of 'treating the indians as human beings'.Sustained by this image, both commonplaces exceed the limits of a1 La Hora, 7 May 1990, Quito: El Universo,7 April I990, Guayaquil.2 The reference is to Dr Luis F. Borja, that is, the great-grandfather of President BorjaCevallos, who was one of the founders of Ecuadorean liberalism, a well known jurist,several times senator and Minister-Judge of the Supreme Court at the end of the

nineteenth century. E. Ayala, Lucha politica y origende los partidos en Ecuador (Quito,1978), pp. 1o3, 303, I I, 323, 325: M. Perez B., DiccionarioBiogrdficodel Ecuador(Quito,1928), pp. 104-5: F. Trabuco, Constituciones ela RepublicadelEcuador(Quito, 1975), pp.220, 555, 623, 625, 629.

3 Dr Luis F. Borja (i922), 'A prop6sito de un libro', in P. J. Alvarado (1922), El indioecuatorianoQuito, I983), pp. 256, T.I.



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A Ventriloquist's Image 557merely individual ethic and mental perception; they describe a politicalimaginary frontier which differentiates the progressive landowners blessedwith 'piety and compassion', the 'true redeemers', on the one hand, andthose who are 'soulless and compassionless', the reactionary 'falseredeemers of the indian race', on the other. Pronounced in a Congress -that is, in a precinct saturated with political resonances - such phrasessuggest that, by the end of the nineteenth century, certain mentalperceptions had managed to delimit - as political discourse - a newpolygon of forces, or field of play4 for white-mestizo politicians. Asymbolic division, the shadow of the image of the indian, had separatedthe politicians in the final decades of the last century, marking out theirideological positions and their legitimate and legitimising discourses.These matrices of thought indicated divisory thresholds between thosewho recognised themselves - and were recognised by others - as Conser-vatives and Liberals; they established a crossing-point within the politicalcoordinates.

How was this image of the indian formed - the image manipulated inI990 by President R. Borja Cevallos to explain the uprising that hadparalysed the country? Or rather, what was the political game whichallowed its emergence? And what was its function in the strategies ofpower? The following pages attempt to explain some of the historicprocesses and contexts which led to the formation of one image of theindian (the political) at the end of the nineteenth century, and itssubsequent officialisation by the state in the Liberal Revolution of I895.Amidst forgetting, revivals and changes, certain aspects of this imaginaryconstruction have persisted to the present. Moreover, they managed tospread (and hence legitimise themselves) as a liberal inheritance in socialistand communist political and literary circles during the first three decadesof this century.5 The same discourse flowered on several horizons, indifferent moments and places of political conflict: it was a spearheadforged in the struggle against the Conservatives and the Catholic Church,condensed in confused discourses concerning the indian, at once juridical,racist and political.To understand these processes requires a historical periodisation and atheoretical detour concerning the conditions under which an image isformed. Indeed, to investigate the political discourse concerning theindian that emerges at the end of the nineteenth century in Ecuador, or- in a more exact metaphor - to analyse its immersion from a previous

4 P. Bourdieu, La distinction,critiquesocial dujugement(Paris, 1979), pp. 103-5.5 P. Jaramillo A., El indio (Quito, 1983). Julio E. Moreno and Victor G. Garces in F.Tinajero (comp.), Teoria de la culturanacional(Quito, I986). Jorge Icaza (1934) in A. F.Rojas, La novelaecuatoriana(Guayaquil s.f.), p. 52.



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558 Andres Guerreroperiod when indians were concealed beneath the shadow of citizenship, itis necessary to take into account the modes of ethnic administration6adopted by the State after Independence. There are two periods:7 duringthe first stage (I 830-5 7) the new Republican State administered the indianpopulation directly as a public entity, following - with minor variants -the model of its colonial predecessor. Then, in a second stage, once theconditions of tributaries was eliminated in the mid-nineteenth century andthe status of citizen extended in principle to all Ecuadoreans (withrestrictions as regards the female gender, age-groups, wealth and work-status) the relation of the State with the indians changed.8 By an act ofomission rather than a policy of State, the administration of thispopulation was delegated surreptitiously (avoiding all legal specification)to a varied, heterogeneous and private organism: it was handed over tolocal, or rather regional, powers.9 Thus, during this second stage whichlasted - in a state of deep disintegration - till the middle of the twentiethcentury, ethnic administration became a private rather than a publicphenomenon: it corresponded to the configurations of power, at the levelof a valley or a region, formed by the haciendas nd the parish church, themunicipal councils and the functionaries of State, the ethnic mediators andthe personal links - economic and ritual - between 'town whites' andindian commoners (comuneros).In the second half of the nineteenth century, with citizenship extended- potentially - towards the population previously recognised as indian'tributaries', there emerged a strange and contradictory phenomenon.The Ecuadorean State hid the existence of an ethnic majority of non-Spanish speakers. However, rather than simply ignoring this majority,what it did was remove from its codes and organising principles thepresence of populations marked by ethnic difference. The old 'tributaries',who did not fit into the category of white-mestigo citizenship, were shiftedinto an implicit category: they were transformed into ethnic subjects ofthe Republican State; they remained enclosed in a silent category, neverlegislated upon, hidden beneath the body of the citizenry.

6 I borrow the notion of administration of populations from M. Foucault, 'Lagouvernementalite', in Dits et Ecrits III (1976-1979) (Paris, I994), pp. 635-57.7 For further developments in these periods and the concept of 'administration ofpopulations', see: A. Guerrero, 'De sujetos-indios a ciudadanos-etnicos: de lamanifestaci6n de 1961 al "levantamiento" de I99o: la desintegraci6n de laadministraci6netnica', in Democracia,tnicidad violenciapoliticaen lospaisesandinos(Lima, I994), pp. 83-103.8 There was a firstattemptat suppressingthe condition of 'indian tributaries' n I821.The tribute was reinstatedin i828 by Bolivar himself. After the formation of theRepublic of Ecuador in 830o, t continued until 1857.9 A. Guerrero, 'La loi de la coutume et la loi de l'Etat', Annales,Economies,ocietes,Civilisations,2 (1992), pp. 33 -54.



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 559Now, this process of change in the form of ethnic administration from

public to private, and its effect of concealment upon the indians, shouldbe associated, from a theoretical point of view, with the conditions offormation of an image considered as a mental representation. Indeed,'... the image is an act which indicates, in its corporeality, an absent ornonexistent object, by means of a physical or psychic content which isonly delivered, in fact, as the analogical representation of the objectindicated.' In other words, the image implies an omission, an intuitive-absent object.'? The act of state alchemy which abolished the ethniccondition - that is to say, the omission of the indian population beneaththe cloak of citizenshipl - together with its relegation to the status ofsubjects, was undoubtedly the condition of possibility (in a transformationof the discourse-image concerning the indian) for one of the politicalforces in conflict (Liberalism) to sculpt a figuration of the indian to themeasure of its interests: an effigy could then be designed, used as astrategy of power, and imposed like a threat which, at the dawn of thetwentieth century, would defy the Conservatives and the Church.The indian tributaries of the Nation-State (183o-f7)From the beginning of the Republican period the indians - or 'indigenes'as the Laws call them - are a public entity. They come from a classification(that of indian/white) which distinguishes, differentiates and amalgamatesa population heterogeneous in language and history, territory and society.This involves constituting a social group through an act of imagination.The decree of the Liberator Simon Bolivar in 1828 implanting the tributecreated the political category of 'Colombian indigenes'. Later, thoselocated in the 'Departments of the South' would be recreated as'Ecuadorean indigenes' in I830, with the foundation of the Republic ofEcuador:Art. i. The Colombianindigeneswill pay from the age of 8 until 5o years old acontribution which will be called the personal ontributionf indigenes.12(myemphasis).

Rather than an image, at the start of the Republic the indian is aclassificatory category which governs a process of ethnic identification andregistration. Who is the indian? The definition of the tributary indian isgoverned, according to a late Ecuadorean law of 85I, by maternalisation,though attenuated by legitimacy of birth:0 J. P. Sartre (1940), L'imaginaire (Paris, I986), pp. 34 and 46.The phenomenon also occurs in other countries of Latin America, see: X. F. Guerra,Mexico: del Antiguo Regimena la Revolucidn(Mexico, 1992), pp. 24, T.I., 329, T.I.12 Decree of I5 Oct. I828 given in Bogota, Index of the OfficialRegisterof the RepublicofColombia:1828-29, p. 56 (AB/FL).



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56o Andres GuerreroArt. 4. Legitimatechildrenof white and indian will follow the condition of thefather,and of the mother if they are illegitimate.13

Here we must pass over the problems of concrete application arisingfrom these laws, (such as those of distinguishing and verifying if the fatheror mother were 'white' on the ethnic peripheries, in towns surrounded bycommunities with dense, multiple and secular links between whites andindians.) However, we should emphasise the different symbolic andmaterial manifestations acquired by the indians on the view of the state.In the first place, a juridical corpus defined and installed the category and,once differentiated and recognised, endowed it with specific rights, duties,authorities and lands.14 Second, the identification was directed as a censusobjective, the registration of every adult male by name, surname and age,place and cacique:once transformed into tributaries, qua indigenes, theState conceded them a personalised existence. Third, and more abstractlythough no less real the indians were an important fiscal income, a sum ofmoney registered in the state budget. They appeared, therefore, in adouble set of demographic and monetary figures representing a tributarypopulation made concrete through statistical records. Fourth, thereexisted a bureaucracy, a hierarchy of functionaries, which descended fromthe Ministers in the capital to the caciquesn the distant parishes, and whosefunctions consisted in counting, collecting, locating, charging, pursuingand defending every indian, valley by valley, community by communityand house by house. Fifth, the indians became a state concern insofar asthey constituted the object of discussions and decrees on the part ofgovernmental and parliamentary authorities. Finally, the State recognisedthe workers of the haciendas,egislated the juridical figure of 'ascription toa farm', and delegated its administrative power to the patrons of indians.15To sum up: the indians in this period came to exist for the State. Theyconstituted an object of ethnic administration, a concrete reality withmany facets; demographic, censal, fiscal, bureaucratic, juridical, political,and of course - and this is what most interests us here - discursive. Anexamination of some laws and of the parliamentary debate reveals therhetoric dominant at the time.13 Law of the Ecuadorean National Convention of 30 May I85 I (AB/FL).14 I refer not only to previous laws, but also to the corpus of decrees, circulars, reports,

rulings, which govern ethnic administration in the citizens' republic.15 'Adscription' is a juridical and political term connected with concertaje.The 'peons'(conciertos)on the farms are declared 'adscripts' (adscriptos), by Law, and cannotabandon their patrons even if their debts are paid. It also means a delegation of powerfrom the State to the patrons in the administration of the population resident on thefarms as 'miserable people' (personasmiserables).Requests to the Ministry of the Interior

I83I (ANH/Q).



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 56Between 1830 and 1844 several legal instruments were extolled for the

purpose of 'protecting' the indigenes from the abuses attendant ontribute-collection. I transcribe one example of juridical discourse:I847. Secretariat of the House of Representatives,Quito, 23 September 1847, 3rd of Freedom.To the minister of Finance.Sir, your finance commission (of the Parliament) has examined... the law whichrents out the personal contribution of the indigenes .. The mere idea ofincreasing,by this measure,the sufferingsof this needylass, he most unfortunateof our society,hasprovokeda vivid andtragic mpressionon the membersof thecommission,which desiresyou to reject franklysuch a projectin homage to theprinciplesof humanityand justice,and through philanthropic eeling in favourof that group of Ecuadoreansalready sufficientlyunhappy because of theirignorance nd misery. (...).16 (emphasis added).

This juridical formulation is not extracted from the Archive by chance.It was the function of the state to protect the indigenes. The lawsconcerning the 'indigenous personal contribution'17 dedicated a wholesection to 'exemptions' and the 'protection of the indigenes'. They aredefined - being tributaries and not citizens - as a population lacking thecapacity of self-defence and, following an implacable logic derived fromthe notion of citizenship, the law assigns them a particular juridical status:they are 'miserable people', unable to exercise their rights. The Statethereby assumed the role of representing those people who werecategorised as indigenes, and decided: 'in all civil or criminal matters thatarise between indigenes or against them..., to act for them and in theirfavour'.18 Obviously, to fulfil this function required a complex apparatusof'protectors', of mediating agents between the indigenes and the publicpowers.In the laws, decrees and circulars of the governors, ministers andlegislators, we observe an economy of language which seeks above all tobe precise and concise, since that, at the end of the day, is its objective. Onthe other hand, with the role of' protection' there looms a certain rhetoricconcerning the indian. Topical words appear, such as simplicity,unhappiness, ignorance and misery. To interpret these words, we mustremember that the task of protection is governed by a paralogicalastuteness which defines the role with appropriate discourse. Since it isestablished by the Laws of the Republic that the indians are in thatcondition (the Laws declare them to be so), governors and legislatorsmust fulfil their corresponding protective functions repeating - as logical16 Secretariat of the House of Representatives, 23 Sept. 1847: Constitutional Congress ofthe State of Ecuador, 38 Nov. I833; El Nacional, 22 Dec. 1846, no. 52; El Nacional,13 March I849, no. 223 (AB/FL).17 Decree of 5 Oct. 1828 given in Bogoti by S. Bolivar, Index of theOfficialRegister,Lawsof 30 May I85I and 23 Nov. I854 (AB/FL). 18 Ibid. Law of 30 May i851.



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562 Andres Guerrerojustification and ritual speech - that their status is that of 'miserable', asindians. Such phrases undoubtedly sketch a vague profile of the indians ina frontier region between their real social situation, the juridical conditionwhich defines them, and the social imagery created by the relation ofethnic domination. However, these phrases do not compose a politicalimage. What emerges from the texts is above all an administrativeconcern, since functionaries and parliamentarians have first to identifythem behind the legal status of 'miserable', in order to be able tointervene. The content of the condition of the 'miserable' comes from thesame Republican juridical code, and is a counterpart of citizenship whichallows a certain category of excluded people to be recognised. Therefore,it seems, the adjectives which qualify the indians in this period are aboveall part of a legal argument. Those who make use of them invoke a doublestatus, astride two codes of state recognition, the tributary and the citizen.The tributaries are indians and, as such, citizens - but in a miserablecondition. These cliches belong to a symbolic logic of a juridical kind,whose aim is to define and classify, and - for this very reason - excludeany fantasy about the indian, since a functional logic is given priority.Therefore, when the texts talk about the unhappy, ignorant and miserableindians, they define above all a population category and the rights whichissue from the legal status beneath which this category is recognised by thestate.19From mentalperceptions o rhetoricalimagesWhere can the indian be found in this period? The search leads away fromthese state precincts and documents and towards discourses less filtered bybureaucratic codes, situations and spaces of expression; and above alltowards places where the forms of perception of the Other issue forth inpublic and spontaneous expressions. Finally, towards a place or momentof rhetorical fantasy where the objective pursued by those who participatein the verbal contest is that of creating alliances or confirming solidarities,while at the same time opening breeches of differentiation, antagonismand animosity. By a double mirror-effect, when these discourses talk of theOther, they also locate those who speak: they express their social origin,19 The Law of Great Colombia which suppressed the tribute in 182I (restored in i828),

granted for the first time citizen rights to the whole population and eliminated thecategory of indian, and also specified 'considering, however, the miserable state inwhich they live (...) in civil or criminal causes will be brought by indigenes as by allother citizens considered in the classof miserable,without payment of any dues' (Art. 8)Law of 4 Oct. i82i. By definition, the miserable cannot exercise citizenship. Leyes deColombia:1821-1827 (Caracas, 1840). See also: Castafieda, P., "La condici6n miserabledel indio y sus privilegios", in Anuario de Estudios Americanos, T. XXVIII, No. 28(Madrid, 197I).



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 563their personal trajectory, the position they occupy in the political field and,in particular, their preferred strategies of power. We must seek, frozen inpaper and ink, communicative situations where there appears - adoptinga notion from Habermas - a 'remissional' conjuncture. That is to say, weshall search for a misunderstanding, a disagreement or a conflict whichwill render problematic certain referential aspects of everyday com-munication; a moment in which that dense web of 'trivial andunquestionably solid' meanings becomes open to question, as a necessarycondition for understanding what is being said.20A situation in which theunknown sediment of the 'lifeworld' of the participants becomestransparent.Let us therefore leave the documents of the Presidency and theMinistries and move to the archive of the Senate and House ofRepresentatives, searching through the parliamentary debates. Tounderstand the interventions of the Honourable Deputies, it should berecalled that public men in nineteenth-century Ecuador constituted ahandful of people, not more than three or four dozen,21 who with thepassage of generations alternated in elections and military coups. Thesepeople knew each other from their daily dealings with each other, 'bysight' or at least 'by hearsay'; by lineages and kinship; by family loyaltiesand betrayals in the past, present and future; and by neighbouringhaciendas or shared business interests. They formed par excellence therestricted group of citizens, in a society where acquaintance and referencewere primary in the definition of a person, both of them understood asnetworks of close cohesions and antagonisms. The autonomous in-dividuality of men, and still more of women, weighed little, and still lessthe abstract and universal principles of the ethic of citizenship.22 The waysof thinking of this group, above all as far as indians were concerned, werebased on a lifeworld almost without structural differentiation, and weldedtogether, of course, by a fundamental though obviously unmentionableconsensus: ethnic domination.

Those parliamentary debates are scarce, even exceptional, which makesthe indian population the theme of rhetorical contests between groups ofsenators or deputies.23 The dearth is significant and requires explanation.20 J. Habermas, Teoria de la accioncomunicativa.Critica de la razdnfuncionalista (Madrid,

1988), p. 86, T.II.21 R. Quintero, 'El caracter de la estructura institucional de representaci6n politica en elestado ecuatoriano del siglo XIX', in Segundoencuentro e historiay realidadecondmicaysocialdel Ecuador(Cuenca, 1978), pp. 242-3.22 F. Hassurek (I865), Four Years amongEcuadorians(Southern Illinois University Press,1967), p. 138.

23 From a total of I,056 'economic debates' in Parliament (Houses of Deputies andSenators) between I83o and the end of 900, only eleven appear to concern indians, and



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564 Andres GuerreroA brief survey of documents in the archives leads to the followingconclusion: bureaucratic concern with the indians solely involvedadministrative functions. Taking into account the authorities whichproduce these documents, the form of their drafting, the channels of theirtransmission and the style of language used, it may be suspected that theywere decisions adopted on the margins of political debate. For example,in matters such as ensuring tribute-collection, restructuring fiscal incomeor pursuing debtors, 'measures' were taken daily by functionaries who, inthe silence of their offices, emitted decrees, rulings and circulars. For therest, even when on some rare occasion an indian matter entered theParliament's daily agenda, the researcher is stunned and disheartened onreading the Acts of the debate. The decision is generally taken by aparliamentary commission, so any discussion remains unknown; orperhaps the honourable legislators did not even debate but only approvedthe motion placed before them. Everything ends in the meagre phrases ofa decree. Of course, the numerical, fiscal and manpower contributions ofthe indian population bear no correlation with these political debates.24However, there was an exception which plunged both houses intoheated debate during the legislature of 1855. Not surprisingly, for thetheme attached the interests of the hacendados.t raised the possibility ofunleashing competition between landowners for workers by legalising theso-called 'seduction' of contracted labourers. The debate turned on aconflictive article in the law on the indian personal contribution, dictatedby Parliament the previous year. Indeed, article 5 runs: 'the indigenousconciertoswho are ascribed to farms or manufacturies cannot be obliged towork off their debts, and may leave service paying what they owe... if theindigene demands it'.25 In translation: the conciertoswho wish to transferto the land of another hacendado, ecause their boss maltreats them or ismean with his 'advances', may do so by simply repaying their debt; whichin practice means that a landowner in need of labour can lift workers freelyfrom his neighbour by simply paying their debts and offering them bettertreatment.26

As might be expected, there were two positions in confrontation: onein favour of'freedom' to abandon the farms, the other supporting the'ascription' of the contracted labourers until they had completed the

eight of these took place before I857. M. Oleas and J. Andrade, Indicede debatesparlamentariosecondmicosQuito 1985).24 An example: debate on the 'Law of Conscription'. El Seis de MarTo, vol. I85 -I858,23 Nov. I853, no. 87 (AB/FL).25 Law of 23 Nov. I854, art. 5I, (AB/FL).26 A. Guerrero,La semdnticaela dominacidn:l concertajee indios Quito, I991), cap. 2.



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 565terms of their contracts. These two positions in themselves require littlediscussion, since what interests us here is the process by which discourseis generated. It reveals the logic by which an image of the indian isproduced. The debate of the honourable legislators turned on two points.First, the concrete principle of freedom of the labourers (conciertos)ascribed to farms, with which, secondly, they are brought to design thecontours of an indian depth psychology, of his 'character'. There followsa selection of the arguments expressed concerning the traits of the indian:National House of Representatives and of the Senate, debate on concertajei 855):I. In favour of freedom:The Honourable Bustamante:Knowing the character, the condition, the ignorancen which unfortunately thatunhappy class is still immersed, the Law wishes to leave the indigenes thefreedom to cancel their contracts ... can humanity and reason oblige the indigeneto be a victim of his lack offoresight, of his lack of discernment? (emphasis added).2. In favour of ascription:The Honourable Rivadaneira:If according to the law... (the indigenes) have the right to contract, Whyshouldthey be considered without intelligence when they have been granted legalcapacity ?The Honourable Parra:There is not so much idiocy in the indians that they should be consideredincapable of contracting (agreements) for themselves.3. The Honourable Freile:...I do not consider the indigenes as men, but rather as children who lacksufficient discernment to give their agreement, much less to enter into a contract.(...) They have been granted the rights of citizens, when as I say, they are weakerand of less worth thanchildren.Every day we can see an unhappy indian being ledby a boy wherever he wishes, and offering less resistance than a lamb. A man isfree by nature, a child is the slave of his condition. On the other hand, I appreciatethat if we protect them too much we are encouraging immorality... (emphasisadded)27

At first glance the situation is curious because the defenders of freedom,those same honourable gentlemen who argue for the right to abandon thehaciendas, also put forward the darkest picture of the indian character:slight intelligence, ignorance considered as an incapacity of understandingrather than of knowledge, and finally absence of foresight. The paradoxis even more striking, since these senators and deputies belong withoutdoubt to the same political current which demanded the repeal of thestatus of'protected' and of'indian tributaries', and their 'elevation' tocitizen rights.The defenders of ascription, in turn, counterattack from two positions.27 Acts of the House of Representatives and Acts of the Senate, 28 Sept. to 27 Oct. 185 5(AB/FL).



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566 Andres GuerreroIn the first, they have recourse to a reasoning which is simply the oppositeof the preceding: 'there is not so much imbecility' in the indians; and theyemphasise the inconsistency of their opponents, who have begun byconsidering the indian 'made equal with whites' and then affirm that theylack the attributes of human intelligence. Freile, hacendado nd senator,presents a second argument, the most elaborate and complete because itmanipulates an astute analogy to sketch the features of the indian asdepicted by both defenders and opponents of ascription. Freile makes useof an everyday stereotype of incapacity - the image of the child - as ameans of inventing an image of the indian as paradox: adults but children,and hence unfinished beings. The infant is a person in formation whotemporarily lacks the attributes of the adult (discernment, will, strengthand, one might add, full citizenship). The indian is in himself a 'child-man', a static being, who will never reach the stage of maturity... andneither that of full citizen rights. One of the recipes for the elaboration ofstereotypes consists of presenting a proof taken from everyday experiencewhich, by confirming the generalisation, naturalises it. The HonourableFreile relates an anecdote which deserves emphasis because it seems tocrystallise a commonplace. Two decades later, indeed, it would emergeagain from the pen of a famous historian: 'a boy (that is to say, anotherchild but white and therefore with the capacity to become an adult citizen)leads him wherever he pleases and he presents no... resistance', like agentle animal, a lamb. The comparison with an animal completes thenaturalisation of the indian's profile: he is a being not completely human,a being without a future but nevertheless already made. Freile's conclusionfalls by itself. He can be conceived as a paradox of nature and his destinyis to be a slave 'by condition'. The laws must protect him and, at the sametime, take precautions against his congenital inclination towardsimmorality because of his lack of discernment.Before indicating other places where a fantasy concerning the indianemerges in the political arena, it will be useful to pause for a moment toconsider, first, the conjuncture and the place where it appears, and, on theother hand, its nature as a mental representation congealed in words.These are the two determining aspects in the formation of the rhetoricalimage which we have just examined. The debate over article 5 concernedthe full range of landowners - big, middling and small, town and country.The heart of the matter was not to know whether the indians as such couldbe free or not, but rather whether other patrons could 'seduce' them ornot, make them abandon one farm to install themselves in another. Whatis at stake is the patron's complete control of'his' workers. But the themeof seduction appears concealed and, moreover, transmuted into a generaldigression on the freedom and the character of the indian. As the debate



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 567became conflictive, there emerged a typical conjuncture of remission. Theparliamentaries no longer understood each others' arguments, or rathertheir communication became saturated with implicit resonances. Thetheme of the freedom and the character of the indian arose in theparliamentary precinct in the heat of contradictory attitudes, in an arenafull of oratorical gestures towards material and symbolic interests. Thisconjuncture favoured an effort to formulate, make precise and define boththemes. In other words, those speech acts are only understood when theyare thought of as strategies for transforming a reality. Thus, when thehonourable gentlemen referred to the freedom or the character of theindian, they created a metalanguage, they manipulated words whichcarried with them depths of resonance where personal interests hadaccumulated. The historian today obviously does not share the vitalexperience or 'lifeworld' of those who lived in the middle of the pastcentury. Therefore, he or she interprets those words at the simple level ofmeanings, and they sound absurd, or at best hermetic. But for thehonourable men present in that day's session the matter must have beenas transparent as air: the discourses formed a set of implicit meaningsshared beforehand by all present. These meanings were in reality thetheme of debate.

Now consider the process of formation of the oral image. A figureemerges in a circumstance, a space and in the heat of conflict. Neither theplace nor the moment are neutral; on the contrary, they impose on thespeakers the rules and logic of conversion in order to exteriorise mentalschemes in rhetorical figures. Everything happens on the paradigmaticchessboard of the political, in the fabrication of alchemical words emittedby the representatives (people instituted by election) in order - in thename of the Ecuadoreans - to fashion the reality according to the law andconvert the law into reality. What is the symbolic prime material(analogies, metaphors, associations, evaluations, anecdotes) from whichthe image is constructed? The words exhibit mental schemes orrepresentation of the Other, a white-mestizo accumulation of predispo-sitions of shard behaviour. No doubt these structures are generated andreproduced during the flow of everyday ethnic domination. But becausethey are bodily and emotive expressions of everyday interethnic relations,they never move beyond a phase of gestuality which elides words andobviates the elaboration of discursive images. They condense in rhetoriconly in an arena of conflict, and precisely in conjunctures of remission.Some honourable gentlemen evoke specific aspects of a figure of theindian, while others oppose different features. Immersed in the game, associal agents they endow those expressions with a functionality accordingto their positions in the dispute. In this case, constrained by the norms



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568 Andres Guerreroinherent to the play of forces and the rules of parliamentary debate, theymanipulate these expressions with a view to their material and symbolicinterests. However, all make use of a shared imagery, they speak from thecommon denominator of their experience of ethnic domination, in-corporated into the schemata of a colonial collective mentality. That iswhat allows them to understand both explicit and implicit meanings, toplay with a metalanguage. As we will see later in relation to theconfrontation between Liberals and Conservatives at the end of thecentury, this is a reiterative symbolic phenomenon, since it recurs withother participants and interests in the same and different places andmoments of conflict.28

One last aspect requires emphasis. The image of the indian at thisperiod is characterised by its instability and erratic nature. It is not that itdisappears, but simply that it returns to its primitive condition of a latentmental perception. It constitutes part of a nebulous discourse within which,once invoked, it disappears again, only to reappear, briefly, on otheroccasions. In this first half-century no political theoreticians of the indiancharacter are to be found. Intellectuals who through the written wordsystematise on the basis of the image permanent links with the great gamesof opposition between social groups; in other words, who incorporate animage into public opinion. The worn phrase of the writer and politicianJuan Montalvo - 'if my pen should speak of the indian, it would bring theworld to tears' - to some degree confirms the situation, for his pen didnot speak. On the contrary, at the heart of his literary work is the portraitof the tyrant inspired by the characteristics of the President and DictatorJ. G. Moreno. No doubt the image of the indian had not yet become avaluable symbolic piece on the official political chessboard.The political concealmentof the Indian (Ig/7-y9)In 1857 the status of tributary was abolished, and then the apparatus ofethnic classifications was eliminated by the State.This terminated a longhistorical period that had begun in the sixteenth century.29 The status oftributary originally referred to a condition linked to Spanish royalsovereignty, which included the 'natives' of America as colonial subjects,members of the Crown on a lower level. For the state and in society theirjuridical, political and social condition was marked by the obligation topay an annual headtax: the indian tribute. As we have seen, shortly afterits inauguration the Republican State restored the category, an act which28 The conflicts between State and Church undoubtedly offered another setting where the

image of the indian appears, an important topic not explored in this article. An exampleis found in Gaceta del Ecuador,vol. 1841-42, 23 May I841 (AB/FL).29 Act of 28 Oct. I857: El Seis de Marzo, no. z67d (AB/FL).



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 569was denounced by many politicians of the period as incompatible with thenotions of equality, citizenship and the principle of popular sovereignty,the three cornerstones of the new State. But finally, with the abolition oftributary status there only remained a single modern category to expressthe relationship between national population and public powers: that ofcitizenship.30However, the defacto reality, both public and private, continued to beorganised by means of ethnic segregation. Since they could not speakSpanish, much less read and write it, the population previously identifiedas indigenes remained, by definition, on the margins of full citizenship.31For the citizenry of the nineteenth century - that is, adult, male, literateand wealthy white-mestizos - the unthought was practically unthinkable,namely, that the indians, people whom they were accustomed to treat astheir inferiors at home, on the land, in the streets and markets, couldpossibly be free and equal Ecuadorean citizens.The decree of 857 produced a magical effect on the state; registers forit simply obliterated the indian population from the documents. Theydisappeared from all the central registers of the state: from the laws,population censuses, State budgets, reports of ministers and governors,and from the correspondence between the higher authorities. If beforethat year there had been a few parliamentary debates where they appeared,afterwards they vanished almost completely. Thereafter, the men andwomen previously classified as indigenes belong to an implicit statuswhich places them in an ambiguous and, above all, undefined conditionin the symbolic corpus (the juridico-political) and State practices ofidentification. They are indian subjects of the Republican State and,therefore, a population abandoned to their customary devices in theprivate sphere, with their institutions, practices and norms. The notioninvolves an imprecise collection of social groups, ethnic authorities andcommunal institutions which have no legal existence, but are governed bymeans of a quasi-legislation of rulings, circulars and reports, writtennorms and verbal orders. They are people subject to a private andeveryday administrative power which emerges with the disappearance ofthe tribute and the ensuing withdrawal of the central State from indianadministration. The state tacitly delegates its sovereignty to local forms ofethnic domination. Perhaps the basic characteristic of this private ethnicadministration consists in the fact that conflicts of power occur in regional30 H. J. K6nig, "Simbolos nacionalesy ret6ricapoliticaen la Independencia.El caso dela Nueva Granada",in I. Buisson and G. Kahle (eds.), Problemas e laformacion elEstadoy la NacionenHispanoamericaK61n, 1984).31 Until 1873the indianscontinued with the statuteof 'protectionof poverty', whichwasan intermediary ondition for recognisingcitizensincapableof exercisingtheir rightsbecausethey were 'miserable'. SerieIndigenas873 (ANH/Q).



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570 Andres Guerrerobackstages, dispersed and segmented, ruled by their own gestural and oralcodes which exclude all written normativity with its anonymous andgeneral application.32With the concealment of the indians, in this second half of thenineteenth century, only two efforts were made - so far as I am aware -to construct a political image of the indian. Early in 1870 the historianPedro Fermin Cevallos, a man of law and a politician33 with a longtrajectory, dedicated the final volume of his Summaryof the History ofEcuador a work declared an 'official text' in 87134- to the customs and- briefly - the composition of the Ecuadorean population, with a table ofethnic, racial and psychological classifications.35A decade later, just as theLiberal Revolution was breaking out, the writer and politician AbelardoMoncayo analysed working conditions in the haciendas n a little bookcalled El concertaje e indios,which describes the labours, life and - aboveall - the character of the indians.36 Both writers, each in his own way andfrom different party positions, consolidated the liberal tendency ofthought in the second half of the century: they maintained a criticalposition towards the society and State of their day, and worked for itstransformation. Both were also celebrated public figures and reached highpositions in the State. They are analysed here not only because theirdiscourses converge and mesh together, but because Cevallos andMoncayo crystallise a long-lasting vision of the indian, which would laterbecome official.The imageof the life of the indianraceIn his history, P. F. Cevallos applies himself to describing '... the image ofthe life of an indian already civilized, christianized and socialized, an imageformed without colour or shadows, but quite natural, at most drawn inprofile, perhaps entirely without flesh.37 No other Ecuadorean historian,essayist, novelist or photographer thought it worth his while at all todescribe the life of the indian in the nineteenth century.38His aim is to paint the indian within a picture of the population,education, political organisation and 'customs' of the Republic. The32 A. Guerrero, 'De sujetos-indios', and La semdntica.33 P. F. Cevallos' career is impressive. Between I843 and I883 he occupied seven high

positions, was Deputy, Minister Judge and Minister of State.34 F. Trabuco, Constituciones,p. 576.35 P. F. Cevallos (I887), 'Geografia politica: Costumbres', in Resumende la historiageneraldel Ecuador desdesu origenhasta 184f (Quito, n.d.), T.VI (Quito, n.d.).36 A. Moncayo (I895), 'El concertaje de indios', in C. Marchan R. (comp.), PensamientoagrarioecuatorianoQuito, I986).37 P. F. Cevallos, 'Geografia politica', in Resumen,pp. I45-8I.

38 Chiriboga, L. and Caparini, S., Identidadesdesnudas,Ecuador I860o-920. La tempranafotografia del indio en los Andes (Quito, I994).



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 57figure is framed by a scheme of categories which are related to thecountry's need for cultural progress and civilisation; that is, racialdifferences, social inequalities, and a process of racial and cultural'whitening'. What follows is a summary based on volume six of hisHistory of Ecuador (entitled Customs and completed in 1887).Strictly speaking, there is no other race in the Republic but that correspondingto those few who keep pure their primitive origin, and such purity is only to befound among the indians, and not in all of them either, but rather among themgenerally. Apart from them, we only find mestizosof white and bronze, or whiteand black, more or less crossbred. (...)...in America, generally speaking, themestizoclass is preponderant, and yet a racial autocracy has established itself in thetowns, formed by European preponderances. Since the Republic opened its doorsto all nations the Caste of its sons has been improved, though slowly, by thegreater number of Europeans and English Americans, whose white and pinkcolour is admirably incarnated in its pure state, and even better in its mixed stateoriginating in the white and bronze of the Cordilleras. From the first spring themulatos, Zambosand zambelgos,and from the second those who - reducing thegenus to the species - we call mestizo, that is, those stemming from whites andbronze, and cholos,stemming from mestizos and indians. (emphases in text).And how strange! The blood of the indians which, unmixed with any other,should be held to be the most distinguished, and in spite of the physical possibilityof being so, occupies the lowest step on the social ladder. (...) From theintermixing of the European and American races, after two or three generations,there emerge beautiful and delicate forms, while it takes considerably longer toimprove the offspring of Europeans and Africans. Even so, those of the fourthor fifth generation - sometimes even earlier - produce children of a particularhue and with almost perfect forms, provided that the parents have all beenEuropean after the first intermarriage. (...)If our race is not regenerated by the mixture of others, there is no remedy,humanity and civilization will remain cast down and prostrate among us becauseof the impotence of such deeply-rooted customs... (the custom referred to isbullfighting, among others).39

One novelty is prominent among the confused categories employed byour author. Race, a concept which continues current in the politicallexicon well into the twentieth century,40 gives unit to the description ofthe population and society. Besides, it offers a scale for evaluating eachpeople's possibilities of progress and civilisation. This is what emerges ifwe compare Cevallos' text with the words employed in the parliamentarylaws and debates of earlier decades. Until mid-century the indigenes wereconceptualised by means of the notion of 'indigenous class', whichdesignated a specific group in society.39 P. F. Cevallos, 'Geografia political', in Resumen,p. 91 and 124.40 A. Knight, 'Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940', in R.Graham, The Idea of Race in Latin America, I87o-I940, pp. 7I-11. M. Demelas,'Darwinismo social a la criolla: el darwinismosocial en Bolivia i880-19I0', HistoriaBoliviana,no. 12 (I98I).



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572 Andres GuerreroCevallos' conception of society, which is in line with the racialtheories41 of the nineteenth century, establishes a prior point. There arethree pure races, and an order of values groups them according to beautyand intelligence, bravery, and culture. The white is at the top; the blackat the bottom; and in between, the American or indian. But besides the

pure races, there are mixtures which give rise to mestiZaje. Here theauthor's initial conceptual ambiguities can be seen. Sometimes heconsiders the pure races to be, in all cases, superior to the result ofmixtures. He then indicates the historical paradox of America: indianblood, if pure, should be situated at the top of the social pyramid, sincethe rest of the population shows the mark of mestigaje. But in fact itoccupies 'the lowest step on the social ladder'. Rather indirectly, forCevallos the mixtures lead to a degeneration of the 'blood' and areinferior in the face of 'purity'. This conclusion, which is left implicit inhis analysis, clashes, however, with the adjectives he chooses to qualify theproduct of the cross between the 'European race' and the 'Americanrace', since this could also give rise to 'beautiful and delicate forms'.Cevallos' essay falls into contradiction and denies itself a few lines after theadmiring adjectives when he readopts the classical racist thesis, accordingto which mestiZajehas better results as the proportion of 'whiteness'increases. In turn, the degeneration which accompanies mixtures of bloodis more biologically obvious in crosses with the 'Black race', at thebottom of the racial scale. Therefore, when combined with white blood,Cevallos recommends continuing with the mixture for four or fivegenerations, always with 'white' blood, in order to achieve humanspecimens characterised as 'with a peculiar tone and almost perfectfeatures'. Finally, with strict logical rigour, Cevallos considers that thecross between the two inferior races (Indian and Black) brings with itterrible consequences which are almost irreversible. He concludes, then,with a warning that has political consequences: as long as the Americanrace is not 'regenerated', that is, if it is not 'whitened', the country willcontinue submerged in a prostration in terms of both its humanity and itscivilisation.

The author establishes a subterranean connection between race,population and society. The races, primary biological fact, have a causalimpact on the characteristics and capacities of the population which, inturn, conditions the degree of progress and civilisation reached by acountry.4241 T. Todorov, Nous et les autres.La reflexionfranfaisesur la diversit bhumaine(Paris, I989).42 The vision of Ecuadorean society as composed of three races was also spread by J. L.Mera, a friend of Cevallos. J. L. Mera, Catecismogeogrdficode la Reptiblicadel Ecuador

(Quito, 874).



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 573On the spectrum of Liberalism, Cevallos lies to the Right and opposedto other contemporary authors. For example, Juan Montalvo wrote anarticle (perhaps drafted during his exile in Paris, I865-70) to defend a

position of confrontation with racialism. His argument rejects Taine'sclimatic determinism and the theory of the facial profile, so fashionable atthat time, as causes that determine the degree of intelligence, the characterof human groups and the advance of civilisations. He roots his inspirationin some principles of the Enlightenment: that human beings issue from asingle origin and therefore, under favourable conditions, all races areequally perfectible. As for contrasts of colour and feature, which can alsobe found among individuals of a single race, these cannot authoriseconclusions about intelligence, courage or civilisation. Neither do theyjustify the place, high or low, occupied by people in the social pyramidsince everything depends on how talented an individual is. There is butone factor which determines a difference in intellectual, social andcivilisatory development: 'Freedom is the supreme civilizer of men: apeople where the Black and the Indian can take their seats in the Senate,without detriment to the predominant race, has certainly done much forcivilization.43

Now, what is of interest here is the use made of this racialisedconception of society. Inversely to what might be expected from histheory, Cevallos adopted from the outset a critical stance towards socialand 'racial' inequalities. He denounced the 'racial aristocracy that subsistsin the Republic' and the generalised social behaviour which led 'thenoble ... to consider he has insulted someone by calling him mestiTo', thelatter similarly when he calls someone else a cholo,and so successively: thecholo when he 'insults' the mulato, the mulato the tambo, the Zambo theblack, and at the end of the chain, the zambothe Indian: 'For all, all, withmore or less vanity and relevance, preen themselves on their closer affinitywith the European race, and principally Spanish, even when moorish or'New Christian".' In his schema, Cevallos kneads together a conceptualdough which manages to mingle a causal theory of the blood factor in theorder of social hierarchies, with a vision which at the same time rejectssocial and racial inequalities as being arbitrary and noxious creations ofcivilisation. As proof, he mentions the absence of hereditary distinctionsin the 'primitive' world. Indeed, according to a qualified observer, amongthe 'savages of the Oriental Province (Amazonia) nobility of blood isentirely unknown'. This encourages him to denounce with romanticphrases the consequences of civilisation among the indians who 'liveamong us', and to conclude that 'it would be better to leave them43 J. Montalvo (1867), 'Ojeada sobre America', in: R. Agoglia (comp.), PensamientoromdnticoecuatorianoQuito, 1988), p. II9.



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574 Andres Guerrerowandering in the deserts and living among snakes and wild beasts...itwould be better for them to live that life of uncultured nature, but madebeautiful with the mantle of independence, than this abject andimpoverished existence which they lead among Christian and civilizedpeople...'44The concretelife of the IndianIn the second section the picture and the denunciation are concentratedand detailed. Cevallos passes to an elaborate description of indian life.Though he writes above all about the conciertosn the haciendas,he alsotakes profiles of various social situations: there appear 'the loose (suelto)indian', 'the City indian' and finally, 'the Jibaros or savages of ourforests'. The description adopts the appearance of a diptych that contraststhe conciertowith the savage, while following the trail of the individual lifecycle, from baptism to the tomb.It is not necessary to read between Cevallos' lines to realise that thisimage of the life of the indian is aimed, indirectly, at political and socialobjectives. In the various figures of the indian, the central theme of thesketches is projected generally against a background of haciendasandparish priests.45The concierto as a miserable existence in comparison withthat of the landholding indian 'who lives with independence', or of theartisans who live in the City and 'are not in complete abjection', and eventhat of the savages in the forest who lead a life 'made beautiful with themantle of independence'. On the concierto's houlders rests the worst of allsituations of oppression.46However, Cevallos' social criticism always remains in second place,above all as an allusive discourse, like that of a new political positionwhich was only emerging in those years: that of the 'progressiveConservative'. He uses his darkest colours to paint the concierto,but henever points to the hacendadosr accuses them openly; at most he mentionsbad parish priests. In the role of the objective historian he spices hispictures of national customs with miniatures on the 'miserable' (arecurrent term) conditions of life. Thus, from the start the indians cometo make their pact (concertarse)with the owners of the haciendasbecauseof their hunger and nakedness, because they are no longer the owners of'the lands which we now possess'; they lead a life of poverty, markedsince their youth (longos)by permanent and arbitrary work obligations;and above all they are obliged to receive a 'teaching (Christian doctrine)which teaches nothing' and the chapel masters give them beatings. Insum, in the haciendasthey remain subject to 'a slavery that only ends with44 P. F. Cevallos, 'Geografica Politica', in Resumen,pp. 89 and I75.45 Ibid. pp. 15 -7. 46 Ibid. pp. 164 and 75.



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A Ventriloquist'smage 575death': a 'life of expiation... life of supine ignorance that will pass beforeour eyes and which we will lament till God knows when.'Thepolitical discourseconcerningoncierto indiansThe idea of associating the general description of the indian race in societywith the rejection of the work conditions on the haciendas not exclusiveto Abelardo Moncayo. Another intellectual, Nicolas Martinez, publishedin 1887 various articles in the newspapers and unreservedly denounced thelabour laws of concertajewhich, he explained, had established 'a slaveryharder... than that demanded of the blacks'.47The indians arethe truepariahsof Ecuador;theyhave no politicalrightsandtheConstitution and the laws have not been written for them. (...) With suchelements, can there be a true Republicin Ecuador?48

His articles introduce themes that will become commonplaces amongstthose who rejected concertaje rior to its abolition in I9I8. For example:the sale of peons together with their farms; the impossibility of paying thedebt and leaving the haciendas, he town prison, the 'imaginary debt'(words repeated by A. Moncayo without citing the source).The exposition of Martinez is of interest here, not only because it worksagainst the discursive constructions of those years concerning the indian,but also because the contrast reveals meanings concerning the conditionsof production of a political image. How does he proceed to put togetherhis exposition? In spare prose he tells of situations of oppression. Heemphasises lived experiences or experiences known by him at first hand:49that a certain concierto ame to him and told him..., that such or such alandowner was taken to court and the judge..., that a few days ago anhacendado.., that the laws ... this indicates that, as far as content and formare concerned, his denunciation does not wallow in speculationsconcerning the feelings, the character or the morality of the indian. Hedoes not evaluate his degree of awareness, understanding or intelligence;nor does he conclude that subjection has submerged him in a state of nearanimality. Although he declares himself by principle and conviction a'defender of the most unhappy class in our society'. Martinez does notaim consciously or unconsciously to produce and impress an image onpublic opinion. He indicates and warns, describes and explains, but hedoes not compose a phantasmagoria of the indian which might serve asthe rallying point for a party. Nor, of course, did he rank as an47 N. Martinez, 'La esclavitud de los indios', La Nacion (Guayaquil, VI. i887);(BE/AEP). 48 Ibid.49 'A little time ago a cadaverousman dressedin rags approachedme to ask for advice.He told me that for seventeenmonths he had been in prison.... He was a contractedhaciendapeon...'. L. A. Martinez, La esclavitud'.



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576 AndresGuerrerooutstanding ideologue in the ranks of Liberalism, or occupy high posts ingovernment.Abelardo Moncayo, on the other hand, who reached among other poststhat of General E. Alfaro's Minister of the Interior (1898), did assume thetask of linking indian oppression and the contemporary political struggleto create a political image. His pamphlet (The Concertajeof the Indians)sought an explicit objective, to draw attention to the evils which afflict theindian in terms appropriate to the concierto f the hacienda, n order thusto identify the causal agents and propose a programme and a task: '... theoverwhelming accusation that can be levelled against Conservatism is thepresent state of the indian.'

Who are the accused? From the second page Moncayo focuses on awhole spectrum of social agents, from the hacendado nd parish priest, tothe police, passing through the military and the state authorities in thetowns. What are the accusations? Nothing less than that they produce theindian: 'The condensation of all possible shadows and miseries, a walkingdegradation, ignorance... servility... behold the indian, behold the mas-terpiece of the Christian, eternal domination of Conservatism! ' What is thehistory of this situation? '...Four centuries of near national existence[sic] .. and the injustices of the Conquistador still in full bloom!' And thesocial consequences for the whole nation? They contaminate the 'characterand spirit' of the Ecuadoreans; a 'cancer' [sic] is growing: servility is thematrix of a collective psychology tinged with passivity, the evil whichafflicts the indians. And the remedy or task? 'Suppress the atrocities ofconcertaje,uppress the preponderance of the priesthood in our society, andthe Republic will cease to be an absurdity here.'50In this X-ray of his social situation, the silhouette of the indian appearsin negative. The discursive strategy adopted follows a logic based on thedenunciation of the oppression of the concierto,and therefore of thehacienda, and also of the Church as landholder and educator. Thearrogance of the dominator and the obsequiousness of the dominated:'servility' from both perspectives produces an historic process of cultural,mental and physical degeneration, which is the cause of the brutishness ofthe indian population. However, Cevallos' racist conception is rejected byMoncayo, who even seems anxious to avoid the use of the notion of race.In some paragraphs he seems to take his inspiration from Montalvo'sthought: freedom is a factor which ennobles people, enlivens theintelligence, and moulds a 'lofty' character (for Moncayo, an antonym ofthe concierto ndian's servile and passive character) which is impelledtowards progress. A proof: it is enough to confront the conciertowith the50 A. Moncayo (i895), El concertaje,pp. 288-9 and 316.



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 577free indian in mentality, physiognomy and bearing.51 Both sharemisfortune and oppression. The free indian can also be perceived assuspicious, timid and distrustful, qualities which our author declares to be'instinctive, inbred'. But he sees differences, for 'in the face of the freeindian what he feels is almost evident, you divine in him a life of his own,you feel the presence of a soul, if only in embryo. The mere idea offreedom has been enough for a little of our halo, dignity, to appear on hisforehead... Intelligence already sparkles, you notice in him a will andtherefore an awareness of his own being.'52 Further on, when he specifiesa programme of social reforms, Moncayo explains what he understands byindian freedom.

In the ten sections dedicated to him, the denunciation of concertajetouches aspects already dealt with by Cevallos and Martinez, such as theinitial, unpayable debt, the distribution of kind (socorros)which inflate thatdebt, the hard labour to which they are subjected. Moncayo's originalitylies more in the form than in the content. The pamphlet seeks to producerhetorical effects, a symbolic incitement to emotion: it tries to move thereading public. The text appears destined to oratorical delivery before aheated party assembly. The linking of the paragraphs does not followstrictly the order and coherence required by a sociological or historicalexposition; the theme of each section seems deliberately diffuse. It obeysa different logic that advances by leaps, by association, and the oratoricalexaltation of one phrase summons up others, combined and put togetherwith words that are related in sound, content and emotive resonance. Thecomposition, syntax, words, punctuation, the flow of the phrase, thereiteration of themes: the whole texture of the writing communicates ameaning in itself. No question but that through the form the authorindicates that we are hearing a political communication which seeks toecho in the senses and secure the acquiescence - emotive rather thanrational - of readers in his proposals. The text carries the impress of thepurpose and the hand that writes it.It should be noted that the strategy of constructing a political discoursefocused on the indian, what Derrida calls an 'invention of the other as areflexive structure',53 most certainly does not emerge from a form ofsymbolic engineering discovered by the liberals at the end of thenineteenth century, much less by A. Moncayo. There were precedents. Atthe beginning of the nineteenth century it had already been a gambit51 There is political significance in the fact that A. Moncayo - well-acquainted withhighland mentality - only considers concierto ndians in his text, although this was astandard form of labour. A. Guerrero, La semdntica,chap. II.52 A. Moncayo, El concertaje,p. 3 5.53 J. Derrida, 'Psyche. Invention de l'autre', in Psyche.Inventionde lautre (Paris, 1987), p.I 7.



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578 Andres Guerreroemployed in a distant but remembered conjuncture. The heroes ofIndependence in New Granada forged the image of the indian 'oppressed'by Spanish colonialism, in order to define three political coordinates: first,to delegitimise colonial domination in America; second, to implant anessential marker of differences between creoles and chapetonespeninsulars)in the social imagination; and third, to construct themselves as thelegitimate 'avengers' of the dominated.54 Once used, the ploy continuedon course, replete with discourse and images, the same year and by thesame Congress which founded the Republic of Colombia and extendedcitizen rights to the indians. The indian girl, who had been built up as asymbol of freedom and until then had figured on coins and emblems, wasthen replaced in the coat of arms by 'a bust of Liberty in Roman costume',according to a law of Great Colombia.55The nature of the raceMethods of constructing a discourse on the indian fulfil the requirementsof a simple demonstration; after the initial diagnosis of the situation comethe illustrations of his character on the basis of experience and evidence,in order then, in a further step, to discern the underlying causes. In thisstrategy, the image fulfils an especially important function. It reflectsseveral figures on three levels: in the first appears the indian as a smoothreflecting surface - in the triple sense of allowing to be seen, meditatingand reflecting - which in turn identifies, on a second level, the guilty,those responsible; behind, but nevertheless fundamental, appear otherfigures, the savers of the oppressed that embrace within their justice-dealing gaze both the indian and the guilty. The more deep and grimy thepicture of degradation, the better defined appear the last two figures.In short, 'the character of the indian', the appreciation of hispsychology and degree of awareness, the evaluation of his intelligence andsensibility, define a crucial point in the strategy. The descriptions ofmisery and even physical degradation do not reach far enough. It isnecessary to reach the depths, his sublime and sacred being: his 'soul'.There are no words for the guilt and, therefore, the historicaldelegitimisation of those who have perverted his essence; neither,reciprocally, are there words sufficiently ennobling for the task of thosewho must free him, those charged with the re-generation of the indian, thecivilisers.54 'In historical contemplation, the indian was considered symbol of serfdom and hisliberation, on the other hand, was declared as motive for the Independence movement.Even the creoles felt themselves as the avengers of the oppressed indians.' A. K6nig,Simbolosnacionalesyretoricapolitica.55 Law of 4 Oct. I821, Leyes de Colombia,p. 89 (AB/FL).



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A Ventriloquist'sImage 579There follows the classification A. Moncayo offers of the deep

psychology of the indian (taken from The Concertajeof the Indians ofI895).Concertaje/racialdegradation/brutalization:... concertaje s the systematic degradation of an enormous portion of ourbrothers...; it is the legal condemnation of an entire raceto brutalization...Idiocy/indolence/insensibility:In his attitude,on his forehead,in his gaze, you read either consummate diocyor the lovelessness and entire indolence of a truncated, purposeless life.Weeping... although you should kill him, the indian does not weep; tenderfeelings do not springfrom atrophyof the heart.Laughter,yes, sometimes,andin his harsh cacklesyou feel the unqualifiedpreponderanceof matter.In love atleast, is not the indianhappy?In unmusicalbreasts can never sound that hymnfrom a distantregion;Brutality/timidity/suspicion/the eternal child:When he gets angry with his wife or his children,his ferocity borderson thesavage .. For the rest, invincible suspicion,timiditylike that of an eternalchild,andhatred,profoundandbarelyconcealedhatred or those he justlyconsidershisexecutioners such is the basis of his character.Lack of conscienceand will/annihilation of the soul:The indian's conscience is deaf, then, and dead? (...) The sympathies orantipathieshold no sway with him; but the near-annihilation f his entire soulgives rise to a lack of concern for all thatsurroundshim and, hence,the ease withwhich he blindly takes the path pointed out to him.56

The text does not aspire to present the real life of the indians. Indeed,the interrogation concerning 'the character of a people', in generalabstract terms, does not help to elaborate knowledge. At most it sketchesa group of stereotypes as a function of an implicit aim: it provides amethod of delegitimising on the political terrain, while at the same timeimposing the presence of an accuser and proposing a new legitimacy. Aswe know, the tones of the figure are combined according to the desiredeffect. As a political ideogram, it is of the performative type which acts ona field of contrasted forces. Thus, the bolder the lines and the morestylised the features of the symbolic artefact, the more powerful the hopedfor effect of rejecting 'Conservatism' and the adherents of 'Progress-ivism'.

What is the source of the ingredients of the image sketched byMoncayo? Undoubtedly, many re-emerge from diverse and distanthorizons located in the opening years of the colonial situation.57 Others56 A. Moncayo, 'El concertaje,p. 288, 294, 297, 299, 308.57 Compare he insistentrepetition o00years ater n CevallosandMoncayoof stereotypeswith a late colonial chronicler such as Antonio Ulloa. A. Ulloa, (x780); 'Genio,costumbresy propiedadesde los indios o naturalesde la provinciade Quito', in A.Ulloa, Viajea la America meridionalMadrid,1990), pp. 504-24.



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580 Andres Guerrerocome from conceptions created in Enlightenment Europe during theeighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and transferred to America. Howeverthis may be, they are mental representations transmitted from generationto generation among the white-mestiZo population (citizens), nurturedand consolidated from early infancy in daily experience of indians, menand women, in the city and the country. They compose mental schematawhich permit classification of the population and make possible strategiesof symbolic violence which seek to devalue the dominated and enhancethe image of the oppressors.58It is beyond the limits of this article to tell the history of the origins anduse of stereotypes of ethnic domination. However, it is necessary to pauseat the metamorphosis of this set of mental abstractions - which are afterall the unconscious habitus of practical meaning (du senspratique)- inrationalisations cast in writing and refunctionalised as ideology. This iscertainly an important moment in the strategem of image-making.The functionalist response can be rejected in advance. It is not aquestion of a conscious ploy or plan by Moncayo, or by any other liberalideologue. At most, their intuition as experienced public figures may havebeen involved. For them, the investigation of oppression externalised andsystematised their profound liberal convictions. But in centring theirdiscourse on the indian, they achieved an unexpected result: theyuncovered a symbolic field, they injected the political struggle into it, andthey provoked a redefinition of the power-relations between the parties.From the beginning, control of indians was a basic hinge in a colonialsociety where 'everyone' (the white-mestiZo population) lived from thelabour of indian men and women, and even with them (if they were house-servants) in their homes. Cevallos and Moncayo point this out. Butbesides, the Liberals directed their diatribe against the conciertos f thehacienda, hus bringing into their sights precise material interests of twogreat economic sectors of society: the landholders and the Church. Theirproposal, since they considered impossible full market freedom, was toreactivate and strengthen the protective intervention of the State in labourrelations, an area till then considered exclusive to private and local ethnicadministration. Two problems emerged from this. First, the image of theindian was linked with the role of the State in society; and second, it wasassociated with the conflict between state and Church.

The secularisation of the state and of society brought with it an oldquarrel that smouldered throughout the nineteenth century. It fed off avision that gained ground, together with that of citizen rights, as itproposed the autonomy of the state with regard to other powers or58 R. Adams, 'Ethnic Images and Strategies in 1944', in Carol A. Smith (ed.), GuatemalanIndians and the State: If40 to I988 (Austin, I990), pp. 4I-I62.



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A Ventriloquist'smage 58apparatuses, particularly the religious. By the end of the century one ofEcuadorean Liberalism's battle-horses was the separation between stateand Church and the breaking of Catholicism's monopoly on cultural life.This problem of course affected the life of the indian,59 extending a seriesof new causal links as the diagnosis of degradation deepened. As is wellknown, the parish priests were for centuries the only people in charge ofindian education. By de-authorising the Church as a civilising agent andassigning its role to the state, the Church was excluded from a major rolein society and, in passing, lost its role as protector of the indians, whichhad belonged to it since the beginning of Spanish colonisation.

The liberalpolitical programmeIn Moncayo, three coordinates establish the frontiers in a field of powergames: oppression in the haciendasand freedom; laws, local authoritiesand oppression; and last, the Church, State and progress. These are setsof terms which will be recomposed in different associations and polemicalcontrapositions throughout the nineteenth century. With the Concertaje fthe Indians, absence of freedom is definitely attached to the image of theindian. There are four aspects of this: first the conciertos mount to slaveryby contract since the indians debt becomes a mechanism of unlimitedsubjection and deceit - a theme, it will be remembered, that was amplydebated at mid-century. Second, concertaje revents the free contractingand circulation of workers between employers. And from yet a thirdperspective, beyond the haciendaawaits the oppression exercised by aswarm of personages: 'priests and sacristans, indian mayors andgovernors, political chiefs and parish lieutenants (tenientesparroquiales),commissaries and presidents of the Council, lawyers petty and not sopetty, all, all of them masters of the "free indian": and all with the rightto exploit him'.60 Finally, the responsibility falls on the Church since thepriests, with the pretext of marriages and parish education, connive withthe patrons to take advantage of the indian.A programme of state measures closes the denunciation. Moncayolocates a problem left unobserved till that moment: the theme of paymentby worksigns (raya de trabajo).The daily wage of 5 cents allotted to theconciertos'by local custom' when 'around the indian everything gets moreexpensive' and the free labourers earn four times more; and it is not theonly 'shame' since his wife and family also shoulder the unpaid domesticlabour of 'services' and 'houseservants' (huasicamas) or the patron and59 'Introductory Study', in F. Gonzales Suarez(comp.), F. GonZalesuaree.y apolemicasobreel estado aico(Quito, 1988), pp. 25i-6. I. J. Cordero, 'Introducci6n', in J. Peralta(comp.), Pensamientofilosdticoy politico (Quito, I988), p. 26.60 A. Moncayo, El concertaje,o. 312.



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582 Andres Guerrerohis wife: as also for the priest in the parish. But concertaje, esides beingimmoral, also demonstrates its own absurdity since it blocks the laws ofthe market and of labour, inhibiting progress. By sinking the indian in astate of apathy, it neutralises 'the two primary instincts... of life itself','discomfort and sorrow', on the one hand, and 'wellbeing and pleasure'on the other - the stimuli of our activity, the wings by which we raiseourselves to a higher plane of being...'61Hence Liberalism raises a slogan: 'Down, then, with concertaje!...themost radical and simplest solution would be, indeed, freedom of contractbetween those who seek and those who offer a service.' Note, however,that 'we must not delude ourselves'. It is impossible to proceed

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