Oppression of the Natives by the Ruling Elite in Latin Ameri essays

Oppression of the Natives by the Ruling Elite in Latin Ameri essays The Clorinda Matto de Turner novel Birds Without a Nest exposes the theme of absolute rule by elites in local communities in late colonial Latin America. These authority figures, as expressed by Turner, tell the reader in these parts of the world, the victims that escape the hands of the priest fall into the power of the authorities and ...if we fix our eyes on the Indians, the heart grows desperate before the oppression which they endure from the priest and the caciques (128). This theme is one that is recurring in Latin America in the late colonial periods. In Turners novel, the four local authorities; the Priest, Sub-Prefect, Judge and the Governor control the town of Killac; all oppress the native Indians in order to maintain a lifestyle that they are accustomed too. In the following paper, I would like to analyze how local authorities manipulate society in order to benefit themselves, through techniques such as debt peonage, demoralizing the natives, and controlling the local la ws. Early in the novel, the audience finds out about priestly corruption and suppression of Native Indians. This is evident when Father Pascual imposes an embargo on the Yupanqui family crops due to a loan provided to cover a burial of Marcelas mother-in-law. This results with a collector pursuing Juan Yupanqui, a native Indian, to pay a ten-dollar loan, which with the five hundred percent interest, grew into a one hundred twenty-dollar debt. Such distributions in advance (10) represent one of the ways the local caciques try to force the native peoples to pay their labor. However, due to the high interest, the debt is almost impossible to eliminate. This forces the natives to provide some sort of payment to the lender for indefinite periods of time. Treatment such as this toward natives was quite common throughout Latin America in the late Colonial Period since there were no local banks established and local priests and...