Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life

by Fernando Santos-Granero

Overview

Analyzing slavery and other forms of servitude in six non-state indigenous societies of tropical America at the time of European contact, Vital Enemies offers a fascinating new approach to the study of slavery based on the notion of "political economy of life." Fernando Santos-Granero draws on the earliest available historical sources to provide novel information on Amerindian regimes of servitude, sociologies of submission, and ideologies of capture.

Estimating that captive slaves represented up to 20 percent of the total population and up to 40 percent when combined with other forms of servitude, Santos-Granero argues that native forms of servitude fulfill the modern understandings of slavery, though Amerindian contexts provide crucial distinctions with slavery as it developed in the American South. The Amerindian understanding of life forces as being finite, scarce, unequally distributed, and in constant circulation yields a concept of all living beings as competing for vital energy. The capture of human beings is an extreme manifestation of this understanding, but it marks an important element in the ways Amerindian "captive slavery" was misconstrued by European conquistadors.

Illuminating a cultural facet that has been widely overlooked or miscast for centuries, Vital Enemies makes possible new dialogues regarding hierarchies in the field of native studies, as well as a provocative re-framing of pre- and post-contact America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292719132
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	01/15/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Fernando Santos-Granero is a staff researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and has worked with the Yanesha of the Peruvian Amazon for three decades.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1. Histories of Domination
  • Chapter 1. Capturing Societies
• Part 2. Regimes of Servitude
  • Chapter 2. Captive Slaves
  • Chapter 3. Servant Groups
  • Chapter 4. Tributary Populations
• Part 3. Sociologies of Submission
  • Chapter 5. Markers of Servitude
  • Chapter 6. Servile Obligations
  • Chapter 7. Dependent Status
• Part 4. Ideologies of Capture
  • Chapter 8. Civilizing the Other
  • Chapter 9. Warring against the Other
• Conclusions
• Appendix. Assessment of Main Sources
• Bibliography
• Index