Redes familiares, carreras eclesiásticas y extirpación de idolatría. Doctrina de Camiña, Tarapacá. siglo XVII

Abstract

The Spanish monarchy spread Catholicism in the New World by promoting both the conversion of native peoples and persecuting their ancient religious practices and beliefs. Local clergy at work in Indian parishes (who held a vast array of civil and ecclesiastical powers and, therefore, became mediators between Church, State, and their social milieu) were crucial players in this process. This article elucidates a set of seventeenth-century social and ecclesiastical accommodations crafted by key players in the Camiña parish (Corregimiento de Arica, Diocese of Arequipa) reconstructed using the details of an ecclesiastical promotion initiative. Such an initiative relied, we demonstrate, upon a transatlantic power network with branches both in the Peruvian Viceroyalty and Spain. The socio/political/ecclesiastical tapestry thus elucidated was built using local parish priests' family networks and the alliances they crafted with native chiefs, hilacatas, and prominent Indians. A clear view of these power networks provides scholars with the appropriate context to discern the socio-historical dynamics that better explain the nature of local, daily religious practices. Finally, this study has the merit of offering a pioneering ethnohistorical analysis of the process of extirpation of idolatry in Tarapacá.