Uncommon commodities: Articulating the global and the local on the Orinoco frontier

Abstract

The frontiers and borderlands of the Spanish colonial project witnessed diverse interactions in which Native peoples were often able to negotiate a greater degree of economic and social autonomy compared with that typical of colonial centers. In areas where major Spanish economic endeavors, such as mining or large-scale plantations were not feasible, other “hidden” commodities, well adapted to local conditions, were essential to the maintenance of the colonial enterprise. In the Middle Orinoco region, local resources, such as manioc, turtle oil, pottery, shell beads (quiripa), and forest products were fundamental items for exchange prior to and following European colonization. These industries, which were dependent on local expertise and raw materials, fostered productive relations and regimens of land tenure for local populations that profoundly influenced the articulation of political economies in colonial and postcolonial contexts. In this chapter, we will draw on archaeological evidence, historical sources, and oral tradition to illustrate the relations that arose between agents dealing with these commodities and their articulation with local and global economies. In contrast to neighboring regions, such as the Lower Orinoco, where a mining economy developed early on, or the Upper Orinoco, where rubber extraction led to devastating coercive exploitation of indigenous peoples, the Middle Orinoco was the arena for demographic recovery and the evolution of a distinctive combination of agricultural, ranching, and extractive economies, often defined along ethnic lines.