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Class notes LET-GESB966 (FamLifeUnderImp)
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Class notes LET-GESB966 (Family Life Under Imperial Rule)
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FAMILY LIFE UNDER IMPERIAL RULEperiod 4
lecture notes
WEEK 1
Lecture 1 “Families in the Spanish Philippines, 1650 - 1700”
cartographic maps sometimes create a discontinued space bc they only show certain parts of the world (i
really dont know if this is correct)
we should think of household registers as maps as well
why did the spanish have control over the philipines? —> the treaty of tordesillas —> temporal authority
over this domain is given to the catholic king as long as he’s gonna sponsor the conversion of that space
don(s) —> member(s) of the indigenous people who sided with the colonialists powers
the elderly & the unmarried people are not this list of households —> bc its meant to be a register of the tax-
paying units
widows, unmarried ppl, exempted from tax due to sickness, age or occupation (soldiers) —> listed in the
back
—> insights into structures of the family (tributes & conversion were the most important not to show the
pattern of the families)
household registers were constructed in line with burial & baptismal registers, why?
bc it was organised by the church
bc its much easier, u can keep track of every birth & every death —> they work coherently with one another
the registers tell u about the economic etc situation of the people and also about the broader economic and
social situation
until 1840s the surnames were NOT passed down to the kid —> usually it was the name of the godfather —>
started to change as a mean to tax ppl properly & to know who’s who
sometimes ppl kept their daughter in the tower, out of the marriage market to insure their purity for inter-
community marriages
network of patronages, the kids born (both illegitimate & legitimate) are also visible in those registers
burial registers, what do they include:
• the day when the burial happened
• whether or not they received the sacraments (to look at the suddenness of the death - if they were bit by a
snake they didnt received them bc they died super fast)
• ethnicity
• only children had their age written down
• the marital status
• the place of the burial (tax affiliation)
there are differences & similarities among the registers from different places (mexico, seville, philippines)
1. to see indigenous relaties
2. how the families were reshaping themselves to fit the boxes of the registers —> doesn't mean that the
life was the same but rather that the registers were made in the same way —> reflection of a colonial
archive
after the spanish lose the independence war (early 20th c) the americans buy it:)))) fuck the us
they want to install democracy there but even after their changes to make it happen, it doesn't happen —>
concluded that its bc of the culture & family patterns
aniti —> the dead ancestors
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,1. the aniti prohibit speech in houses where some family members are out fishing. how do u explain that the
belief is untrue?
relying on the szaman? to tell the people that
2. they dont have a concept of hell or of demons. how do explain that?
u have a cage & a chicken. set fire to the chicken & throw it in the cage. thats your soul in hell
they (the priests) wrote to mexico to ask for paintings of demons in one end (make them super ugly), the
chamorro (the natives) in the middle, and the angles & priests of the other side
3. the chamorro are afraid of their now angry aniti. how do u turn this into a conversion opportunity?
tell the chamorro that the aniti are demons n now you’re being told the truth so thats why they’re angry
4. they use skulls to communicate with the aniti. how do u get this to stop?
smash the skulls, destroy the tools through which ppl communicated with the dead
Week 2
Lecture “Structural changes in everyday life of the Sri Lankan peasants in the 18th c”
objective: discuss how the colonial agent was a significant factor of the transformation of the living social
space of the peasant in southwest of sri lanks
a proper understanding of changing dynamics of this region is vital as this is the core region of the
revolution of the modern sri lanks
there is a lot of focus on the societal changes in sri lankan history (of 19th / 20th c) bc of the magnitude of
what happened in those centuries
HOWEVER
the changes that occurred in the 18th c are vital in understanding the modern social and economic life in
the rural areas
1505 - a group of portuguese arrived to sri lanka
1590s - portuguese became territorial power in sri lanka
1640s - the dutch control of sri lanka began
the region
• kaneel land: cinnamon land
• from the pov of the dutch —> the most important factor that unified the region in the southwest that came
under control was cinnamon
• the specificity of the region however has a distinct character with a pre-colonial history
• collapse (in the 13th c) of the “rajarat civlization” (the country of the kings) and the was a change of the
people of the island —> “drift to the southwest” (a v popular theme in sri lankan historiography) this
region became historically most important with higher density of population
• raigama and kotte emerged as distinct political entities (political centres)
• the emergence of raigama as a distinct political entity in the region is historically significant
• it is link to the rise of alakeshwaras who were linked with indian ocean trade and had a kerala origin
• in the 15th c alakeshwaras were instrumental in fighiting the southward expansion of powerful
aryachakrawarthis from the north. latter is another group whose power centre was the jaffna peninsula
and highly involved in the indian ocean
• kotte was build by alakeshwaras as a strategic place in their war against the aryachakrawarthis
the emergence of this particular region (the colombo region i think) as a distinct social formation is
historically linked with the post-13th c historical development, which is popularly known as the drift to the
southwest (people from up of the country move to the down part of the island) (i think??)
this drift had a dual effect
on 1 hand —> significantly reduced the population density in the region that the civilization flourished
before the 13th c
on the other —> this demographic shift led to formation of social formation that is closely connected with
the emerging indian ocean world
the role of south india in the making of the southwest region —> connection between this region and south
india is highly important not only because of economic relations but also in terms of migration of ppl from
south indian region to the western and southern coastal region of the world
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, facts related to the structure of everyday life
• demography: the population distribution
• village settlements and their organisation
• quantity and quality of human activities
• peasants’ links with the outside world (very isolated nation —> rural peasantry had a tendency to do so)
• the nature of political authority
• the structure of cultural life
what did the colonial agent do? —> phases of encounter between western powers and indigenous peoples:
phase 1: the mere presence of westerners would make a difference (the story of the 1st encounter)
• colonial agent had significantly different objectives
• even at a time when economic and political objectives restricted them to limited spaces at port cities, they
were socially and culturally influential, as cities (particularly with strange cultural life) were attractive to
those who were outside it.
• not semantic transformation of the work seilama which derived from the word ceilao, the portuguese
variant of ceylon
• even before the portuguese became territorial power, christianity became v important as a religion &
cultural force (buddhism was weakening at the time —> that played into favour of christianity)
phase 2: in the early days of the portuguese the encounter between the western domination and indigenous
ppl took the form of military confrontations and revenue collection. this situation seems to have led to a new
form of antagonism between the ruler and the ruled
phase 3: when the dutch power was properly established, a nr of factors, which was vastly influential on the
lives were at work:
- cinnamon collection
- elephant trade
- systematization of revenue collection
- new forms of governmentalization
>>the factors significantly disturbed the life of the pre-colonial peasants
pre-colonial life of the peasantry
what is a village? even though administratively there is 1 village, that is not the same in reality —> many
small villages instead
peasants were linked to bigger cities / villages based on their work
changing dynamics of the peasant’s social world: emergence of settlements with quantitatively greater social
and economic activities and qualitatively new modes of social and economic relations mark the era of
structural change in the world of peasant —> settlements start to transform fast as a result of the colonial
encounter
patterns of demographic movements following the colonial intervention:
• movement of coastal ppl to the interior: karavas, muslims, chetties, duravas etc
• movement of wahumpura people towards the colonial centre & concentration in the kaleniya region just
outside the colombo city (they cant come to colombo so they just stay outside of it)
• unique migration pattern of batgama caste community
• migration of manufacturing and service casates to the colombo centre
distribution of wahaumpura settlements —> this catse group had the tendency to live in peripheral and
mountainous areas BUT in colonial records they show a tendency to move towards the colonial centre
WEEK 3
Seminar on Dutch Sri Lanka / Ceylon
too little governors + many more sri lanka inhabitants —> system of indirect in sri lanka rule was important
to make sure that even the smallest villages are ? according to the voc rule
the monopoly on cinnamon —> voc made huge profits bc that was one of the only places where cinnamon
grew
it was all abt trade and religion followed it
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