From hereditary "caciques" to "alcaldes" and elected "mandones". Legitimacy of the local power in the Indian "pueblos" constituted with an ethnic base, in the valley of the Cauca river (1675-1800)

Abstract

The author analyzes the change of heritage to the election and the local consensus -as legitimizing elements of the access to the local power-in the pueblos of indians of the the valley of Cauca river during the second third of XVIIIth Century. For this purpose, their lawsuits, motives, prosecution and languages of authority were analyzed in the documents concerning the indians, In the same way, the tributo accounts were revised. Under pressure of tributary debts, of an environment of Indian migrations, and of the rearrangement of loyalties and allegiances with the end of the encomienda, indian pueblos researched they adopted a more flexible local government system that did not compromise so many local and family resources such as elected leaders, to face a changing economic and political context. This completes the transformation of differentiated ethnic identities to those generated by the social and legal category of "Indian". The information was processed with methodological contributions of discourse analysis, ethnohistory and the qualitative approach.