Ethnohistory 2000 47(3-4):535-559; DOI:10.1215/00141801-47-3-4-535
Duke University Press
Behind the Palisades: Sociopolitical Recomposition of Native Societies in the Unare Depression, the Eastern Venezuelan Llanos (Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)
Rodrigo Navarrete
Universidad Central de Venezuela and Binghamton University
(SUNY)
Abstract.
This article concerns the sociopolitical recompositions of Carib native
societies, especially the Palenque, who inhabited the Unare Depression in the
eastern Venezuela llanos during colonial times. Through a comparative
exploration of the different scenarios presented by the early
(sixteenth-century) and late (eighteenth-century) chronicles, the article
develops a critical analysis of the current anthropological knowledge of the
area, especially in relation to the process of "retribalization"
of Carib groups. The essay offers an alternative approach that focuses on this
sociopolitical reconfiguration and migration as a strategic alternative of
negotiation developed by native societies as social actors in the colonial
political contexts.

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Copyright 2000 by American Society for Ethnohistory