Klappentext

The Coming of the Kingdom explores the experiences of the Indigenous Muisca peoples of the New Kingdom of Granada (Colombia) during the first century of Spanish colonial rule. Focusing on colonialism, religious reform, law, language, and historical writing, Juan F. Cobo Betancourt examines the introduction and development of Christianity among the Muisca, who from the 1530s found themselves at the center of the invaders' efforts to transform them into tribute-paying Catholic subjects of the Spanish crown. The book illustrates how successive generations of missionaries and administrators approached the task of drawing the Muisca peoples to Catholicism at a time when it was undergoing profound changes, and how successive generations of the Muisca interacted with the practices and ideas that the invaders attempted to impose, variously rejecting or adopting them, transforming and translating them, and ultimately making them their own. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Inhalt

Introduction; 1. The Muisca and the problem of religion; 2. The settlers, rescript government, and the foundations of the kingdom; 3. The failure of colonial governance and the breaking of indigenous authority; 4. The friends of ceremony and the introduction of reform; 5. Language policy and legal fiction; 6. Indigenous confraternities and the stakeholder church; Conclusion: the coming of the Kingdom; Works cited; Index.