Images of Evangelization and Archipelagos of Spanish Colonialism in Latin America and the Philippines

Abstract

This chapter uses a small set of religious artifacts to support a broad comparative argument about the impact of Catholic evangelization efforts (and colonialism more generally) on indigenous cultures in the southern Andes and Philippines. A set of religious images used as evangelical tools of conversion by diasporas of Spanish Catholic missionaries from both regions are used to document variability in ways that Spanish culture infiltrated indigenous ideologies. Differences in sociopolitical complexity and population densities are the reasons why religious art and architecture show different levels of transculturation in the two regions. Indigenous imagery permeates Andean religious Colonial Period art and architecture, while it is virtually absent from the Philippine examples. This variability is also the basis for reconceptualizing the Spanish empire as an archipelago of islands of colonial influence in a broader geopolitical landscape claimed by an imperial power.