Spanish Colonial Latin America and Its Culture Blending

When the Spanish founded Colonial Latin America, the cultures socially, physically, and politically united to form a new society. The Spanish, Indians, and African slaves attempted to embed their homeland’s culture into this new society. This formed a clash of cultures because each came with its own set of norms. The go-betweens played a pivotal role during encounters between the cultures acting as interpreters and the Jesuits as Christian converters. As colonial Latin America society was forming and blending cultures, it strained the social hierarchy of each society, individuals identity and honor, and women’s roles. Many go-betweens entrenched themselves in the new culture forming relationships as a personal opportunity for themselves or to convert indigenous to Christianity. Alida C. Metcalf, author of Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil 1500-1600 and authors Lyman L. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera who wrote Sex Shame and Violence the Faces of Honor in Colonial Latin America wrote vivid descriptions of Spanish colonial culture. Colonial America unequally blended Spanish and Indian cultures which formed a new hierarchy in society, formed new personal identities, and brought about Christian conversion. The Spanish came to Latin America with the intentions of making the new territory mirror the culture of their homeland. The Spanish realized very early in their adventure during the 1500s that “without translators, captains such as Pinzon could not always meet their most basic needs for food and water, nor satisfy their larger desires for trade and information.” The Spanish had to rely on the natives who became go-betweens or middle ground people. Richard
White, American historian, “defines the middle ground as ‘in between cultures, peoples, and in between empires and the nonstate world of villages.” This was the beginning of mixing cultures. The Spanish respected the variety of roles and social status in its own society but viewed the

Bibliography: Lyman L. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, Sex Shame and Violence the Faces of Honor in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), Metcalf, Alida C. Go-Betweens and the Colonization of Brazil 1500-1600. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. Nazzari. “Concubinage.” In Sex Shame and Violence the Faces of Honor in Colonial Latin America, ed. Lyman L. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, 112 Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998. White, Richard. “Middle Ground.” In Go-Betweens and the Colonization of Brazil 1500-1600, ed. Ailda Metcalf, 8. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.