Negotiating Privilege: Images of Identity in the Prologues of El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
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Date
2019-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616) is remembered as the first author born in the New World to respond to the European historiography of his continent of origin. The Peruvian mestizo—mestizo referring to his mixed origin of Spanish conquistador father and Incan mother—wrote three historical works during his adult life in Spain: La Florida del Inca (The Inca’s Florida, 1604), Comentarios Reales de Los Incas (Royal Commentaries of the Incas, 1609), and the posthumous Historia General del Perú (General History of Peru), published in 1617. Within these works, his prologues hold a singular importance, as it is within the prologue that Garcilaso self-authorizes his texts based on the rigorous manipulation of his perceived identity. Garcilaso layers his mestizo identity, an identity disconnected from systems of privilege in seventeenth century Spain, by constructing himself as fulfilling archetypal roles within the prologues. Garcilaso’s presentation of his social positioning within the prologues presents a
compelling historical experience of a privileged yet subjugated identity whose dissonance was exploited to create power. Through the careful negotiation of his own identity position, El Inca is able to earn the privilege of engaging with the historiography of the Americas—that of Perú in particular.
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Keywords
Peru, Intersectionality, Garcilaso, Mestizo, Identity, Prologue