Country: Bolivia

Group: Aymara

Date Finalized: 3/30/2020

Team: Alicia Hernandez (lead), Thomas Chia, Erika Walker

Content Warning: violence, discrimination, death

Approximate Time Period: 1500-1700

In the 1500s and the 1600s, Spaniards colonized Bolivia, leading to violence and discrimination against the Aymara people, who are one of the largest indigenous groups in Bolivia (Minority Rights Group, 2018). The Spaniards also forced members of the group to convert to Christianity, disregarding their culture. Aymara practices were not recognized, and they were punished for their practices (Cuelenaere & Rabasa, 2017). There is evidence of wide-scale massacres of indigenous Andean people (including Aymara) during Spanish colonization beginning in the 1500s, although specific locations were not mentioned (Eisenberg, 2013). Discrimination against the Aymaran people has continued into the present day, which is evident in events like “black October”. The Bolivian government wanted to build pipelines over Aymara land and the Aymara tried to protect their land (Indian Country Today, 2011; Elfrink,2018). In reaction to this, 63 Aymaran people were shot and killed during Bolivian military actions. Overall, we gave the data quality a three since we found a specific example of targeted killing.

Sources

  1. Elfrink, T. (2018, April 4). Black October. Retrieved from https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/black-october-6365872
  2. Indian Country Today. (2011, September 15). The Bolivia Genocide Case: Ex-regime figures convicted, US shelters top fugitive. Retrieved from https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/the-bolivia-genocide-case-ex-regime-figures-convicted-us-shelters-top-fugitive-v7qDPsoxW0GvXdoKKgz1DA
  3. Cuelenaere, L., & Rabasa, J. (2017). Ethnocide, science, ethnosuicide, and the historians of the vanishing: The extirpation of idolatries in the colonial Andes and a few contemporary variants: Critique of Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X17745140
  4. Eisenberg, A. (2013). Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes. University of Alabama Press.
  5. Minority Rights Group. (2018, January). Highland Aymara and Quechua. Minority Rights Group. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/highland-aymara-and-quechua/