A map "painted backwards": traversing the boundaries of the community lands in a colonial watercolor
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18272/anima.v2i.2733Keywords:
colonial archive, legal cartography, ligitatio, Real Audiencia de Quito, LojaAbstract
This article explores the use of "legal cartography" by indigenous communities in the Real Audiencia de Quito, to overcome the neglect and inefficiency of colonial justice. It focuses on an eighteenth-century watercolor painting presented by the indigenous community of Collana, in Loja, to the judges in Quito. As evidence of territorial possession, the map invites the spectator to imagine travel along a distant geography. In using this map, indigenous litigants not only demonstrated their intuitive knowledge of the law and of the colonial justice administration, but also an extraordinary ability to innovate legal practice.
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