The Indian condition debate in colonial Quito: A Long-lasting Colonisation of Indigenous Peoples

The article proposes a historical-philosophical analysis of the long-running debate about the Indian condition in the Real Audiencia de Quito (RAQ), i.e., the colonial discussion on the human or non-human condition of America’s Indigenous peoples. Archival documents, manuscripts, and artworks are analysed by applying the categories of the so-called ‘system of representation’ as defined by Deleuze and Guattari. Thus, diverse and ambiguous discourses on the indio are identified in colonial Quito which are classified into four main moments passing from a ‘condescending stance’ to an ‘inferiorist stance’, the later structuring of a ‘merciful position’, and ending with a ‘symbolic exoticisation’. In conclusion, this long-term debate and its different articulatory practices were deeply related to the colonial overcoding of Indigenous peoples, everything guided by the desire of originary accumulation in which the indios were represented as inferior, defenceless, helpless, and even exotic to justify exploitation and colonisation.