In the heart of the colonial Andes, a silent revolution of thought was taking place, not through the rejection of foreign symbols, but through their creative transformation.
When we imagine literacy, we typically picture reading books or writing letters. Yet, in the colonial Andes, indigenous communities engaged with literacy in ways that far transcended the alphabetic word. They 'read' the symbolic meaning of architectural spaces, 'wrote' their identity through religious paintings, and performed legal arguments through ritual gestures. This is the story of how Andean peoples did not just adopt Spanish literacy but fundamentally transformed it into a tool for their own survival and expression.
The concept of the "lettered city" ("la ciudad letrada") originated with Uruguayan intellectual Ángel Rama, who described how Spanish colonial power was built upon and maintained through the primacy of the written word. In Rama's formulation, a small elite of literate bureaucrats and churchmen used writing to administer and control vast territories and populations 2 .
In Beyond the Lettered City, anthropologist Joanne Rappaport and art historian Tom Cummins radically expand this concept. Their research reveals that literacy was not confined to elites or to alphabetic writing alone. Instead, they demonstrate how indigenous Andeans engaged with multiple symbolic systems simultaneously—including alphabetic writing, visual representation, architectural spaces, and bodily gestures—creating what they term "indigenous literacies" 1 4 .
This interdisciplinary approach allows the authors to explore how literacy permeated colonial society in ways that affected everyone, not just those who could read and write. As one reviewer notes, "All members of society, regardless of whether they had mastered alphabetic writing, participated in literacy events" 4 .
The "lettered city" concept was expanded to include multiple forms of literacy beyond alphabetic writing, revealing how indigenous communities participated in literacy events through various symbolic systems.
Much of colonial Andean scholarship has focused on Peru and Bolivia, the heartland of the former Inca Empire. Rappaport and Cummins break new ground by shifting attention to the northern Andes (present-day Colombia and Ecuador), regions that existed at the margins of both the Inca and Spanish empires yet developed complex forms of cultural negotiation 2 .
This regional focus is significant because it moves beyond the well-trodden path of Inca-Spanish relations to explore how communities like the Muisca, Pasto, and Nasa peoples developed their own distinctive relationships with colonial institutions and symbolic systems 2 4 . In these areas, indigenous communities neither used narrative pictorial representation nor had alphabetic or hieroglyphic literacy before the arrival of the Spaniards, making their engagement with European symbolic systems particularly transformative 1 .
Developed distinctive forms of cultural negotiation in the northern Andes region.
Created unique relationships with colonial institutions and symbolic systems.
Engaged with European symbolic systems in transformative ways despite lacking prior literacy traditions.
Rappaport and Cummins employ what might be called an "archaeology of literacy"—excavating not just documents but the full range of symbolic practices that constituted communication and memory in the colonial Andes. Their research methodology examines both conventional and unconventional sources:
This multi-pronged approach reveals how indigenous communities received, maintained, and subverted the conventions of Spanish literacy, often combining them with their own traditions 1 . The authors examine how documents functioned as ritual objects, how paintings served as legal evidence, and how urban spaces structured power relations.
| Method Category | Specific Sources Examined | Reveals About Indigenous Literacies |
|---|---|---|
| Textual Analysis | Notarial manuals, dictionaries, administrative documents, catechisms, sermons 1 | How indigenous scribes mastered and adapted European documentary forms |
| Visual Analysis | Religious images, paintings, urban architecture, wax seals 1 | How visual culture communicated identity and power beyond alphabetic writing |
| Performance Analysis | Rituals, gestures, spatial practices in urban design 1 2 | How literacy was embodied and performed in public spaces |
One of the most innovative sections of the book explores the interconnectedness of artistic genre and gender identity in the colonial Andes. The chapter titled "Genre/Gender/Género: que no es uno ni otro, ni está claro" (which is neither one nor the other, nor is it clear) examines how categories that the Spanish considered fixed and binary became fluid and ambiguous in Andean hands 3 .
Rappaport and Cummins analyze astonishing early seventeenth-century murals in the village of Sutatausa, near Bogotá, where indigenous artists blended European and Andean symbolic elements 3 . They also examine how indigenous and mestizo artists created novel forms of religious imagery, such as paintings of Andean archangels armed with European guns, which defied easy categorization according to Spanish artistic conventions 3 .
This fluidity extended to gender representation, where colonial documents and artworks reveal identities that crossed and blurred Spanish racial and gender categories. The authors show how indigenous communities exploited these ambiguities to navigate the colonial legal system and assert their own understandings of identity.
Indigenous artists in Sutatausa created murals that blended European and Andean elements, challenging fixed categories of artistic genre and identity.
Paintings of Andean archangels with European weapons represented novel forms that defied Spanish artistic conventions.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence Rappaport and Cummins present comes from examining how indigenous communities practically engaged with written documents. They reveal that native peoples embraced written documents, sometimes treating them almost as fetishes or sacred objects 3 .
In chapter four, "Genres in Action," the authors borrow from Michel-Rolph Trouillot's critique of archives to examine how native Andeans generated their own narratives of legitimacy. They present cases from the northern Ecuadorian highlands where indigenous communities used legal documents to defend their lands and rights 3 . Through these documents, which followed Spanish legal forms but often contained subtly subversive content, indigenous actors "turned colonial literacy into their own decolonial advocacy" 1 .
This practice represents a remarkable transformation of Spanish literacy from a tool of domination into an instrument of indigenous agency. As one reviewer notes, the book shows how "native elites and, in many cases, commoners as well, appropriated, innovated on, and in many cases subverted the imposed institutions, procedures and forms of expression" 2 .
| Form of Literacy | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Alphabetic Literacy | Mastery of reading and writing alphabetic script | Indigenous scribes producing legal documents 3 |
| Visual Literacy | Interpretation and creation of images according to European conventions | Church murals in Sutatausa blending European and indigenous elements 3 |
| Spatial Literacy | Understanding and navigating urban layouts designed for colonial control | Indigenous communities using Spanish grid plans for their own purposes 1 |
| Gestural Literacy | Performance of rituals and gestures that carried legal force | Ritual kissing of royal decrees to acknowledge authority 4 |
Initial contact and imposition of Spanish literacy systems; indigenous communities begin adapting alphabetic writing for their own purposes.
Emergence of indigenous scribes and notaries; blending of European and indigenous symbolic systems in art and architecture.
Sophisticated use of legal documents for land claims and rights defense; development of distinctive hybrid forms of expression.
Beyond the Lettered City represents a paradigm shift in how we understand literacy, colonialism, and indigenous agency. By expanding the concept of literacy beyond the alphabetic, Rappaport and Cummins have revealed the complex ways subordinate populations negotiate cultural domination.
Their work demonstrates that colonial encounters were not simple processes of imposition and resistance but rather complex negotiations that produced new cultural forms. Indigenous communities throughout the Andes engaged creatively with European symbolic systems, blending them with their own traditions to create distinctive forms of expression and advocacy.
The implications of this research extend far beyond the Andes. As Gary Urton notes in his review, this "exceptionally important, path-breaking contribution" challenges us to rethink fundamental categories of analysis across colonial studies 2 . It shows us that literacy was not merely a technology of domination but became, in the hands of indigenous peoples, a tool for navigating and sometimes subverting that very domination.
In the end, Beyond the Lettered City invites us to expand our own literacy—to read the colonial world not just through its documents but through its images, its urban plans, its rituals, and the countless ways ordinary people found to inscribe their presence on a changing world.