Artigo Acesso aberto Produção Nacional

A queda do homem civil: os antigos mexicanos e peruanos na History of America de William Robertson

2014; Volume: 18; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4013/htu.2014.182.04

ISSN

2236-1782

Autores

Alexandre C. Varella,

Tópico(s)

Latin American and Latino Studies

Resumo

According to the prominent Scottish historian of the Enlightenment William Robertson in his History of America, the stagnation of primary arts and the feeble and violent savage character of the natives were related to the incipient state of social cohesion in the New World.But due to the addition of superstitious institutions under the control of sagacious leaders, original forms of political organization emerged on dark horizons to contain the savage and make them obedient to working under primitive and defective techniques.In this context, terror would be the rule, as seen in the case of Motecuzoma's government in Mexico or the blind submission to the Incas in Peru.The shoots of progress of indigenous America appear to be the cancers of the stagnant world that had been destroyed during the Spanish conquest.If the Jesuit José de Acosta was one of the main contributors to the "fall of natural man" in the Renaissance era, the Presbyterian Robertson produced in the Enlightenment the great story of the "fall of civil man" in the Americas.Both influential writers, each in his own time, considered limits and impasses for Mexicans and Peruvians in reaching the fullness of civil life.Robertson,

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