The cacica, the mestiza and the renegade

a female genealogy of early colonial Santiago

Abstract

Although the pre-hispanic and colonial periods have been approached as discontinuous, the proposal of an Inka origin prior to the Spanish foundation of Santiago de Chile (Stehberg & Sotomayor, 2012) requires reconciling a fragmented historical temporality in order to understand the spatial genesis of the city (Bustamante, 2023). Contributing to this task emerges an uncanny genealogy of women: Elvira de Talagante, a local Inka woman; Águeda Flores, Elvira’s daughter with with one of the European founders of Santiago; and Catalina de los Ríos, Águeda’s orphaned granddaughter, a rich, independent and powerful woman popularly known as ‘la Quintrala’. Mostly overlooked by colonial chroniclers, these women became historical subjects either by their material possessions or alleged vices. Gaining signi cance in 19th-century historiography, Elvira was celebrated as an indigenous chieftain, Águeda recognised as a rich mestiza, and Catalina condemned as a murderous renegade (Vicuña Mackenna, 1877). Contemporary voices, however, raise questions regarding the cultural signi cance of reconciling the polysemic icons with the historical gures and times (Marsilli, 2019), as well as their role as female land owners (Gil-Marín et al., 2023). Thus, drawing from historical sources, this research traces these women's lives and situates them across space and time, gender and race, culture and class, mapping the evolution of their identities, relationships, and possessions. Through the lens of genealogy (Foucault, 1971) and the social memory embodied in cultural performances (Taylor, 2003, 2020), this study confronts the issues of invisibility and subjectivity surrounding female and indigenous lives, experiences and materialities during the early colonial period. The evolution of the space-times owned, inhabited, and inherited by these women provides a unique lens to explore Santiago's formative period. Consequently, by unravelling the nuanced dynamics concerning power, gender, and ethnicity, this genealogy maps the intricate cultural and material conditions underpinning Santiago’s transition from Inka settlement to Spanish colonial city.