The First New Chronicle and Good Government (pg. 143 onwards)

Week 5: The First New Chronicle and Good Government (PT 2)

For me, the second half of Guaman Poma's chronicle had a much clearer critique of the Spanish rule in Peru, although still a bit contradictory, and I thought that the ways in which he makes this critique were super interesting:

Firstly, he explicitly defines the title of his work, a good government, as one "that enforces justice and maintains a separation between the Spanish and Andean worlds", which caught me off guard, because throughout almost the entirety of the first half, Guaman Poma intertwined Andean history, culture, and beliefs with those of Christianity, and then subsequently calls the Spanish viceroy the "Christian era" of Peru, distinguishing that it is, in fact, not a good government. 

Then, he focuses a large section on criticizing the Spanish rule of viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo by praising the viceroys before and after him, and contrasting this with absolutely tearing apart his rule and condemning it as contrary to the Christian principles that the Spanish themselves claimed to follow, and describing him as a bad Christian. I found this classification that Guaman Poma makes, distinguishing different Spaniards in Peru as good and bad Christians, very helpful for the reader (or maybe just me) to follow his argument and the points that he is making as a call to action to the king; his justification that the Spanish government in Peru isn't good is because they aren't being good Christians and are therefore betraying their king. I found it an effective approach for Guaman Poma to support his argument by focusing on narrating the wrongdoings that Don Francisco de Toledo committed that not only horrifically abused the indigenous peoples but also economically hurt the Spanish crown; Guaman Poma described the order for Tupa Amaro to die with exclamation marks and emotional diction which wasn't very common in this chronicle, describing it as regicide and betrayal of the king because it caused "his Majesty's treasury to lose the millions that the city could have given", and orders the readers to "not be like him!". 

The last element that stood out to me that Guaman Poma used in his ultimate argument is the idea that the indigenous kingdoms are rebelling and resisting the faith and laws of the king because they have bad Christian teachers. I found it super interesting, but it also made perfect sense to me when Guaman Poma made the distinction that Castillian Spaniards are good Christians because they learned the doctrine well, whereas the ones in Peru are against the poor, unlike Jesus Christ, and therefore cause the indigenous to fear them and stay away; I think it was a super smart move to emphasize that he isn't bashing the king and all christians, just those in Peru. And, finally, I found his conclusion of his chronicle very powerful, emphasizing that God died for the world and for the poor sinners and that without a God, "a Christian is nothing", hammering home his point that the King needs to interfere in the situation, follow Guaman Poma's suggestions, and therefore act in the words of God and help the indigenous in Peru. This was such a unique and fascinating text to read and unpack, and the only residual question I have is, can we tell if the king recieved this book? Are there any historical indications that he did or did not? And if he did, did he ignore Guaman Poma's suggestions? Aka, did this book work?