The case study taken as example here is represented by a complex missionary work which tells the story of the conquest and conversion to Catholicism of the indigenous people located in the present-day Northeastern coast of Venezuela: Conversión de Píritu de indios cumanagotos y palenques, y otros (Madrid, Juan García Infanzón, 1690). It was written by Matías Ruíz Blanco (1643-1705/1708?), a Spanish missionary sent by the Crown to pacify and to evangelize the Cumanagot and Pariagot people in the area. Together with other thirteen friars, he was sent as new lector of philosophy and theology to evangelize and to convert the Amerindian people of New Andalucía, Cumana, the banks of the Orinoco river and other parts of Eastern Venezuela. …show more content…
Conversion de Piritu offers a particular methodological approach to the indigenous cultures, the treatment of difficult or unknown cultural phenomena and the discursive strategies used during the Christianization activities by undertaking the risk in generating subversive discourses against the evangelization policies that ruled in the Americas, such as the canonical Third Provincial Council of Lima from …show more content…
Rather than considering colonial texts only from a traditional historical perspective, the cultural studies reading method aims to analyze them as dynamic instances or strategies used by colonial subjects in a challenging and changing society. In order to overcome the inquiry whether this type of texts should be classified as “colonial literature” or “historiography”, based on formal characteristics or literary canonization criteria, it is essential to reorient our focus on the text itself and its critical