Homeland and paradox: Identity conflicts in colonial Guatemala

Abstract

In his remarkable chronicle, the Recordación Florida, Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán (1642-1699) left us a giddying array of observations about land and life in colonial Guatemala. The great-great-grandson of conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Fuentes y Guzmán epitomizes the rivalries and tensions that arose over time between Spaniards and criollos, often at loggerheads concerning rights and privileges, especially when it came to exploiting the fruits of indigenous labor. Criollos exhibited marked conflicts of identity, venerating their Hispanic roots while at the same time struggling to assert themselves, New World born and raised, as separate and distinct from, but just as worthy as, their peninsular Spanish forebears. They had no more representative a spokesman than Fuentes y Guzmán, articulate yet convoluted, lucid yet opaque, a baroque emblem in word and deed. Severo Martínez Peláez (1925-1998) mines the Recordación Florida, infelicities and all, and makes Fuentes y Guzmán a pivotal character in La patria del criollo (1970), his Marxist critique of how Guatemala came to be. Examining the ways in which one key text influenced another affords us a glimpse of conflicting identities in the Spanish scheme of empire, and beyond.