Neither “Scientific” nor “Colonialist”

Forging Institutions Between the Continent and its Countries

The Pátzcuaro conference was an opportunity for discussion and display of a broad array of perspectives on the Indian question, ranging from the idea of a need to transform and “improve” the lives of indigenous people to the defense of maintaining or revitalizing their customs and institutions to cultural pluralism or even political self-determination. According to the plan outlined there, the III was to take on a wide range of activities: gathering and disseminating information, scientific work, and determining and applying indigenista policy. It was to act as an office for consultation, promote the establishment of branches in other countries, and hold periodic meetings (III, 1940; 1941b). This was seen as a way of shaping an institutional and administrative environment that would be favorable in both the inter-American and the national context.

Although the choice of the term “inter-American” and the resolutions approved in Pátzcuaro might indicate the acceptance of a new policy shared among equals, not all the countries or actors involved enjoyed the same space or even the same role. In Pátzcuaro there were already two leading countries —Mexico and the United States— and two central actors, Sáenz and Collier. Mexico was the host country, and the conference represented a crucial moment in the convergence of the social sciences and the formation of the state after Cardenism (Dawson, 2004: 67–95), while the United States played a special role in its relations with Mexico and the other countries from the outset. The other important term, “indigenista,” was not the product of unanimous agreement and might signify different and not always compatible positions. Sáenz had made sure that the pluralist position, committed to the defense of indigenous rights, that is present in many of the Final Act’s resolutions prevailed in Pátzcuaro. However, in the months that followed a significant change in outlook had clearly emerged: a distancing from the political and social indigenismo defended by Sáenz in favor of the apolitical and scientific indigenismo promoted by Manuel Gamio, who would take on leadership of the III in March 1942. This shift was not merely a result of the change in leadership—largely due to Sáenz’s death of pleurisy in October 1941—but also of the fact that his position was in the minority among the members of the provisional executive board at the time. ⁷ In the correspondence among Sáenz, Collier, and the Guatemalan Carlos Girón Cerna, secretary of the III from January 1941, this change in viewpoint is apparent. Gamio had been in Pátzcuaro but did not participate as the III got under way. His name appeared for the first time in December 1940, when Collier suggested naming him interim director, to replace Sáenz, justifying his proposal with the fact that the latter, as ambassador to Peru, was not in Mexico, the seat of the III (a curious argument, since distance had not prevented Sáenz from being the main organizer of the Pátzcuaro conference and then provisional director). Collier’s idea was not accepted, and Sáenz’s reaction left no doubt that he considered Gamio “external” to the project: “As to a new pro tempore director. Why do you think it is necessary to have one? . . . What could Gamio (or anyone coming from the outside at this time) do that we are not doing?” Soon, returning to the issue of his possible replacement, he added that “great care must be taken not to make changes of situations or people in the current provisional organization of the Institute that introduce opposition or allegiances” (Archivo Histórico del Instituto Indigenista Interamericano [hereafter AHIII], Mexico, Sáenz, Moisés, correspondence with Collier, 1940, and Girón Cerna, Carlos, correspondence with Sáenz, 1941).

After this confrontation, the debate produced by the preparation of the first issue of América Indígena, the official voice of the III, made clear that Sáenz’s position had become marginal. Sáenz wrote an article in which he defended the policy of integration as a way to achieve full citizenship for the indigenous sector and felt that this process would mean an “Indianization” of the countries because of their large numbers of indigenous people and mestizos and the creation of “a new political and social type.” The III, according to Sáenz, was and should be the “political instrument” for attaining this objective, and in addition to drawing up declarations and programs it should promote practical indigenista action and have “circumstantial realism”—that is, consider the specifics of each national case. In a meeting of the provisional executive board in which Girón Cerna, Emil J. Sady ⁸ (representing Collier), and the Mexican Anselmo Mena participated, it was determined, after reading Sáenz’s text, that rather than undertaking tasks of a political nature or meddling in the indigenista policies of governments the III should merely provide coordination. Girón Cerna asked Sáenz to modify his essay, removing everything related to the III, but he maintained his position. In the end, his article was the only one of those written by III members (Girón Cerna, Collier, Chávez Orozco) that was not published in the magazine, and it appeared only posthumously (Sáenz, 1946). The first issue of América Indígena was published a few days after Sáenz’s death, and the news of it was added at the last minute to the back cover. The lead article used some of Sáenz’s ideas, stating that Pátzcuaro’s Final Act was “a program and a manual for the Institute,” but made clear that “direct action favoring indigenous life” was not the business of the III and that all indigenista efforts should have a “scientific orientation” (III, 1941b). After this point, the path would be marked by the relation between indigenismo and applied anthropology. Throughout his long tenure, from March 1942 to 1960, Gamio would promote an indigenismo that declared itself “apolitical and scientific” (Gamio, 1944), maintaining, in fact, the same position he had outlined since 1916 (1992 [1916]) about the essential role of anthropology and social sciences for social programs—a position that he shared with Collier. In other words, incompatible projects had come into decisive conflict.

Sáenz defended a political and social indigenista activism aimed at the full participation of indigenous people as citizens in the life of the nation and the transformation of the citizenry itself. In line with the indigenismo promoted by the Cárdenas administration, it would also transform socioeconomic conditions for indigenous people. In his view, the III should act politically, determining and participating in indigenista action in each country instead of staying at an abstract and erudite level. Its legitimacy lay in its status as a “political and social project.” The position that Collier ended up supporting and that was established as Gamio’s tenure began left “direct action,” at least apparently, in the hands of governments, countering activism with “scientific” study, which was presented as “apolitical” (whether it actually was is obviously another matter). By adopting applied anthropology as a legitimating principle, indigenismo attempted to present itself as “scientific,” professional, and devoid of politics when in reality it was defending another political position, a gradualist rather than radical one. It emphasized the “cultural” condition of indigenous people and their necessary transformation instead of the economic and social causes of the conditions of indigenous and poor campesinos and the need for structural change. It was consistent with Collier’s own journey: “applied anthropology” already existed in his country to serve the state (Guerrier, 2007). This “indirect action” formula allowed indigenistas to have greater influence as “experts” in the state apparatus and at the same time avoid accusations of interfering in national affairs, especially if the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was to be involved, as it was in fact beginning to be, in the promotion of indigenismo in Latin American countries. The events made Collier’s personal role—his ability to influence the internal dynamics of the III—very clear, along with the different status that the United States was acquiring among the countries involved.

When it came time to establish national chapters—a fundamental component of the plan designed in Pátzcuaro—Collier and other U.S. actors had an important role. The financing and organization of the national indigenist institutes were the responsibility of the individual countries and therefore subject to the will of governments and national political changes (III, 1941a; 1942a, art. X; 1942b). Despite the difficulties this entailed, 10 years later most American countries had ratified the international convention, joining the III, and national institutes had been created in 12 countries ⁹ (AHIII, Asambleas del Comité Ejecutivo [hereafter ACE], director’s report, 1954). From this apparently favorable situation for carrying out the indigenista program, however, situations emerged that were very different from each other in terms of founding conditions and their trajectories. No position had been established regarding whether the national institutes should promote indigenista policy as agencies with jurisdiction to apply existing social programs to the indigenous groups or as specialized advisers to the governments (Noval, 1962). Nor was there ever a clarification from the III what relationship should exist between the national institutes and the central body: in his summary after 30 years, Marroquín (1972: 69) called attention to the need for regulation by the central body as a basis for an effective coordination of national indigenista policies, thus confirming the absence of such regulation.

Ironically, the national case usually considered a reference point in speaking about official indigenismo, the Mexican Instituto Nacional Indigenista (National Indigenist Institute—INI), was one of the last institutes to be established (in 1948) because of the unfavorable view of it held by President Manuel Ávila Camacho, who replaced Cárdenas in late 1940. Just as inter-American indigenismo was getting under way, a shift in priorities and outlook was taking place in Mexico: the “Indian question” was losing importance, while development for indigenous people was subordinated to so-called modernization and capitalist development. In the Departamento de Asuntos Indígenas (Department of Indian Affairs—DAI), Luis Chávez Orozco was replaced by Isidro Candía, former governor of Tlaxcala, who did not possess his predecessor’s stature in terms of intellectual or scientific production but was a guaranteed ally of the new president (Dawson, 2004: 133–151).

Moreover, one of the first institutes founded was the U.S. National Indian Institute (NII), which was created in November 1941 as part of the BIA, with Collier at the helm. The NII took on a leading role and had a different status from the institutes that were being established in other countries: it did not deal with matters related to indigenista policies in its own country, and its collaboration with the III was unlike that of a branch of the central organization. In addition to being personally involved in obtaining the funding necessary for the NII, President Roosevelt allowed two BIA staffers—Emil Sady and Ernest Maes—to be in charge of relations with Latin American indigenistas. Sady was sent to Mexico to work in the III in June 1941, and Maes, who had been named NII secretary, traveled with Gamio through Central America (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama) and South America (Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil) to promote the establishment of other institutes (AHIII, U.S.A., Collier, John, correspondence with Girón Cerna, 1941; AHIII, ACE, director’s reports, 1943 and 1944). In a memorandum from Michel Pijoan (chair of the NII health committee), it was acknowledged that the NII’s activities had been aimed at strengthening ties with the III and establishing other institutes, to the point of his not having time to concern himself with indigenous people in his own country: “[It] was understandable since up to this time the Institute’s concern was with our neighboring countries” (AHIII, U.S.A., Collier, John, correspondence with Pijoan, 1945). The founding of the institutes in Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica was largely the result of the activities of the NII envoys, and all of these institutes either had erratic records or were very short-lived. In Bolivia a department of indigenous affairs was created in 1941 but had no concrete operations. It was considered an institute (Marroquín, 1972: 263) even though it was not established as such until 1949. In Ecuador an institute was set up as a private entity rather than a true branch of the III.

Merely creating the institutes did not guarantee the implementation of the indigenista program over the long term. The NII itself, so active in the early years in Latin American countries, suffered the effects of the war from the start through the loss of personnel who enlisted or were transferred to other agencies and also, on several occasions, from bad relations with the president of the subcommittee in charge of allocating funds, resulting in the lack of a line item in the budget. In February 1945 Collier submitted his resignation as commissioner, alleging that “the burdens upon the Indian Commisionership have increased almost beyond the power of description” while “the trend of Congressional appropriations . . . has been towards a denial of funds for the needed work” (Collier, 1945: 131; AHIII, U.S.A., Izquierdo, Eladio, correspondence with Gamio, 1945; Philp, 1977: 205–213). Nevertheless, at Gamio’s insistence, he continued as director of the NII and president of the board of the III. The context had changed and with it U.S. international policy, with consequences for the indigenista camp. In March 1947, the same year that the cold war was officially getting under way with the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency, Collier wrote to Gamio: “The USA situation is dismaying, I mean the plunge towards war with Russia . . . the domestic as well as world-wide effects are bad already.” In May his successor as commissioner, William A. Brophy, resigned: “Within Indian Service there is a good deal of mental depression, due to the uncertainty as to the Commissionership and to the all but insane appropriation slashes which Congress is imposing.” The difficult political situation, the uncertainty regarding the future of the commissionership, and the complicated financial situation of the NII explain Collier’s categorical statement that “Indian matters in USA are at low ebb now” (AHIII, U.S.A., Collier, John, correspondence with Gamio, 1947). With the appointment of Dillon Myer there was a conservative shift in the commissionership; the NII had increasing difficulties and in late 1950 stopped functioning.

The cases of Guatemala and Peru are more clearly related to the initial project of Pátzcuaro and were also part of this change of scene. Both institutes (created in 1945 and 1946) were made possible by a series of actors linked to Sáenz who took advantage of a favorable national situation but acted in an international context that, with the end of World War II, was quickly becoming unfavorable both to indigenismo and to the possibility of more equitable inter-American relations. The comparison is particularly suggestive because these two countries had sharply contrasting starting points.

Shortly before the Pátzcuaro conference, in January 1940, Sáenz had facilitated some meetings in Lima that led to the formation of an indigenista committee, while in Guatemala a similar group was formed in December 1941. In the Peruvian case, representatives of some of the many indigenista currents that had an important history and presence throughout the country were brought together: the radical and messianic discourse of Luis E. Valcárcel, the mestizaje with Andean predominance of the “new Indian” of José Uriel García, and the legal and social indigenismo of José Rafael Pareja, among others. In Guatemala, in contrast, there was obvious difficulty in finding supporters of an indigenista position, since the majority of intellectuals had advocated theories about the racial degeneration of indigenous people or eugenic projects (Casaus, 2009). In fact, Sáenz had given consideration to only three Guatemalans as special guests in Pátzcuaro, the only ones who could call themselves indigenistas: Fernando Juárez Muñoz, Antonio Goubaud, and David Vela (only the latter was able to participate). Initially influenced by positivism and racial theories, Juárez Muñoz’s thinking had taken a new turn, proposing access to citizenship for indigenous people while maintaining their own culture and identity–somewhat similar to Sáenz’s own journey. Goubaud had been an active participant in the debates on the Indian question and was studying with Robert Redfield at the University of Chicago: he would become his country’s first professional anthropologist. As Adams (2008) has pointed out, his personal and professional relationships with the United States did not prevent him from maintaining an autonomous intellectual position. The 1941 indigenista committee was coordinated by Vela, an attorney and journalist who was very active in campaigns in defense of indigenous people and a member of the provisional executive board of the III at the time. Traveling expressly from Mexico, Sady participated in the first meetings (III, 1942c; AHIII, Guatemala, Vela, David, correspondence with Sady, 1942). However, the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico blocked the founding of the institute, and it had to wait until the October 1944 revolution, Juan José Arévalo’s government, and the enactment of the 1945 Constitution. The leadership of the Instituto Indigenista Nacional de Guatemala (Guatemalan National Indigenist Institute—IING) was entrusted to Goubaud, who had returned to Guatemala in 1943 and had remained associated with the project, maintaining a correspondence with Vela, Girón Cerna, Gamio, and Juan Comas. Goubaud and Vela designed the project and wrote the bylaws for the IING, inaugurated in September 1945. The new organization did not achieve its expected autonomy and remained assigned to the Ministry of Public Education, but it consisted of an unprecedented and radical proposition for Guatemala: two indigenous representatives participated in its advisory council, and it had five indigenous researchers responsible for carrying out studies in different regions of the country. Thus indigenous people were recognized as contributors and professionals in the indigenista project (AHIII, Guatemala, Goubaud Carrera, Antonio, correspondence with Comas, 1945, and Gamio, 1945; IING brief and draft proposal by Goubaud and Vela, 1945; IING bylaws, 1945; IING annual reports, 1945 and 1946).

Despite an initial situation that was much more favorable to indigenismo and the promotional activity of the president of the Peruvian delegation in Pátzcuaro, José Ángel Escalante, Peruvian indigenistas also had to wait for an appropriate political moment. It came in 1946, with the reorganization of the Dirección General de Asuntos Indígenas (Department of Indian Affairs—DGAI), entrusted to José Rafael Pareja (III, 1946a), who wanted to “establish a more effective and open coordination” from his new position and to link his work to “the prestigious body of American indigenistas” assembled in the III (AHIII, Peru, Pareja, José Rafael, correspondence with Gamio, 1946). Consistent with the Peruvian course, in which concern about the Indian question had been particularly important in the legal and labor fields, the Instituto Indigenista Peruano (Peruvian Indigenist Institute—IIP), like the IING, was part of a ministry, in this case Justice and Labor (DGAI, 1948: 72–73; III, 1946b).

Pareja’s work, aimed at supporting indigenous communities in their struggle for land and in conflicts with large landowners, provoked what he himself called a “rough war” with the “exploiters of Indians” (AHIII, Peru, Pareja, correspondence with Comas, 1947). In the meantime, the first director of the IIP, Valcárcel, had replaced his radical discourse with one defending realism and the scientific approach (Valcárcel, 1947), in line with Gamio’s view. The institute, headquartered in Lima, had the power to establish regional offices around the country and had several commissions: legislation, economic affairs, education, history, hygiene and health, social issues, art, and folklore (III, 1946c; 1947). Nevertheless, it did not have time to carry out the projects envisioned: the change in the international scene coincided with an abrupt political change due to the coup d’état by General Manuel Odría in October 1948. In this uncertain situation, the Second Inter-American Indian Conference, scheduled for October in Cuzco, was postponed, and the activities of several indigenistas committed to the III were stymied by the victory of their enemies: “The military revolution of Arequipa was designed to bring the Alianza Nacional (the party of the sugar cane and large landowners) to power. Of course, all of us who wanted to demand vindications for the Indian have been swept from public office” (AHIII, Peru, Pareja, correspondence with Comas, 1948). Pareja was dismissed, and along with him Valcárcel, Escalante, and most of the members of the IIP, which was “reorganized.” Within a few months the IIP and the DGAI were labeled by General Armando Artola, the new minister of labor and indigenous affairs, as having a “romantic” approach that fomented “the return to the anachronistic forms of the Incariate” (III, 1951a).

A few years later, in 1954, another coup d’état, this time a symbol of the cold war, changed Guatemala’s path. Joaquín Noval–who had replaced Goubaud in December 1949 at the IING when the latter was sent to Washington as ambassador and became his successor upon Goubaud’s death in 1951–was jailed with the fall of the Árbenz government (R. Adams, 2000; A. Adams, 2008), and the institute was temporarily closed. Similar to the Peruvian case, the context after 1954 produced the distancing and lack of political influence of most of the members of the first indigenista group, those who had worked on the organization of the III and the IING and represented the “pioneer generation” of Guatemalan anthropology (Mendoza, 2000). In October of that year, the regime reopened the IING, reorganized its staff, and gave it new internal regulations (III, 1954). The institute lost influence and the indigenista camp was occupied by another institution, the Seminario de Integración Social Guatemalteca (Guatemalan Social Integration Seminar—SISG), which was clearly oriented toward the application of the social sciences to the resolution of “national problems.” The SISG–and not the IING–was in charge of the scientific organization of the Fourth Inter-American Indian Conference (Comas, 1956; III, 1959).

In the new, cold-war setting, the “soft” approach of Rooseveltian Pan-Americanism promoted by Collier in the indigenista field had come to an end, thereby limiting possibilities for the Pátzcuaro project. Moreover, within a few years the international organization scene had been radically changed by the creation of the United Nations in 1945 and the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1948. The III had to reposition itself in this new context and ended up joining the OAS in 1953. In those same years the International Labor Organization (ILO) was displacing the III in its “specialty” and taking over leadership on the Indian question at the international level (Rodríguez-Piñero Royo, 2005: 53–82). ¹⁰

Therefore we must ask ourselves whether and, if so, in what way these circumstances and changes modified the institutional path and the achievements of inter-American indigenismo.

Spotlighting Projects: “Indianización”and “Social Improvement”

The Pátzcuaro Final Act contained two somewhat opposed indigenista approaches, insisting, on the one hand, on “social improvement” measures, transforming material existence which supposedly represented “backwardness” (hygiene, housing, food, health), and, on the other, on the defense of what today we would call “indigenous rights” (collective property and inalienability of the land, legislation, traditional customs and institutions, languages, and special education). This double-sided indigenismo must be analyzed from a less rhetorical point of view, in terms of the initiatives and resources that were available to carry out such an ambitious program.

In the two years following the Pátzcuaro conference, when the III was still operating on a temporary basis, a series of projects was launched that dealt with a great variety of aspects. According to the so-called comprehensive approach, each project centered on a specific problem, but preliminary studies were carried out that dealt with everything from “historical background” to biological and socioeconomic conditions. When Gamio became head of the III in March 1942, three projects had already been approved: one on diet, presented by Collier, another to combat onchocerciasis (an endemic disease in some indigenous areas that produces blindness), presented by Sady and the health director of Guatemala, and a third with radio advertising and recordings of indigenous music directed by Girón Cerna (AHIII, Mexico, Girón Cerna, report to the board of directors, 1942). Collaboration with the Inter-American Statistical Institute began in subsequent months in an attempt to standardize the indigenous category in the population census. Another proposal was the creation of a permanent art and crafts exposition. In 1943 a project on the “indigenous personality” coordinated by the anthropologist Oscar Lewis, then commissioner of the NII, was launched in the town of Tepoztlán, in Mexico (AHIII, ACE, director’s reports, 1942, 1943, and 1944). It was during this investigation that Lewis identified many of the elements later associated with the “culture of poverty” (Rosemblatt, 2009).

Real possibilities for implementation of this ambitious program depended on the economic resources available. The III had nothing but the contributions from member countries, and early on countries had difficulties in making the payments. A country’s contribution was determined according to its indigenous population, and there were countries that asked for a reduction for supposedly having smaller indigenous populations than had been calculated, such as Chile as early as January 1941. The war reduced the possibilities for obtaining additional resources. For a few months, Mexico was the only country that supported the III with a budget line, providing in addition a room, staff, and office support from the DAI for its operation. This support disappeared in December 1940 with the change in administration. The only way to implement the projects planned was to turn to foreign funding. This was largely provided by the United States, mainly from the Viking Fund and the OCIAA. The Viking Fund, founded in New York in 1941, played an important role in sponsoring research and publications in anthropology, among other fields (Benedict, 1947), and Collier obtained support from it for the Tepoztlán project (US $3,400). Collier himself acted as the intermediary between the III and the OCIAA (AHIII, U.S.A., Collier, correspondence with Rockefeller, 1942, and Gamio, 1942 and 1943). The OCIAA was in charge of cultural and economic relations with Latin America during the war and of counteracting Nazi-fascist propaganda in the Americas, consolidating U.S. hegemony (Cramer and Prutsch, 2006). ¹¹ Its coordinator, Nelson Rockefeller, came to have great influence in Latin America and in American anthropology because of his public position and his family investments (see Stocking, 1992: 178–211). This concept of hemispheric cooperation due to the war was also present in the indigenista camp, where actions by the U.S. State Department overlapped with those of private foundations, placing public and private funds at the disposal of anthropologists and their projects. The OCIAA financed the project on indigenous music (US$1,132) and the campaign against onchocerciasis (US$100,000 to the Pan-American Health Organization) (AHIII, Asambleas del Consejo Directivo [hereafter ACD], director’s reports, 1947 and 1948).

However the United States was careful not to have its participation or intervention in inter-American projects seem “disproportionate” or its influence “dominant” (despite the evidence!) so as not to call into question the “inter-American” nature of organizations like the III. In a letter to Collier in response to the request for funding presented to the OCIAA for the project on diet, Secretary of State Cordell Hull stated in 1943 (AHIII, U.S.A., Sady, Emil J., correspondence between Hull and Collier, 1943):

This Government does not wish, however, to exercise a completely dominating influence over the plans and activities of official inter-American organizations and would, therefore, regret the adoption by any such organization of a policy that led it to give primary consideration to the expressed desires of this Government rather than to the joint desires of all the participating republics. Applying this criterion to the nutrition project of the Inter-American Indian Institute . . . it would not be appropriate . . . the assumption by this Government of a disproportionate share of the expenses in carrying out the project.

If the III were willing to cover part of the costs and could obtain support from another country, he said, he would reconsider the request. The diet project was going to take place on a large scale in several American countries and to study popular dietary customs in “typical” indigenous communities in an effort to foster changes in diet. Failing to obtain the expected funding, “dietary improvement” was included in the Tepoztlán project “through the introduction of soybeans added to the corn, chilli peppers, and beans normally consumed” (AHIII, ACD, director’s report, 1944). Later, a soybean campaign—indeed, one of Gamio’s “obsessions”—was launched in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua through the distribution of instructions for planting and recipes with the support of the Viking Fund (AHIII, ACD, director’s report, 1947, and ACE, director’s report, 1949).

During these early years, project implementation was largely dependent on U.S. funding. Also in this realm, the NII played a different role from other national indigenista institutes. The tremendous influence of the OCIAA and other U.S. actors was very clear, limiting the possibilities for real inter-American coordination. At the same time, there is no evidence that this influenced the content of the projects carried out, which followed the usual and ambivalent indigenista approach of conserving what was “typical” and transforming “backwardness.” Nevertheless, the possibilities and conditions for implementing III projects influenced the design of the agenda, the priorities, and the time frames of the indigenista program. Collier, the NII, and its employees, so important in those early years, rapidly lost their autonomy and their ability to act. After a meeting at the State Department in January 1945, Pijoan wrote to Collier that it was clear that the NII could not act autonomously in international affairs (AHIII, U.S.A., Collier, correspondence with Pijoan, 1945):

When the Institute is to give advice or help in any way to the other Institutes in Latin America, that we hold session with Dr. Hoyde and his staff in the State Department, and they will consider providing the necessary funds for such activities if the Project is of such a nature that it has certain value to the United States and at the same time is regarded of sufficient importance in the originating country.

The above situation, along with Collier’s resignation as commissioner (January 1945) and, later, the growing economic difficulties for the NII during the first Truman administration, created an adverse context for pursuing the indigenista program, since it depended on U.S. assistance and Collier’s support.

Precisely in the years of change in the international scene, the IING launched an ambitious plan in a country where indigenismo had been practically absent until then and had little possibility of continuing for more than a brief “spring”: a survey of local definitions of indigenous people, a statistical analysis of rural nutrition, a study of indigenous languages, and a study of indigenous clothing. An “experimental project to raise the indigenous socio-economic level” was also begun through improvements in housing, hygiene, the economy, and civic organization of an indigenous community, San José Chacayá (Sololá), with the indigenous inhabitants’ cooperation (AHIII, Guatemala, Goubaud, annual reports, 1945 and 1946). To a great degree this broad program was tightly linked to the interests and previous efforts of its director, as was the case with the nutrition project, a study begun in 1943–1945 by Goubaud for the Carnegie Institution of Washington that was later given to the IING. The Carnegie Institution had provided anthropologists who collaborated covertly with U.S. intelligence agencies in Latin America during World War I and again in World War II, when the American Anthropological Association took up the fight against fascism. The expansion and institutionalization of U.S. anthropology during this period partly depended on funds from the national security program (Price, 2005). Goubaud skillfully used the funds and opportunities that opened up for Latin American anthropologists because of the war. From its inception, the IING was related to U.S. foundations and universities and collaborated with the NII. However, as was previously pointed out, this collaboration and intellectual relations with U.S. anthropologists did not prevent Goubaud from independently designing a plan for an indigenismo with indigenous participation in the institute’s governance and research. For a brief period, between the October revolution (1944) and the 1954 coup d’état, the confluence of interests, personal relationships, and international powers made the development of indigenismo possible in a country where it had previously been marginal.

Some projects, such as the one that gave rise to Decree 426 of 1947 protecting and promoting the indigenous textile industry, were not affected by the 1954 political change. Activities aimed at “opening a market” for indigenous handicrafts represented the principal line of continuity between Goubaud and Noval’s IING and the IING following the coup d’état (IING, 1956; Skinner-Klee, 1954: 127–130). In any event, after 1954 the number and variety of IING projects noticeably diminished as the institute lost influence within the state bureaucracy (A. Adams, 2008; Marroquín, 1972: 131–134). Other institutions—the above-mentioned SISG and the Summer Institute of Linguistics—took over the indigenista field. This situation led its second director, Noval, to write a few years later that the IING’s existence was “more symbolic than real” (Noval, 1962: 7). The IING seemed to have transformed itself into an adviser to the government in charge of disseminating political propaganda through translations of decrees and government initiatives into indigenous languages (IING, 1960) in an overall framework of clear acculturation. It was less and less like Goubaud’s initial plan and his commitment to improve “the socioeconomic level of the lifestyle of the approximately two-thirds of the country’s population that is indigenous” (AHIII, Guatemala, Goubaud, annual report, 1946).

In the Peruvian case, while there are some parallels in the institutional record, a very different situation existed regarding the projects implemented. The IIP, founded in 1946, had very little time to get its activities under way before the coup d’état that eliminated the founding indigenista group. Even in those first two years, the political situation during the Bustamante government was very uncertain, and, according to the correspondence between Pareja and Comas, the DGAI’s support for communities in conflicts with landowners created a climate that was hostile to the indigenistas. It is likely that the majority of the IIP efforts were concentrated on organizing the Second Inter-American Conference on Indian Life, a commitment acquired by the country in 1940. Its organizing committee, headed by Pareja, planned to hold it in June 1948, but it was postponed to October of that year and ultimately to 1949. It is paradoxical that precisely in the country with more experience and presence of thematic and regional approaches to indigenismo, the Pátzcuaro program failed to take off, perhaps because of the diversity of viewpoints and the difficulty in coordinating the courses of action of the various government bodies with responsibility in the area.

The new IIP in the Odría era (1948–1956) had no projects of its own and would never manage to establish itself as an undisputed referent of Peruvian indigenismo. In 1951 it signed the agreement with Cornell University that gave rise to the famous Vicos Project, a “plan for applied anthropology and social sciences in Vicos in order to test acculturation methods” (III, 1951b; IIP, 1952). Later, during Manuel Prado’s administration (1956–1962), the IIP took charge of the Puno-Tampobata program promoted by the ILO (IIP, 1958). A high-level decree in 1959 made the IIP “the official body responsible for carrying out, directly or in collaboration with other national bodies or international missions, scientific studies related to the socioeconomic problems of indigenous communities and campesino groups” with the power to “carry out experiments of applied anthropology” (Fajardo, 1960: 154–157). This meant that the role it had actually played throughout the 1950s was now recognized by law.

Conclusions

From the start, a plan for a Pan-American indigenismo entailed a series of difficulties and ambivalences. Indigenismo was defended as a policy based on knowledge and scientific study; however, its execution depended on the goodwill of national governments and therefore had clear political limits and an uncertain fate. Creating a favorable institutional and administrative environment in the national and inter-American realms was not a sufficient guarantee for action.

The III planned a series of activities whose implementation was unlikely from the start because its source of funding (contributions from the member countries) was not secure. Every project’s implementation was subject to the ability to obtain external resources. Apart from the support provided (but only initially) by the Mexican government, the United States emerged as the major funder of the III and Collier as the great protagonist of the conversations and meetings that led to the presentation and financing of projects. In this situation, Collier’s role set the course of the indigenista project of those early years, above all after the end of the Cárdenas era and Sáenz’s death.

The OCIAA was never merely the funder of III projects: it advocated a particular interpretation of hemispheric cooperation promoted in the context of World War II, whose objective was to consolidate the hegemonic position of the United States in the Pan-American system. The III remained trapped in this concept, excluding the possibility of promoting inter-American coordination among equals on the Indian question. This does not mean that the OCIAA necessarily influenced the content of the projects—in fact, it seemed to respond more to ideas shared by all the actors involved about the priority needs of indigenous groups—but it did affect their possibilities for implementation.

The end of World War II and the start of the cold war implied a change of situation and direction in inter-American relations. Collier’s resignation as commissioner and changes in U.S. domestic and foreign policy led to less involvement by this country in the indigenista plan, and the immediate effects of this were seen in the scarcity of resources for projects under way. In any case, the direction of the national institutes involved was subject to the conditions in their respective countries but also actively related to the development of the international juncture. Paradoxically, World War II had created a suitable moment for fulfilling the goal of continental coordination of the indigenismo already present in the Pan-American conferences of the 1930s, but it profoundly transformed the world, the continent, and the countries in which the various indigenista projects had arisen. The change of scenario, the start of the cold war, and the presence of new international organizations did not interrupt the activities of the III and the national institutes. In some cases, such as that of the IING, lines of continuity can even be seen in specific projects, although they took on different connotations in the new Guatemalan and international context. In other cases, such as that of the IIP, the change took place before the indigenista project led by those who had been in Pátzcuaro could develop and represented a more political and reformist option than the scientific and technical tendency that Peruvian indigenismo, co-opted by applied anthropology, took on in the 1950s.

In addition to being very ambitious, the projects planned in Pátzcuaro and later reflected deep tensions. On one hand, the promotion of popular art, music, and indigenista weavings was aimed at salvaging characteristics considered purely indigenous, restoring their value to national identities and providing the opportunity to defend them. These activities—thanks to their efforts to construct what was “typical”—contributed to the nationalization of cultural expressions both for domestic use and for export. On the other, the campaign against onchocerciasis and the nutrition projects were aimed at these same populations, clearly considering them weak socioeconomic groups in need of protection by the government and indigenista institutions. In this way, these institutions assumed the ambivalences of the indigenista program as a whole, already present in Pátzcuaro: on one hand the preservation and promotion of cultural specificities (“Indianización”) and on the other the transformation of the material conditions of indigenous populations that signified development and socioeconomic modernization. As a result, the indigenista program did not have an assimilationist slant in terms of seeking the dissolution of indigenous identities—this was far from its objective—but it could not banish it entirely given that indigenismo itself sought to be part of the integration of each nation and of the inter-American project. Added to this original tension was a clear political and financial limitation to implementing the program due to the governmental nature of the institutions and the strategic weight of U.S. foreign policy.

While all of this remained unresolved during the World War II years, the ambitious Pátzcuaro program leaned toward a combination of diplomatic and financial pragmatism and the abandonment of a political solution to the Indian question, replacing it with an array of scientific (or so they called themselves) and administrative projects led by anthropologists. In these projects we have been able to identify the content of the “scientific” approach to action that claimed to distinguish post-1940 indigenismo and its predecessors: the issue was the use of the social sciences, especially anthropology, in social programs for the indigenous peoples. The years in which the indigenista program got under way are also the years in which applied anthropology was being carried out in several countries. The indigenistas of the III said that they were certain that the social sciences would be a valuable tool in social programs and that “indigenous problems” could be resolved by using them. This declaration of assurance, with a certain ideological slant regarding indigenous people and their place in the development of the American countries, played a key role in the institutional display and the design of indigenista programs and made it easier to accept the funding criteria and research and action objectives of U.S. agencies. The insistence on “the scientific” versus “the political” (or “the romantic,” as the earlier indigenismo was labeled) had, at that time, a good rhetorical and legitimizing effect, in addition to being useful for obtaining support and funding, even though the expectation that these programs be politically neutral or have no political implications was obviously far from the reality.

Fully understanding the effects of this defense of the “scientification” of the Indian question will require further investigation, but the relationship between social scientists and governments will be one of the critical points for evaluating indigenismo and its outcomes. In fact, since the end of the 1960s the indigenista projects developed in preceding decades have been labeled assimilationist and colonialist projects and the indigenistas complicit with governments in policies aimed at the elimination of indigenous people. However, neither the image of a “colonialist indigenismo” (which is still prevalent today) nor the image of a “scientific indigenismo” (from indigenismo’s heyday) is valid for explaining the transformation undergone by indigenismo during the 1940s. Both images suggest that the ambitious indigenista program defined in Pátzcuaro was more uniform and unidirectional than it was and achieved an importance that the historical evidence belies. Despite the rhetoric, we see a process in which the absence of the conditions for the fulfillment of the proposed objectives resulted in a more uncertain and contradictory path than its leaders could admit.

The main objective of this essay has been to show the initial development of the inter-American indigenismo that arose in Pátzcuaro without making teleological or anachronistic judgments. The 1940s were as critical for Latin America as for the rest of the world but have been much less studied. In the case of indigenismo, this lack of studies has opened the door to speculation or generalizations without any more evidence than the appeal to authority (magister dixit). More archival research is needed to examine the proposals and achievements during those years of change in terms of the processes that actually occurred. Whatever the course of Latin American societies and the present-day role of the Indian question, it is history’s obligation to provide interpretations of the past based on the evidence and the logic of historical analysis. Contributing to the history of indigenismo involves pointing to one of the fundamental dimensions of fracture and integration of Latin American societies. The decade of the 1940s was a moment of transformation with its own dynamic and meaning. It is time that we understood it better.