Description
The tiger has been employed historically in a variety of foundational political and literary texts in Latin America, primarily carrying symbolic associations with cruelness and ferocity. In the 1500s, Bartolome de las Casas described Spanish colonizers as tigers for their cruel treatment of indigenous communities. Writing later in the mid-1800s post-colonial Argentina, Domingo Sarmiento described his conservative political rival as the Tiger of the Plains. Jose Marti, a Cuban revolutionary, similarly decried the growing threat of the United States to independent Latin American states using the imagery of a tiger silently stalking its prey. In these and other textual examples throughout Latin American history, the tiger yields a valuable lens for understanding Latin American political and cultural history. The symbolism of the tiger further informs and deepens understandings of colonialism and the civilization v. barbarity debate, critical discourses that continue to weigh heavily on modern Latin American identity. Tigers symbolically represent power, cruelty, violence, and barbarity. In this project, I argue that given the longstanding history of oppression in Latin America, the tiger is an apt symbol that can be used to name and understand violence and power abuses in their many historical manifestations in the region.
Beasts and Barbarity: Framing Latin American History with Jaguars and Tigers
The tiger has been employed historically in a variety of foundational political and literary texts in Latin America, primarily carrying symbolic associations with cruelness and ferocity. In the 1500s, Bartolome de las Casas described Spanish colonizers as tigers for their cruel treatment of indigenous communities. Writing later in the mid-1800s post-colonial Argentina, Domingo Sarmiento described his conservative political rival as the Tiger of the Plains. Jose Marti, a Cuban revolutionary, similarly decried the growing threat of the United States to independent Latin American states using the imagery of a tiger silently stalking its prey. In these and other textual examples throughout Latin American history, the tiger yields a valuable lens for understanding Latin American political and cultural history. The symbolism of the tiger further informs and deepens understandings of colonialism and the civilization v. barbarity debate, critical discourses that continue to weigh heavily on modern Latin American identity. Tigers symbolically represent power, cruelty, violence, and barbarity. In this project, I argue that given the longstanding history of oppression in Latin America, the tiger is an apt symbol that can be used to name and understand violence and power abuses in their many historical manifestations in the region.