AHC: Native Culture Survives to a Significant Extent in Latin America

I know it would be impossible for the natives in the north to survive the western powers (bar some horrible disaster discouraging widespread colonization for hundreds of years), but apparently the Spanish, after their conquest of the Aztecs, instituted Nahuatl as New Spain's primary language. It seems that it was only after 1696 that it was banned, so it wasn't just a quick experiment. That's just the language though, and the only real way to keep the natives tolerated is if they convert, but that requires erasure of their native religion. Would the Spanish have trusted the locals enough to put power in their hands? Or does some kind of nationalist revolt have to take place further down the line?
 

Dirk

Banned
Impossible because cultures are propagated by peoples. Whereas there were a hundred thousand times more Native Americans in the western hemisphere than Spaniards when the Spaniards had just arrived, this ratio dropped drastically after a few years due to the disastrous (to the Amerindians) epidemics that the Spanish unwittingly brought with them.

Another hitch is the Catholic Church. The Church and its literacy were a major source of Spanish power throughout their time as rulers over half the western hemisphere. No clergyman is going to accept a heathen language rising above Spanish (related to Latin, god's language).
 
For a time the church preferred indigenous languages. They'd get to keep services in Latin (a language most Spaniards didn't even know) and act as the great middle man between the subjugated and the conquering regime.
 
Native culture seems to thrive in Paraguay; more people speak Guaraní there than Spanish, and there is some literature in Guaraní. The high presence of the Jesuits until the 1760s was probably what spared them from complete disaster, since they protected them from slave raiders common in the region.

I tend to study South America more than northern Latin America, though, so I may leave the Nahuatl circumstances to other posters. Perhaps a higher Jesuit presence may help the indigenous people of Central America?

(Paraguay was more isolated than other regions of Latin America, especially during Francia's dictatorship, so the circumstances would be a lot different.)
 
Another hitch is the Catholic Church. The Church and its literacy were a major source of Spanish power throughout their time as rulers over half the western hemisphere. No clergyman is going to accept a heathen language rising above Spanish (related to Latin, god's language).
One of the most important Mayan religious documents that has survived was transcribed and left to us by a Dominican friar. I hardly think the clergy were a hivemind of fanatical anti-native folks.
 

Dirk

Banned
One of the most important Mayan religious documents that has survived was transcribed and left to us by a Dominican friar. I hardly think the clergy were a hivemind of fanatical anti-native folks.

A document of interest transcribed for literary and scholarly reasons is hardly the equal of a heathen language being put above Spanish or Latin, is it? In fact, the very fact that the document was translated shows that the clergyman who did the translating, and the community at large at the time, had little use for that native language.
 
As this is loosely defined I am going to have to say this OTL. Perhaps the question shouldn't have been posed to imply that European powers couldn't have worked more thorougly with indigenous polities throughout (both) the Americas. Nahuatl didn't get used in the Philippines because the Aztecs were intrepid sailors...
 
A document of interest transcribed for literary and scholarly reasons is hardly the equal of a heathen language being put above Spanish or Latin, is it? In fact, the very fact that the document was translated shows that the clergyman who did the translating, and the community at large at the time, had little use for that native language.
Even though said priest learned Mayan to do his job and wrote down the Popol Vuh in Mayan. I guess they had so little use for that native language several million still speak Mayan today as a first language. :rolleyes:
 
Even amongst your "garden variety" mestizo indigenous culture can be found. What's lacking is identifying as an Indian.
 
I'm just going to throw out that I know several people working as psychologists and educators in rural Mexico, specifically Michoacán, and quite a few of them have had to learn at least one native language in order to even get by with the locals.

That being said, taking how I interpreted the OP, it seems to be asking if Nahuatl (or any other indigenous language) can remain in official capacity in a European colony IOTL, and if native religion could remain official as well.

As for the linguistic point, as was pointed out, this was the case until 1696 - and not just nominally, either, Nahuatl was being taught to non-native speakers who lived in the colonies simply because it was easier for officials to use a "native" language, but it was taken as impossible to have people proficient in all of them. Even after this point, texts and legal proceedings in Nahuatl were still used in colonial legal systems, albeit often with Spanish translators.

If we're to keep this ongoing, I'd guess three things need to happen. Most obvious is avoiding the OTL ban on all non-Spanish official languages in 1696. Second is probably a geographically smaller New Spain, so that the aforementioned teaching of the language to other native populations remains a viable strategy. Third is the Spanish policy of resettling Nahuatl speakers, especially Tlaxcallans, to other parts of New Spain - make this a bit more extreme (possibly along the lines of how the OTL Incans constantly relocated ethnic groups to discourage rebellion), and you might be able to keep Nahuatl as at least a very powerful second language in Mexico/Central America. Similar policies could probably be applied with either Quechua or Aymara in the Andes.

As for the religion, I don't see that one happening under Spain. It didn't die out officially IOTL, and I can even see it faring better, but I don't imagine it would ever gain official or even semi-official status. Maybe different colonizing countries could give you that result...
 
Maybe Spain turns on the Church, the Churches of the Americas turn on Spain, and rogue priests turn on the inquisition. (Which wasn't exclusive to Spain)
 
Tupi, or at least a Tupi-Portuguese creole, almost replaced Portuguese as the main language of Brazil until the Portuguese government took strong action against that tendency at some stage during the 18th century. Give the Portuguese government too much else to worry about, closer to home, and...
 
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