Chiquitano

The name Chiquitos means "little ones" in Spanish. This ethnonym is commonly said to have been chosen by the Spanish Conquistadores, when they found the small doors of the Indian huts in the region.{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Chiquitos|volume=6|page=239}} The Chiquitanos are also known as the Monkóx (plural: Monkoka),{{Cite book|title=Elementos de la gramática del Bésɨro|last=Sans|first=Pierric and Lucas Chorez Quiviquivi|publisher=Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage|year=2013|location=San Antonio de Lomerío|pages=1}} Chiquito or Tarapecosi people.

File:Lengua chiquitano.png

{{main|Chiquitano language}}

Approximately 40,000 to 60,000 of Chiquitanos speak the Chiquitano language in Bolivia, making it the fourth most commonly spoken indigenous language in that country.[http://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/chiquitano/412 "Chiquitano: Language."] Instituto Socioambiental: Povos Indígenas no Brasil. Retrieved 31 March 2012 The language is a Chiquito language, possibly belonging to the Macro-Jê language family. Men's and women's speech differ from each other grammatically. The language is written in the Latin script. Several grammars for Chiquitano have been published, and four dialects have been identified: Manasi, Peñoqui, Piñoco, and Tao.

A variety of indigenous ethnic groups inhabited the Chiquitanía prior to Spanish arrival, which was marked by the 1559 founding of Santa Cruz de la Sierra at a point far to the east of the city's present location. Missionary contact was unsuccessful during the first nine decades of the 1600s.{{Cite book | publisher = IWGIA | last = Riester | first = Jürgen | title = Indians of Eastern Bolivia: Aspects of their present situation | location = Copenhagen | series = IWGIA document | date = 1975 | page = 20 }}

The Chiquitos were in fact well formed and powerful, of middle height and of an olive complexion. They are an agricultural people, but made a gallant resistance to the Spaniards for nearly two centuries. In 1691, however, they made the Jesuit missionaries welcome, and were rapidly integrated. The Chiquito language was adopted as the means of communication among the converts, who soon numbered 50,000, representing nearly fifty tribes.

The formative experience of the Chiquitano ethnicity was their common evangelization and confinement to towns under the authority of Jesuit missionaries from their 1692 arrival at San Javier de los Piñocas (in what is now Ñuflo de Chávez Province) until their 1767 expulsion from Spanish colonial possessions. Missions governed settlements known as reductions at San Javier de los Piñocas, Concepción, San Ignacio, Santa Ana, San Rafael, San José, San Juan, Santiago, Santo Corazón, and San Miguel. Each mission town incorporated one to three thousand residents.{{Cite book | publisher = Duke University Press | isbn = 978-0-8223-3689-1 | last = Murrieta | first = Cynthia Radding | title = Landscapes of power and identity: comparative histories in the Sonoran desert and the forests of Amazonia from colony to republic | date = 2005-12-28 | page = [https://archive.org/details/landscapesofpowe01radd/page/58 58] | url = https://archive.org/details/landscapesofpowe01radd/page/58 }} Jesuits emphasized prayer and work as the main activities of a worthy life. They promoted permanent settlements, cattle husbandry, and loom-based weaving as aspects of economic life.{{Cite book | publisher = IWGIA | last = Riester | first = Jürgen | title = Indians of Eastern Bolivia: Aspects of their present situation | location = Copenhagen | series = IWGIA document | date = 1975 | pages = 17–26 }} The reductions also began a centuries-long pattern of Chiquitano Indian labor benefiting outsiders. During the mission period, Chiquitanos were also recruited as soldiers in Spanish colonial wars. Swedish anthropologist Erland Nordenskiöld described the Jesuit legacy as follows: "The Jesuits protected the Indians from other whites, but divested them of their freedom and made them so dependent that after the expulsion of the missionaries they were easy prey for unscrupulous whites. Actually they set the stage for the extinction of many Indian tribes."{{Cite book | publisher = Strecker und Schröder | last = Nordenskiöld | first = Erland |author2=Ignaz Schlosser | title = Indianer und weisse in Nordostbolivien | url = https://archive.org/details/indianerundweiss00nord | location = Stuttgart | date = 1922 }} Translated and quoted in {{Cite book | publisher = IWGIA | last = Riester | first = Jürgen | title = Indians of Eastern Bolivia: Aspects of their present situation | location = Copenhagen | series = IWGIA document | date = 1975 | page = 19}}

Following the Jesuits' expulsion, some Chiquitanos were incorporated into mestizo-owned ranches and farms, where they served as unfree laborers; others retreated from the villages, living in smaller camps. The rubber boom across South America brought a new industry to the region from 1880 to 1945, staffed once again by Chiquitano laborers. Work was often involuntary, and the conditions extremely harsh, resulting in deaths from workplace accidents, malnutrition, "diseases such as malaria, beriberi, and scurvy; and the overall exploitative practices of the whites."{{Cite book | publisher = IWGIA | last = Riester | first = Jürgen | title = Indians of Eastern Bolivia: Aspects of their present situation | location = Copenhagen | series = IWGIA document | date = 1975 | page = 19 }} As rubber workers, Chiquitanos experienced debt peonage and forced labor, but were primarily rented out by wealthy mestizos on whom they were dependent. Chiquitanos also built parts of the Santa Cruz–Corumbá Railway under this arrangement.

File:Organización Indígena Chiquitana flag 1.svg

In Bolivia, the Chiquitano people are represented by the organization Chiquitano Indigenous Organization (Organización Indígena Chiquitana, OICH). OICH is led by José Bailaba, who serves as Cacique Mayor.{{Cite news | title = Indígenas chiquitanos y guaraníes se sumarán a la marcha indígena del 15 de agosto. | work = Agencia Intercultural de Noticias Indígenas | access-date = 2011-08-04 | date = 2011-08-03 | url = http://www.aininoticias.org/2011/08/indigenas-chiquitanos-y-guaranies-se-sumaran-a-la-marcha-indigena-del-15-de-agosto/ }}

In Brazil, the Chiquitano are trying to obtain their own indigenous territory.

• Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos
• List of the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.santacruz.gob.bo/equitativa/inclusionsocial/pueblos_indigenas/contenido.php?IdNoticia=4582&IdMenu=172#ancla Pueblo Chiquitano] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160324152332/http://www.santacruz.gob.bo/equitativa/inclusionsocial/pueblos_indigenas/contenido.php?IdNoticia=4582&IdMenu=172#ancla |date=2016-03-24 }}, Santa Cruz Departmental government website (Spanish).
• [http://www.nmai.si.edu/searchcollections/results.aspx?regid=178 Chiquitano weapons], National Museum of the American Indian

{{Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos}}

{{Bolivian people}}

{{Indigenous peoples of Brazil}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chiquitano People}}

Category:Indigenous peoples of the Amazon

Category:Indigenous peoples in Bolivia

Category:Indigenous peoples in Brazil

Category:Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos