The 21st century brought with it a mass digitization of archival materials that rapidly changed preservation, research, and pedagogy practices. Chilean digital databases, archives, and humanities projects have grown steadily since the late 1990s. These resources developed with the central goals of democratizing access to sources and removing obstructive barriers including accessibility and physical distance. Remote access capabilities coupled with open access of collections encourages greater interaction with repositories including libraries, museums, and archives and materials such as historical documents, newspapers, paper ephemera, music and audio recordings, and photography.
While not exhaustive, these sites demonstrate the extensive range of digitized sources available that span from the pre-Columbian through modern periods. Researchers, teachers, and students seeking primary sources will find a multitude of themes including indigenous peoples, culture, science and technology, history, politics, environment, and human rights. Some sites, such as Memoria Chilena and the National Security Archive, feature a fully digitized collection with articles and downloadable PDF material. Others, such as Museo de la Memoria y Derechos Humanos, and the Biblioteca Nacional Digital, have non-digitized holdings that call for an in-person visit. Lastly, the Dirección de Bibliotecas Archivos y Museos and Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberoamericano serve as digital source aggregates that collect and allow users to search across affiliated sites. Aggregation is the newest step in the digital revolution. This newer process permits the archiving of entire archives, which will transform how scholars understand source collection, non-immersive “fieldwork,” and research methodologies.
Digital resources drastically improve the accessibility of sources concerning Chile. At the individual level, user skill may affect the browsing experience, especially when searching for sources. Many digital resources allow for truncated and Boolean logic queries. Users can customize their browsing experience by implementing these tools to expand or narrow the search. At the website level, these resources incorporate open access coupled with universal design practices to democratize the individual browsing experience. Open access allows users to access content free of charge. Universal design ensures access equity through coding and website design. However, in terms of accessibility, room for improvement exists. Users employing screen readers and captioning technologies will have vastly different experiences within each of these resources based on the device and software utilized. Organizations who have undertaken the digitization process must ensure they continue cultivating equitable digital spaces that all users may enjoy.
Article
Luis Jaime Castillo Butters and Karla Paola Patroni Castillo
The Moche developed in the north coastal valleys of Peru between 200 and 850 ad. These societies evolved from earlier regional civilizations like Cupisnique and Gallinazo thanks, in part, to their advances in irrigation agriculture and the extension of fields into the deserts, which permitted population increases never seen before in the Andean region of South America. The Moche were never organized as a single, centralized polity but rather constituted multiple interacting medium- and small-scale regional societies, possibly complex chiefdoms and early forms of archaeological states, with two large regional divisions in the northern and southern valleys. Due to their fragmentary nature, there were more aspects that were differences between these societies than those aspects that were common. They seem to have spoken two different languages, Muchik in the north and Quignam in the south. Religions and ritual practices; a shared pantheon of divinities; and mythical narratives expressed in their iconography and performed in monumental structures, locally called huacas, were shared among Moche polities. It is hypothesized that Moche elites were also moving between polities, due to marriage and political alliance. The Moche excelled in multiple crafts, particularly metallurgy and ceramics, and were responsible for the development of multiple technological innovations. During most of their history, the Moche were isolated from other Andean societies, interacting only between themselves. This isolation was permitted by a specialization in the agriculture of the coastal valleys and in the exploitation of marine resources. Between 800 and 850, and due to external and internal causes, the Moche polities experienced different processes of rapid decline that led to the formation of a new generation of civilizations, the Lambayeque in the northern region, and the Chimú in the southern.
Article
Juan Sebastián Gómez-González
Legal, illicit, and clandestine trade was fundamental for the social, political, and economic development of the Amazon basin during the colonial period. Since the second half of the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese establishments in this tropical region needed agriculture, livestock, and mining, but also exchanges of goods to ensure the stability and growth of missions and cities founded in their vast jurisdictions. Encomenderos, Indians, slaves, soldiers, bandeirantes, and Jesuits invigorated the illegal trade by establishing contacts through roads and tributary rivers of the Amazon River that linked different spaces through navigation. The scarce military presence in the border jurisdictions, especially between the province of Maynas and the captaincy of Rio Negro, in addition to the existence of gold mines, trafficking of manufactured goods, food, firearms, and other trade goods coming from both domestic and Atlantic markets, served as constant stimuli to strengthen the fraudulent business until the last decades of the 18th century. The prohibitions and monopolies decreed in the Luso-Hispanic laws, especially those stipulated in the treaties of limits, peace, and friendship verified in Tordesillas, Lisbon, Madrid, San Ildefonso, and Badajoz (from 1494 to 1802), were decisive to try to ensure the sovereignty and sociopolitical control in the Amazonian domains. However, the persistence of smuggling, as a complement to authorized trade and an indispensable resource for the Luso-Hispanic economies, would not have been possible without the complicity of governors, military, and astute Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries who took advantage of corruption by encouraging participation in the illegal trade. This demonstrates that trade, smuggling, and fraud in those imperial margins were inseparable aspects of settlement and the defense of territories mutually stalked by Spanish and Portuguese vassals to the first decades of the 19th century.
