Santiago Matamoros/Mataindios

Abstract

This chapter evolved from my research on how Northern European merchants experienced the Inquisition in Spain's first settlements in America. 1 As I was looking through the work of indigenous artists for their reactions to the Inquisition, and the spectacle of the Auto Fe, I noted in particular the evolving reception and interpretation of Christian images, especially that of Santiago Matamoros -St James the Greater, slayer of Moors. While in Northern Europe images of Saint James the Greater depict the saint as a pilgrim with staff, prayer book and brimmed hat decorated with a scallop shell, on the Iberian Peninsula the saint is often portrayed wielding a sword and astride a rearing white steed trampling cowering Moors underfoot. The source of this image is from a battle said to have occurred between Christians and Muslims at Clavijo in 834. Saint James miraculously appeared above the battlefield, galloping ahead and leading the outnumbered Christians to victory. This violent image became seared into the national psyche with the Reconquista and conquest of the Americas and Philippines, and it still has a strong resonance on the Iberian Peninsula and in the Philippines as well as in America. Within years of the first American conquests, the Moor under the hooves of the triumphant Saint James was often portrayed as an Indigenous American. Although it is often assumed that these depictions represent an unfeeling celebration of Iberian victory, the reality is more complex.Although Santiago Matamoros (Saint James slayer of Moors) and Santiago Mataindios (Saint James slayer of Indians) have been the focus of several studies, these have tended to focus on a specific era or locality. 2 My aim is to look at Santiago Matamoros through a wider lens; to understand how emotional practices creating, recreating, perpetuating and reacting to the image have ensured the survival of an early medieval Iberian battlefield apparition as a potent This draft features images from my presentation Putting on a brave face: adopting Old World battlefield apparitions as New World representations of triumph given at