Bodies and Objects in the Hispanic Occupation of Tahiti

Abstract

Focusing on the Spanish occupation of Tahiti (1772–1776), this text deals with the plan devised by Viceroy Manuel Amat to subdue the will of the islanders. My perspective takes the analysis into the realm of seduction, emphasising the key role of objects and bodies in the project. From a wide range of colonial sources, I address the specific forms taken by technologies of domination in particular contexts, the role played by the arrangement of bodies and objects in them, and the assumptions that made it possible to think of particular bodies as mouldable raw material in the Hispanic setting of the late 18th century.