Colonial Galant: Three Analytical Perspectives from the Chiquitano Missions

During the eighteenth century, a vibrant tradition of choral and orchestral music flourished among the Chiquitano Indigenous people. Coerced into entering Jesuit missions in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru (now eastern Bolivia) the Chiquitano first heard and then began to make music in a European style. Archival sources preserve several operas and large-scale liturgical compositions written entirely in the Chiquitano language and attributed to Indigenous composers. Unlike the heavy counterpoint of other New World sacred music, this repertoire is characterized by simple harmonies, regular cadence patterns, and transparent textures. In three analytical vignettes, this article explains how the galant style of this mission music helped to achieve the colonial aims of European settlers. Previous scholars have generally celebrated the exceptional status of this unusual body of music and pointed to it as proof of an isolated set of instances in which traditional power hierarchies between colonizers and Indigenous colonized were unstable. Drawing on Brian Larkin, Homi Bhabha, and Franz Fanon, this article by contrast suggests that the specific aesthetic forms produced by the Chiquitano were vital in helping to shape them as colonial subjects. The galant style of their music was both easy to participate in and impressive to experience. Taking this seriously means rewriting our European narrative of the galant and retelling it, in part, as one of cultural imperialism and colonial hegemony.