Teaching a Decolonial Counterstory: 1551 Valladolid Debate and Silko’s Almanac of the Dead
Charles McMartin | University of Arizona
Publication: Volume 5 Issue 4
Abstract | This article theorizes how educators can draw from Aja Martinez’s research on counterstory to teach decolonial theory. It provides a case study of this approach explaining how a particular scene from Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel, Almanac of the Dead, acts as a ‘decolonial counterstory.’ The scene details how indigenous revolutionaries in Chiapas, Mexico, convict a Cuban Marxist intellectual named Bartolomeo for crimes against history. The criminal’s name is an allusion to Bartolomé de Las Casas, the 16th-century Bishop of Chiapas, the protector of the Indians, and former encomiendista in Cuba. As a counterstory, this scene reimagines colonial accounts of the 1551 Valladolid Debate: one of the earliest debates among colonists on indigenous peoples’ human rights and the event where Las Casas famously defends indigenous peoples’ humanity. In this way, Silko reframes the Valladolid debate as a trial overseen by indigenous peoples, conducted on indigenous land, and bringing the crimes against history to bear on the present. Teaching this counterstory allows educators to illustrate four foundational decolonial concepts—“delinking,” “bio-politics,” “geo-politics,” and “sedimented history”—in accessible ways for early career college students.
Key words | Counterstory, Pluriversality, Coloniality, Decolonial Theory, Valladolid Debate, Pedagogy, Delinking, Bio-Politics, Geo-Politics, Sedimented History, Leslie Marmon Silko, Walter Mignolo, Aja Martinez, Bartolomé de las Casas, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda
Charles McMartin (cmcmartin@email.arizona.edu) is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric Composition and the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona, USA. His research interests are focused on local histories, community engagement in Arizona, culturally sustaining pedagogies, and archival studies. He currently serves as the graduate coordinator of the writing pathways program Wildcat Writers and Co-chair of the Graduate Student Standing Group for the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).
MLA Citation for this Article:
McMartin, Charles. “Teaching a Decolonial Counterstory: 1551 Valladolid Debate and Silko’s Almanac of the Dead.” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 5, no. 4, 11 Oct. 2023, pp. 2.20–2.36, http://ellids.com/archives/2023/10/5.4-McMartin.pdf