Neither Cuñado nor Cuñadazgo : A Guaraní History of Spanish Colonisation

ABSTRACT This article examines the complex relationships between Spaniards and Guaraní peoples in the Río de la Plata province during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It challenges prevailing historiographical narratives regarding a purportedly “harmonious miscegenation” and questions the characterisation of Spanish colonisation in Paraguay as founded upon kinship relations between Spaniards and Guaraní. Through rigorous archival analysis, the study demonstrates that colonial documentation reveals profoundly asymmetric power relations regulated through slavery, servitude, and sexual violence. The research critically evaluates the deployment of the Spanish term “brother‐in‐law” ( cuñado ) in translating Guaraní concepts, determining that this terminology indicated colonial domination rather than genuine kinship bonds. The analysis recovers Indigenous voices expressing resistance to Spanish control whilst genealogical reconstruction of a Guaraní family illuminates the devastating effects of colonisation. This article proposes new methodological approaches for understanding the contributions of Indigenous history and colonial practices affecting Indigenous peoples.