From canoeists to rowers: first steps of an ethnic, social, and labor category in the Magdalena River (1539-1611)

Abstract

The emergence and configuration of new social realities has been a constant in contact
dynamics and changes in the social order throughout the humanity history. This research addresses the
building process of a category with many edges, whose development was marked by the establishment
and regulation of a strategic fluvial navigation for Hispanic Monarchy interests in New Kingdom of
Granada. Through an exhaustive documentary investigation with an ethnohistorical perspective on
primary, manuscript and published sources, is abording the indigenous boga category, its self-perception
and its relationship with the new administration from the first contacts in the 16th century, to the
transition between centuries and its definitive replacement by rowers of African origin during the first
decades of the 17th century.