1st PANAMERICAN INDIGENOUS CONGRESS HELD IN PATZCUARO, MEXICO
Beginning with its 1911 Revolution, Mexico was a leader in Indigenismo, a movement of Latin American elites advocating a dominant social and political role for Indians in countries where they were a majority of the population. The government of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) introduced policies to bring Indigenous populations into the mainstream of Mexican life. In 1940, he sponsored the First Inter-American Indigenist Congress at Pátzcuaro. The Congress, as was common in the indigenista movement, was really a meeting well-educated elites and socio-anthropologists. Still, the Congress marked a change in how elites and political leaders dealt with “The Indian Question.” The Congress rejected evolutionist and colonialist thought though still calling for assimilation. From the Congress came the Inter-American Indigenist Institute, based in Mexico City. Other Latin American republics formed their own branches of the Institute. Subsequent congresses were held from 1949 to 1992.
Sources: Barbara Brookes, Alison Holland, eds., Rethinking the Racial Moment: Essays on the Colonial Encounter (London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011). Retrieved, 2/16/2020, https://books.google.com/books id=3AMrBwAAQBAJ&dq=1940%091st+PAN+AMERICAN+INDIGENOUS+CONGRESS+HELD+IN+PATZCUARO,+MEXICO&source=gbs_navlinks_s “Indegismo,” Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2/16/2020, https://www.britannica.com/event/Indigenismo Drawing: Aurelio Escobar Castellanos, 1934. Permissive Use.
Indigenous America Calendar 