LADIES OF THE NEW WORLD:

REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT AMERINDIAN’S WOMEN ON FOUNDATIONAL TEXTS OF AMERICA

Abstract

This work wish to treat about the representation of the amerindian women at the foundational texts of the New World; specifically, we are going to analyze under the aegis of the central concept of representation, the letters by Américo Vespúcio (Mundus Novus) and by Pero Vaz de Caminha (to D. Manuel’s king), together of the diary of Admiral Cristovan Columbus. Based in the notion of the hierarchical build of gender, we looked to demonstrate how different european authors created a otherness narrative about the women who they found when go down, of pioneer form, in the territories of the New World. These narratives instigate a characterization and a power relation based in an imaginary specifically abroad to reality that told. In this way, stereotypes the natives and preconize a brutal process of domination: the colonial enterprise.