Decolonizing Aeriality in Colonial El Salvador: Indigenous Geospatial Knowledge in the "Descripcion Geografico-Moral de la Diocesis de Goathemala," 1768-1770

What does it mean to look from above? David Harvey wrote that at the start of the early modern period geographical knowledge became a valuable commodity in a world that was becoming more profit-conscious and ever enriched by colonialism in the Americas. Cartography –– and by extension landscapes –– were fundamental not only in the governing of colonies but in imagining them as governable. Perhaps no type of landscape accomplishes this better than the aerial, or bird’s-eye-view. This paper examines a set of aerial views depicting colonial El Salvador from the 1770 atlas Descripción Geográfico-Moral de la Diócesis de Goathemala (DGM). The over one hundred DGM images are illustrative, highly-detailed aerial views over the parishes that composed the colonial diocese, providing coverage for the entire land surface of El Salvador and much of Guatemala. Drawn for Charles III under the auspices of Pedro Cortes y Larraz, archbishop of colonial Guatemala, they represent one of the earliest attempts to meticulously visualize geographical space in what is today El Salvador. More than any other pictorial approach, the aerial view purports to contain complete vision, a valuable tool during the House of Bourbon’s efforts to reform colonial administration. While recent discussions of aeriality have focused on the role of technology, almost none employ decolonial frameworks. How did the Catholic Church and the Bourbon monarchy imagine El Salvador and its people as territory through aerial vision? How do we reclaim from the archive the indigenous geospatial knowledges embedded within these images?