The conclusion reflects on the profound transformations undergone by the New Kingdom of Granada by the late seventeenth century, and how this began to powerfully shape the images of the early colonial past that began to appear in works of historical writing in that period, with long-lasting consequences. This triumphal register of writing, that cast the Muisca as the third great empire of the Americas and asserted the swift success of the Spanish colonial administration, has long obscured perceptions about the Indigenous people of highland New Granada. As this book has demonstrated, a granular exploration of an exhaustive array of colonial archival sources paints a very different picture: on the one hand, of the anxieties and limitations at the heart of the colonial project, the incomplete and contingent nature of colonial power, and of deep and multi-layered crises of governance; and on the other, of the complex ways in which Indigenous people, in their interaction with Christianity, made possible the coming of the New Kingdom of Granada.

places emoji within the context of the evolution of language and communications technology. Since language first evolved some one hundred thousand years ago, allowing people to communicate complex ideas to each other, each new technology has extended its reach. The last few decades have seen the speed of technological change increase rapidly, with the computer, the internet and mobile devices making communication across distances ever easier and cheaper. But these inventions have also presented challenges for how we communicate, especially around the important issue of empathy and emotional distance. Various innovations, from punctuation marks to emoticons, have been used in an attempt to provide solutions for these challenges. In explaining the trajectory of this evolution, the chapter looks at how emoji relate to and differ from earlier forms of written language, such as hieroglyphics, and why they’ve emerged to become so popular at this particular juncture in history.