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Indigenous Migration and Social Change
The Forasteros of Cuzco, 1570â"1720
By Ann M. Wightman Duke University Press
Copyright © 1990 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-8284-3
CHAPTER 1
"Innumerable Indians": Cuzco, 1570
IN OCTOBER 1570 Viceroy Francisco de Toledo—the king's representative and chief executive authority for the vast administrative area known as the Viceroyalty of Peru, stretching from the Panamanian isthmus to Cape Horn—embarked on a five-year tour of the Andean heartland. Traveling slowly into the sierra, Toledo was kept busy issuing a series of reforms and regulations designed to combat the "lawlessness" and "incivility" of the Viceroyalty. Nowhere was he more occupied than in the area surrounding the city of Cuzco, which he reached in June 1571. As he approached the former Incan capital, Toledo rode "a roan horse which was decorated with a beautiful blanket and a gold-trimmed saddle" and he passed under arches "adorned with flowers, birds, and the skins of animals"; as he rode through the surrounding countryside, he passed by "innumerable Indians."
Toledo might have thought that there were "innumerable Indians" in the bishopric of Cuzco, but the local population had dropped drastically since the Spanish conquest, and indigenous patterns of human organization and production had been dramatically altered by the time Toledo arrived to reform colonial government. The process of transformation had not begun with the Europeans' arrival during the 1530S, however, because the Incan state, which had ruled the Cuzco area since before the rapid expansion of the empire in the early fifteenth century, had adapted traditional indigenous institutions and added others in order to solidify control of its central Andean holdings. Pre-Incan society had been divided into kin groups known as ayllus, endogamous social units with common ancestry, whose specific membership was determined by a variety of locally generated descent patterns and definitions of "kin." These ayllus were led by sinchi, or warriors, a group evolving into a hereditary leadership that oversaw a complicated system of reciprocity in which individuals owed certain responsibilities to other community members and to their ayllus and in which individuals in turn received certain benefits, particularly access to community land and labor assistance. Ayllu members also had the obligation of participating in another expression of ayllu reciprocity, mita chana cuy, or labor service on a variety of projects that benefitted the community or its leadership. Special types of services were provided by mitamaq, individuals who retained membership in their home ayllu but left its lands to secure commodities available only in different ecological zones, a reflection of the vertical structure of Andean society. Mitamaq remained linked to their home communities through kin ties and through the ayllu's guarqui, its ancestral deity.
The Incan adaptations of these Andean institutions served to bind the conquered ayllus to the state, but both the adaptation of traditional structures and the addition of imperial practices altered the basic organization of pre- Incan Andean society. The ayllus were preserved as the basic social unit but the Incas removed some workers, called yana, from their kin groups, added new royal ayllus, and imposed administrative units known as "hundreds." The local leadership group was converted into a hereditary leadership sector known as kurakas, but imperial envoys were given substantial political powers in the subjugated zones. The concept of reciprocity was extended to include the Incan state, with a new form of communal labor, mit'a, and taxes imposed to benefit the empire. The practice of sending colonists to distinct ecological zones to secure specific commodities continued, but under the Incas the mitmaq were usually resettled in order to increase the political and military stability of the empire. The Incas allowed local communities to continue their worship of ancestral deities, but forced all citizens of the empire to accept the superiority of the Sun God.
The arrival of the Europeans exacerbated these changes and caused others. The Spaniards were delighted to see those features of Incan society which they could adopt to their own purposes, operating on the theory that conquered peoples could be controlled best through familiar institutions. However, in each case the Spaniards' adoption of Incan institutions substantially changed their structure. Under Spanish control, the ayllu would be redefined, with an increasing emphasis on territoriality rather than ancestry, and the personal- service relationship between the yana and the Inca state would find a much- altered expression in the yanacona sector. The kurakas would be incorporated into the system of colonial administration in ways that reshaped their role within indigenous society. The concept of reciprocity would be altered, destroying the balance between ayllu members and between ayllus and the state as the Europeans appropriated for their own profit the Indians' land, goods, and labor service. Tolerance of familiar institutions would not be extended to indigenous religion, which the Spaniards were determined to exterminate. The indigenous peoples of the Andes would not passively accept these assaults on their traditional institutions and they would resent and resist imperial rule, both Incan and Iberian.
Toledo, however, was either unaware of or unconcerned with the subtleties of change within indigenous society. He was much more concerned with the current state of the Viceroyalty and with the ways in which Indians, their leaders, and private settlers were challenging the authority of the Spanish Crown. Toledo's staff had reported that throughout the Cuzco zone "there were many Indians who neither paid tribute nor were supervised by an encomendero or any other person" and the Viceroy himself noted that Cuzco, at an elevation of 11,000 feet, was surrounded by fertile Andean valleys and terraced hillsides, populated by "a great many people of all kinds who wandered idly through the city and towns." He found the indigenous community disorganized, dispersed, and demoralized from the Spanish conquest, the prolonged civil wars between opposing bands of conquistadores (1531–1547), and rumors of an uprising planned by the heir to the Incan Empire, Tupac Amaru. Toledo reported to King Philip II that the indigenous community was being exploited by local landowners and miners, harassed by the colonial judicial system, and deceived by a false religion.
As he had done throughout the sierra, the Viceroy ordered that the Indians of Cuzco be concentrated into organized settlements or reducciones, "so that they might become Christians and live decently." To resolve the specific problems he had noted, Toledo regularized and limited the demands that Spanish entrepreneurs could place on Indian laborers, established local courts and officials to protect the indigenous population, and ordered the confiscation of all concealed guacas, the objects held sacred in indigenous religion and denounced as "idols" by the Spaniards. Each of these reforms would, over time, have unforeseen consequences that undermined Toledo's original intent: the organization of the indigenous community into reducciones actually stimulated population dispersal and migration; the regularization of indigenous labor created new forms of exploitation which drove Indians to abandon their home communities to seek protection from the Spanish employers who were the targets of the original reforms; the local court systems and officials proved as efficiently predatory as their predecessors; and the campaign to end "idolatry" failed to eradicate traditional religious practices, which were perpetuated and in some ways strengthened by contact with Catholic rituals and institutions. Because of Toledo's actions and their unintended results, the next century and a half would bring a fundamental transformation of the Cuzco region: changes within Indian society and within the legal code would redefine and restructure the indigenous community; integration into the imperial system would transform economic relationships; the imposition of new political institutions and officials would challenge traditional authority lines; and the interaction of indigenous and European values would create a syncretic colonial culture.
The emergence of the social group known as forasteros—Indian migrants and their descendants who were integrated into existing communities in the rural zone and within the city of Cuzco—affected every one of these major transformations of traditional society: the presence of forasteros forced the redefinition of community structures and social ties; the migrants' varied economic roles (from wage laborer to private landowner) altered emerging economic patterns; the forasteros' arrangements with local leaders complicated the interaction between traditional authorities and colonial administrators; and the migrants' impact on indigenous religious practices and beliefs exacerbated the conflict between traditional values and Catholicism. Understanding indigenous migration and its impact on social structure, economic activity, political authority, and cultural interaction is necessary not only to accurately represent demographic change but also to understand the broader social and economic transformations of the seventeenth century.
* * *
Given recent developments in colonial historiography—particularly in the fields of social history, economic inquiry, and ethnohistory—it should be unnecessary to attack the image of the 1600s as a "Century of Depression," an insignificant interval between the chaos of the conquest and the dislocation of the Borbón reforms. Nevertheless, recognizing the importance of this era has not totally eliminated the image of seventeenth-century Peru as an example of rigid, "classic colonialism."
One of the most serious consequences of this image of the period was to obscure the role of migration in the creation of colonial society, and particularly in the transformation of the indigenous community which Karen Spalding has so aptly labeled "De indio a campesino." A decade ago Rolando Mellafe deplored the prevailing "static view of colonial Hispanic American society," reminding scholars that "unless we steadily keep in mind the continuing process of migration in the Viceroyalty of Peru, we can explain hardly any of the major phenomena of change in the family or in the Indian communities." Spalding and Franklin Pease also urged the study of indigenous migration, particularly as an assertive act by Indians who "sought to modify, adapt, avoid, or utilize the institutions imposed by their conquerors, as well as preserve and adapt their own traditions."
Nevertheless, most studies of migration in colonial Peru initially followed Mellafe's own limited format by concentrating on Europeans, Peruvians of mixed racial heritage, and Indians moving from "centers of dispersion" to "permanent areas of attraction"; such migration usually involved a parallel transition from traditional to conquest society and from subsistence agriculture to participation in the export economy and its support sectors. Little attention was given to the question of migration within indigenous society or to the role of the forasteros. Too often the complex mechanism of Indian migration was reduced to a simplistic duality of Indians fleeing to areas beyond Spanish control or seeking sanctuary in the employ of private landholders and mineowners. No longer identified as "displaced Indians ... who usually floated around like hoboes within the confines of the colony," the forasteros were still frequently regarded as marginal to Indian colonial society. Recent research on Indian communities in Upper Peru has contributed to a new understanding of indigenous migration but still emphasizes the impact of the mining communities. In his comprehensive summary of "Demographic and Physical Aspects of the Transition from the Aboriginal to the Colonial World," Woodrow Borah cited the need to analyze the "new socioeconomic forms created by the resettlement of the Indian population," but failed to mention migration within the Indian community or its impact on colonial history. A recent study of major patterns in colonial demography totally ignored indigenous migration. One major theme unites these works: a perception of indigenous migration and migrants as chiefly the result of other developments within colonial history. What I have tried to do is to present the forasteros as a cause as well as a consequence of historical change and to analyze their active role in the transformation of indigenous society under Spanish colonialism.
The failure to recognize the full significance of the forastero sector, which by 1690 was almost half of the population of the bishopric of Cuzco, has obscured another major facet of the Indian response to Spanish rule. Indigenous migration clearly constituted a form of resistance to colonial rule. The vigor with which Spanish administrators sought to control the forasteros indicated the degree to which officials considered unrestricted indigenous migration a challenge to their authority. The size and scope of the forastero sectors, both provincial and urban, represented a potential loss of imperial profits and a possible threat to political and religious hegemony. Yet, paradoxically, some of the consequences of widespread indigenous migration—the redefinition of the kin group and the weakening of communal ties; the indigenous participation in the wage labor force; and the abandonment and subsequent alienation of Indian lands—actually contributed to the expansion of the imperial system in a painfully ironic twist to the theme of indigenous response and resistance to colonial rule. The unintended consequences of an individual's act, whether forastero or viceroy, played a major role in the transformation of the bishopric of Cuzco between 1570 and 1720.
* * *
The bishopric of Cuzco during the period from 1570 to 1720 is an excellent locale for such an essential study of the structure and impact of Indian migration. As in most colonial-era research, the availability of documentation influenced the selection of the Cuzco region: the 1690 census of the bishopric is a critical part of the data base for this project. Specific features of the region also contributed to the final choice. Some aspects, such as the Spaniards' efforts to extract labor and goods from the indigenous community, prevailed throughout colonial Peru; other characteristics, such as the impact of the prolonged civil wars and the region's role within the imperial system, distinguished the Cuzco zone from other areas of the Viceroyalty. The Cuzco area was a subsidiary economic zone linked to but not dominated by any of the major growth regions, and the city was an important administrative and transportation center. Within the provinces of the bishopric, Indians were subject to various types of forced labor service with distinct demographic and social consequences, a fact which allows for a comparative approach impossible in other regions. In short, the bishopric of Cuzco was both like and unlike other regions of colonial Peru; studying the Cuzco zone allows for both broad generalizations applicable to other zones and specific conclusions emphasizing the area's unique history.
This study begins in the 1570s during the administration of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo (1569–1581), but the emphasis on Toledo's tenure is not intended to disparage the significant developments of the immediate post-conquest era. Rather, this period has been chosen because of the imposition of Toledo's complex bureaucratic system which regularized Indian labor and tribute obligations, prohibited unauthorized resettlement within indigenous society, and formalized the procedure through which an individual's legal status and community identity were determined by birthplace. The logical endpoint for an analysis of that system is the decade following the pan-Andean epidemic of 1719–1721, which devastated the Cuzco area and forced a readjustment of colonial administrative policy and a redefinition of the individual Indian's social position, with legal status and community membership dependent on access to resources of production, not birth.
Ironically, the period so clearly defined by specific chronological events can best be studied through a distinctly unchronological approach. I have therefore adopted a structure which, like the term "forastero," needs some elucidation. This chapter introduces the bishopric of Cuzco in the 1570s, explaining why this particular area and period were selected. Chapter 2 establishes a roughly chronological framework for the themes which follow by presenting a history of migration policy through two parallel lines of analysis: vice-regal administration and local reaction and resistance. In chapter 3 I discuss motives for Indian migration and profile the forastero population, suggesting a new approach to the region's demographic history and a restructuring of basic patterns in colonial demography. In chapter 4 I examine the impact of indigenous migration on community structures and linkages within the rural zone; chapter 5 emphasizes parallel changes within the city of Cuzco. Chapter 6 discusses the ways in which rural and urban indigenous migration altered both the traditional and colonial relationships of production. In chapter 7 I conclude the study and complete the 1570–1720 cycle by returning to the scene set at the beginning of the work.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Indigenous Migration and Social Change by Ann M. Wightman. Copyright © 1990 Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
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