Theme Six:  The Church and Religious Resistance
October 6-11
Midterm October 13
 

Outline:

 A. The Structure of Labor/Politics
  1. The Special Role of Curaca
  2.  Institutional Organization: The continued importance of ayllu and alteptl
  3. The "Spanish" Town in the New World
 B. Conversion and Resistance
  1. The Structure of the Church in the New World
  2. The Mission of the Church
  3. Resistance and the Taqui Onqoy
 C. Toledan Reforms
  1. Mercury Amalgamation
  2. Life inside the "Red Mountain"
  3. MigrationUrbanization and Indian Networks
  4. Taxation, Labor and Changes and Ethnic Communities
  5. Yanaconas and Forasteros

                                                              This is a small version of a page from Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's Buen Gobierno y Nueva Coronica del Peru.  Poma was a Christian mestizo who, in the early 17th century, wrote a several-hundred-page "letter" to Philip V, King of Spain.  Each page of the cronicle contains a drawing of daily colonial life in the Andes.  The above page docments the cruel punishment of mitayos at the hands of the mine corregidors.   For more examples of Guaman Poma's pages (text in Spanish), click here.

Key Terms:
 

Mitayo Curaca  Cacique  Francisco de Toledo

Alcalde  Cabildo  Audiencia  Viceroyalty

Potosí  Yanacona  Forastero  Captaincy

Juez de Fora  Indian Reduction  Repartimiento de la Mita (or, simply, Mita)

 
Reading Assignments:

Stern, pages 51-137 (Chapter Three, Four, and Five)

Optional Additional Readings:

Ann Wightman, Chapter Four "'El Ayllu Forastero': Migration, Community Structure and  Identity" in Indigenous Migration and Social Change: The Forasteros of Cuzco (1991) pp.86-111.

Questions for Consideration:

1. How did the role of curaca change during the first one hundred years of colonial rule?  Why do you think the position of curaca had not been dissolved completely by the Spanish after conquest?  What does the colonial position of the curaca tell us about the nature of Spanish colonial rule?

2. How helpful is the term "indian" in understanding different groups living in the rural societies of the bishopric of Cuzco during the late seventeenth century?  What are the alternatives, and what historical phenomena do these alternatives highlight?

3. How did migration play a role in shaping social markers among indigenous people?
 

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