ward stavig potosi

Continuing the Bleeding of These Pueblos Will Shortly Make Them Cadavers: The Potosi Mita,Cultural Identity, and Communal Survival in Colonial PeruAuthor(s): Ward StavigSource: The Americas, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Apr., 2000), pp. 529-562Published by: Academy of American Franciscan HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1008172Accessed: 24/08/2010 11:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aafh.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Academy of American Franciscan History is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto The Americas.

http://www.jstor.org

The Americas 56:4 April 2000, 529-562 Copyright by the Academy of American Franciscan History

CONTINUING THE BLEEDING OF THESE PUEBLOS WILL SHORTLY MAKE THEM CADAVERS:

THE POTOSI MITA, CULTURAL IDENTITY, AND COMMUNAL SURVIVAL IN COLONIAL PERU*

The exploitation of Andean villagers under the forced labor regime for the mines of Potosi is almost as infamous as the silver they extracted from the cerro rico is famous.' Established by Viceroy Toledo in the

1570s, the mita, as the system of forced labor was known, remained in place until the smoke and shot of Latin American independence struggles were in the air. For over two centuries, Spain forced thousands upon thousands of naturales (a common colonial term for indigenous people) from communities throughout the southern Andean highlands to lend their muscle and sweat, and all too often their blood and their lives, to keep Potosi's veins open and flowing. Through this work the mitayos and their communities not only drove the colonial economy, but also were a major force in sustaining the Spanish empire and in helping forge the modern world's dominant economic system. Conversely, mita exploitation threatened the very survival of the communities subject to it. The mita was so onerous that virtually all indigenous peoples subject to the labor draft, regardless of ethnicity or class, raised an almost continuous voice of protest from their communities against the mita and its abuses. Tensions created by the mita also severely strained the bonds that linked community, curaca, and the state, which were primary ingredients in the social glue that kept colonial Andean society from coming apart. To avoid descending into the mines, and to escape such horrors as laboring over mercury vapors, many people permanently fled their communities, giving up the status of originarios (community members with rights

* I would like to thank Arnold Bauer, Dan Calhoun, and Rollie Poppino for comments on early versions and Ella Schmidt and the helpful anonymous readers for their useful suggestions on later versions. Parts of this article have appeared in Ward Stavig, The World of Tapac Amaru (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999).

1 Potosi is properly written with an accent on the "i" but it is so commonly written without the accent that I have opted for the convenience of not using the accent.

529

530 COMMUNAL SURVIVAL IN COLONIAL PERU

such as access to land and subject to state obligations) to become forasteros (indigenous person not living in community of origin, or descendant of the same, without communal rights but exempt from many state obligations).2 In this way the mita, one of the few forces that had potential for uniting Andean peoples in opposition to the state also fractured them. Communal solidarity was severely strained and neither the shared experience of the mita nor the commonality of experience in Potosi created sufficient cohesion to over- come the ethnic and regional differences that divided them.

In recent years the importance of Potosi silver has led considerable attention to be focused on the cerro rico, its workers, and the economy by scholars such as Peter Bakewell and Enrique Tandeter who benefited from pio- neering works such as those of Alberto Crespo Rodas and Gwendolin Cobb and Gabriel Ren6-Moreno. In addition, Jeffrey Cole has drawn attention to royal concerns about the mita and the difficulty faced in reforming the system.3 Unlike most other studies of the mita that center on Potosi, this article examines the impact of the silver mining complex on the Andes from the focal point of indigenous villagers and the communities in which they lived.' The analytic lens is trained outward from the community as it brings into focus the web of relationships that villages constructed with Potosi, and its economic orbit, through direct and indirect coercion as well as by "free" (within the colonial context) choice. These complex interactions are exam- ined through the experience of villagers in the provinces of Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis (Cuzco) located between the former Inca capital and Lake Titicaca. Sources from the early years of Potosi are used to provide depth and understanding, particularly in the first few pages, but the research centers primarily on the mid-seventeenth through eighteenth centuries. The article examines how communities in Canas y Canchis and Quispicanchis,

2 The situations of originarios and, especially, forasteros varied significantly from place to place and over time. Space does not allow for a more complex definition here. One might look at Ann Wightman, Indigenous Migration and Social Change: The Forasteros of Cuzco 1570-1720 (Durham: Duke Univer- sity Press, 1990); and Karen Powers, "Resilient Lords and Indian Vagabonds: Wealth, Migration, and the Reproductive Transformation of Quito's Chiefdoms, 1500-1700," Ethnohistory 38:3 (1991).

3 There is a growing literature on Potosi and the mita. One might begin by examining the following: Peter Bakewell, Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosi, 1545-1650 (Albuquerque: Uni- versity of New Mexico Press, 1984); Jeffrey A. Cole, The Potosi Mita 1573-1700: Compulsory Indian Labor in the Andes (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985); Enrique Tandeter, Coercion and Market. Silver Mining in Colonial Potosi, 1692-1826 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993). For early works see Gwendolin Cobb, Supply and Transportation for the Potosi Mines, 1545-1640," HAHR 29:1 (1949); Alberto Crespo Rodas, "El reclutamineto y los viajes en la 'mita' del Cerro de Potosi, in La Minerfa Hispana e Ibero Americana (Leon, 1970); Gabriel Rene'-Moreno, "La Mita de Potosi en 1795," Revista del Instituto de Investigaciones Hist6ricas de la Universidad Tomds Frids, Potosi 1, (1959-60).

4 For another regional study of the mita see Roberto Choque Canqui, "El papel de los capitanes de indios de la provinci Pacajes'en el entero de la mita' del Potosi," Revista Andina 1:1 (1983).

WARD STAVIG 531

faced with fleeing and reluctance to work in Potosi, developed strategies to ameliorate their mita burden and ensure the compliance of community members with colonial demands. Failure to comply with these demands put both community members and the curaca in jeopardy of state reprisals including jail, obraje labor and loss of access to land. In evolving these strategies, Andean villagers sought to enforce communal solidarity and in this way safeguard their existence. Service to the crown in the mita was viewed by Cuzco villagers as guaranteeing them access to land within a largely self- governing village structure-preserving their way of life, their culture. Thus, they struggled to comply, while at the same time protesting the mita and the abuses it fostered. This quid pro quo of labor in exchange for land and cultural survival was anchored not only in imperial demands, but also in Andean understandings of the "exchanges" that governed relationships between ruled and ruler.5 Thus, while the mita seriously destructured communities at one level, at another level it also provided special impetus to villagers to reinforce communal solidarity. In this way the most destructuring force in the Southern Andes next to epidemics, the mita, also functioned to maintain or develop structures of identity and solidarity that allowed communities to cope with the problems created by the mita.

The provinces of Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis were selected for several reasons. Their distance from the cerro rico heightened some of the mita-related problems they faced. The specialization of the peoples of Canas y Canchis in the transport of goods based on a heritage of llama herding created contradictions for some villagers by allowing them to take advantage of the lucrative market in Potosi, as well as other local and regional markets, to supplement their income. Likewise, many people in Quispicanchis were involved in coca production and a major market for this fatigue-lessening and

5 For a discussion of these issues one might begin with E.P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth century," Past and Present, 50 (February 1971). For a more updated view of Thompson's thoughts on moral economy as it has come to be used in other fields, especially peasant studies, see "Moral Economy Reviewed" in Customs in Common (London, 1991) especially pages pp. 339-351. Much of this discussion is drawn from an article of mine in the Hispanic American Historical Review (Ward Stavig, "Ethnic Conflict, Moral Economy, and Population in Rural Cuzco on the Eve of the Thupa Amaro II Rebellion," HAHR, 68:4 (November 1988). A conversation with Brooke Larson at the 1986 CLASCO conference in Lima and the paper she presented, "'Exploitation' and 'Moral Economy' in the Southern Andes: A Critical Reconsideration," were helpful to me. Also on the Andes, see Tristan Platt, Estado boliviano y ayllu andino (Lima, 1982) and Erick D. Langer, "Labor Strikes and Reciprocity on Chuquisaca Haciendas," HAHR, vol. 65:2 (1985). In Mexico see Kevin Gosner, Soldiers of the Virgin (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992). Also see James L. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasants: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1976) and Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1985). Thompson has been criticized for not differentiating between sectors of the "community," a differentiation that is fundamental to my argument.


hunger-dampening leaf were the miners in Potosi. Thus, Canas y Canchis and Quispicanchis were articulated through forced and free labor to the local, regional, and Atlantic world economies. These multiple articulations- Andean/viceregal/European, micro/macro-provide the backdrop for examining the efforts of Andean peoples to maintain their ways of life while living with the yoke of Spanish imperialism around their communal necks.6 In addition, these provinces are a good region from which to examine the role of the state for decisions made by the Spanish crown reverberated loudly in Cuzco communities such as Tungasuca, Pampamarca, and Surimana, the villages ruled over by the eighteenth century rebel leader Tripac Amaru whose rebellion sought, among other aims, to end the dreaded mita.

The analysis also follows Cuzco mitayos to Potosi to examine ways in which their lives in the Villa Imperial were shaped by colonial policies that, as with other mitayos, segregated them residentially by race from the Span- ish and divided them by ethnicity within the barrios set aside for them, while subjecting them to difficult living conditions and a frightful work environ- ment. This separation and segregation, as we shall see, had a strong, if unin- tentional, influence on the maintenance of communal and regional identities of mitayos and their families by functioning to diminish even further erosion of communal solidarity, considerable damage always being done.

The article also pays particular attention to indigenous use of Spanish institutional structures, particularly the law, which they sought to use toward their own ends. As Eric Hobsbawm puts it, they were "working the system ... to their minimum disadvantage."7 At the same time, the article shows how naturales transformed these institutions or, as Michel de Certeau argues, diverted their use "from its intended aims." According to de Certeau,

Even when they were subjected, indeed even when they accepted their subjec- tion, the Indians often used the laws, practices, and representations that were imposed on them by force or by fascination to ends other than those of the con- querors; they made something else out of them; they subverted them from within-not by rejecting them or by transforming them (though that occurred as well), but by many different ways of using them in the service of rules, customs or convictions foreign to the colonization which they could not escape. They metaphorized the dominant order: they made it function in another register. They remained other within the system which they assimilated and which assimilated them externally. They diverted it without leaving it.8

6 Doreen Massey, "Double Articulation. A Place in the World" in Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 110-121.

7 Eric Hobsbawm, "Peasants and Politics," Journal of Peasant Studies, 1, no.1 (1973). 8 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Steven F Rendell, trans. (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1984), pp. 31-32.

WARD STAVIG 533

POTOSI RICHES AND COMMUNAL DECLINE

After the fall of Tawantinsuyu, Europeans quickly spread out over the remains of the Inca Empire in search of the sources of gold and silver that dazzled Pizarro and his men. In 1545 this search was rewarded when an Indian named Hualpa, working for a Spaniard, discovered what soon became the world's greatest silver mine. The Spaniard registered the first claim at Potosi and was among the first to be enriched by its ore. Like later mitayos, neither Hualpa nor his grandchildren, who petitioned the crown for rights and exemptions in compensation for the service their grandfather had rendered Spain, benefited from the discovery.9

Word of the precious ore spread like wildfire and Potosi, despite being located in a cold, sterile, windswept and sparsely inhabited region of the Andes some 4,000 meters above sea level, sprang into existence overnight. Their heads filled with dreams of riches, Spaniards rushed to the cerro rico and "Indians came from all parts to extract silver from the hill," many sent by their curacas or encomenderos.10 Just a few years after silver was discovered the wry Jesuit, Father Joseph de Acosta, observed that the "force of silver, which drawes unto it the desire of all thinges, hath peopled this moun- taine more then (sic) any other place in all these Kingdomes.""1 By 1610 Potosi had some 160,000 residents, including 76,000 Indians and some 6,000 people of partial or full African heritage, but as silver production fell so did the population.12 By 1719, with an epidemic raging in Potosi, the Villa Imperial had shrunk to 60,000 and as the eighteenth century closed the number of residents was estimated at 24,500.13

In the first years after discovery the amount of ore extracted from Potosi was truly fantastic and it was during these boom years that the first naturales from Canas y Canchis were sent to Potosi. Don Carlos Inca, the heir to the Inca throne and the Spanish puppet ruler, had been granted an encomienda in Canas y Canchis and he owned mines in Potosi. In 1566 Don Carlos asked

9 Father Joseph de Acosta, The Natural & Moral History of the Indies, C. Clements Markham, ed. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1880), p. 197.

10 Pedro de Cieza de Leon, Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Leon, C. Clements Markham, ed. and trans. (London: Hakylut Society, 1864), p. 387.

11 Acosta, Natural & Moral History, p. 197. 12 Bartolom6 Arzins de Orstia y Vela, Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosi, Lewis Hanke and

Gunnar Mendoza, eds. Vol. 1 (Providence: Brown University Press, 1965), p. 286. 13 Arzins, Historia, III, 85; Pedro Vicente Cafiete y Dominguez, Gufa Hist6rica, Geogrdphica,

Fisica, Politica, Civil y Legal del Gobierno e Intendencia de la Provincia de Potosi (Potosi: Editorial Potosi, 1952), p. 38.


his agent to sell the mines and "to have care and administration [of] the Indi- ans that I have and had in said villa."14

However, it was not through mine work, but the transport of goods to the cerro rico that most communities of the upper Vilcanota first began their relationship with Potosi. Luis Miguel Glave uncovered twenty-four contracts to carry coca from Paucartambo, a province of Cuzco bordering Quispicanchis, to Potosi between the years 1560-1575. Fourteen of these contracts were from Canas y Canchis, leading Glave to state that there was "a labor specialization of the Canas in the transport of coca."15 The trajines or transport of goods remained a very important activity in Canas y Canchis throughout the colonial period, but once instituted it was the mita that took most Cuzco naturales to distant Potosi.

By 1560, the richest most accessible ores had been mined and returns were starting to diminish. Free Indians and Spaniards, along with their yanacona, drifted away as the mines got deeper, the work harder, and the rewards less. Low wages and arduous work held as little attraction for indigenous workers as for anyone else.16 The shortage of labor became a serious concern for miners and the crown. Faced with declining quintos and a scarcity of labor, Spain decided to force Andean villagers to carry the burden of production through the imposition of the mita. Prosperity was returned to Potosi when the amalgamation process, which used poisonous but precious mercury to refine low-grade ores, was introduced by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in the 1570s. The processing of low-grade ore meant, however, that vast quantities of ore had to be mined to make the process profitable. This, in turn, made necessary massive numbers of workers to do the digging, carrying, refining, and building the new process demanded. Thus, to secure a labor supply adequate for increased needs, Toledo imposed the mita on indigenous communities in the southern Andean highland. At the same time he fixed wage levels for the mita at about one-third to one-half those of free workers. Toledo also restructured communal life by "reducing" ayllus into villages to assure better control and to facilitate, among other reasons, the mita and tribute collection. By 1574 the new system was in place and the first mitayos arrived in Potosi. After its introduction, this mita subsidy of both workers and lower fixed wages drove the mining industry and

14 ANB.E.P. Bravo, 1568, f39v. (MC97e) 1566, VIII, 27. Cuzco. Carta de Poder: Don Carlos Inca, vecino, a Pedro de la Torre, vecino de la ciudad de La Plata por diversos efectos incluyendo de minas e indios.

15 Luis Miguel Glave, "La producci6n de los trajines: coca y mercado interno colonial," HISLA, No. 6 (Lima, 1986), p. 30.

16 Glave, "La producci6n," p. 35.

WARD STAVIG 535

maintained Potosi's economic prominence, but at a heavy cost to communities such as those of rural Cuzco. However, the alterations Toledo made in communal structures would, ironically, prove to be an important component in their long-term survival.

MIGRATION, FLIGHT, FAMILY, AND COMMUNAL SUPPORT

The mita affected a vast region of the southern Andes that stretched from Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis in the north to near what is now the Argentine-Bolivian border in the south." Only males between 18 and 50 were legally subject to the labor draft, the base mita population in the subject provinces being 91,000 when established. No more than one-seventh of these men were to serve each year. This septima was referred to as the mita gruesa and came to 13,500 in the first years. Mitayos were supposed to work one week and have two weeks free so only 4,500 people-the mita ordinaria-were supposed to be toiling at any one moment. However, mitayos had to sell their "free" labor for most, if not all, of their "rest periods" in order to survive. In the 1680s, a little over a century after the mita was established, only 33,423 of the original 91,000 remained. The fleeing, death and disease that led to their decline had taken their toll in rural Cuzco. The originario population of Canas y Canchis plummeted from 6,023 in 1575 to 3,683 in 1684 and to 1,755 in 1728.'8 In 1617 the mita gruesa from Canas y Canchis numbered 754 men. By 1733 it had fallen to 318 and near 1780 there were only 269 mitayos in the province. The septima for the villages of Sicuani and Pichigua (Canas y Canchis) were 52 and 128 respectively in 1575, but by 1733 the number of subject men had dropped to 30 and 65. In 1692 the septima for the villages of Quispicanchis was 111, but by the 1780s the same septima contained only 44 men.19

The migratory process quickly became all too familiar to those subject to service in Potosi. It began in earnest when the corregidor or his representa-

17 John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich [Harvest Book], 1970), p. 407; Cafiete y Dominguez, Guia Hist6rica, pp. 106-107; Alberto Crespo Rodas, "El Reclutamiento y los Viajes en la 'Mita' del Cerro de Potosif," pp. 471-475. The provinces included in the mita were Porco, Chayanta, Paria, Carangas, Sicasica, Pacajes Omasuyos, Paucarcolla, Chuquito (these last four are on the shores of Lake Titicaca) Cavana and Cavanilla, Quispicanches, Azangaro and Asilla, Canes and Canches.

18 Luis Miguel Glave, Vida simbolos y batallas. Creacidn y recreacidn de la comunidad indigena. Cusco, siglos XVI-XX. (Lima, 1992), p. 64.

19 Glave, Vida simbolos y batallas, p. 66; Magnus Morner, Perfil de la sociedad rural del Cuzco a fines de la colonia, (Lima: University del Pacifico, 1978), p. 116; ANB. M147, (Minas 1365) Nueva Numeraci6n General de 1733. Archivo General de la Naci6n. Buenos Aires (AGN.B.A.) Sala 9, 14-8-10. Mita. Ordenanzas de virreyes. Potosi. 1683-774. 1692 Mita; Factors such as changes in provincial bound- aries and lacuna in the data make provincewide mita evaluations problematic.


tive officially notified the community and their curaca of their obligation to serve in the Villa Imperial and the date they had to depart. In 1655 the crown representative in Quispicanchis informed the villagers of Pomachape that "they ought and they are obliged to dispatch 'yndios' to the Potosi mita." He told the curaca, Bartolome Choque Fonsa, that he was to bring his people to the nearby plaza of Pomacanche "with their llamas and all provision in the form as is accustomed" under penalty of 200 lashes and four years in an obraje.20 The process was similar in the neighboring community of Papres some 30 years later. There the corregidor ordered villagers to gather in the plaza and through an interpreter he informed them of their obligation while warning their cacique that the mitayos must be present and ready on the appropriate day with their supplies, coca, llamas and other things they would need so that they could leave for Potosi without delay.21

While the state requisitioned only adult men, for the communities of Cuzco the mita was a family affair. Mitayos almost never went alone, wives and children accompanying their men. If there was no wife someone else went. Diego Choque, wifeless, left Pomacanche for the cerro rico with his mother, and when Juan Pacha, also without a spouse, departed from San- garari the eight-year-old daughter of Aria Rrosa was sent along to assist him.22 Children from rural Cuzco most often accompanied their parents to Potosi, but this was not always the case. When the contingent from Papres departed in 1687 many mitayo couples left their children behind. Agustin Quispe and his wife bid farewell to three children. Mateo Masi and Isabel Poco had to leave "one young (tierno) son," while Melchor Canaya, who had been selected to go as a backup worker or remuda, and his wife, Juana Caya, left two "hijos tiernos."23 Evaluating the impact of the mita on children is complicated by the fact that some colonial officials included children in the record, while others recorded only adults. For instance, another list of mitayos from Papres does not mention children either going or being left, while the same document recorded that couples from nearby Pomacanche had children with them.24 Similarly, in a 1689 survey of parishes in Quispi- canchis and Canas y Canchis some priests mentioned the mita and others did not. However, almost all of those who did, such as those of Sicuani, Langui,

20 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 60, 1601-1677. 1655. Pomacanche mita. Maestro del Campo Joseph de los Rios y ...

21 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 61, 1679-1705. 1687. Mita de Papres. 22 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 60, 1601-1677. 1646. Mita de Quispicanchis. ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 61,

1679-1705. 1690. Mita. Pomacanche, Sangarar6. 23 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 61, 1679-1705. 1687. Mita de Papres. 24 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 60, 1601-1677. 1646. Mita de Quispicanchis.

WARD STAVIG 537

Layo, San Pedro de Cacha, and San Pablo de Cacha noted that the families accompanied the men.25

One way communities tried to lessen the burden of those selected was by using communal resources to provide the mitayos with supplies to help sus- tain them while away. Variations in the goods families of equal size had on their llamas as they started down the royal road toward Potosi suggest differing levels of communal support. However, since people took their own supplies differences may have stemmed from individual wealth, but no matter what the supplement the primary burden was borne by the mitayo family.

Mitayos from the Cuzco region typically took with them large loads of coca, grown in the nearby province of Paucartambo or even in Quispican- chis, to avoid having to purchase the precious leaf in the inflated market of Potosi and to sell to help maintain themselves. While unfortunately not revealing if the goods were personal or communal, a 1690 list or c6dula (the term was also used to describe the workers on it) of mitayos and their wives from Pomachape details the supplies taken to Potosi. Martin Choque and his wife, Josepha Malque had six llamas loaded with corn, chufio (freeze-dried potatoes), wheat, coca and their toldo (presumably a tent-like shelter), while Joseph Alvarado and Teresa Sisa left with the same goods, but with only four loaded llamas. In 1770 a Potosi official noted the goods, such as Peruvian chili or aji and coca, arriving with the mitayos and observed that they sold many of these provisions, especially to the Indian merchants.26 These goods and people represent just one small portion of the wealth, human and otherwise, that the mita transferred out of indigenous communities and into the non-subsistence colonial economy.27

Few Cuzco mitayos had the resources to purchase their way out of service, as did many naturales in regions closer to the Potosi market. Thus, this practice, known as faltriquera, was not widespread in rural Cuzco. Mita captains from Canas y Canchis in the late seventeenth century testified that there were few indios de faltriquera, or colquehaques as they were also called, in their province, "because those [Indians] that there are, are few and

25 Cuzco 1689. Economia y sociedad en el sur andino. Informes de los pdrrocos al obispo Molliendo, Horacio Villanueva Urteaga, pr6logo y transcripci6n (Cuzco: Centro Bartolom6 de Las Casas, 1982), pp. 127-173 and 236-252.

26 ANB. E.C. 1770, p. 81. Don Manuel Maruri, regidor de Potosi y receptor del derecho de alcabalas, sobre que se continuan el pago de las que estan obligados a pagar los enteradores de mita y sus segun- dos de los efectos de comestibles y ropa de la sierra que introducen en la villa para su expendido en las tiendas, plazas y canchas.

27 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 61, 1679-1705. 1690; Mita. Pomacanche. For a discussion of the transfer of wealth out of the communities see Nicolas Sinchez-Albornoz, Indios y tributos en el Alto Peru' (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1978).


poor." Likewise, the captains from Quispicanchis when asked if there were colquehaques in their province answered no "because they are few and all come in person to serve their mita."28

Among those selected there was occasionally someone who possessed sufficient resources to pay for a substitute. This was an expensive process for no one would go to Potosi without substantial compensation under such circumstances.29 When Mateo Gamarra was assigned to Langui's (Canas y Canchis) mita in the 1790s he purchased a substitute because his wife was ill and could not make the hard journey. He hired Fernando Gamarra, perhaps a relative, for 179 pesos only to have Fernando flee leaving Mateo broke and pursued by the people in Potosi who had received neither the mitayo nor the money due them.30 Two centuries earlier Luis Capoche had observed that desperate naturales would give fifteen or twenty head of live- stock "that is all their wealth" to avoid the mita and that was exactly what Mateo Gamarra had done. However, few could purchase their way out of the mita repeatedly and Gamarra was no exception. He had sold goods, food, and animals, and used what silver he had to hire a replacement to be with his sick wife. When he was again selected for the mita because, in reality, his earlier obligation had not been filled, there was nothing left. Gamarra pursued the only option left open to him, he appealed to colonial officials for exemption from the mita. Besides having tried to comply with his obligation the year before, he argued that he was "of advanced age, as his grey hair showed, [and with] the habitual illnesses of deafness and the swelling of one leg." He also argued that it was unjust that the community had selected him as captain of the mita after what he had been through "wanting me to sacri- fice to the death."31 The community had asked too much. Gamarra had to protect himself so he sought relief from the state for state imposed demands. However, the process of "working the system" put him at odds with his community rather than the colonial regime, which had created the mita.

There were others like Gamarra who purchased their way out of service, but they appear to have been few and far between. For instance, in the 1630s Diego Arqui of Pichigua said that he used his lands to pay his obligations,

28 Sinchez-Albornoz, Indios y tributos, pp. 142-149. 29 Sinchez-Albornoz, Indios y tributos, p. 103; John Rowe, "The Inca under Spanish Colonial Insti-

tutions," HAHR 37:2 (1957), p. 176. The amount required varied according to distance from Potosi, and it also changed with the passage of time. In general, the further one went from Potosi the greater the cost of a substitute.

30 ADC. Intend. Ord. Leg. 41, 1797. Expedte seguido por Mateo Gamarra sobre que el Subdo se releve del cargo de nombramento de Capitan enterador a la mineria del trapiche de la Villa de Potosi. 31 Ibid.

WARD STAVIG 539

including his Potosi entero or payment.32 In reality, faltriquera was nothing more than a cash subsidy to miners and refiners who, especially in periods of low productivity, preferred cash, although they also made money illegally renting out the mita labor provided by the state. For more wealthy naturales and those with ready access to lucrative labor or commodity markets, faltriquera was an option that allowed them to avoid the rigors of forced labor. For the poorer members of the community it was a glaring reminder of the class differentiation that existed within communities.

Thus, community members did not always share the mita burden equally. Wealth, influence, and ayllu affiliation created tensions and discontent as some originarios were forced to serve in the mita more often than others. A Combapata tributary testified that it was the poor and those without means who were sent to Potosi.33 Not all of those who avoided the mita, however, purchased a replacement. Some tried more devious means. When Jos6 Chaco, a Coporaque cobrador, fled with the tribute it was discovered that he had accepted bribes from those seeking to avoid the cerro rico. Mateo Arpi had paid 50 pesos, much less than the cost of a substitute, while Melchor Umidiauri had "bought" a position serving the priest to free himself from the mita.34 Those without means, or without special attachments to the curaca, resented practices such as these that placed an unfair burden on the poorer, less well connected, members of the community. The mita captain of Yanaoca complained that the same people were repeatedly sent to Potosi "without giving them the rest disposed by ordinances." At the same time the Combapata captain maintained that such mistreatment of poor community members was among the reasons that mitayos remained in Potosi.35

Many Quispicanchis mitayos departed from the pampa (plain) of Antu- cota. In 1644 don Juan Laymichape, a cacique from Marcaconga, left from there as the enterador of his ayllu with a contingent that included himself and sixteen mitayos and their families along with their llamas, coca, chuiio and corn. Thirty years later, in 1674, Laymichape was still a curaca in Mar- caconga, but when he saw his people off to the Villa Imperial the contingent numbered only seven. In three decades his community's mita had plum-

32 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 60, 1601-1677. 1633. Don Diego Arqui yndio viejo natural de Pichigua (hurinsaya).

33 S'nchez-Albornoz, Indios y tributos, p. 144. 34 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Crim. Leg. 81, 1776-84. 1780. Coporaque. Criminal contra Jose Chaco o

Ylachaco por usurpacion de RS. tributos al Rey, y a los yndios quando fue cobrador de este ramo en el ayllo Ancocagua de este mismo pueblo.

35 Sinchez-Albornoz, Indios y tributos, p. 144.


meted to less than one-half of what it had been!36 One can only wonder what must have gone through the mind of Laymichape as he watched his people depart from Antucota fully realizing that, if the present were like the past, some would not return. In 1690 mitayos not only still left from Antucota pampa, but "an arbour [had been] built for the purpose of the despatch of the mita."37 Despite the sharp decline in population, the mita, as symbolized by the construction of the arbour, was as strong as ever. For over a century more the peoples of Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis watched their loved ones, friends, and fellow community members disappear down the royal road for the mines and refining mills of Potosi.

The villagers of Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis were just part of a massive, but supposedly temporary, forced migration from Andean villages to Potosi. In the late sixteenth century Luis Capoche reflected on the scope of the movement noting that because of the mita "the roads were covered and it seemed that the whole kingdom moved."38 In 1792 the Mercurio Peru- ano described the departure of mita contingents.

The Indians that go to Potosi and its refining mills leave their homeland with very much mournfulness. ... The day of their departure is very sad. ... [After mass] they pay [the priest] in order to entreat from the Allpowerful the suc- cess of their journey. Then they leave for the plaza accompanied by their parents, relatives and friends; and hugging each other with many tears and sobs, they say goodbye and followed by their children and wife, they take to the road preoccupied with their suffering and depression. The doleful and melan- choly nature of this scene is augmented by the drums and the bells that begin to signal supplications.39

The mitayos were to be paid for their travel to and from Potosi, but the payment or leguaje was a matter of continual contention not only between mitayos and miners, but also between the crown and the mining sector. Despite repeated royal orders, colonial officials lacked the will, or perhaps the power, to enforce payment. Since it was against the crown's interests to suspend the mita if the leguaje was not paid, the position of those authorities inclined to enforce payment was weakened. Thus, leguaje instituted to help mitayos and those left behind to survive, was nonexistent or inconsis-

37 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 60, 1601-1677. 1646. Mita. Quispicanchis. ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 60, 1601-1677. 1674. Mita. Marcaconga.

37 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 61, 1679-1705. 1690. Mita. Pomacanche, Sangarari. 38 Luis Capoche (1585), "Relaci6n General de la Villa Imperial de Potosif," in Relaciones hist6ricas

literarias de la America Meridional (Madrid: Biblioteca de autores espafioles, (1959), p. 135. 39 Mercurio Peruano, 1792. Edicion Fuentes, I, 208 as cited in Gabriel Ren&-Moreno, "La Mita de

Potosi en 1795," p. 8.

WARD STAVIG 541

tent for most of the colonial period. For Cuzquefio mitayos this meant one- half year of service, three months each way, was only partially compensated, if at all. As late as 1729 villages in Canas y Canchis were still demanding the payment, but they were also threatening to withhold tribute if leguaje was not paid.40 Thus, they attempted to pressure the state into forcing the payment of what was by law theirs.

For the Cuzquefio migrants the trek across the altiplano was long and difficult, cold or rain adding to the hazards. For some three months these Cuzco families walked and camped their way some 450 miles through the Andes to the cerro rico under the guidance and supervision of the enterador or captain of the mita.4' For those with small children the journey must have been especially arduous. Perhaps this is why some couples made what must have been the very difficult decision not to take their children with them which, in turn, provided strong incentive to return. Thus, the sheer distance to Potosi was also a significant problem for mitayos like those from Cuzco that the forced laborers from provinces nearer the cerro rico did not face. In 1689, a Sicuani priest reported that the number of community members continued to decline, "it is rare that [the mitayos and their families] return for lack of provisions and for the very great distance that they are from Potosi and because the Royal ordinances are not complied with."42 Mitayos were supposed to serve one year in Potosi, but the "great distance" and time of travel led the communities of Canas y Canchis and some other distant regions to develop a policy of two years service. Thus, the burdens and separations forced on peoples who came from villages in these provinces were even greater than for others. A Canas y Canchis priest, sensitive to the impact of colonial exactions and abuses, complained the communities were "dissipated" due to pressures from corregidores "and principally the mita of Potosi, where each two years they despatch from each parish more than twenty Indians, that are entire families."43

Despite the problems, Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis were recognized by the state as being very consistent in their delivery of mitayos. A

40 ANP. Superior Gobierno (S. Gob.) L.8, C. 146, 1729. Expediente promovido ante el Superior Gob- ierno, sobre la regulacion de los tributos de la Provincia de Canas y Canches, para que se les pague a los indios del servicio de minas, la bonificaci6n de leguaje, cuando concurren a lugares apartados. ANB. MSS2 (Ruck). 1603. Para que el corregidor de Potosi y los demis ... hagan pagar lo que se ocupan en yr y bolver a sus pueblos, fl53-154v).

41 Hemming, Conquest of the Incas, p. 407; Cafiete y Dominguez, Guia hist6rica, pp. 106-07; Crespo Rodas, "El reclutamineto," pp. 471-75.

42 Cuzco 1689, p. 243. 43 Cuzco 1689, p. 241. For a similar policy in the Lake Titicaca region see BNP. B585.1673. Despa-

cho de la mita de Potosi. Puno, 2 November 1673.


seventeenth century document that stipulates which communities the government considered buenos, medianos, o malos (good, average, or bad) in their mita compliance has "bueno" behind almost all Cuzco communities. This was not the case for all regions. The nearby province of Chucuito in the Lake Titicaca basin certainly did not have such a reputation." The high level of mita compliance in Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis was reflected in the increasing percentage of all mitayos who were from rural Cuzco, especially Canas y Canchis. When the mita was first established, Canas y Can- chis contained 5.9 percent of the total number of mitayos. By 1692 this percentage had increased to 11.9, making it the province that supplied the highest percentage of mitayos to Potosi.45 By fulfilling their mita obligations the communities of rural Cuzco maintained their good standing, their right to exist. It was understood as establishing a bond of reciprocity between sub- jects and the crown.46 However, the villages of Cuzco paid a heavy price for their strict compliance with the mita as many mitayo families remained in Potosi or became forasteros.47

By the late seventeenth century colonial officials could no longer avoid the fact that the failure of mitayos to return home was devastating the provinces. Viceroy de la Palata's census of the 1680s revealed that since Toledo established the mita a little more than a century earlier there were 58,092 fewer tributaries, over half the original total, living in the communities subject to the mita and that 5,557 originarios were living in Potosi. He ordered these people returned to their communities and excused them from tribute for one year, but as was often the case the order was not enforced. In 1692, Viceroy Monclova found 6,084 originarios still living in Potosi. While Quispicanchis had only 143 originarios resident in the Villa Imperial, Canas y Canchis had 999, more than any other province. Included in the list were only those adult males born in their provinces who had come to Potosi, not those born in Potosi who were referred to as "criollos" (not to be confused with people of European descent born in the New World, the more common

44 AGN. B. A. Sala 9, 6-2-5, 22. Meml de las Provincias y Pueblos qe estan obligados a enuiar yndios para la mita del cerro de Potosi con distincion de quales son buenos medianos y malos, 2 fs.

45 Nicolas Sainchez-Albornoz, "Mita, migraciones y pueblo. Variaciones en el espacio y en el tiempo. Alto Peri, 1573-1692, " Historia Boliviana, III (1983), p. 59; For percentages of all provinces see Ward Stavig, "The Indian Peoples of Rural Cuzco in the Era of Thupa Amaro," Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Davis (1991), p. 351.

46 Tandeter, Coercion and Market, p. 19. 47 AHP. C.R. 26. Yanaconas. In the late sixteenth century several people with origins in the upper

Vilcanota were registered in Potosi as yanacona of the crown. Among those who took such action were: Domingo Ato, aged thirty, from Tinta and married; Francisco Guanco, a twenty-year-old man from Sicuani who had lived in Potosi since he was a small child; and Juan Saucani from Guaro(c), whose father had been a huayrador, and who was married and had a four-month-old baby.

WARD STAVIG 543

usage of the term) in parish records.48 These originarios composed a very significant segment of what should have been the Canas y Canchis population, considering that the entire population of the province-men and women, young and old, originarios and forasteros, Indians and non-Indi- ans-was 14,200 in 1689-90.49 When family members are included in the total, a quarter to a third of what should have been the Canas y Canchis population lived in or near Potosi. Forced labor in the cerro rico indeed drained life out of rural Cuzco.

Efforts to force the return of mitayos and their families to the provinces of origin did not die and in 1754 originarios were once again ordered to return to their provinces. 1756 figures indicate that the originario population of the Villa Imperial had dropped from over 6000 to 2969. However, while the mitayos may have left Potosi they did not necessarily return to their ayllus. Corregidors in the mita provinces complained that because of deser- tion, moving to other regions, or not being well guarded by the captain of the mita-"for one of these same causes"-there was a lack of cedulas to fill the quotas. Orellana, a crown official involved in the mid-eighteenth century controversy over originarios resident in Potosi, confronted the same dilemma that others before him had faced. He clearly recognized the needs of the crown and noted that years earlier the government had suggested indigenous people settle near Potosi. The originarios, he argued, were vol- untarily fulfilling this crown desire. He also noted, ironically if not hypo- critically, that "it is not a crime in the Indians having sought their liberty [from their communities] ... imitating all other men prone to leave subju- gation." Orellana, however, also recognized the problem this presented to the communities and commented that the difficulty was an old one with "pernicious results in the destruction of these pueblos and principally those of greatest distance." He added "that continuing the bleeding of these pueblos will shortly make them cadavers." In the end, Orellana recommended that the government ought to proceed gently in any changes, which usually meant that nothing would be done.50

Originarios from Canas y Canchis and Quispicanchis who remained at the cerro rico sometimes continued to pay tribute and serve in their commu-

48 ANP. Derecho Indigena (D.I.) L.XXIV C.706. 1786. Autos promovidos en virtud del decreto expedido por el Superior Gobierno para que se empadronasen a los indios llamados ausentes con los originarios ... Contains 1692 materials. For totals see Stavig, "The Indian Peoples," p. 354.

49 ANP. D.I. LXXIV C. 706. 1756, 1692. Autos promovidos en virtud del decreto expendido por el Superior Gobierno para que se empadronasen a los indios llamados ausentes con los originarios ... Morner, Perfil de la Sociedad Rural del Cuzco, p. 144.

50 ANP. D.I. LXXIV C. 706. 1756. Autos promovidos en virtud del decreto expedido por el Superior Gobierno para que se empadronasen a los indios llamados ausentes con los originarios.


nity's mita. By doing this they maintained communal rights and preserved the possibility of someday returning to their natal community. Perhaps they had fallen into debt and had to remain, or perhaps they had found work that allowed them to accumulate funds which would be used to maintain themselves upon their return home, but the priest of San Pablo and San Pedro de Cacha (Canas y Canchis) noted that after long absences if the mitayos returned from the mita they were "so old that they do not serve for anything in their Pueblos."'' Undoubtedly many originarios in the Villa Imperial hoped to avoid the mita and tribute, however curacas were dogged in their pursuit of community members residing in Potosi. Mita captains from Quispicanchis in the late seventeenth century maintained that while their curacas did not know where most absent Indians were "that only in this villa (Potosi) are there some from whom they collect the tasa or tribute."52 The curaca or his agent, often the captain or enterador of the mita, tried to force those who had fled to serve, even those like Pedro (Arusi) Gualpa whose obligation to serve was tenuous. In 1643,

the gobernador of Santiago de Yanaoca [Canas y Canchis], Fernando Surco, accused Pedro Alata Arusi of changing his name to Pedro Gualpa and his place of origin to Oruro to evade mita service. Surco chased Pedro down after he fled from Potosi after only a few days working in the cerro and had him jailed pending a decision by the Audiencia de Charcas. Pedro said that he had been born in Oruro and later moved to the estancia of Gonzailez Pic6n at the age of seven, after his parents had died. Evidence on both sides of the dispute showed that he had then been entrusted to Domingo Arusi and raised along with his three sons. Arusi was originally from Santiago de Yanaoca (Canas y Canchis), and served in the mita from the estancia; when his sons came of age they too traveled to Potosi from there. Pedro fled from Potosi after his first taste of mita service, and when he was captured by Surco he challenged the legal basis for his obligation. Despite serious questions concerning his true origin-he changed his birthplace to Arequipa during the course of the litiga- tion-the Audiencia ruled that his adoption by Domingo Arusi did not oblige him to serve in the mita.53

The enteradores from Acopia (Quispicanchis) had better luck in forcing Baltasar and Agustin Ramos to serve in the mita after they fled. The Defen- sor de los Naturales argued for the community stating that it was important to have everyone serve who was supposed to serve because it increased

51 Cuzco 1689, p. 241. 52 S'anchez-Albomoz, Indios y tributos, pp. 142-149. 53 Jeffrey Austin Cole, "The Potosi Mita Under Hapsburg Administration. The Seventeenth Century,"

(Ph.D dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 1981), pp. 222-223.

WARD STAVIG 545

royal fifths, served the public good "and because the said Provinces and pueblos ... are deteriorated of people." The father of these brothers had died and for many years they had lived in the province of Porco near Potosi. However, when the baptismal record from Acopia was presented and Agustin's godmother confirmed his birth that was enough for the court which ordered that they ought "to be restored to their pueblo and Province of origin in order ... [that] they may have recourse to mita service from which depends the conservation of the Royal treasury and the public good. "54 In this case the community's and the crown's interests coincided and the community used colonial law to enforce its wishes.

Most people who fled their communities were, however, not found. By the late seventeenth century 12.5 per cent of the forastero population of Chayanta, a province close to Potosi, was composed of people from Canas y Canchis. Having either escaped mita service or having decided not to return home after completing their turn, these folk ceased to be a part of their communities in rural Cuzco. Becoming forasteros, they rented lands or they congregated where employment could be found such as the mining center of Cabanillas where several forasteros from Canas y Canchis resided.'" These people were a most significant loss to their villages in rural Cuzco.

WORK, LIFE, AND SEGREGATION IN POTOSI

Upon arrival in Potosi mitayos were assigned their various tasks, some being sent into the mines while others were ordered to the refining mills. From the very onset of the mita there was a consistency to these assignments, communities being placed with the same miners and refiners year after year. Death, decline in population, sale of mines, and alteration in assignments sometimes disrupted the consistency, but for the most part mitayos had knowledge, either personal or by word of mouth, of the people for whom they would work when they arrived in Potosi. For instance, several Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis mitayos worked for the Gamberete family. In 1692 Potosi officials had allocated to Miguel de Gamberete two different groups of 80 mitayos each for his mines and refineries. In one group 25 mitayos were from Pichigua and 13 from San Pedro and San Pablo

54 ANB. Minas 7. 126. no. 8 1798. Don Bartolomd Uancoiro y don Sebastian Condori, enteradores de la mita del pueblo de Acopia ... sobre que los hermanos Baltasar y Agustin Ramos exhiben sus par- tidas de bautizo, por donde constard la obligacion que tienen de servir la mita de Potosi, como originarios de dicho pueblo.

55 Brian Evans, "Census Enumeration in Late 17th Century Alto Peru: The Numeracion General of 1683-1684," Studies in Spanish American Population History, David Robinson, ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1981).


de Cacha (Canas y Canchis). The other group contained 12 mitayos from three communities in Canas y Canchis and 30 from five different Quispi- canchis communities. In 1736 mitayos from Pichigua were still being assigned to one Francisco Gamberete, but the number had been reduced from 25 to 18.56 If the mine owner had a reputation for abuse, the prospect of descending into the mines or laboring in the choking dust and poisonous mercury fumes of the refineries was even more repugnant. On the other hand, if mitayos were treated reasonably, albeit within the context of exploitative forced labor, service was usually more readily tolerated. As we shall see, these face-to-face relationships influenced behavior and compliance with, or resistance to, the mita.

Backbreaking, dangerous work often led to flight. Even among the Spaniards there were few who argued that the work was easy. Vicente Cafiete y Dominguez, a late eighteenth century colonial official who was both a defender and reformer of the mita, was horrified by labor conditions. He observed that "one bad night can break the most robust and well nour- ished man. For these unhappy ones all nights are very bad. They climb and descend overloaded with four arrobas [100 lbs.] of weight, through caverns filled with horror and risk, that seem like habitations of devils."57 Toledan work "limits" gave way to quotas and penalties for not meeting the quota.58 Daylong shifts were abandoned and mityaos were forced to labor below ground for the entire work week.59 A late seventeenth century observer, Acarete du Biscay, gave this account of mitayos returning from their shift.

After six days of constant work, the conductor brings 'em back the Saturday following to the same place, there the Corregidor causes a review to be made of 'em, to make the owners of the mines give 'em the wages that are appointed 'em, and to see how many of 'em are dead, that the couraces [cura-

56 ANB. M147 (Minas no.11l) Mano de obra minera no. 686. 1692. IV, 27, Lima. Repartimiento general de indios de mita para las minas e ingenios de Potosi hecho al orden del conde de la Monclava, virrey del Peru. And ANB 147 (Minas 1392) 1736. VI, 24-1736 XI.i Potosi. Entrega de indios de mita: El capitain general de ella a los interesados de las provincias de Porco, Canas y Canches, Chuquito.

57 Cafiete y Dominguez, Guia Histdrica, p. 112. 58 Enrique Tandeter, "Propiedad y gesti6n en la mineria potosina de la segunda mitad del siglo

XVIII," Paper presented at El Sistema Colonial en Mesoamerica y los Andes. VII Simposio Interna- cional. Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLASCO) Comision de Historia Economica. Lima. 1986.

59 Crespo Rodas, "La Mita," pp. 17-18. Jeffrey A. Cole, "An Abolitionism Born of Frustration: The Conde de Lemos and the Potosi Mita, 1667-73," HAHR 63:2 (1983). The Conde de Lemos, one of the viceroys most sympathetic to the plight of the workers, ordered mitayos be allowed to leave at the end of the day to sleep in their own residences. But this regulation seems not to have been enforced once the viceroy's term of office was up, if it was ever enforced to any extent.

WARD STAVIG 547

cas] may be olig'd to supply the number that is wanting: for there's no week passes but some of 'em die.60

Throughout the life of the mita, deaths were all too frequent. Mines col- lapsed, falling rocks crushed limbs and men just weakened and died. After a mine accident in the late sixteenth century Luis Capoche wrote that the grief-stricken wives, children and parents "broke the heavens with their cries," a scene that could just as easily have been witnessed 200 years later.61 Some workers understood the toxic nature of mercury and to avoid becoming as "mad as a hatter" they sought to protect themselves

by swallowing a double duckat of gold roled up; the which being in the stomacke, drawes unto it all the quicke-silver that enters in fume by the eares, eyes, nostrilles, and mouth, and by this meanes freed themselves from the danger of quicke-silver, which gold gathered in the stomacke, and after cast out by the excrements: a thing truly worthy of admiration.62

The mitayos of Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis, like other mitayos, were overwhelmingly concentrated in the hazardous and difficult jobs of hauling the silver from the depths of the mines by climbing leather ladders loaded down with ore (apiris) or breaking the ore loose in the mines with metal rods (barreteros).63 It is impossible to know if Joseph Ninachi from Lurucachi (Canas y Canchis) who was married to Martina Colquema and who died on 28 October 1750 at age 40 was a mitayo and, if so, if he died of work-related causes. But the death registries from parishes where the people from Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis lived are strewn with entries like that of Ninachi, and hundreds more for their wives and children.64 It was dread of such an end that led many to flee Potosi and not return to their communities.

The thousands upon thousands of indigenous workers in Potosi needed coca to dull the pain of work and allow them to endure such heavy exertion at high altitudes and the inadequate nutrition that were part of life in the mines. Capoche observed that "there would not be a Potosi longer than the

60 Acarete du Biscay, An Account of a Voyage up the River de La Plata and Thence Over Land to Peru, (n.p.: 1698), p. 50.

61 Capoche, Relacidn General, pp. 158-159. 62 Acosta, Natural & Moral History, p. 212. 63 Thierry Saignes provided me with the information based on Repartimiento General del Marques

de Montesclaros, 1610, Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, ms. espagnol n. 175, ff., pp. 257-318 and AGI. Charcas 51(?). 1617 Lista de mitayos presentes y faltos en Potosi; For totals see Stavig, "The Indian Peo- ples," pp. 361-362.

64 ADP. San Pablo 1749-1787. 1750, 6v.


coca lasted."65 The eighteenth century historian Bartolome Arzans de Orstia y Vela was forced to chew coca, which made his tongue grow "so thick that there was no room for it in my mouth," before entering the mines because besides suppressing appetite and increasing vigor the workers claimed the "richness of the metal will be lost" if someone entered the mines without chewing coca.66 To supply this lucrative market other naturales worked and all too often died in the hotter, damper, lower altitudes, such as those of Quispicanchis, where coca was grown and where diseases like "mal de los Andes" consumed workers in a manner "that leaves them [the Indians] no more than bones, and skin full of sores."67 For many people of rural Cuzco, however, especially those of Canas y Canchis who had access to nearby coca growing regions and who used their llamas to transport goods, the demand for coca in Potosi and other markets provided a means to earn silver. Thus, the exploitation of some lessened the burden of exploitation on others.

Potosi was not residentially integrated. Physically divided by a stream that ran through the city providing water for power and the washing ores, from the earliest days indigenous peoples lived on the side of the stream closest to the cerro rico. Toledo merely reinforced this tradition when he ordered the naturales, in keeping with the notion of two republics (one Indian and one Spanish), to live on the opposite bank from the Europeans. Residences of the indigenous barrio reflected the differences in standards of living in this segregated world. In contrast to Spanish neighborhoods, the "houses of the Indians were small and little more than huts or chozas where they lived in very crowded conditions."68 The indigenous barrio was further divided into settlements or rancherias and parishes in which the colonial state and church separated mitayos and their families in accordance with their communities and provinces of origin. In this way, by organizing people on the basis of their home provinces and communities, state-church policy functioned to perpetuate provincial and village communal and ethnic ties. Thus, the "destucturing" mita contained with it aspects that served to maintain or "restructure" identity and communal solidarity based on village and regional origin.

Discriminatory legislation further enhanced separations in the city where the Spanish passed laws to control the drinking and rowdiness of the naturales. It became illegal, although not necessarily enforced, for Indians to overindulge during the normal work week. Due to the realities of the work

65 Capoche, Relacidn General, pp. 173-176. 66 R.C. Padden, Tales of Potosi (Providence: Brown University Press, 1975), pp. 117-118. 67 Capoche, Relacidn General, p. 175. 68 Jiminez de Espada, Relaciones Geogrdficas, p. 373.

WARD STAVIG 549

regime, as well as the law, most drinking was done at fiestas or after mass on Sundays. To further control the situation, a law was passed which sought to dampen indigenous' revelry by prohibiting naturales from beating their drums while drinking. The drumming of inebriated Indians disturbed the Spaniards who described the sounds emanating from the indigenous barrios as "bien indecente y mal sonante."69

Even in matters of faith native people were kept separate from the Span- ish community and, to a fair degree, from other Andean indigenous peoples. Naturales from Quispicanchis were incorporated into the parishes of Santa Barbara, San Sevastian, and San Pedro. Mitayos and others from Canas y Canchis were in the parishes of San Pedro, San Pablo, San Juan, Concep- ci6n, Copacavana, Santiago and Sta. Bunvana (Santa Buenaventura?).70 Mitayos, and sometimes the "indios criollos," were also required to support a church and a priest in Potosi based on their villages of origin. Thus, not only were naturales from the same region concentrated in the same part of the city, but they also attended the same masses and even shared the economic burden of their church. For instance, the three communities over which T6ipac Amaru was curaca-Pampamarca, Su(o)rimana and Tunga- suca-were all in the parish of Santiago.

Community members even remained united in death. Those parish death registers that specify if the deceased was born in rural Cuzco or in Potosi indicate that about one-half the deaths recorded from villages in rural Cuzco were actually people born in the Villa Imperial who were referred to as "criollos." Even though many of these indios criollos from Cuzco no longer had lands or possessions in the ayllus from which their families had come, they continued to have contact with people from their villages and were identified with those people by church and state. For instance, when Roque, the legitimate child of Martin Vilcay and Maria Poma, both criollos of Potosi, died in 1761 at one year of age, his passing was recorded in the parish of Concepci6n, along with the deaths of others from Coporaque. Even though both parents had been born in Potosi, he was identified with the community from which his forebears had migrated. Likewise, Ysidora, the child of Manuel Humachi and Alfonza Chequa-both criollos of Potosi-died after one day on this earth. Four days later the mother joined her baby,

69 La Audiencia de Charcas, Correspondencia de presidentes y oidores, Roberto Levillier, ed. (Buenos Aires, 1922), I, pp. 68-70; For a later period see Thomas Abercrombie, "Q'achas and La Plebe in 'Rebel- lion': Carnival vs. Lent in 18th Century Potosi," Journal of Latin American Anthropology 2:1 (1996). 70 ANB. M.T. 147. (Minas 1367a, Mano de obra minera 721a). Potosi. Extracto de las provincias que vienen a mitar a esta Villa de Potosi, su Cerro Rico y Rivera, con los pueblos que cada uno tienen...los curatos a quienes tocan los indios....


apparently of complications resulting from childbirth. The mother was at least a second-generation "criolla," both of her parents having also been criollos. Mother and child, however, were recorded in the death register under Sicuani, the family's ancestral home.7"

The lives of mitayos and others in Potosi were subject to the whims of man and nature. Arbitrary violence could compound the already difficult situation. Catalina Caila and her two grandchildren were awarded 150 pesos by authorities when the person in charge of a llama pack train threw a rock that hit her son, a mitayo from Canas y Canchis, in the head and killed him.72 Epidemic diseases also left their deadly mark. In the mid-sixteenth century Cieza de Leon commented that "the climate of Potosi is healthy, especially for the Indians, for few fall ill there."73 This normally astute chronicler could not have been more mistaken. Brought to the Villa Imperial by mitayos, traders, and an array of others who passed through the city, European diseases such as smallpox, measles, plague, mumps, and influenza ravaged the rancherfas and then were carried back out to the provinces to infect, or reinfect victims. Potosi laborers became unwitting vectors of death and the people from Cuzco were no exception.74 In 1719-1720 an especially deadly pandemic struck Potosi and wrought havoc throughout the Andes. The Potosino historian Arzains put the total number of dead at 22,000; and another 10,000, mainly Indians, died in the nearby environs. Deeply affected by the death and suffering he witnessed, this historian wondered if the maladies were due to the "forgetfulness of God" and "the bad influence of the stars that presided this year of 1719."75 Refining nearly came to a standstill because "all of the mita Indians perished." Free workers who survived, recognizing the opportunity created by scarcity, demanded double their normal wages.76

This 1719 pandemic carried away numerous Cuzco naturales residing in the Villa Imperial, including 12 people from Pomacanchis, 23 from Copo-

71 ADP. San Pablo. 1749-1787. Difunciones. 72 ANB. M125, no. 13. f.220-229. Mitayos. 73 Cieza de Leon, Travels, p. 392. 74 La Audiencia de Charcas, III, pp. 27 and 86; Cobb, "Potosi and Huancavelica," p. 82; ANB.

CPLA. (MC92) 1565. IX, p. 19, Potosi. Acuerdo del cabildo ... curacion de los indios ... de romadizo ...; ANB. CPLA. t.5, f.410. (MC296a) 1589. XII, p. 20, Potosi. Acuerdo del cabildo ... la peste de viruelas y sarampion entre los indios .. .; ANB. CPLA. t. 5, f. 407 (MC294a [ord]) 1589.XI, p. 23, Potosi. Acuerdo del cabildo ... Se habian hecho processions ...; ANB. CPLA. t.5, f.406 (MC294c) 1589. XI, p. 16. La Plata. Provision de la audiencia de Charcas ... teniendo noticia de la pestilencia de viruelas; Henry E Dobyns, "An Outline of Andean Epidemic History to 1720," Bulletin of the History of Medi- cine, no. 6 (November-December,1963), p. 510; Arzins, Historia, II, pp. 427, 447 and 467-468 and III, pp. 17-18, 25 and 43.

75 Arzins, Historia III, pp. 82-96. 76 Ibid., p. 92.

WARD STAVIG 551

raque, and 13 from Pueblo Nuevo, which was three to six times the death rate these communities had experienced over the preceding decade. Families were wiped out. Pablo Luntu and his wife, Nicolasa Casa died. Francisco Cayagua, age 13, succumbed, followed shortly by his father and mother. Maria Colquema and her son, Melchor were also among the victims from rural Cuzco.77 Confronted with massive death and with no end of the epidemic in sight, mita captains and enteradores asked that the mita be sus- pended until the epidemic ceased. Ever mindful of their home communities, these indigenous officials warned that if this was not done before the new mita people would flee and the communities would be ruined. Soberly reflecting on the devastation, these naturales noted that already "innumer- able mita Indians from all regions may be dead with the pestilence."78

CUzco MITAYOS AND VILLAGE SOLIDARITY IN THE 18TH CENTURY

The devastation of 1719-1720 disrupted communal compliance with the mita in Canas y Canchis and Quispicanchis for several years, the longest known interruption of the colonial period. In 1727, the colonial official Felipe de Santisteban was ordered to recount tributaries in the provinces of Lampa, Azangaro and Canas y Canchis in order to reestablish tribute pay- ments and the Potosi mita. In the six years since the epidemic the communities of Sicuani, Marangani, Lurucachi, Checacupa and Pitumarca had not sent mitayos. While these communities may have delivered their mitayos after 1727, the fact that new mita numerations were conducted in 1733 for Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis and again in 1736 for Canas y Canchis suggests on-going instability in mita compliance in the wake of the devastation. This may well have been calculated resistance by the communities, however even authorities could not agree on the number of mitayos the Cuzco communities were obliged to send. Two 1733 lists of mitayos-one from Lima and the other from Potosi-provided differing mita quotas for Canas y Canchis. Not surprisingly the list from Potosi, where demand for workers was ever pressing, ordered a significantly greater number of mitayos--453-to the mines than that from Lima-318.79 It is unlikely that

77 ADP. Defunciones. San Sebastian, Concepci6n. 78 ANB. E. Can. no.68 t.126, no.XIII (M9291). 1719. XII, 15. Carangas. Don Juan Bautista Uri-Siri

alcalde mayor y capitan enterador de la mita...en nombre de los demas capitanes enteradores...sobre que se suspenda la mita hasta que cese la peste en Potosi.

79 ANP. L. 10 C. 234. 1727. Diligencias que se actuaron en orden a la revisita y numeracion que de los indios tributarios de los repartimientos de Lampa, Azangaro, Canas y Canches .. .; ANB. M147 (Minas 1365) 1733. VI, p. 15, Lima. Nueva numeracion general de indios sujetos a la mita de Potosi ...; ANB. (Minas 1392) 1736. VI, 24- 1736. XI, p. 1. Entrega de indios de mita ... En la Retasa del Pueblo de Cullupata huvo ciento sesenta, tributarios los ciento veinte, y siete originarios (should be 142), y los


such numerations would have been conducted on the heels of one another had mita reimposition gone smoothly for the state. Villagers no doubt did what they could to avoid the reestablishment of this dreaded service that bled them of their neighbors and provoked internal discord.

In addition to the harsh work in Potosi, there were mita-related problems that mitayos faced in their communities. Who would take care of their fields, animals and children (if all did not go with them)? Could fellow villagers be relied upon to protect their interests? The relative infrequency of complaints by returning mitayos against fellow villagers suggests that they were vigi- lant in guarding the mitayos goods and interests. There were, however, exceptions. When Diego Merma, a tributary from Yauri, was ordered to Potosi it was necessary for him to arrange care of his 120 sheep. He rented the flock under the normal terms-one-half the natural increase-to Mateo Lima who, in turn, contracted the sheep to Thomas Pallani and Bernabe Cabana. Upon returning Merma went to reclaim his flock, but was refused. Instead, Lima offered him a reparto (forced sale of goods) mule, three mares, and 17 sheep. Even though he really wanted his sheep, Merma took the mule as partial payment of what was owed him. However, the curaca soon came looking for him demanding 35 pesos, the reparto price of the mule, and Pallani refused to return his sheep. Merma took his complaint before the corregidor arguing that Pallani and Cabana were "indios ricos" and were the source of many problems and complaints in Yauri. The "indios ricos" maintained that the sheep had been full of worms and many of them, and their young, had died. The corregidor ordered Pallani to return 100 sheep to Merma, but the process had been divisive. Merma, having complied with his mita service, was left poorer than before. Fellow community members had taken advantage of him.8" Lucas Chancayarni of Pichigua also suf- fered a loss of animals due, in part, to the mita. Shortly before departing for Potosi, Chancayarni was fleeced of ninety sheep. He complained that the mita "obligation has prejudiced me considerably because it has not given me opportunity to look for ... [the sheep] robbed from me.""'

dies y ocho Forasteros de que revajan treinta, y tres los dies, y ocho por Forasteros, y quinse para el servicio de la Yglesia Republica, y Restan para la deduccion de la mita ciento veinte, y siete Yndios originarios, cuia septima parte son diez, y ocho Yndios, y seis para de continuo trabajo con dos descansos. ANB. M. t. 147 (Minas 1367 y Mano de Obra No. 7219). 1733. Extracto de las provincias que vienen a mitar a esta villa de Potosi su, cerro Rico y Rivera .. .; See also Enrique Tandeter, "Trabajo forzado y trabajo libre en el Potosi colonial tardio," Desarrollo Econ6mico, 80 (1981), p. 516.

80 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 69, 1772-75. Yauri. Diego Merma, yndio del Pueblo de Yauri contra Mateo Lima y Thomas Pallani indios del mismo pueblo por ciento y viente ovejas.

81 ADC. Intend. Prov. Ord. Leg. 94, 1797-99. 1797. Siquani. no. 44. Robo en Pichigua. Lucas Chan- cayarni.

WARD STAVIG 553

Absence in the mita also led to property disputes. In 1780 Domingo Hanco, the cacique of ayllu Chiguaro in Sicuani, claimed that Pasqual Quispe had left for Potosi owing him 28 pesos that he needed for tribute payment. The cacique sought to collect the supposed debt from Quispe's goods. However, Quispe and his wife, Lucia, had entrusted their possessions to a friend who denied the cacique's claim and strongly defended their interests.82 A few years earlier members of the Hanco family had been on the other side of a property dispute. Antonio Hanco's father had been awarded an urban plot before leaving for the mita, but the property was occupied while he was away. Fifteen years later Antonio brought the case before a sympathetic corregidor who awarded him the contested real estate despite the long period of possession by others.83 Likewise, when two brothers from Lurucachi were serving their turn in Potosi, individuals from their community began using their private lands. The brothers complained to the corregidor that because they had been complying with their communal obligations, now they scarcely had lands "to plant or maintain the few sheep that we have." On top of this, the villager who had taken their property already had enough for ten tributaries and he had thrown rocks at them. Colonial officials put them back in possession of their fields.84 Because of the mita, the people of Marcaconga (Quispicanchis) even experienced a change in the line of curaca families which, in turn, evolved into a communal rift. In 1705, Juan Tanqui petitioned the government to be installed as curaca of Marcaconga. Tanqui was of "the blood of curacas," but had been serving in Potosi when his relative, the curaca, died. In this situation another curaca was selected but this divided the community. Tanqui, supported by community elders who wanted him back in power, turned to the state to install the hereditary curaca as the rightful community leader.8"

As seen, one of the greatest problems confronting villages was depopula- tion due to flight and disease. Although mita obligations were supposed to be adjusted to population fluctuations, such adjustments or revisitas were less frequent than their need. And since, until the mid-eighteenth century, population usually declined, remaining community members were encum- bered with even heavier burdens. Those who fled sometimes improved or alleviated their situation, integrating into new communities, such as the indi-

82 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 71, 1780-84. 1780. Siquani. Ordinaria contra los bienes de Pasqual Quispe a pedimto a Dn Domingo Anco por 28 ps que este demanda.

83 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 70, 1776-79. 1777. Sicuani. Antonio Hanco (Ancco), indio del Aillo Lari contra Dofia Thomasa Requelme sobre un solar...

84 Intend. Prov. Ord. Leg. 99, 1807-08. 1809 Marangani. Adjudicazn de las tierras de Querera a favor de los yndios de Marangani y Ayllo Lurucachi. Felix Poco y Thomas Poco.

85 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 61, 1679-1705. 1705. Marcaconga. Don Juan Tanqui.


viduals from Quiquijana, Pichigua, Yauri, Langui and Sicuani who fled and then married people in the Colca valley."86 However, others did not fare so well. Sebastian and Diego Palli, from Marangani but living as forasteros in the province of Larecaja, did not adapt well to their new surroundings. They defied obligations imposed in the community where they relocated, they spoke badly of the priest, stole from the church, and attempted to start an uprising. Sebastian died, but Diego was convicted of sedition, given 100 lashes, and sentenced to an obraje where he was to receive no wage because of "the gravity of his crimes.""87

Forasteros from other provinces also sought refuge in Canas y Canchis and Quispicanchis. Some of these people settled in the larger towns or found work on haciendas, in mines such as that at Condoroma, or in coca production.88 Forasteros were reasonably well received by the communities of Canas y Canchis for much of the colonial period. With population declining and tribute and mita demands pressing ever harder, the renting of land to forasteros was a ready source of revenue for the community or curaca. Many of these migrants, or their children, married into the local community and in this way gained access to land, sometimes being referred to as sobrinos or nephews.89 However, as the situation changed and per capita resources diminished renting lands to forasteros frequently irritated needy originarios. Such was the case when the people of Checacupe and Pitumarca complained to royal authorities that lands allocated to the community and needed by the originarios were being rented out by the cacique.90 In this situation forasteros were not always so welcome. Diego Sunca, a forastero from a nearby province, had come to Marangani with his entire family to escape the Potosi mita. Sunca had lived in Marangani for one and one-half years, and the cacique assessed Sunca ten pesos "tribute" twice a year. As tribute was once again being collected in 1773 there had been drinking, customary at such events, and an argument erupted. The forastero complained that the tribute demanded of him was too high. Sunca never made it home. He was found dead in a creek with a cut on his forehead. Well off for a forastero, Sunca owned considerable personal items in addition to some 200 llamas, 125 pacochas or alpacas, and 700 sheep. After Sunca's death indigenous offi-

86 Noble David Cook, The People of the Colca Valley: A Population Study (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982), pp. 65-79.

87 ANB. Minas 127, no.6 (MC1517) 1750-1754. III, 26. Mita. El doctor don Martin de Landaeta, cura propio del beneficio de Ambana, provincia de Larecaja, contra Sebastian Palli y Diego Palli originarios del pueblo de Marangani provincia del Cuzco.

88 Glave, Vida simbolos y batallas, p. 88. 89 Glave, Vida simbolos y battalas, p. 68. 90 Wightman, Indigenous Migration, pp. 133-134.

WARD STAVIG 555

cials in Marangani took 160 of his sheep, which the state later ordered returned to the family. When asked why they had taken the sheep they answered simply that Sunca was "comfortable and a forastero."9'

Communities, caciques and provincial corregidors were under constant pressure from officials and mine owners in Potosi to maintain mita deliver- ies. While this vigilance was constant, so was the resistance. However, it was not just those subject to the mita who objected. Corregidors and other Spaniards from rural Cuzco had no inherent interest, other than to avoid trouble with colonial authorities, in having the naturales on whom they relied for labor, production, and as a market, going off to Potosi. Likewise, curacas saw the mita, and flight from the mita, as a threat to communal, as well as their own, well-being. Accusations of hiding men and using them for private purposes were frequent. When in the 1720s a crown representative conducted a revisita in Canas y Canchis and regions near Lake Titicaca, Potosi miners distrusted his figures because he was the corregidor of Canas y Canchis and his brother was a priest near Lake Titicaca. The Potosinos instinctively suspected that there were naturales who had not gone on official lists because the brothers or their associates wanted to pocket their tribute or use them in their own businesses.92 Similar arguments had been made since the initiation of the mita. Corregidors who did not force compliance with the mita were threatened with suspension, while miners and government officials also blamed curacas and hacendados who gladly received those who fled the mita for the decline in their labor supply. It was argued that corregidors "occupied [Indians] in their businesses, trag(j)ines, and marketing" and they and other Spaniards in the provinces were accused of "excesses and frauds" in lowering the mita.93 Thus, on the issue of the mita the people in the provinces-rich and powerful, poor and weak, indigenous and Spanish-sometimes shared a common ground, but the influence of Potosi silver usually outweighed local concerns.

91 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Criminales Leg. 80, 1773-75. 1773. Marangani. Criminal sobre la muerte de Diego Sunca.

92 ANP. L. 10 C.234. 1727. Diligencias que se actuaron en orden a la revista y numeracion que de los indios tributarion de los repartimientos de Lampa, Azangaro, y Canas y Canchis.

93 All references come from the ANB. ANB. CPLA. t.5 f.436v (MC301). 1590. VII, 1 Lima. Provi- sion del virrey ... corregidores que con su descuido ocasion la continua desercion de mitayos .. .; ANB. MSS 9. no. 97, fs. 294-311. 1616.; ANB. CPLA. 16, fl69-169v (MC600) 1619. XI, 3. Potosi. Acuerdo del Cabildo. Viendose la proposicion, inserta, presentada por los azogueros sobre los nuevos inconve- nientes contra el entero de la mita.; ANB. Minas 125, no. 1. 1640. Titulo conferido por don Jose...de Elor- duy, corregidor de Potosi ... para el entero de la mita.; ANB. Minas t. 145, no. 4 (MC 879) 1660. X, 7. Madrid. Copia de real c6dula dirigida a esta Audiencia de la Plata: Enviese relaci6n de los corregidores y demis encargados de ella.

556 COMMUNAL SURVIVAL IN COLONIAL PERU In rural Cuzco naturales helped meet their needs and comply with colo-

nial exactions through the production and transport of goods to Potosi and other markets. The trajines or hauling of merchandise was especially important here. In this way the continued economic significance of Potosi and other mining centers in Alto Peru created an ironic situation for the peoples of Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis. Their forced labor in the mines pro- duced the wealth that spurred the colonial economy and created markets that needed to be supplied. Through their work in trajines, agriculture, and obra- jes they earned silver and supplied the markets that they helped create. This made it possible for them to meet levels of demands that could not have been sustained without these earnings. Thus, the mitayos' work in Potosi made possible increased state exploitation which the naturales were able to meet by working to supply Potosi and other markets where demand would have been much weaker without their mita labor.

Naturales in Quispicanchis and Canas y Canchis developed strategies to preserve their communities and minimize the damage of the mita, while forcing people to render their obligation to the crown. The degree to which they succeeded attests to their tremendous will to maintain their communal way of life, as well as their ingenuity. As with other matters, the colonial legal system was one of the first lines of defense, although it never brought the total relief so desired. While the crown pressed enforcement of the mita, it occasionally lowered or relieved this burden when formally requested and when to do otherwise could well have strained relations and undermined colonial legitimacy. For instance, during and after epidemics, such as that of 1719-1720, the mita was not always enforced. Likewise, during times of drought mitayos were not necessarily pursued when they returned home. Some colonial officials even used incentives and their legal powers to foster mita compliance and communal stability. Corregidor Don Gregorio de Viana of Canas y Canchis ordered caciques in Sicuani to distribute vacant urban plots "to the Indians that go to the mita ... of the Villa de Potosi."94 By this gesture Viana, in a small but direct way, acted to maintain the community, and his own and the crown's interests.

Through the legal system-the "working of the system"-naturales denounced abusive treatment in Potosi and attempted to abolish mita service entirely, sometimes with the support of Spaniards. When the caciques of Tinta petitioned the government to abolish the mita in 1789, the priests of the province provided written support for the abolition. The priest from Langui

94 ADC. Corrg. Prov. Leg. 70, 1776-79. 1777. Antonio Hancco, indio del Aillo Lari contra Dofia Thomasa Requelme sobre un solar.

WARD STAVIG 557

and Layo wrote that due to forced labor in Potosi "these poor mitayos suffer such calamities in their leaving, stay and return that they cannot explain it without making the heart cry blood." The priest argued that in the mines they contracted diseases that are "very grave for the fatigue of the chest and lungs of which they suffer, that while they do not die they are unfit for all species of work: he who suffers most from this disease, for which there has not been a remedy, hardly lives a year; in the present [year] fourteen have died vomit- ing blood from the mouth."95 The priest of Yanaoca argued the case against the mita more succinctly, "Your Excellency the state in which these miserable Indians are found most probably [is] caused by said mita."96

Complaints by Canas y Canchis caciques against the mita in the 1700s mirrored those made two centuries earlier. The travel stipend or leguaje was not being paid. People had to sell many of their goods just to provision themselves for the journey. When they returned to their communities nothing awaited them-"their houses [were] destroyed, their fields ... [were] uncultivated"-except the "payment of five or six tercios (tribute for two and one-half or three years) that they have fallen behind during their absence in Potosi." The caciques continued to be charged tribute and, one of them argued, "[as] we caciques do not have the means to replace this money, it is necessary to charge them [the mitayos] upon their return. This is the cause why more do not return to their Pueblos remaining vagabonds."'97

While local officials like the corregidor demanded respect, the face-to-face nature of indigenous-corregidor relations gave more complex form to these interactions which often proved to be antagonistic. The king, however, was for the most part considered to be above the evil and exploitation done in his name. This special tie to the king was perhaps most clear in indigenous compliance with the Potosi mita. Mita work was viewed by many communities as part of the pact of reciprocity, albeit an increasingly onerous part, they believed existed between themselves and the crown. Enrique Tandeter points out that mitayos from a province neighboring Cana

ward stavig potosi

Documents

conditions of use

potosi mita

jstor archive

mita exploitation

noncommercial use

jstor transmission

youmay use content

colonial peruauthors