Entangled Coercion: African and Indigenous Labour in Charcas (16th–17th Century) 9783110681000, 9783110680898

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Paola A. Revilla Orías Entangled Coercion

Work in Global and Historical Perspective

Edited by Andreas Eckert, Sidney Chalhoub, Mahua Sarkar, Dmitri van den Bersselaar, Christian G. De Vito Work in Global and Historical Perspective is an interdisciplinary series that welcomes scholarship on work/labour that engages a historical perspective in and from any part of the world. The series advocates a definition of work/ labour that is broad, and especially encourages contributions that explore interconnections across political and geographic frontiers, time frames, disciplinary boundaries, as well as conceptual divisions among various forms of commodified work, and between work and ‘non-work’.

Volume 9

Paola A. Revilla Orías

Entangled Coercion

African and Indigenous Labour in Charcas (16th–17th Centuries)

ISBN 978-3-11-068089-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-068100-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-068108-6 ISSN 2509-8861 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941593 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: “Detail of Descripción del Cerro Rico e Imperial Villa de Potosí”, 1758. Gaspar Miguel de Berrío. Colonial Museum Charcas, Sucre. Photography taken by: Pedro Querejazu. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Contents Figures Tables

VII VII

Acknowledgements Introduction

IX

1

Chapter 1 Composition of La Plata Society 9 Choquechaca, a plural and common area Implementing a Colonial Order 13 22 Coexistence in La Plata

9

Chapter 2 African and Chiriguanos in Charcas 33 33 Entry and Trading of Africans Entry and Trading of Chiriguanos 42 Residence in La Plata 48 Chapter 3 Legal and Symbolic Rethoric of Domination 55 Justification for Slavery and Control of the African Population 55 Justification of Chiriguano Captivity and Servitude Consequences of stereotyped perceptions 72 85 Chapter 4 Human Beings as Merchandise Cost of an enslaved person 85 Relation between gender, age and cost 91 Relation between origin, tachas skills and price Enslaved vendors and purchasers 104 Other enslaved transactions 113 119 Chapter 5 Other Modes of Unfree Servitude Yanaconazgo, perpetual servitude? 119 Mita de servicio 130 Minors in different Situations of Servitude

139

63

96

VI

Contents

Chapter 6 Daily Process Regarding Subjection Relations 149 Bodies and Subjection Living Space and Time 155 Uprooting, escape and threat of banishment

149

162

171 Chapter 7 Violence in Paternalism Dependency from the Lord, as a Father 171 177 Physical Punishment “for it’s own sake” Inferiorization, censorship and symbolic humiliation

186

Chapter 8 Reproduction of the Logic of Domination 195 Indigenes owning Afro-descendant slaves 195 Afro-descendants with indigenous servants 200 204 Servant or Lord, depending on the situation Chapter 9 Experiences of Autonomy 209 209 Stipendiary work Service Settlements 214 Concerning peculium and the servant-lord relationship

225

233 Chapter 10 Liberating Social Relationships Gracious and Conditioned Manumission 233 Manumission by Coarctation as a Possibility 242 “Knowing you are free”: Support from relatives and friends in the 247 pursuit of freedom Chapter 11 Redirecting the Perspective on Personal “Quality” 255 Inter-ethnic family relationships 255 “Public voice and fame”: Categories shaped on a daily basis 269 A hardworking, movable inter-ethnic sector transforming society 275 Conclusions

283

Consulted Archives Bibliography Subject index Author index

291 313 315

289

Figures Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

. . . . . .

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

. . . . .

Map of Aymara manors – urqu/uma 10 Plan of La Plata in  16 Changes in the limits of the Royal Audiencia of Charcas in the th century Commercial routes of enslaved on their way to Charcas 36 South Andean eastern frontier, th and th centuries 45 “T’uqllakuq wamra. A nine-year-old child hunter serving his father and the cacique” 141 “Black Christians” 166 “Slave cruelly punished” 182 An Afrodescendant musician 188 Afrodescendant coachman and other passersby talking on Potosí streets Male slave on horse and female slave holding an umbrella at Viceroy entry

18

189 190

Tables Table . Average unit price per enslaved in La Plata ( – ) 89 Table . Average unit price of enslaved per gender in La Plata ( – ) 92 Table . Sales of enslaved population in La Plata between  and  per age groups 92 Table . Origins registered for enslaved in La Plata market ( – ) 98 Table . Declared origins of enslaved people in La Plata market ( – ) 99 Table . Occupations declared by people involved in the sale of enslaved in La Plata between 105  and  Table . Residence declared by people selling enslaved in La Plata between  and  107 Table . Occupation of Slave Purchasers 109 Table . Residence stated by purchasers of enslaved in La Plata ( – ) 111 Table . Personal service settlements by decade (La Plata  – ) 216 Table . Terms agreed in personal service settlements (La Plata  – ) 217 Table . Afrodescendant Godparents 266 Table . Indigenous Godparents 268

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110681000-001

Acknowledgements To Jean-Frédéric Schaub and Alejandra Vega, who directed this research. To Calbuco Foundation for facilitating its continuance. To UMR Mondes Américains-CRBC/EHESS Laboratories in Paris, in which I played a part. To my teachers Celia Cussen, Jorge Hidalgo, Claudia Zapata, Aline Helg, and José Luis Martínez Cereceda, whose reflections, conversations and recommendations about history and anthropology illuminated the path for my writing. To colleagues and friends in different countries, archives and institutions, who motivated me with the soundness of their work and selfless affection: Ana María Presta, Guillermina Oliveto and Paula Zagalsky in Argentina; Christine Hünefeldt, Maribel Arrelucea in Perú; Carolina González in Chile; Luis Miguel Glave, Tristan Platt and Ana Díaz in Spain; in particular to Christian G. De Vito in Germany for his time, advice and the excellence of his academic advice. In Amsterdam, to Rossana Barragán, my teacher and road partner on the first steps of RedLatt. To Ian Copestake for her careful translation to English. To Máximo Pacheco, Isabelle Combès, Ana María Lema, Eugenia Bridikhina, María Luisa Soux, Juan Angola, Fernando Cajías, Josep M. Barnadas and Pablo Quisbert in Bolivia. To Andrés Eichmann and colleagues in Bolivian History Association. To my dear Marcela Inch. To students and investigation assistants. To my friends Álvaro Ojalvo, Manuel Lizárraga, Julio Aguilar, Priscilla Cisternas, Alejandro Viveros and Xochitl Inostroza, because their attitudes demonstrated that distances between Chile, Bolivia, Perú, Argentina, Spain and France were not an issue for this study. To my family and beloved ones, especially to Amaru Villanueva for so much we have shared. To thousands of anonymous individuals whose lives were dragged into slavery; to those who survived and those who didn’t make it.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110681000-002

Introduction These pages are to study slavery and other forms of servitude as a phenomenon, experienced by those of both an African and an indigenous origin. Later, due to their uprooted status and vulnerability, they were submitted to forced labor in Charcas, one of the largest colonial political-administrative centers in South America, whose establishment coincided with the founding of the Bolivian Republic in the 19th century. Furthermore, searching into labor experience and sociability dynamics they, as well as their descendants, were integrated into a plural and ever-changing scenario that characterized the early colonial period. As is well known, based on a series of arguments, slavery has been seen to have been imposed on millions of people throughout history. Scholars have long studied the institution of slavery, particularly in connection to trafficking that forcefully moved hundreds of thousands of African men, women and children from the 16th century towards North, Central and South America and into labor subjugation.¹ In the latest decades of the 20th century, interest has also been shown in the socio-economical deployment of this institution into colonial cities and their surroundings around the 18th and 19th centuries, and to a noticeably less extent in early colonial times (the 16th and 17th centuries).² In addition to this institutional view of slavery, which is based on the rate of slaves to the total population of each society, as well as the relevance of their work in a society’s productive system, researchers have validated the difference between enslaving societies and those societies “with slaves”. The former would include plantations such as those found in the Caribbean and Brazil, and the latter would be those where slaves were relatively scarce and were assigned to work in small farms or domestic and institutional service in cities. Those integrated

 Important studies of global comparative dimension and socio-economical and demographic focus are present as those by Pièrre Chaunu (1956), Phillipe D. Curtin (1969), Herbert Klein and Ben Vinson (2008), Robert Blackburn (1998), John Thornton (1998) and Rina Cáceres (2001). Within a more established perspective on social and legal aspect, studies by David Brion-Davis (1968), Frank Tannembaum (1968), Keith Hopkins (1981), Luz M. Martínez (1992), Humberto Triana (1997), Jesús García Añoveros (2000a), Berta Ares, Alessandro Stella (2000), Enriqueta Vila Vilar (2001), José Andrés-Gallego (2005), Manuel Lucena Salmoral (2005) and Max Hering (2011).  Among these, Carlos Sempat Assadourian (1965), Eduardo Saguier (1987), Florencia Guzmán (2006) and Miguel Ángel Rosal (2011a) in Argentina; María Cristina Navarrete (2005) in Colombia; Frederic Bowser (1977), Christine Hünefeldt (1992), José Ramón Jouve (2005), Maribel Arrelucea and Jesús Cosamalón (2015) in Perú; Hermann L. Bennett (2003) and Brígida Von Mentz (2007) in México. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110681000-003

2

Introduction

into the Viceroyalty of Perú, the General Captaincy of Chile, the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata and Real Audiencia under the jurisdiction of Charcas (the colonial ancestor of Bolivia), are the ones that constitute the main focus of this book. This dichotomy, especially sensitive to scholars who privilege economic analysis, occasionally hides more than it reveals regarding practices of subjugation. Indeed, as a central assertion that goes through these pages, slavery is not reduced just to institutional keystones, but instead it indicates the presence of an inherent complex of power and labor relationships – prescribed and informal – experienced by people under conditions of slavery. Since economic history refers to subjugated individuals as “pieces” and “slaves”, most of the time that history does not clarify the fact that no human is a slave, unless dispositions validating slavery are present. Therefore, slavery is a political discourse built upon the will of hegemonic aspirations built upon alterities defined and assumed as “slaves” and considered to be inferior human beings. On the other hand, it is evident that a unique and coherent slavery system did not exist. Its conditions changed over time, according to intentions that sustained its legitimacy as a repressive system; influence networks involved subjects and their use, independent of their number, and thus turned them into useful imperial subjects.³ Even as or more important, given the extent of the trafficking validated by both Spanish and Portuguese monarchies, is the fact that forced captivity, the people trading and slavery that has been employed has almost exclusively been considered an experience of African people and their descendants who were led to America through the Atlantic route. However, it is evident that various other oceanic and fluvial, as well as intra-continental terrestrial – both legal and illegal- entry routes for “human merchandise” to the colonial markets were available. Additionally, it is a fact that not only African people and their descendants suffered the slavery stigma in American colonies. It has been widely documented that people from diverse origins endured and suffered this evil, more specifically, the population under the category of indio and partic-

 The importance of approaching slavery from more specific contexts and considering the daily experience of slaves, is recognizible in studies like those by Liliana Crespi (2003) in Argentina and Celia Cussen (2012) in Chile, who have emphasized on topics such as evangelization and religiosity practices. Family and slavery childhood in case of Cristina Masferrer (2013), and marronage by Juan Manuel de la Serna (2010) in México too. María Eugenia Chávez (2001) in Ecuador has worked on honor and its expresions. Fernando de Trazegnies (1981), Carlos Aguirre (1995) and José Ramón Jouve (2005) in Perú, Alejandra Araya (2005) and Carolina González (2007) in Chile and Silvia Mallo (2004) in Argentina, have concentrated on pronouncement of slaves before justice.

Introduction

3

ularly, those who belonged to ethnic groups who did not surrender to the Spanish colonial project. Despite this reality, African and indigenous slavery have not been presented as a phenomenon, converging into a similar context, deserving of simultaneous analysis. However, there are contexts where it is very unrealistic to separate African from indigenous experiences regarding coercive labor practices. One of these is found in La Plata City, located in the colonial jurisdiction of Charcas. Delving into key perspectives of this scenario will enable more complex analysis to be undertaken of slavery and other forms of servitude in the rest of the HispanoAmerican colonies and also in more distant areas. Undoubtedly, there are multiple differences on a legal basis and from the point of view of daily practice that characterized them as well as the encounter points. In fact, how can this phenomenon be understood as a whole and extrapolated into different regions of the world, unless both situations within the same jurisdictional scenario are considered?⁴ It is also important to outline, as many historians have, that no specific situation or issue, generated by slavery at a local or regional level, escapes from global history. In this approach, setting the classic study model of Atlantic slavery against a provincial level is pertinent to understand wider and more complex transversal processes, while always keeping alert to a comparative view at different stages.⁵ For centuries, Charcas’ economy was sustained by the labor of the indigenous and African local populations. Although Bolivia was one of the last South American republics in formally abolishing slavery (1851), hardly any academic debate on systems of compulsion and mechanisms under which people were forced into coercive labor is available. Over the years, the violence of this institution and of the practice of slavery has been dissolved from collective memory, and it has been assumed that since the proportion of Africans was not very significant in the demographics of Charcas the historicization of slavery was not very relevant. Only a few documented works produced during last de-

 The study by Lolita Gutiérrez B. (1996), is until today the only document about African slave labor from a view compared against indigenous labor situation in Mizque farms.  See fundamental and recent proposals: Linden, Marcel van der and Karin Hofmeester (eds.). Handbook The Global History of Work (Berlín/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018); Eckert, Andreas (ed.). Global Histories of Work (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016). De Vito, Christian G. “New Perspectives on Global History: Introduction”. in Workers of the World. International Journal on Strikes and Social Conflicts. Special Issue Global labour history; António Simoes do Paço (ed.), Vol. I, No 3 (2013): 7– 31. Hofmeester, Karin, Jan Lucassen and Filipa Riberiro da Sailva. “No Global Labor History without Africa: Reciprocal Comparison and Beyond”, History in Africa 41, (2014): 249 – 276.

4

Introduction

cades are an exception.⁶ On the other hand, since indigenous people were recognized as free vassals of the King, historiography has not even considered it pertinent to study forms of labor coercion to which they were exposed compared to those of institutionalized slavery. Nevertheless, legal slavery in this region also temporarily – and afterwards under informal practice – reached the indigenous in the flat lands of the south Andean area, who had resisted colonial domination. Although a remarkable work by Thierry Saignes and Isabelle Combès has described and analyzed contact dynamics between Charcas city and the Chiriguano area, practically nothing has been said about the phenomena of captivity and slavery experienced by this population in colonial cities. This gives an idea how little historiographical responsibility has been taken with regard to this phenomenon, and the power of interpretation established by standards and categories of imposed adscription, which go against an interpretation of this more complex reality.⁷ On a reflective development, this book aims to go further than presenting a slave/free individual legal dichotomy when reflecting on aspects of labor. It proposes to thoroughly analyze the labor and life experience of individuals within the social fabric in which they lived out their captivity and where they had offspring, rather than stating that their reality can be reduced to what their legal condition implies. Additionally, it studies the reality of people whose legal condition was sometimes unclear, particularly when they had been born in the same place where their parents and grandparents had been enslaved. Furthermore, those who, despite being free, were exposed to multiple non-free labor systems, were linked, and many times in their most intimate coactive characteristics, to those who lived under standardized slavery.⁸

 The first texts by Max Portugal (1978) and Alberto Crespo (1995) were followed by Inge Wolf (1981) and Juan Angola Maconde (2010). For a more urban stream of history, texts by Eugenia Bridikhina (1994, 1995, 2007b) about African presence in Potosi and La Paz cities; Estanislao Just Lleó (1984) about evangelization of Africans in Charcas; María Antonia Triano (2006) about pronouncement before legal courts, and William Lofstrom (2010), who worked ina case of social mobility by a liberta (freedwoman) in La Plata in the 16th century, are outlined.  Undoubtedly, researchers are demotivated by information dispersion that demands an extensive (work) in different archives with difficult-accesed documentation, most of the time uncategorized. Furthermore, challenge is complex, because it involves tracing anonymous people whose experience is registered in a fragmented manner.  See: Linden, Marcel van der and Magalí Rodríguez García, On Coerced Labour. Work and Compulsion after Chattel Slavery (Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2016); Linden, Marcel van der and Carolyn Brown, “Shifting Boundaries between Free and Unfree Labor: Introduction”, International Labor and WorKing Class History, No 78 (2010): 4– 11; De Vito, Christian G. and Fia Sundevall, “Free and unfree labour. An introduction to this special issue”. Arbetarhistoria, No 3 – 4

Introduction

5

This is a viable purpose when analysis does not constrain to social adscription categories that the Crown sought to impose in order to group individuals according to their ethnic origin and phenotype, and that individuals were assimilating and making operative, and resignifying as of the end of the 16th century. Since they followed a specific imposition of power – at different levels – studying them from an essentialist view would be reductive and manichean. Rather, the view proposed here aims to enhance discussion on the use that individuals made of terms everyday. Neither African people nor their descendants were slaves, nor was every indigene free, according to the context we refer to. This is a more complex and deep interpretation than others offer by presenting recreated stereotypes, and is viable for a comparative analysis of labor systems and forms that followed a certain logics of coactive relations transversal to colonial society. This study, despite the strong discriminative prejudice of statements, proposes that the submission of some people to the power of others was not established on ethnic and phenotypic considerations as the practical requirements of such a consuming servant-dependent society. This is based on the specific possibilities for some people to subjugate others according to their degree of vulnerability. However, it warns that this conditioning reality is not necessarily determined by the individual experience or fate of workers, since their sociability was not only linked to their condition of servitude condition, but to a complex dynamics of occupations and relations in a pluralistic and changing environment where a colonial society was being established. From a prejudice-free view of these practices, detecting forms of power about dominators and dominated is possible, which usually remain unnoticed from the stereotypical approach. Considering asymmetric power relations in each context, a diachronic interpretation of these practices occasionally enables the detection of transformation processes born in unsuspected places on the social body. This work proposes thinking over the individual-collective relationship in a shared history, as well as going further than traditional model of analysis regarding agents and resistance, in order to examine the diversity of power-defiant and construction practices that created spaces of autonomy followed by people.⁹

(2017): 6 – 12 (English version); Brass, Tom and Marcel van der Linden, Free and Unfree Labour: The Debate Continues (Berna: Peter Lang, 1997), 11– 42.  See: Pièrre Bourdieu, Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique (Genève/París: Droz, 1970). Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr-Cetina and Eike von Savigny,The practice turn in Contemporary Theory (London: Routledge, 2001). Elizabeth Shove, Mika Pantzar and Matt Watson,The dynamics of social practice. Everyday life and how it changes (London: Sage, 2012).

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Introduction

The choice of a jurisdictional space in La Plata is not a coincidence, and is related to it being privileged for this type of analysis. Founded in 1538, from preHispanic times, this settlement has been a confluent center of people from different origins who arrived to settle temporarily or indefinitely for multiple reasons be they ritualistic, provisional, or defensive. A short distance away was the southeastern border of Charcas, the habitat of Chiriguano, and only 80 leagues away was Potosí, whose mineral wealth consolidated this village into a center of convergence for trading and human migration on a regional and transatlantic basis at the end of the 16th century.¹⁰ The colonial system had no doubt about the pertinence of concentrating administrative power in the area of La Plata, established in the Real Audiencia (royal court) in 1560, and the religious power on raising the Archbishop in 1609. Given the significance of institutions settled in this way, decisions regarding their authority influenced the destiny of the whole region in the Potosí-La Plata axis that contributed much income to the Crown. The chronological framework that has been chosen goes broadly from the creation of the Audience, in 1560, to the middle of the 17th century. The last decades of the 16th century explain the reason for it being the most splendid period in Potosí. This view extends until 1650, when mines had considerably and irrecoverably diminished their production and inhabitants were looking for labor alternatives within an expanding service market. A key context of encounters, transformations and the establishment of unique colonial societies is found within centuries of coexistence under the same political regime. However, this time frame reveals itself to be flexible; because the attention is centered on actors of a different origin and experience, this view seeks to be adapted to the historicity of each one. Hence, while the volume and quality of documentation enables one to make a space in 1630 for African people, in the case of Chiriguano people, the lack of an early data causes one to go further and take a look at the end of the 17th century. This diachronic opening enriches the scope of analysis scope to enable a better perception of potential changes, continuity and trends. This study contains eleven chapters linked by a process of reflection. The first chapter studies characteristics of a region that from pre-Hispanic times was a space for the confluence of people from various origins. At the same time, it establishes the analysis of population separation into ethnic compartments, taking into account the reality of the early and complex phenomena of

 Bakewell, Peter. Miners of the Red Mountain. Indian Labour in Potosí, 1545 – 1650 (Albuquerque: New Mexico University Printing, 1984).

Introduction

7

miscegenation.¹¹ The second chapter examines the forced transportation of people from Africa and the lowlands of the Southern Andes, emphasizing commercial motives, networks and routes that mobilized their entrance into Charcas’ lands. The third chapter analyzes discourses of a legal and doctrinal basis that originated in the Metropoli, but also those that were formed, after or at the same time, at the viceroyalty and local levels, to justify servitude and different forms of control over captive individuals. It also emphasizes the analysis of stereotypes built by political powers to stigmatize such individuals. The fourth chapter analyzes the introduction of thought concerning the existence of human beings liable to be purchased and sold in the new colonial commercial scenario. From a comparative approach against other regions, the extent to which prices related to origin, gender, age, among others, that acted as systematized indicators impacted on the fate of slaves as alienable property is questioned. Furthermore, it also examines a variety of purchasers, vendors and masters who rented, lent, pawned or mortgaged slaves in their practice of ownership. The fifth chapter covers other forms of non-free servitude that coexisted with slavery, but that historiography has almost always studied on a separate basis. The sixth chapter seeks to deepen analysis of the daily dynamics of relationships of restraint, considering not only actions by masters but also the reactions of slaves to their contingency. Closely related to this, the seventh chapter analyzes the dependency of slave and non-free workers on the authority of the pater familias, linked to a manor restraint pattern derived from the old regime. The eighth chapter reflects on the evidence of the reproduction of a logic of domination by some indigenous and freed people. Continuing the analysis and through a detailed study of service settlements that have been documented, the nineth chapter provides evidence of the extent of free performance that was tried by slaves and their descendants. The tenth chapter explores the particularities of manumission

 From a semantic-historic perspective, some authors preferably refer to this phenomenon of social compartimentization as a legitimating “racialization” of economic or social differences. Others, who agree with this study, consider the term “race” as inappropriate in the sense acquired as of the end of the 18th century for the early colonial period, and prefer to talk about processes of “ethnification”. About ethnicity as a changing social building process, Peter Wade, Raza y etnicidad en Latinoamérica, Quito: Abya-Yala, 2000, 12 is referred. A fundamental element to consolidate colonial social hierarchies is the gradual settlement of imported notions such as “cleanliness of blood”. See: Stolcke, Verena. “Los mestizos no nacen sino que se hacen”. Avá, 14 (2009), URL: http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_ arttext&pid=S1851-16942009000100002 [consulted on July 14, 2019].

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Introduction

that is built on complex networks of agreements, affections and kinship recreated by individuals. Finally, the eleventh chapter ends with a study of mechanisms used by slaves and their descendants to integrate into society, and questions the idea that their condition only consisted of dependency on their masters on a practical and symbolic level within established power relations. Starting with a study of the agreements and contracts in which they were immersed, this section also intends to explain the mechanisms used to negotiate and resignify their adscription and identity within a society they were a constituent and founding part of in its own diversity.

Chapter 1 Composition of La Plata Society Choquechaca, a plural and common area From the late pre-Hispanic Period, the territory that would be occupied by La Plata City (currently Sucre in Bolivia) was part of Choquechaca, an important settlement in the Andean mesothermic valleys in what would later be called Charcas Province during the colonial period. According to early information, the Yampara people inhabited this area, whose lands extended in an approximate 58 km radius.¹ Once incorporated into the multiethnic Inca government in the middle of the 15th century, this territory became part of Collasuyu. ²Tristan Platt, Olivia Harris and Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne include the Yampara territory in the Qara Qara-Charka confederation; within the entity of Marti Pärssinen called hatun apocazgo of Charcas, which also Sora, Charca, Caracaras, Caranga, Quillaca and Chui people belonged to.³ Bouysse-Casagne made a map of Altiplano manors that included guamaníes from Charcas and Collao regions according to information provided by Luis Capoche (1547– 1613), who reported on the Yampara location. Little is known about the Yampara people. Their Toledo reducciones were located in Yotala and Quila Quila, both found north of Choquechaca and east and west of Cachimayu River, respectively. This suggested a territorial organization divided in halves that would have had a greater settlement in Hatun Yampara, the administrative center of this manor.⁴ The pre-Hispanic area of

 Ana María Presta and Mercedes Del Río, “Un estudio etnohistórico de los corregimientos de Tomina y Amparaez: Casos de multietnicidad”, RUNA. Archivo para las Ciencias del Hombre, 14 (1984): 235.  Martti Pärssinen, Tawantinsuyu. El estado inca y su organización política (Lima: IFEA/PUCP/ Philipines Embassy, 2003), 232– 238.  Pärssinen insists that hatun apocazgo is a provisional term, since little is known about this kind of interprovicial confederations in the Inca government. Martti Pärssinen, “Confederaciones interprovinciales y grandes señores interétnicos en el Tawantinsuyu”. Archeology Bulletin, PUCP, 6 (2002): 24. About Qara Qara-Charka Confederation, see: Tristan Platt, Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne and Olivia Harris, “Qara Qara-Charka. Mallku, Inka y Rey en la Provincia de Charcas (Siglos XV – XVII)”, Historia Antropológica de una Confederación Aymara (La Paz: IFEA/Plural/University of St. Andrews/University of London/IAF/FCBCB, 2006).  See: Pärssinen, Tawantinsuyu, 237. Ana María Presta, “Los valles mesotérmicos de Chuquisaca entre la fragmentación territorial Yampara y la ocupación de los migrantes Qara Qara y Charka https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110681000-004

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Chapter 1. Composition of La Plata Society

Fig. 1.1. Map of Aymara manors – urqu/uma (Bouysse-Cassagne, 1978)

Yampara territory is unknown due to the lack of extensive archeological work.⁵ But Rossana Barragán points out that at the end of the 16th century, reference jurisdiction was located around the Yotala-Quila Quila core including Potolo

en la temprana colonia”, in Aportes multidisciplinarios al estudio de los colectivos étnicos surandinos. Reflexiones sobre Qara Qara-Charka tres años después, ed. Ana María Presta (La Paz: PLURAL/IFEA, 2014): 34.  See: Martti Pärssinen,”Investigaciones arqueológicas con ayuda de fuentes históricas: experiencias en Cajamarca, Pacasa y Yampara”, in Saberes y memorias en los Andes, ed. Therèse Bouysse Cassagne (Lima: CREDAL-IFEA, 1997).

Choquechaca, a plural and common area

11

town to the northeast, Pilcomayo River to the south, La Plata City to the north and Yamparáez River, a Pilcomayo tributary, to the southeast.⁶ Some archipelagos in regions such as Pocpo, Sapsi and Luje to the north, around Tarabuco to the east or near Oroncota to the southeast would later be added.⁷ While the languages of Aymara and Quechua were spoken in most of manors in Qara Qara-Charka Confederation, the latter was a general language adopted after the Inca people’s arrival, according to Pedro Pizarro, who wrote in 1571, that the “Yamparas also differ in language.”⁸ Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa states that in 1628, they would speak Aymara, Quechua and “others Puquina, each one according to their origin.”⁹ Alfredo Torero corroborates this data and adds that the Puquina language, used by Colla and Pacajes people in the area around the lake, was also spoken in Quila Quila and Yotala, which would support Rossana Barragán’s hypothesis about Tiwanacu mitmakunas in the manor.¹⁰ This manor was characterized as a political unit with a native but also a migrant population from different origins, all coexisting in a valley.¹¹ A scenario is presented of a dispersed and fractured habitat that Thierry Saignes described as a “multiethnic collage.”¹² As of the 15th century, the population was rearranged according to Inca policies.¹³

 See: Rossana Barragán, ¿Indios de arco y flecha? Entre historia y arqueología de las poblaciones del norte de Chuquisaca (Sucre: ASUR, 1994): 74– 75.  According to John Murra, the archipelagos are a pattern of Andean settlement that identifies verticality and ecological complementarity. John Murra, Formaciones económicas y políticas en el mundo andino (Lima: IEP, 1975). Yampara people also had lands in the valleys of Larecaja and Copacabana in La Paz, and they were also present in Pucartambo, near Cuzco.  Pedro Pizarro, Relación del descubrimiento y conquista de los reinos del Perú [1571], editor Guillermo Lohmann Villena (Lima: PUCP, 1986): Ch. XVI, 38.  Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y Descripción de las Indias Occidentales [1628 – 1629] (Washington: The Smithsonian Institution, 1948), 607.  Alfredo Torero, “Lenguas y pueblos altiplánicos en torno al siglo XVI”, Revista Andina, 2 (1987): 344– 345. Previously cited by Barragán, 1994: 75. Barragán, “¿Indios de arco y flecha?”, 75. Mitmakuna/mitmaq (Quechua) or maluri (Aymara), were those families separated from the rest of their people by Inca orders and relocated in other regions in order to perform certain positions.  Not only migration of Inca mitmaq, but also llactarunas or foreigners that migrated fulfilling requirements of their native lands or following their cacique orders. Presta y Del Río, “Un estudio etnohistórico”, 198.  Thierry Saignes, En busca del poblamiento étnico de los andes bolivianos siglos XV – XVI. Avances de investigación (La Paz: MUSEF, 1986), 10. Ethnic group refers to a sociocultural reality that in certain historical moment provides language and cultural features fairly coherent. In case of Choquechaca, it means population of different ethnic groups coexisting in Yampara territory.

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Choquechaca had been founded, probably as an administrative center, by Inca Huayna Capac, Tupac Yupanqui’s successor. Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala supports this, stating that “this city was founded by Incas and later by Don Francisco Pizarro in times of Pope Paulo, Queen Joan, and Emperor Maximilian.”¹⁴ Submission to Inca power meant the start of a series of agreements, negotiations and reciprocity measures among the main Yampara leaders and Incas. Martín de Murúa refers to how “[the Inca] sent a great amount of Indians to this city [Cuzco], who since then and to this day have remained in such a seat [Chuquisaca] and their descendants are known as Yngas natives from Cuzco City.”¹⁵ The settlement that La Plata Ville would be constituted on, at that time was well known as an administrative center of Inca power. Besides links established with local power families, Incas settled diverse mitmaq populations from Cuzco, in the center and eastern part of the Yampara valleys (Yanahuaras, Cuntis and Chilques in Huata; Collagua in Arabate, among others). Furthermore, mitmakuna from around the lake were also settled in the area of Tarabuco and Presto (Pacajes, Lupacas, Collas, Canas and Canches); Charka-Qara Qara, Carangas and Quillaca people from Central Altiplano; Moyos Moyos from the tropical yungas in Cochabamba; Churumatas from around Oroncota, as well as people of diverse origins from the eastern valleys. Diverse and dynamic in relating with other ecological floors, the Yampara population, relocated by the Inca government, had among their main tasks that of territorial defense. The reference territory for the Yampara manor ran to the south, while to the east it reached the Eastern Range piedmont and the Chaco plains inhabited by Guaraní-speaking groups that Incas and Spaniards called Chiriguanos, who had been moving forward through different incursions into the Yampara area.¹⁶ The whole population of the Yampara manor lived Chiriguano closeness and presence from before Inca conquest. Tristan Platt relates how Aymoro, a Yampara cacique, asked the Incas to send him “indigenous warriors to defend  In 1653, Bernabé Cobo declares that Inca Tupac Yupanqui incorporated Yampara territory to Inca empire. Bernabe Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo [1653] (Madrid: Atlas, 1964), ts. 91– 92, Vol. II, Book XII, Ch. XIV, 77.  Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno [1612], comps. John Murra, Rolena Adorno and Jorge Urioste (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1980), 553.  Fray Martín de Murúa, Historia y genealogía de los reyes Incas del Perú [1611]. Fax from a codex in prívate collection of Sean Galvin (Madrid: Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 2004), Book IV, Ch. 15, 141.  Isabelle Combès, “Grigotá and Vitupue: En los albores de la historia chiriguana (1559 – 1564)”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Études Andines, 41, 1 (2012): 57– 79. Barragán proposes that some Yamparas might have come from Lowlands. Barragán, ¿Indios de arco y flecha?…

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themselves from Chiriguanos” in exchange for colonization lands.¹⁷ An important number of pukaras (fortresses in Quechua) were built consequently, besides the ones available¹⁸. However, the population in the Yampara region not only commanded protection duties at the limits of Tawantinsuyu, as expressed by Thierry Saignes. But both in the Amazon piedmont and internal valleys, natives and mitmaq also developed mining, agriculture and religious activities. Therefore, it was a transitional ecologic area for human contact and exchange of every kind between the the High and the Lowlands. Activities of religious cult to huacas (sacralized entities, divinities in Quechua) in the area were intimately related to other aspects of collective life, and were particularly significant in Choquechaca. Pablo Cruz recalls that the Quiquijana Sanctuary, directly related to mining activities, is located there. Furthermore, in the place where La Plata Ville was settled is Churuquella Hill which is “related to Illapa, divinity of lightning, thunder and storm.”¹⁹ In fact, the huacas in these hills containing minerals would be related to those in Potosí and Porco on a symbolic and ritualistic basis. Choquechaca became, through the appropriation and resignification of pre-Inca cult references and local rituals, an important political-religious center for a multiethnic Inca state. All of these characteristics made Spanish colonizers establish their first settlement in this place, where they were led by leaders of the pre-Hispanic QaraQara-Charka Confederation.

Implementing a Colonial Order The conquest in Charcas started in 1538, after Diego de Almagro died. Inca Paullu, Huayna Capac’s son and Manco Inca’s brother, managed to appease the resistance of local leaders, which facilitated their obedience to Spaniards. Peace was agreed in Auquimarca, a town from which the conquistadores

 Platt et al., Qara Qara-Charka, 12.  In 1574, La Plata Cabildo (town council) reported Viceroy Toledo about Guaraní invasion, which in Inca period arrived at Tarabuco and Presto, changing construction of pukaras around 300 years before Spaniards’ arrival. Valentín Abecia, Historia de Chuquisaca. Obispado de los Charcas, 1553 – 1609, Arzobispado de La Plata, 1609 – 1825 (Sucre: Editorial Charcas, 1939), 119.  Pablo Cruz, “Huacas olvidadas y cerros santos. Apuntes metodológicos sobre la cartografía sagrada en los andes del sur de Bolivia”, Estudios Atacameños, 38 (2009): 58. Already in Colonial period, these pre-Hispanic references had been supported by Calancha, a resident in La Plata by 1630. Calancha, Crónica Moralizada, Book. II, Ch. XLI, 520 – 521.

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Gonzalo and Hernando Pizarro went “along with Inca Paullo to Chuquisaca.”²⁰ They were also accompanied by caciques Cuysara, Charka leader, and Aymoro, the Yampara leader. Later, Moroco, Qara Qara cacique, and other leaders of this confederation joined them. Choquechaca, a Yampara village, was ceded to the conquistadores by Cacique Aymoro. This place would afterwards be known as La Plata Ville or Chuquisaca in Charcas Province.²¹ Some Spaniards close to Francisco Pizarro received the benefit of encomiendas even before knowing of this territory.²² Around 1630, Fray Antonio de la Calancha stated that in the La Plata jurisdiction there were around 60,000 indigenous people paying tribute in 29 repartimientos, which considerably increased the encomenderos’ encumbrance.²³ Once installed in La Plata, the Spaniards organized expeditions to open roads to the southeast, as well as starting mining development works in nearby mountains. Porco’s riches had been revealed to them by Cacique Cuysara who had been obtaining them with the Qara Qara people. Only before the end of the 16th century, Cerro Rico (Sumaq Urqu in Quechua, meaning rich hill) in Potosí was revealed.²⁴ This site was located in the middle of “one of the richest indigenous repartimientos in southern Andes.”²⁵

 See: “El memorial de los Mallku y principales de la provincia de los Charcas”. AGI: Charcas No 45, 49. Cit. In: Platt et al., Qaraqara-Charka,844. The term cacique is used by conquistadores to name indigenous political authorities. Its equivalent is kuraka in Quechua and mallku in Aymara.  The exact date is a reason for controversy since the minute for Villa de (La) Plata foundation has never been found (the use of the article was regularized in time).  Encomienda, a key institution of the colonial domination system, it was the most precious favor for a conquistador. When receiving indigenous labor from the King to develop mining and agricultural business, an encomendero should retribute with defense of the territory, and colonial indoctrination and provisión to popultion. Ana María Presta, “Encomienda, familia y redes en Charcas colonial: Los Almendras 1540 – 1600”, Revista de Indias, Book VII, 209 (1997b): 23.  Calancha, Crónica MoralizadaVol. III, Book II, Ch. XL, 298. Regarding encomienda income: Carlos Sempat Assadourian, “La renta de la encomienda en la década de 1550: Piedad cristiana y deconstrucción”, Revista de Indias, XLVIII, 182– 183 (1988): 109 – 146. James Lockhart, El mundo Hispano-peruano(1532 – 1560) (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982), 20 – 47. Ana María Presta, Encomienda, familia y negocios en Charcas (Bolivia) colonial (Lima: IEP / Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, 2000b).  Tristan Platt andPablo Quisbert, “Tras las huellas del silencio. Potosí, los Inkas y el Virrey Toledo”, in Mina y metalurgia en los Andes del Sur (La Paz: IFEA, 2008): 231– 278.  Presta, “Encomienda, familia”, 23.

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With a pleasant valley temperature and located 18 leagues from Potosí, La Plata was a strategic platform to ensure political-administrative control in the area.²⁶ Its cabildo, constituted around 1540, comprised of the main residents, who, demonstrating their local jurisdiction, would take the position of regidores (councilors) during a year and then elect their successors.²⁷ This organization not only centralized the government and administration of urban activities in La Plata and rural surroundings, but also in Potosí. This was verified in 1561 when it flaunted the name of Villa Imperial, and had autonomy and its own municipal authorities.²⁸ In addition, La Plata included in its jurisdiction, a corregidor as the main royal authority in the area. Among their governmental, administrative and judicial tasks, they also enforced cabildo authority, whose sessions they presided over.²⁹ A corregidor or councilor for indigenous people was also present, who was responsible for assisting on legal claims, authorizing community land sales and administrating tributes, among other tasks that were assigned within his jurisdiction, 12 leagues around La Plata. According to the Royal Charter issued by Philip II, dated September 1559, the Court of Real Audiencia of Charcas, that saw the highest number of instances of legal appeals, was established in America, including a jurisdiction that covered a great part of South American territory.³⁰ Like other similar courts it was also able to exercise executive tasks, name authorities and manage the administration of Royal Treasure resources. This court establishment involved a funda-

 Antonio Herrera, Descripción de las Indias Occidentales [1601] (Madrid: Nicolás Rodríguez Franco Royal Office/Austrian National Library, 1730), 47. In 1555, La Plata was already named a city in oficial documentation.  The first years of the Conquest, a citizen or a feudatory was equivalent to an encomendero. Recopilación de Leyes de Indias (RLI) (Madrid: Ivlian de Paredes, 1681), Book IV, Title V, Line 8. Henceforth, the term was used to those who had their own house including family and relatives, whose sustenance could be guaranteed, besides simply dwelling. Josep M. Barnadas, Charcas, orígenes de una sociedad colonial 1535 – 1565 (La Paz: CIPCA, 1973), 422.  The cabildo, a medieval-origin institution, moved to America when villages and cities were founded. Constantino Bayle, Los cabildos seculares en la América española (Madrid: Sapientia, 1952). Regidores, ordinary mayors, royal officials (from the end of the 16th century), a sublieutenant, a notary, auxiliar representatives -as loyal enforcers who controlled product prices and measures-, a procurator, among others, were part of La Plata cabildo.  They were also known as Mayor or Chief Justices. In Charcas, they used to be literate lieutenants, because these authorities sometimes had no law instruction.  Depending from Lima, and directly from the King, its jurisdiction was initially one hundred leagues around La Plata and subsequently extended to Collasuyu, Cuzco, Tucumán, Juries y Diaguitas, Chunchos-Moxos and the territories colonized by Andrés Manso and Ñuflo de Chávez. By 1573, the southeastern half of Cuzco had been dismembered. Barnadas, Charcas: 513 and following.

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Fig. 1.2. Plan of La Plata in 1639 (Ramírez del Águila, 1639)

mental measure to face the problem of the great distances that made it difficult to manage justice over a vast Peruvian territory.³¹ Catholic Church power in Charcas was also concentrated in this city.³² On June 27, 1552, La Plata was promoted to an Episcopal site dependent on Lima (Papal Bull issued by Julius III), to enforce evangelization initiatives that sought to legitimate conquest and colonization.³³ The ecclesiastic cathedral of cabildo in La Plata served as the consultant instance for the bishop. In charge of administering tithes, it hosted the high clergy, and was formed by a dean, an archdeacon, a chanter, a scholastic master, a treasurer and several canons.³⁴

 From the middle of the 16th century, they stopped talking about Nueva Toledo government to start mentioning Charcas. Josep Barnadas, Es muy sencillo: llámenle Charcas (La Paz: Juventud, 1989). Barnadas, Charcas, 453 and following.  Conjunction of both powers is reflected in the Royal Patronage (Patronage Regio), granted by Pope Julius II on 28 June 1508. In Charcas, this honor was exclusive for the Audiencia president.  Abecia, Historia de Chuquisaca, 65 and following. Julio García Quintanilla, Historia de la Iglesia en La Plata. Obispado de los Charcas, 1553 – 1609. Arzobispado de La Plata, 1609 – 1825 (Sucre: “Santos Taborga” Archdiocesan Archives and Library, 1964), Vol. 1. On February 11, 1553, La Plata Diocese was granted a few more than fifteen leagues around the Cathedral and territory south of Collasuyu. Later, it was reduced by creation of bishoprics in Santiago (1561), Tucumán (1570), La Paz and San Lorenzo de la Barranca (1605). Most of them became suffragans from Charcas. Roberto Querejazu, La Historia de la Iglesia católica en Charcas (Bolivia) (La Paz: Papiro, 1995), 60.  In America, eclessiastic cabildos were only cathedralistic and were created simultaneously to dioceses. Their functions were regulated in Trento Council (1545 – 1563).

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Regarding regular clergy, Franciscans had started to send their members since 1539. A little later, Dominicans and Mercedarians arrived in 1549, Agustinians in 1564 and Jesuits became settled in La Plata in 1593. In 1602, Philip III considered it convenient to raise Charcas Church with a site in La Plata to the category of Metropolitan Cathedral. In 1609, Pope Paul V supported this decision by a decree issued on July 20 that year, making La Plata the religious leader in the area along with La Paz, Santa Cruz, Paraguay, Tucumán and Buenos Aires as suffragan dioceses. This interweaving of colonial power in La Plata was reinforced by the University of San Francisco that Xavier created in Chuquisaca in 1624, which was run by Jesuits, until they were expelled in 1767, and soon achieved a high reputation and became a regional attraction.³⁵ By 1560, in the middle of a process of institutional accommodation and consolidation that concentrated Charcas’ colonial power in La Plata, the encomienda system that sustained the economy was in an open crisis. This system had only been granted to conquistadores and their legitimate successors, which from the beginning caused great arguments over its perpetuity. La Plata encomenderos were outstanding protagonists in civil wars, which were triggered from 1538 to around 1554, and as conquistadores they had to face to control territories and indigenous labor. In the aftermath, the Crown saw it convenient to undertake a rearrangement of the indigenous population. Provisions decreed by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, who started his administration on November 30, 1569, led to deep and irreversible changes. One of the measures of social reorganization he determined sought a separation of population in those two so-called republics: “one for the Spaniards and the other for Indians.”³⁶ While Spaniards had to dwell in villages and cities that their parents had founded or re-founded, indigenous people were to remain concentrated in new administrative units called pueblos de indios or reducciones. ³⁷ In practice, both interacted fluidly.³⁸ Nevertheless, the organization of these settlements

 In 1621, Gregory XV issued an apostolic brief called In supereminente, whose terms were confirmed a year later with a Royal Charter by Philip III. In 1623, San Francisco Xavier organization was already regular, but its solemn establishment was not pronounced until 1624.  Various laws and provisions included in RLI reflect this policy of population segregation.  Carolina Jurado, “Las reducciones toledanas a pueblos de indios: Aproximación a un conflicto. El repartimiento de Macha (Charcas), siglo XVI”, Cahiers des Amériques Latines, 47 (2004): 123 – 137.  The term “republic” in its indiano use must be understood as a political community with its own organization but under the same Church and Monarchy. Abelardo Levaggi, “República de indios y república de españoles”, Revista de Estudios Histórico-Jurídicos, 23 (2001): 419 – 428.

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Chapter 1. Composition of La Plata Society

Fig. 1.3. Changes in the limits of the Royal Audiencia of Charcas in the 16th century

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altered practices and relations in native communities that, as stated, had been relocated a few decades before by the Incas. The space in the pueblo de indios, as a social construction followed detailed planning by Juan de Matienzo, oidor of the Audiencia of Charcas, in his work Gobierno del Perú in 1566. This plan followed a checkerboard model, echoing how Spaniards organized their villages. Each town had wide blocks of four plots, a central square with a church in a nearby block, a cabildo, a house for the town council, a house for the corregidor, houses for the Spaniards, a house for the cacique, and a jailhouse, among other basic buildings.³⁹ Each town was to have 500 tributarios (tax paying people) and if more inhabitants were present in the area, another town had to be created after distributing the population. Most of the time, this caused different ayllus (a group or community in Quechua and Aymara) to belong to the same town.⁴⁰ Caciques had a term of two years – that could be extended – to move to the towns, otherwise, their old houses were destroyed. As mentioned by Carolina Jurado, this model did not become effective in the long term, since the indigenous population preferred dispersed dwellings for a series of political, economical and social reasons.⁴¹ Just 20 years after Toledo’s reductions had been implemented, the Yampara lands were concentrated in a radius less than four leagues around the Yotala and Quila Quila villages while their possessions in other ecological floors (Larecaja, Copacabana) had already been plundered.⁴² Considering the situation and ongoing socio-economic changes, the Yampara people frequently sold their lands, authorized by Real Audiencia, particularly those close to the border with Chiriguano territory. Máximo Pacheco quotes a notarial deed by which Yampara from Hilata ayllu sold community lands to don Pedro López Manojo, declaring they were inconvenient to be worked because they would be exposed

 Juan de Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú con todas las cosas pertenecientes a él y a su historia [1566] (París/Lima: IFEA, 1967), 29. Teresa Gisbert indicates that such initiative had an initial encouragement from the Church that was seeking more control over indigenous population during evangelization. Teresa Gisbert and José Mesa, “Los indígenas en las estructuras urbanas: En el caso de Chuquisaca”, en Arquitectura andina (1520 – 1830) (La Paz: Spanish Embassy in Bolivia, 1997), 194. Regarding checker planning I refer to: Alan Durston, “Un régimen urbanístico en la América hispana colonial: El trazado en damero durante los siglos XVI y XVII”, Historia, 28 (1994): 59 – 115.  In a more precisely way, ayllu must be understood as a basic unit of collective Andean social organization related to family, common ancestors and territory.  Jurado, “Las reducciones toledanas”, 125.  Máximo Pacheco, Linaje, red social-familiar, patrimonio económico y posicionamiento político del cacique yampara Francisco Aymoro II en Charcas (1570 – 1620) (Sucre: FCBCB / ABNB, 2014), 47.

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to great threat by the Chiriguano people.⁴³ Land redistribution, population and area reorganization went hand in hand with separation from ancestral cult places intended to distance indigenous people from certain memories, and resignifying some other sites by imposing Catholic divinities. Catholic policy worked based on a steady repression of beliefs considered to be idolatrous. However, diversity was recognized in certain circumstances, for example to make evangelization viable via the resignification of certain references that were considered heterodox. The indigenous population from diverse origins strategically assumed this policy, by using mechanisms that would facilitate their incorporation into the colonial systems, not necessarily meaning acculturation, but following a logic of re-semanticization for pre-Hispanic signifiers.⁴⁴ Syncretic religious forms soon saw the light, combining Catholic elements with native beliefs but also with European pagan cults from medieval roots. This scenario of an unquestionable distestablishment of the pre-Hispanic political-religious space both physical and symbolic was also a moment of reconfiguration and recomposition in which ayllu members tried multiple adaptation strategies. In parallel to this complex process, a crisis of indigenous authority was overcome. Toledo had started a policy of using caciques as intermediaries between tributepaying Indians and Spaniards.⁴⁵ As stated by Tristan Platt, most frequently, agreements were between both parties and imposed on tax payers.⁴⁶ In exchange for mediating as agents of colonial political power, caciques would obtain some

 Pacheco, Linaje, red social-familiar, 39. In 1994, Rossana Barragán prepared a valuable map about ayllu distribution in Yampara area after implementation of Toledo reductions. Barragán, ¿Indios de arco y flecha?, 73.  Juan Carlos Estenssoro, Del paganismo a la santidad. La incorporación de los indios del Perú al catolicismo (1532 – 1750) (Lima: IFEA, 2003). Serge Grunzinski and Nathan Wachtel (dir.) Le Nouveau Monde, mondes nouveaux. L’expérience américaine (París: Recherches sur les Civilisations, 1996). Luis Millones, “Introduccion al estudio de las idolatrías. Análisis del proceso de aculturación religiosa en el área andina”. Aportes, 4 (1967): 47– 82.  See: Thierry Saignes, “Ayllus, mercado y coacción colonial: El reto de las migraciones internas en Charcas (siglo XVII)”, in La participación indígena en los mercados surandinos. Estrategias y reproducción social. Siglos XVI a XX, comps. Olivia Harris, Brooke Larson and Enrique Tandeter (Cochabamba: CERES, 1987): 111– 158.Roberto Choque Canqui, Sociedad y economía colonial en el sur andino (La Paz: Hisbol, 1989). Franklin Pease, “Curakas coloniales: riqueza y actitudes”, Revista de Indias, XLVIII, 182– 183 (1988): 87– 107.  Tristan Platt, La persistencia de los ayllus en el norte de Potosí (La Paz: Diálogo Foundation, 1999), 164.

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personal privileges, but some of them were cut adrift from their communities, thus losing empathy and authority.⁴⁷ The Southeastern piedmont area of this jurisdiction confronted its own issues. Just as with both the Yampara and Inca people, Chiriguanos were also a great concern to Spaniards.⁴⁸ In their attempt to discover the Paitití and El Dorado, one of the earliest efforts of the conquistadores and encomenderos was to explore the southeastern region.⁴⁹ Multiple failed incursions, casualties, loss of resources and eventual attacks by indigenes on the colonial settlements hindered the expansion of the Hispanic empire and kept the population under a constant feeling of threat. When Viceroy Toledo knew that La Plata cabildo had been assigned to him, after he arrived in 1574, he stated that “you may feel uneasy about inhabitants of this Province and witness that due to the hardness of this land and braveness of their people you are about to ascertain they are impossible to be conquered.”⁵⁰ His perception was correct. During the transition into the 17th century, when colonial society was already more settled, the Castilian government had to confront new challenges and complicated situations from both sides of the ocean. The peninsular of Spain under Phillip IV and Count-Duke Olivares, whose institutional scheme had incorporated Portugal, was facing a particularly critical moment. The Thirty Years War had broken out in 1618, and hostilities with Netherlands had restarted. Revolts in Andalucía, Cataluña, Portugal and Napoli had also broken out, while France and England were seeking to weaken the Spanish empire. Dutch traders had occupied various Spanish colonies in the northeastern part of America, the Antilles and Brazil, where they were only expelled by the middle of the 17th century. Thus a new international order was taking shape in Europe. Internal conflicts on the Península were added to by the demographic crisis caused consequently by epidemics and agricultural decadence connected to a deficient economic administration.⁵¹ This scenario hindered practices of domination in America, where particular challenges were arising, such as low levels  Sometimes, they were not native lords, but those imposed by Spaniard authorities. See: Aude Argousse, “¿Son todos caciques? Curacas, principales e indios urbanos en Cajamarca (Siglo XVII)”, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Études Andines, XXXVII, 1 (2008): 163 – 184.  See: Thierry Saignes, “La guerra “salvaje” en los confines de los Andes y del Chaco: la resistencia chiriguana a la colonización europea”, Quinto Centenario, 8 (1985), 105.  Combès, “Grigotá y Vitupué”, 41.  Text written by Viceroy Toledo before announcement of his Provisions for La Plata City, transcribed in: Abecia, Historia de Chuquisaca, 119.  Jean-Frédéric, Schaub. Le Portugal au temps du comte-duc d’Olivares. Le conflit de juridictions comme exercice politique (Madrid: Casa Velázquez, 2001). Erick Hobsbawn and Trevor Roper, “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century”, Past and Present, 16 (1959): 31– 64.

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of mining production in Potosí and some reduction in the indigenous population, especially due to mita (forced labor)⁵². What became an imperial crisis in South America, meant a period of rearrangement for the colonial economy, thus reinforcing local economies at the expense of the metropolis.⁵³

Coexistence in La Plata Farms surrounding La Plata at the end of the 16th century and first decades of the 17th century, as previously stated, not only supplied their own market, but also Potosí, that had not become self-sufficient.⁵⁴ Villa Imperial de Potosí was by then a world confluence center due to the interest in the mining activity in their mountains and the opportunities for starting any kind of promising business. From 3,000 inhabitants in 1543, it grew to around 120,000 people only thirty years later, according to a census ordered by Viceroy Toledo. Another official census in 1610 records a total of 160,000 people.⁵⁵ In 1575, a mint (Casa de Moneda) was built, the only one in the Viceroyalty of Perú, and the money coined there was accepted world-wide. As stated by Carlos Sempat Assadourian, the pace of silver extraction grew at a rate parallel to the population growth, reaching very high numbers during this period: From 1,748 million maravedis

 As known, mita was a forced and rotative working system that dated at least from Inca period. Regulated by Viceroy Toledo, colonial mita acquired characteristics of systematic and opressive exploitation unknown during Inca Empire. Bakewell, Miners of the Red Mountain. Indian Labour in Potosí, 1545 – 1650.Enrique Tandeter, Coacción y Mercado: La minería de la plata en el Potosí colonial (1962 – 1826) (Cuzco: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos “Bartolomé de las Casas”, 1992): 37 and following. Some people maintain that population decrease in Perú was not as drastic as in New Spain and that never stopped development of business economy internally controlled. Carlos Sempat Assadourian, “La despoblación indígena en Perú y Nueva España durante el siglo XVI y la formación de la economía colonial”, Historia Mexicana, XXXVIII, 3 (1989): 419 – 453. Rosario Sevilla Soler, “La minería americana y la crisis del siglo XVII: Estado del problema”, Historiografía y Bibliografía, 2 (1990): 61– 81.  Historiography has had space for this interpretation since first studies by John Lynch (1975) and Peter Bakewell (1975), who concentrated on a comparative view between New Spain and Colonial Perú. Other authors like Pièrre Chaunu (1955) and Herbet Klein (1994), from the 80s, follow the model by Woodrow Borha (1976), thus insisting on undeniable recession of colonial Peruvian economy. This debate is still ongoing.  See: Antonio de Herrera and Toledo. Relación eclesiástica de la Santa Iglesia Metropolitana de los Charcas [1639] (Sucre: ABAS, 1996), 51. Bernabé Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, Book. III, Ch. XXXV, 189. Calancha, Crónica Moralizada, Book II, Ch. XL.  Carlos Sempat Assadourian, El sistema de la economía colonial: Mercado interno, regiones y espacio económico (Lima: IEP, 1982), 18.

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produced during period 1571/1575, it increases to 7,930 million for the next five years and to 12,218 million for period 1581/1585. As of 1586/1590 period, production becomes stable by 1600, with slight variations on a higher basis to 14,000 million maravedis.⁵⁶ As referred to by Lewis Hanke, Potosí became the most populated and wealthiest city in the world by the early 17th century⁵⁷. As an economic center and critical axis in the region, its market was famous for products acquired from all over the world. Back in the nearby city of La Plata, Pedro Ramírez del Águila states that in the first decades of the 17th century this city was inhabited by around 14,000 people, which represented, as previously mentioned, a varied universe of origins, cultures and beliefs.⁵⁸ Like other Hispanic-colonial societies, political power created a hierarchical organization of society along adscription categories according to the conditions and quality of life of every individual.⁵⁹ This condition distinguished those who were free from libertos (freed slaves) and servants from slaves. For its part, quality had to do with origins and conditions, but it also depended on the hegemonic socio-economical values of Hispanic heritage regarding occupation, language, and clothing, among other aspects.⁶⁰ This logic of social organization was reflected in colonial regulations that strongly

 Carlos Sempat Assadourian, “Potosí y el crecimiento económico de Córdoba en los siglos XVI y XVII”, in Homenaje al Dr. Ceferino Garzón Maceda (Córdoba: Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, 1973), 170. See also the graph about silver production in Potosí between 1581 and 1810 by Tandeter in Coacción y Mercado, 20. Peter Bakewell, “Registered silver production in Potosí District, 1550 – 1735”, Jahrbuch für Geschitchte, 12 (1975): 67– 103. Laura Escobari, Producción y comercio en la historia de Bolivia colonia. Siglos XVI – XVIII (La Paz: IEB/Plural/Historic Investigation Institute, 2014): 216.  Lewis Hanke, The imperial city of Potosí: an unwritten chapter in the history of Spanish América (Sucre: San Francisco Xavier University, 1956), 57 and following.  Pedro Ramírez del Águila, Noticias políticas de Indias y relación descriptiva de la ciudad de La Plata, metrópoli de la provincia de los Charcas. In Latin American Miss Lilly Library. Bloomington (Indiana: Indiana University, 1639):74. The distance of 18 leagues between both cities had a lot of movement by people and animals. Escobari counts 18 tambos (posts)on the way, not including tambillos (small posts) for indigenes. Escobari, Producción y comercio, 320.  Identifying someone’s quality enabled maKing a judgment and determining their place in colonial social hierarchy. This concept will be used, instead of the caste system, because the former is more appropriate for the 18th century context. Max Hering Torres, “Color, pureza, raza: La calidad de los sujetos coloniales”, in La cuestión colonial, ed. Heraclio Bonilla (Bogotá: National University of Colombia, 2011), 461.  Magnus Mörner, Estratificación social hispanoamericana durante el periodo colonial (Stockholm: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1980). Juan Carlos Estenssoro, “Los colores de la plebe: razón y mestizaje en el Perú colonial”, in Los cuadros de mestizaje del virrey Amat. La representación etnográfica en el Perú colonial, ed. Natalia Mujluf (Lima: Art Museum, 1990).

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conditioned people’s lives; however, it did not necessarily determine their development in society. In order to understand human conformation within La Plata society, it is necessary to enter the inherent complexity of each group, according to the conditions and occupations of their individuals, and also to study the prescribed hierarchies.⁶¹ Most privileged people were Spanish and came from from various geographic origins (Andalucía, Basque Country, Extremadura, León, among others), and who instead of identifying themselves as a group, initially confronted each other according to their own regional and individual interests.⁶² On one side were descendants of conquistadores and encomenderos, who had been generously favored by the crown in the 16th century and, as mentioned before, formed a local elite with a great amount of labor at their service.⁶³ They were a group that secured their influence using a system of domination with characteristics inherited from late-medieval Spain, along with their own American experiences picked up through their colonial experience.⁶⁴ Their social practices were manor and their dynamics echoed those that drove the conquest; eagerness to get wealth and social encumbrance. One of their priorities was to create a “populated house”, which is why they gathered the greatest number possible of relatives, fellow country people, paniaguados, butlers and servants.⁶⁵ Emerging lords, in a scenario that appeared after the rebellion of encomenderos who had privileged their own interests over those of the crown, constituted a latent threat to the monarchy. Nevertheless, it did not suppress the hierarchal scheme that validated social differentiation and made government administration viable. Well-positioned Spaniards also held highly priviledged positions in colonial administration. They could be corregidores, a variety of judges, mayors, prosecutors, secretaries, notaries, among other salaried employees in the Royal Treasury.

 See: Barnadas, Charcas. Presta: “La sociedad colonial: Raza, etnicidad, clase y género. Siglos XVI y XVII”, in Nueva Historia Argentina, dir. Enrique Tandeter (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2000a), 55 – 85. For Colonial Perú, including Charcas: Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano.  Confrontation between Vicuñas and Vascongados (1622– 1625) in Potosí, originated by mining economic dominance by Basques over the other Spaniards. Alberto Crespo. La guerra entre vicuñas y vascongados, Potosí, 1622 – 1625 (La Paz: Juventud, 1975).  James Lockhart, The men of Cajamarca.A Social and Biographical Study of The First Conquerors of Perú (Texas, Austin: Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, 1972).  Barnadas, Charcas. Their members did not have nobiliary rank, so they could have never been praised in the Peninsula; therefore they were trying to make America and also get status, for which many sought to marry into Inca lineage. Presta, Encomienda, familia.  Paniaguado was any unpriviledged relative with no reknown occupation who lived at the expense of an encomendero or owner of a wealthy house.

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Others were clergymen with substantial prebends. Exempt from tax duties, the Charcas clergy used indigenous labor, regularly received various types of donations from tithes, and as noted by Ana María Presta, they could keep on doing business and manage family properties. All of these factors contributed to their economic encumbrance.⁶⁶ Besides this, royal patronage enabled them to take positions in secular administration if desired. Less privileged people lived off their connections with the metropolitan clergy and wealthy Spaniards around them. As the 17th century progressed, the presence of mestizo among clergymen became more evident. Possible causes of this included economic possibilities that some acquired to subsidize their studies and university instruction obtained in Chuquisaca. On the other hand, although pure-blood concerns prevented them from attaining political positions, the economic crisis on the peninsular caused positions for some to be sold from the first decade of the 17th century.⁶⁷ Hence, a sector of American professionals in law, theology and medicine would be consolidated. Notaries were particularly in demand, no matter their lineage, given the need to know about colonial law practices. In La Plata Spaniards lived who were also dedicated to the mining business and who moved in the Potosí-Porco-La Plata axis. Merchants related to Seville, traders of miscellaneous products and local businesspeople shared their activities with mestizos and foreigners who had been authorized or had travelled clandestinely to Charcas.⁶⁸ The latter posed a serious inconvenience for the cabildo authorities, because their business activity promoted speculation in the internal market.⁶⁹ They participated in different activities such as in groceries and craft

 Presta, Encomienda, familia, 68.  Despite cleanliness of blood, there were always those who worked on such ingenious as well as costly strategies. See: Francisco Andújar Castillo, “Venalidad de cargos y honores en la España moderna”, Chronica Nova, 33, 2007, 5 – 10. Jean-Pièrre Dedieu and Andoni Artola, “Venalidad en contexto. Venalidad y convenciones políticas en la España moderna”, in El poder del dinero. Ventas de cargos y honores en el Antiguo Régimen, ed. Francisco Andújar Castillo (Biblioteca Nueva, 2011), 29 – 45.  Everybody tried to invest in merchandise somehow, even churchmen, despite related prohibitions. Those who were praised the most, acted through intermediaries. In this activity, the role of muleteers from different origin was important. Notion of “foreigner” is legally imprecise and fluctuating. The term was used for “anybody who was not a resident of a determined community”. Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 168. According to churchmen series, Joseph Barnadas identified Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Corsican, Flemish, French, English, German, Ragusano, among others, as very early residents in Charcas in the 16th century. Barnadas, Charcas, 1973: 198 – 199.  Spain, exclusive provider of overseas products, could not fulfill local demand; therefore, merchandise that got in from other countries was rapidly sold.

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commerce.⁷⁰ Many craftsmen from the peninsular had traveled to Charcas as servants of representatives who would cross the ocean.⁷¹ Others recived instruction in La Plata, along with mestizos, indigenes and Afro-descendants. They could achieve wealth, and indigenous workers and African enslaved would be used as apprentices.⁷² By 1610, there were 64 stores consisting of “officials of every occupation”, which today may be related to craft workshops including “Indian officials from every occupation, silver workers, tailors, shoemakers, silk makers, chair makers, carpenters and pot makers.”⁷³ There was also a food sector including bakers and pastry cooks, among others, based in La Plata.⁷⁴ Lockhart also notes some Spanish orchard gardeners and farmers. Most of them worked as supervisors of indigenous and African labor.⁷⁵ A group of Spaniards that historiography has not mentioned much are the soldiers. They were not proper professionals in a military hierarchy.⁷⁶ This term was used to refer to everyone who had participated in the conquest, other than encomenderos or merchants, without considering their skills with weapons or if they even owned any.⁷⁷ Many were simply wandering through Charcas and were occasionally recruited by wealthy hidalgos to make incursions into unredeemed areas. If they were lucky, they lived protected by a lord who kept them as countrymen hosted in his house. James Lokhart presents them

 As a reference, by 1610 around 30 merchant tents and 42 stores were present downtown. Vázquez de Espinoza, Compendio y Descripción, 602.  See the fund Passangers to the Indies in AGI. Being registered as a servant was a way to get to the Indies. No service agreement was prepared but a migration contract for the trip was required. Once they arrived in Charcas, working on personal service for the lord who allowed their shipment was not necessarily evident.  Among the most praised were aphotecaries, silversmiths (a wider term for “jewelers”) and barbers or surgeons. Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 135. Locksmiths, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, saddlers, fireworks makers. Construction workers and carpenters were considered less noble occupations.  Vázquez de Espinoza, Compendio y Descripción, 602.  Their activity as well those performed by millers, butchers, candle makers, among others, is documented in notarial deeds in the end of the 16th century.  Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 182.  In Charcas there was no permanent regular army, practically, no hierarchies, except that of captain. In the 17th century, militia squadrons per districts and jurisdictions, as well as yards with rifles and artillery pieces were present.  Josep M. Barnadas relates that new-arrived distinguised peninsulars lacked of encomienda and housing were also called soldiers. Juan de Matienzo tried to erase this term to avoid confusions with those that were wanderers and proposed to title them as citizens (although without encomienda). In practice, the terms continued using the term for both. Josep M. Barnadas, Diccionario Histórico de Bolivia, 2: 934– 935.

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as part of a wider group of transients in colonial Perú, from different origins and without having integrated in society. They were also viewed with fear as vagabonds fond of gambling.⁷⁸ Trying to frame them into an occupation, La Plata’s cabildo used them to protect borders, where sometimes they received a piece of land and became chacareros (farmers).⁷⁹ Because they had no encomienda labor, they sought to improve their own situation by renting indigenes, specially Chiriguano, and African slaves for rural work. Just as Spaniards and their descendants were included in a socially diverse group, there was also human diversity under the complex category of indio. ⁸⁰ Any indio who was not favored by their lineage, paid tribute to the King, either in species or work. Calancha mentions that many indigenes from reduced nations, mainly Yamparas, lived in La Plata.⁸¹ Notarial deeds from the second half of the 16th and 17th centuries attest the presence of Yampara, Quillaqa, Cañari, Huallparoca, Chumbivilca, Jauja, Canche, Yunga, Chachapoya populations, among others, involved in every kind of contract and commercial agreement.⁸² Privileged indios were also based in this city, and by providing evidence they could justify a lineage linked to the Inca or cooperation from their ancestors in the process of conquest. They thus used to be part of cacique, traditional or recently incorporated families. Sometimes, their fortunes became as or more significant than those owned by Spaniard hidalgos. ⁸³ This is the case of the Yampara cacique Aymoro, who had assisted conquistadores when Diego de

 Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 176 and 184.  Americanism, colonial term derived from chacra (farm). Josep M. Barnadas finds more “enterprise imagination” in this people that did not simply live as Crown rentiers but also innovated in crops and agricultural techniques: Barnadas, Charcas: 142 and following.  This homogenizing practice was both Spaniard and American. According to Cobo, as reportedly known, among Peruvian indigenes, before Spaniard arrival, runa (Quechua for person) named every human being. After the encounter, runas became only America natives, while Europeans were called wiracochas (Quechua for creating divinity in Tiwanacu). Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, Book XI, Ch. II, 4. As Steve J. Stern concludes, Colonialism defined indios as inferior within a colonial social hierarchy. This inferiorization as an ideological formulation had been added to circumstances such as their exploitation and internalization of the Colonial regulation. Steve J. Stern, Los Pueblos indígenas del Perú y el Desafío de la Conquista Española (Madrid: Alianza Americana, 1986). Fischer and O’Hara (eds.). Imperial Subjects. Race and identity in colonial Latin America, 6. See: Guillermo Bonfil, “El concepto de Indio en América: una categoría de la situación colonial”, in Obras escogidas de Guillermo Bonfil, ed. Lina Odena (México: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1995).  Calancha, Crónica Moralizada Vol. III, Book II, Ch. XL, 301.  Pacheco, Linaje, red social-familiar, 44.  Anyone who could demonstrate certain priviledge status from father line before Audiencia of Charcas or in Spain.

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Almagro entered Chile, during the siege of Cuzco and the conquest of Charcas, and who delivered, as mentioned previously, the Yampara village of Choquechaca to the Spaniards, who later founded Villa de La Plata. His son Francisco had a house near San Lázaro church. Besides this, a group of indigenous houses were located on streets neighboring San Francisco church, a few meters away from the main square.⁸⁴ Unlike other scenarios, indigenes and Spaniards coexisted in the center and surrounding neighborhoods of La Plata.⁸⁵ Those who owned farms around the city, or were related by birth or affinity to any neighboring town, came and went. Another diverse group of resident indigenes in La Plata were the Yanaconas or yanakuna moved by the first conquistadores from the time of Pedro de la Gasca.⁸⁶ As with the Viceroy Toledo government, the Yanaconas were reorganized between citizens and farmers with specific fees and ordinances. The next chapters will deepen the focus on their working situation. Observing the Hispanic policy of population segregation, as in Cuzco, Potosí and La Paz, La Plata included many indigenous neighborhoods, specifically those built around San Lázaro (1544) and San Sebastián (1572), parishes that grouped indigenes from different origins with a cacique per parish.⁸⁷ Some were authorities; others were Yanaconas from different distant hills or coasts, although most were from Cuzco, according to a census ordered by Juan de Matienzo between 1572 and 1573.⁸⁸ From before 1630 and despite any prohibition, mestizos and Spaniards also lived in indigenous neighborhoods. Their occupation and sustenance were guaranteed by their relationship with privileged indi-

 Teresa Gisbert relates about the house of a Cuzco citizen named Baltasar Inca by 1570, and the house of indigenous pallas Francisca and Luisa Chimbo. Gisbert, “Los indígenas en las estructuras urbanas”, 197. Pallas were women whose origin was a noble Inca lineage (Guamán Poma de Ayala, 1980 [1612]: 183.  As referred by Ana María Presta, Guayapajcha o El Guereo was the favorite dwelling site for the first Spaniard inhabitants rather than city center. Some historians propose that would have been the first Spaniard settlement. Ana María Presta, “Desde la plaza a los barrios. Pinceladas étnicas tras las casas y las cosas. Españoles e indios en la ciudad de La Plata. Charcas, 1540 – 1562”, Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos Debates (2010), 6.  Yanacona was an indigenous worker who had been uprooted from his community by order of the Inca. He offered his service – fairly specialized in certain areas- in a place other than his origin. Yanaconazgo institution was preserved and re-signified along colonial period, as it will be shown.  A cacique per parish was assigned.  Catherine Julien published and analyzed this pattern in 1997. Catherine Julien. “La visita toledana de Yanaconas de la ciudad de La Plata”, Memoria Americana, 6 (1997a), 49 – 89. Cañaris, original and brought from Ecuador by Toledo as personal guards had lands around San Lázaro.

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genes.⁸⁹ Vázquez de Espinosa mentions that there were 217 houses of mestizos and poor Spaniards in San Lázaro and 169 in San Sebastián by 1610.⁹⁰ Furthermore, there were indigenous rancherías (ranches) within some plots, such as those of the Yanaconas near the cathedral or those near the Augustinian Convent. These people participated in different activities within domestic service, or as craftsmen or in informal commerce. Indians from the Toledo repartimientos were not authorized to live or work in the city.⁹¹ Organized by a commissioned mayor for indigenes, they used to arrive annually from different points in the jurisdiction in order to participate, for some time, in domestic mita service. Indigenes from the La Plata jurisdiction were not forced to participate in mining mita services as in Potosí, but in a mita service in private homes and institutions, a topic that will be mentioned later. Finally, indigenes that for different reasons had not been registered in a census as Yanaconas, – some of them were – could not walk in the streets, without risk of being reported. In such cases, the cabildo would take them into the custody of a sir who they should serve to pay their tribute. Anybody roaming, without a known occupation or domicile, without a clear fiscal adscription, and independently from their origins, was considered a “vagabond” and as such, they constituted a risk to the established order. Regarding gender differences, in colonial La Plata, the practical situation of women differed from men, for the latter belonged to and developed as a group, and their condition, activities and resources defined its quality. Besides, as in other regions, women were treated as was typical of a patriarchal society. Spanish maidens were to be assisted and protected by their fathers or the closest relative. Wives of conquistadores and encomenderos, as well as wealthy creoles and mestizas of the second and third generation, should devote their lives to looking after the family and foster religiosity. They used to have a lot of servants, which many times included the children of their husband by other women or orphans rescued in charity. Their husbands managed the dowry and arras, although they could be disposed of only with the wife’s consent.⁹² Legally

 Teresa Gisbert, Urbanismo, tipología y asentamiento indígena en Chuquisaca (La Paz: IEB / UMSA, 1982).  Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y Descripción, 602.  Historiography has wrongly repeated the idea that “indios del común” is a concept defined in contrast to that of “lineage indigen”. However, it refers to those included in any Toledo repartimiento. In La Plata, privileged indigenes per ancestry and urban Yanaconas coexisted, not the “indios del común” because there were specific prohibitions on this regard.  A dowry was the portion of family heritage delivered to a daughter when she married, as a foretaste of the inheritance. It included the arras, presents of monetary value that a husband

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considered as underage, women were limited by law. Their husband could authorize them to face prosecution, vend or purchase goods, perform contracts or guarantee other people. Social dependence on male figure was such that independence was a synonym of marginality. Hence, many women decided to maintain the marriage bond, although with a separation of bodies, both in bed and at table. Despite this imposed condition, in the absence of their husbands, women took control of family business management. Cases of widows auctioning vendible property or women taking charge of encomiendas are documented.⁹³ Widows had a wider margin for legal action, particularly if they had a fortune or had received a situación of tributos vacos, as analyzed by Ana María Presta, and as happened to some heirs from encomenderos in La Plata.⁹⁴ The most well accommodated women should re-marry as soon as possible.⁹⁵ Some widows chose to remain blessed within a pious retirement and to leave their dowry to a convent, which was considered very honorable. The founding of female convents was more frequent during the 17th century in La Plata City as a way to “remediate” the situation of Spanish, creole and mestizo maidens. Santa Clara Convent was founded by the initiative of two widows in 1636, under the Franciscan denomination. Nuns, who owned their own cells, lived surrounded by female servants and slaves in the convents.⁹⁶ Other widows preferred to live with their children until the end of their days, in which case they depended on their protection. If they were poor, after being left alone and without any dowry, they had great difficulty in marrying again or returning to their parents, so they tried to get into a fostering house where women of different origins lived on public charity.⁹⁷ There were also some widows, who at the expense of social

gave to his wife as an award for her chastity. These benefits turned into matrimonial assets. Both the dowry and the arras should be returned to a woman in case of divorce or widowhood.  Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 201.  Presta, Encomienda, familia, 64. See also: Ana María Presta, “Detrás de la mejor dote, una encomienda. Hijas y viudas de la primera generación de encomenderos en el mercado matrimonial de Charcas, 1534– 1548”, Revista Andes, 8 (1997): 27– 46.  If a woman had inherited an encomienda, most frequently, it was give the title to her husband for administration purposes until she died. José María Ots Capdequí, Manual de Historia del Derecho español en las Indias y del derecho propiamente indiano (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1945), 435.  Some convents were not necessarily in cloister, so nuns were frequently visited by their relatives. Eugenia Bridikhina e Iván R. Giménez, Las esposas de Cristo: Vida religiosa religiosa y actividades económicas en los conventos de Charcas del siglo XVIII (La Paz: Ministerio de Desarrollo Humano, 1997), 30 and following.  In La Plata, until 1595 at least, they used to enter Santa Isabel de Hungría, the first feminine religious institution founded with cooperation of citizens in 1569. This convent received mestizas,

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prestige, decided to live as concubines or alone, exercising some profitable occupation. Indigenous women had other circumstances, depending on how and where certain characteristics of their colonial calidad; whether they were community members, farmers or citizens. They could be cacique wives, or privileged Yanaconas, which made them conditioned individuals to their Spaniard, creole or mestizo peers as well as to Christian moral parameters of decency imposed by the Church.⁹⁸ Cuzco concubines of conquistadores and encomenderos also lived in La Plata. Some of them had legally recognized children who had eminent lives due to their parents’ nobility, thus having access to their encomiendas and property.⁹⁹ Within the female group in La Plata, there were wives of petty bureaucrats and craftsmen of different origins. Female indigenes used to participate in the retail trade and domestic service in the house of some “señor” (sir, master) in La Plata. They paid no tribute to the Crown, although many times they helped their husbands to save for the fee. Skillful at bilingual trades, their savings could even pay for a dwelling. Some of them were changing their clothes to European styles and accessories, though keeping some of the native traditions.¹⁰⁰ In the same commercial scenario, mestizas, whose clothing depended on their quality and resources, also participated. Vetoed from any bureaucratic or crafting positions due to their gender, they worked without prohibition or prejudice in all kinds of business activities, demonstrating investment skills and accumulating significant assets.¹⁰¹

daughters of conquistadores and por hidalgos. After many accusations about loss of moral standards, this institution clores at the end of the 16th century. Roberto, Querejazu. Chuquisaca (1539 – 1825) (Sucre: Universitaria, 1987), 275. Querejazu, La Historia de la Iglesia, 94.  According to provisión by Viceroy Toledo, men were preferible for cacicazgo or chief position, even if any woman were the closest heir. Ots Capdequí, Manual de Historia del Derecho, 436.  Ana María Presta, “Acerca de las primeras doñas mestizas de Charcas colonial, 1540 – 1590”, in Las mujeres en la construcción de las sociedades iberoamericanas, coord. Pilar Gonzalbo y Berta Ares Queija (Sevilla, México: CSIC / EEHA / COLMEX-CEH, 2004), 41– 62. Berta Ares Queija, “Mancebas de españoles, madres de mestizos. Imágenes de la mujer indígena en el Perú colonial temprano”, 2004a, 15 – 40.  Presta, Encomienda, familia, 77.  The extent of mestizaje phenomenon (biological and cultural) and its ambiguous and fluctuating definition, make necessary to apply a shade required for each case within a complex colonial society.

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Chapter 1. Composition of La Plata Society

A summary of the human composition of urban La Plata would be incomplete without considering those who have only been mentioned tangentially so far: African people and their descendants, and indigenes from the Lowlands, both protagonists of this study, and who are the focus of the next sections.

Chapter 2 African and Chiriguanos in Charcas Entry and Trading of Africans Africans and Afro-descendants born in Spain had arrived in Charcas since the beginning of the conquest process. They were slaves and came along with their masters, who carried a royal permit to take them as passengers to be servants in the Indies.¹ As the colonial society was being settled, their tasks were diversified among domestic service and craft and agriculture occupations at a lower scale among farms, streets and urban houses, according to their qualifications and the fate of their masters. Increasing demand for labor and the aforementioned decrease in the indigenous population in Charcas caused the Crown authorities to consider, at least from 1550, the pertinence of importing slaves to work in fields and mines.² On February 1, 1601, the Consejo de Indias made a suggestion regarding this point to the Viceroy of Perú.³ A few years later, in 1608, the Audiencia of Charcas was consulted about the convenience of African slaves entering their jurisdiction.⁴ One of various consultations took place in La Plata on October 12, 1645.⁵ In 1666, a group of azogueros from Potosí went to La Plata to ask permission to bring two hundred Africans for five years, arguing how useful this effort was “to work in the countryside ranches

 The AGI has information about permits granted by the Crown to travel to the colonies, including a fund called Pasajeros a Indias (Passengers to the Indies), where slaves and servants are registered (16th–18th centuries).  Josep M. Barnadas and Alberto Crespo indicate that between 1500 and 1554 authorities already considered the posibility to entry significant amounts of African enslaved in the mines. Barnadas, Charcas, 181. Alberto Crespo, Alberto. Esclavos negros en Bolivia (La Paz: Juventud, 1995), 87. “Carta a S. M. del Licenciado Cepeda, contestando a varias cédulas reales y dando cuenta de lo acertado que sería el llevar esclavos a aquellas partes para prosperidad de la tierra y labor de minas”. La Plata, 28 de febrero de 1590. Roberto Levillier, Audiencia of Charcas. Correspondencia entre presidentes y oidores. (Madrid: Juan Pueyo, 1922, Volume III): 19 – 30.  ABNB: CACh no 657.  RC issued in Lerma on June 26, 1608. ABNB: Rück No 179.  “A la Audiencia de La Plata: Informe con su parecer si conviene traer a estas provincias esclavos negros para el beneficio de las minas y la labor de los campos”. Zaragoza, October 12, 1645. ABNB: RC No 392. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110681000-005

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and the private service in their homes.”⁶ Despite these exchanges, the proposals were rejected on the basis of different arguments. Among the most common was the view that Africans did not easily adapt to Potosí weather and much less to mining work. On the other hand, some peninsular authorities considered that such requests were instead motivated by the interest of residents in having slaves and labor servants.⁷ There were those who stated that importing them was not recommendable due to the fear that Africans caused among the indigenes, as “they fear a black more than twenty Spaniards, and when they see one in their places, they abandon their houses and run to hide in the ravines”, because they supposedly feared being robbed and killed by them.⁸ The truth is that African enslaved were very expensive in Charcas, compared to other regions, and would not be profitable business for miners. Indigenous labor was cheaper, since they had no worries about worker’s subsistence, food, health or clothes. Alberto Crespo recalls a letter by Jerónimo de Soria to Consejo de Indias explaining that considering the cost that an enslaved African could get in Charcas and the profits of his annual performance, there was at least a deficit of one hundred fifty pesos per person imported.⁹ As is known, Spain never organized a company for trafficking people from Africa.¹⁰ Enslaved imports to America were made with permits granted by the Crown, and as of 1595 through “black people settlements” managed by Consejo de Indias. The trade was thus more of a private business for merchants of different origins than a royal instrument.¹¹ Their transport to inner lands was complicated and heavily supervised. Showing the royal permit and having tutors

 Document sent to Audiencia of La Plata on November 30, 1666. AGI: Goverment, Charcas No 32.  “Consultas originales del distrito de la Audiencia of Charcas”. AGI: Charcas No 1, 3.  Archbishop of Charcas to the King. La Plata, February 1, 1614, in “Cartas y expedientes de los Obispos de la Plata y Santa Cruz de la Sierra”. AGI: Charcas No 135.  Crespo, Esclavos negros en Bolivia, 88. Robin Blackburn agrees on this observation and calculates that while a mitayo (mita worker) cost 154 pesos a year in salary, a slave could cost more than 500 pesos without sustenance expenses, by year 1650. Blackburn, Robert. The making of New World Slavery. From the Baroque to the Modern 1492 – 1800. Londres, Nueva York, Verso, 1998, 145.  Pope Alexander VI, who delimited possessions between Portugal and Spain, did not give the latter any right over African territory.  Josep M. Barnadas refers to an accountant, two canons, a scholar master and a treasurer, who were authorized to entry certain number of Africans. Barnadas, Charcas, 182.

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who would take care of taxes for entry and sale in local markets was also required.¹² The route that merchants could legally follow to bring slaves to Charcas started in the Peninsula (Seville or Lisbon). After about two months crossing the Atlantic, those who survived arrived at the Caribbean coasts and were immediately shipped to Portobelo in the Panamá isthmus, one of the main platforms of entrance and trading between Spain and America. On the way, they would stop in places of temporary storage. An exhausting journey of five months by land and sea to Callao, a port in Lima followed.¹³ Sometimes, they reached Arica, a supply port for Charcas. Then, they crossed the Andes Range to continue through the Altiplano (High Plateau), through tropical forests, plains, mountains and valleys to get to the markets where they were sold.¹⁴ Although the Atlantic route through Buenos Aires was definitely shorter and more favorable for bringing merchandise from overseas and Africa, it had been strictly prohibited in order to protect Seville, Lima and Cadiz’s commercial monopoly. Some tried to convince the King to open this possibility. On January 30, 1612, Don Gaspar de Sousa, the Brazilian governor, sent a letter to propose opening the markets to Portuguese merchants by “paying entrance and exit loyalties for the route they would navigate with black slaves much faster and easier and these would be provided to Charcas provinces and Potos픹⁵. This proposal was rejected. Portuguese merchants obtained no permit not even after sixty years, when both Crowns had been united (1580 – 1640), and when trading

 Inge Wolf reports permits granted to Portuguese money lenders in the 17th century, o XVII. They also had tutors in Lima and Potosí, who collected their debts. Inge Wolf, “Esclavitud y tráfico de negros en el Alto Perú 1545 – 1640”. Historia y Cultura, 4 (1981): 37– 64. An entry license was conditioned to pay 30 ducados per slave. The whole merchandise should include a third part of women; no more enslaved than those registered on the way could be loaded. In case any slave died abroad whom they wanted to substitute, another license had to be required. Besides, almojarifazgo, a tax for entering merchandise, between 2 % and 4 % of the total value according to origin, had to be paid. According to Laura Escobari, merchandise that was sent from Arica to Charcas was valued according to the price it cost in Arica, rather than internal markets where metal abundance made prices rise considerably. Another, alcabala, 2 % tax (in 1591) and 4 % (as of 1629) to sales had to be paid also (Escobari, 2014: 45 – 49). “Licencias del Rey para introducir esclavos negros en Indias”. AGI: Contaduría, 257 A y 257B.  Rolando Mellafe, La introducción de la esclavitud negra en Chile. Tráfico y rutas (Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Chile, 1959), 84. See also: Newson and Minchin, From capture to sale.  As of 1605, slave traffickers were authorized not only to leave then in ports, but also to carry them through different regions in the colonies. Vila Vilar, Aspectos sociales en América Colonial. De extranjeros, contrabando y esclavos. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 2001, 107. Bowser, El esclavo africano en el Perú colonial 1524 – 1650. México: Siglo XXI, 1977.  “Consultas originales del distrito de la Audiencia of Charcas”. AGI: Charcas no 1.

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Chapter 2. African and Chiriguanos in Charcas

Fig. 2.1. Commercial routes of entry of enslaved Africans and Afro-descendants to Charcas

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through Brazil increased.¹⁶ Using the Atlantic route remained conditional on extraordinary permits until markets through Buenos Aires opened in the 18th century.¹⁷ One of these exceptions was granted to Fray Francisco de Vitoria (1483 – 1546), the first Bishop of Tucumán and a Portuguese Dominican who in 1585 had required that the Spaniard administration: “[…] get a license so that through Río de La Plata provinces, neighboring his bishopric, he could bring some blacks from provinces of Brazil for his service and house, so he could decline indigenous service […].”¹⁸ This “concesión graciosa” (gracious concession) was one of the earliest registered in the case of Charcas. Authorities themselves attributed it to him: “Having shown that entrance into this royal territory to those who did not know about it”¹⁹. Around 150 Africans had been shipped to Charcas through Vitoria, but the ship that transported them was attacked by English pirates; therefore only 47 entered Charcas. The Audiencia immediately began an inquiry regarding certain irregularities suspected during this transport and during the proceedings all trace of the slaves entering Potosí was lost²⁰. In fact, contraband was reaching great levels because merchandise entered faster through the Atlantic route; it was more profitable for merchants, despite controls being stricter.²¹ Very common mechanisms included “statements”, when buyers

 Nevertheless, slave entry via Brazil was a fact only by the end of this period. Between 1620 and 1629, Elena Studer counts around 4,590 Africans that entered from Brazil to Río de La Plata. Many of them were transported to Charcas inlands. Elena Studer, La trata de negros en el Río de La Plata durante el siglo XVIII (Buenos Aires: Buenos Aires University/ Doctor Emilio Ravignani Argentinian History Institute, 1958), 100.  In 1624, Juan de Matienzo tried to persuade the Crown about business benefits of the route Buenos Aires-Córdoba-Tucumán-Potosí-Lima, but he was not heard either. Germán Peralta Rivera, Los mecanimos del comercio negrero (Lima: Kuntur, 1990), 239. One of these permits was in the hands of money lender Juan Rodríguez Coutiño to enter 600 enslaved each year via Buenos Aires. ABNB: CACH No 371. Those who could get a license had to pay money lender duties. Doctor Luis Antonio Calvo did this when he moved to Charcas as an Audiencia oidor with his two slaves. AGI: Charcas No 13.  “Carta a S. M. en su Real Consejo del Licenciado Cepeda acerca de las cosas convenientes al real servicio y dignas de remedio, La Plata, 13 de enero 1588”. Levillier, Audiencia of Charcas, t. II: 319.  Levillier, Audiencia of Charcas, t. II, 319. The high rank of this applicant facilitated the effort. The only condition established by the Crown was that merchandise should have a sales license and taxes up to date.  Wolf, “Esclavitud y tráfico de negros en el Alto Perú”, 50.  From 600 Angolans entered in Portuguese ships by Buenos Aires in 1666, only 354 were presented for auction. Moneylender Domingo Grillo asked for the missing slaves. “Minuta al gobernador de la Real Hacienda de las provincias del Río de La Plata”. AGI: Charcas, No 13. Char-

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Chapter 2. African and Chiriguanos in Charcas

could declare the enslaved to have illegally entered so their possession would be justified only by paying corresponding duties.²² The usual path to bring Africans from Buenos Aires to Charcas included passing part of the current northern Argentinian territory, Córdoba-Santiago del Estero-Tucumán-Salta-Jujuy-Potosí, on the back of a mule.²³ In order to have a better picture of such an endeavor, there were about 100 leagues less between Potosí and Buenos Aires than between Potosí and Lima (in a ratio of 400 to 500 leagues approximately). By location, the Tucumán governorship, which included the Córdoba jurisdiction, was a critical point for trading with Potosí, but control was particularly difficult.²⁴ The Viceroy Toledo had started a colonization project at the end of the 16th century, trying at the same time to cooperate by creating the best communication between distant towns and improve a safe road network. However, efforts to control contraband were in vain.²⁵ According to the Archbishop of Lima speaking to the Audiencia of

ters dated October 28 1587, January 18, 1604 and June 7 1621, also reveal contraband presence by Rio de La Plata. On his part, Diego Hernández de Laguna, Audiencia of Charcas Treasurer, led various dilligences to find out about Africans that Bento Acosta had taken to Buenos Aires, by 1632. ABNB: CF 1632, No 1. Twenty-five years later, Juan Ibáñez de Robles submitted pleadings on his defense in a lawsuit against him for some enslaved lost in the port of Buenos Aires. ABNB: CF 1655 No 26. The trends remained until the 18th century when a significant raise emerged with liberty for black people traffic decreed by an RC dated 1792. Florencia Guzmán. “Africanos en la Argentina: una reflexión desprevenida”. Revista Andes, 17 (2006): 200. Zacarías Moutokias, Contrabando y control colonial en el siglo XVII. Buenos Aires, el Atlántico y el espacio peruano (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1988), 65. Mariano Bonialian, El Pacífico Hispanoamericano. Política y comercio asiático en el imperio español, 1680 – 1784. La centralidad de lo marginal. México: El Colegio de México, 2012.  Crespi, “Comercio de esclavos en el Río de La Plata durante el siglo XVII”, en Rutas de esclavitud en África y América Latina, comp. Rina Cáceres Gómez. Costa Rica: Universidad de Costa Rica, 2001, 106.  Escobari, Producción y comercio, 80 and following. Liliana Crespi identifies at least seven companies that departed from Buenos Aires to import slaves from Angola in Córdoba by 1590. Crespi, “Comercio de esclavos”, 102. García Hurtado de Mendoza, Viceroy of Perú, asked the Audiencia of Charcas to execute the Royal Charter dated 1594 about the penalty to those who would participate in merchandise contraband – including Africans – either from Brazil, Angola or Guinea by Río de la Plata. ABNB: CACh No 200.  Regarding slave traffic in the route Angola-Buenos Aires-Potosí, see also: Carlos Sempat Assadourian, El tráfico de esclavos en Córdoba de Angola a Potosí (siglos XVI – XVII), Cuadernos de Historia, 32, 1965.  “Oficios del Consejo del Perú con providencias”. AGI: Charcas No 191. In 1623, a strong customs barriers 50 % of the price for merchandise entering Perú as an attempt to control merchandise traffic. About the control failure in Córdoba customs: Escobari, Producción y comercio 360.

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Charcas, in 1678, he stated that “covered and even shameless, they send [merchandise] trespassing boundaries beyond the permitted.”²⁶ On April 19, 1681, he declared “noticeable excess” regarding the “frequent and ordinary” entry of merchandise from Tucumán to Potosí market, from where it crossed to La Plata City and neighboring townships.²⁷ When Charcas markets were saturated, merchandise moved to other jurisdictions like the General Captaincy of Chile and Asunción, land routes that were mostly clandestine.²⁸ Charcas’ location made this region an invaluable connection for business between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Everything depended on merchantile circuits, their contacts and potential purchasers, as well as the supply and demand of internal markets. Undoubtedly, the magnet for the extensive commercial contraband was the Potosí market.²⁹ When Africans departed from the Brazilian coast, they crossed Asunción to then reach the Potosí market.³⁰ Another route to enter Charcas was Sacramento (current border between Argentina and Uruguay): “They crossed Río de la Plata to Buenos Aires, or otherwise took Paraná River to land on Santa Fe and then go to the North.”³¹ This route had the advantage of evading controls as they used to do in Buenos Aires. Between 1631 and 1680, a decrease in seating areas implied

 “Cartas de Presidente y Oidores”. AGI: Charcas No 200, 1.  Charcas authorities reported to those of Lima about issues of contraband from Buenos Aires via Tucumán, a road crossed every year by more than 30, 000 mules with merchandise traveled through every year.  Merchandise traffic was duty-free in Peruvian territory, including Charcas; and not when it was transported to tierra firme, Chile, South American northern coastal territories or to Nueva España. In these cases, they should pay 2.5 % the value to take out and 5 % to enter products. Escobari, Producción y comercio, 45. Sempat, “El tráfico de esclavos en Córdoba”, 25.  Hanke, The imperial city of Potosí, 57 and following. In agreement with Liliana Crespi, Elena Studer, Carlos Sempat and Eduardo Saguier, Miguel Ángel Rosal states in his studies on slave traffic by Río de la Plata during the first decades of the 17th century, that it was not long after slaves arriving from Buenos Aires were transported to Charcas internal markets as Potosí to provide these, where frequently they had been ordered. In fact, Rosal cites the case of Antonio de Ávila, who bought more than 200 slaves, transported most of them to Potosí mining district in 1605. Miguel Ángel Rosal, “Modalidades del comercio de esclavos en Buenos Aires durante la tercera década del siglo XVII”, Estudios Históricos, 7 (2011a), 5. Studer, La trata de negros, 100. Liliana Crespi, “Contrabando de esclavos en el puerto de Buenos Aires durante el siglo XVII. Complicidad de los funcionarios reales”, Desmemoria. Revista de Historia, 26 (2000), 119. Sempat, “El tráfico de esclavos en Córdoba”. Eduardo Saguier, “Economic Impact of Commercial Capital on Credit Transactions: Buenos Aires in the Early Seventeenth Century”, Anuario de Estudios Americanos, XLIV (1987): 135 – 136.  Florencia Guzmán, “Africanos en la Argentina: una reflexión desprevenida”, 199.  Crespi, “Comercio de esclavos”, 109.

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an important rise in contraband towards Charcas. According to Inge Wolf, at that moment, the presence of Angolan people was outstanding to the point that “the Angolan cycle” regarding Portuguese traffic for Brazil demonstrated from the end of the 16th century, also would have also been evident in Charcas, at least until 1640.³² Slave dealers had different origins and conditions; some worked exclusively in moving black people, others, as stated by Carlos Sempat, worked occasionally on this but were also secular or religious representatives.³³ Smugglers that managed transactions inland were called “black people encomenderos” and lived as nomadic businesspeople between Río de La Plata, Charcas and Perú.³⁴ Some were based in Charcas, where they delivered Potosí silver to factores so they would take the merchandise.³⁵ Gabriel de Aldunate y Rada, the general prosecutor for Río de La Plata provinces, referred to the fact that despite authorities complaining a lot about contraband in Buenos Aires, the neighboring Potosí people motivated commerce by sending silver bars every time a ship would arrive.³⁶ One of the most popular strategies used to bring slaves via Buenos Aires was to claim a “deviation” that caused an “arribada forzosa” (forced arrival); the argument was that because of an unexpected situations, particularly related to weather or lack of supplies, a ship would be forced to land on an unauthorized port or beach. Whenever more Africans than those allowed entered, such instances made it possible to sell them clandestinely.³⁷ The Audiencia had to start an inquiry and pass judgment. But while such proceedings went on, slaves would be confiscated, and became “negros de comiso” (confiscation blacks).³⁸ Proceedings examined by Alberto Crespo reveal that only a minimum portion was actually confiscated and that many more were declared lost.³⁹

 Wolf, “Esclavitud y tráfico de negros en el Alto Perú”, 54.  Sempat Assadourian, “El tráfico de esclavos en Córdoba”.  Vila Vilar, Aspectos sociales en América Colonial, 107.  In order to enter slaves in Charcas, either a freight, renting a pack of mules and a muleteer including payment for the animal carrying the slaves, as well as its food and eventually shelter, or factoring, dealing with the muleteer not only to transport but also sell the merchandise inland at an advantegous cost. Escobari, Producción y comercio, 103.  “Consultas originales del distrito de la Audiencia of Charcas. La Plata, 27 de octubre de 1695”. AGI: Charcas No 6, 1– 2.  Peralta Rivera, Los mecanimos del comercio negrero, 265.  Refer to other cases of “confiscation blacks” entry per arrival related to Charcas in: AGI: Justicia No 1124 A; No 1538; Gobierno, Charcas No 277, No 1641.  Crespo, Esclavos negros en Bolivia, 51. On September 14, 1624, a total of 121 Angolan enslaved entered by Buenos Aires without license from royal officers. The Audiencia considered them lost

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Of course, there were some authorities involved in embezzlement of the treasury.⁴⁰ Between 1627 and 1630, concern was raised and claims made in La Plata, Tucumán, Córdoba and Buenos Aires regarding misbehavior and the excesses in particular of Don Francisco de Céspedes, Río de La Plata Governor, as well as his sons. Céspedes was accused of repeatedly declaring that no merchandise had arrived by ship from Angola and Río de Janeiro.⁴¹ Legal proceedings took time; sometimes including bail payments that gave merchants time to acquire false documentation and witnesses to declare, for example, that enslaved were dead who had actually been resold. Profits were evident most of all in markets like Potosí. In 1606, Simón Valdés, the Buenos Aires treasurer, reported to Audiencia de La Plata about the arrival of “ships with blacks” -that were thought missing-, and their subsequent auction for 40,000 pesos in Potosí, who were “distributed among citizens who can pay for them”, as well as some that were sold on credit.⁴² In fact, many authorities reported to the monarch about the convenience of auctioning slaves in Potosí instead of Buenos Aires, so that the Royal Treasury would not be affected. An African enslaved resold for 200 pesos in Buenos Aires could get a price of more than 500 pesos in Potosí.⁴³ The general scenario of kidnapping and trading Africans going to Charcas in the early period of colonization undoubtedly differed from forced importing to the Caribbean and Brazil, which centered more on the massive importing of slave labor to work in plantations.⁴⁴ Nevertheless, records exist of thousands and thousands of enslaved Africans entering Charcas during the 16th and 17th centuries, whose real demographic studies show no accuracy. Regarding those who were smuggled, no doubt the reported figures fall short of the real

and their auction reported 8,000 pesos to the Royal Chamber. AGI: Notary Office No 849 A. Other cases when the Audiencia considers the merchandise lost: ABNB: ACLP, 1633, No 75; No 78. Sometimes the slaves were bought from Portuguese merchants in Santiago del Estero. AGI: Notary Office No 848C.  ABNB: ACLP, 1607 No 908.  ABNB: CACh No 826; No 835; No 839; AGI: Charcas No 148.  ABNB: CACh No 546.  See RC dated November 2, 1638, from San Lorenzo sent to the Audiencia of Charcas: “regarding blacks lost, misled or confiscated entering the port of Buenos Aires”. ABNB: RC No 382.  Klein, Herbert S. and Ben Vinson. La esclavitud africana en América Latina y el Caribe (Lima: IEP, 2008), 42; “Las características demográficas del comercio Atlántico de esclavos hacia Latinoamérica”, Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana, “Dr. Emilio Ravignani”, 3rd Series, 8, (1993): 7– 27. Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A census (London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969).

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scale of the contraband. Explaining this scenario enables an explanation of their presence and that of their descendants’ in different spaces of time inside Charcas’ community, specifically, in the plural jurisdictions of La Plata, where they coexisted for generations. However, the captivity, trafficking and slavery of people in Charcas was not confined to the Afro-descendant experience, already studied on a very little basis. The experience of thousands of indigenes from southern Andes, who were kidnapped from their places of origin and then forced to live and work in the cities and farms in the 16th century, in servitude conditions very similar to those that Afro-descendant slaves had to face, has been rendered invisible.

Entry and Trading of Chiriguanos Chiriguanaes, or Chiriguanos (Hispanicized), was the term assigned to diverse groups of peoples of Amazon cultures that first resisted Inca and then Spaniard domination, while keeping contact with the latter. Despite the fact they have not been colonized, in the complete sense, they were treated as indigenes from the dominant perspective and were considered to be “Chiriguano indigenes.”⁴⁵ Since pre-Columbian times, Chiriguanos, as Guaraní language speakers, had been foraging in Charcas, looking for precious metals from the rich land of Paitití and from the Incas, whom they called candires. ⁴⁶ Thierry Saignes reveals how they were descended partly from the Guaraní people who crossed from Brazil and Paraguay to the Andes in eastern Charcas, where they settled by holding and integrating socio-culturally with the local dwellers of Arawak origin (Chané) origin, during the 15th and 16th centuries.⁴⁷ Reports from Potosí at the end of the 16th century support this statement: “These Indians first lived in Paraguay, which is their origin and from where they have been moving to the mountain range for forty years”⁴⁸. Inca fortresses could resist their attacks, and Spaniard incursions into the so-called “Cordillera Chiriguana” (Chiriguano Range) at

 These groups live today in Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija departments in Bolivia and northwest of Argentina.  Isabelle Combès and Vera Tyuleneva (eds.). Paititi. Ensayos y documentos (Cochabamba: Latin American Institute of Missionology/ Editorial Itinerarios, 2011).  Saignes, “La guerra “salvaje” en los confines”, 1985. Isabelle Combès y Thierry Saignes. Alter Ego. Naissance de l’identité chiriguano (París: EHESS / Cahiers de l’Homme, 1991).  “Carta de Pedro de Cuéllar a S. M. en que describe la tierra y costumbres de los Chiriguanaes”. Potosí, 5 de febrero de 1588. AGI: Charcas No 42, 2.

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the edge of the tropical forest, were most commonly a failure.⁴⁹ One of the best known took place led by Viceroy Toledo in 1574. According to Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the Viceroy fled away dragged by some Spaniards and indigenes, while Chiriguano shouted, “drop that old lady that you carry in the petaca (a closed basket), so we can eat her alive.”⁵⁰ This scenario motivated Spaniards to try to protect the border area by establishing villages with European, indigenous and morenos who could contain constant irruptions.⁵¹ For example, in 1664 a group of free pardos from Guadalupe, Santa Cruz de la Sierra – on the eastern extreme of Charcas – went to the Audiencia of Charcas in La Plata, demanding their rights over certain lands and stated that forty years before they had been moved to that place to protect it from Chiriguano assaults. Irreducibility to the Spaniard model and hostilities that had broken out since 1564 caused the political powers to consider Chiriguanos “traitors” to the Crown and “unfaithful and barbarians” of the Catholic faith. In fact, Phillip II decided to issue a formal declaration of war by Royal Charter dated 1568.⁵² A series of armed incursions took place by the local authorities and neighbors into what they considered to be a hostile Chiriguano area in the Lowlands. Offensives were started during Viceroy Toledo’s administration in the 16th century and continued throughout the whole colonial period.⁵³ Meanwhile, Chiriguano assaults on farms impacted the Piedmont border area, as mentioned before. However, this armed conflict did not increase in scale because it caused too much expense that the Crown was not willing to make. The Viceroy of Perú himself became worried and wrote to Charcas in 1596 that, “the only feasible policy with Chiriguanos is to seek for peace, because there’s no way to fight them now.”⁵⁴ He thus asked resident Spaniards in “bordering” populations to be armed and ready for any assault as a precaution.

 Confrontations with Chiriguanos lasted until the 20th century, in the context of the Bolivian republic. Francisco Pifarré, Los Guaraní-Chiriguanos (La Paz: CIPCA, 1989).  “La nación chirihuana y su vida y costumbres”, en Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales de los Incas [1609]. Lima: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1991, Book VII, Ch. XVII, 458.  Saignes, “La guerra “salvaje” en los confines”, 105.  BNE, Madrid, mns. 3044, 309.  About Chiriguano resistance: Pifarré, Los Guaraní-Chiriguanos. Thierry Saignes, Los Andes Orientales: la historia de un olvido (Cochabamba: CERES, 1985). Thierry Saignes, Historia del pueblo chiriguano (La Paz: Plural, 2007). Catherine Julian, “Colonial perspectives on the Chiriguaná (1528 – 1574)”, in Resistencia y adaptación nativas en las tierras bajas latinoamericanas, ed.María Cipolleti. Quito: Abya-Yala, 1997, 17– 76.  “Carta del virrey del Perú a la Audiencia of Charcas”, Lima, October 4, 1596. ABNB: CACh No 227.

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At the same time, some “soldiers” –itinerant peoplementioned previously, used to make improvised incursions into the Chiriguano Range where, in an openly illegal action, kidnapped indigenes from different ethnic origins to sell in cities and so make money. Occasionally, they went as part of expeditions organized by “vecinos” (neighbors) of Charcas who had obtained royal authorization to enter Chiriguano lands. Far from being funded by imperial bodies, they were private, generally self-financed, ventures. In this regard, a pleased King wrote to the Audiencia of Charcas in 1588: “You say that by persuasion and without any cost to my Treasury, some Spaniards have entered much successfully into the range of Chiriguano indigenes.”⁵⁵ A recurrent argument for such action was the intention to conquer and inhabit certain areas to serve the King and rescue Europeans made captive by Chiriguanos. So, in 1602, Captain Martín de Almendras Holguín, an encomienda heir and La Plata citizen, offered to enter Chiriguano lands “to free many lost people.”⁵⁶ Nevertheless, the main motivation, besides winning royal favors and gaining status for actions in the Cordillera, was to take indigenes to sell as labor in Charcas. In fact, years later, the Audiencia condemned Almendras’ behavior for “exploiting indigenes and making them captives.”⁵⁷ Inhabitants in the border area were also greatly interested in supporting these enterprises. Since they needed labor, chacareros who had no encomienda indigenes and lived on the defensive in the face of potential Chiriguano assaults, did not hesitate to participate and many times even organized incursions, for which they required economic support from the Audiencia. ⁵⁸ Given the interest of most of the population in obtaining servants, local authorities made practically no detailed follow ups concerning any irregularities that occurred in such campaigns. The society itself promoted Chiriguano trafficking, and continued to do so during the colonial period, despite related prohibitions. In 1685, recorded minutes by Pedro de Cárdenas, Governor of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, from the Consejo de Indias relates that citizens became used to buying “service pieces/servants” which motivated some indigenes “to fight against each other so they could be imprisoned and sold to us”⁵⁹. Indeed, many times

 “Sobre los Chiriguanaes y otras cosas”. Madrid, March 1, 1588. ABNB: RC No 200.  “Carta de la Audiencia de La Plata al Virrey del Perú”. La Plata, March 11, 1602. ABNB: CACh No 52. About Almendras family, refer to: Presta, Encomienda, familia y negocios, Ch. III.  ABNB: CACh No 52.  Some were numerous. On June 5, 1584, the Audiencia of Charcas issued a report about an entry organized by General Juan Lozano Machuca where around 250 men participated. ABNB: CACh No 38.  “Minutas de consultas fechas por el Consejo en asuntos del distrito”. AGI: Charcas No 13, 1.

Entry and Trading of Chiriguanos

Fig. 2.2. South Andean eastern frontier, 15th and 16th centuries (Oliveto and Ventura 2009: 143)

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their own native lords exchanged or sold indigenes from other ethnic groups than their own to Europeans. For instance, from the first encounters with Spaniards in the 16th century, Chiriguanos had delivered Chané people in exchange for other types of merchandise as documented. A Cédula Real (Royal Charter), dated 1596, relates that Chiriguanos would take Chané from their towns to use them as servants or take them to Charca’s borders to deliver them to Spaniards “exchanging them for some clothes that were given willingly.”⁶⁰ This happened despite indigene commerce by other indigenes being strictly prohibited by a Cédula Real dated October 26, 1541. On their way to Charcas, captives then had to cross through the Cordillera Chiriguana to get to the colonial cities. The establishment of this region as a frontier in the south Andean eastern border with the Lowlands started to be consolidated in Inca times, and continued to be later by Spaniards in order to separate and differentiate areas between unredeemed and ethnified individuals like Chiriguanos from those that had been properly colonized. In a short time, opposite alterities from confronted worlds changed into a collective colonial worldview. But of course, this was not the only jurisdictional border with confrontations and socio-political exchanges in the area. For instance, some inhabitants in the Lowlands, such as the Chané, escaped from the Chiriguanos, located in the Piedmont, and took refuge among the Chaco peoples located south of Charcas, as has been demonstrated.⁶¹ In other words, it should be made clear that group dynamics in plural and complex scenarios such as this can not be understood as a single “frontier”; in this case, it was one that sought to enforce Inca power first and colonial power later. On the other hand, this scenario was not limited to armed conflicts and permanent threats the only aim of which were to validate certain conquest attitudes and ethnification processes. Thierry Saignes has already shown that the border area between Charcas and the Lowlands was a contact scenario – although clearly not completely permeable -, between Hispanic colonial society and Chiriguano lands. This is what Guillaume Boccara would call “a transitional space”, offering a re-reading of the notion of a frontier as “an imagined territory that is unstable and permeable for circulation, commitment and different kinds of conflict between individuals and groups of different origins.”⁶² We are thus

 Refer to RC issued in San Lorenzo, dated September 17, 1596. ABNB: RC No 280.  Isabelle Combès and Thierry Saignes have widely explained this phenomenon. Combès and Saignes, Alter Ego. Naissance de l’identité chiriguano.  See: Guillaume Boccara, “Mundos en las fronteras del Nuevo Mundo”, Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos (2005): 32– 34. See also: Saignes, Los Andes Orientales; Thierry Saignes, France-Marie Renard-Casevitz and Anne-Christine Taylor. Al Este de los Andes. Relaciones entre las sociedades

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encouraged to think about frontiers not only as territories but also as sociocultural constructions.⁶³ In fact, the dynamics of authorized or clandestine encounters between people of different ethnic groups and profound exchanges since pre-Hispanic times and during the colonial period have been fully documented.⁶⁴ Once in Charcas, captives from different ethnic origins (Chiriguano and Chané, among others) became part of the indigenes forced to work in agricultural and domestic servitude. Occasionally, authorities that recognized the illegality of captivity, used to place them under the guardianship of a vecino who could take care of their instruction and sustenance in exchange for their service, an arrangement justified with the argument that they could not be returned to their native land. In fact, Chiriguanos brough as already mentioned by Martín de Almendras at the beginning of the 17th century in La Plata, got to “freely” serve city inhabitants by provision of the Viceroy of Perú.⁶⁵ However, most frequently on arrival in Charcas, people traffickers delivered these captives to those who had ordered them, or offered them to the best bidder in the colonial market. Available colonial documentation reports mostly of captive women in the service of different people. For instance, in Tarija, a report dated 1673 tells of a Chiriguano girl kidnapped in the Range by Joseph Diez, a sublieutenant and merchant, who wanted to sell her in Potosí along with some female African slaves.⁶⁶ A century later, the situation was the same. A Chiriguano girl was fought over in litigation between José de Guerra, a vecino from Santa Cruz, and Lieutenant Juan de Dios Rosales. The former stated that he had found her during

amazónicas y andinas entre los siglos XV y XVII (Lima / Quito: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos /Abya-Yala Publisher, 1988), Book I.  Inspired by liminality notion by Antoinette Molinié, Boccara mentions an implicit and contradictory turn for mechanisms of frontier construction that separated, but at the same time, sought to contact and get integrated to what they consider as alterity. Boccara, “Mundos en las fronteras del Nuevo Mundo”, 32 and following.  See: Oliveto, Lía Guillermina y Beatríz Ventura. “Dinámicas Poblacionales de los Valles Orientales del sur de Bolivia y norte de Argentina, siglos XV – XVII. Aportes etnohistóricos y arqueológicos”. Población y Sociedad, 16, 1 (2009): 119 – 150. Ana María Presta, “La población en los valles de Tarija en el siglo XVI”, 163 – 175. Paola Revilla, “Chiriguano”, ni tan propio ni tan ajeno: Dinámicas de negociación identitaria entre Charcas y el pie de monte surandino (siglos XVI – XVIII), Surandino Monográfico. Revista del Programa de Historia de América Latina, 3, 2 (2013): 34– 47.  “Carta del Virrey del Perú a la Audiencia de La Plata”. Lima, June 1, 1608. ABNB: CACh No 623.  ABNB: CF 1673, No 20, 3.

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a “confrontation against the unfaithful while serving as a sheriff with some soldiers”, but the latter stated he had purchased her from “the unfaithful.”⁶⁷ Certainly then, this is not a directly comparable phenomenon, but a fact that follows its own codes; captive populations in Charcas were not just African or Afro-descendant. The kidnapping of Chiriguano indigenes to sell them as servants in Charcas was far from an isolated fact, and it is a documented phenomenon that occurred throughout the Colonial period, and since it contravened regulations, the servant-consuming society and the authorities themselves sought to cover this up. We can only imagine the extent of this practice by assessing cases that have been documented. However, it is known that thousands of captive men, women and children were mobilized to work in a forced manner for their new masters in the city, in the road tambos (shelter and provision centers) and on colonial farms.⁶⁸

Residence in La Plata The initial encounters between Africans and indigenes of different origins, residing in the La Plata jurisdiction, must have been at least surprising and disturbing for both, and must have generated a series of reactions. Two kind of people from different continents that met due to the effects of colonization, ones under imposed slavery conditions and the others as tributaries to the Spanish King. In an unknown setting, among cultures whose languages they did not speak, uprooted Africans showed great courage and guile in adapting and surviving in La Plata’s colonial scenario, and where their descendants were subsequently born as a product of their successful coexistence with the rest of the society. Some had been brought directly from Africa (these were called bozales), while others, born in Spain were they learned the language and traditions of the Peninsula, were considered criollos or ladinos. ⁶⁹ Finally a name was given

 ABNB: CF 1748, No 107, 1.  In 1645, Bernardo Vázquez de Molina, priest and Rector in San Lorenzo de la Barranca, Santa Cruz, reported several Spaniards for having in their houses captive Chiriguano indigenes as servants. ABNB: CF 1675, No 23.  According to the Royal Provision issued in Seville on April 11, 1526, initially ladinos were prohibited, arguing they were trying to avoid the entry of those nobody wanted as servants in Spain. García Añoveros, Jesús M. El pensamiento y los argumentos sobre la esclavitud en Europa en el siglo XVI y su aplicación a los indios americanos y los negros africanos (Madrid: Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2000ª), 30.

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to those who migrated permanntly or temporarily from different regions of South America if they had arrived there first or if they had been born there, and these were called criollos. Conditions for each person varied if they were slaves, libertos (manumited or emancipated slaves), or free people: those who were born from a free mother (vientre libre)⁷⁰. According to colonial thought, their “calidad” (quality) varied; they could be black, mulato, zambaigo among other names that will be referred to below. The intrinsic complexity of the Afro-descendant population in La Plata, working in different occupations all over the city and on colonial farms, is a fact. In 1567, Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás, Archbishop of Charcas at that time, reported to the King that among among the La Plata population there were many mulatos: “and every day they are even more” and he asked the King to order the local authorities to occupy them in “oficios y labranzas”⁷¹. Already in the 17th century, Antonio Vázquez de Espinoza related how Africans who entered the port of Buenos Aires were valued for domestic service in the Andean valleys.⁷² Pedro Ramírez del Águila supported these statements in 1639 by reporting about the case of La Plata: “Black people’s service has been well introduced in a few years, in this city and province with many that the Portuguese and other merchants have brought from Angola into Buenos Aires’ port.”⁷³ Unfortunately, no population studies are available that record precisely how many Africans and their descendants lived in La Plata during the 16th and 17th centuries. Informants usually give general and subjective estimations. Antonio de Herrera y Toledo states that there were about 5,000 religious people in La Plata.⁷⁴ According to figures given by Vázquez de Espinoza “male and female mulatos and zambaigos numbered 140, some of them married, and 32 were slaves, male and female slaves; 1300 free people, [from which] approximately 300 were married.”⁷⁵ These figures that usually come from church sources are very variable and confusing when trying to group population

 The expression vientre libre (literally, a free womb) appeared at the end of the 16th century in judicial files where Afro-descendants defended their free status for being born from a free woman or liberta.  “Carta del Arzobispo fray Domingo de Santo Tomás al Rey”, April 6, 1567. AGI: Charcas No 135, 2.  Vázquez de Espinoza, Compendio y Descripción. In Potosi, although they were not usually employed in the mines, they were very much required in domestic service. Vila Vilar, Aspectos sociales en América Colonial, 114. According to Inge Wolf, African population raised to 5,000 people in the 17th century. Wolf, “Esclavitud y tráfico de negros en el Alto Perú”.  Ramírez del Águila, Noticias políticas de Indias, 74.  Herrera and Toledo. Relación eclesiástica de la Santa Iglesia, 43 – 44.  Vázquez de Espinoza, Compendio y Descripción, 605.

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according to status patterns and calidad for that period. For example, Vázquez de Espinoza decided to include those called cuarterones, Afro-indigenous people, in the group for Spaniards and mestizos. Ramírez del Águila provides one of the most detailed descriptions and relates that of black and mulato people there were 1,000, but explains that, “certainly they are the ones registered for the census, because some are not as they are absent and away in farms”⁷⁶. This amount is undoubtedly small considering the diversity of Africans and their descendants that although classified under other denominations (cuarterones, zambaigos) are not part of the official accounts and whose existence the author himself mentions when referring to a wide variety of “mixtures.”⁷⁷ For its part, historiography has been discouraged without secondary data to work with and having to instead arduously examine notarial and parish information, – that is scarce and fragmented – that would help obtain more significant figures. Besides, while the enslaved population is more easily identifiable because of their imposed status, those unregistered slaves are left practically invisible of the whole demographic group.⁷⁸ This leads to a historical acceptance of having only a partial idea of their number as a group in La Plata. The following chapters are intended to fill this gap, by analyzing information provided by notary protocols on one side, and the corpus of sacramental registers that are left available for the period 1560 to 1650 in La Plata. Based on diverse arguments, including the alleged damage they caused, but especially due to the prejudice that existed between blacks and indigenes over the so called “mixtures” and the fear of potential uprisings, the colonial authorities sought and believed it was possible to keep Africans and their descendants segregated from the indigenes⁷⁹. Libertos and those already free, as well as Afri-

 Ramírez del Águila, Noticias Políticas, 81.  Ramírez del Águila, Noticias Políticas, 73 – 74.  Finding several in padrones (census) is not surprising. See: Lolita Gutiérrez B., Blacks, Indians and Spaniards in the eastern Andes: reclaiming the forgotten in colonial Mizque (1550 – 1782) (Lincon: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 117.  “A la Audiencia de La Plata: Vea que no vivan negros entre los indios ni tengan contrataciones con ellos, por los muchos daños que a los primeros, así como a la religión y a las costumbres, se siguen”. Badajoz, September 23, 1580. ABNB: RC No 140. See also: Charter dated January 26, 1586. ABNB: RC No 181. Title XII in “Ordenanzas que el señor Visorrey Don Francisco de Toledo hizo para el buen gobierno de estos Reynos del Perú y Repúblicas de él”, in Relaciones de los Virreyes y Audiencias que han gobernado el Perú (Lima: Imprenta del Estado, 1867), Vol. I, 92. As well as “Ordenanzas hechas por el Virrey don Francisco de Toledo para el cabildo secular de la ciudad de La Plata el año de 1579”. In this regard: ABNB: Dir No 9, 98. Many others followed along the 17th century.

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cans who were not dependents of the house of a lord, were a particular concern. A letter from the King to the authorities in Audiencia of Charcas stated, “I was informed that in those provinces, many black mulatos and mestizos and people of other mixtures are present and growing everyday […] they grow under great vices and liberty without work or having any occupation, and eat and drink without control; they grow up with male and female Indians and are found in their drunkenness and witchery.”⁸⁰ Separation efforts, however, were useless. In fact, the regulations adopted in some provisions and the concern shown by authorities in their letters demonstrate – reading between the lines – the extent of the frequent and prolonged contact between black people and indigenes. Indigenes of different ethnic groups from the Piedmont and the South Andean rainforest brow also participated in daily human exchanges in the La Plata jurisdiction. Historiography has paid little attention to their experience in the colonial cities, which as mentioned previously, was submerged in complex relations of power that embodied different forms of servitude in Charcas. According to data provided by contemporary documentation, the closest cities to the colonial border with the Piedmont such as San Bernardo de la Frontera (Tarija), Santa Cruz de la Sierra and La Plata, were those housing the majority of the Chiriguano and the Chané captive population. The homogenizing term Chiriguanos that encompassed them all, as well as the Catholic names they were baptized with, makes precise identification of their ethnic origin much more difficult. As mentioned previously, La Plata was a particularly attractive market for trading any type of merchandise due to the purchasing power of its inhabitants and its proximity to Potosí. Hundreds of captive Chiriguanos were taken there to be sold along with others who were taken as slaves from southern Chile, as has been documented⁸¹. Indigenes from southern Chile that Hanke mentions were involved in Potosí trading, as well as others found in documentation on Charcas were usually Araucan-Mapuches, captured in battle and whose trade and enslavement had been authorized from 1608. There is also evidence of enslaved

 ABNB: RC No 181, 1.  Hanke, The imperial city of Potosí, 56. Jaime Valenzuela. “Esclavos Mapuches: para una historia del secuestro y deportación de indígenas en la Colonia”, in Historias de racismo y discriminación en Chile. Una mirada interdisciplinaria, coords. Rafael Gaune y Martín Lara. Santiago de Chile: Uqbar Editores, 2009, 225 – 260. Hugo Contreras: “Siendo mozatón o güeñi salió de su tierra a vivir entre los españoles. Migración y asentamiento mapuche en Chile central durante el siglo XVIII, 1700 – 1750”, in Historia Indígena, 9 (2005), 7– 32.

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Caribbean indigenes in Charcas. This is the early case of Inés, who arrived in Potosí, were she was sold, marked with fire in her chin.⁸² Many times, the situation of captivity and trading of these indigenes was revealed by their descendants, decades after their transportation to Charcas. Hence, Ventura, María y Petrona, daughters of Tomasa Ovando, declared in a trial against their mistress that their mother was a Chiriguano captured by a soldier that took her to La Plata where he sold her, according to file data probably in the middle of the 17th century.⁸³ The lady, whose house these sisters had been born in and were serving, never denied having purchased Tomasa from a soldier, which implied, from her point of view, that she had the right over the girls who had inherited their servile condition from their mother⁸⁴. It is curious to find these type of statements, the illegality of which was probably known by the parties involved in litigation, both regarding captivity and indigene transactions by caciques. Likewise, María Dominga, a Chiriguano woman had been sold at 10 years of age to a woman named Gerónima by Tomás Paniagua, a vecino from Vallegrande. This man claimed he had been given the girl by Captain Yaguarambé in Charagua (Chaco Province, southeast of Charcas). In defense of the girl, the notary cites Recopilación de Leyes de Indias (1680), Book 6, Title 2, First Law, which including previous provisions prohibiting captivity and slavery of Indians under penalty of property loss for the accused. Nevertheless, Paniagua, making a clear differentiation between legal theory and practice, and in his defense in the middle of the 17th century stated, “every court, royal audiencia, and other legal instruments know about this law and nobody ignores them, but anyway, as seen in practice – even in La Plata City, in the sight of its Royal Audiencia – because they have many of this origin and nature [captive and enslaved Chiriguanos], this is tolerated without any observance of the law.”⁸⁵ The presence of captive Chiriguano indigenes in La Plata is thus an undeniable and documented fact. There are many sources, which will be presented and analyzed here, that give an account of captive Chiriguanos and their descendants present in La Plata, both in farms and houses of the colonial city. This fact caused no discomfort to the royal authorities; instead, according to a letter written in 1698 to the Audiencia, the King was pleased that many “unfaithful Chiriguano Indians” had been reduced decades ago and takn to the farms

   

The girl was freed by her master in 1550. ABNB: PD July 28, 1550, Gaspar de Rojas, Vol. II, 30. ABNB: CF 1760, No 14. ABNB: CF 1764, No 134, 1. ABNB: CF 1764 No 134, f. 3.

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around La Plata. In fact, he required to bring more of them to be instructed in the religious doctrine.⁸⁶ Their days were passed in captivity along with African and Afro-creole servants (the enslaved, libertos and the free), indigenes of different origin and condition (Yanacona and mitayo, among others), besides mestizos and Spaniard paniaguados around certain master. Captivity used to extend indefinitely; sometimes for a whole lifetime. For instance, by 1642, Pedro, a Chiriguano, had been working for 20 years in a farm owned by Presbyter Francisco de Maturana.⁸⁷ As previously mentioned, local authorities rarely investigated circumstances involving the legality of captivity and servitude conditions that indigenes used to be mired in. Their descendants grew up in this context, earning their sustenance by serving anybody who would offer them work, shelter and food. Others became integrated in the working economy, thus gaining greater autonomy for their subsistence. The following chapter offers a detailed study of the legal theory that sought to legitimate African and Chiriguano subjugation in Charcas’ colonial context. It reviews ethnic categories recreated by the Inca Empire before European conquest and provides an introduction to different views that the control of coercive labor possible in a society of manor type with slavery as in La Plata.

 “Carta del Rey a la Audiencia de La Plata”, 1698. AGI: Charcas No 12, Minute No 330.  ABNB: CF 1642, No 1, Ad1.

Chapter 3 Legal and Symbolic Rethoric of Domination Justification for Slavery and Control of the African Population Slavery is a complex social phenomenon involving multiple actions according to the time and scenario where it takes place. It would be simplistic to characterize it in an obtuse sense of the term considering the variability and conceptual ambiguities of the legal body of regulations that sought to establish it as an institution throughout history. In ancient European times, legally differentiated terms of slave from servant, as well as slavery and servitude, were not etymologically dissociated concepts and had several meeting points. The word slave comes from the classic Latin term servus and slaves were subject to different forms of servitude (servitus). Little by little, this idea was dissolved and gave way to servus from medieval latin, meaning a legally free worker. However, the concept of servitude continued to be related to a severe form of restraint. The system of feudal domination would then introduce a new variety of mechanisms for labor exploitation, but at the same time would reproduce various faults from previous slavery systems that slaves, libertos and free people would participate in. America’s colonization and the increase in African slave trading would in turn cause concepts to evolve alternative meanings in unprecedented ways. Seeking shelter on reflection by patristic, which screened the Aristotle conception about natural predestination, neither the Church nor the Crown threatened slavery’s existence during the colonial period.¹ Jurists and theologists like Antonio de Herrera, Juan de Solórzano y Pereira, and the Jesuits Luis de Molina and Diego de Avendaño justified slavery as a necessary evil to support the Indies, although some, like Molina, condemned the trade’s abuses. Doctrinal justification for traffic was supported by Catholic intentions to convert those considered without faith, but the question whether purchasing human beings was or was not morally just was in suspense.² Truly, the dynamics of slavery

 The same Church that condemned Traffic, never issued any global document condemning slavery, except for Bull by Pius II in 1462, before arrival to America and Bull by Gregorious XVI in 1839. Enriqueta Vila Vilar, “La postura de la Iglesia frente a la esclavitud, siglos XVI y XVII”, en Esclavitud y Derechos Humanos: La lucha por la libertad del negro en el siglo XIX, ed. Francisco de Solano and Agustín Guimerá (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1990), 30.  Manuel Lucena Salmoral, Regulación de la esclavitud negra en las colonias de América española (1503 – 1886) (Madrid/Murcia: Universidad de Alcalá de Henares/Universidad de Murcia, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110681000-006

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that emerged in colonial America had an unexpected degree of oppression and became a regular business, dependent on demand from private investors, business people or purchasers, among other social actors that regulated commerce.³ Far from producing a homogeneous legal corpus of rules to govern colonial African slavery, the Spanish Crown instead reused a series of provisions from the Justinian Roman age and German and Spanish medieval times regarding sales, treatment, duties, penalties and the manumission of those enslaved in other contexts.⁴ At the same time, they delegated the promulgation of ordinances and provisions to palliate any legal hiatus about slavery practices to regional and local administrations, and instructed them to resolve, according to experience and convenience, those cases presented in their jurisdiction.⁵ The Siete Partidas de Alfonso X el Sabio (1256 – 1265) were quite often cited in America and, as demonstrated by José María Ots Capdequí, they were considered even more valid than in Europe.⁶ Despite having proclaimed the equity of all men before God and even considered slavery to be against nature and reason, thus recognizing that slaves were humans, they validated this practice by arguing that it had been impossible to eradicate and was justified under certain circumstances.⁷ Of course, they did not talk about the “slave” but the “servant”, thus contributing to ambiguation and the assimilation of both terms when used in the colonial context. They also recognized categories of liberto or aforrado, differentiating them from the “free” status of any person with full legal recognition. On the other hand, in any moment they mention skin color as a basis for subjugation. 2005), 11. Ricardo Rodríguez Molas, “Esclavos indios y africanos en los primeros momentos de la conquista y colonización del Río de La Plata”, Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv, 7, 4 (1981), 326.  Meillasoux, Antropología de la esclavitud. México: Siglo XXI, 1990. Stern, Los pueblos indígenas del Perúy el desafío de la conquista española. Stuart B. Schwartz, Sugar plantations in the Formation of Brasilian Society: Bahía 1550 – 1835 (Cambridge: Cambridge Latin American Studies, 1985), 261. Blackburn, The making of New World Slavery, 9.  Manuel Lucena Salmoral provides a significant documental corpus of medieval codes and regulations of the 16th century that were used by the Castilian Crown to legislate on African slavery in America. Lucena Salmoral, Regulación de la esclavitud negra.  Siete Partidas de Alfonso X el Sabio [1256 – 1265] (Sevilla: Meinardo Ungut y Estanislao Polono), ed. 1491 facsimile including notes by Antonio Díaz de Montalvo (Valladolid: Lex Nova, 1988). This compilation was one of the most cited sources by jurists and theologists in America to resolve on colonial slavery. See: Alfonso García Gallo, “El Libro de las leyes de Alfonso el Sabio. Del Espéculo a las Partidas”, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 21– 22 (1952): 345 – 528.  Ots Capdequí, Manual de Historia del Derecho español en Indias, 82.  Fernando de Trazegnies. Ciriaco de Urtecho litigante por amor: Reflexiones sobre la polivalencia táctica del razonamiento jurídico (Lima: PUCP, 1981), 102– 103.

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The Siete Partidas were conceived as moral exhortations of a paternalistic nature more than actual laws, and they certainly adapted very poorly to colonial contexts. However, it is necessary to remember that in the transitional legal scenario of the 17th century, no clear separation between laws and moral principles, privileges and traditions existed, and regulations were more flexible mechanisms to their reform.⁸ Hence, many provisions of the corpus were later compiled in the Recopilación, while others became obsolete.⁹ Differing, for instance, from what the Siete Partidas stated, according to a Royal Charter by Charles I dated 11 May 1527, marriage between a slave and a free person did not manumit the former.¹⁰ On the other hand, even when they stated that a slave could not own any property and everything they earned belonged to their master, in the Indies, Roman law was applied, which enabled the master to allow a slave a peculium and, in fact, this was a requirement. This also indirectly implied that slaves were authorized to have a paid job and keep part of their earnings.¹¹ It must also be considered how the Metropolis determined that provisions for indigenous rights dictated by colonial authorities should be applied fundamentally over Castilian law, which was suppletory.¹² Furthermore, not only were some Castilian provisions valid in the colonies, but also authorities were to legislate according to exercising scenario, as previously mentioned, and in relation to the imminent practice concerning matters of slavery. This demonstrates the significance studying the royal regulations and the characteristics of commands and ordinances issued in different indigenous contexts as primary sources in assessing the nature of slavery. The jurist Juan de Matienzo understood that legal regulation of slavery was imperative in Charcas, and so he reflected on this in hispioneering work, Gobierno del Perú. ¹³ With his knowledge of European codes inherited by America, as well as the theological and political debate generated by the practice of slavery in that period, he wrote different provisions that he considered pertinent for applying to the phenomenon of servitude as it was taking shape in La Plata. Viceroy Toledo made use of Matienzo’s

 Trazegnies, Ciriaco de Urtecho.  The New Laws (Leyes Nuevas) dated 1542, also use this term, but they do not stop on the given meaning either.  RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 5, RC issued in Valladolid on July 20, 1538.  Andrés-Gallego, La esclavitud en la monarquía hispánica, 41.  Ots Capdequí, Manual de Historia del Derecho español en las Indias, 78.  The administrative activity of Juan de Matienzo was closely linked to that of the Viceroy Toledo in politics, the economy and the organization of the population.

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opinions in order to elaborate his famous ordinances.¹⁴ These reflected on the news received everyday about the dynamics of social relationships and certain prejudices, as well as the fear of riots that Spaniards harbored in relation to Africans, slaves or horros, as well as indigenes and their mestizo descendants. According to a headline given to Ordinances for La Plata in 1574: “one of the most damaging aspects for the republic and most inconvenient for its good governance, regarding indigene protection, is the lack of order to be imposed on blacks, moriscos, mulatos and zambaigos, horros and captives abundantly present in this city and province”.¹⁵ Toledo sought to install a political and – at the same time – moral order to complement Church provisions regarding the evangelization and Christian life of enslaved captives. In fact, Matienzo had recommended establishing parishes to indoctrinate and provide sacraments “to mulatos, children of blacks and indians, and to black horros. ¹⁶ He also suggested using “libros de actas” (minute books) to record these sacraments. Later, statements by the First Synod of La Plata in 1620 would regulate procedures for the baptism, indoctrination, marriage and extreme unction of bozales and creoles, slaves and libertos from the city and farms around the city of La Plata.¹⁷ One of the main worries for the Viceroy was to control the movement of Africans and their descendants, enslaved or horros. The Crown itself insisted on the need for delegated authorities to give special attention to the behavior of those considered as the restless.¹⁸ Protected on the principle of guarding public order, Toledo determined that none of these could walk the streets at night.¹⁹ Furthermore, by a Royal Charter dated 29 April 1577, they were required to confirm a fixed residence in the house of known masters and lords. According to provisions sanctioned by the Viceroy, only officials or those who had any public posi-

 Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, Ch. XXIV. “Ordenanzas del virrey Toledo para la ciudad de La Plata”, La Plata del 5 de mayo de 1574, en Francisco de. Disposiciones gubernativas para el virreinato del Perú (1575 – 1580), ed. Guillermo Lohmann Villena and María Justina Sarabia Viejo (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 1989), 2 volumes [Henceforth: Ordenanzas de la Plata]  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 1.  Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, Ch. 38.  See: Title 4, Ch. 7 about baptism and indoctrination, Title 17 Ch. 2 about weddings and Title 3, Ch. 1 about extreme untion en: Jerónimo Méndez de Tiedra O. P.Constituciones del Ier Sínodo Platense (1619 – 1620), ed. Josep M. Barnadas (Sucre: ABAS, 2002), 9, 12, 63.  In the middle of the 17th century, the Crown stated, “Justice must be careful with proceedings of slaves, blacks and restless people”. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 13, RC issued in Madrid on December 3, 1645.  RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 12, RC issued in Valladolid on April 4, 1542.

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tion could live outside their master’s house.²⁰ Those who wanted to live with their spouse and reside beyond a master’s house could do so, but the master’s consent or legal authorization to move was required. Housing registration that was as organized as possible, was also, as in the case of libertos, a priority for authorities that otherwise had a hard time controlling the collection of their taxes.²¹ This meant that from 1574 the Crown ordered every free black and mulato to pay taxes.²² The landlords used to be in charge of this duty by deducting it from their payments. Zambos, children of Indian and black slaves, were not included because their tribute had already been ordered in 1572.²³ Those considered mestizos, unlike mulatos or zambos, were exempt from tributes. The complexity of the imposed categories and the underlying situation caused clear contradictions and subjectivities. Movement restriction went even further. As determined by Toledo, “negros” (assumed to be slaves) could not go to farms or ranches on the outskirts of the city to deal with or be hired by other residents in those areas.²⁴ Least of all, they were not allowed out of the city without authorization from their masters.²⁵ Furthermore, any unauthorized absence, whether brief or prolonged, was to be reported to the authorities by the masters. Other Afro-descendants housing blacks, during the day or night, in their own or others’ properties was also prohibited. One of the concerns was that they could be hiding potential runaways.²⁶ Local incidences of flight had made it necessary to enforce Royal Charters from 1571 regarding marronage.²⁷ Toledo decreed various penalties for the accused, according to their period of absence from their master’s house, as well as for blacks who were found wandering in La Plata and presumed to have escaped from other jurisdictions.²⁸

 “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 2.  Law by Philip II issued in San Martín de la Vega on April 29, 1577 determined, “that mulatos and blacks live with known masters, so their tributes may be collected”. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 3.  RC issued by Philip II in Madrid on April 27, 1574 registered in RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 1, determined tax in one Mark of silver per year, according to their location and finance. Beggars, old people, children and women who had no house or finance were exempt.  RC by Philip II dated May 18, 1572 and May 28, 1573. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 2.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 5. Penalty was established in one hundred whiplashes.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 7.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 4.  RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 19 – 25 specified several royal charters about marronage.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata” Title 14, 10. For running away for 10 days, Toledo determined to warn the master and take the slave to the public rollo in the city to tear one of their feet and then heal it. The person who caught a runaway slave inside the city would receive 40 reales

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Other provisions by Toledo inspired by suggestions from Juan de Matienzo saw a series of previous and subsequent Royal Charters that pointed to the residential separation of indigenes from blacks, as mentioned previously.²⁹ In his “Instrucción para Jueces de Naturales” (Instruction for Judges of Natives) for La Plata, Toledo insisted that negros and mulatos should not live among indigenes.³⁰ The argument was based on the alleged alarm and bad experiences suffered by the latter. They were not allowed to shelter slaves passing by their repartimientos, under the assumption that they were runaways. Penalty was directly over the cacique, if they were not imprisoned and taken to the city.³¹ On the other hand, and as a means of supporting the project of population differentiation based on people’s calidad. A Royal Charter dated February 11, 1571 declared that black and mulato women could not wear jewels or fine fabrics as part of their garments. Those married to Spaniards were allowed a few very specific concessions in this regard.³² Control regulations for areas inhabited by black people were linked, especially in the case of libertos, to what Spanish authorities called an interest in keeping them from being “idle” or living as “wanderers”. More concretely, Toledo ordered “that no black could be idle on the streets of this city during a weekday”³³. Penalties included one hundred lashes by whip or two days in jail with their feet in the stocks. This penalty could be doubled if a person was found gambling (with cards or dice) on the street or in any house. Slaves and horros could rest from their daily journey in their master’s or lord’s house only on Sunday after Mass, in the public square next to the stocks but in no other place, as specified by the Viceroy. Besides restriction on space, residence, movement and certain activities that suggest the susceptibility of Africans and their descendants, the enslaved or

and 100 reales out of the city. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 14, 10. Runaway slaves from other jurisdictions and found in La Plata were imprisoned preventively. There, they would spend days in the pillory until authorities could find their master, who had to pay for corresponding expenses. The slave had to be delivered with a torn foot. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 14, 11.  Matienzo had recommended, “I think black horros, mulatos, mestizos or Spaniards should not be among Indians”. Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, Ch. XXIV.  “Instrucción de los jueces de naturales”, La Plata, May 28, 1574, Title 20. Penalty for noncompliance was whiplashes and perpetual banishment. Lohmann and Saravia, Francisco de Toledo. Disposiciones gubernativas, Vol. I, No 36, 461.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 13.  They could use golden earring with pearls, a choker, a suede rim on her skirt, simple schawls a little bit under her waist, but not cloaks made of elegant fabrics. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 28 issued in Madrid on February 11, 1571.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 16.

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horros also met with prohibitions on carrying a harquebus, doublet, sword, dagger or any other kind of weapon, unless they were with their masters, aprovision added according by a Royal Charter issued in 1551.³⁴ In 1568 and then in 1573, mulatos and zambaigos were also forbidden to carry any weapon.³⁵ Matienzo states that these decisions were supported by the fact that they were “restless, mean and incorrigible, and since they were many and increasing every day, there could be a time when they would assault and rob, or gather with Indians to rise up with them”.³⁶ The view of potential conflict shown by the jurists possibly had more to do with the fear caused by news from other jurisdictions, like the Caribbean, than any conflicte scenario in La Plata. In “Instrucciones para Jueces de Naturales”, Toledo clarified that due to potential struggles that might arise, they should never allow blacks and mulatos to carry weapons even in the company of their masters, unless they were of a high authority.³⁷ He reveals that quarrels between negros and mulatos, with indigenes were frequent. Consequently, they could only carry blunt knives. The Viceroy himself decreed regular visits to farms and ranches in La Plata in order to confiscate weapons from those who owned them, unless they were cowboys and would need them to work.³⁸ Other Toledo ordinances inspired by Matienzo are those that forbade slaves to enter any tianguez (market) in the city or to use “the road to the rancherías” to get what indigenes used to take to sell there.³⁹ On the other hand, “regatones” (small-scale vendors) were not allowed any contact (understood as commerce) with negros or mulatos either through credit or to pawn, “even if they say they go on behalf of their masters  RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 15 issued in Madrid on November 19, 1551. Penalty ranged from losing the weapon to jail in case of a slave, or banishment in case of an horro. In 1628, Philip IV prohibited granting any license to take slaves with weapons. RLI, t. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 18 issued on April 4, 1628.  Mestizos could carry weapons with a license only. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 14 issued in Madrid on December 19, 1568 and December 1, 1573.  Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, Ch. XXIV.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 6. Some exceptions were made with slaves belonging to some authorities. In 1614, according to Royal Charter dated April 14, the Archbishop of La Plata had obtained authorization to take two black servants armed with swords. RC dated April 14, 1614. Víctor Tau Anzoátegui, Libros de registros-cedularios de Charcas (1563 – 1717) (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Investigaciones de Historia del Derecho, 1999), Book III, File 3887, 166. Thus, as decreed by Toledo, regidores could be accompanied by two slaves armed with swords to arrest delincuents. On February 22, 1627, the Audiencia was consulted to withdraw this permit. Tao-anzoátegui, Libros de registros-cedularios de Charcas, Book IV, File 4194, 47.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 8.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 3. Penalty for noncompliance was whiplashes and jail. See: Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, Ch. XXIV.

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and it was true.”⁴⁰ These provisions were based on the suspicion of robbery; that slaves could be trading objects stolen from their masters.⁴¹ Furthermore, restrictions extended to the consumption of certain products, specifically, a prohibition from selling wine or playing cards to slaves.⁴² Toledo provisions insisted that pulperos (grocery-store keepers) could not sell wine jars to black people from the farms without their master’s authorization.⁴³ Consequently, taverns in Indian villages where negros, mulatos and indigenes would drink chicha and relax on Sundays or during festivities was also prohibited, because, according to the Viceroy, it resulted in much drunkenness, casualties and other damages.⁴⁴ At the same time, as Toledo suggests, captive blacks or horros not only consumed but also sold chicha. Legal provisions were established for enslaved Africans and their Afrodescendant, as well as the horro population in colonial La Plata, that included regulations inherited from Castilian law, and also of Catholic and legal doctrinal reflection from the colonies by contemporaries like Juan Matienzo and Francisco de Toledo. Facing evident fear of unregulated contact among the population, and of coexistence between black and indigenous people, domination practices using political power tried to consolidate censorship and a system of segregation that while recreating difference, enabled a better fiscal control of tax payers in different forms of servitude. Far from being a previously traced plan, the analysis of the Toledo ordinances reveals that news of a scenario of multiple contacts prompted regulations to be formulated whose inefficiency at least we can imagine. The debate around the phenomenon of Chiriguano captivity and the arguments political powers used in order to justify the imposition of servitude upon them will be analyzed below in a punctual and complementary manner.

 “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 12, 10.  This statement is supported by penalties imposed by La Plata Cabildo on May 1596 to storekeeper Alonso Hernández “for purchasing stolen things from black slaves” ABNB: ACLP, 1596, No 507. Additionally, in 1604 to Hernán Martín for getting some pillows from a black woman who had stolen from Diego Gaitán. ABNB: ACLP, 1604, No 861.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 12, 52.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 14, 17. This ordinance for store and bar keepers was also extensive to blacks, zambaigos and Indias in Lima, on July 28, 1578. Lohmann and Saravia, Francisco de Toledo. Disposiciones gubernativas, Vol. II, No 79, 357.  “Ordenanzas de La Plata”, Title 18, 11. Penalty was a fine in silver, breaKing up of wine jars and whiplashing in public. In the case of horros, penalty was doubled and they were banished from the city for five years. See: Berta Ares Queija, “Un borracho de chicha y vino. La construcción social del mestizo (Perú, siglo XVI)”, in Mezclado y sospechoso. Movilidad e identidades, España y América (siglos XVI – XVIII), ed. Gregorio Salinero (Madrid: Casa de Velásquez, 2005).

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Considerations include, asking what legal terms were used in this case and what was their political use? What interests were sought? To what extent is this phenomenon related to slavery and servitude experienced by the African and Afro-descendant population in La Plata?

Justification of Chiriguano Captivity and Servitude Validated by concession bulls from Pope Alexander VI to Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the argument that sought to legitimate Spanish domination in America was based on the alleged need to evangelize natives. However, the forms shaped by the Conquest led to a controversy over the so-called Justos Títulos. Compulsory reading of the Requerimiento, which explained the reasons for submitting indigenes, was decreed. This document stated that any attitude of rejection or resistance could be a reason for war and slavery, for which only the natives would be responsible.⁴⁵ Not all jurists and theologists agreed on this formulation. Fray Domingo de Soto, José de Acosta and Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, among others, defended explaining that indigenous unfaithfulness was not itself a crime and did not authorize the starting of any war.⁴⁶ In 1537, Pope Paul III himself issued the Sublimis Deus, a bull that guaranteed the liberty of natives and emphasized that evangelization was to be carried out preacefully. Even authors convinced about the legitimacy of the civilizing and conversion mission in the New World knew that Christian doctrine demanded submission be free and voluntary.⁴⁷ The use of violence had been accepted as a legitimate means only under certain circumstances, described by Francisco de Vitoria as causes for a just war.⁴⁸ But news about captivity, commerce and forced submition of the indigenous were more and more frequent, and followed the interests and demands of regional markets. Additionally, regulatory fluctuations of Crown

 AGI: Panamá, File 233.  García Añoveros, “Carlos V y la abolición de la esclavitud”, 59. José de Acosta, S. J., Predicación del Evangelio en las Indias [1577], ed. Francisco Mateos (Alicante: Miguel de Cervantes Digital Library, 1999), Book II. Bartolomé de Las Casas, “Apologética Historia Sumaria”, in Obra completa (Madrid: Alianza, 1992), Vol. 6: 15 – 181.  See: Lewis Hanke, El prejuicio racial en el Nuevo Mundo. Aristóteles y los Indios de Hispanoamérica (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria, 1958).  Francisco de Vitoria, Relecciones del estado, de los indios y del derecho de la guerra [1538] (Mexico: Porrúa, 1996). See also: Ginés de Sepúlveda, Juan. Democrates alter, sive de justis belli causis apud indos [1550], Edited by Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo. Alicante: Miguel de Cervantes Digital Library, 2006.

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provisions for sustaining the conditions of native people kept on putting this intended legitimacy of the Conquest process to the test. There were particularly violent confrontations with groups who in different and distant regions such as the islands in the Caribbean Sea, the plains in the sub-Andean Chaco or the Amazon Basin, resisted domination, thus blocking its progress and becoming a threat to the expected political and commercial stability of the Colonial people. Among the best known cases were Caribes, Chichimecas and Lacandones in New Spain, Aucas (Araucanos-Mapuches) in the General Captaincy of Chile, as well as Juries, Diaguitas, Calchaquíes, Omaguacas, Ocloyes, Quilmes, Lules in the Chaco, among others in the northeastern area of current Chile, Argentina, and the Río de La Plata Basin. It has been widely documented in every region that indigenes that were made captive used to be sold and subsequently subjugated in different forms of forced servitude, despite the relevant prohibitions. It is interesting to point out that although scholastic opinions were divided regarding the use of violence as a means to confront resistance, practically none justified it use for captivity and even less for indigenous slavery. Leyes Nuevas, dated 1542, the composition and announcement of which influenced the vehemence of Las Casas’ position, made clear that indigenes could not be enslaved or subjugated for personal services. The same document includes a Royal Charter dated May 2 of the same year, and which is included in the Recopilación. ⁴⁹ Confrontations with the Chiriguanos, the Guaraní-speaking inhabitants of the extreme eastern border of the Andean piedmont, starting in the Chaco plains and the brow of the rainforest on the southeastern borders of Charcas, prompted heavy correspondence between jurisdiction authorities and those of the Peninsula. They addressed the fear generated among the population by “the Chiriguano threat”, the difficulty or impossibility of entering certain areas for missionary purposes, and the great expense and deaths of conquistadores such as Andrés Manso in the late second half of the 16th century.⁵⁰ The formal declaration of war by Phillip II against Chiriguanos announced on September 19, 1568, which Viceroy Toledo counted on when he arrived in Perú, must be understood in this context.⁵¹

 RLI, Book VI, Title 2, Law 1.  Isabelle Combès, “Saypurú: el misterio de la mina oculta, del Inca chiriguano y del dios mestizo”, Revista Andina, 48 (2009), 197.  BNE, mns. 3004, 309.

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Once Toledo arrived in La Plata, the Chiriguano issue caused a debate among the Audiencia authorities in sessions held between 1571 and 1573.⁵² According to Fray Reginaldo de Lizárraga, in those years a delegation of Chiriguanos arrived in the city to see the Viceroy who would have received and honored them.⁵³ García Mosquera, one of the interpreters with them, said that their purpose was to report they had no wish to continue with wars and feuds against Christians; in fact, they wanted them to send priests.⁵⁴ Isabelle Combès, who has studied this historical episode, relates that one of the main motivations for the meeting was to learn from Toledo and know what political negotiations might be possible for a form of relationship that would govern Christians and inhabitants in their region in the Saypurú lands. Chané and Chiriguano people coexisted with mestizos and some Spaniards who had decided to settle in this unredeemed area, but certainly permeable to contact.⁵⁵ Negotiation was fruitless, however; in fact, the commission ended up fleeing from La Plata without any explanation. Undoubtedly, the contemporary record of this event obscures any willful intention to create a scenario of unfaithfulness and apostasy and so justify intervention in such unredeemed place. Since Toledo could not get the support he expected to penetrate into an area that generated much interest from Spaniards, he decided to enter the Range in person in 1574. As mentioned previously, he barely returned alive from his expedition. Just before Toledo’s entry, Audiencia Oidores had agreed on declaring war on Chiriguanos, as established by the Royal Charter. Captivity and slavery were more delicate topics, because they contradicted papal and royal provisions,  See: AGI: Patronage No 235, Branch 2 transcribed in Mujía, Bolivia-Paraguay, 1914. See also: Lía Guillermina Oliveto and Paula C. Zagalsky, “De nominaciones y estereotipos: los chiriguanos y los moyos moyos, dos casos de la frontera oriental de Charcas en el siglo XVI”, Bibliografía Americana. Revista Interdisciplinaria de estudios coloniales, 6 (2010), 5. Lía Guillermina Oliveto, “De mitmaqkuna incaicos en Tarija a reducidos en La Plata. Tras las huellas de los moyos moyos y su derrotero colonial”. Anuario de Estudios Bolivianos, Archivísticos y Bibliográficos, 17 (2011): 463 – 490.  See in detail how much Money Toledo commanded to invest in supporting Chiriguanos in La Plata in AGI: Charcas No 37. Lizárraga, Reginaldo de. Descripción breve de toda la tierra del Perú, Tucumán, Rio de La Plata y Chile [1605]. In Descripción colonial, directed by Ricardo Rojas. Buenos Aires: Biblioteca Argentina, 1916, Vol. 13.  Being proficient in both Guarani and Spanish, Thierry Saignes states that Mosquera, a Paraguayan mestizo settled in Tomina, close to the frontier with Chiriguanos, whom he traded gunpowder and knives with. Thierry Saignes, “Métis et Sauvages: les enjeux du métissage sur la frontière chiriguano”, Mélanges de la Casa de Velásquez, XVIII, 1 (1982) 88. Combès, “Grigotá y Vitupué”, 207.  See reports and statement collected by García Mosquera in: Mujía, Bolivia-Paraguay, 108 and following.

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which in that time tried to guarantee indigenous freedoms, including those of unredeemed indigenes.⁵⁶ According to Lizárraga, in one session Dean Urquizo had mentioned that in a situation of a just war, the taking of prisoners into captivity was legal instead of killing them. However, Emperor Charles V “decreed that no Indian, despite having committed very serious crimes, or having rebelled against the Crown, or eaten human meat, or having been against any of the Viceroys, or governors, or general captains, could be considered slaves.”⁵⁷ Despite this clarification, the Audiencia and the Viceroy agreed on captivity for life and the enslavement of Chiriguanos.⁵⁸ Polo de Ondegardo was possibly the only person who invited the Viceroy to consider that this was not about one people but multiple and with different lifestyles, but he was unable to affect the decision taken in order to justify war and subjugation.⁵⁹ Among the many authorities gathered was Juan de Matienzo, a Minister of the Audiencia at thet time, who had written years before, in 1566, about Chiriguanos as those “whom justly we can make war to and be considered as slaves.”⁶⁰ Aware of the impact of using this term in the legal context of that period, he proposed “to take them out from here [the Range] and put them with masters in different parts of the Kingdom, inland so they cannot run away”. He even suggested having them work in the mines of Potosí in indefinite captivity under coerced labor.⁶¹ A fundamental point to clarify is that these debates and decisions took place against a context of kidnapping and trading indigenes in the Lowlands. Matienzo himself clarified that he used to reflect on the situation of constant confrontation, casualties, captivity and people trafficking involving Spanish and Chiriguanos, in a scenario, that on his point of view, European behavior obeyed to a great “dissolution”⁶². Regulating these practices was to legitimate the oppression of those the King had recognized as his subjects, while prohib-

 See bull by Paulus III dated June 22, 1537, which declared Indians were free and should not be forced to conversión unless by preaching and good example. AGI: Patronage, No 36 y No 38. See also the brief dated May 29, 1537 that clarifies, “even if they are unfaithful.” AGI: Patronage, No 37. Additionally, Leyes Nuevas dated 1542 already mentioned.  Lizárraga, Descripción breve, 136.  AGI: Patronage, No 235, Branch 2.  Se information produced by Polo de Ondegardo on October 24, 1573 in: Mujía, Bolivia-Paraguay, 82 and following. See also: Julien, “Colonial perspectives on the Chiriguaná”, 49.  Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, Ch. IX, 165.  Matienzo had already stated this idea to the King in 1561. See: Julien, “Colonial perspectives on the Chiriguaná”, 46. Antonio López de Haro had the same opinión on uprooting. Mujía, Bolivia-Paraguay, 246– 247.  Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, Ch. IX, 165.

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iting them would cause discontent among those who profited from indigenous traffic and providing personal services, which accounted for a great number of Charcas’ population. Lizárraga was aware of the need to be cautious adopting legal terms, not only to avoid controversies about the legitimacy of Spanish domination, but also in case other indigenes who had not yet reduced “would hear Christians have enslaved, bought and sold, and have destroyed these men-eaters [Chiriguanos], they would not understand any reason or justice” that led the monarch to order this, and would feel more loathing than they already felt for the Spaniards.⁶³ He thus proposed not calling them slaves, unless the King expressly validated use of the term. Otherwise, he suggested like Matienzo, to claim such action under the indefinite captivity of war prisoners, without any chance to be alienated.⁶⁴ A decade later, on 12 November 1583, the Audiencia approached the issue again and rectified the position of going on with a war by blood and fire against Chiriguanos, thus authorizing indefinite captivity and subsequent subjugation into forced labor that had little difference from slavery. However, this war against Chiriguanos must not be understood as a widerangingmilitary campaign. In Charcas no permanent regular army was present, and soldiers of conquest, without residence or nobility, were usually roaming wanderers that used to live near wealthy lords and who, for a good initial payment, were ready to be recruited. The so-called campaigns were not just ordered by the authorities, but also by citizens who financed such efforts so as to win privileges from the King as they gained certain social recognition. Farmers from border towns kept weapons as a precaution and according to vice royal order.⁶⁵ In this regard, Vázquez de Espinosa exaggerates a little: “All this land is Chiriguanaes border, and insecure, because everyday thousands of attacks take place killing Spaniards, blacks and Indians, in the ranches, and

 Lizárraga, Descripción breve, 137.  Lizárraga advised with the same opinion about Araucanians two decades later. In his view, indigenous captivity avoided the inconvenience of replacing the cost of Indians that could not be sold; this was not slavery, because their service was simply being rented, “as renting a house or a horse.” Óscar E. Acevedo, “Dos pareceres de fray Reginaldo de Lizárraga O. P. sobre la guerra y esclavitud de los indios”, Temas Americanistas, 15 (2002), 16.  See: “Descripción de la villa de Santiago de la Frontera de Tomina y su distrito, sacada de la relación que por mandado del Consejo de hizo y envió a aquella ciudad el año de 1608”, in Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y colonización de las posesiones españolas en América y Oceanía, dir. Luis Torres de Mendoza (Madrid: Imprenta de Frías y Compañía, 1868), Vol. IX, 343. See also: “Carta del Virrey del Perú a la Audiencia de La Plata. 02 de enero de 1588”. ABNB: CACh No 65.

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trapping women.”⁶⁶ The number of men that participated varied. Juan Lozano Machuca, who was a factor (deal closer) in Potosí, recalled entering with 250 men in 1584.⁶⁷ For his part, Pedro Cuéllar made an incursion with 130 men in 1588.⁶⁸ Occasionally, they requested and received some economic support for ams and ammunition from the Audiencia.⁶⁹ Cuéllar, for example, states in a letter to the King that once many men had died, got sick or ran away, only 18 had been left, him included, when “your majesty sometimes assisted me with some food.” Many times these were loans; thus, in 1568, Inés de Aguilar, widow of Captain Pedro de Castro, a La Plata vecino , asked the Audiencia that she be exempted from a loan of 6,000 pesos given to her husband to fight against Chiriguanos.⁷⁰ Pedro Ramírez del Águila, a Presbyterian and chronicler, thought that the difficulty in conquering this area was caused by waging a disorganized war, for “although some governors and captains from other borders have made incursions on their own due to concession of your Majesty, these have been little significant and finished along with their money.”⁷¹ Those who participated in these incursions acted as civil agents of “civilidad” for towns that denied living in “policía” and were constantly fighting against each other. With regards to justifying indigenous captivity, an alleged “rescue” of ones, against the possibility of subjugation by others. This theory was supported by the fact that the Spaniards had identified servitude practices between some groups in the region, such as Chané and Chichas, who were enslaved by Chiriguanos. ⁷² In his summary, Lorenzo Suárez Figueroa, the Santa Cruz governor, stated, “they have more than four or five thousand Indians from the plains”, and he adds, “they are called slaves whom they put in the vanguard when they have a combat or any first encounter. These know that if they do not fight to death they will die by their masters’ hands. So, in order to escape this peril, they fight more than Chiriguanos themselves.”⁷³ Pedro Cuéllar, previously cited, in fact relates that in his campaign he sought freeing,

 Vázquez de Espinosa Compendio y Descripción, 614.  ABNB: CACh No 38.  AGI: Charcas, No 42.  See another example in: “Carta del Cabildo Secular de la Villa de Salinas del Río Pisuerga a la Audiencia de La Plata”, March 29, 1604. ABNB: CACh No 475.  AGI: Justicia, Fiscal Decrees, 1568, No 1132.  Ramírez del Águila, Noticias políticas de Indias, 22.  According to Isabelle Combès, Chiquitos, inhabitants of northern Chaco were called tapuymiri (little slaves). Submission reasoning and codes among Chiriguanos differed from slavery as understood by Europeans in the 16th century, but mutual influences became rapidly evident.  “Relación de Santa Cruz de la Sierra hecha en Callao por don Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa”, June 2, 1586. ABNB: CACh No 49, 9.

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besides captive Christians, Christianized Chané people “revealed and taken by Chiriguanos, who have them as slaves and use them as servants”⁷⁴. The truth is that instead of turning into campaigns for the re-establishment of peace and safety, these raids were efforts to incorporate unredeemed areas into the colonial order and to kidnap their inhabitants in order to be employed as nonfree labor.⁷⁵A legal form that validated this behavior was the “rescate” (ransom), that authorities themselves at that time qualified as an “excuse”. Justifying such rescue meant encouraging all kinds of irregularities. Legally speaking, the raids were supposed to recover indigenes who had been taken from their land during a battle or sold, and in order to prevent their subjugation or violence by others.⁷⁶ Nevertheless, authorities rarely stopped to analyze the causes and means of confrontations, if present, or the motives for captivity.⁷⁷ Frequently, indigenes were exchanged for other goods, or in some situations bought from other indigenes “who having these rescues as baits, combated one another to get imprisoned or sold to us, and what is worse, reducidos (reduced) assault neighboring peoples who had already been friends with Christians.”⁷⁸ No restrictions on capturing women and children were practised, despite expressed prohibitions in this regard.⁷⁹ Unfortunately, quantifying the real effect of this phenomenon, which was frequent, is impossible. The language used to talk about rescued natives was practically the same as when referring to a slave. In 1571, Viceroy Toledo himself stated that he had been notified about the capture of “pieces of Indians, who had been given, sold and rescued, identified as Chiriguanos and war Indians.”⁸⁰ This was also recognized by the Presbyterian Francisco de Maturana, who in 1642 stated that Melchor de  See: AGI: Charcas No 42, 9 – 11; ABNB: CACh No 352; ABNB: CACh No 605.  This process was complicated and followed different modalities according to the scenario. See: Christophe, Giudicelli, “Pacificación y construcción discursiva de la frontera”, in Máscaras, tretas y rodeos del discurso colonial en los Andes, ed. Bernard Lavallé (Lima: IFEA, 2005), 157– 176.  García Añoveros, “Carlos V y la abolición de la esclavitud”, 110.  The Audiencia stopped some proceedings. In 1595, Domingo de Montenegro was sentenced to pay 100 pesos to the Royal Chamber “for entering to rescue Chiriguanos”. ABNB: ACLP, 1595, No 475.  “Minuta del Consejo de Indias al gobernador de Santa Cruz, don pedro de Cárdenas”, 1685. AGI: Charcas No 13.  RLI, Book VI, Title 2, Law 13. By RC dated 1553 and 1563, female indigenes could not be enslaved even when captured in battle. Ots-Capdequí, Manual de Historia del Derecho español en las Indias y del derecho propiamente indiano, 140.  Mujía, Bolivia-Paraguay, 33. In 1580, he referred with a similar language to some Chané that had been made captives. “Carta del Virrey del Perú a la Audiencia de La Plata”, Lima, January 12, 1580. ABNB CaCh No 12, 2.

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Rosas had stolen a Chiriguano from his farm to take him to La Plata.⁸¹ In some ways, the reference to Chiriguano itself became a signifier of vendible servants. Juan de Somosa, vecino of the Frontera de Tomina, accused Juan de Olmedo of selling indigenes “as if they were Chiriguanos”. Francisco de Peñafiel added that Olmedo “had sold an Indian, saying she was Chiriguano, in Vallegrande [Santa Cruz].”⁸² Despite this reality, as early as in 1550 the Crown required that Lima keep the law that prohibited enslaving indigenes “for no cause of war or any other, even under cause of rebellion, rescue or any other matter.”⁸³ In 1596, the Viceroy of Perú wrote in turn to the Audiencia of Charcas that peace should be sought with Chiriguanos, and warned that “nobody enter the Range to rescue with them.”⁸⁴ Around 1607, the same Audiencia ordered the Governor of Santa Cruz de la Sierra that under no excuse could Indians be taken out “from their native place”, even if they were enemies.⁸⁵ Already in the last decades of the 17th century, Pedro de Cárdenas, Governor of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, received a direct order from Consejo de Indias to free captive indigenes “even if they were purchased from others”, reminding him of the prohibition against vecinos enacting any rescue.⁸⁶ This practice was still in force and two years later, the Viceroy was still warning about strict penalties should they engage in this action.⁸⁷ These warnings were in vain. Rescuing became much more advantageous in obtaining enslaved servants than the trafficking and trading of Africans moved by inhabitants of colonial cities. Consejo de Indias reproached “the bad habit that vecinos have in requiring pieces of servants/servitude.”⁸⁸ In the 1573 Audiencia sessions, Polo de Ondegardo had mentioned that people who started war in their territories, split indigenes as preys, using them at their convenience.⁸⁹ In 1645, a century later, Bernardo Vázquez, a priest and Rector of San

 ABNB: CF 1642, No 1, Ad1.  ABNB: CF 1645, No 13, 24.  ABNB: RC No 6.  “Carta del virrey del Perú a la Audiencia of Charcas”, Lima, October 4, 1596. ABNB: CACh No 227.  La Plata, September 22, 1607. ABNB: CACh no 605.  AGI: Charcas No 13, 6.  “Carta del virrey del Perú a la Audiencia of Charcas”, Lima, August 1, 1599. ABNB: CACh No 288 and No 316.  AGI: Charcas No 13, 6.  Mujía: Bolivia-Paraguay, 93.

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Lorenzo de la Barranca (Santa Cruz), commented that several Spaniards had rescued Chiriguanos working in their farms “as male and female slaves.”⁹⁰ In colonial societies, captive people were exposed to forced servitude for an indefinite period. The formula was used to try to get round royal provisions about the liberty of indigenes with interests in a context that should be applied. The argument was that due to the lack of control over them, captives had to be governed as servants, and once they became civilians they would gradually open themselves up to greater liberty.⁹¹ In a context where the individual liberty of subjects and faithful people was understood as to a certain-degree a submission to the political, economic or moral dependence of another person, (besides the King, the pater familias; a husband, in the case of women; their master for slaves; and the lord for servants), it is not surprising that the Viceroy of Perú had proposed, as a solution for Chiriguanos made captive that they could not be returned to their lands as “they are free and may serve anyone they want.”⁹² Furthermore, it is a documented fact that when servants were captives from the Lowlands, despite their liberty being legally validated, those who received them in their houses considered them to be their property. Hence, Elena, a Chiriguana, was thepersonal property of Juana Ortiz de la Puebla, resident in Santiago de Pomabamba at the end of the 17th century, and as such susceptible to robbery, sale or exchange, only because she had been rescued from the Range.⁹³ Thus, status of any rescued indigene validated to a great extent the establishment of a dominant relationship similar to the conditions of slavery Afro-descendants were submitted to.⁹⁴

 ABNB: CF 1675, No 23.  In 1583 Audiencia sessions, Gorbalán de Robles advised that captivity of Chiriguanos should last ten years, time to sell them once inside Charcas. He even suggested to register them as Yanaconas “with the same responsibilities and liberty.” Mujía, Bolivia-Paraguay, 284.  “Carta del Virrey del Perú a la Audiencia de La Plata”, Lima June 1, 1608. ABNB: CACh No 623.  ABNB: CF 1700, No 45, 2.  See for another context: Von Mentz, Brígida. “Esclavitud y semiesclavitud en el México antiguo y la Nueva España con énfasis en el siglo XVI”. Studia historica. Historia Antigua, 25 (2007): 543 – 558. Zavala, Silvio A. Los esclavos indios en Nueva España (México: Colegio Nacional Luis Sánchez Obregón, 1981).

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Consequences of stereotyped perceptions Chiriguano Range was recreated as a geographic border between colonized societies and the environment of Chaco indigenes and the rainforest of the Lowlands. A discourse existed promoting the symbolic estrangement between self-proclaimed colonial Christian civility and unredeemed indigenous hostility. The Incas had already established the difference from the area inhabited by Chaco and the rainforest groups they could not redeem and had called it Antisuyu or region of the Antis.⁹⁵ Guamán Poma de Ayala and Garcilaso de la Vega mention the following references reconsidered by Spaniards. For the latter, “Chiriguano Province” was “a terrible land with fierce mountains, marshes, lakes and swamps.”⁹⁶ Mentioning this wide unredeemed area and discrediting its geography, nature and fauna as if it were inhabitable, reinforced the idea that their inhabitants could be nothing but barbarians, making their intention to “pacify” them indispensable.⁹⁷ This vision, possibly effective in Europe, was not shared by those living in Charcas for whom the Chiriguano Range was not necessarily a distant, unknown or hostile place. The reality reveals multiple connections and complex dynamics from pre-Hispanic times. Missions that were established in some towns are proof that not every place was impenetrable.⁹⁸ For instance, the Range was a shelter site for fugitives that had some outstanding debts with the Crown, and for those who wanted to avoid unbearable labor conditions in colonial houses and farms. These people cultivated the Castilian language and Catholic beliefs even before missioners. An example is “Negro Blas”, and enslaved Afrodescendant, who in trying to escape from his master, moved from Perú to Santa Cruz en Charcas and then to the border with Chiriguanos in Gran Chaco. Captured in Bermejo River, he became a slave of Capiruy, the main

 Rosella Martín, “L’image du sauvage dans le théâtre quechua et l’iconographie des queros (Pérou, XVII – XVIII)”, Corpus, 4, 2 (2014), 2.  Garcilaso, Comentarios Reales, 122.  Behind reasoning, a concept of depopulation for a better occupation, deportation and reutilization of unfaithful labor force was concealed. See: Christophe Giudicelli, “Les sociétés indiennes et les “frontières” américaines de l’empire espagnol (XVIe – XVIIe siècle). Une ébauche historiographique”, en Sociétés, colonisations et esclavages dans le monde atlantique-Historiographie des sociétés américaines des XVIe – XIXe siècles, ed. François-Joseph Ruggiu and Cécile Vidal. (Rennes: Les Perséides, 2009), 144.  Guillermo Wilde, “Indios misionados y misioneros indianizados en las Tierras Bajas de América del Sur. Sobre los límites de la adaptación cultural” in La indianización. Cautivos, renegados, coord. Bernabeu et al., 291– 310.

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cacique. ⁹⁹ For his part, Viceroy Toledo tells us about enslaved Afro-descendants who by 1580 had fled across the Tomina border looking for shelter in the piedmont. His words to the Audience were, “regarding black people who go to Chiriguano land by Tomina, it is worth remedy and consideration to avoid the formation of a robbers’ den there.”¹⁰⁰ Six years afterwards, Suárez de Figueroa also echoes this concern and adds that “delinquent Indians who do not want to serve are among the fugitives.”¹⁰¹ Thus, diverse groups in terms of organization, relationship, and proximity to the colonizing system inhabited the piedmont transition area. Spaniards, mestizos, Afro-descendants and indigenes of different origin and condition moved back and forth, interacting under different motivations and interests. Here, it is inaccurate to say that it was a single frontier. Passersby in the area knew different territorial and legal limits. It is necessary to shade the idea of permanent confrontation between stereotyped sides. Incas and Antis encouraged strategic political alliances through kinship networks that assured access to diversified resources, as referred to by Rosella Martín.¹⁰² All kinds of product and information exchange saw Chiriguanos congregate daily with other indigenes in the region.¹⁰³ Furthermore, it was documented that Spanish incursions in to the Range were made using indigenes, sometimes from the Lowlands, whose tactical help and survival expertise the Spaniards depended upon.¹⁰⁴ In return, they would receive “a permit to pass to La Plata City, Villa de Potosí, Lipez and Tarija” to trade fruit from the Range.¹⁰⁵ It was not surprising if Chiriguanos arrived at these cities to exchange their products for weapons, metal

 There is also proof of the presence of the negra Catalina among Chiriguanos, as a cacique’s slave. Mujía, Bolivia-Paraguay, 124– 127.  Carta del Virrey del Perú Francisco de Toledo a la Audiencia de La Plata”, La Plata, July 8, 1580. ABNB: CaCh No 15, 3.  “Relación de Santa Cruz de la Sierra”. ABNB: CACh No 46. Black slaves mentioned by Suárez de Figueroa had arrived from Perú.  Manco Inca turned to the Antis in 1536 asKing for support to organize a seige to Cuzco, which was under Spaniard control, from Vilcabamba. See: Martín, “L’image du sauvage”, 2.  As declared, Negro Blas, who lived among Chiriguanos, who had agreements with Xores, Tamacozies, Yuracarés to give them feathers, poisonous herbs for their arrows, and fish. On their hand, Chuis from Mizque warned them about anything that happened in Perú and also provided with gunpowder, saltpeter, axes, scissors, knives and other things. “Confesión de Blas negro Blas”, in Mujía, Bolivia-Paraguay, 684.  Julien, “Colonial perspectives on the Chiriguaná”, 36. Isabelle Combès, Diccionario étnico. Santa Cruz La Vieja y su entorno en el siglo XVI (Santa Cruz: Institute of Missionology/Itinerarios, Scripta Autochtona 4, 2010).  ABNB: CF 1687, No 52, 2.

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objects and horses despite existing prohibitions.¹⁰⁶ This flexibility in being able go back and forth was also evident from reports by commissions that had arrived in La Plata and their surroundings from the 16th century. As mentioned before, a Chiriguano representation had visited Toledo by 1573 and many others followed.¹⁰⁷ In order to understand the intrinsic complexity of this scenario, it is necessary to abandon a dichotomist vision of ethnic groups in permanent conflict as this would be simplistic and myopic. There were some captives held by Chiriguanos, who never wanted to return to the colonial order, even when they could. In fact, Thierry Saignes mentions a captive mestizo who instead of returning to La Plata with Toledo’s troops in 1574, decided to stay “as a Chiriguano.”¹⁰⁸ Moreover, it was not surprising to see some of them leading Chiriguano troops in confrontations against Spaniards, such as Capillas, a mestizo from Río de La Plata.¹⁰⁹ In the transition to the 18th century, Bartolomé Arzáns confirms that many “mestizos, mulatos and some fugitive blacks” were incorporated and trained by Chiriguanos to fight in their campaigns.¹¹⁰ It is known that captives who were not executed by Chiriguanos could be assimilated and held important positions. Their knowledge in smithery helped in their favor, as in the case of Capillas, given the interest of Lowland indigenes in learning about metal weapon manufacture.¹¹¹ A revealing case is that of Cristobal de Mendiola, a Sevillan Jesuit sent as a missionary of the Guaraní people to Paraguay and then to Charcas.¹¹² He never took his vows and decided to create a new life in the Range where he had several children. Once captured, the Archbishop of Charcas ordered him imprisoned, but when

 Oliveto and Zagalsky, “De nominaciones y estereotipos”, 19. According to Lizárraga, they also used to enter Spaniard ranches to ask them “knives, scissors, some axes”. Lizárraga, Descripción breve, Ch. CIX, 285).  In 1673, the Audiencia was notified that Andaraju, a Chiriguano cacique, had arrived at Santiago de Pomabamba with a partner to ask for endoctrination and support against his enemies, “He said that his people were friends with the Spaniards.” ABNB: CF 1673, No 2; 1674, No 41.  Thierry, Saignes. Historia del pueblo chiriguano (La Paz: Plural, 2007), 221.  Lizárraga, Descripción breve, 287.  Bartolomé Arzáns de Orzúa y Vela, Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosí [1705] (Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1965), Vol. III, 277.  In fact, Negro Blas said they did not kill him because he taught them to make metal wedges. Ximena Paz Obregón and José Manuel Zavala, “Abolición y persistencia de la esclavitud indígena en Chile Colonial: Estrategias esclavistas en la frontera Araucano-Mapuche”. Memoria Americana, 17 (2009): 196.  Pedro Lozano, Descripción corográfica del gran Chaco Gualamba [1733] (Italia: Universidad de Cagliari, 2011), 159 – 160. Revilla, “Chiriguano, ni tan propio ni tan ajeno”.

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Mendiola got out, he managed to return among the Chiriguanos as a man of doctrine. Undoubtedly, his skills in the Guaraní language were helpful.¹¹³ Reportedly, both Capillas, a mestizo blacksmith, and Mendiola, a Spanish Jesuit, had changed their clothing. Capillas used to walk naked and painted all over his face and body¹¹⁴. Mendiola “had become an Indian like them, not only in tradition, but also in clothing”¹¹⁵. Another Spaniard, Diego de León, an official from Santa Cruz who ran away from prison to live among the Chiriguanos, became close to cacique Ysavey and later decided to adopt “Indian clothing: a vest, long hair, open crown, using their weapons.”¹¹⁶ As pointed out by Christophe Giudicelli, who found similar cases in the Chilean context, this is not only a “decorated version of old half-breeding.”¹¹⁷ This process of taking characteristics from Chaco and rainforest groups, but at the same time keeping the vest, calls on a complex process of ethnogenesis that had been operating in Charcas. This can be understood not only through its cultural dimension, but it must also be seen as a political act in response to the colonial order, which was precisely what worried the colonial powers that were trying to control and use stereotypes.¹¹⁸ Neither Incas nor Spaniards ignored the fact that a multiplicity of unredeemed groups were being globalized with the term Chiriguanos, but they did not prevent specifications about their diversity. Along with this homogenizing attitude, a series of qualifiers reflecting Charcas’ collective worldview was in evidence. An adjective used recurrently in narrations by chroniclers, informers and official documents of the Audiencia when referring to Chiriguanos was the word “latecomer” which was related to their “foreignism.” It was claimed that  Mendiola died in the hands of a Chiriguano in a town called Presto (Chuquisaca) in 1655. Other cases were Simon Sampayo, a Portuguese friar, friends with Chiriguano caciques, who left descendants among them in the early 17th century, and Gabriel Díaz, a Portuguese who wanted to found a mission to rise up against Spaniards. See: Saignes, Historia del pueblo chiriguano, 223.  Annatto is a seed to color the skin and it is also used as a spice. In the southeastern area of Charcas it is called achiote or urucú.  Jacinto Barrasa S. J., in Bernardo Gantier S. J. “Una cátedra y una misión en el colegio de la Compañía de Jesús (Chuquisaca, primera mitad del s. XVII)”. Anuario De la Academia Boliviana de Historia Eclesiástica, 15 (2009), 58.  ABNB CF 1678, No 31.  Salvador Bernabeu, Christophe Giudicelliy Gilles Havard (coord), La indianización. Cautivos, renegados, “hommes libres” y misioneros en los confines americanos, s. XVI – XIX, coordinadores Salvador (Madrid: Doce Calles, 2012), 144.  An “indianization” concept results insufficient in these cases, because it only validates the arbitrarily homogeneizing category of colonial “Indio”. About Chiriguano stereotype, see: Lía Guillermina Oliveto, “Chiriguanos, la construcción de un estereotipo en la política colonizadora del surandino”, Memoria Americana, 18 – 19, (2010): 43 – 69.

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they had arrived through Río de La Plata to occupy lands and subjugate people in the south-Andean region. According to Matienzo, “next to this city and surroundings, some latecomer Indians who called themselves Chiriguanos are present […] Chiriguanos tyrannically exiled Indians from their land.”¹¹⁹ Effectively, when Spaniards arrived, various groups of Guaraní-speakers had definitely increased migration towards areas with Chané population, exercising domination over them, although the term to describe this is not precisely an invasion.¹²⁰ As observed by Catherine Julien and Isabelle Combès, this argument is very similar to the one used by Viceroy Toledo to discredit the Incas,¹²¹ and also one that led to determining between peace and war Indians/friends and enemies, according to their relationship with the colonial system.¹²² Other adjectives qualify behavior and actions considered barbarian and wild with regards to a hostile and indomitable environment to be conquered. Barbarian was an old European adjective that referred to those who speak another language and were not part of the dominant power.¹²³ Building the shape of a savage was something known for the worldview; it had roots in ancient times and had been molded by Catholic doctrine.¹²⁴ Both were useful in qualifying Africans and original Americans under the new category of indio as someone who lived without control and was nourished by the circulation of stories of the Incas and the Anti, without whose approximation this discourse about differences could not be fully understood. On a material culture basis, one of the characteristics that impacted Europeans the most was the semi-nudeness displayed by Africans and Chiriguanos. Lizarraga points out that colonial Chiriguanos only used a camisetilla (a kind of

 Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú, Ch. I.  Saignes, “La guerra “salvaje””, 111. Combès, “Grigotá y Vitupué”, 64. Erland Nordenskiöld, “The Guarani invasion of the Inca empire in the sixteenth century: an historical Indian migration”, The Geographical Review, IV, 2 (1917): 103 – 121.Alfred Métraux, “Études sur la civilisation des indiens Chiriguano”, Revista del Instituto de Etnología de la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, 1, (1930): 295 – 493.  Julien, “Colonial perspectives on the Chiriguaná”, 19. Combès, “Grigotá y Vitupué”. Platt and Quisbert, 2008.  The concept of “Indio” was not still settled. It depended on ethinifying features atributed. José Luis Martínez, Gente de la tierra de guerra. Los Lipes en las tradiciones andinas y en el imaginario colonial (Lima: DIBAM / PUCP, 2011), 87.  About the image of barbarían, refer to the reflection by Anthony Padgen, La caída del hombre natural. El indio americano y lo orígenes de la etnología comparativa (Madrid: Alianza, 1998).  Roger Bartra, El salvaje en el espejo (México: ERA / Universidad Autónoma de México, 1992).

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small vest) up to their belly. Influenced by the colonial scenario he moved in, Garcilaso refers to the fact that his ascendants would have tried to take them out “of the torpidity and bestiality they live in and reduce them to human life” and he adds that “they lived without laws or good manners, like animals in the mountains.”¹²⁵ This animalization and dehumanization that Chiriguanos were subjected to was useful for Inca descendants in presenting themselves to the Spaniards as the vanguard of pre-Hispanic civility. Another group of recurrent adjectives was related to personality profiles of Chiriguanos as a group that qualified them as arrogant, prone to betrayal and a vengeful people. Intimately related to what is expressed above is their stigmatization because they did not follow the Catholic faith. While Africans were considered pagans, indigenes were in the category of gentiles, but the unredeemed were considered unfaithful, a category that was also used to refer to Jews and Moors in Europe. Somehow, the terms pagan and unfaithful were adopted after the 16th century in America, to disrespect the image of black people and Chiriguanos. The connotation of evil was also present. While in the case of Africans it was related to certain negative associations of their skin color, in the case of Chiriguanos, this was more related to their sinfulness and the anthropophagy that some groups practiced.¹²⁶ Accounts by chroniclers are somehow caricature-like regarding ritual aspects of a misunderstood alterity. For instance, Lizárraga mentions that when trying to reprehend Chiriguanos about the vice of eating human meat, they replied that at least they would eat it grilled, “while thirty leagues away, there were other well disposed Indians called Tobas, that eat raw meat”.¹²⁷ Anthropophagy was another argument used to justify the rescues.¹²⁸ “Neither as diabolic, as they wanted to see Chiriguanos in the 16th century, nor probably as placid”, the Chiriguano stereotype changed according to geopolitical circumstances, the requirements of this expansive Hispanic political project and changes themselves that intervened in the core of their collectivities, due to the gradual abandonment of certain practices.¹²⁹  Garcilaso, Comentarios Reales, 459.  See: “El salvaje satánico” in: Eduardo Subirats, El continente vacío. La conquista del nuevo Mundo y la consciencia moderna (Madrid / México: Siglo XXI, 1994), 70. See also: Dos Santos, Gislene. “Selvagens, exóticos, demoníacos. Idéias e imagens sobre una gente de color preta”. Estudios Afroasiáticos, 2 (2002).  Lizárraga, Descripción breve, 126. See also: Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, t. XCII, lib. X, cap. I, 376. Garcilaso, Comentarios Reales, Vol. I, Ch. VII and XI, and Murúa, Historia y genealogía de los reyes Incas, Book III, Ch 67, 119.  Julien, “Colonial perspectives on the Chiriguaná”, 34.  Isabelle Combès, “De luciferinos a canonizables: Representaciones del canibalismo chiriguano”, Boletín Americanista, LXIII, 2, 67 (2013): 127– 141.

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The political power used to recreate stereotyped identities for what Peter Wade calls “a knowledge effort” was based on an assembly of characteristics – some imaginary but believable – of referents that enabled Spaniards to differentiate themselves from those that they were trying to redeem.¹³⁰ On a parallel basis, the need to settle exoticisms and made them understandable operated on the assimilation of the other with oneself..¹³¹ By keeping a symbolic distance from stigmatized peoples, their own identity was recognized as an example of humanity used to validate the civilizing and indoctrinating discourse. Already in colonial cities, this would facilitate the integration process of captives into the colonial logic as servants. The flexibility of the term to which indigenes were assimilated, is revealed in different compound denominations that seem to be more transitional than fixed categories.¹³² Hence, it is common to find them employed in registers such as “Unfaithful-Indian”, “Rescued”, “Pacified”, “Indian of the Range”, whenever any paperwork required clarification. Even more so, there were children baptized as Indian-mulato; mestizo-Chiriguano, or mulato-zambaigo, without specifying the parents’ origin, which leaves a suspicion about relations to masters or lords.¹³³ The difficulty of naming was proportional to that of recognizing so that the other person had stopped being an alien.¹³⁴ These ambiguities of adscription were problematic for colonial order agents in their efforts to assign identity, because they represented “mixed” descendants. Validated in the colonial period, the mestizo category characterized, at least initially, the result of relations between a Spaniard and a female Indian.¹³⁵ Rela Peter Wade, Raza y etnicidad en Latinoamérica. Quito: Abya-Yala, 2000, 12. Identity as a cultural phenomenon that may be conditioned by dominant institutions, but whose meaning originates in the individuals. It is plural and suffers constant resignifications. Cohesion is reached in certain moments around a key symbol. Fischer and O’Hara, Imperial Subjects, 16.  Bartra, El salvaje en el espejo.  See: Rachel Sarah O’Toole, Bound lives. Africans, Indians, and the maKing of race in colonial Peru. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), 86.  In 1607, Juana, of unknown father, was registered as mulata-zambaiga in Santo Domingo Parish in La Plata. ABAS: AP, Santo Domingo, baptisms, 1607, Vol. 3.  Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne. “Etre métis ou ne pas être: les symptômes d’un mal identitaire dans les Andes des XVIe et XVIIe siècles”, Cahiers des Amériques Latines (1991): 7– 24.Jean Paul Zúñiga, “La voix du sang. Du métis à l’idée de métissage en Amérique espagnole”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 54, 2 (1999): 425 – 452.  Miscegenation is a questionable term to refer to human relations on an attempt to validate that people confined to certain ethnified compartments in their biological contact with others, would generate mixtures or mixed beings. Verena Stolcke, “Los mestizos no nacen sino que se hacen”. Avá, 14 (2009). Ares Queija, “Un borracho de chicha y vino”. Magnus Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1967).

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tions with women of indigenous lineage could be very convenient for some men because it enabled their social encumbrance. Later, the term would extend its definition and refer to people born from parents of different origins within what is known as a society of castes in the 17th century, including installed considerations of cleanliness of blood.¹³⁶ Early in the second half of the 16th century, Spaniards recognized their political strategies of miscegenation and used their term mestizo to refer to Chiriguanos. Isabelle Combès refers to what Polo de Ondegardo’s comment that “most of them are mestizos, children of female Lowland Indians, and male Indians who have learned to fight and do it so well as the Chiriguanos who also have given them daughters and are all mixed.”¹³⁷ Ambiguity and flexibility in the use of the term are unquestionable in quotidian routine in La Plata. In 1574, María, of a mulato father and a Chiriguano mother, was baptized as a mestiza in Santo Domingo Parish.¹³⁸ Three years later, Cristobal, son of a mulata, was registered as a mestizo. ¹³⁹ Additionally, a case is reported of a Spaniard married to a Chiriguana, whose daughter is baptized as Spanish.¹⁴⁰ The stigma against mestizo people was established through an association with illegitimacy or shameful adultery. Juan de Solórzano relates this happenedparticularly with mulatos ¹⁴¹. In 1576, Antonio López de Haro, Minister of the Audiencia, echoed this prejudice when he defended himself from accusations by Juan Delgado, a hosier, of Haro “publicly having a slave son born from a female black slave, him being free; therefore, such low men as him, should

 María Elena Martínez, Genealogical fictions. Limpieza de Sangre, Religion and Gender in Colonial Mexico (California: Standford University Press, 2008). Stuart B. Schwartz, “Colonial identities and the sociedad de castas”, Colonial Latin American Review, 4:1 (1995): 185 – 20. Joanne Rappaport, The Dissapearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in The Colonial new Kigndom of Granada (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014).  Combès, “Grigotá y Vitupué”, 65. As established by Thierry Saignes, Chiriguano identity that had been recreating was the result of an assembly of multiple cultures. Saignes, “La guerra ‘salvaje’”, 111.  ABAS: AP, Santo Domingo, Baptisms, 1574, Vol. 1.  ABAS: AP, Santo Domingo, Baptisms, 1577, Vol. 1.  ABAS: AP, Santo Domingo, Baptisms, 1609, Vol. 3.  Juan de Solórzano y Pereira, De Indiarum Iure [1648] (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2001), Book II, Ch. XXX, 246. This term had a particularly negative connotation to female sensuality. Alejandra Araya, “Un imaginario para la mezcla. Mujeres, cuerpo y sociedad colonial”, in Mujeres chilenas. Fragmentos de una historia, comp. Sonia Montecino (Santiago: Catalonia, 2008a), 38. Not only for adults, muleque, a term for an enslaved African boy between around 7 to 10 years old, and whose use is documented for Charcas, was related to a restless, incorrigible and irresponsible behavior. ABNB: CF 1647, No 9, 36.

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not be heard.”¹⁴² Although this term was used for children by Spanish men and African women (slaves or free), there were cases involving the children of Chiriguano mothers and absent fathers, probably Afro-descendants, registered as mulatos. A term that rarely appears in any documentation before the end of the 16th century is zambaigo or zambo, the offspring of an African father and an indigenous mother; free subjects who received a permit from Viceroy Toledo. Unlike other mestizos (understood in a wider sense), they could live in Indian towns along with their mothers.¹⁴³ Another infrequent expression is cuarterón, to describe the children of Afro-descendants and Spaniards, who otherwise were simply called mulatos or morenos. Even less frequent, but existing in the reportes and administrative documentation is the category saltatrás. ¹⁴⁴ Behind the discourse of these adscription categories was the intention to obtain fiscal control over this population. It was known that every 18-year-old indigene paid tribute to the King. Mestizos paid no tribute because it was thought that the European part prevailed in their identity.¹⁴⁵ Subsequently, the complexity of the make-up of colonial society moved the Crown to identify free vassals from these unions to make them pay tribute. However, unfaithful indigenes who willingly converted paid no tribute during their first 10 years of captivity, although there is no documentation to show if this provision was effective.¹⁴⁶ Regarding zambos, Phillip II decreed that they would pay tribute “despite alleging that they are no Indians.”¹⁴⁷ In 1574, however, the King decreed that blacks and mulatos should pay a fee.¹⁴⁸ A curious detail was that although

 AGI: Visitas de Charcas, 1570, No 666, 1, 4.  This exemption was approved by an RC issued in 1578 and appears in RLI, Law 21, Title III, Book VI.  Ramírez del Águila, Noticias Políticas, 72. The content of this category haze changes through time and from region to region. David Cahill, “Colour by numbers: Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Viceroyalty of Perú, 1532– 1824”, Journal of Latin American Studies, 26 (1994), 341.  Cármen Bernand, “El color de los criollos: de las naciones a las castas, de las castas a la nación”. In Huellas de África en América, edited by Celia Cussen (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria, 2009), 19.  RLI, Book VI, Title 5, Law 2.  RC by Phillip II dated May 18, 1572 and May 28, 1573. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 2. See: Berta Ares Queija y Alessandro Stella, Negros, mulatos y zambaigos derroteros africanos en los mundos ibéricos (Sevilla: CSIC/Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 2000), 86.  Two pesos, although their couples were slaves, and half for those without occupation. RC issued by Phillip II in Madrid on April 27, 1574. RLI, Vol. II, Book VII, Title 5, Law 1. Collection to Afro-descendants was not always effective. Because of demands for free male and female mulatos in Perú by 1627, the King decreed their freedom from taxes in 1631. Berta Ares Queija, “Las categorías del mestizaje: desafíos a los constreñimientos de un modelo social en el Perú temprano”, Histórica, XXVIII, 1 (2004b). Bowser, El esclavo africano en el Perú, 373.

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female indigenes were not taxpayers, black women and free mulatas were.¹⁴⁹ In 1619, cuarterones achieved exemption by claiming that they were three fourths Spanish.¹⁵⁰ As administrative requirements forced them to pay more, other adjectives relating to visible features, such as: almost-white mulato, pardo, loro, blackmoro, cobrizo, lobo, amembrillado, broken-colored, were added to a category, almost conjugating with those present, or creating a new one. A diversity of “pigment-related” categories was thus in circulation, although they were not systematically applied. A process that reports the step from a stereotypical group ascription of an alterity, to more specific considerations about mixtures and skin tone of individuals is evident. This differentiating practice was grounded in the notion of blood purity inherited from Europe that was based on a belief in generational transmission of infamy and its visual evidence in certain physical features of people.¹⁵¹ The mixture, political and socially disturbing, was associated with a stain incarnated in the body.¹⁵² It should be clarified that this process was nourished at different levels within society itself; it became entrenched more through informal power relations than just those prescribed from above. For instance, it is evident that doctrinal justification for African slavery is grounded in a particular interpretation of Cam’s patriarchal curse (Genesis 9: 20 – 27), and came just after this was already a massive consolidated practice.¹⁵³ Exegetes indicate that descendants of Cam would have inhab-

 Female indigenes were exempt from tribute according to RC by Phillip II dated October 10, 1618 with the argument that this was not a habit. RLI, Book VI, Title 5, Law 19. Apparently, situation in Nueva España was different so women paid tribute until the 18th century. Rafael Castañeda García, “Hacia una sociología fiscal. El tributo de la población de color libre en la Nueva España”, Fronteras de la Historia, 19 (2014): 158.  Ronald Escobebo Mansilla, “El tributo de los zambaigos, negros y mulatos libres en el virreinato peruano”. Revista de Indias, XLI, 163 – 164 (1981), 47.  This notion was based on religiou prejudice against moros, and extended to this phenotype because of traffic. See: Schaub, Pour un histoire politiquede la race 87. María Elena Martínez, “The Black Blood of New Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico”, in The William and Mary Quarterly, 61:3 (2004): 479 – 520. AnnTwinam, “Purchasing withness. Conversations on the essence of pardo-ness and mulatoness at the end of empire”. In: Fischer y O’Hara, Imperial Subjects, 38 – 58. Sweet, Lucha por la supervivencia, 11 and O’Toole, Bound lives. Africans, Indians, 146.  David Le Breton, Antropología del cuerpo y modernidad (Buenos Aires: Nueva Visión, 2002), 86. The reflection was not based on medical inquiries, but on discriminative use of the legal system. Schaub, Pour un histoire politiquede la race, 217.  Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery, 74. Benjamin Braude, “The Sons of Noah and the Construction of Ethnic and Geographical Identities in The medieval and Early Modern Periods”, The William and Mary Quarterly, LIV, 1 (1997): 103 – 142. Bernard Vincent, “Représen-

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ited sub-Saharan Africa, although the book of Genesis does not mention any skin color. In the middle of the 17th century, De instauranda Aethiopum salute (1647) by Jesuit Alonso de Sandoval reveals that phenotype prejudices had already been widely spread.¹⁵⁴ Once this said, there is no doubt that discriminative use of adjectives for Africans, Chiriguanos and their “mixed” descendants was also intimately related to the situation of labor exploitation they were submitted to. In fact, within a certain hierarchy of occupations, any manual work or service was considered little noble or mechanic, and their practice – or prohibition – was directly connected to origin, phenotype, condition and peoples’ occupation, all assimilated to a strongly conditioning category: calidad (quality).¹⁵⁵ In this game of quotidian relations and views, many times skin color led to assumptions about the personal quality of an individual. Negro became almost synonymous with slave. Because of the pejorative meaning acquired by this term, another less pejorative word, moreno, was used instead. Likewise, some terms progressively assimilated origin with a servile occupation. Chiriguano and particularly unfaithful-pacified were related to forced servitude. On the other hand, the ascription china was used to name any indigenous female servant, occasionally with certain African ancestry. As Pedro Ramírez del Águila explains, “there are many ordinary indias to serve Spaniards called chinas.”¹⁵⁶ All of these adjectives with a strong pejorative and denigrating content were reused and resignified in social treatment over time. One of the terms considered as the most insulting – according to the context and tone with which it was used – was, once more, mulato. In 1596, the attorney Antonio Cervantes decided to report another attorney, Juan Carvajal Maldonado, for calling him mulato in public. The insulted attorney stated that the scandal derived from the fact that “saying mulato implied origin and ancestry of servitude” and added that being a servant was one of the most insulting conditions that could be suffered.¹⁵⁷

tation du noir dans la péninsule ibérique (XVIe et XVIIe siècles)”. Cahiers du GRIAS, 11 (2004): 33 – 42.David Brion Davis, El problema de la esclavitud en la cultura occidental (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1968).  The interpretation of Cam myth played a more important role as of the end of the 17th century. David Brion Davis, El problema de la esclavitud en la cultura occidental.  According to RC dated February 27, 1549, mestizos were ineligible for any public office. See: Estenssoro, “Los colores de la plebe”, 82.  Ramírez del Águila, Noticias Políticas, 72.  ABNB: CF 1596, No 1. By making a written display of their genealogy, Cervantes sought to prove his cleanliness of blood, despite this, he was added adjectives to, this time called “moro and son of a sardin vendor” The lawsuit ended with Carvajal sentenced to a year of banishment in Potosí, and payment of proceeding costs.

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All kinds of adscription that had been mentioned were adapted and resignified in a process of constant re-invention undertaken by society. Individuals affected by these conceptualizations, embodied them and started acting in accordance with what was said or expected of them, thus internalizing definitions imposed in their own evaluation of themselves and others. Nevertheless, their performance in society was also a motto for reorientation of these glances.

Chapter 4 Human Beings as Merchandise Cost of an enslaved person One of the most important transformations resulting from the encounter of Europeans and Americans in the 16th century was the introduction of a commercial economy based on money capital.¹ The symbolic and practical value given to objects that enabled exchanges in pre-Hispanic societies became quantifiable in Spanish currency. Transition, not immediate or involving every space the same way, was irreversible and molded relations of capital production and accumulation in emerging colonial societies.² More than the imposition of a new order, this change was the genesis of an unseen economy, with peculiar keys subordinated, as in the case of Charcas, which Lewis Hanke has called the magnetic power of Potosí. This also considered the huge silver reserves that the worldwide economy of that time revolved around, and its place within what Ana María Presta has called the architecture of colonialism.³ The internalization process of the concept that human beings were tradable merchandise with a monetary value in colonial society was intimately related. Imported by Spaniards to their colonies in America, along with the introduction of the institution of slavery, people traffiking made an important turn to relationship between human groups in conquered territories. It is hard to know how impressive the commerce with Africans might have initially been for natives. What is possible to prove by analyzing the documentation is that very soon they participated in transactions. This scenario led to an imagined worldview revolving around the idea that anybody who had and exercised power over certain resources (real estate, land, livestock and a servile labor force) were richer than those who did not. However, the struggle to become wealthy was not only related to the possibility of doing business, but also to the will to accumulate property. Facilitating the sustenance of a populated house and having peculium worked in order to consolidate family prestige, and to have servants, as many as possible, was a fundamental part of the practical and symbolic maintenance of domestic status. Within this context, a slave was both a productive asset and a piece of symbolic  Sempat Assadourian, El sistema de la economía colonial; “La despoblación indígena en Perú”.  Ann Zulawski, They eat from their labor. Work and social change in colonial Bolivia (Pittsburgh / Londres: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995).  Presta, “Desde la plaza a los barrios”, 8. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110681000-007

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cultural capital that conferred prestige on the master within his social relationships.⁴ The legal status of servants differed whether they were slaves or free people. However, day-to-day reality shows that it’s necessary to reconsider and complexify certain notions taken for granted by exclusive approximation to the colonial regulation system is required. For slaves, legally considered as objects, Catholic monarchical law recognized their humanity and personal quality, thus making them liable for their own actions.⁵ As a result, a mixed legal condition was bestowed on them. Taking account of records of the daily life of individuals proves that it is far from true that slaves only experienced treatment under their definition as assets.⁶ Regarding legally free workers, particularly but not merely those indigenes living under the same roof as a lord, it cannot be said that they received in general a very different treatment from those who were legally enslaved. A certain undeniable tendency to compare their status as servants against assets susceptible to even being vendible matter was present. Recognizing the legal difference between free and enslaved servants might not in itself conceal the view influenced by power relations operating daily in a reality that has been shown to be more complex than a simple regulation system that the Hispanic monarchy was looking to apply. Once this clarification is made, it is possible to see more closely those mechanisms that conditioned the existence of those who were forced to embody their role as commercial objects into their own consciousness of their human condition. At least theoretically, a slave was the responsibility of the master who owned them through purchase, and in their imposed condition they existed as an asset, unlike a free worker who depended on the Crown as a taxpayer. The merchandise status of the former was validated by consumers who kept the wheels of an

 Culture meaning a dynamic, changing and sometimes contradictory system of values hard to delimit, open and independent from relations of social and economic exchange. Symbolic cultural capital refers to those intangible characteristics that a person uses to gain more prestige within a society, directly depending on previous acquisition of other type of resources (economic, social). Pièrre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron. La reproducción. Elementos para una teoría del sistema de enseñanza (Barcelona: Laia, 1981).  The term “person” has to be understood on a legal basis, not as a synonym of human being but as a means to represent an individual with rights and obligations. A slave was considered an object, a vendible asset of another individual, and as an entity related to the legal system, where they could operate in legal, economic and religious aspects, among others. David Deroussin, Personnes, choses et corps. Les corps et ses représentations (París: Litec, 2001).  Triana and Antorveza, Humberto, Léxico documentado para la historia del negro en América (siglos XVI – XIX) (Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1997), 142.

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enslaving institution moving in local and regional markets.⁷ This idea of possession refers to “mere tenancy”, possession over things, a term legally compared to property in that period. Vendors needed to clarify if the slaves they offered for sale were free of taxes, alcabala, or, accordingly, be able to provide a property title to potential purchasers: a signed statement from whoever had transported them from Africa to Charcas.⁸ For instance, according to a document dated May 30, 1600, Juan, a bozal from Angola, who was 22 years old, was sold “tax free” for 450 regular pesos.⁹ However, because of contraband, not everybody could claim a written warranty. An individual became a slave simply because a sales operation, whether legal or illegal, was imposed on them. His appraisal within a classification and heritage system, validated by a group and by dominant business interests, led him to play that role.¹⁰ Is it possible to gain an idea of the average value assigned to enslaved people in La Plata, according to their characteristics as merchandise? An immediate answer would be yes, if we look back and understand the systematization of every sales transaction in the period under study, although this is a large undertaking. On the one hand, only the documentation preserved in the archives is available. On the other hand, the fact that clandestine transactions, via contraband, have no official registration at all must be assumed. Despite this, studying the available data is a very useful process to identify the values involved in slavery practices in this period. For this purpose, notarial sales minutes kept by the National Archive and Library of Bolivia between 1560 and 1630, consistent with the period of the greatest business boom in the Potosí–La Plata circuit, followed by the mining crisis in the first decades of the 17th century, have here been selected and systematized. Relevant information is even more abundant when cross referenced with figures and data obtained from historiography concerning the same occurrence for different regions in and out of Charcas’ jurisdiction.

 See: Ruggiero Romano, “Algunas consideraciones sobre el problema del comercio en Hispanoamérica durante la época colonial”, Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina “Dr. Emilio Ravignani”, 1 (1989): 23 – 49. See also: Klein, “Las características demográficas del comercio Atlántico”.  Alcabala was an indirect contribution or tax established by Castilian Crown for every business transaction in the Indies. In Peru, it was implemented as of the end of the 16th century. Initially, it consisted of 2 % of the total value of alienated movable and real estate property that vendors had to pay, unless they were indigenes selling their production, or eclesiastic individuals. This percentage was increased to 4 % by 1637 and 6 % henceforth. About its regulation, see RLI, Book VIII, Title XIII.  ABNB: PD Francisco de Bustillos, 30.05.1600, 166.  Brion Davis, El problema de la esclavitud, 63.

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By 1639, the Presbyterian Pedro Ramirez del Aguila could state that the average price of an African or Afro-descendant slave was between 500 and 600 pesos in La Plata.¹¹ Figures provided by the buy-sales transactions for slaves with established dates and for a total of 1,700 selected transactions (see Table 4.1) are largely consistent with this statement. Acquiring a slave in that period involved having between 461 and 721 regular pesos; that is, a median of 562 pesos.¹² A price increase is noticeable in the last two decades of the 16th century, which would coincide with the stability experienced in the postconquest period of the second half of the century, as highlighted by James Lockhart.¹³ Subsequently, at the beginning of the 17th century, averages remain steady, between 504 and 571 pesos, corresponding with the records of Ramírez del Águila.¹⁴ Alberto Crespo had already referred to a raising and a stability in unitary slave prices in Charcas at the beginning of this period; although he proposed an average of 400 pesos, which falls below the specific case of La Plata.¹⁵ For example, the enslaved Manuel Angola was sold for 550 regular pesos in 1627; this is within an average price for that period.¹⁶ Considering that La Plata was a resale market like Potosi and Lima, historiography asserts that the prices of African slaves were higher than in regions

 Ramírez del Águila, Noticias Políticas, 74.  Every transaction price was rounded to the next whole number, except when slaves were sold along with other assets and unit price was unknown. This caused no variations in the total. Currency used in that time were regular pesos of eight reales and nominal pesos (pesos ensayados) made of good gold, worth twelve reales. The latter were less used in these transactions as of 1611, when eight-real pesos became usual. In order to facilitate reading and comprehension, figures have been homogenized into regular pesos.  Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 228. Undoubtedly, purchase power was higher in Potosí and La Plata than in Spain. Laura Escobari points out that price fluctuation, mostly regulated by merchants and businesspeople who owned necessities for life. Escobari, Producción y comercio en la historia de Bolivia colonia. Siglos XVI – XVIII, 29. To the boost in colonial commerce by the end of the 16th century, a standstill supervened on second decade of the 17th century. Romano, “Algunas consideraciones sobre el problema”.  Luz María Martínez Montiel states that a slave in Charcas cost 800 pesos by 1630, but on the continental route it decreased to 200 pesos. Luz M. Martínez Montiel, Negros en América (Madrid: MAPFRE, 1992), 98. Although slave sales in these prices have been confirmed, in La Plata, none of them can be considered a reference average, but rather an indicator of isolated transactions. Martinez estimation better matches actual situation of slavery market in Potosí studied by Barnadas, Charcas, 1973.  Crespo, Esclavos negros en Bolivia, 67. This is because he took smaller document samples and concentrated particularly on documentation about La Paz city scenario.  ABNB: ACLP, June 21, 1627, No 38, Vol. IV. 362.

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Table 4.1. Average unit price per enslaved in La Plata (1560 – 1630) (ABNB EP, La Plata, 1560 – 1630) Decades

Number of Transactions

Extreme Amounts

Average ps for pesos

 – 



 –  psa

 ps

 – 



 –  ps

 ps

 – 



 –  ps

 ps

 – 



 –  ps

 ps

 – 



 –  ps

 ps

 – 



 –  ps

 ps

 – 



 –  ps

 ps



 –  ps

 ps

Total:

closer to port areas, particularly Buenos Aires, and also considering the high incidence of market contraband that saw illegal circulation of Potosí money without payment of tribute.¹⁷ The price of a slave in Perú by 1560 was between 100 and 300 regular pesos, figures that Jean-Paul Zúñiga confirms and which, according to James Lockhart, rose up to 500 pesos.¹⁸ Alberto Flores Galindo supports this information and points out that at the beginning of the 17th century the average price of a slave ranged from 400 to 600 pesos in Lima.¹⁹ On the other hand, in Rio de La Plata, as demonstrated by Miguel Angel Rosal, the cost per

 Depending on the route for merchandise entry. Miguel Ángel Rosal, “El comercio de esclavos en la ciudad de Buenos Aires a principios del siglo XVII”, Anuario del Centro de Estudios Históricos “Prof. Carlos S. A. Segreti”, 10, 10 (2010), 103.Carlos Aguirre, Agentes de su propia libertad. Los esclavos de Lima y la desintegración de la esclavitud (1821 – 1854) (Lima: PUCP, 1995), 93.Alberto Crespo cites RC dated 1556 when the Crown established top prices for selling human merchandise. This charter decreed that a slave could not cost more than 100 ducados (around 138 regular pesos) in Cuba, Santo Domingo and the Caribbean, 150 pesos in Perú and Río de La Plata, and 180 pesos in the General Captaincy of Chile. Crespo, Esclavos negros en Bolivia, 56. These prices rose continuously throughout the 17th century.  Zúñiga, Jean-Paul. “Morena me llaman…Exclusión e integración de los afroamericanos en hispanoamérica: el ejemplo de algunas regiones del antiguo virreinato del Perú (siglos 16 – 18)” in Negros, mulatos, zambaígos. Derroteros africanos en los mundos ibéricos, coordinated by Berta Ares and Alessandro Stella (Sevilla: Ediciones de la Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos, 2011), 111. Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 179.  Alberto Flores Galindo, Los rostros de la plebe (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001), 103.

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slave was around 200 pesos at the beginning of the 17th century.²⁰ A Royal Charter to the Audiencia dated November 2, 1638 decreed that confiscated enslaved “negros” who entered off-road through Buenos Aires should not be auctioned wherever the cost would be 200 pesos per slave, but in Charcas, and Potosí specifically, they could be sold for 500 pesos.²¹ These statements, compared to averages found in La Plata, demonstrate the convenience of selling slaves in resale markets such as those in Charcas. Evidently, profit was greater when merchandise was introduced as contraband.²² Regarding enslaved indigenes from the Chiriguano Range and Lowlands, information does not allow us to gather conclusive figures, but they do reveal that acquisition costs for a rescued indigene used to be, as a whole, much lower than for an African or Afro-descendant.²³ Hence, in 1585, Captain Juan Valero sold eight Chiriguanos, men and women, for around 178 regular pesos each.²⁴ A little later, in 1593, two Chiriguanos, aged 16 and 18 years old, – the older a Chané, were sold for a little more than 162 pesos.²⁵ The same year, 120 regular pesos was paid to rescue an 8-year-old Chiriguano girl, and 200 pesos for a woman aged around between 20 and 25.²⁶ It should be noted that in this period an Afro-descendant slave cost on average between 682 and

 Rosal, “El comercio de esclavos”. Between 60 and 100 pesos in Río de La Plata, as rather proposed by Zuñiga, although it seemed a very low price, and 200 pesos in Cartagena de Indias. Zúñiga, “Morena me llaman”, 111.  ABNB: RC No 382, San Lorenzo, November 2, 1638.  As a reference, half of a house in the city center was sold in 900 pesos by 1563. ABNB: PD, Lázaro del Águila, 12.01.1563. However, a small farm including a shack could be acquired in 140 pesos. ABNB: PD, Lázaro del Águila, 11.01.1563. A saddled and bridled mule could cost 260 pesos at the same period of time. ABNB: PD, Lázaro del Águila, 23.01.1563. ABNB: PD, Lázaro del Águila, 23.01.1563. Buying 732 loads of dark corn cost around 460 by the end of that century. ABNB: PD, Miguel García Morató, 21.11.1599. In the transition to the 17th century, it cost more than 500 pesos to buy 50 rams by year 1600. ABNB: PD, Francisco García, 15.07. 1600. Six wine jars could be acquired in 194 pesos. ABNB: PD, Francisco García, May 03, 1601. Renting a grocery store for two years would cost 150 pesos in 1625.  Jaime Valenzuela makes the same comment about the cost of an enslaved indigene from southern Chile, an Auca, in the beginning of the 17th century. Valenzuela, “Esclavos Mapuches”, 241.  ABNB: PD, Blas López Solórzano, May 21, 1585, 400 – 401.  ABNB: PD, Juan de Saldaña, August 25, 1593, 382.  ABNB: PD, Juan de Saldaña, September 10, 1593, 442; Agustín de Herrera, June 04, 1597, 439 – 440.

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721 regular pesos (see Table 4.1).²⁷ Despite this trend, as shown by the extreme amounts, an African-origin slave could also be acquired at an average cost that was almost four times lower at that time. This is very close to the cost of a rescued Chiriguano or up to three times higher. How can this price variation be explained? In order to answer this question, specific characteristics of enslaved merchandise used to assign a cost at the point of supply must be considered.

Relation between gender, age and cost When analyzing prices according to the total number of transaction samples considered in relation to the gender of the enslaved, we can see that 64 % (from a total of 1700 operations) involve the male population, and the remaining 36 % is female. Therefore, more male than female slaves were acquired and sold on the La Plata local market between 1560 and 1630. This verification supports results from demographic studies by historians who assert that periodic shipments were mostly of men enslaved.²⁸ As explained earlier, the average price paid per enslaved person was 562 regular pesos. Although the number of women enslaved was proportionately less, they used to be more expensive on average at a ratio of 533 pesos per enslaved man to 591 per enslaved woman. In a more specific reading over ten years, it can be noticed that prices per enslaved range from 440 to 470 pesos, rising up to 673 per unit, around 1580, and consequently become stable at around 500 pesos. On the other hand, an enslaved woman cost on average 480 pesos in 1580, rising to 769 (around 15 % more than the average cost of a manenslaved), before going down between 1600 and 1630, although never to less than 500 pesos (see Table 4.2). This is specifically the price paid for enslaved woman, that considerably raises the general mean, particularly from 1580 to1590. However, this data cannot explain why the individual price both for woman and men enslaved could vary by a hundred or sometimes more than a thousand regular pesos. An important indicator accounting for this item is age.²⁹ A sample

 In the beginning of the 18th century, Juana Feliciana, an indigene probably of Yampara origin, was sold in 200 pesos as if she were a slave. ABNB: CF 1705 No 35. Some decades later, María Dominga, a Chiriguano, was rated in 90 pesos in La Plata. ABNB: CF 1764, No 134, 2.  Klein, “Las características demográficas del comercio”. Eugenia Bridikhina, La mujer negra en Bolivia. La Paz: Ministry of Human Development, 1995, 22.  Criteria to divide age groups included considering minors and adults according to historic parameters. In the first stage that legally reached 25 years of age, babies (0 – 2 years), little chil-

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Table 4.2. Average unit price of enslaved per gender in La Plata (1560 – 1630) (ABNB EP, La Plata, 1560 – 1630)

Table 4.3. Sales of the enslaved population in La Plata between 1560 and 1630 per age group (ABNB EP, La Plata, 1560 – 1630)

dren (3 – 12) and children and adolescentes in transition to youth and adulthood (12– 25) are

Relation between gender, age and cost

93

of 1,545 cases, among which information about gender and an age estimation based on the enslaved unit price, has been separately analyzed. Making distribution per age groups confirms that just 0.1 % of the total corresponds to sales of children up to 2 years old (see Table 4.3). Although useless for the labor market, purchasing them was an investment for the future, but their sustenance and care involved more expenses than benefits in the short term. Additionally, vulnerability related to age and the risk of not surviving without maternal care, prompted masters to sell them together or wait for a prudent time to sell them separately. Another age group lacking registry documentation is enslaved people between 60 and 80 or more years old (0.2 % of the total). Considering the fact that an enslaved could reach 70 in relatively good health, their utility as workers was minimal and care expenses high; therefore buying them was unprofitable and masters who did not want or could not keep them found it difficult to sell them. Exceptional cases were not rare. In 1566, Pedro Hernández found a buyer who paid 400 for his slave Pedro, a Creole from Santo Domingo, who had reached the age of 80.³⁰ As seen in Table 4.3, most of the enslaved who are included in these transactions (70 %) are between 19 and 25 years old (38 %) and between 26 and 40 years old (32 %). This corresponds to people entering maturity and covers the period of greatest performance that could be obtained for their masters. The decrease in sales of enslaved between 41 and 60 (4 % of the total) would specifically support the notion that such merchandise had passed its period of most productive capacity. The current historiographic understanding that enslaved had a life expectancy on average of 30 years, does not necessarily fit this reality.³¹ Finally, a portion of 19 % was significant in representing enslaved between 12 and 18 years old, when many could perform different agricultural, craft or domestic tasks. The figure is lower for children between 3 and 11 (3 % of the total), as they involved much more care than benefits for a master. But we can ask, what happens if this information is compared against average process previously presented? The first verification – which enables coordination with information about global totals – reveals that in some decades, acquiring an enslaved man at his most productive age, was relatively more expensive than buying an enslaved woman , although these included the highest averages per unit during the tranincluded. In the second stage, adults between 26 and 40 years and between 41 and 60, and finally adults in transition to old age (61-older) are included.  ABNB: PD, Lázaro del Águila, March 18, 1566, 145.  Previously emphasized by Herbert Klein in a macro approach. Klein, “Las características demográficas del comercio”, 17.

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sition from the 16th to the 17th century. Although enslaved woman from 19 to 25 years old were on average more expensive than men between 1570 and 1600, during the 1560s and between 1600 and 1630, anenslaved man could be acquired for approximately 623 pesos, while an enslaved woman within the same age margins would cost around 579 pesos. Between 1590 and 1610, and in the 1620s, acquiring an enslaved woman was more expensive than a male slave between 26 and 40 years old. However, in the rest of the period (1560s and 1610 to 1630), an enslaved man of the same age group cost an average of 680 pesos, while an enslaved woman cost only up to 639 pesos. No data about the price for selling rescued indigenes between these ages is available. However, specific cases, such as one involving a 20-year-old Chiriguano girl who was sold for 200 pesos in 1597 is on record. This represents half the average cost of an Afro-descendant around those years.³² Continuing with the analysis of prices of enslaved Afro-descendants, it is noticeable that between 41 and 60 years old, prices decrease to 446 on average for men and 403 for woman. Even so, women between these ages were more expensive between 1580 and 1610, valued between 600 and 700 pesos. Transactions involving slaves older than 60 were too few to achieve an average, but they showed a significant price decrease on average to 200 or even less than 100 regular pesos per piece. Not much can be said about children up to 3 years old either. Regarding the rest of the minors, boys up to 11 years old could be acquired at around 250 pesos and girls for 304 pesos. Except for the 1590s and 1620s, girls between 3 and 11 years old were more expensive than boys whenever they were required to be instructed as domestic servants and company for ladies or madams.³³. Regarding those enslaved between 12 and 18 years of age, they were valued at an average of 468 pesos, rising to 600 pesos between 1591 and 1600. Undoubtedly, they were more expensive than indigenes rescued with the same age. A proof of this is the case of two young Chiriguanos aged between 16 and 18, sold in 1563 for between three and five times lower (around 162 pesos for each).³⁴ Afro-descendant woman between 12 and 18 years of age were even more costly; they were valued at an average of 535 pesos, reaching 712 pesos per piece in the 1580s. In summary, this indicates that girls and adolescents aged between 3 and 18 fetched higher prices than equivalent males, particularly between 12 and 18 years of age, along the whole analyzed period. Prices for  ABNB: PD, Agustín de Herrera, June 04, 1597, 439 – 440.  A fundamental part of a dowry for a “good home lady” was a slave. Bridikhina, La mujer negra en Bolivia, 34.  ABNB: PD, Juan de Saldaña, August 25, 1593, 382.

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babies and children up to 3 years old, as well as enslaved older than 60, are much lower, independent of gender. What is left to consider is the practice of selling enslaved minors along with their mothers. Between 1560 and 1630, there are 64 cases of women between 20 and 45 years of age, predominantly around 30, who were sold together with one, two or three children in the same transaction. Most of joint sales took place in the 1590s. Most (83 % of the total) were mothers with a single child. Probably because a child was too small to survive without their mother, selling them as a single piece was more convenient. This is more evident, considering that in most cases it involved month-year-old children up to 5 years of age (65 % of the total).³⁵ At least theoretically, for any slave to be considered a pieza (piece) in the colonies, they had to be at least 1.50 meters tall. Some historians state that while males with certain characteristics were considered a piece, women, and particularly children used to be a fraction of a piece. However, documentation shows that gender was not really decisive for an enslaved individual to be considered a piece. Afro-descendant woman and indigenes sold as one piece was frequent. It is true though, that when making a joint sale by convenience, a child and a mother used to be sold in a single-piece price. This indicates the need to consider that the term “pieza” had more than one meaning, and that measuring, probably done in the ports, did not necessarily take place in internal resale markets. In addition, some cases of minors up to 20 years of age are present. Here, the wish and convenience to avoid separating nuclear families centerng around a mother seems to be prevelant. The average cost of a mother and her child was 827 pesos and in every case it was no less than 500. When figures did not exceed 550 or 600 pesos, and involved small children, it probably was a onepiece sale, since the price was approximate to the cost of a single female slave around those years. Whenever two children and their mother were sold, the price would rise to an average of 1,286 pesos (not less than 800) and in the case of three children, up to 1,337 (not less than 1,000). Other cases of joint sales involved couples, groups of siblings and diverse family groups. Besides filial or sacramental bonds, and even in the absence of these, group sales usually showed cases of workers in the same house, farm or craftsmen workshops. In these cases, when transactions involved two

 Cristina Masferrer mentions the habit of selling women and children under three years old as a single pieza in Nueva España. Cristina Masferrer León, V., “Hijos de esclavos. Niños libres y esclavos en la capital novohispana durante la primera mitad del siglo XVII”, Ulúa 19 (2012), 87.

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enslaved, the price averages 1,068 and this showed the difference from motherand-child sales as a pieza, in which the joint cost is practically less than half the price. In cases were three to six enslaved were involved, the price rose to 1,443 pesos at least, and up to 2,200. When these figures are compared against the 1,424 pesos received by Juan Valero for eight Chiriguanos that he rescued and then sold in La Plata, no difference in the total can be evidenced. However, a lack of documentation on Chiriguanos sold in groups prevents making any more solid comparative statement.³⁶ Besides, sales of more than ten Afrodescendant piezas above the usual 500 pesos are evident. This accounts for the possibility that La Plata inhabitants had to invest in slavery merchandise. Such an act is determined by the intention to expand their number of servants and so gain a certain status, but also because it would increase the family peculium, which widely depended upon the characteristics and skills of every enslaved individual.

Relation between origin, tachas skills and price The origins of enslaved individuals is part of the information provided by sales minutes. Did this fact have any influence on their price? In the case of Africans and Afro-descendants, as is known, when arriving from Africa they were called bozales and when born in Europe or America, they were called creoles. This information was not systematically recorded, probably because it was already understood. Only 146 out of 1700 notarial deeds explicitly refer to these categories, of which 57 % were registered as bozales (44 men and 40 women) and the remaining 43 % as creoles (36 men and 26 women). The proportional difference between men and women is not very relevant, nor does it mean that the price for bozales was necessarily higher than for creoles. A creole with skills or a trade could easily be much more expensive. In every buy and sell transaction along with or in the absence of this differentiation, more specific information about alleged geographic origin of the enslaved is recorded. However, a careful reading must be made since information depended on the area operated by a specific company. Many times, Portuguese merchants simply wrote down the last shipping port where enslaved people would have arrived from through African intermediaries.³⁷

 ABNB: PD, Blas López Solórzano, May 21, 1585, 400 – 401.  In the 16th century, most came from Senegambia, Cote d’Or and Sierra Leone. By 1570, most of all from Benin Bay and little by little they arrived in big numbers from Congo and Angola.

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Most significant of all, category specification sought to facilitate colonial administration of enslaved people.³⁸ As such, this data provides important references to a nomenclature that enslaved themselves ended up adopting to refer to different processes in the colonial scenario.³⁹ By organizing this information, it is reported that in the La Plata market, between 1560 and 1630, 41 % of the enslaved (701 in total; 429 men and 262 women) would have arrived directly from Africa, mainly Angola, Congo, Cape Verde, Guinea and Sierra Leone (see Table 4.4).⁴⁰ Miguel Angel Rosal recalls that this was a period of asientos granted by the Crown to the brothers Coutinho, Pedro and Gonzalo, (1601– 1609) who operated in Angola. Additionally, multiple groups were registered under two recurrent formulas in that period: “from the nation” or “from the land” (see Table 4.5). Around 33 origins, mainly Bran, Biafra, Casanga, Jolofo, Zape and Berbesi, as well as Fula, Bañol and Anchico among other distributed during this period. This is only referencial information, because neither vendors nor enslaved were able to account for specific origins to the notary. Furthermore, as outlined by James Lockhart, prices do not change perceptibly by being part of one or other group.⁴¹ The decade from 1590 and the transition to the 17th century Klein y Vinson, La esclavitud africana en América Latina. See also: John Thorton, Africa and africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400 – 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 13 – 98. Roger Bastide. Las Américas negras: Las civilizaciones africanas en el Nuevo Mundo (Madrid: Alianza, 1961), 11– 12.  Herman L. Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico.Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness (1570 – 1640) (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 7.  This information enables reconstructing certain adscription logic or even auto-adscription. Giudicelli, Christophe. “Encasillar la frontera. Clasificaciones coloniales y disciplinamiento del espacio en el área diaguito-calchaquí (s. XVI – XVII)”. Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. Bibliothèque des Auteurs du Centre, 2009b. One should not lose sight of the fact that they are the product of a certain look of societies in the region, an act of symbolic construction for the otherness by colonial state agents, who do not necessarily accept their historic variability and dynamism. Boccara, Mundos en las fronteras del Nuevo Mundo.  This verification coincides with Alberto Crespo data in his slave market study in La Paz during the 17th century, identifying most Angolan and Congolese enslaved. Crespo, Esclavos negros en Bolivia, 34. It also coincides with James Lockhart for colonial Perú. Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 172.  Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 220. However, some historians who study regions with the greatest number of African population imported, refer to differences in slave unit prices according to their origin. Jean-Pierre Tardieu, “Origen de los esclavos de la región de Lima, Perú en los siglos XVI y VII”, in De la cadena al vínculo. Una visión de la trata de esclavos, dir. Doudou Diene (París: UNESCO. Memoria de los Pueblos, 2001). Luz María Martínez Montiel, “El negro en América”, en Doudou, De la cadena al vínculo, 469.

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Table 4.4. Origins registered for enslaved in La Plata market (1560 – 1630) (ABNB EP, La Plata, 1560 – 1630)

sees the highest number of shipments and the greatest diversity of origins for enslaved Africans, exceeding almost three times the number of women enslaved. To a lesser degree, people enslaved in Europe and America were also included. Confirming how many of them were bozales or creoles is not possible; however, they all had experience of these scenarios before their arrival in Charcas. A total of 3 % (46 cases, 28 men and 18 women) would have arrived from Europe, specifically from Spain: Murcia, Jerez, Huelva, Segovia, Bilbao, Madrid, Canary Islands and most of all Seville, as well as Lisbon in Portugal. It is likely they arrived along with their masters. Finally, 14 % (236 cases, 143 men and 93 women) would have arrived from within America. Some came from the north, the Viceroyalty of Nueva España (currently Mexico), others specifically from the Captaincy of Guatemala and the Island of Newfoundland (currently part of Canada). Moreover, references exist to enslaved people that would have arrived from the port of Cartagena de Indias and Santa Marta (currently in Colombia), Santo Domingo, Nicaragua, Terra Firma or Panamá and Puerto Rico in Central America and the Caribbean. However, most people arrived from different regions in South America, mostly the Viceroyalty of Perú, particularly in Lima, as well as Cuzco, Huánuco, Ica, Huamanga, Moquegua, Trujillo, Arequipa and Santa María de la Parrilla (coast city of northern Perú). Regions like Loja and Guayaquil (currently Ecuador), as well

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Table 4.5. Declared origins of enslaved people in La Plata market (1560 – 1630) (ABNB EP, La Plata, 1560 – 1630)

as different places in the Captaincy of Chile and from Brazil, constitute other South American regions people would have arrived from. Those born in Charcas (La Plata, but also Potosí, Tarija, La Paz and Mizque in Cochabamba) are more numerous after people from Lima, as reported as part of the exchange flow with Lima, and also due to the convenience of reselling piezas in the La Plata market. Mention can also be made of a specific case of three enslaved from the Indian Ocean, “from Macaw, a province in the China kingdoms.”⁴² One of them was sold to Tomas de la Barrera in 1592 for 687 nominal pesos, a price that we know was above the average for an Afro-descendant slave during those years in La Plata.⁴³ Other data mentioned in deeds is the reference to personal quality regarding origin. Out of 1938 compiled cases (1700 single and 238 group transactions), 96 % of these people were sold as negro/negra, using this term as a synonym of man/ woman enslaveds and referring directly – although not always – to African  Captives from the Indian Ocean were taken to Macao by Portuguese merchants and sold in Manila to the Spaniards. Tatiana Seijas has studied the traffic to Nueva España. Tatiana, Seijas. Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico. From Chinos to Indians. Cambridge: Cambridge Latin American Studies, 2014. Thanks to Christian G. De Vito for pointing out on this fundamental text.  ABNB: PD, Pedro de Cervantes, October 20, 1592, 223.

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bozales or creoles.⁴⁴ Only 4 % qualified as mulato and one is referred to as mulato-zambaigo. ⁴⁵ This term indicates the case of a child of a mulato father and an Indian mother, and it is combined with zambaigo to denote the skin color of a person, possibly a little bit darker than what was assumed to be the norm for a mulato. Besides, some isolated references to moreno/morena and chino ⁴⁶ are also evident. In this pigmentocratic schema used in that period, people could be classified as loros, that is having brown skin, and even a Portuguese woman was reportedly deemed “quince-colored”. None of these highly subjective adjectives affect the price of enslaved people and are thus not relevant in this analysis. On the other hand, two aspects that might significantly impact this aspect, along with considerations about gender and age, are those related to tachas, or what society at that time assumed to be physical or moral defects. Benefits, however, included skills or any learned trade possesed by those who had acquired life experiences in Europe or America, before being sold in Charcas. It is necessary to note that, although enslaved were frequently sold many times along their lives, their price had to be the same as registered in their first sale.⁴⁷ Nevertheless, this information must be contextualized. As Carlos Aguirre warned, in resale markets such as in Lima or Charcas, if not bozales, the piece price depended largely on the negotiation between vendor, purchaser and the enslaved.⁴⁸ In case a slave had gotten sick after being sold for the first time, had suffered any injury that could impact their performance, or had acquired a vice, his price could decrease. Likewise, it could rise in cases where they had received instruction in any profitable task or activity. All these details had to be declared by the vendor – and also by the enslaved – to the

 Robert Blackburn has referred to lability of the word negro in transactions during the 16th century, which was even used to name some indigenes due to their Afrodescendence and skin color. Blackburn, The making of New World Slavery, 14. See also: Jack D. Forbes, African and Native Americans The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993).  Rosal agrees that a few slaves entered by Río de La Plata were registered as mulatos. El comercio de esclavos, 96.  This is not a reference to a potential Asian origin of people. Although chino referred to a Spaniard-morisco mixture, it was also used to describe young mestizo or indigenous women in domestic service. However, the term morisco should not be immediately related to Moorish, instead it is a reference to the child of a Spaniard and a mulata, simply to evidence certain tone of skin. Studying each specific case to understand the correct reference of this term is required.  In case this written register got lost, oral memory could be appealed by calling witnesses.  Aguirre, Agentes de su propia libertad, 103.

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purchaser before conducting a transaction, otherwise they risked being judged on redhibitory defects. This action implied total return of the payment for such price..⁴⁹ The price would fall no less than 250 pesos and a sale was actually difficult when a slave had long-term treatment for an illness that guaranteed no survival, such as the so-called “bubas” (bubonic plague) or syphilis. Despite this, they were purchased and provide evidence of the high demand for servants in the La Plata market and within different economies. Moreover, the sale of blind slaves for prices of no more than 150 pesos was no surprise. Vendors reported different physical features of their slaves. Some showed traces of smallpox, coto in the neck, several wounds on the face, head or limbs.⁵⁰ Since these characteristics did not affect working performance, their price was not impacted and ranged from 360 to 705 nominal pesos as a general average. Other slaves lacked some body parts such as teeth, eyes, feet, hands or even arms, but even so they were bought for between 300 and 500 pesos. For example, a 17-year-old Angolan called Sebastian lacked his left hand and limped when he was purchased by Domingo Vidarrueta for 305 pesos.⁵¹ These physical peculiarities give an idea of the diverse and unfortunate situations enslaved people must have been exposed to. In 1608, the dramatic case of Mateo is recorded, a 38-year-old Angolan who was sold along with his wife María for 700 pesos. He had both feet amputated from his ankles and had to walk on his knees.⁵² Vendors mention little about slaves with moral defects. Since such aspects could go unnoticed until being involved in a daily working relationship, some masters never declared the hidden vices of a the enslaved they were selling. Being highly subjective, the observation of “merchandise” behavior was subject to controversy and redhibition lawsuits in which vendors prepared a series of arguments to demonstrate that defects listed in the complaint had been acquired after the sale.⁵³ Frequently mentioned tachas such as alcoholism, robbery and flights are usually mentioned in triads, as if they were connected with one another. For example, Francisca, a 20-year-old Angolan woman, was reported

 In case of conflicting views between parties, ordinary justice could assign neutral doctors and evaluators to define a fair price for the pieza.  In 1589, a smallpox epidemic came out. Between 1621 and 1627, another spread out from Río de La Plata that decimated vulnerable population. Rosal, Modalidades del comercio de esclavos, 4. The term coto referred to goiter.  ABNB: PD 1628, Agustín de Herrera, August 02, 1628, 735 – 737.  ABNB: PD, Gaspar Núñez de Chávez, October 31, 1608, 636 – 639.  These cases led to an urgent examination of certain morality installed inquiringly. David Brion Davis, El problema de la esclavitud, 74.

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by her master as a “robber, drunken and runaway” before selling her for 500 pesos.⁵⁴ A series of reasons within a master-slave relationship may influence defining a slave as a runaway, but the action was directly read as the innate defect of an individual. Therefore, there were purchasers for slaves with such characteristics who paid up to 1,000 pesos per piece, because they believed their authority could correct and mold even the most stubborn behavior among their servants. Then, each purchaser would decide if they wanted to deal with merchandise sold “con todas sus tachas” an expression of the time meaning “including their formerly declared defects.” A singular but intolerable tacha according to Secretary Francisco de Zuniga, was his 25-year-old black slave Francisca’s habit of “eating” (chewing) coca. For that reason, he decided to sell her to Cannon Antonio Baptista, who paid 900 pesos for her in October 1596.⁵⁵ Finally, some enslaved people had some skills or had learned a trade which made their price notoriously higher. For instance, being a ladino and speaking Spanish was an advantage for both master and the enslaved, so they would be more highly valued. As a generalization this is not valid though, because some preferred bozales since they were believed to be more docile. According to Guaman Poma, for example, bozales where docile and humble, and he writes that “good slaves result from bozales” unlike ladino creoles who were “rebellious, liars, thieves, robbers, and bandits, gamblers, drunkards, smokers, crooks, bad people” who would teach “bad habits” to the others. He then ends up describing them as “blacks who were worse than blacks.”⁵⁶ Paradoxically, they are the same as individuals qualified as “savages”, “cannibals”, and “demons” in the chronicles and official correspondence. One might ask, to what extent could any La Plata inhabitant consider it prudent to house a “pieza de servicio” (piece of service) having such characteristics?⁵⁷ This is about stereotype limits although prejudice was always present. In terms of daily power relations, masters and servants knew that an enslaved and uprooted individual, whether an African bozal or captive Chiriguano, were particularly vulnerable individuals rather than any threat. The use that each person intende to put an enslaved they bought must also be considered.⁵⁸ Finally, some were also registered as

 ABNB: PD 1602, Juan Fernández de Castro, July 10, 1602, 841– 842.  ABNB: PD, Diego Sánchez, October 02, 1596, 109 – 110.  Guamán Poma de Ayala, El primer nueva crónica, 717.  Blackburn, The making of New World Slavery, 16.  A baptized African with certain instruction was considered a ladino, which reduced his value. Enriqueta, Vila Vilar. “La evangelización del esclavo negro y su integración en el mundo americano” in Negros, mulatos y zambaigos derroteros africanos en los mundos ibéricos, edited by Berta Ares and Alessandro Stella. Sevilla: CSIC / Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Ameri-

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“between bozal and ladino,” such as Domingo, a 28-year-old African in 1617. This association probably reflects the influence of Spanish culture in the process of colonial settlement.⁵⁹ Other sources such as judicial files show enslaved woman participating in a series of domestic chores like doing the laundry, cooking or babysitting family children. This was the case with a slave described as “negra de lavar” (black laundry woman) who had been acquired for 1,000 pesos by the Bishop of La Plata and is mentioned in the ecclesiastic cabildo correspondence in 1608. They stated of her that “she only serves for washing church and altar clothing.”⁶⁰ These skills are scarcely mentioned in the notarial transactions covering her sale. References to women with craft or agricultural occupations, as for men, are not available either. Certainly though, this does not mean they never participated in these tasks along with their families. Multiple tasks they developed are listed under their “service” denomination, thus suggesting most of all domestic service, which was not considered a trade. On the other hand, the male population of bought and sold enslaved people played a wide variety of labor roles, besides domestic service chores, which could significantly influence their sale price. Some tasks related to agriculture on farms, such as cowboys, or people in charge of cattle, or farmers, who cost between 360 and 600 pesos. Those who were skilled mule drivers could cost 1,000 pesos. There were also men trained as apprentices in craft workshops who got the position of officials and maestros that were hard to acquire for less than 600 pesos and could cost more than 1,000, with or without their work tools.⁶¹ Shoemakers, tanners, tailors, carpenters, chair makers, construction workers, sword smiths, and the most expensive, blacksmiths, were also present.⁶² Demand for this occupation made many masters train their enslaved in this trade, which explains its recurrence in sales deeds for slaves during that period. Others had more than one skill or two related such as a tanner-shoemaker. To a lesser extent, there were cooks, musicians, executioners and town

canos, 2000, 189 – 206. Liliana Crespi, “Discusiones sobre la evangelización de los esclavos en Hispanoamérica”. Memoria y Sociedad, 15 (2003): 133 – 145.  ABNB: PD 1617, Juan de Loarte, November 20, 1617, 303 – 305.  “Cartas y expedientes del cabildo eclesiástico de Charcas. División del obispado de la ciudad de La Plata, 25 de agosto de 1608”. AGI: Government, Charcas, No 140, 6.  The highest price found by Miguel Angel Rosal for Río de La Plata scenario is precisely about a craftsman slave sold in 410 pesos. Rosal, El comercio de esclavos, 99. This amount is not even half of the cost for a craftsman slave in La Plata.  Their activity was also discussed and regulated by the cabildo in La Plata. ABNB: ACLP, March 06, 1564, No 14.

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criers, whose price was close to the general average in those decades, at between 450 and 600 pesos. Finally, there were transactions for an unknown price of a piece since the enslaved, being domestic servants or farmers in the same farm, forge or workshop – generally in carpentry – were sold or transferred as a group, along with their tools and sometimes even their work places, to anybody who could pay for the whole of the assets and become their new owner. The group referred to here is almost exclusively masculine. This provides a summary of characteristics identified for those sold for enslaved labor, who legally or illegally entered La Plata, and were destined for a series of tasks. It is clear that even though they entered as contraband they were part of notarized transactions within local markets. As this is the case, who then were the enslaved vendors and purchasers?

Enslaved vendors and purchasers As mentioned previously, the Charcas markets were particularly attractive for reselling merchandise, including, human.⁶³ Merchants arrived with piezas purchased in the ports or en route to the interior. While traders and asentistas (moneylenders) handled their relationships directly with Seville, the small merchants, dealers and factores worked with regional and local networks, participating in resale and distribution activities.⁶⁴ It should be noted that trade was not monopolized by specialists. A large part of the population actively participated in the business of trade, buying and selling all types of products during their trips from one port to another and from one city to another. Those who traded exclusively in slaves were known as “encomenderos de negros.”⁶⁵ From a total of 1,934 dealers in African slaves and descendants of Africans between 1560 and 1630, only 100 called themselves merchants, 19 dealers and three as factores (all Portuguese) while one called himself an asentista without further explanation (see Table 4.6). Despite these distinctions, merchant, dealer and trader were terms used almost indiscriminately by Charcas’ population.⁶⁶

 Hanke, The imperial city of Potosí. Barnadas, Charcas. Escobari, Producción y comercio.  Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 110. An argument that has already been questioned is that of the “triangular” trade, demonstrating that a large part of the ships made a round trip from the place the goods were produced that would be used in exchange. Klein, La esclavitud africana, 140.  Vila Vilar, Aspectos sociales en América Colonial, 107.  Many of the self-named dealers were businessmen, for example, shop owners.

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Table 4.6. Occupations declared by people involved in the sale of enslaved in La Plata between 1560 and 1630 (ABNB EP, La Plata,1560 – 1630)

It was most common for merchants entering Charcas to bring several effects with them to sell besides slaves. The owners or caravan leaders would rent mules to move products to those they had to provide foodstuffs and occasionally warm clothes to at the final destination, a contractual activity known as fletamiento (chartering). Sometimes they were engaged under a factoraje contract, including not just transport but also the local sale of enslaved people at higher prices.⁶⁷ Although the systematized sale deeds declared that 1,293 of the people selling enslaved people claimed to reside in La Plata and its surroundings, 114 came from other areas within the jurisdiction of Charcas, particularly Potosí, La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and surroundings like Atacama, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba and Tucumán (see Table 4.7).⁶⁸ This includes those who left Perú (Cuzco, Lima, Trujillo, Arequipa, Tacna, Huánuco, Arica and Puno, among others), La Serena and Santiago in the Captaincy General of

 Escobari, Producción y comercio, 103.  The government of Tucumán, Juríes and Diaguitas was under the jurisdiction of Charcas between 1563 and 1661. Between 1563 and 1568, Cuzco was also under Charcas jurisdiction.

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Chile; Buenos Aires in Río de La Plata or Brazil to sell slaves in La Plata city.⁶⁹ The Presbyterian Arias Ferreira, a resident in Angola, is a special case; when he passed through La Plata, at the beginning of the 17th century, he sold a slave woman from Angola named Paloma to the cathedral clergyman.⁷⁰ The profitability of such activity drew people from different origins and situations to the business, sometimes acting through intermediaries .⁷¹ Between 1560 and 1630, 7 % of the sales recorded in La Plata were made through representatives of people not present in Potosí, Cuzco, Lima, Tacna, Arica, Tucumán or Spain. Sometimes those sold through intermediaries were runaway slaves, since it was certain they would be found and owners did not intend to release them from their power without realizing their value.⁷² This explains how Diego Pantoja from La Plata sold a slave couple who had fled La Paz, to Diego García, an alguacil mayor, whose location he managed to give, on July 20, 1576.⁷³ Although it is curious, they were frequently sold without knowing their whereabouts under certain conditions. In 1609, when Juan Estévez sold Gabrial, a 40-year-old mulato slave who had escaped from his house, a deed clarified that if the latter perished prior to completing the sales deed, the money would be returned to the purchaser.⁷⁴ Vendor occupations were very diverse (see Tables 6 & 7). Authorities from the Audiencia and the secular cabildo, from the president and oidores through regidores, attorneys, treasurers and notaries all participated. Some presented themselves simply as lawyers, graduates or with the title of captain or general – even caciques. On July 6, 1604, Don Juan de Aymoro, a Yampara cacique, sold an 18-year-old slave named Francisco, to Cathedral Dean and Inspector of the Inquisition Juan de Larreátegui.⁷⁵ Within the church hierarchy, slaves were sold by the Archbishop through members of the canon, monks, priest clerks, inspectors of the Holy Office, through friars and priests delegated by their orders and on behalf of the convent, school or hospital they ran.⁷⁶ There are also doctors, barber-surgeons, farmers, fishermen, comedians, organists, doormen,  In the case of the Portuguese Crown, they could have been private parties trying to sell their own slaves or peruleros, traders who left Brazil to seek their fortunes in Charcas, particularly in Potosí. Hanke, The imperial city of Potosí, 57.  ABNB: PD, Gaspar Núñez de Chávez, August 16, 1604.  Hanke, The imperial city of Potosí, 55. Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 101.  Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 241.  ABNB: PD, Juan García Torrico, July 20, 1576, 780 – 781.  ABNB: PD, Agustín de Herrera, August 11, 1609, 227– 229.  ABNB: PD 1604, Felipe de Godoy, July 06, 1604, 25 – 26.  This was how the Negra Joana who lived in a convent for nuns was sold on March 10, 1621 in La Plata to Julio Soria for 350 pesos. ABAS: AC, Actas Capitulares, 10.

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Table 4.7. Residence declared by people selling enslaved in La Plata between 1560 and 1630 (ABNB EP, La Plata, 1560 – 1630)

construction workers, herders, cooks, butchers and all types of craftsmen (tailors, blacksmiths, wax workers, weavers, potters, among others).⁷⁷ The record of origin and attribution of vendors is often absent. Spaniards make up the majority of the few references, but there are also Indians and mulatos among slave owners. Thus, according to records dated October 7, 1595, Francisco de César, a mulato, sold two enslaved black men to Juan Arias.⁷⁸ Then, as early as March 14th, 1565, Cristóbal Barba, a citizen of La Plata, agreed to pay Juan Jalofo, an indigene, the price of a black slave named María.⁷⁹ A prohibition on women making sales without the authorization of their husbands or tutors is why the great majority of notarized sales were made by men. Out of the 174 sales where women participated, 38 % did so through their husbands and tutor relatives. Of course, if women were enslaved owners, their husbands must have their permission. The other 62 % presented themselves  An unusual case is the sale of a slave by a “hermit in a pilgrim’s habit” named Bernardo to a resident of La Plata in 1608. ABNB: PD, Gaspar Núñez de Chávez, August 20, 1608, 563v – 465v.  ABNB: PD, Diego Sánchez, October 07, 1595, 312– 314.  ABNB: PD, Francisco Logroño, March 14, 1565, 242.

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before the notary on a personal basis. Included among these were several widows like Doña Catalina Matienzo, and spinsters like María de Herrera, a mulato, or Catalina de Sotomayor, an Indian, who decided to sell their properties in 1596 and 1604, respectively.⁸⁰ These women moved more freely than their Spanish counterparts who were subject to a larger degree of male control in carrying out these transactions. The number of enslaved sold per transaction is mainly one (88 %, 1,699 cases) with the sale of two (8 %, 74 cases) consisting of either married couples or mothers with their children. Less frequently the sales are three to eight slaves (4 %, 54 cases) and in some cases more than 10 is not unheard of and are usually forced labor in small farms together with those that were sold along with a property.⁸¹ There are several cases of enslaved sold with the house or property where they were domestic servants along with cattle, agricultural products and even tapestries, pieces of wood and weapons. Others worked with the forge, smithy or teneria (tannery) where they performed as craftsmen laborers. Held as productive assets, they were also sold with the tools of their trade, as occurred with Agustin, an enslaved born in the city of Los Reyes on May 27, 1576.⁸² These records reveal little about vendors of enslaved Chiriguano indigenes, evidently due to the illegality of the practice. However, there are a few valuable exceptions that show that the purpose of their capture was to sell them. In 1593, for example, Juan Bravo de Castro, a clergyman at that time, presented to the notary two Chiriguano he rescued in the Range to be sold to Miguel Gutiérrez Bonilla, a resident in Lima and to Antonio Gutiérrez, a vecino in La Plata.⁸³ Likewise, Captain Juan Valero, a vecino in La Plata, sold “eight piezas of Indians, five males and three females, taken from the trip to Chiriguano lands” to Antonio Pantoja de Chávez, which the Audiencia authorized him to have as “slaves and Yanaconas in perpetuity.”⁸⁴ Pantoja would pay 350 pesos of the total owed with one of his enslaved, the negro Blas. What can be said about other protagonists in these transactions, such as the purchasers?

 ABNB: PD, Diego Sánchez, February, 07, 1596, 192– 193; Juan de Higueras, June 14, 1596, 368; Juan de Loarte, November 27, 1604, 262.  Alberto Crespo states that he did not find records in La Paz for sales of more than 10 slaves. Crespo, Esclavos negros en Bolivia, 33. This is not the case in La Plata. On September 1, 1570, Hernando de Zárate, a citizen of La Plata, sold 2 female slaves and their children to Miguel Martínez, an engineer in Ayopaya Valley having 22 slaves. ABNB: PD, Juan Bravo, September 01, 1570, 199 – 200.  ABNB: PD, Juan Bravo, May 27, 1576, 476 – 477.  ABNB: PD, Juan de Saldaña, August 25 and September 10, 1593.  ABNB: PD, Blas López Solórzano, November 25, 1585, 400 – 401.

Enslaved vendors and purchasers

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Between 1560 and 1630, people who purchased enslaved in La Plata became as diverse as the vendors were. Merchants not only sold but also bought merchandise that they could re-sell in other cities like Lima. Out of 728 who were registered, 122 were businessmen, 101 stated that they were merchants and 11 were dealers (see Table 4.8).⁸⁵ A total of 311 purchasers belonged to different positions within public secular administration. As emphasized by Eugenia Bridikhina, owning slaves but also being guarded by them (bearing an official permit) meant public recognition of a colonial official’s status.⁸⁶ Lawyers as well as notaries, regidores, secretaries, treasurers, and oidores, among others, were among the most active purchasers. Table 4.8. Occupation of enslaved purchasers (ABNB EP, La Plata, 1560 – 1630)

Within the church hierarchy 194 buyers were listed. They were different types of clergy, including cannons, judicial vicars, preceptors and deans. Clergymen were in fact the greatest purchasers and vendors of slaves as recorded for this period, which indicates that they had the greatest opportunities to

 Some defined themselves with the medieval term “corredor de lonja” (an agent or market representative) that works with another person in the clothing business, among others.  Eugenia Bridikhina. Theatrum Mundi. Entramados del poder en Charcas colonial (La Paz: Plural / IFEA, 2007a), 207.

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acquire them, as confirmed by Alberto Crespo.⁸⁷ But this does not mean that piezas were only available to the most privileged. Urban craftsmen were a diverse group among which those with sufficient capital could invest in slaves who became apprentices before becoming skilled labor.⁸⁸ Mainly smiths and tanners are among the 101 craftsmen listed, followed by tailors, cobblers and silversmiths. There were also locksmiths, milliners and other trades connected with food, such as bakers and confectioners. As with vendors, the vast majority of purchasers are men (69 %, which is a total of 1,337 cases), although there are more women (9 %) purchasing than selling slaves. Some of the latter worked with their husbands (37 cases), but most were widows and single women of different origins (129 cases). Purchasing a slave without a husband’s consent could even lead to lawsuits between spouses. In 1600, Marcos Barrera accused his wife, Isabel de Zúñiga, of buying an 11-year-old “negrilla” (little black girl) named Pascuala from a priest using María Do Santos as an intermediary, without his authorization.⁸⁹ A vast majority of purchasers lived in the La Plata jurisdiction (41 % – 792 cases) and other regions of Charcas, mainly Potosí, La Paz, Cochabamba and Tarija. The rest came from different cities in Perú (Los Reyes, Cuzco, Huánuco, Arica among others), from Santiago del Estero and some from Spain, which means that non-residents took advantage of traveling through La Plata to purchase enslaved (see Table 4.9). It was more convenient for a resident of La Plata to acquire them directly in the local market. When a purchaser could not find what they wanted, or if they wished to purchase more pieces that those available, he could order them. On July 8, 1598, the Audiencia jail governor asked Pedro Matute, a muleteer, to bring him a slave in exchange for payment in “clothing from his shop.”⁹⁰ Frequently part or all of the cost was paid in clothing and other goods, such as livestock, agricultural products, tools, wood, or textiles. At the beginning of the 17th century, clergyman Francisco de Salcedo sent 4,000 silver pesos to Buenos Aires to purchase 14 male and female slaves for shipment to La Plata. Due to the difficulty of taking them to Charcas, the remaining merchandise was sold to a merchant who paid for them with 360 patacones (96-cent old silver coins) of clothing.⁹¹

 Crespo, Esclavos negros de Bolivia: 70.  Lockhart, El mundo hispanoperuano, 233.  ABNB: CF 1600, No 7.  ABNB: PD, Juan de Higueras, July 08, 1598, 1238.  “Carta del cabildo eclesiástico de Chile sobre los 4 mil pesos que Francisco Salvatierra despachó a esta iglesia de La Plata”, March 07, 1635. ABAS: AC, Decrees.

Enslaved vendors and purchasers

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Table 4.9. Residence stated by purchasers of enslaved in La Plata (1560 – 1630) (ABNB EP, La Plata, 1560 – 1630)

Slave shipments involved ensuring different contacts in entry ports for the merchandise and taking them to Charcas, and included a high degree of risk and uncertainty over the investment. A clear example of how these transactions could turn out is a case in 1602 involving Alvaro Núñez, a Portuguese doctor andresident in La Plata, who gave the Portuguese Jesuit Manuel Enríquez 1,300 pesos to purchase African enslaved from Buenos Aires. Unable to obtain them, the latter ordered them giving 500 pesos to Captain Pedro Sardina who was going to Angola. Sardina also failed to complete the order and gave 500 pesos to a Duarte Díaz, a Dutchman residing in Pernambuco who eventually obtained the piezas by entering through Brazil. Enriquez also indicated that he gave 700 pesos to Francisco Vento, whose brother had a ship that was bringing Africans. Before returning to Charcas, the Jesuit would have left Diego Higuera, a vecino in Buenos Aires, and Baltazar Ferreyra who was living in Córdoba, so that when the enslaved ordered by doctor Nuñez arrived they would pass through his office in La Plata⁹².

 We do not know if the slaves reached the city. The Jesuit would have left the rest of Nuñez’s 1300 pesos in Buenos Aires to provide clothing for the units “Inventario y secuestro de bienes de Álvaro Núñez residente en La Plata”. Lima, April 21, 1603. AGP TSOI 12– 148.

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The personal origin and assignment of purchasers is not usually explained systematically, but it seems to be documented more often than for vendors. Spaniards, blacks and free mulatos as well as male and female indigenes, even some cacique are mentioned. When an enslaved being sold was the child of a Spaniard and his enslaved, under the law of October 26, 1541, the father had a first option to purchase them, if he wished.⁹³ However, first Governor Lope García de Castro in 1565, and then Viceroy Toledo in 1580, prohibited enslaved ownership by indigenes, including caciques. ⁹⁴ The main concern was that not only enslaved but horros might also reside in indigenous towns. This provision had no major impact in Charcas and in fact, ownership was authorized from the end of the 16th century.⁹⁵ For example, Yampara Cacique Aymoro participated in various trades of his own slaves between 1597 and 1607.⁹⁶ As mentioned, the number of enslaved per transaction was mainly one (75 % of all 1934 transactions), followed by the purchase of couples and mothers with their children (22 %). However, there were some people who acquired between 5 and 12 piezas. We have a record dated of April 1, 1576 when Alonso García purchases five slaves for 2,450 silver pesos from Anton Caballero, a fisherman from Arica.⁹⁷ Moreover, on October 12, 1598, Francisco Matienzo, the La Plata Mayor, and Gonzalo Luis de Cabrera purchased 12 slaves brought directly from Angola via Brazil for 2,880 pesos .⁹⁸ These units were usually paid in parts under a certain agreement between parties as well as including a notarized obligation (6 % of the cases, which is 115 cases). Occasionally, the purchasers took advantage of better prices given the auction situation of the assets. When they were not there in person, they used powers of attorney. Institutions and legal entities, such as the cabildo, corporations, convents, monasteries, schools and hospitals, sent trusted third parties to carry out their transactions.⁹⁹

 RLI, Law 6, Title 5, Book VII.  Ordinance XIV in Toledo, Relaciones de los Virreyes, 192.  Martínez Montiel, Negros en América, 107.  Besides the sale made in 1604 of a slave to the Cathedral dean (ABNB: PD Felipe de Godoy, 06.07.1604, 25 – 26), in 1597 Juan de Aymoro purchased a slave named Francisco Moreno, a 10year-old criollo from La Plata for 500 pesos. ABNB: PD, Agustín de Herrera, December 03, 1597, 36 – 37. On the 5th day, he purchased another named Sebastián a 25-year-old creole from Los Reyes city for 580 pesos. ABNB PD, Agustín de Herrera, 05.12.1597, 36 – 37.  ABNB: PD, Fernando de la Hoz, April 01, 1576, 693 – 694.  ABNB: PD, Juan de Higueras, October 12, 1598, 1783 – 1786.  Under the law, the slave owner could be any natural person, old or young, male or female, able or disabled, secular or clergy, civilian or military or ordinary status and legal persons. Triana and Antorveza, Léxico documentado.

Other enslaved transactions

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It is hard to know the average number of slaves owned by residents in La Plata. Testimonies offer an estimate based on information that is somehow certain. Out of 116 records found in notary documents in La Plata concerning people who claimed to own slaves, 20 % stated they only had one; 15 % referred to owning two; 14 % between three and four; 8 % between five and nine and 3 % between 10 and 16 piezas. When there were enough enslaved servants, they were divided between agricultural work on small farms and domestic service in city houses. In 1607, Cristobal de Espinosa swore in a statement concerning his farm goods that he owned 10 enslaved.¹⁰⁰ In 1666, Sergeant Major Diego Hidalgo stated, “sixteen pieces of slaves, small and large, that I have in my city house, and four male blacks one female black that I have [besides these] mentioned at Garcilaso Ranch.”¹⁰¹ While it is not possible to do the same counting in the case of Chiriguanos due to lack of information, it is not surprising to find them as assets in the testimonies of La Plata residents. In 1599, Alonso de Carvajal lists among his goods, “a female Chiriguano Indian” who was at the house of other vecinos. ¹⁰² Likewise, on October 10, 1598 on a visit from Corregidor Timoteo Antolines, Gerónimo Bozo stated he had four Chiriguanos “in his home and service” aged between 18 and 30: “Andrés, a twenty-year-old single Chané native from the Chiriguano Range, recently brought by Tomina; Antón Chiri, a 23-year-old single Chiriguano from the town of Chiri near Río Grande; Pedro, an 18-year-old single bozal who recently left the Range; Felipe, a 30-year-old single Chiriguano, recently taken out.”¹⁰³ Pedro is here classified as bozal, a term that indicated enslaved who had arrived directly from Africa, and who were Spanish non-speakers. This term is also was used to refer by analogy to Chiriguanos who had recently arrived from the Range who only spoke Guaraní or another native language. Now, to widen the spectrum of our analysis, it is necessary to consider a series of transactions where the slaves were part of trading deals.

Other enslaved transactions Slaves, being strictly speaking property, were subject to a series of commercial operations regulated under different legal mechanisms which provide a more

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ABNB: ABNB: ABNB: ABNB:

PD, Gaspar Núñez, August 14, 1607, 919. CF 1666 No 18, 11. PD, Diego Sánchez, January 13, 1599, 104– 106. PD, Agustín de Herrera, October 10, 1598, 321.

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complete image of slavery in the colonial context of La Plata.¹⁰⁴ One of them is redhibition, which entailed a request for the return of money and of the unit when it did not comply with the characteristics stated in the sale. For purchasers, a slave was a capital investment, and a large part of the decision to spend their money relied on the faith they placed in the appearance of the piece, as well as the word of the vendor which acted as a guarantee. Thus, it was a legal requirement to describe physical condition, qualities, abilities and defects or flaws of slaves prior to selling them. If it was shown that this word had not been kept and the piece had serious defects that were hidden that the purchaser then became aware of, the transaction would not be carried out and a redhibition action could be initiated. This included a transaction annulment and payment return plus costs if it was shown the vendor had acted in bad faith. An important detail was to prove that the defect or flaw occurred prior to the sale. In 1673, the priest Diego Ortiz states that since he had purchased a mulata called María, she was indisposed. Later she informed him she had suffered humor gálico for several years.¹⁰⁵ Often, the judgments caused by these fraudulent sales show that slaves, in fear of their masters, never revealed their diseases until they were sold. In the previously mentioned case, the accused claimed that he had not had the opportunity to become aware of the mulata’s condition because he was busy selling merchandise in Potosí. Maria died soon afterwards.¹⁰⁶ Another angry purchaser was Joan Quinteros, an expert silversmith who purchased a slave couple with their small child from the Cathedral rector for 1,200 pesos.¹⁰⁷ In 1657, Quinteros brought a lawsuit to the ecclesiastic court because he found the merchandise was unusable due to hidden flaws. When taken to perform domestic chores, Dominga Hoja, a 55-yearold slave used to do the cooking, feed the animals, sew white clothing and make stockings. However, according to Quinteros’s witnesses, she was also known as

 Carlos Aguirre discontinued his study in 19th century Lima. Aguirre, Agentes de su propia libertad. There are no studies of this type for Charcas, except pioneering references by Alberto Crespo and Eugenia Bridikhina. Crespo, Esclavos negros en Bolivia, 58. Eugenia Bridikhina,”La vida urbana de los negros en La Paz en el siglo XVIII” in Seminario de Antropología Histórica. Reunión anual de etnología (La Paz: Mundy Color, 1994), 23.  ABNB: CF 1673 No 23. Humor gálico refers to syphilis.  There was always the possibility of delivering a slave as “soul in the mouth and a sack of bones”, an expression indicating that the vendor bore no responsibility for the physical condition or flaws of his merchandise. Crespo, Esclavos negros de Bolivia, 58. Carlos E. Valencia Villa, Alma en boca y huesos en costal: Una aproximación a los contrastes socio-económicos de la esclavitud, Santafé, Mariquita y Mompox, 1610 – 1660 (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, 2003).  ABAS: AA, Files, 2nd part, April 02, 1657.

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a “thief, drunkard and a runaway”. Her husband, García Hoja, a 45-year-old black bozal, carried water and bought barley, but “he suffered from passions of the heart and great melancholy” that made him a “good for nothing”. A doctor from Santa Barbara Hospital visited him on several occasions, prescribing comforting and aromatic remedies with no results. Although the redhibitory action was accepted, the final sentence of the court is unknown due to the incompleteness of the documented material. Other grounds for nullifying a sale were, for example, that merchandise was never delivered, or that slaves were previously sold without a purchaser’s knowledge. This was the case when it was proven that don Francisco Yáñez secretly sold two of his wife’s slaves so that she could not object to it. He did not know it, but one of them was promised to another party who had already made the payment.¹⁰⁸ It is not surprising to find other cases of nullified sales involving enslaved indigenes who were passed off as Chiriguanos, like those that Juan de Olmedo sold in 1645, which led him to confront and lose a proceeding.¹⁰⁹ It was also the case of Lucrecia, a Chiriguana sold for 200 pesos as a rescued indigene. The sale was revoked in 1597 when it was proven that she was another woman named Francisca, who had escaped from Gonzalo Lopez to return to the Range.¹¹⁰ An always open possibility for slave owners who did not like their enslaved was to find someone who would accept them as barter or exchange. Thus in 1642, Marcos a 20-year-old Angolan bozal, valued at 500 pesos, and Juan, a 17year-old and valued at 300, were exchanged by their masters.¹¹¹ Usually the value of each enslaved was estimated and any difference was paid. In 1613, when Mayor de Villagran’s widow delivered her 20-year-old enslaved to the Cathedral preceptor in exchange for another, he gave 100 pesos of value difference.¹¹² Exchanges varied and were regulated by agreement between the parties, although they do not always seem equitable. When in 1687 Antonio Pantoja changed his 40-year-old slave, priced at 780 pesos, to Domingo Hernández, a tradesman shoemaker, the latter delivered his mulato Antonio Corzo, also a tradesman shoemaker, valued at 1,050 pesos.¹¹³ Legal persons could in turn exchange enslaved using agents, like Santa Bárbara Hospital which was repre-

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ABNB: ABNB: ABNB: ABNB: ABNB: ABNB:

CF 1673, No 20. CF 1645, No 13. PD, Juan de Higueras, February 27, 1597, 379 – 380. CF 1642, No 8. PD, Gaspar Núñez, June 12, 1613, 11– 19v. PD, Jerónimo de Porres, December 10, 1587, 133 – 135.

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sented by its steward in 1565.¹¹⁴ It is common to find bartering where one of the parties offers a runaway slave, as Diego Pérez did on June 13, 1594, exchanging his 20-year-old enslaved who had escaped and for a 30-year-old female enslaved.¹¹⁵ This meant that the parties concerned had some idea of where the runaway could be found. Finally, there are situations wherein the value of an enslaved was paid by delivering another. In 1600, the clergyman Antonio de Aldana, who was indebted to Captain Vasco Pinto because of an enslaved he had delivered, agreed to pay with a 26-year-old black named Manuel, valued at 500 pesos.¹¹⁶ Another frequent type of transaction was leasing or renting out work force and the skills of slaves so that a master could obtain some extra profit. Craftsmen like the carpenter Francisco Vásquez rented some of their slaves trained in the craft together with their tools for a period from six months to a year. In this case, Squire Diego Sánchez delivered 288 cedar boards in exchange.¹¹⁷ Regarding capital savings, slaves could sometimes be the only means to get out of financial trouble by mortgaging them, for example. In 1606, Doña Isabel Almendras, using her husband’s power of attorney, mortgaged her slave for six months to the merchant Mateo de Arrastibal.¹¹⁸ At the end of the century, this continued to be a frequent practice. In 1680, a black woman named Sebastiana was mortgaged by her owner in whose house she had been born 18 years before.¹¹⁹ Sometimes the only way out was to pawn them, although losing them completely was a potential risk. In 1674, Juana de la Cruz, was 8 years old when she was pawned by the Pórcel sisters. A year later she was supposed to return to her owners’ home, but sheriff Marcos Barreda who received her in exchange for clothing and 300 pesos did not wish to return her, even after having recovered his money.¹²⁰ Also pawned, in this case for 200 pesos, Pedro Maita used an enslaved called Benito for 12 years, from 1683 to 1695.¹²¹ When economic difficulties of citizens in La Plata led to the seizure of their assets, enslaved went to a temporary warehouse to be sold later in almoneda.

 ABNB: PD, Francisco Logroño, August 17, 1565, 384– 385.  ABNB: PD, Luis Guisado de Umanes, June 13, 1594, 463 – 465.  ABNB: PD, Gaspar Núñez, July 11, 1600, 720 – 722.  ABNB: PD, Francisco Logroño, July 19, 1565, 341– 342.  ABNB: PD, Felipe de Godoy, August 28, 1606, 18 – 22.  ABNB: CF 1680, No 17. The mortgage was nullified because it was shown that the young woman had shortly before been sold to Don Cristobal de Céspedes.  ABNB: CF 1674, No 35. Minors and paupers, the sisters won the lawsuit.  ABNB: CF 1695, No 4.

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This is what happened to a mulato the clergyman Fernando Altamirano had inherited from his father. In 1687, this enslaved went to the temporary warehouse in the house of Captain Fernando de Ulloa.¹²² Some decades previously, the master of a slave named Pedro Angola had lost a lawsuit and was banished into exile. This enslaved was auctioned in the public plaza on December 1, 1634 with this transaction disclosure: “this town crier [Domingo Angola, an Afro-descendant] as the voice of the auction exclaimed that 450 regular pesos are given for this enslaved, once, twice and sold, and no one may judge or say anything else.”¹²³ As high-cost assets, slaves were also an essential part of dowries and inventories of assets in testaments. In 1600, Petronila de Castro delivered to her sonin-law Juan Ortíz de Zarate, an enslaved woman from Angola named Isabel as part of the dowry she had to pay for her daughter’s marriage.¹²⁴ In another case, the dowry claimed by Doña Antonio de Irala, a nun in the convent of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, included 16 man and woman enslaved who worked on a sugar cane farm. There were also “five pieces of Chiriguano Indians” as Castro’s personal assets.¹²⁵ Of many enslaved inheritances, there is the case of Juan Aguilar who in 1580 gave his enslaved to Ana, his two-year-old natural daughter. Conceived with his indigenous maid Catalina, Ana was bequeathed negro enslaved named Anton.¹²⁶ Sometimes there were donations to benefit some institution or pious works, as in the case of Dean Juan Rodríguez, who donated his enslaved Alonso to the cathedral in 1567, or Juan García who, in 1606, delivered his enslaved Francisco Casanga to the Santa Bárbara Hospital to work as a butler.¹²⁷ Enslaved were also donated to saints worshipped by the deceased.¹²⁸ Among these donated servants was Anton, an 11-year-old boy,

 ABNB: CF 1687, No 45.  ABNB: CF 1635, No 14, 23. Likewise, two “negrillos” were sold in 800 pesos on March 12, 1619. ABAS: AC, Actas Capitulares, 289.  ABNB: PD, Francisco de Bustillos, 06.06.1600, 168 – 168. The slaves Antón and Catalina, valued in 1,600 pesos, became part of the dowry calculated in 8000 pesos delivered to Pedro Beltrán upon his marriage to Mariana Ramírez. ABNB: PD, Agustín de Herrera, April 18, 1599, 258 – 260.  ABNB: CF 1672, No 47.  ABNB: PD, Juan Bautista de Carrión, 1580, 405 – 406.  ABNB: PD, Lázaro del Águila, June 20, 1567, 225 – 232; Gaspar Núñez de Chávez, February 01, 1606, 83 – 85.  A late colonial case is about Antonio Larrazábal, a black man donated to San Juan de Dios, who worked as a cook in Santa Bárbara Hospital. A lawsuit was filed claiming that Juandedians did not have a Christian treatment, neither with sick people or him, “looking at the Saint’s things with disdain”ABNB: CF, 1795 No 82.

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whom Lorenzo de Aldana received at the entrance to the Cordillera and gave to the Inquisitor Antonio Gutiérrez to be taken to Lima .¹²⁹ As is clear, these transactions did not just involve Africans and their legally enslaved descendants. The fragmented nature of this information does not allow us to quantify the actual impact of this phenomenon, but there is clear proof that the indigenous population rescued from the Range was also vulnerable to such treatment and contracts, in spite of the relevant prohibitions. This leads to the question of to what extent was legal slavery the only form of coercive labor subjugation including mechanisms of enslavement. To answer this is is necessary to analyze other types of forced labor in that period, which historiography often reflects on, that is deemed quite different from slavery due to its assumed voluntary nature or the fact that those involved were at least legally, free people.

 ABNB: PD, Jerónimo de Porres, July 04, 1587, 491. This is also the case of Arapo, a 40-yearold Chiriguano who was “transferred” by Francisco de Leon to Audiencia relater Juan Diaz de Ortiz. ABNB: PD, Jerónimo de Porres, May 09, 1590, 389 – 390.

Chapter 5 Other Modes of Unfree Servitude Yanaconazgo, perpetual servitude? According to Diego Gonzalez Holguín, yana refers to a “service mozo or servant” and the plural was yanakuna. ¹ The etymology of this term has also been discussed. One prominent hypothesis put forward by Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino states that this word refers to Yanayacu indigenes who conspired against the Inca, but once they were defeated became their servants (