Colour by Numbers: Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1532-1824* Notice: This material may bbe protected by copyright Law (litle 17 US. cade) DAVID CAUILI. The distinction between ethnic and racial categories in social analysis is finely drawn, and rarely clear. In the case of Latin American societies, ‘face’ and ‘ethnicity’ are sometimes synonymous, and far more often deployed as if they were. Researchers are familiar with the ways in which processes of dcracination, acculturation and miscegenation iron out the ccultural edges that demarcate social groups, one from another; perhaps the classic example is the gradual loss of indigenous characteristics attendant upon native American migration to cities. Yet, even in the complete absence of rural-to-urban migration, such processes have been at work moulding present-day indigenous communities, which once recognised numerous ethnic distinctions within ‘Indian’ society, distinctions that were progressively diluted — though not wholly extinguished ~ during some three centuries of colonial rule. To draw attention to the protean nature of ethnicity in Latin American societies, however, is not to say that researchers are necessarily unaware of the problem, but rather that they often follow research agendas that may be inconvenienced by attention to such nuances. ‘Thus, for example, 2 number ofbroad-brush racial cay sthois.classiications provided the basis for the fiscal demands of Crown wrch alike during the colonial period, and as such provide the pillars for much of the quantitative fiscal and demographic abase that we possess. To call into question these colonial categories thus might well seem akin to undermining our present understanding of population growth and decline from conquest to independence, and to eroding stich consensus as exists among researchers on.colonial social stratification.' ‘To add to the Spain and Peru on which this paper is based was fanded by the Social Research Couneil (United Kingdom) "Ths, for example, the manner in whieh “indi is defined Isa key determinant of our understanding of population growth and decline. See Ann M. Wightman, Indigernr ‘Migration and Social Change: The Verastres af Caen, 1320-1720 (Durham and London, David Cahill is Visiting Feliow in the School of Spanish and Latin American Studies, University of New South Wales.326 David Cabill confusion, anthropologists and sociologists. studying contemporary societies have compiled their own racial and ethnic categories which, when anachronistically projected back onto the past, as they sometimes are, go entirely against the grain of colonial classifications and render impossible any measured comparison of republican and colonial societies, and therefore of longue durée historical development. There is simply no point in comparing like with unlike. Rather than vitiating current models, though, re-examination of some of the heuristic categories of Latin American social history should allow a more nuanced understanding of those very models. This essay will survey some of the pitfalls and ambiguities in employing some of the ethnic and racial categories used in colonial Peru, with a view to highlighting some variants and niceties of usage as well as some of the more egregious errors sometimes encountered ich usage. It will commence with a brict survey of ethnic differences within the Inca empire and within the pre-Columbian capital of Cuzco itself, so as to provide the nec \ in ary basis for 4 consideration of post- conquest chassiGeations. It will then go on to consider the ways in which re-Calumbian ethnicity was subsumed within, slapted to, ot eradicated by, Chegemonic® colonial entegory and le manner in which these in turn were dependent upon Crown fiscal imperatives, which they did not long survive once independence from Spain. was declared in 1824. The argument, then, concerns the ways in which ethnic and racial categories were sacially coustituss! heoughout a tinte-span of some three centuries. At the outset, however, a word of caution is in order reparding, context, ‘These eategaries were sure constructs, and they cut across other classificatory systems, notably those of class, estate, Hoceupation, and culture, ‘There exists among historians working on Latin American societies something of an open-ended debate which turns on the oLcottelation between ethnicity /race andl social class.” It is open- 990), PP: #5942, for evidence that changes in this eategory masked the real rate of| indigenous population decline in the period to 1720. Magnus Momer, “Hconomie Factors andl Strifiation in Colonial Sp ‘with Spotl Regard to Hlites", Hispanic American Histercal Revie, wl. 65, 90.2 (1983)- PP. 355-69. The theoretical and historiographieal background to this contribution is more fully discussed in fitm, “Classes, Strata and Hlites: The Social Vistorian’s Dilemma’, in Magour Motner and ‘Thommy Svensson (eds), Siratifeaton in History (Gothenborg, 1988), pp. 5-30. A wealth of cognate material is sunymatse! in Fret Bronner, ‘Urban Society in Colonial Spanish America; Research ‘Vrends', Latin American Research Review, vol #8, 19.1 (1986), pp. 7-72. Note, too, the remarks of Seve J. Stem, ‘New Approaches 10 the Stay of Peasant Rebellion andy Consciousness: Implications of he Aalean Experience’, in idew (ed), Resist, Retellon, and Consconres in the Andean Pratant Ward, 18th to eth Cantariee (Na 1987). PP. 15-18, om degrees of coincidence of ethnicity and class in sevolt and rebellion, ~ Racial and Ethnic Catagories in the \icerayalty of Pern 327 ended in the sense that intra- and inter: nal-differences are oft —pieat that new research on social stratification appears only to exacerbate the difficulty of arriving’at valid ‘global’ generalisations, No consensus on this que 0 of correlation Ints emerged, so that re-examination of presem heuristic labels is timely. ‘To attempt even to summarise the main features of this debate would surpass the bounds of this article, but three points should be noted in passing. The firs is that the question is complicated for the study of colanial societies by the continuing, importance of the notion 4 of {estate’} and. associated codes of behaviour and honour? in varying degree aristocratic, whereas the introduction of more modetn notions of ctlass associated with industrial development and modernisation compli- cates the discussion in republican societies. The second point is that a lack | of attention to cultural milieus and degrees of acculturation has marred studies of Latin American stsatication, simply because quantitative data ate privileged in such studies. ‘Third, though network analysis and patross. client analysis are increasingly regarded as important in Latin American historical analysis, the quantitative stratification studies from which social generalisations emerge are simply not constructed to take sullicient account of altemative nulti-chiss, multiethnic models based on gene- -alogies and social alliances. The end tesult of all this has been fragmentation of efforts and results, with deleterious consequences for the teaching of Latin American social themes with any precision. Yet, for a that, colonial Spanish American societies provide a social laboratory of unsurpassed richness in which vo rest the adequacy of traditional social theory and associated moulels. ‘he first Spaniards in Peru found a society already complex, and equipped with iis own share of internal conte dictions. Edbnivity and the tnea state ‘The artival of Pizatro's horde was the catalyst for the atomisation of the Incario into its.constituent ethnic parts:* ‘The great historical spectacle of * Patricia Seed, Yo Lave, Honor, and Obey i Colonial Mexico: Conflict rer Marriage Chait uagritit (Stanford, 1988), for the importance of notions of honour in a colonial society. See also José Antonio Maravall, Poder, bor diesem vgle XWI (Made 979) Part (OF a the comes historians, from Prescott theough Means to Hemming, the author ‘who best brings out the ethnic dimension i Walemas Pspicves Soriano, fa dirracin st imperio de lor Incas (Lima, 1974). Fspinoza focuses paniculatly on the tole of the Hunncas (Wankss) a group studied in detail by Terence N.D'Alttny, Prine! Poor in the Inks Empire (Washington, 1993). Inportant works whieh deat skilfully with ethnic tensions and alliances in the eolemitl period are Steve J. Stern, Pern Inlian Propler and the Challener of Spench Conguct: aamanga to 16) (Sadism, ro). ad ‘Karen Spalding, Husochris An Andean city oder Inn and Sponth Role (Stanford, 1984).ye8 id Cabill the Incan civil war~more properly a power struggle between two factions of the one dynasty ~so ably exploited for his own ends by Francisco Pizarto, has often served to dellect attention from the innate instability of Tahuantinsuyu, the Incan State. It bad relied on conquest, and reconquest when intermittent revolt necessitated it, to forge the empire itself, which was thenceforth reinforced through marriage alliances, the education of ethnic lords’ children (and thereby hostages) in Cuzco, and sumptuary gifts to those self-same lords. Yet it remained a fragile. polity that repressed desires for local autonomy, not least by peoples with a living memory of their own glory and power as independent kingdoms and chiefdoms. Close ties of kinship with the ruling class in Cuzco could perhaps make their relative servitude tolerable or comparatively benign, but never acceptable. When the Spaniards wound their way from ‘Trimbex to Cuzco in 1552, they easily won over ‘ethnic lords (kurakas, stares, caciques), and these pledged arms, provisions and manpower in what they perceived as their own struggle for autonomy from Curqueito suzerainty. Yet these lords presided over ethnic space within a quadripartite world centred on Cuzco, and these four quarters similarly bore ethnic connotations, so that to belong to one ethnic group endowed that group with a double ethnic identity. ‘Thus, for example, members of the Lupaqa “kingdom (centred on Lake TTiticaea) belonged to the Collasuyu quarter of the empire, and were identified both as *Collas’ and *Lupagas’. OF this double ethnic identity there can be little doubt: the mative Andean chronicler Felipe Guamdn Ponta de Ayala assigned pejorative cihinie tenits) to the inhabitants of Collasuyu: fat, lazy, slow-witted, ditty, imbecilic, cowardly but ich.* Such ‘ethnic’ descriptions were, in fact, common places of Spanish accounts oftace mixture\in the Americas, being assigned indiscriminately to Indians, blacks, mestizos and other castes; these epithets were similarly directed by peninsular Spaniards against their American counterpatts, the Creoles, who for their part were never loathe raditional definitions of ethnicity in the Andes to reciprocate in kind.® * Felipe Guamin Pom de Ayala, EY Primer Nuera Corsica y Buen Gobierno (Joho V. Murra & Rolena Adamo, es, trad. Jorge L. Urioste, Mexico, 1986) tomo fy fol. 78 Lr) 615 178 {180}, p. 147. i eis account, the Coll” category is allembracing and Renerc, though there were several distinct ethnic groups within the Collasuyy quarter. * Bronner,*Urhan Society’, pp. 42-4, neatly summarises the research on this point, but sce especially D. A. Brading, Minerr and Merchontt in Denrbon Mexio 176)-1810 (Cambridge, 1971), ch. 5, in some degree elaborated upon in idem, The First mer The Spanish Monarch, Creole Patriots andthe Liberal Stale, 1492-1866 (Cambridge, 1990) The clasic contemporary account of rivalry between Creoles and peninsular Spaniards is Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, Neviar Strtas de América (el. José Manvel Gémex Tabanera, Madrid, 1988 (2836) Racial and Ethnic Categories in the \iceroyalty of Peru sag thus in the first instance connoted a geogtaphical.or tertitorial afin usage that continued throughout the colonial period, despite erosion of other determinants of ethnicity (sce below). ‘Thus, for example, colonial subjects tended to ideniify themselves as belonging to a ‘patria’, which until the late eighteenth century usually denoted the ‘patria ¢hica’, this i its turn connoted a town, parish, province, valley, puna or microregion, usually the circumscribed ‘little world of the peasant and, indeed, of most provincial town dwellers as wel.” ‘There fed substantial ethnic differentiation even within each major ethnic grouping, distinctions which long antedated Incan conquest of individual chiefdoms. In part this reflected the circumstance that these ttnias had themselves been forged through earlier conquest of stil smallee ethnically distinct groups. In part, 100, it reflected the pervasiveness uf the economic, ‘archipelago’ system now recognised as having been a fundamental structure of pre-Columbian Andean societies, whereby members of one group obtained access .to the resources of other ecological/altitude zones through the establishment of ‘outlier’ settle- ‘ments in those zones.* Thus for example a highland group with access to pastoral products, tubers, salt, maize and other grains, would strike a deal with other (probably ethnically distinct) groups on the coast and on the eastern mountain slopes (cgja de selva) to settle small groups (kamayugkuna) for the purpose of obtaining fish, chili peppers and other coastal products, on the one hand, and fruits, herbs and condiments from tropical areas, on the other.? Important ritual sumptuary goods such as gold, silver, shells, 7 On the changed rendering of “patria, sce Pierre Vilar, *Pattin y naciin en cl vocabolario de la guerra de a indlependencia espaol’, in idem, Hidalgo, amotinodes y rile, Pato y podees en le btria te Expeke (Barclons, 1980) pe teense Formulations ofthe notion ofthe “litle workd*are found in Robert Redfel The Lite Community: Viewpoints forthe Sindy of the Haman Whole (Chicago, 1934): ar Ee} Hobsbawm, *Peasanis and Politics’ Jornal f Penta! Stats, vol. ¥ (r91¥-4), Pb. 7% John Murr, “El “control vertical” de wn meximo de pisos ecoligicns en la ceomornta de las sociedades andinas’, in Igo Orie de Zig, Visit de le provincia de Les Haémwca en 1162 (Hwénueo, 1972), vol. 4. 429-76; reprinted in Murra, Formacines scons pitas del mando onda Vina, 1978) Bp $9116; idem, La orang de ‘stad ince (Mexico City, 1978), pasion Murra acknowledges that the concept wa Best developed by Carl Tro ‘Die geographischen Grundlagen der andinen Hachkuliren dea Inkarciches’, Ihero-amertunsces Archi, No.4 (Ge see) (1931), pp 248-94. Fr {he application of thi perspective to colonial history, Thierry Saignes, “The thne Groups inthe Vales of Laren: From Descent ro Residence’ n Job V. My than Wachtel and Jacques Revel (ds), ntbrapaleie! Hisery of Amira Poi: (Cambridge, 1986 [1978], pp. ss1-41- Frank Salomon, Nette Lord of Quien the Ae of th Ince: the Pelitial Economy of North ‘Anieon Chefdems (Cambridge, 1987) als idem, Vertical Politi onthe Tak onter in Murra et al, Antropelogicl History, p. so4: "Kamayugkum, specialises who exploited or processed a particular resource not as a subsistence activity but 38 3so, Danid Cahill feathers and vieuiia fleeces, all necessary for buttressing the local power of Aarakas, were similarly obtained by such means." In such manner large ethnic groups, in certain measure defined territorially, had permanent packets of ethnic ‘minorities’ settled on their land. ‘The ‘home’ populations of.these migrants would normally reciprocate this provision, though there were groups whose territory embraced all three of the principal ecological zones of the Andes, and thus had only diplomatic reasons for allowing alien kamayageane populations to strike roots within their territory This syster so ingenious in conceprion and practical in execution, was effectively destroyed within a few decades of the conquest, hy dislocation, civil war, depopulation and the ethnographic obtuseness of the new Spanish rulers and administrators, It survived in a few areas, randomly and by chance." The Incas adapted the concept in providing far numbers of artisans, producers of sumptuary goods, and possibly also retainer (raua) groups, who were settled within the city of Cuzco by the later Incas."? Thus a group of indios yanyos petitioned after the Spanish conquest for recognition of property tights to lands in distant provinces, whose produce they had been granted by Huayna Capac in recompense for thei service as immigrant. urban silversmiths. In 1712 this group was still claiming these lands, under the ‘royalty’ riyhts accorded them under the Ancatia.!® So, too, other ethnic groups brou;;ht to the city of Cuzco by the Inca as hostages aay retainers were left without a role following the Selepated Function of a political authority, cult, oF community frequently resided eammesstorally i# mulcethnic enclaves of fellow kamayaqkuna while remaining, politically subject to their home lords..." Por dscir relation vo thee groups, John Howland Rowe, Ince Policies and Institutions Relating to the Cultural Unitieation of the Empire’, in Geoege A. Collet, Renato I. Rosaldo and John D. Wirth (els), The Ica and Azhre States 1400~feo (New York, 1982). pp. 93-138 "© Salomon, Nate Lard, chs. 3-4 is especially informative on the importance of fumpruary gon ‘There it «Faint echo of i today in the QYero contmunity of the Pawcartnntbo prewince ‘of southern Pert: Osear Nites del Prado, "EE hombre y I fai, su mateionio 4a organizacin poliico-socal en Qeto’, Revits Unverstaria (Cazea), no. 114 (1997), P98. Rowe, "Inca Policies’, pp, o6-12 for the yona category, See also Socrates Villar Cordova, La insinuctin el yaporna ex el incanato (Lira, 4966); Nathan Wachtel, The Vision of the Vanquished: Ve Spanish Conquest of Pern through Indian Es (tans, Ben x Siin Reynolds, 1977 [197tD, PP. 73-5. 151-6; Murra, Formacions, pp. 225-42. The indios sauyos" were a distinet ethnic group, but the term was often deployed in & enerie sense to refer to all those of coastal provenance Archivo General dela Nacin, Derecho Tnligena Leg. 12, Cuaderno 199, “Avo que don Juan Oroseo, Cacique principal del Aylo Verba, temaluncas y Plteros... por sf ¥ pot los indios de su comén, siguié ante el Marqués de Valdelrins, Juez y Vistador seneral de Tievras..', 4742. Racial und Lhnie Categories in the Wicerayaty of Peru 334 conquest, Some, such a8 the Huaneas and Chachapoyas, had been granted employment by the Panacas, the increasingly wealthy lineage groups formed on the «leath of each Inca to care for the mromia and to administer the estate that the Inca had accrued during his tenure. A farther source of increasing ethnic differentiation under the later Incas lay in the forced sass migrations commenced by Pachacutec and brought to their highest expression by Huayaa Capac. This remarkable demonstration of Inca power witnessed the transplantation of whole populations from one end of Tahuantinsuyu to the other, s0 that the nes tmigcants either nestled check-by-jow! with the original inhabitants, or supplanied thens entirely, entailing an analogous transplant population moving in the opposite direction (as, for example, in the case of Cochabamba), ‘These tansplaut. populations (mitmagkuna, mitinai) were, of course, ethnically distinct from their new neighbouss for reasons of state security, ard in at feast sonte cases were under the aegis of nobles from other ethpic groups with close kinship ties to the Inca, Such tes of kinship}were in part eros-thnie alliances, for the Inca conquest of the Andes had commenced in the immediate environs of Caen itself, and conquest, whether local or far afield, was followed by nees aimed at binding subject-populations more closely we Cuzco. ‘These alliances were themselves variable in nature, and while some were long-standing, others were of recent genesis. ‘The former tended to be the cease the closer an ally was to Cuzco, despite or perhaps because some local allies were erstwhile martial foes, Distinet ethnic groups such as the ‘Ayarmaca, the Maras, the Anahuarque, the Canas, the Canchis and the Lupaga were all closely bound to the Inca’s service through alliances and kinship ties. The Ayarmaca, long-standing allies of Cuzco, had won f2xoured status through martial valour.!® The Anabuarque, similarly close neighbours of the Cuzquefios, obtained even more favoured status by virtue of the fact that they had supplied the Inca with a queen (coya).1* Martial alliance with the Inea at this level was unusual ~ as distinct from having supplied royal concubines or wives of the second rank ~ for the ‘There isan extensive, hough piecemeal, literature on mitimas. The best place to begin Js Rowe, ‘Inca Policies’, pp. 96-107. See also Nathan Wachtel,“ Cochabamba Valley: The Colonization Policy of Huayna Capac’ Inca and Apter Stale, PP. 199-254, Maria Rostworowski tle Diex Canteco, Lor Apormacar (Valladolid, 1979). This monograph had earlier appeared in Reina de! Moore Nacional (Lina), vol, $6 1969-70), pp. 18-101 ‘echivo Departamental del Curca (hereafter AD, Real Ausliencia: Ordinarias Leg 42, ‘Fxpte. en l que...solcita se le libre real provision ordinaria de Casieasgos de los ayllos del pueblo de Cancaguani (Chumbivileas)..', 7 April 1802, This testimony is ‘eoteaboroted in part by Guamsin Poma, Nuera Corda, tome I ols. 196-7 135-7]. PP nats.332,- David Cabill later Incas took their own sisters as their principal cya. In fac, there were three distinct levels of nobility in Inca Cuzco, depending upon purity of lineage: the principal ‘collana’ group maintained through eadogamy, the “Faferior ‘cayao’, and the intermediate or mixed group, the ‘payén®, the product of exogamous relations between the hegemonic ‘collana’ and the rnon-Incan ‘cayao".”” ‘These, Inca distinctions of blood were in certain measure precursors of the caste system that the Spaniards established in the Indies: the similarity of the ‘payin’ to the coloniahmestizo bs difficult to overlook. At this point, though, itis worth underscoring the extent to which the Pera of 1332 was already a richly variegated and complex ethnic mosaic. The manifold ethnic divisions of pre-Columbian Peru, already in place prior to Inca hegemony, were further riven by the ethnic chatactet of the Incan sags, the four quarters into which the known world was divided, This ethnic and ritual space was both fragmented and enriched by the addition of the mass mitmag migrations and the presence of ethnic atchipelagos in the form of the ‘outlier’ settlements that allowed communities and larger chiefdoms access to the products of discrete ecological zones. ‘To this kaleidoscope the Spaniards brought their own obsessions with liapiega de sangre, caste, and status, as well as inttoducing their own northern ethit allies (e.g. the Caiaris and the Chachapoyas) to the already complex social fabric of Incaic Cuzco, Colonial ethnicity Up until 1552, then, ethnicity in Tahuantinsuyu may be defined as a sub- division of race, and it thus allowed for multiple ethnic identification,"® Location within a particular quarter of the empire carried ethnic connotations, while polities such as the Lupaga, often regarded as a single etnia by researchers, in fact contained two or more distinet ethnic groups. Again, community ‘outliers’ in distinct ecological zones pertaining to discrete ethnic groups constituted islands of ethnically distinct settlements, the whole comprising an ‘archipelago’ system. Stitched into this backcloth ° RT, Zoidema, “the Ina Kinhip Sytem: A New Thevttcal View", in Ralph Bolton and Enrique Maser (és), Aor Kirip and Marriage (Washington. to7?, PP “4o- Floyd G. Lounsbury Some Aspects the inks Kinhip Systema Aura ta, Anbrpaleiel Hier. pp. 124-36; Mara Coneceidn Brave Guero tbr cas (Med, 198, pp 9 John Howland Rowe, “Inca Caltare athe Span Conquest, in Jolan iH Stewacd (el). Handook of Soh American Inns {Wathington, ig), pp. 249-58 remains a alee eroduction cone Kah fetminnlogy Rowe "Inca Cote, pp 186 92, proves ast of highland el conta vise 48 and st respectively “most of which were wholly or pally ethnic Thich prvi aust point of departure for an apprection of them Aivisons ofthe Inari. Racial and Esbnic Categaries in the Vicerayalty of Peru 435 were many, ethnically varied, populations of ariemagkina. AM of these ethnic strands came together in the imperial capital of Cuzco, wiere they were further threaded with the kinship cam ethnic distinctions imate to the Incan aristocracy itself, and to its relations to ethnic groups long settled in the Cuzco region, However one conceives of ethnicity in the Incatio ~ as a mosaic, tapestry, kaleidoscope, or some such metaphor = it ‘was immensely complex, and its nuances were not readily apprehended by the early Spanish chro: lets who sought to portray an alien culture to a European audience. ‘The first thing, to say about this variegated ethnic pattern is that it did not disappéar during the dislocatory social ferment that attended the conquest. There were, it is true, considerable changes. Mitmagkana settlements, wholly or in part, returned whence they or their forebears had come; yet many stayed on, for in some regions (¢.g. Cochabamba) they had inherited the earth. The carving out of encomiendas, formally having 00 territorial dimension yet giving control over the population of a distinct cacieal sphere of influence, sundered the ‘archipelago’ out another and thereby diluted ethnic bonds to ‘home’ communities. ‘The effect of the ‘Tolsdan. reduciones, nucleated settlements involving the uprooting of many hamlets and their subsequent consolidation into one puchlo, exacerbated the distocation that had attended the conquest."” If ‘Tahuantinsuyu initially disintegeated into fragments and splinters, of varying size and ethnic integrity, there were still occasional references in the late colonial period to indigenes of Antisuyu or Collasuyu provenance, so much so that one recent study of loyalties in the “general uprising’ of 1780 employs sun affiliation as its essential heuristic marker." So, too, during the same uprising, contemporary witnesses au fait with local lore referred to participation by Lupagas and Collas,2! for all thet these traditional ethnic identifications were secondary to geographical prov- nance, Facial phenotyps)yr cacicazgo ascription as distinguishing features “OF Groups and individuals in the surviving documentation. This documentation, however, frequently gives the impression that traditional 5 from one " Alejandro Malaga Medina, ‘Las reducciones en el Peri, 1532-1600", Histria Galtre, no. 8 (1974), pp- 441-73; Bernard Lavelle, ‘Las doctrinas de indigenas como: inicleos de explotacién colonial (Lima 1600-1630)", Apancis, vol. 16. 0. 19 (498%), Dp. 151-723 Wightman, Indigenour Migration, post. Magnus Méroct and Bain Trelles, “A Test of Causal Interpretations of the Tipac Anvaew Rebelion’, in Stern, Resistance, Rebel, pp. 94-109. This i » nvch reduced version of ide, ‘Un imtento de ealibrar ls aetitudes bacia reheliin en ef Caren dlorante Ip accidi de Tpae Amara’, Research Paper, Institute of Latin. American Stulies, Stockholm, #985. See, for example, Archivo General ele Indias (hereafter AGI), Auliencia de Lima, Leg. to44, Claverin Renddn to Areche, 29 May +781, which refers to “los indios reveldes ‘nomsrados Lupacas (que asi se denominan los de ly Provincia de Chucuyto)”334, David Cabill ethnic categories had been subsumed within the Hispanic categories of ace, class and estate imported from the metropolis to the American colonies. The cities, it is eyue, were great levellers, caucibles. of dergcination.*? But in the numerous pueblos and villas of the countryside, traditional gauges of ethnicity continued to flourish, despite official appeatances. ‘Thus fiscal and census records tended to group population according tofphenotypes with tive allowance for broad classifications such as ‘mestizos’ or cliding entirely the richness of aurochthoaaus ethnic diversity. Yet these persisted for the most part, submerged within the official categories. How did the ethnic distinctions of the Incario survive throughout the colonial period? They endured, in the first place, theough aylla omenclature and ascription. ‘The traditional ay/lv was, then and even in a process of long metamorphosis from a kin-based social unit to one comprising, a oumber of unrelated extenced families with access to conporative fan." Many of dhe evionial «las bore ethnic names, most or all of which derive either from erstwhile mitmag settlements or even earlier “outlier” groups." Suill other evidence ritual, iconographic and semi- ological ~ underscores the thesis of subterranean survival of traditional ‘thaic classifications oxhersiise abseured by Hispanic fiscal and census categories, First, ceremonial and carnivalistic danee, costume, and Pagcantry teproduce original ethnic distinctions down to the present day, though it is true that much of this eviderice has acquired syneretic traits along the way, and some dances attested in early colonial times have disappeared, either eatively or pa ly.2 Secomit, languages ane dialects * Anco in his eae has ren Jol B. Ce, Rac ad lac in anil Oana (Stantotd, 1978), concern the gradual digolution of urban thn dstvetions in Antequers de Oasaca * There ivan extensieeInerture on the al. A workshop oH the intttion produced rabitria y atrapaliie andi: gue orn del Mate National de Wisteria eon. A Castell, M: Roth de Paredes and. M, Mould de Pease, Lima, 1981). Antoine Molinié-Foravami, The Andean Community Today’, im Mora et tly nthapalapeal Hintr, pp. 43-18, provides a rudimentary typology of present-day communities, “Thus, for example, alla Cai and aslia Ceoneco in the Joctrina of Andabunyliass asliu Lupacain the doetina of Ocongate (both in he province of Quiscanchis); athe Mismac in the town and province of Cale; aud aylin Canas in the Gocttina a Guarocondo, province of Nbaueay —all such aames appear to indicate the er presence of mi/mageanspopulainns Manis Ronworow3ki de Diez Canseco, “1 bite 0 lo sito agri nains (te sporcental, sige SVU", Usa 7 Cale, 17 (1984), pp 34-604 Bert Ares Quel, ‘as eazas eh indie: win eaminn pata seangtizein del vireina del Peo Reread adn, vel. 44.0. 174 (4gRa) 445-53. David Cab, "Eun historia: Ie danzants stale lel Cupeo fete I cola" Relic de Archi Departament del Caan, rr 2 (AG) 4 yo evidence tha the fon nan stance of the Ayacucho region sas also perfor in the Cuzco region i late colonial Racial and Lvhwic Categories in the Wiceroyalty of Derw 335 have also been important inulicators oF ethnicity. In the late colonial period there were four languages spoken in the southern Sierra: Quechua, ‘Aymara, Uru and/or the extinct Puquina, Then as now, there was much variety in Quechua dialects ~ 37 distinct dialects have been reeorded with that of Cuzco vastly different from that of, say Ancash oF Quito, Third, headwear, clothing and textiles generally were simitarhy important markers, 2 function that they still retain in many provinces, especially away from the larger towns. Under the Inca, as John Rowe long ago noted, ‘the inbabitants of each province wore a distinctive headdress, usually a cord binding the hair or a woollen cap’? Members of the nobility, for their part, wore a whole array of distinctive insignias and dlothi ethnicity as well as rank. Ethnology is familiar with the(sjstem of sign incorporated in pres native Andean apparel, and the fact that other groups such as (ouestians) are readily recognisable by their distinctive clothing. Modern attempts to capture or even, sch by the problem ofcthuie eross-dressiagg which in part derives from Indiaw voidance of tribute, and partly from the phenomenon of ftansculturalist ‘whereby an individual, rather than merely acting as a culvusal broker, may pass wholly over to the alien culture, adopting its speech, clothing and lifeways entirely."® More commonly, perhaps, many in colonial society matise such colonial cultural dilferences,"” however, are complicated AGI Cureo ex. 29, Moscoso 9 Pera to Ateche, 15 April 1781, temas pa the tenacity of Amerindian Tanga, barely chanel since the chest and that i se seitlent (iuubahly Pun) three “distinct, totaly opposed idioms ~ Quechua, ‘Aymara, and. Pagina ~are spoken, feusteating all atempre 0 introduce etl Pagal’, vine as Know ion nay eonmucst aye and hug to have isappenred midway theough x colonial period, may bess be a senonsm for Uru, sill mn. See alto Afredo Torero, *Lingttcn« historia de hon 1 Bolivia, in Alberto Hscotar (ed), Erte del malilingtime ene Pra (Cima, 1973), pp. s1=t06, and Ibico Rojas Rojas, Expenin dl! Quechua: primeror Fontacer cn carton (Lisa, 1978). ‘The alplae langunges remain the subect of vigorous debate: se AlfedoForer, “Lengua y pueblos altphinicos en torn a siglo XVI, Revita Andine, so 5. 0. 2 (997) Pps 329-72, and the slated commentaries pp. 375-405. # Rowe, “ines Culture’, p. 260, ™ Mary Money, Los abrajen taj el comecio de rapa en la Aten de Charces (La Par, 1980), pp. 185-208 for eighteenth.cemtury dese distinctions. For the natare of textile ches, see the cemarkable extay of Veronica Cereceda, “The Semiology of Andean sacs the tafe of Inlaxa’, in Monta etal, Anthropol Iitery P= 849-73 he eighteenth acl ninetcenth centuries the peculartis of hae drexs were sented by eoxtuadrite paievings and leawiggs, for the most part ro fanciful to uploy a evideice For historical etlini demarcation, A seleetion ofthese i eoproduced in Dawn Ades etal Artin Latin Ameria: The Me tacigde (New Haven, Ig) Pe ay Gye © For an example, David Cahill and Semess Q'belan Godoy, *oaging their Own History: Indian Insurgency in dhe Southern Peruvian Siera, 1815", Bletin of Latin Anrican Rerardh, vol. 14,90. # (0992) Ps 146 for the cake Pera Mateus. A vid336 « Danid Cabill moved readily and easily between the European ‘derived’ and native Andean ‘autochthonous’ cultures, for the principal poles of colonial ethnicity were determined for practical purposes by the royal exchequer; colonial social reality was at once more fluid aud seamless than racial cam fiscal classifications allowed, Throughout the colonial period, there was a perennial struggle to Kswhiten one’s social status, not least because to be classified officially as indigenous rendered one liable for tgibute, the capitation tax paid only by that sector of society. This official “whitening” was never easy to attain, but once the mandatory bureaucratic hurdles had! been surmounted, a petitioner would be awarded the coveted Gell de gracias’ al sacar on payment of a legally prescribed fee. On the other hand, classification as non-indigenous rendeted one liable for a range Cather taxes, ‘To confuse! the picture even more, the fees for sacraments within the Church/earied, sometimes widely, according to a parishioner's ethnic or racial as cription.*" The colonial Church operated as a business, and there was a tariff schedule for each sacrament; parishioners who could not pay were often denied the sacrament, with perhaps only that of extreme unction being the exception to the tule. A change in racial status thus denoted @ change in Gscal status, andl vice nrsa Fiscal status in the Viceroyalty of Peru turneil largely on one’s liability for, or exemption from, tributes® All Indian heads of houscholds were liable, at rates that varied according to province (and even pueblo and aylly), a8 to whether one was an dndio orjginario oF an jndio forastern, as well as to the degree of access to community lands enjoyed by a tributary. There were a number of individuals (caciques, the eldest son of the Ye cacique, collectors (‘segundas’), nobles, church servants) who were ostensibly exempt, while still others escaped the net through grafs,which typically involved collusion between two or more local notables. Yet even, successful graft, as distinct from formal exemption, carried with it poss le istration ofthe clei pales odes treed by she Vieeoy Agustin de Jone y Alera: is Rl Cabrel Renton Cen, Ma ot) «apron. 179, he teh "ino reer ep wer tape inasaere that accompanied th rel eaute of Chucvivoi tybr That this confusion ative than hype may Been David Chil “Taxonomy of + Colonial “Rit the Ateqipa Dstrbanecs of 780" Joan R Eaten J: and Anthony Nectar (ln). Rom oo nara ng. Bearbon Now Grom nd Pere (Bato ROW, 1990 Sb Javie Ton ‘Soiedad elon yields fin) no. VE pp 3-1 Dad Cail, “Care and Soci Cone inthe Bact of nny ftec¥6r4, Jona of Cate Ameria Sten, vl 1698) 14-I}; Sextet Olan Go Reeling sn Rvs Ethene Der ad Upper Pore (Kl, sgh op aoe Racial and Lthue Categories in the Viceraylty of Pern 337 disadvantages for a tributary, for access to community land was predicated upon an individual's name appearing on the official tribute list. This list was revised (the ‘reviia’) a¢ periodic intervals, especially in the late colonial period, and was often followed by a reallocation of communal plots among tributaries; in some provinces these lands were scarce, and many missed out, Indeed, it is usually overlooked that indios were not always the poorest segment of society: communal plots served as a kind of social ‘safety net’, whereas non-indigenous groups.often had no, access (land, and eked out a meagre living as best they could, There are emphatic statements by district governors in both colonial and republican Peru to the effect that the poorest.inhabitants within their remit were Cruestigaryprecisely because they lacked even the smallest plot of subsistence iand.** It is perhaps due to this increasing pressure on finite ar ds that, towards the end of the colonial period, the designation of begins Jo-appeaton teibute lists as integral members of communities. * Quite who comprised this new group is not clear, especially when contemporary locumentation labels one individual as a ‘fansox0 cholo viejo” and,indio rico’ in the same breath.” Scholars are familiar with attempts to correlate © David Cahill, ‘Repattos ilcitos y familias principales en el sur andino, Rerisn elias, wo. 4, 8. 182-4 (498R), pp. 44°74; Matia Isabel Remy, loca is 780-1824", a sociedad 0 de Ia Republica. Cuzco 1R34- 1850", Revista nding, vol. 6 0. 3 (1988), DP 451-843 Mis Jacobsen, “Campesinos y renencia de la tierra en el atiplane peruana 1 In transi de In Colonia ba Repsicn’, Aljamchit, vol. 23, 00, $7 (1998), pp. 5-92. Alunsa Casia.de a Vandera, Reforma. dd Reed trans. Pablo Maceta, Lima, 1966 ‘expats’ and that ether all ar none were mestzon. Sec, tony the tematks of the Tntendant of Pano fnfersing that » group of espe! complainants were "espatioles supuestos y figurndos": ADC, Real Audiencia: Axuntos Adminitrativos Leg 145, “gee. de apelacicn hecha...ea orden elecidn...de Meade de Espafoles.". 8 Apr 9 ‘ADC, Invendenct: Real Hacienda Le. 207 ‘Lista de lo Yautios contsbuientes del Paehio de Poroy Paroquia de Sata Ana 17913 ADC, Real Audiencia: Ordintias Leg. 53, ‘Expediente promovido por Scbasian istaa...y Yadioe origina Pueblo de Moxo 15 Nov. 180, The former lists» separate catepons teers in the, community, the latter ists “choltos” who pay t appropriate o“indis forasteros'. Note, too, theallembracing ws ofthe term in AGI, Auuicncia del Cuzco, Leg. 12, “Tesiwonio del Esporte. de la Vicia heebn cn el Hospital de Naturale dela Chadad del Creo", 5 June 1816 eferting tothe disorder sveasioned by ‘los Cholos Insurgentes. ‘The term sas concurrently in axe i neighbouring Caras: AGI, Fstado Leg. 77, “Fateacto sostancial de In su recivida sobre el tumuko acaccdo en it Vila de Oroto.x', #781, notes that "se juntaon muchos choles” inthe unfurting ofthe opising, maming Rive of them, al of whom bore Spanish surnames % Cahill and O'Phelan, “Forging theie Own History’, pp. 147-4 analyses patcipat anal leadership by 2 group ot “cholos principales” in am uprising: a «elde existed alongside, and perhaps merges! with, an indiads, An even looser enntemparare Alesiniton is ofered at AGI, tiferente General he, 1525, Comestacisn ie dirge338 David Cabill sclass-and.ethsigify; but perhaps in vis case notions of class are entering Gn ihe very defnion of tie catego for al tat the colo Goeid eine fr rsance te orig of salen between a tez0 and an ‘indio’. The elaboration of such cast tes) genealogies of breeding in the strict sense ~ was a characteristic of the colonial period, and seems , to have been especially prevalent during the eighteenth cencury. We are} warned, however, not to invest such efforts with too much importance. Penelope Corfield refers to ‘the eighteenth-century ferment in sociai 4! terminology’ with regard to Britain, arguing thac it was ‘a period of expanding vocabulary, experimentation in usage, and fluidity of style and expression’. A cognate study of social classifications in early modern Spain advances the similar view that ‘a realignment of social relationships? appears to have occurred in the.cighteenth century, while also noting a ‘coeval tendency to render the traditional polarisation of society into “rich” andpoor’ more starkly than previously.” In a sense, though, Magnus Mérner anticipated these recent views twenty-five years apo in his pioncering study of race mixture in Latin American history. He noted the almost pathological interest in genealogy that is characteristic of the age’, pointing out that associated sacio-racial terminology was ‘more precisely elaborated in the eighteenth century’. Morner drew attention to a series of paintings illustrative of race mixture, as well as to related lists or genealogies. These comprised, in effect, a series of almost mathematical permutations and combinations that sought to exhaust all possible racial couplings, taking into account the offspring of cach union so as to complete the equation (which, according to such logic, ‘was almost infinite). This is, for Mérner, redolent of eighteenth-century exoticism and rococo’,®” and there is assuredly much to be said for this view, expecially given the romantic ethnological dimension to the A Cnlightenment. Mémer records two lists, one of sixteen couplings for Mexico, and one of fourteen similar unions in the Vieetoyalty of Pét Devising such genealogies was perhaps something, of a parlour game for the wits of the age, but at this eemove it is difficult to view it as other than an unhealthy obsession with casteCharacter and quality Wwere hell to vary 76 1 Doctor Don Mariano de fa Torte y Vera." 6 April 814, fol. Iv: *..son Tlamados Cholos...los q, teniendo mezela de indio, o de negro estén ya entreveradas con cxpafioles por sucesivas generaciones. A esta clase de gentes aman Guaylaychos en CChogisaea, Guarangos en Buenos Aytes, Caayari en el Paraguay.” Penelope J. Corfield, Class by Name and Number in Righteenth-eentucy Britain’, ‘dem (d.), Langage, History and Clats (Oxford, 1991), p. 102. A.A. Thompson, ‘Hideles and peclere: the language of "estates" and "classes in cearly-moulers Castile’ i thi, pp. 73-4 Alagus Mioener, Rar Mixture dhe tory of Latin Amerie Baston, 1967), pps 389. id Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Viceroyaly of Pere, according to the fulour and origing/of the ‘ethnic types” who comprised these genealogies, known generically as ‘castas" or ‘geniearos’.! Here is one sch Ist, a “gencilogia de la Pebexs gente’ differing ftom both those proferred by Mérner in important respects 1. espafiol-+negea = mulato 2, mulato-Fespafiola = testerdn of tercerén J+ testerén-tespariola = quarterén 4 quarterdn-tespaiiola = quinterdn 5: quinterdn-bespatiola = blanco or espaol comin 6. negro-+mulata = sambo 7 sambo-+mulata = sambohigo 8, sambohigo+ mulata = tente en el aire 9. tente en el aire-+mulata = sata atris bn tente en el aire Be india = salea atrés 4. chino 15, chino -bnegra 16, criollo-+negra rechino or eriollo The text accompat ing this breeding calculus indicates that there were also categories of ‘requintersn’” and ‘torna a espaiol" in eighteenth: century Peru. The addition of these two items plus the thie original eategories of “indio, espaiiol, negro” provides a grand total of zwenty-one socio-racial categories ~ ‘las ramas de los precitaclos troncos’.** Nor does AGI, Indiferente General Leg. 1428, “Deseripcin de todos los pueblos del Vireinatn del Peru, fls. 41-4 (nud. but paleography indicates second half of the eighteenth ceniury; To. 41, noting that foreigners the Consulado of Cadiz were thus denoted and that socio-racal groups in Peru, ‘aunque de la misma Patria oriundes, les puede Aistinguie con ef nombre de Genizaros' ‘The Dicinare dela Lengua Fiptola (Med 4972) notes that “entraro’ refers to the offspring of mixed parentage in Spain (e Spanish and Pench, of eambyo and cin In Btn, and sive fem the tro os go ney mie Goines the ‘kin enpeors pa Osher dctonariy concur with thi definition and etymology, while retaining the spelling of "penfeare AGE, Indifetente Genera ty38,"Decripeon’, olan * Ibid, fol. anv. "These 21 eateyoris dlr markedly from what colonial administrators deemed appropriate for gensinpmepore, from the five (em rnegeos libres, esclavos) of the 1795. vicetegal census, to, mestizos, ngros, mulatos, uartetones,quinterones, rambo, chinos) of the 1990 Lines = sensus: see J.R. Fisher, Gorrnment and Society in Colonia! Peru: the Ineant System s7ty-rti4 (London, 1970). pp. 231-3, and. British Museum Add MS. 17380, 280-29, ‘Plan demostativo lela poblacvn...de ls ciudad de Lima respectively. Inthe aborted (g78\utrci of Visitor-General José Ant and the 1784 Invrmcién Of his successor, superintendant Jorge. scobedo. the twibutaydistinetions are “indie cholos” and ‘zamlnigos's both these documents are repronluced in Carlos J. Diae Rementeri, “Fn torno-a un agpecto de In poliues feformista de Carlos ML: Las matefculas de ributari en los Virelnatos de Per y Rio dela Pata’, Revista de Dies wo. 37, 90. 47-8 (1977) pps st-1¥9. 1 nine (espaol, indion© s40. David Cobilt this: list exhaust all possibilities, for Mérner’s Peruvian and especially Mexican lists contain more novelties, while he has an addendum of nine further such terms, We are thus in the presence of something approaching fifiy different socio-racial terms for the two viceroyalties, even without taking into account kindred terminology in Central America, the Southern Cone, Venezuela, the Audiencias of Quito and Charcas, much less the Spanish Caribbean, Amazonia, and the borderlands of the north. Clearly, a socio-racial glossary for all Spanish-American territories would be enormes." Whether it would be of much use to historians attenspting a Feconstruction of the colonial past is, however, open to doubt on several rounds. In the frst place, this hycira-like caste classification system obscures the obvious point that ‘only a few distinctions could be made on the basis of the.phenotype or appearance alone’, thereby rendering ‘the genealogical -~ criterion of ethnic classitication...absurd’.!* However, this Satement ‘Teeds to be qualified. That such a system is highly impractical for the social historian is manifest; yet in a society (Such as colonial Pert) characterised by low levels of literacy, other visual and mnemonic skills tend © be highly developed, not least at the lower end of the social pecking drder. An altesaative sysicnt Of sigh}evolves, in which items of clothing nd, literally, the .warp and woof of materials signifies a social miedsige, a notation of rank, provesgnce and even occupation to those privy to the encoded message. This was so in Incaic Peru, was preserved throughout the colonial period, and persists in places even today ~ but only to the legatecs of this alternative alphabet of ‘the woven word”.!® Yet by their nature such codes are rarely reflected, even obliquely, in the surviving written record, and thus can be registered as nothing more than a general caveat to any social history. Although the historian is occasionally vouchsafed a chink of light, for the most part social analysis sorts according to the crude categories originally devised by ethnographically-obtuse colonial bureaucrats, simply beeause it was the language of fiscal and demogeaphie records on which much of our knowledge of the colonial past rests. was used in colonial discourse, it tended to be subsumed within the more encompassing official terminology, while in the bulk of the surviving legal documentation a rubric that encompasses most extant historical evidence ~ plaintiffs, defendants, appellants and petitioners were either “These numbers reflect the evadeness of fiscal liste base on just a few racial eategories Rowe's 86 pre-Columbian categories (see note #8), all or most af which bore ethnic connorations; «0, too, there are 37 Quechua dialects, apart from other languages, whiel again ate ethnic nurkers. 4" Mommer, Race Miter, p59. Coreceda, ‘Semiologe of Andean Textiles’ in Muren etal, Antbrpoleicel History, pp. N90. Kee con. While there exists but equivocal evidence for thi #1 principal determinant of soci ‘en where alternative terminology ay Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Vicereyalty of Pern 41 encouraged or constrained to represent themselves as afiliated to one of the official ethnic categories. ‘Thus, by way of example, a ‘quinterdn” might be classified for the duration of litigation as either ‘espaaol” or ‘mestizo’. Perhaps more importantly, on the long view, Class became an. increasingly important invlicator of social status as the colonial period ‘contention across space and time, there is in late colonial Peru a body of qualitative evidence thar supports the cahanced stati portance of economic class as the tion. In particular, in an important Indian uprising in 1815, the leadership is seen to comprise the wealthier sectors of indigenous society, rather than the traditional office-holders (inclusling, the parveme ‘caciques intrusos") who had hitherto. exercised Political authority over native Andean town-dwellers and peasantry alike.** A further obstacle to employing such a nebulous socio-racial calculus for heuristic purposes — even were it desirable to do so ~is that the content of such terminolozy changes over time, indeed from region tw region, and from one academic discipline to another. None of the terms dliscussed was in any way a value-free, objective description of phenotype, and all were historically conditioned. The point is a crucial one, for the content of terminology well understood in one way during the colonial Period is often brought forward to the present, without taking on board the cultural baggage that such labels have acquired over the succeeding. Awo hundred years. Conversely, and perhaps more damagingly, current Lesage of terms such as ‘mestizo’ and ‘creole’ anachronistically projected back onto earlier centuries, thereby distorting social-scientific and historical analysis of questions of power, authority, stratification, culture, 1 and political participation, Some social scientists are similarly well aware of the evolving content of ethnic and racial terminology, and of the complexity of the interplay of all too often lass and ethnicity,’ not least because researchers, their informants and ‘historical source material each employ the same terms in different wavs, Sf Questions of place, culture, linguistic diference, race and lative wealth intercede in the resolution of this semantic confusion, so much so that Pierre van den Berghe has written that ‘the relative salience of class and ethnicity as explanatory concepts in the understancling of social structure is an empirical question’; and, he might have added, at all times and everywhere, Pur another way, the kinds of socio-racial and ethnic terms © Dieree L. Van De (Leides, 1974), p. Seiener Literature’,342° Darid Cabill presently under discussion have no objective meaning outside the immediate historical and social context in which they were used. x ere the contest iTizcoloaial PER in which notions of class, estate, sace, and ethnicity were constantly transforming one another, while particular weight will be accorded usage in the provinees of the southern sierra, The term that has caused most confusion is that of ‘espaiiol’, In colonial documentation, it rarely denoted a peninsular Spaniard, but rather an American of Spanish ancestry. Unfortunately, translation of “espafol’ as “Spaniard” has led to peninsular Spaniards being vested with more than their fair share of historical sins. The termd espafiol}! embraced, in the eighteenth century, some 13% (140, 890) of the colonial population, from creole aristocrats bearing Spanish titles of nobility to the ‘poor white’ Jowerardess scateered throughout cities and the villages of the countryside." The ‘espafioles’ liked to consider themselves as being of Spanish extraction de pura cepa, but there was considerable miscegenation amongst this group, in the upper tiers as among the lower orders. How, then, were peninsular Spaniards resident in colonial Perw denoted? There were a number of terms, employed variously in popular parlance and official document ‘cbapetén’ (cf. the Mexican usage of ‘gachupin’), ‘cotenses’,"* ‘europco’, and the morcant Quechua “pucacunea’ (lit. ‘rednecks’) were the rule.® In official and legal documentation, which also spilled! over into common usage, the phrase ‘de /os reinos de Expaita’ was employed, or the more direct ‘de Galicia’, ‘de Andalucia’ ete., tended to be the norm. Shorter abbreviations stich as *europeo', “gallego’, ‘cafaldn’ were officially acceptable. The ‘expadoles’ were, nevertheless, distinet frm theteuiaed whose comprised a separate census category. Quite what separated the ‘ mestizos" from the lower levels of the ‘espaitol” group is not at all cleat, for the latter eviclently contained many mixed-race persons. It was thus tat a question of-tacd— or even_of class in the first_instance - but rather off Though the possible determinants of this last Gostume, argot,cte.) are similarly unclear. A better translation of ‘espaiiol” is ‘eriollo’, though this word, in its turn, is loaded with historically-conditioned conflicting signals ion. In the former case, the terms tive Andean chronicler Guamin Poma occasionally "The figures are from the 1795 census, summary of which isin J. R, Fisher, Gonermment sad Society it Colonial Pern, pp 251-3 AGI, Audlicncia del Cuzeo, Leg. 7, infor of Real Andiencia, 11 December 1813, notes that 4 erowd shouted ee slogan “viva lt Pata. nueren los Covenses” following the aerett of separatist conspirators, Pucacunca’ was widely used, and recurs in testimonies af the 1780 and ¢R14 uprising for the former, Rafael José Sahuaraura Tau Atauchi, “Fstado del Peed” (r784) in (Calcin Dacunetal dee Independencia del Pei (Lima, 1971) tomo I, vo. 1, p. y4}:"Los calles, © indianos, Haman a Tos eoropens “chapetones”, los indior [les aman} “pucacuneas™, which term Sabuaraura translates as “pescuero colorido’. Racial aud Ethnic Categories in the Viterayalty of Pern 343 employs “eriollo’ as a synonym for ‘mestizo’" whereas in present-day Petu it refers to inhabitants of the coast and aspects of coastal and: especially fimefo culturé.** ‘Crigllo’ was for the mast-part_ca:terminus ith fespaiiol’ in the cihteenth century,® but its widespread use came in the wake of political separation and independence from Spain in the carly ninetcenth century, an event that came to fepresent something of a watershed in ethnic and socio-racial terminology. ‘Espafiol’ became redundant, being simply replaced by ‘blancas', ‘nosincigenas’, and even ‘castas’ or ‘prictos’ for fiscal purposes, while ‘criollo’ came into its own as the most widely-used synonym for ‘espaiiol". Indigenous groups and ‘misti', Similarly, the colonial ‘indio', which even today carries pejorative connotations, became ‘indigena’, though the former is still favoured by historians of the colonial period, being an indispensable building block for colonial demographic, fiscal sad social history.** Yet these are starkly-contrasted! racial terms, albeit with important ramifications for political alliances. The older ethnic distinctions, continued to call outsiders (including creoles) ‘viracocha’,* *pucacunca” "Gam Voom, Mire Carica, some fl B47 fA p05 % Van Den Berge, The Use of lice Terms lat and Etc, pati, Vet even here enc ditions have ee counterpove onl to “mince ania” but alo 40 se fdamenally aan “eich maser, song iene wth cholo eure” “Though an aertivegeere ope wae certainly nevi Ths the eit reer ins land anc In Aymara In 17.6 ae described 4 neg erlle Aho Genera de In Nain (Vo), Sesion “Compeniiinve Tees Taigena bee “Compesicin a De Dn. oan Nace Ladue Gaceaa’ Amati, 904 Frederick P. Bowser, The African Slare in Colonial Pern 1424-1430 (Stanford, 1994), PP 2 Ho, 447 f, notes that slaves called “evillon” weve the ‘hun Spaniards and Portuguese’ the power af pears rv have been largely confines man Donna, Narra Codi, tn fol. $78 [380], p. 352: ‘ea este tiempo salieon los homes inn cars ctistianos”, and fol. 76 176), p. Go: "Ure Corba cristianopi rine {los seitores (espaioles) durante la ra ccistiana]"; also Garcilaso de la Vega, Repel Commentaries of thr Incat (tans. Harold V Livermore, Austin, 1966), vo. 1, flaok 4, ch. 4, "On the name Viraenche, and hy it was applied to the Spaniards". For ‘misti", see especially Jrge A Flores Ochoa, "Mists and Indians: theit Relations in a Micro-region of Curcn-, 19 Van Den Berge Class and Exhncty, pp. 62072. M was he eighteenth centory i pejorative use to describe non-indigenes: ‘porque cl era Indio y queen bebe acabarian con Ins Mists" ADC, Real Audliencia: Asuntos Administeativas Leg. 170." Expediente para dar cuenta, ala Real Audiencia..., § August 1fo9, Republican demography is dealt with in Geoege Kubler, The Indion Carte of Peru ‘9p-i9q0 (Washington, 1942); vis Miguel Glave, Demeprafia y confite. rc (Documento de Trabajo ao. 35, Insttato de Fstudios Peruano, Lima, 1988); Nils Jrcobsen, “Taxation in early Republican Pee 831: policy making between ‘reform and tradition’ in Reinhaed Licht (d.), America Latina ee cede Sim Balvor GBerlin, 1989), pp._s11-4: Paul Gootenberg, “Population and Exhnicity in Pale Republican Peru: Some Revisions’, Latin Americen Research Retin, vol. 26, 00 & (1991), pps t05-57-yaa Darid Cabill intermittently visible during, the great uprising of 1780-5, are yet again lost to view. It may be that the period after(i76), a date which in southern Peru marks the beginning of the full Bourbon fiscal onslaught, represented another watershed in the long dissolution of indigenous ethnic aifiiations. From around that date, the state's fiscal imperative inexorably drew more indigenes into the tribute net, while at the same time removing indigenous exemptions. from_a_range_of taxes borne by the non-indigenous social ‘groups. The only benefit in being ‘Indio’ at this time was the sccess this gave (0 comporative land, yet this was inadequate to meet indigenous demand, was from (7B3| subject to quinquennial reviews, and was (like indigenous evznpower) incressingly coveted and usurped by the burge oning numbers of non-indigenous leaciques Intruvos} who swarmed into icargos after 1780. Yet a widening of the tribute net th to. capture ‘espatigles and ‘aestizo3) who had hitherto escaped registration as tributaries, as well as indigenes (especially nobles) who had formally or illicidly evaded the capitation tax. It became ficult to_pass_as \ Lespaiol” after 1765, especially after 178i.)largely because of increasing state fiscal efficiency,] while the opening up of the cacicazges to_non- indigenous ini ts during the same period markedly sharpened! inter-) ca tensions. A’ simultaneous assault by the Crown on the ethnic, “especially Incan, dimension to po tural and feligious customs.and. praxis, rendered ethnic nrke less visible, though they are not entirely extinet even today. What seems clear is that, on the eve of independence (gconomic lassdias emerged as the prineipal determinant of social stratification, within as outside of indigenous society. Such processes are most visible to the historian in the provinces of southern Peru, bbut whether they were paralleled by developments elsewhere in the viceroyalty is a question for future research. Such racial.terms refer variously and variably to race, class, ethnic and culture. The use of “inestizo’ as a vague cultural marker to describe the upper levels of (especially provincial) urban and rural society has been a major cause of obfuscation and anachronism when projected onto past societies. ‘Thar there has been some cultural integration levelling in Peru since inclependence seems clear, yet there remain influential pockets of elites who look elsewhere for their primary cultural sustenance. Lthnographers tend to divide rural society into indigenous" ancl either ‘mestivo’ oF ‘misti* elements,7 overlooking the strong Hispanic tradition by no means wholly extinet today. When projected back onto the colonial period, we find the city of Cuzeo governed by the ea These processes are aldressed in Cahill, ‘Cras and Social Conteol’, pp. 241-593 Cail and O'Phelan, "Forging their own History", pp. 133, See, ef, Flores Cchon, ‘Misti and ladians' a Rocial and dhnic Categories in the Wicerayalty of Perw sas ‘Mestizo authorities’, whereas many of those who did govern Cuzco in the colonial period bore Spanish noble titles, some were descended from thesriginal conquistadores of Peru, and all were obsessed with notions of Jimpieza de sangre, Similarly, for such elites, thd notion of ‘mestizo culture) id ave been viewed as an oxymoron, for those then considered as ‘mestize)-were. placed low on the social ladder,..perhaps just above CehoTos Sthough this Initer term appears to have lacked, in the colonial period, the pejorative associations chat it so often bears in moclern Peru, ‘The formulation of a socio-racial breeding calculus to describe the complexity of colonial society in Peru was, even in the eighteenth century, at once baroque and simplistic, not to mention racist. It included categories rarely, if ever, encountered in workaday life. Paradoxically, however, it overlooked many of the deter that Perwvians themiselves acknowledged ants of social differentiation ‘The many-layered pre- Columbian ethnic tradition, which persisted into and throughout the colonial period, was entirely lost to view. The type of brutis calculus compiled by the literary elites of the ‘Age of first and foremost ethoxraphically ignorant. Yet the ethnic distinctions of Tahuantinsuyu that merged with colonial ways of seeing were fragmented and refracted through the imposed categories derived from carly modern Spain, While the ethnic identities of the Incario survived, they had lost uch of their raison aétre in the turmoil attending, the conquest; that is to say, they were subject to ‘dlestructuraion’, to a degree cut adrift from the social and political moorings that had lent them much of their meaning. ‘Thus some sitmagkma populations continued much ax they were, 10 become etlinie oddities stripped of their control function, and thus of power, authority and prestige over other ethnic groups. Demographic devastation, the resettlement of dispersed communities into nucleated towns, the corporative land reparticiones of the 1syos, the sundering of ethnic ascription though the distribution of encomiendar, and the fragmentation of the large political divisions (Aurakazeos, etnias, seloriot) into smaller administrative units -all contributed to the process. of “destructuration” of the ethnic distinctions of the Incario.!* wen without consid ‘ons of autochthonous ethnicity, however, the an nature of socio-ta ial categories throughout the colonial period and through to the present is striking, ‘The subtle permutations and Conpus Christi in Caren: Bestival ane Eth Peruvian Andes? (anpublish! doctoral disscta OF). p28 Most anthropological stules of Andean societies perpetuate this false mestizo/Indian opposition, Wachtel, Hsien of dt Vangited, yp 89H. The teem sips structures, or parts of then, nos lniger contained withi in whics they had previously existed’ entity in the he survival of ancient he relatively coherent contexta6 David Cabill combinations of race, ethnicity, class, estate ~ and even occupation, the division of labour, and cultural traits~ complicate the picture im- measurably, Above all, “ethnic” can never be pared down to a reference solely to racial phenotype. ‘There remains much gegional. difference in terminology, , because usage is always and everywhere historically conditioned. For all that ethnicity is protean, there was no smooth evolution of terminology. A certain rupture may be observed between colonial and republican formulations, yet the two are often conflated in social science literature. Here the difficulty is that historians imbue terminology with one meaning, social scientists with another. It perhaps requires the latter to become more historically informed, and the former to become more attuned to present social realities. It is worth recalling in this context Maitland’s celebrated dictum that anthropology will be history, or it will be nothing at all, Finally, to point out the myriad difficulties in the historical use of ethnic and socio-racial terminology does ‘not mean that we must divest ourselves of the social stratification models that have served social-historical analysis thus far, but rather that these are capable of further refinement, and that their users need to be aware of the social nuances that prevail in any given era. Historical reality and the dynamies of social relations are always threatening to surpass the bounds of imposed heuristic eateyories. As Mmner lias put it, ‘social reality, especially in its more subtle nuances, always appears to be wriggling, its way out of our hands’. * Mouner, “Cass, Strata and Bites", p. 59.