On Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest

This is an interesting work in that it’s a study of the Spanish conquest of the Andes, but it reads almost more as anthropology or sociology than history. The important thing that Stern is examining here is the way that Peru’s Indians resisted Spanish conquest. This occurred in a number of different ways, whether it being to refuse to labor for Spanish conquistadores, large scale rebellion (including an anti-Christian, millenarian revolt in the mid-sixteenth century), or relying on the Spanish legal system to seek out justice.

While the early years of Spanish colonization in Peru (and Bolivia), saw large numbers of Native peoples resist through what we might call “direct action,” the ability of the Spanish to militarily put down these rebellions greatly weakened them. By the end of the first century of Spanish colonization, there was little in the way of violent uprising. Peruvian Indians instead opted to go directly through the system, weakening their ability to push forth their own sense of identity. In the end, although Peruvian Native identity persists (Quechua is quite widely spoken, for instance), creolization became much more widespread and mixed-race children could be found nearly everywhere.

In addition to this, Stern talks quite a bit about the political economy of the Spanish conquest (especially in relation to the silver and mercury mines of Huamanga), but a lot of this material went over my head. It was a bit too sociological for me, and I didn’t really “get it.” As I study more of this, I’m hoping that it’ll make a bit more sense.