«Language Conquest»: Colonial Quechua Grammars as a Model of Cultural and Linguistic Acculturation

The article is devoted to the role and place of Quechua in colonial Peru, which is the most widely spoken native language in both American continents. A comparative analysis of a number of grammars and dictionaries (including records) written in the 16th‑17th centuries by the representatives of the clergy has become the basic method for recent scientific investigation. Those were the representatives of the clergy who took the most active part in the process of «language conquest» which led to Quechua integration into the intellectual field of Spanish culture and then consequently into the European one. The paper also presents the analysis of the current state of the issue study, which concludes that many points of the problem have not found the proper coverage in science yet. The sources are analyzed on the following points: the attitude of the authors of grammars to the Quechua language; the main goals of writing grammars; their structure and content’s peculiarities; the main cultural and linguistic categories used to describe and analyze the Quechua language in the period under review. The analysis made it possible to come to the following conclusions. Firstly, the attitude of the clergy towards Quechua can be described as ambivalent. Secondly, the main goals of writing can be interpreted as a practical one (mastering the language in order to Christianize the Indians more effectively) and as well as an ideological one (integrating Quechua into the Christian cultural field through its study), although both of them, of course, are interrelated. Thirdly, the analysis allowed us to distinguish the following cultural and linguistic categories that were applied to Quechua: eurocentrism, theoretical and religious orientation. Finally, the main conclusion drawn from the study is that the relationship existed between Spanish and Quechua can be characterized by the term «acculturation»

“The Grace of God and Virtue of Obedience”: The Archaeology of Slavery and the Jesuit Hacienda Systems of Nasca, Peru, 1619–1767

Multi-scalar archaeological exploration offers new insights for understanding Jesuit estate systems and the slavery they depended on for agroindustrial production. Since 2009, ethnohistorical and archaeological research on two haciendas, San Joseph and San Francisco Xavier de la Nasca, in south coastal Peru’s Ingenio Valley, has illuminated the Jesuit institutions of slavery and the hacienda in colonial Peru. Belonging to two distinct Jesuit institutions, the estates supported schools in Cuzco and Lima, respectively. Since acquiring their first properties in Nasca in 1619, both colleges grew their haciendas by absorbing neighboring fields and noncontiguous lands throughout the region, becoming the largest, most profitable vineyards in the viceroyalty by the time of the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the Spanish empire in 1767. Both hacienda administrations took similar approaches to property management and the large enslaved population that worked them, negotiating the cosmopolitanism of the communities and balancing obligations for evangelization and Christian discipline with the demands for agroindustrial production.

Earthquakes in Colonial Peru

Natural events have afflicted human societies periodically. They become disasters when their effects drastically alter and disrupt people’s quotidian patterns of life and political-economic organization. The chaos and distress natural disasters produce require people to react immediately, taking essential measures to cope with post-disaster conditions. While in the early 21st century, technological and scientific tools permit human communities to prepare for certain forecastable natural events, or to expedite responses to sudden and unforeseen disasters, such resources were lacking in early modern times. The viceroyalty of Peru was one of the most valuable colonial territories of the Spanish monarchy. Located over a telluric region, most of this colonial area was prone to earthquakes. However, colonial society’s understanding of earthquakes, and other natural events, influenced its reactions and how authorities responded to disaster. Learning about earthquakes in colonial Peru unveils early modern strategies of crisis management, which included both material and spiritual assistance. Furthermore, it reminds us of human communities’ vulnerability, which may increase when faced with monumental challenges during post-disaster periods.

The Legal Mechanics of Spanish Conquest: War and Peace in Early Colonial Peru

Whereas Anuschka Tischer’s chapter focusses on the early modern war discourse in Europe, Arnulf Becker Lorca in this chapter examines the legal mechanics of conquest in early colonial Peru. Conventional and postcolonial legal histories focus on the recognition of the indio as free subject, a reaction to the excesses of conquistadores that marked the beginning of the legal regulation of conquest. In contrast, this chapter shows that conquest from the beginning was a regulated enterprise. The law offered a mechanics of conquest. But this law was not only for the Spanish, but also for natives, including Inca elites to manoeuvre. Where conventional histories see in the law a promise of peace between Spaniards and natives, postcolonial histories (presented by Mallavarapu and Chimni in this volume) see a justification of war. In this chapter, we will see a continuum between war and peace with plenty of room for Spanish violence, with some room for Inca resistance, and with a potential, although limited, space for coexistence between the two.

As Slaves and Not Vassals: Interethnic Claims of Freedom and Unfreedom in Colonial Peru

Across much of the Spanish empire in the Americas, indigenous and African-descent peoples lived in close contact. The entangled nature of labor, both in urban centers and on massive complexes, gave them the opportunity to measure themselves against one another. Law that developed across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries suggested an eventual clarity about their separate conditions, but experience revealed the muddiness of both definitions and enforcement. Indigenous and Black subjects used those colonial discourses about freedom and hierarchy to understand their own positions and to argue for comparable protections and privileges. Rather than consider indigenous and Black lives separately, the essay argues for a more integrative approach to reading legal documents produced by and about them.