Peru (Atlantic History)

Introduction

Geographically, Peru’s closest point to the Atlantic Ocean is the tiny island of Anapia, in Lake Titicaca. They lie over 3,000 kilometers away from where the waters of the Atlantic touch the South American coast on the beaches of Saõ Paolo, Brazil. Geographically, Peru borders the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic, but its early modern history cannot be told separately from that of the Spanish Empire, which was an integral part of the early modern Atlantic world. Peru’s colonial people were not isolated traditionalists; they were active participants in the network of Atlantic empires. To this global community they brought incredible wealth from silver mines and, just as famously, fantasies of exotic natives and their romanticized past, which permeated early modern European culture. In many ways, the historical literature on Peru through the Independence period shares much with the scholarship on New Spain and the more peripheral areas of colonial Spanish America. However, the economic and social ties between the United States and Mexico—and the resulting linkages to the world economy—have resulted in a more extensive academic exchange, including a fuller historiography. Although the current generation of young Peruvian scholars is publishing outstanding works of great importance to the field, academic culture in Peru remains less developed than that of Mexico, and fewer foreign academics choose Peru as their area of specialization. Scholarship on Peru in the colonial or early modern period carries one important distinction from the literature on New Spain that makes it particularly dynamic. Although the native peoples of pre-Hispanic Peru had highly advanced societies with transportation infrastructure, military mobilization, and complex systems of taxation, they lacked the native systems of pictographic writing that many Mesoamerican cultures developed. Instead, many of Peru’s indigenous peoples recorded data about their history and their societies in knotted cords of fiber called khipus, which leading scholars are only now beginning to understand. This lack of pre-Hispanic and early conquest sources written from the native point of view has shaped historical methodologies from the first generation of the Spanish conquest through today. In order to access indigenous perspectives, innovative scholars have borrowed from anthropological, archaeological, and art-historical methodologies to access indigenous perspectives. This interdisciplinarity of Peruvian history in the early modern period has, since the early 2000s, produced some of the most groundbreaking historical scholarship on early modern Peru. It also bears mentioning that the other Andean nations of Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia were part of the Viceroyalty of Peru until 1739 (1776 for the case of Bolivia), which makes their colonial history deeply integrated in many ways. The literature surveyed here reflects this comprehensive historical identity of Peru. The national or modern period studies that today are such a vibrant area of Latin American scholarship are beyond the scope of this article, as once Peru separated from Spain, its ties to the Atlantic world dissipated.

General Overviews and Textbooks

While Peru is given adequate coverage in the leading reference works on colonial Spanish America, there are also several textbooks and overviews that focus specifically on Peru and the Andes. For general orientations to Peruvian history, Henderson 2013 Hünefeldt 2004, Klaren 2000, and Mörner 1985 offer good foundations. Hünefeldt is the most accessible for lower-division undergraduates. Starn, et al. 2005 provides a chronologically arranged overview seen through short critical essays by leading scholars in Peruvian history. Contreras and Cueto 2000 is a solidly researched and clearly written Spanish-language text. Most engaging is Andrien 2001, which utilizes the best of the multidisciplinary scholarship in the field to survey the history of native peoples through independence. Essential for scholars is Brading 1991, which deals with all of Spanish America, though it is generally stronger for the history of New Spain.

Andrien, Kenneth. Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture, and Consciousness under Spanish Rule, 1532–1825. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
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Interdisciplinary overview of indigenous peoples in Andean history. Draws on archaeology, art history, geography, and literary studies. Ideal for classroom use.
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Brading, David. The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492–1867. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
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Key resource for students and scholars of the colonial, independence, and early national periods. Masterful chronologically organized intellectual biography that definitively demonstrates how scholars, reformers, travelers, and ecclesiastics in Spanish America created a unique intellectual and political culture that drew on European resources and precedents to foster a uniquely “Spanish American” identity.
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Contreras, Carlos, and Marcos Cueto. Historia del Perú Contemporáneo. Lima, Peru: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2000.
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Important textbook by this leading economist from Lima’s Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) and a historical researcher from Lima’s renowned Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP), covering from independence to Fujimori period.
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Henderson, Peter. The Course of Andean History. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013.
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Chronologically organized survey of the pre-Hispanic era through 2000s, intended for student use. Covers Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, with occasional mention of Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina.
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Hünefeldt, Christine. A Brief History of Peru. New York: Facts on File, 2004.
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Created for secondary school students, but could be useful as a basic overview for a lower-level university class. Covers from the pre-Hispanic period to Alejandro Toledo’s presidency in the early 2000s.
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Klaren, Peter F. Peru: Society and Nationhood in the Andes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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Overview that pays special attention to historiographical debates and gives a long durée approach to Andean history, emphasizing the tensions between white elites and mestizo, native, and Afro-Peruvian groups. Chapters 2–4 focus on the conquest, colonial, and independence periods.
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Mörner, Magnus. The Andean Past: Land, Societies, and Conflicts. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
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Synthetic overview of the Andean nations of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru that ranges from pre-Hispanic times to the 1980s. Extensive focus on vertical integration in Andean landscapes, the importance of silver mining in regional colonial encounters, and the caudillo era.
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Starn, Orin, Carlos Iván Degregori, and Robin Kirk, eds. The Peru Reader: History, Culture, and Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
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In keeping with Duke’s Latin American Reader series, includes both excerpts of primary sources translated into English and relevant short articles by leading scholars. Pertinent chapters on “The Ancient Civilizations,” “Conquest and Colonial Rule,” and “Republican Peru.”
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Reference Guides and Online Sources

Scholars can readily access inventories for many of the colonial Peruvian documents that were returned to Spain and are kept at the Archive of the Indies in Seville through the Portal de Archivos Españoles (PARES). Scans of some of the documents are available online, the rest must be accessed in person at the archive. The National Archive of Peru has a much more limited online system called Archidoc, which allows users to search through selected legajos of 16th-century notarial documents, and then see the corresponding images, which are of high quality. Another useful online resource is the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, which serves as a clearinghouse for useful research links, and maintains several other useful databases. Pillsbury 2008 is an excellent resource that focuses entirely on the Andes, offering critical essays on key issues in the field, as well as a two-volume set of alphabetically arranged biographical entries. Tarragó 2006 is a much more specific bibliographical resource for those interested in studying Andean kurakas. TePaske 1981 and Hanke, et al. 1980 are both useful overviews of archives and their resources throughout the Andes.

Archidoc: Consultas en Linea. Lima: Ministerio de Cultura del Perú/Archivo General de la Nación.
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In 2014, Peru’s National Archive opened an online system allowing researchers to access PDF versions of select archival documents. Though the collection is limited — it includes only a selection of notarial documents from the 16th century — the images are high quality and the search function operates well.
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Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Madrid: Fundación Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.
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Links to essential online research resources in Spain and the Americas, including research institutions, collections, on historical figures such as Jorge Juan, and a periodical collection searchable online.
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Hanke, Lewis, Celso Rodríguez, Manuel Burga Díaz, et al. Guía de las fuentes en hispanoamérica para el estudio de la administración virreinal española en México y en el Perú, 1535–1700. Washington, DC: Secretaría General, Organización de los Estados Americanos, 1980.
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Overview of archives and their colonial holdings throughout Spanish America, with chapters on Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
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Pillsbury, Joanne, ed. Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530–1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008.
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Volume 1 focuses on documentation, with contributions by leading scholars, including Gary Urton on quipu, Kenneth Mills on the Provincial Councils, and Teresa Gisbert on sources for the study of visual culture. Volumes 2 and 3 feature alphabetical entries for leading figures in Peruvian history.
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Portal de Archivos Españoles. Madrid: Gobierno de España/Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.
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PARES is an indispensable resource for scholars of Atlantic Peru. It allows viewing of select documents and searching of archive inventories from repositories throughout Spain, including the General Archive of the Indies. The online catalog inventory is not yet complete, but it serves as an ideal point from which to begin further investigation.
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Tarragó, Rafael E. Los Kurakas: una bibliografía anotada (1609–2005) de fuentes impresas sobre los señores andinos en Perú y Alto Perú. Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2006.
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Annotated bibliography of English- and Spanish-language works on the Andean kurakas, including their contributions to local culture and relationships with the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown.
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TePaske, John J., ed. Research Guide to Andean History: Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1981.
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Extensive selection of articles that orient users to national, regional, municipal, and ecclesiastical archives in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru.
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Published Primary Sources

Scholars and students of colonial Spanish America benefit from a large set of book-length published primary sources that have been translated into English, often along with insightful scholarly commentary that makes them particularly suitable for classroom use. The largest group are drawn from the so-called Chronicles of the Conquest and early colonial period; including Arriaga 2014, Cobo 1979, Cieza de León 1998, Hyland 2011, Legnani 2005, and Sarmiento de Gamboa 2007. Guibovich Pérez 2008 covers an important two decades of the 17th century, with documents pertaining to the visita of Bishop Mollinedo of Cuzco. The 18th century is also well represented, with amusing satires like Bustamante Carlos Inca 2005 and scalding critiques such as, Juan and Ulloa 1964, and Juan and Ulloa 1978. Also foundational to the study of Peru in the Atlantic world are the classic accounts of colonial injustice by indigenous and mestizo authors, including Guaman Poma de Ayala 2006 and Vega 2006.

Arriaga, Pablo Joseph de. The Extirpation of Idolatry in Peru. Edited and translated by L. Clark Keating. Louisville: University of Kentucky Press, 2014.
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The work of a Spanish Jesuit who arrived in Peru in 1585. While catechizing, he researched and studied native customs. Originally printed in Lima in 1621, the work details native religious traditions while characterizing them as “idolatry.”
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Bustamante Carlos Inca, Calixto (Concolorcorvo). El Lazarillo de ciegos caminantes. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Stockero, 2005.
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“Lazarus of the Walking Blind” is a fictionalized account of a journey from Montevideo to Lima from 1771 to 1773. Scholars assume Bustamante was the pseudonym of the Spanish bureaucrat Alonso Carrió de Lavandera. Although it is a satire that plays on the popular Lazarillo de Tormes picaresque novella from the Spanish Golden Age, it also provides useful critical background on urban life in and travel through what is today Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. In Spanish.
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Cieza de León, Pedro. The Discovery and Conquest of Peru: Chronicles of the New World Encounters. Edited and translated by Alexandra Parma Cook and Noble David Cook. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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One of the earliest and most expansive European views of the Inca world and its history penned by Cieza de León in the mid-16th century. This edition focuses on the third portion of his work, which covered the early history of Spanish conquest and colonization.
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Cobo, Bernabe. History of the Inca Empire. Translated and edited by Roland Hamilton. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979.
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Written in 1653 by a Spanish Jesuit who spent most of his adult life in the New World. Cobo utilized rare 16th-century manuscripts (many of which are no longer extant) to create this expansive work on Inca history, culture, and religion.
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Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe. The First New Chronicle and Good Government. Abridged ed. Edited and translated by David Frye. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2006.
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Translation of Guaman Poma’s Spanish and Quechua missive to the Spanish king, completed 1615–1616. Excerpts chosen and annotated by Frye. Selected images included.
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Guibovich Pérez, Pedro. Sociedad y gobierno episcopal: las visitas del obispo Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo (Cuzco, 1674–1694). Edited by Luis Eduardo Wuffarden. Lima, Peru: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2008.
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Context for and transcription of the visita reports made by this reforming bishop in 17th-century Cuzco.
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Hyland, Sabine, ed. Gods of the Andes: An Early Jesuit Account of Inca Religion and Andean Christianity. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.
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Modern translation of Jesuit Padre Blas Valera’s An Account of the Ancient Customs of the Natives of Peru, originally written in 1594. Focuses on Andean religion and native response to Catholic traditions.
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Juan, Jorge, and Antonio de Ulloa. A Voyage to South America. Translated by John Adams. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964.
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The official public report from Juan & Ulloa’s journey accompanying a mid-18th century French scientific expedition to Ecuador. Provides political and social descriptions of the cities of Guayaquil, Quito, and Lima.
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Juan, Jorge, and Antonio de Ulloa. Discourse and Political Reflections on the Kingdoms of Peru. Edited and translated by John J. Tepaske. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
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The so-called “secret report” from the same journey as Juan and Ulloa 1964, which the Crown requested the naval cadets provide. Focuses on the social and political ills of Spanish America, from contraband trade to the clergy’s abuse of Indians.
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Legnani, Nicole Delia, ed. and trans. Titu Cusi: A 16th Century Account of the Conquest. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 2005.
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First modernization and full English translation of this tome by Titu Cusi Yupanqui, heir to the Inca throne in postconquest Peru. Titu Cusi argued that Pizarro’s conquest of Peru was invalid, because the Spanish had no rightful reason to make war against the Inca.
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Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro. The History of the Incas. Edited and Translated by Brian Bauer and Vania Smith. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.
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First published in 1572 on orders from Viceroy Toledo. Gamboa wrote from Cuzco only four decades after the Spanish first arrived, utilizing his local influence to gather and interview native elites.
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Vega, Garcilaso de la. Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru. Translated by Harold V. Livermore. Edited by Karen Spalding. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2006.
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Accessible edition intended for students or interested nonacademics. Spalding’s introduction gives a good historical overview useful for those new to Garcilaso and the importance of his work. Includes brief English-language bibliography of further reading.
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Document Collections

While translated primary documents on Peru can be found in many general collections, there are only a handful of English-language document readers specific to Peruvian history: Starn, et al. 2005, part of the Duke Latin American Readers series, includes documents from the republican period as well. Milones, et al. 1990 offers an essential selection of documents pertaining to the 16th-century Taki Onqoy rebellion. Tovar Pinzón 1993 compiles relación and visita records from the 16th century, with a focus largely on New Granada. Other early colonial documents can be found in Zevallos Quiñones 1996, which features a volume of transcribed documentation pertaining to the early Spanish colonists in Trujillo. For the Tupac Amaru and related rebellions, Stavig and Schmidt 2008 is well-suited to student use, containing a wealth of documents from the rebellions themselves, as well as others that provide vital context on key issues such as the mita (labor draft) and the repartimiento (forced commerce with native communities). Durand Flórez 1980–1982 is a much more comprehensive set (three volumes feature transcribed documentation from the Tupac Amaru trials) in Spanish only. For a different perspective on Indian-Spanish relations in the 18th century, see Ramírez, et al. 2014, which compiles documents from the efforts of Bishop Martínez Compañón to found schools for Indian children in Trujillo in the late-18th century.

Durand Flórez, Luis, ed. Colección documental del bicentenario de la revolución emancipadora de Túpac Amaru. 5 vols. Lima, Peru: Comisión Nacional del Bicentenario de la Rebelión Emancipadora de Túpac Amaru, 1980–1982.
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Five-volume set including documents from the General Archive of the Indies pertinent to the rebellion, the papers of Bishop Juan Manuel Moscoso, and three volumes of documents from the trials of Tupac Amaru and those tried with him.
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Milones, Luis, Sara Castro-Klarén, et al. El Retorno de las huacas: Estudios y documentos sobre el Taki Onqoy, siglo XVI. Lima, Peru: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1990.
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Compiled reports of Cristóbal de Albornoz, the Catholic visitador sent to investigate and stop this indigenous rebellion surrounding a “dancing sickness” in 16th-century Huamanga. With scholarly background.
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Ramírez, Susan E., José Carlos de la Puente Luna, and Fernando Arturo Siles Quezada. Al servicio de Dios y Su Majestad: Los orígenes de las escuelas públicas para niños indígenas en el norte del Perú en el S.XVIII. Lima, Peru: Fondo Editorial de la Asamblea Nacional de Rectores, 2014.
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Transcription of eleven documents pertaining to Bishop Martínez Compañón and his efforts to establish primary schools for native children in late-18th century Trujillo. Introduced by a critical essay.
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Starn, Orin, Carlos Iván Degregori, and Robin Kirk, eds. The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
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Relevant translated, excerpted primary documents include selections from Garcilaso de la Vega, Guaman Poma, and José Antonio Areche’s vivid decree condemning Tupac Amaru to death in 1781.
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Stavig, Ward, and Ella Schmidt., trans. and eds. The Tupac Amaru and Catarista Rebellions: An Anthology of Sources. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2008.
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Translated collection of short documents pertaining to the 18th-century Indian rebellions in the Andes, as well as their cultural, political, and social precedents.
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Tovar Pinzón, Hermes. Relaciones y visitas a los Andes. Bogota, Colombia: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura Colcultura, 1993.
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Four-volume set of relación (reports on government officials) and visita (reports by government officials) documents from the northern Andes (mainly Colombia) in the 16th century.
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Zevallos Quiñones, Jorge. Los fundadores y primeros pobladores de Trujillo del Perú. Trujillo, Peru: Fundación Alfredo Pinillos Goicochea, 1996.
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Two-volume set including biographies of the founders and settlers of Trujillo, followed by transcriptions of relevant documents in Volume 2.
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Pre-Hispanic Peru

The interdisciplinary nature of historical sources on Peru in the Atlantic world necessitates that specialists have some familiarity with disciplines outside of history, particularly anthropology and archaeology. Cummins 2002, Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 1999, and Urton 2003 are classic studies essential to understanding how the pre-Hispanic cultures of Peru continue to inform colonial studies. Dean 2010 is a highly analytical yet accessible study of the centrality of stone structures in Inca culture. Minelli 2000 is an essay collection that showcases the work of many leading scholars from different fields. A collection of essays by Peruvian archaeologists working on Inca culture in the late pre-Hispanic and early colonial periods can be found in Rivera Casanovas 2014. Wernke 2013 is a multidisciplinary monograph on the Colca Valley in the early and mid-colonial period.

Cummins, Tom. Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images on Quero Vessels. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.
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Important in-depth research on quero, or the pre-Hispanic drinking vessels characterized by geometric stylized forms. Cummins demonstrates how after the arrival of the Spanish, quero took on multiple colors and depicted real-life scenes. He uses this to make a larger argument about how historical memory and images change according to sociopolitical relations.
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Dean, Carolyn. A Culture of Stone: Inka Perspectives on Rock. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
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Examines Inca “rockwork” and how it changed after the arrival of the Spanish in Peru. Specific attention to the cultural significance of huacas, or religious sites or objects that were often embedded in the local landscape in the forms of mountains, boulders, or caves. Highlights importance of rocks to the politics, religion, and economy of the Inca world.
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Minelli, Laura Laurencich, ed. The Inca World: The Development of Pre-Columbian Peru, A.D. 1000–1534. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
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Richly illustrated overview with essays by leading scholars. Includes an overview on Peruvian archaeology by Minelli, Cecilia Bákula on Late Intermediate art, and Maria Rostworowski on the Incas.
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Rivera Casanovas, Claudia, ed. Ocupación Inka y dinámicas regionales en los Andes (Siglos XV–XVII). Lima, Peru: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2014.
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Essays about how Inca culture shaped late pre-Hispanic and early colonial Indian societies.
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Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, María. History of the Inca Realm. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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The renowned Peruvian historian’s learned, far-reaching introduction to the Inca, including chapters that focus on their social organization, women in politics, and their mythical origins.
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Urton, Gary. Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
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Groundbreaking research into the Inca knotted cords called khipu. Concludes that their fibers and knots can be read as binary code that kept records representing some sort of system to catalog data.
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Wernke, Steven. Negotiated Settlements: Andean Communities and Landscapes Under Inka and Spanish Colonialism. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013.
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Combines methodologies of anthropology, archaeology, and ethnohistory to examine how the people of Peru’s Colca Valley responded to colonization by the Inca and the Spanish through the 17th century. Proposes that the resulting communities were composite sites created by both natives and Europeans.
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Spanish Conquest

As for most of the literature on the Spanish American conquest, scholars have been particularly interested in how native resistance shaped Spanish efforts at conquest and the resulting rebellions or hybrid cultures. An early influential contribution to this discourse is Wachtel 1977, although this work has since been superseded, including by Lamana 2008, Ramírez 1996, and Stern 1993. MacCormack 2007 is an erudite approach to the foundations of Spanish colonialism in Peru, focusing on their connections to classical Roman literature. A counterpart examining governance in native communities is Zuloaga Rada 2012, which looks at the guaranga caciques of Huaylas. Other studies that focus on a particular region in the conquest period include Stern 1993 on Ramírez 1996 on northern Peru. Reyna 2010 closely examines the first recorded meeting between the Spanish and the Inca in Cajamarca in 1532.

Lamana, Gonzalo. Domination without Dominance: Inca-Spanish Encounters in Early Colonial Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
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Anthropological take on Inca resistance to the Spanish conquest. Uses city council documents, local depositions, native accounts, and close readings of the “Chronicles.” Argues that although the Spanish were victorious militarily, they had much less success at conquering native Peruvian culture.
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MacCormack, Sabine. On the Wings of Time: Rome, the Incas, Spain, and Peru. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
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Masterful last work of acclaimed Andeanist MacCormack. Argues that colonial Spanish understanding of and admiration for the Roman Empire and classical literature framed their assessment of the Inca Empire and their colonial agenda in Peru.
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Ramírez, Susan. The World Upside Down: Cross-Cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Peru. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
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Examines the events of the Spanish conquest and early colonial period in northern Peru through an indigenous point of view, using administrative records, close reading of conquerors’ accounts, and indigenous wills.
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Reyna, Iván R. El encuentro de Cajamarca. Lima, Peru: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 2010.
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Focused study of the first encounter between the Inca king Atahualpa and Fray Vicente de Valverde in Cajamarca on 16 November 1532, using the Chronicles, Garcilaso de la Vega, Guaman Poma, and others who built on their accounts.
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Stern, Steve. Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of the Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993.
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Using the Huamanga region as a case study, Stern highlights how native Andean struggles against colonial incursions limited the options of Spanish elites in early Peru.
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Wachtel, Nathan. The Vision of the Vanquished: The Spanish Conquest of Peru through Indian Eyes, 1530–1570. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1977.
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Outdated but influential study of the experience of the Spanish conquest through native eyes. Section two focuses on the Inca state and how it was changed by the arrival of the Spanish. Part three examines Indian rebellions of the early colonial period.
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Zuloaga Rada, Marina. La Conquista negociada: Guarangas, autoridades locales e imperio en Huaylas, Perú (1532–1610). Lima, Peru: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2012.
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Examines the early colonial political roles of guaranga caciques that oversaw thousands of household units in pre-Hispanic society. Focus is on the Huaylas region.
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Colonial Governance and Spanish Settlers

Studies of colonial governance in Peru largely focus on key institutions of colonial rule, such as viceroys and cabildos. Foundational for this category is Lockhart 1968, a seminal account of early Spanish settlers, largely during the period of “civil wars” when conquistadores and their allies fought one another after the initial conquest, Lavallé 1993 treats the same issues. Mumford 2012 is an important study of Viceroy Toledo’s plan to relocate indigenous communities as part of a broader agenda to consolidate Spanish power in the early viceroyalty. Huamanchumo de la Cuba 2013 is a useful parsing of the early colonial judicial system. For the 18th century, Moore 1966 remains an essential contribution on the functioning of municipal cabildos, while Pardo-Figueroa Thays and Dager Alva 2004 is a collection of essays on Viceroy Amat. Viceroy Abascal’s rule from 1808–1814 is the focus of Peralta Ruiz 2003.

Huamanchumo de la Cuba, Ofelia. Encomiendas y cristianización: Estudios de documentos jurídicos y administrativos del Perú, siglo XVI. Piura, Peru: Universidad de Piura, 2013.
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Unpacks the juridical culture of early colonial Peru through examination of the most representative types of colonial records: requests for documentation, reports, visitas of Indian communities, and visita instructions.
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Lavallé, Bernard. Las Promesas ambiguas: Criollismo colonial en los Andes. Lima, Peru: Instituto Riva Agüero, 1993.
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Collects thirteen of Lavallé’s essays published separately between 1978 and 1992. Taken together, they argue that after the conquest period and civil war ended, Spaniards and Creoles were immediately drawn into vicious disputes that became the foundation for the Creole identity that scholars would later associate with separatist movements in the Americas.
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Lockhart, James. Spanish Peru, 1532–1560: A Colonial Society. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.
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Social history based largely on the records of Spanish notaries in 16th-century Peru. Details the “civil wars” after the initial conquest, but also focuses on early civil society, with chapters on merchants, artisans, and women.
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Moore, John Preston. The Cabildo in Peru under the Bourbons. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1966.
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Useful for understanding the mechanics of colonial governance. Examines the cabildo, or town council — the only truly local body of governance in colonial Spanish America — in the viceroyalty, stressing its role of the cabildo in imposing law and order at the local level.
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Mumford, Jeremy. Vertical Empire: The General Resettlement of Indians in the Colonial Andes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822395591Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on Viceroy Toledo’s attempted General Resettlement of Indians in 16th-century Peru. Highlights how early colonial administrators borrowed many of their reform agendas from Inca techniques of state management.
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Pardo-Figueroa Thays, Carlos, and Joseph Dager Alva, eds. El Virrey Amat y su tiempo. Lima, Peru: Instituto Riva-Agüero, 2004.
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Collection of essays on this viceroy of Peru, who served from 1761–1776, that amounts to an innovative approach to biography through placing Amat at the center of inquiry about the viceroyalty and its social life, ethnic and racial tensions, religious culture, and economy.
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Peralta Ruiz, Victor. En Defensa de la autoridad: Política y cultura bajo el gobierno del virrey Abascal: Peru, 1806–1816. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2003.
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Study of the creation of a modern public sphere in Peru during the liberal period of 1808–1814, despite Viceroy Abascal’s opposition.
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Indigenous People under Colonial Rule

Although many topics in Peruvian history involve native peoples, there are several works that are central to understanding Indian identity and experience in early modern Peru. Foundational is Cook 1981, a demographic study that brought together mortality statistics from epidemic disease, with attention to different regional outcomes of the clash of microbes that was at the center of the conquest and early colonial period. Ramírez 2005 is essential to understanding how Inca worldviews shaped early Spanish colonialism. Spalding 1984 is a classic study that looks at Spanish-Indian interactions in Huarochirí throughout the colonial period. Garrett 2005 looks at elite Andeans in Cuzco in the late colonial and independence periods. Assadourian 1994 is a collection of the author’s essays focusing on the transition from Inca to Spanish rule in the Andes, while Glave 1989 argues that native peoples were instrumental in this process that ultimately produced a hybrid society. Poloni-Simard 2006 also studies mestizaje through a focus on Ecuador. Charney 2012 is a study of thirteen wills of native people, common and noble, while Wightman 1990 looks at Indians who chose to become forastero outsiders in Cuzco. O’Phelan Godoy 2013 looks at the indigenous nobility and elite throughout the viceroyalty in the colonial period, emphasizing their participation in the rule and operation of the colonial state. Most important to understanding the politics of being Indian in Peru, however, is Flores Galindo 2010, the long-awaited English translation of the 1986 classic that paints the Inca Empire as an idealized utopia that has fed native political and cultural discourse since Peru became part of the Atlantic world.

Assadourian, Carlos Sempat. Transiciones hacía el sistema colonial Andino. Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1994.
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Anthology of essays on the Andean region’s transition from Inca to Spanish rule, with a focus on economic, social, and demographic history.
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Charney, Paul. “‘For My Necessities’: The Wills of Andean Commoners and Nobles in the Valley of Lima, 1596–1607.” Ethnohistory 59.2 (2012): 323–351.
DOI: 10.1215/00141801-1536903Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Uses thirteen wills from the Lima valley to show how native peoples created a hybrid existence under Spanish colonial rule.
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Cook, Noble David. Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520–1620. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University press, 1981.
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Foundational demographic study of the preconquest population of Peru, its collapse after contact with the Spanish, and the eventual stabilization of the population in the 17th century. Highlights the different demographic outcomes in the northern, coastal, and highland regions.
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Flores Galindo, Alberto. In Search of an Inca: Identity and Utopia in the Andes. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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English translation of the 1986 classic, with an introduction by Charles Walker and Carlos Aguirre. Flores Galindo maintains that the Andes can be best understood through the historic struggle to return to the peaceful, idealistic utopia of Inca rule.
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Garrett, David T. Shadows of Empire: The Indian Nobility of Cusco, 1750–1825. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511529085Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the indigenous nobility and their elevated status in colonial Peruvian society through independence. Focuses on the Cusco region.
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Glave, Luis Miguel. Trajinantes: Caminos indígenas en la sociedad colonial siglos XVI/SVII. Lima, Peru: Instituto de Apoyo Agrario, 1989.
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Studies how native peoples actively participated in creating the economic and social systems of the early colonial Andes, and were not just subordinated victims.
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O’Phelan Godoy, Scarlett. Mestizos reales en el virreinato del Perú: Indios nobles, caciques y capitanes de mita. Lima, Peru: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2013.
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Focuses on indigenous nobility descended from the Inca, as well as the lineage of regional caciques and Indian mita captains, all of who were parts of the privileged native group in colonial Peru.
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Poloni-Simard, Jacques. El Mosaico indígenda: Movilidad, estratificación social y mestizaje en el corregimiento de Cuenca (Ecuador) del siglo XVI al XVIII. Quito, Ecuador: Abya-Yala, 2006.
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Originally published in French in 1999, this is a comprehensive study of native peoples in Ecuador throughout the colonial period. Throughout, Poloni-Simard highlights the mutability and dynamism of mestizaje itself.
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Ramírez, Susan E. To Feed and Be Fed: The Cosmological Bases of Authority and Identity in the Andes. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
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Argues that native society in the early conquest period was constructed around Incaic divine rulership, which was the feature of Andean cosmology.
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Spalding, Karen. Huarochirí: An Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984.
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Uses a structuralist approach to assess the social, economic, and political changes in postconquest Peru. Special focus on the province of Huarochirí through independence.
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Wightman, Ann. Indigenous Migration and Social Change: The Forasteros of Cuzco, 1570–1720. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822382843Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Classic study of the “forastero” Indians of Cuzco, who in order to escape onerous colonial tax and labor obligations, chose to abandon their ancestral homes and communal land, becoming permanent outsiders in the process. Wightman argues their choices ultimately promoted colonial hegemony as the Spanish found new ways to exploit the Indians.
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Bourbon Reforms

As with other geographical specialties in colonial Spanish American history, the historiography of the 18th century and the Bourbon period are often handled separately from the early and mid-colonial years. Fisher 2003 is a concise and thorough overview of political, social, and economic trends in the 18th century. O’Phelan Godoy 1999 is a Spanish-language edited collection of essays that provides a useful overview of Peruvian scholars working on 18th century topics. Rodríguez García 2006 looks at how Lima’s Creole elites embraced European Enlightenment thinking. Contreras 2014 revises the existing narrative on Bourbon fiscal reforms by arguing that their success was largely based in the early 18th century. Vital economic history can also be found in Jacobsen and Puhle 1986 (cited under Economy and Commerce), while Marks 2007 looks at the commercial aspects of the Bourbon reforms in Peru, particularly the 1778 declaration of free trade. Brown 1986 examines similar issues in regards to the brandy trade in Arequipa. For administrative and bureaucratic history, Fisher 1970 still offers the most cogent account of the late-colonial Bourbon campaign to replace local corregidores with Crown-appointed intendants, while Moore 1966 (cited under Colonial Governance and Spanish Settlers) is in ways outdated but remains the only work detailing the functions of Bourbon Peru’s cabildos, or town councils. Most recently, scholarship has turned toward examining the implementation of and resistance to the Bourbon reform agenda in Peru, with Berquist Soule 2014 offering an overview of Bourbon projects envisioned in tandem with high officials of the Catholic Church, and Warren 2010 approaching the peninsular-Creole divide that complicated the reform agenda through looking at the medical profession in 18th-century Peru.

Berquist Soule, Emily. The Bishop’s Utopia: Envisioning Improvement in Colonial Peru. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
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Examines the life and work of the Spanish bishop Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, who served in Trujillo in the 1780s, collaborating with local Indians and area informants to engineer a broad-based campaign of social reform and natural history research reflecting both local interests and the broader agenda of Bourbon reformers throughout the empire.
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Brown, Kendall. Bourbons and Brandy: Imperial Reform in Eighteenth Century Arequipa. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.
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Employs financial documents to survey how Bourbon changes to economic governance affected the brandy trade in Arequipa. Argues that though the Bourbon ministers were successful at generating greater tax and trade profits, their reforms created social unrest in Arequipa.
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Contreras, Carlos. Crecimiento económico en el Perú bajo los Borbones, 1700–1820. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru, 2014.
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Explores the period of economic growth the Bourbon reforms stimulated in late colonial Peru. Argues that the period of economic growth actually began as early as 1718–1723, not in the second half of the 18th century, as is commonly thought.
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Fisher, John. Government and Society in Colonial Peru: The Intendant System, 1784–1814. London: Athlone, 1970.
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Foundational overview of Spanish governance in colonial Peru, with special attention to the impact of the Bourbon reforms (particularly the implementation of the intendant system).
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Fisher, John. Bourbon Peru, 1750–1824. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2003.
DOI: 10.5949/UPO9781846312687Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Important social, political, and economic overview of the period. Examines the development, implementation, and effects of the Bourbon reform agenda throughout the viceroyalty.
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Marks, Patricia H. Deconstructing Legitimacy: Viceroys, Merchants, and the Military in Late Colonial Peru. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007.
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This independent scholar expertly analyzes Peruvian resistance to the Bourbon reform agenda, especially the merchant class’s opposition to the Crown’s declaration of “free trade” in 1778.
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O’Phelan Godoy, Scarlett, ed. El Perú en el siglo XVIII: La era Borbónica. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Institute Riva-Agüero, 1999.
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Collection of essays edited by Peru’s leading scholar of the Bourbon period. Varying quality, but highlights include Carlos Contreras on mining and Victor Peralta Ruiz on the Catholic Church and the Enlightenment.
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Rodríguez García, Margarita Eva. Criollismo y patria en la Lima ilustrada: 1732–1795. Madrid: Miño y Davila Editores, 2006.
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Study of how Lima’s Creole elite came to accept and promote ideologies of “the Enlightenment” in the 18th century.
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Warren, Adam. Medicine and Politics in Colonial Peru: Population Growth and the Bourbon Reforms. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.
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An original look at the tensions between 18th-century reforms conceived in Spain and their implementation on the ground, highlighting Creole opposition to Spanish claims of medical superiority, the complex politics of race in the changing medical field, and how the treatment of disease and illness changed throughout the colonial period in Peru.
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Indian Rebellions of the 18th Century

Unique to the case of the Andean regions are the many studies of the native rebellions of the late 18th century, which, taken together, made up the single gravest threat to Spanish hegemony on the continent. Accordingly, the Tupac Amaru, Tupac Katari, and Tomás Katari rebellions that took place in Peru and Upper Peru (today Bolivia) in the 1770s and 1780s have been a rich subfield in Peruvian history. Walker 2014, the most recent addition, is the most thoroughly researched account of Tupac Amaru, with an attention to detail and narrative style that should make the book appealing to scholars, advanced students, and interested nonspecialists alike. It expands and builds upon Walker’s essential 1999 study examining how the Tupac Amaru legacy affected the early national period in Peru. O’Phelan Godoy 2012 takes a largely social approach to the various factors that led the natives to rebel, including exploitation in mines, obrajes, and repartimiento commerce. Her contribution to this scholarship examines the flash points of Spanish-Indian relations earlier in the 18th century, in order to show how they contributed to the circumstances leading to rebellion. The political factors of the rebellions are seen from a largely indigenous focus in Thomson 2002, while Serulnikov 2013 argues that the rebels fought to defend their rights as Spanish citizens. Garrett 2004 is a unique contribution that explains why many elite Andeans were opposed to the rebellions. Stavig 1999 approaches the rebellions from a cultural and ethnohistorical perspective, arguing that similarities between Spanish and native society led to an inherent cross-cultural understanding, even in this time of war. Aparicio Quispe 2000 focuses on the role of ecclesiastics in the rebellions. The aftermath of political oppression in Cuzco is the focus of Lorandi and Buster 2013, while Cornblitt 1995 looks at how the rebellion affected the judicial and government system in the mining city of Oruro.

Aparicio Quispe, Severo. El Clero y la rebelión de Túpac Amaru. Cuzco, Peru: Imprenta Amatua, 2000.
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Short compilation of essays by an ecclesiastic. Topics include ecclesiastic opposition to Tupac Amaru and the response of Bishop Moscoso to the rebellion.
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Cornblitt, Oscar. Power and Violence in the Colonial City: Oruro from the Mining Renaissance to the Rebellion of Tupac Amaru, 1740–1782. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511665233Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on the judicial system and Spanish ministers in the mining city of Oruro (today Bolivia), and their connections to the Tupac Amaru rebellion.
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Garrett, David T. “‘His Majesty’s Most Loyal Vassals’: The Indian Nobility and Tupac Amaru.” Hispanic American Historical Review 84.4 (2004): 575–617.
DOI: 10.1215/00182168-84-4-575Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines elite Cuzco natives who remained loyal to the Crown during the rebellion, arguing they rejected it because the Inca had traditionally benefitted from the use of the Spanish court system, because Tupac Amaru did not share their ethnic nobility, and because they feared the social unrest the rebellion engendered.
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Lorandi, Ana María, and Cora Virginia Buster. La Pedagogía del miedo: Los Borbones y el criollismo en el Cuzco, 1780–1790. Lima, Peru: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2013.
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Uses ethnohistory and political anthropology to reconstruct political culture and Bourbon repression of Creole identity in Cuzco after the Tupac Amaru rebellion.
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O’Phelan Godoy, Scarlett. Un Siglo de rebeliones anticoloniales: Perú y Bolivia, 1700–1783. Lima, Peru: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2012.
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Focuses on three flash points of rebellion: opposition to Viceroy Castelfuerte’s changes to tribute and mita regulation, 1724–1736; legalization of the reparto de mercancías from 1751 to 1756; and the fiscal Bourbon reforms enacted by visitador Areche starting in 1777.
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Serulnikov, Sergio. Revolution in the Andes: The Age of Túpac Amaru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822378303Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Simultaneously analyzes the Tupac Amaru and Katarista rebellions, with special attention to the differences in leadership and military strategy. Maintains that the insurgents believed they were pursuing their rights within Spanish political culture when they took up arms against exploitive colonial administrators.
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Stavig, Ward. The World of Túpac Amaru: Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial Peru. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
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Draws on cultural history and ethnohistorical methods to suggest that native peoples used some colonial policies for their own benefit, and that cultural similarity led to a strengthening of ties between colonizers and colonized.
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Stern, Steve J., ed. Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
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Collection of essays on native rebellions in the Andes from leading Andean scholars such as Stern, Mörner, Frank Salomon, and Flores Galindo.
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Thomson, Sinclair. We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
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Examines the Tupac Amaru rebellion while outlining political life in native Andean towns and linking the regional history of La Paz into the broader Andean context. Concludes that the rebellion was pivotal for today’s Aymara communities of the Bolivian altiplano.
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Walker, Charles. Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822382164Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Essential work that highlights native Andeans’ contributions to Peruvian identity. Portrays the Tupac Amaru rebellion as the result of proto-nationalist sentiment, Inca revivalist traditions, and peasant attempts at negotiation with the state. Argues that in the W ars for Independence, indigenous people actively sought autonomy from Spanish and/or Creole elites, and that in the early republican period, caudillos like Agustín Gamarra actually operated in tandem with official government institutions.
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Walker, Charles. The Tupac Amaru Rebellion. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014.
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Walker’s exhaustive archival research and attention to detail about Amaru’s own agenda and life make this the most thorough account of the rebellion available. Considers aspects of the subject that have traditionally been overlooked, including Tupac Amaru’s military and battle strategies, the role of Bishop Moscoso in combatting the rebels, and the personal relationship between the rebel leader and his wife, Micaela.
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Wars for Independence

In 1824, Peru became the final part of mainland Spanish America to declare definitive independence from Spain, although in parts of the viceroyalty this was contested until 1826. This remarkable conservatism figures largely in the scholarship. The field remains indelibly influenced by Bonilla 2001, a reprint edition of Bonilla’s classic 1972 essay with Karen Spalding, which set the still-dominant narrative of Peru’s reluctance to separate from Spain. In contrast, Anna 1979 situates the transition to republican rule as one motivated above all by Peru’s poor economic performance in the late colonial period (something that has since been largely overturned by economic historians and especially scholars of the Peruvian mining industry). O’Phelan Godoy 2001, O’Phelan Godoy 2014, and Flores Galindo 1987 are essay collections providing useful orientations to the Peruvian scholarship. The essays in Martínez Riaza 2014 explore the Spanish stance on the independence of Peru. Peralta Ruiz 2010 compiles the influential Peruvian historian’s works on independence. Sobrevilla Perea 2011 offers a biographically based account of General Andrés de Santa Cruz.

Anna, Timothy E. The Fall of the Royal Government in Peru. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979.
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Rather than depicting independence in Peru as forcibly imposed by outside forces or led by patriotic rebels dedicated to liberal causes, Anna sees the fall of Spanish rule as the result of economic difficulties resulting from the creation of the new Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata in 1776, the preponderance of contraband trade, and systemic problems in the mining industry.
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Bonilla, Heraclio. Metáfora y realidad de la independencia en el Perú. Lima, Peru: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2001.
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A reprint of Bonilla’s classic 1972 essay (coauthored with Karen Spalding), with the addition of a new essay analyzing Spain’s missteps in late colonial rule. He argues that independence did not signal much of a break from the colonial system, and that separatist thought was importantly imposed from without, by Simón Bolívar and José San Martín. This view has been criticized by Peruvian scholars for attributing too much importance to external forces.
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Flores Galindo, Alberto, ed. Independencia y revolución (1780–1840.) Lima, Peru: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, 1987.
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Collection of essays by leading Peruvian scholars of the late colonial, independence, and early republican periods, including Scarlett O’Phelan Godoy on “The Myth of ‘Conceded Independence,’” Heraclio Bonilla on administrative continuities in national Peru, and Jorge Basadre on the Peru-Bolivia Confederation.
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Martínez Riaza, Ascensión, ed. La independencia inconcecible: España y la “perdida” del Perú (1820–1824). Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2014.
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Edited collection of essays exploring Peru’s independence from the perspective of Spanish scholars.
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O’Phelan Godoy, Scarlett, ed. La independencia en el Perú: de los Borbones a Bolívar. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Instituto Riva-Agüero, 2001.
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Edited collection of essays by Peruvian scholars. Includes Víctor Peralta Ruiz on the Lima Cabildo, Jeffrey Klaiber on the role of the clergy in independence, and José Agustín de la Puente on the historiography of Peruvian independence.
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O’Phelan Godoy, Scarlett. La independencia en los Andes: Una historia conectada. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2014.
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Collection of essays on Peruvian -ndependence from this preeminent scholar of Peru, considering such topics as the proposed politics of Francisco de Miranda and the southern Andean elites in the independence struggle.
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Peralta Ruiz, Victor. La independencia y la cultura política Peruana (1808–1821). Lima, Peru: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2010.
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Collection of Peralta’s articles on the period, generally arguing that the myth of Peruvian opposition to independence is vastly overstated. Divided into four sections, focusing on the independence period in Spanish America in general; Peruvian events from 1808 to 1810; Peru during the era of the Cádiz Cortes; and the constitutional period during the rule of Viceroy Pezuela prior to final independence.
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Sobrevilla Perea, Natalia. The Caudillo of the Andes: Andrés de Santa Cruz. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511976230Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Important study of the often overlooked military man Andrés de Santa Cruz, who throughout his career fought for autonomy for the Lake Titicaca region (split between Peru and Rio de la Plata with the creation of the new viceroyalty in 1776). Examines his life through interrogating the meaning and usage of caudillismo in Spanish American history.
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Africans and Afro-Peruvians

Although the slave and Afro-Peruvian population was significant in coastal Peru and in many major cities, in the past their demographic importance was somewhat neglected in the scholarly literature. Bowser 1974 remains the most thorough look at the broad contours of slavery and Afro-Peruvians in the early colonial period, though Aguirre 2005, which also offers a general overview of slavery in Peru, has surpassed it in the Spanish-language literature. Blanchard 1992 is a broad portrait of how independence affected Peruvian slaves and their eventual abolition, while Aguirre 1995 follows their political identity in the era of abolition. Hünefeldt 1994 provides a cultural approach to slave life in 19th-century Lima, with a focus on gender and class relations. Most recently, Walker 2015 examines the culture of religious brotherhoods and gender history, while Proctor 2015 analyzes how enslaved people utilized the judicial system to negotiate their status as slaves. Bryant 2014 looks at slavery in colonial Quito. Peruvian scholars have also turned their attention to the history of slavery, producing studies of slave life in Lima and Arequipa, as in Arrelucea Barrantes 2009 and Núñez Zeballos and Nina Vera 2010, respectively.

Aguirre, Carlos. Agentes de su propia libertad: Los esclavos de Lima y la desintegración de la esclavitud, 1821–1854. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru, 1995.
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Focuses on slave resistance and negotiation in the early republican period to show how slaves themselves aided in dismantling Peru’s slave economy. Includes chapters on the slave market, urban slavery, and runaway slaves known as cimarrones.
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Aguirre, Carlos. Breve historia de la esclavitud en el Perú: Una herida que no deja de sangrar. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2005.
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Outlines the history of slavery in Peru from inception to abolition, highlighting its centrality to both agricultural production and quotidian urban life.
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Arrelucea Barrantes, Maribel. Replanteando la esclavitud: Estudios de etnicidad y género en Lima borbónica. Lima, Peru: Centro de Desarrollo Étnico, 2009.
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Essays on various aspects of slave life in Lima, as well as the broader Afro-Peruvian community. Focuses on the late colonial period.
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Blanchard, Peter. Slavery and Abolition in Early Republican Peru. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1992.
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Comprehensive study of Peruvian slavery from the independence era through the abolition of slavery in 1855. Highlights how independence changed the status of slaves, and how the movement for abolition was weaker in Peru than elsewhere in Latin America.
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Bowser, Frederick. The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1524–1640. Stanford, CA: Stanford University press, 1974.
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Despite its age, Bowser’s work still stands as one of the foundational accounts of slavery in Peru. Chapters focus on the Peruvian slave trade, free black artisans, runaway slave communities, and free people of color in the early colonial period.
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Bryant, Sherwin. Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing through Slavery in Colonial Quito. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469607726.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Comprehensive study of slave life and the institution of slavery in the northern Andes. Bryant positions slavery as not just a system of labor, but as an institution essential to the markers of racial difference that were the basis of the Spanish colonial system.
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Hünefeldt, Christine. Paying the Price of Freedom: Family and Labor among Lima’s Slaves, 1800–1854. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
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Focuses on urban slavery in Lima in the first half of the nineteenth century, utilizing notarial, judicial, and ecclesiastical records. Highlights gender and class relations.
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Núñez Zeballos, Alejandro Málaga, and Fredy Nina Vera. Africanos en la ciudad blanca: La esclavitud en Arequipa Colonial (1539–1600). Arequipa, Peru: Universidad de Santa Maria de Arequipa, 2010.
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Covers the arrival of slaves in the Andes, the regional slave trade, slave work in Arequipa, manumission, and routes to freedom.
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Proctor, Frank T. “An ‘Imponderable Servitude’: Slave versus Master Litigation for Cruelty (Maltratamiento or Sevicia) in Late Eighteenth-Century Lima, Peru.” Journal of Social History 48.3 (2015): 662–684.
DOI: 10.1093/jsh/shu120Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Describes how slaves could use legal codes to accuse their owners of abuse or cruelty through so-called “sevicia” cases.
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Walker, Tamara J. “The Queen of los Congos: Slavery, Gender, and Confraternity Life in Late-Colonial Lima, Peru.” Journal of Family History 40.3 (July 2015): 305–322.
DOI: 10.1177/0363199015590405Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Detailed examination of religious brotherhoods in late colonial Lima, centered on the legal grievance made by an enslaved confraternity queen who was ousted in favor of a free woman.
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Agrarian and Rural History

Although the scholarship on rural estates and agriculture in colonial Peru is not as developed as it is for the viceroyalty of New Spain, there are several older studies offering good orientations on the topic. Davies 1984 focuses on the Arequipa area, but much of the relevant literature pertains to the northern regions of the viceroyalty. Ramírez 1986 looks at northern Peru, mainly Trujillo. For Piura, Diez Hurtado 1998 is a solid overview of the decline of the haciendas in the late colonial period. Reyes Flores 1999 also looks at hacendados and merchants in the Northern regions of Peru in the late colonial period. Cushner 1980 remains an important work on the agricultural activities on Jesuit haciendas. Larson and Harris 1995, an edited collection, has several useful essays by leading scholars that focus on the colonial period, while Larson 1998 work looks at agrarian history in Bolivia from the colonial through early national period. Another relevant essay collection is O’Phelan Godoy and Saint-Geours 1998, which covers northern Peru from the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries. Puente Brunke 1992 is an essential overview of the encomienda system and its importance in the creation of colonial Peru.

Cushner, Nicholas P. Lords of the Land: Sugar, Wine, and Jesuit Estates of Coastal Peru, 1600–1767. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980.
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Important study of the Jesuits and their landholdings in mid-to-late colonial Peru, detailing the operation of their haciendas, their free and enslaved workers, and how hacienda profits supported Jesuit colleges throughout the viceroyalty.
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Davies, Keith A. Landowners in Colonial Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.
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Focuses on land ownership and large estates in 16th- and 17th-century Arequipa. Highlights how Arequipans owned rural land tracts, and how this ownership affected their social status.
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Diez Hurtado, Alejandro. Comunes y haciendas: Procesos de comunalización en la Sierra de Piura (siglos XVIII al XX). Piura, Peru: CIPCA, 1998.
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Considers the northern Peruvian Piura region, the weakening of the hacienda system, and the coterminous growth of native towns in the late colonial period. The result was small-scale border conflicts that continued into the republican era.
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Larson, Brooke. Cochabamba, 1550–1900: Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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Study of social class, colonial power, and Andean ethnicity in Cochabamba.
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Larson, Brooke, and Olivia Harris, eds. Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.
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Edited collection of essays on indigenous communities and markets in Andean history, with the majority of contributions on the colonial period. Includes Steve Stern on indigenous interventions in European markets and Susan Ramírez on indigenous markets in 16th-century Northern Peru.
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O’Phelan Godoy, Scarlett, and Yves Saint-Geours, eds. El Norte en la historia regional, siglos XVIII–XIX. Lima, Peru: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 1998.
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Focuses on the years 1750–1850 from Cuenca (Ecuador) to Trujillo, Peru, treating the northern region as a unified space. Contributors include Susana Aldana, Victor Peralta, and Paul Rizo Patrón.
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Puente Brunke, José de la. Encomienda y encomenderos en el Perú: Estudio social y político de una institución colonial. Seville, Spain: Diputación Provincial, 1992.
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Development of the encomienda and its importance in the creation of colonial Peru, covering the entire colonial period with a focus on political and institutional matters.
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Ramírez, Susan E. Provincial Patriarchs: Land Tenure and the Economics of Power in Colonial Peru. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.
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Classic social history highlighting wealthy landowners as community leaders in social, political, and economic arenas. Also explores how European landholding patterns affected native communities.
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Reyes Flores, Alejandro. Hacendados y comerciantes: Piura, Chachapoyas, Moyobamba, Lamas, Maynas (1770–1820). Lima, Peru: Juan Brito, 1999.
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Studies the haciendas of these northern Peruvian regions as the centers of economic, political, military, ecclesiastic, and social power in the late colonial period, with special attention given to Piura.
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Cities and Urban Life

As the traditional centers of Spanish power across the Atlantic, cities and urban settlements have been studied for their methods of governance, displays of royal authority, festival life, and economic activities. For the early colonial period, Lane 2002 examines Quito in a student-friendly narrative-based format, while Cuzco’s urban space is the focus of Viñuales 2004. Osorio 2008 takes a cultural approach to the construction of royal authority in colonial Lima through chapters on key institutions such as the viceregal court and the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Ortemberg 2014 studies a similar subject, but with a focus on how individual actors subverted this culture of public authority for their own purposes. For the everyday life of artisans and workers in Lima, see Quiroz 2008.

Lane, Kris. Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.
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Part of the Diálogos series, specifically intended for classroom use. Offers a cogent yet thorough study of Spanish colonial dominance at the edge of empire, based on six narrative case-studies from the pivotal year of 1599 — the turning point, for Quito, between the conquest and colonial periods.
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Ortemberg, Pablo. Rituales del poder en Lima (1735–1828): De la monarquía a la república. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2014.
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A history of public ritual, considering how festivals and ceremonies established and reinforced royal authority and social hierarchy in Lima. Also accounts for how social actors managed to manipulate the symbols and messages of these events for their own purposes.
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Osorio, Alejandra. Inventing Lima: Baroque Modernity in Peru’s South Sea Metropolis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230612488Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Thematic chapters examine the viceregal court at Lima, the baroque display of religious institutions, and the workings of the Spanish Inquisition.
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Quiroz, Francisco. Artesanos y manufactureros en Lima colonial. Lima, Peru: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2008.
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Assesses the work and influence of bread makers, carpenters, ironworkers, and others in colonial Lima, with a focus on their professional organization and importance to local commerce.
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Viñuales, Graciela Maria. El espacio urbano en el Cusco colonial: Uso y organización de las estructuras simbólicas. Lima, Peru: Epígrafe Editores, 2004.
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Detailed examination of colonial Cuzco’s urban space, with special attention given to the relocation of native peoples in the 16th century, the organization of distinct city neighborhoods in the mid-colonial period, and the symbolic language of the city of Cuzco in the early 18th century.
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Economy and Commerce

The essential starting point for any economic history of Peru during the period of Spanish rule is Jacobsen and Puhle 1986, a comprehensive essay collection that serves as an ideal introduction to the manifestations of economic history in colonial Peru. Aldana 1999 and Turiso Sebastián 2002 explore the familial networks that linked merchants to broader economies in Piura and Lima. Mangan 2005 looks at the market economy in Upper Peru, paying special attention to the role of women.

Aldana, Susana. Poderes en una región de frontera: Comercio y familia en el norte: Piura, 1700–1830. Lima, Peru: Panaca, 1999.
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Study of the Piura region’s mercantile economy, highlighting the importance of regional connections and familial networks.
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Jacobsen, Nils, and Hans-Jürgen Puhle. The Economies of Mexico and Peru during the Late Colonial Period, 1760–1810. Berlin: Colloquim Verlag Berlin, 1986.
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Still essential collection of essays on foundational aspects of late colonial economic history. Includes John Fisher on Peruvian silver mining, Alberto Flores Galindo on the merchant community of Lima, and Christine Hünefeldt on the Bourbon tobacco monopoly in Chachapoyas.
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Mangan, Jane. Trading Roles: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Economy in Colonial Potosí. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822386667Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Social history of Potosí, focusing on commerce and everyday economic transactions, with an eye for gender and ethnicity. Highlights the important role of native Andeans and women in forging Potosí’s economy.
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Turiso Sebastián, Jesús. Comerciantes Españoles en la Lima Borbónica: Anatomía de una élite de poder, 1701–1761. Valladolid, Spain: Universidad de Valladolid, 2002.
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A social and family history of Spanish merchants in early Bourbon Lima, based on case studies of 135 individuals.
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Gender and Family History

Another subfield of early modern Peruvian history that has seen great advancement over the last few decades is the history of gender and the family. Many of these works look closely at the roles and experiences of women in the colonial Andes. Graubart 2007 studies how indigenous women forged their place in society through their work and cultural identity. Meléndez 2011 approaches the history of women in colonial Peru through studies of “the body” in different cultural contexts. For Spanish women emigrants in the early colonial period, see Almorza Hidalgo 2011. Chambers 1999 examines how gender informed the political discourse of honor in colonial Arequipa. Guengerich 2013 looks at the portrayal of indigenous women in the work of Guaman Poma. Also important is Mannarelli 2007 for extramarital relationships and their consequences in 17th-century Lima. Premo 2005, a study of family relationships in Lima, pays special attention to the Bourbon reforms. Mangan 2015 approaches the family in early colonial Peru by examining ties to Spain and mestizaje. Van Deusen 2002 is an important study for colonial specialists, highlighting the politics and culture of female enclosure (voluntary and forced) in institutions other than convents. Gauderman 2003 and Black 2011 use legal history to understand women in colonial Quito. Cook and Cook 1991 is a transatlantic study of a 16th-century bigamist that is appealing for classroom use.

Almorza Hidalgo, Amelia. Género, emigración y movilidad social en la expansión Atlántica: Mujeres Españolas en el Perú colonial (1550–1650). Florence: European University Institute, 2011.
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Uses passenger records and personal correspondence to study female emigration to Peru in the early colonial period.
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Black, Chad. The Limits of Gender Domination: Women, the Law, and Political Crisis in Quito, 1765–1830. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2011.
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Interesting analysis of whether the Bourbon state’s attempt to extend patriarchal control over women through the legal system was successful. Black demonstrates that, ultimately, women continued making use of the traditional legal strategies and loopholes that benefitted them.
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Chambers, Sarah. From Subjects to Citizens: Honor, Gender, and Politics in Arequipa, Peru, 1780–1854. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
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Studies late colonial and early republican Arequipa, highlighting how politicians manipulated the masculine discourse of honor to encourage the public to support free trade, democratization, and autonomy from Lima.
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Cook, Alexandra Parma, and Noble David Cook. Good Faith and Truthful Ignorance: A Case of Transatlantic Bigamy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991.
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Tells the story of Francisco de Noguerol de Ulloa, who like so many early Spaniards to travel to New World, married a new wife there even though he had left one at home in Spain. Upon his return, his first wife charged him with bigamy. A compelling narrative for classroom use.
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Gauderman, Kimberly. Women’s Lives in Colonial Quito: Gender, Law, and Economy in Spanish America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
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Examines the lives of indigenous and Hispanic women in 17th-century Quito, highlighting their strategies to improve their financial and personal situations through legal and social means. Argues that the social order was ultimately underpinned by female independence from male domination.
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Graubart, Karen. With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550–1700. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
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Study of rural and urban women in northern Peru in the early and mid-colonial period. Analyzes largely legal documentation to show how women’s work shaped their identity as “Indians,” and how they used the Spanish legal system and their choices in clothing to shape their identities.
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Guengerich, Sara Vicuña. “Virtuosas o Corruptas: Las mujeres indígenas en las obras de Guamán Poma de Ayala y el Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.” Hispania 96.4 (2013): 672–683.
DOI: 10.1353/hpn.2013.0109Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Unpacks the religious rhetoric Guaman Poma used to discuss indigenous women as either good/the Virgin Mary/Pre-Hispanic women, or bad/Eve/common colonial women.
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Mangan, Jane E. Transatlantic Obligations: Creating the Bonds of Family in Conquest-Era Peru and Spain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
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Studies families in early colonial Peru and their connections to Spain, using letters, legal documents, and dowries. Highlights the importance of mestizaje in shaping the new colonial families.
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Mannarelli, María Emma. Private Passions and Public Sins: Men and Women in Seventeenth-Century Lima. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007.
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Focuses on sexuality outside of marriage in mid-colonial Lima; including extramarital affairs, illegitimate children, child abandonment, and the Catholic Church’s response to such activities. From the Diálogos series.
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Meléndez, Mariselle. Deviant and Useful Citizens: The Cultural Production of the Female Body in Eighteenth-Century Peru. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2011.
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Examines the female body in Bourbon Peru as seen in four different significant cultural productions and figures of the late colonial period: the Trujillo del Perú images commissioned by Bishop Martínez Compañón; the Historia of Lima’s Descalzas convent, written by Sor María Josefa de la Santísima Trinidad; the Mercurio Peruano; and the body of Micaela Bastidas, the consort and collaborator of Tupac Amaru.
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Premo, Bianca. Children of the Father King: Youth, Authority, and Legal Minority in Colonial Lima. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
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Essential contribution to the much-understudied topic of children and childhood in colonial Spanish America. Examines Spanish family law as focused on the “Father King” concept that tasked elite men with replicating the dominance of the Spanish monarch over dependent children, yet also explores how, in reality, women and slaves raised most children. Also traces the change in notions of childhood during the era of the Bourbon reforms.
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van Deusen, Nancy. Between the Sacred and the Worldly: The Institutional and Cultural Practice of Recogimiento in Colonial Lima. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.
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Important study of the colonial practice of recogimiento, or enclosure of women. Demonstrates that while some women chose enclosure as a route to attain their spiritual goals, others, such as prostitutes and orphans, were involuntarily enclosed in order to force their social rehabilitation.
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Language and Literacy

The study of language and literacy (in both Spanish and native languages) has been one of the most popular topics for scholars of colonial Peru in recent years. Almost universally, these works are inspired by Angel Rama’s The Lettered City (1996), which depicts colonial cities as centers of government and elite power predicated on written documents and communication. The classic study on the most renowned figure of Andean colonial letters remains Adorno 2000 on the 16th-century native Peruvian Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, whose scathing critique of Spanish conquest and rule is one of the most important (and earliest) examples of a native writing in the history of colonial Peru. Dueñas 2010 moves beyond the study of Guaman Poma and mestizo author Garcilaso de la Vega to search for lesser known indigenous and mestizo intellectuals. Rappaport and Cummins 2012 looks at the social processes of how Andeans acquired literacy, paying special attention to the importance of visual culture in native Peruvian society. Burns 2010 is a first-rate introduction to the process of making historical documentation in colonial Peru that also stands as an essential contribution to the study of archives in the early modern Atlantic world. Argouse 2014 is a much more focused study of archival documents and their colonial uses in colonial Chile. Heggarty and Pearce 2011 and Ramos and Yannakakis 2014 both offer selections of essays ideal for classroom use. Mannheim 1991 remains a classic ethnohistorical study detailing how the arrival of the Spanish has affected the native Andean language of Quechua.

Adorno, Rolena. Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru. 2d ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.
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Classic study of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, a native Andean who, in the postconquest period, penned a lengthy epistle to King Phillip III of Spain detailing the misdeeds of Spanish conquest and rule in Peru.
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Argouse, Aude. “‘Ausente como si fuesedes presente’: Perdón, memoria, estcribanos, Chile, S XVI–XVIII.” Mouseion 18 (August 2014): 55–74.
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Exploration of Santiago’s notarial archives throughout the colonial period, with a focus on letters of pardon written with the intention of removing accusations against those who were to face court trials. Considers polite cordiality as an alternative form of justice.
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Burns, Kathryn. Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822393450Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Burns’s second monograph is also a major contribution to the scholarship on colonial Peru and Spanish America in general. She studies notarial culture, documents, and archives in Cuzco, giving relevant background from the Spanish context as well. She details how notaries moderated archival documents, and complicates the readers’ understanding of the search for “the truth” in archives.
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Dueñas, Alcira. Indians and Mestizos in the “Lettered City”: Reshaping Justice, Social Hierarchy, and Political Culture in Colonial Peru. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2010.
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Goes beyond the study of Guaman Poma and Garcilaso de la Vega to highlight other native Andean writers of the colonial period, largely through their interactions with the Spanish state.
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Heggarty, Paul, and Adrian Pearce, eds. History and Language in the Andes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
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Edited collection of essays on language and literacy in the Andes from the colonial period through today. Includes Andrien on the treatment of native languages in Peru under the Bourbon reforms, and César Itier on Quechua as the lingua franca of colonial Peru.
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Mannheim, Bruce. The Language of the Inka since the European Invasion. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
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Definitive synthesis of the main indigenous language of the Andes, Quechua, from the first contact with Europeans through the 20th century.
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Ramos, Gabriela, and Yanna Yannakakis, eds. Indigenous Intellectuals: Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014.
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Edited collection of essays treating the contributions of indigenous intellectuals to the cultural history of colonial Spanish America. Includes an essay on Jesuit-trained native intellectuals in mid-colonial Peru, Alan Durston on the making of Huarochirí Manuscript, and Kathryn Burns on the quipu-keepers of colonial Cuzco.
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Rappaport, Joanne, and Tom Cummins. Beyond the Lettered City: Indigenous Literacies in the Andes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012.
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Analyzes the social processes of literacy, paying special attention to how indigenous peoples found agency within a systemic form of colonial domination. Special attention paid to manuscript production and the importance of visual culture in Andean literacy.
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Mining

As silver mining (and to a lesser extent, mercury mining at Huancavelica) was such an essential part of Peru’s viceregal economy, it has produced a correspondingly developed body of scholarship. The earliest, and in many ways most useful introduction to the mining process and the importance of mining in the late colonial economy is Fisher 1977. Also foundational is Tandeter 1993, which altered the historical narrative by demonstrating that the silver output of the “Cerro Rico” at Potosí did not decline in the late colonial period as is typically thought—in fact it almost doubled. Bakewell 1984 and Cole 1985 both focus on Potosí as well, paying special attention to the mita labor draft through which Indian labor was contracted. Bakewell 1988 is also centered in Potosí, but I tis a biographical account of a 17th-century silver magnate. Zulawski 1995 focuses on mining in Oruro (modern-day Bolivia). The essays in Assadourian 1980 treat both Peru and Bolivia from a global perspective. Contreras 1982 is a Spanish-language study of the mercury mine at Huancavelica; as such, it is also essential for the specialist looking to gain a broader understanding of mining in Peru. Robins 2011 is the most recent offering in the literature, and it too is a comprehensive account of the mining process and economy at Potosí.

Assadourian, Carlos Sempat, ed. Minería y espacio económico en los Andes, siglos XVI–XX. Lima, Peru: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1980.
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Essays of far-ranging perspective on mining in Peru and Bolivia through the 20th century.
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Bakewell, Peter. Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosí, 1545–1650. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.
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Focuses on silver mining at the “Cerro Rico” in the early colonial period from a social history perspective, stressing the importance of the mita labor draft and minga cooperative labor parties in fulfilling the need for workers at the mines.
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Bakewell, Peter. Silver and Entrepreneurship in Seventeenth-Century Potosí: The Life and Times of Antonio López de Quiroga. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1988.
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An accessible addition to the scholarship on mining that examines the industry through the life of a 17th-century silver refiner in Potosí.
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Cole, Jeffrey. The Potosí Mita, 1573–1700. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.
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An institutional history of the mita labor draft at Potosí in the 16th and 17th centuries, focusing on the colonial regime’s administration of the mita, the labor draft’s effects on the native population of the region, and the mining guild of Potosí.
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Contreras, Carlos. La Ciudad del mercurio: Huancavelica, 1570–1700. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1982.
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Essential study of the Huancavelica mercury mine in the early colonial period, with chapters focusing on mine administration, the mining camp, and the market system supplying the mining community.
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Fisher, John. Silver Mines and Silver Miners in Colonial Peru, 1776–1824. Liverpool, UK: Center for Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, 1977.
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Foundational study of the complex processes, negotiations, and institutions that made up the silver mining industry in late-colonial Peru. Special attention to the mining reforms of the 1780s, the Nordenflicht expedition, and the Mining Guild and Mining Tribunal of Lima.
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Robins, Nicholas A. Mercury, Mining, and Empire: The Human and Ecological Cost of Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.
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Details the history of Potosí’s “Cerro Rico” from its “discovery” to its decline. Chapters on the amalgamation process, labor systems, and native responses to exploitation at the mines.
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Tandeter, Enrique. Coercion and Market: Silver Mining in Colonial Potosí, 1692–1826. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993.
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English translation of this foundational work. Before Tandeter, scholars largely believed the silver output of Potosí declined throughout the 18th century. His extensive research demonstrated that it in fact doubled.
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Zulawski, Ann. They Eat from Their Labor: Work and Social Change in Colonial Bolivia. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995.
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Social history detailing the development of the indigenous labor force in Upper Peru in the 17th and 18th centuries. Focuses on the central silver mining region of Oruro, and the agricultural province of Pilaya y Paspaya. Also pays attention to gender concepts and norms in Spanish and Andean society.
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Race and Ethnicity

The literature on race and ethnicity in Atlantic Peru has produced a number of groundbreaking studies since the 1990s, many of which use the cultural history of racial and ethnic identity to better understand the workings of colonial society. Cahill 1994 is a foundational article that defined the fluidity of categories of identity in colonial Peru. Similarly, the essays in Tomoeda and Milones 1992 consider the meaning of mestizaje in the colonial Andes. Larson 2004 looks at how the fear of a race war continued to permeate Andean political culture over a century after the great Indian rebellions of the 18th century. There are also many contributions to this category that focus on Peruvians of African descent, both free and enslaved. Martín 2014 studies doctors of Afro-Peruvian heritage in the colonial and early national period. The most groundbreaking studies of race and ethnicity have considered how Afro-Peruvian and indigenous race and ethnicity were established in relationship to one another. O’Toole 2012 is an exemplary social history of Afro-indigenous relations in northern Peru. Garofalo 2006 looks at Afro-Peruvian “ritual specialists,” paying special attention to their ties to native communities. The essays in Carrillo S, et al. 2002 also deal with both peoples of African and indigenous descent.

Cahill, David. “Colour by Numbers: Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1532–1824.” Journal of Latin American Studies 26.2 (May 1994): 325–346.
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X00016242Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that “race” and “ethnicity” cannot be conflated, and that both categories were malleable in colonial Peru. The racial categories imagined by 18th-century observers and demonstrated in visual artifacts like casta paintings were imagined, not exact.
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Carrillo S, Ana Cecilia, Ciro Corilla Melchor, Diego Edgar Lévano Medina, et al. Etnicidad y discriminación racial en la historia del Perú. Lima, Peru: Instituto Riva Agüero, 2002.
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Two-volume set on ethnicity and racial discrimination, locating the experience of Afro-Peruvians within Peru’s broader racial and ethnic history. Includes pieces by Ramiro Flores Guzmán on the late-colonial slave trade, and Mónica Ferradas Martínez on Afro-Peruvian and Indian wills and testaments.
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Garofalo, Leo. “Conjuring the Coca and the Inca: the Andeanization of Lima’s Afro-Peruvian Ritual Specialists, 1580–1690.” The Americas 63.1 (2006): 53–80.
DOI: 10.1353/tam.2006.0110Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the social role of Afro-Peruvian ritual specialists who often served as cultural links between mestizo, indigenous, and Afro-Peruvian populations.
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Larson, Brooke. Trials of Nation Making: Liberalism, Race, and Ethnicity in the Andes, 1810–1910. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511616396Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines Andean highland communities in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia and their role in social, political, economic, and cultural changes through the early national period. Concludes that fear of race war permeated the Andes even after independence, and the white elite’s desire to marginalize indigenous people profoundly affected modern political development.
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Martín, José R. Jouve. The Black Doctors of Colonial Lima: Science, Race, and Writing in Colonial and Early Republican Peru. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014.
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Detailed study of the role of Afro-Peruvian medical practitioners in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, who in fact made up a significant portion of the field. Covers curanderos (healers) and surgeons more generally, with chapters focusing on specific figures like José Manuel Valdés, who became Protomédico, or head medical authority of Peru, in the early republican period.
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O’Toole, Rachel. Bound Lives: Africans, Indians, and the Making of Race in Colonial Peru. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012.
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Innovative examination of race relations among Afro-Peruvians and indigenous people in northern Peru in the colonial period, highlighting how they actively constructed their own racial identities that determined their status in the colonial legal and labor systems.
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Tomoeda, Hiroyasu, and Luis Milones, eds. 500 Años de mestizaje en los Andes. Osaka, Japan: Museo Nacional de Etnología, 1992.
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Edited collection on the history of mestizaje in the Andes, including Thierry Saignes on Creoles and mestizos in the 17th-century, and Teresa Gisbert on the curacas of Collao.
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Religion and Spirituality

There are many fine studies of the different variations of religious and spiritual belief in early modern Peru, the majority of which treat the Catholic religion, native religious traditions, and the interaction between the two. MacCormack 1991 focuses on the Spanish Catholic philosophical differences with native religious traditions. This same theme is at the center of Mills 1997, a thoroughly researched account of the Catholic campaign of “extirpation” of Indian religious beliefs in mid-colonial Peru. Duviols 2008 also looks at extirpation in the early and middle colonial periods. Estenssoro 2003 offers an entirely different perspective by extrapolating on the important ways in which native peoples identified as Catholics in the colonial period. Though it is highly polemical and overtly references contemporary politics, Silverblatt 2004 is nevertheless an important contribution to the historical literature, as it discusses the Spanish Inquisition’s campaign against the “Jewish Conspiracy” in 17th-century Lima. Millar Carvacho 2004 is a much less polemical study of the decline of the Holy Office’s power in Lima in the late colonial period. Ramos 2010 compares Catholic death practices in Lima and Cuzco in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Jesuit order in Peru is the center of Cushner 1980 (cited under Agrarian and Rural History), which focuses on their economic activities and particularly their landholding. The most recent account of the Jesuit order in Peru is Maldavsky 2012, which looks at Jesuit missionaries in the early colonial period. Women in the Catholic Church are at the center of Burns 1999, a modern classic about the nuns of Cuzco’s Santa Clara convent and their role in the economic and social life of the city, and van Deusen 2004, which in part reproduces the spiritual diary of a mid-colonial Afro-Peruvian mystic, Ursula de Jesús. Bunster 2010 examines how selected groups of religious, secular and regular, experienced the aftermath of the Tupac Amaru rebellion in Cuzco. Brosseder 2014 traces how indigenous religious practices changed under Catholic domination.

Brosseder, Claudia. The Power of Huacas: Change and Resistance in the Andean World of Colonial Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014.
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Detailed study of native Andean hechizería, or sorcery, throughout the colonial period, paying attention to both the European discourses of witchcraft and the Andean perspectives on religious specialists. Shows how religious objects, symbols, and traditions changed throughout the colonial period.
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Bunster, Cora Virginia. “Comunidades religiosas del Cuzco: Escándolos públicos y sospechas de conspiración criolla a fines del siglo XVIII.” Revista Andina 50 (2010): 115–139.
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Looks at male and female religious—regular and secular clergy—to assess how they experienced the aftermath of the Tupac Amaru rebellion in Cuzco, when Bourbon ministers responded harshly to any sort of “disorder” in religious communities.
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Burns, Kathryn. Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
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Classic cultural history of convents in Peru, emphasizing their role as economic and social institutions. Contends the nuns of Cuzco’s Santa Clara convent managed a “spiritual economy” that not only protected and preserved the social honor of young women, but also made loans, held capital, and managed property. Essential for scholars, yet also written accessibly for advanced classroom use.
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Duviols, Pierre. La Lutte contre les religions autochtones dans le Pérou colonial: L’extirpation de l’idolatrie entre 1532 et 1660. Toulouse, France: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2008.
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Study of the Lima Catholic Church’s extirpation campaigns in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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Estenssoro, Juan Carlos. Del Paganismo a la santidad (1532–1750). Lima, Peru: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, 2003.
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Counters the dominant historical narrative that the indigenous people of Peru fought to preserve their native religious traditions. Instead shows the ways in which they practiced and sought recognition as Catholics.
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MacCormack, Sabine. Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
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Weighty history of late Inca/early colonial Andean religion and how it was viewed by the Spanish colonizers, whose observations on the topic were by necessity circumscribed by their own understanding of the world and spirituality.
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Maldavsky, Aliocha. Vocaciones inciertas: Misión y misioneros en la provincia Jesuita del Perú en los Siglos XVI y XVII. Sevilla, Spain: CSIC, 2012.
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Study of Jesuit missionaries in early colonial Peru that highlights the struggle against native religious practices, the use of native labor, and the Jesuit attempts to learn indigenous languages.
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Millar Carvacho, René. La Inquisición de Lima: Signos de su decadencia, 1726–1750. Santiago, Chile: Centro de Investigaciones Diego Barros Arana, 2004.
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Uses two case studies of Inquisition cases to demonstrate abuse of power in Lima’s Holy Office in the late colonial period. Third study of the Inquisition by this leading scholar on the topic.
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Mills, Kenneth. Idolatry and its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion in Extirpation, 1640–1750. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
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Study of the “extirpation” campaign against indigenous religious practices in the archdiocese of Lima in the mid-colonial period. Shows how the campaign began relatively peacefully, but turned to more coercive methods by the mid-17th century. Highlights the connections between performance and colonial religious practice.
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Ramos, Gabriela. Death and Conversion in the Andes: Lima and Cuzco, 1532–1670. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.
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Analyzes the Andean natives’ conversion to Catholicism through changing attitudes toward death in the early and mid-colonial period. Compares Cuzco and Lima to demonstrate how the larger indigenous population of the former was better able to resist aspects of Catholic indoctrination.
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Silverblatt, Irene. Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822386230Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Centers on the “great Jewish Conspiracy” of 1635–1639 in Lima, which rounded up almost one hundred suspected Jews and brought them before the Inquisition in one of the bloodiest autos da fé of the colonial period. Silverblatt maintains that in pairing religious doctrine with racial discrimination, the Spanish Inquisition in Peru laid the groundwork for modern patterns of racial discrimination and exploitive bureaucracy. Suitable for advanced classroom use.
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van Deusen, Nancy E., ed. and trans. The Souls of Purgatory: The Spiritual Diary of a Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Ursula de Jesús. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004.
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Edited translation of the spiritual diary of Ursula de Jesús, an Afro-Peruvian woman who entered a convent as a slave, then experienced religious visions, became a dedicated religious woman, and eventually took the habit of the Santa Clara order. Contains approximately fifty pages of her spiritual diary, in both English and Spanish.
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Visual and Material Culture

Another innovative subfield is the study of visual and material culture in colonial Peru, which is particularly revealing in the Andean case since it provides a unique angle from which to approach native interpretations of colonial history, given that Peru’s pre-Hispanic peoples had no autochthonous tradition of writing. The genre is indebted to Cossío del Pomar 1964, the first survey of artistic production (native and otherwise) from the Cuzco region. Mujica Pinilla 2002–2003 is an edited collection of essays that provides an excellent introduction to the scholarship on Peruvian colonial art. Gisbert 1999 explores the racial diversity of artistic production in the Andes, and remains a classic in the art history of colonial Spanish America. Also essential is Dean 1999, a groundbreaking study of native costumes, processions, and art in colonial Cuzco. Majluf 1999 was also a seminal work in the field, bringing scholarly attention to the often overlooked set of casta paintings made in Peru. For the popular mural paintings found throughout the Andes, see Macera 1993. Religious art and architecture are also the focus of Damian 1995, which looks at Marian devotional art; Bailey 2010, which uses art and architecture to develop a concept of an indigenous “Andean hybrid baroque” style in Peru; and Fraser 1990, which focuses on architecture in colonial Peru. Through images and introductory text, Phipps, et al. 2004 serves as an important introduction to the artwork in silver for which colonial Peruvian artisans were so renowned. Pruitt 2012 is a recent important contribution to the genre, being the first study dedicated to painting in Quito (instead of the more typical Quiteño subjects of sculpture and architecture).

Bailey, Gauvin Alexander. The Andean Hybrid Baroque: Convergent Cultures in the Churches of Colonial Peru. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.
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Massive survey of the artistic productions engendered by relations between native Andeans and ecclesiastics, focusing on what Bailey terms the “Andean Hybrid Baroque,” or the colonial Andean style produced by teams of indigenous artisans, architects, and sculptors who worked mainly on religious commissions. Extensively illustrated.
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Cossío del Pomar, Felipe. Peruvian Colonial Art: The Cuzco School of Painting. New York: Wittenborn, 1964.
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Overview of artistic production in the Cuzco region, with due emphasis on the importance of native painters and artisans, as well as the role of the Catholic Church in commissioning artworks.
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Damian, Carol. The Virgin of the Andes: Art and Ritual in Colonial Cuzco. Miami, FL: Grassfield, 1995.
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Art-historical study of the importance of the Virgin Mary image in the Cuzco school of native artists in the mid- to late colonial era. Highlights how they added to Spanish artistic style by integrating indigenous forms and employing gold ornamentation, jewels, and intricate patterns in their artworks.
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Dean, Carolyn. Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
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Essential study of how native Andeans navigated their pre-Hispanic and colonial identities during the festival of Corpus Christi. Examines costumes, processions, ceremonial headwear, and paintings.
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Fraser, Valerie. The Architecture of Conquest: Building in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1535–1635. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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Focuses on Spanish construction in the early colonial period. Highlights the importance of the classical style in building and in town construction, arguing that classical antiquity was a major factor that shaped the Spanish colonial enterprise in America.
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Gisbert, Teresa. El Paraíso de los pájaros parlantes: La imagen del otro en la cultura Andina. La Paz, Bolivia: Plural Editores, 1999.
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Explores the visual culture and art history of the Andean region, with an emphasis on “convivencia,” and the racial diversity that marked its production.
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Macera, Pablo. La Pintura mural Andina, siglos XVI–XIX. Lima, Peru: Milla Batres, 1993.
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Focuses on the vernacular mural paintings that were painted on the walls of churches, homes, and other buildings throughout the colonial period. Highlights variations of regional style.
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Majluf, Natalia, et al., eds. Los cuadros de mestizaje del virrey Amat: La representación etnográfica en el Perú colonial. Lima, Peru: Museo de Arte de Lima, 1999.
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Collected essays on the famous Peruvian set of twenty casta paintings owned by Viceroy Amat, with contributions by Luis Eduardo Wuffarden and Juan Estenssoro.
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Mujica Pinilla, Ramon, ed. El Barroco Peruano. Lima, Peru: Banco de Crédito, 2002–2003.
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Essential two-volume overview of collected essays on colonial art in Peru, including chapters on retablos, cathedrals, and art and sermons by this renowned Peruvian anthropologist and director of Peru’s National Library.
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Phipps, Elena, Johanna Hecht, and Cristina Esteras Martín, eds. The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530–1830. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.
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Edited exhibition catalogue for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2004 Colonial Andes show. Includes illustrated inventory of items loaned and displayed for the exhibition, as well as essays on the pre-Hispanic and colonial period by Cummins, MacCormack, Salomon, and other leading experts.
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Pruitt, Suzanne L., ed. The Art of Painting in Colonial Quito. Philadelphia: St. Joseph’s University Press, 2012.
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First overview of painting in Quito, which is usually studied by art historians of the colonial period for architecture and sculpture. Arranged in the style of an exhibition catalogue, with high-quality reproductions and explanatory text.
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