A Republic of Lost Peoples: Race, Status, and Community in the Eastern Andes of Charcas at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Nathan Weaver Olson IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Sarah C. Chambers August 2017 © Nathan Weaver Olson 2017 Acknowledgements There is a locally famous sign along the highway between the Bolivian cities of Vallegrande and El Trigal that marks the turn-off for the town of Moro Moro. It reads: “Don’t say that you know the world if you don’t know Moro Moro.” Although this dissertation began as an effort to study the history of Moro Moro, and more generally the province of Vallegrande, located in the Andean highlands of the department of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the research and writing process has made me aware of an entire world of Latin American history. Thus, any recounting of the many people who have contributed to this project must begin with the people of Moro Moro themselves, whose rich culture and sense of regional identity first inspired me to learn more about Bolivian history. My companions in that early journey, all colleagues from the Mennonite Central Committee, included Patrocinio Garvizu, Crecensia García, James “Phineas” Gosselink, Dantiza Padilla, and Eloina Mansilla Guzmán, to name only a few. I owe my interest and early academic grounding in Colonial Latin American history to my UCSD professors Christine Hunefeldt, Nancy Postero, Eric Van Young, and Michael Monteón. My colleagues at UCSD’s Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies and the Dimensions of Culture Writing Program at UCSD’s Thurgood Marshall College made me a better researcher and teacher. Nancy Egan and the late Emily Thomas Montgomery were key sources of support and encouragement during those years. My professors at the University of Minnesota helped me to ground my research in the complexities of the Early Modern world. I am particularly grateful for the support of my i dissertation committee members Raúl Marrero-Fente, Robert McCaa, Patrick McNamara, and Jeffrey Pilcher. I could not have completed this dissertation without the professionalism and positive energy of the Wilson and Magrath library staff. Past and present members of the University of Minnesota’s USpatial staff, particularly Taylor Long, Lucas Winzenburg, and Pete Wiringa, helped me to prepare several of the maps that appear in this dissertation. My former colleagues at the Digital Content Library and Labs, Ginnie Larson, Samantha Porter, Julie Swanson, Denne Wesolowski, and Anduin Wilhide supported me with technical resources, helpful insights, and hours of good conversation. Jimmy Sweet, Molly Tun, and Lars Christensen were excellent company in the early stages of writing this dissertation. Rafael Tarragó’s Latin American Studies Brown Bag series and the former Ye Olde Workshoppe writing group served as critical forums for exploring ideas that would later grow into dissertation chapters and article drafts. Ellen Manovich, Tim McDonald, Amanda Taylor, Blair Williams, and Alex Wisnoski generously answered the call for last-minute chapter edits. My studies have given me the privilege to visit a number of different archives in Bolivia and Spain while I connected with new colleagues and friends. In Bolivia, I remain grateful to Paula Peña of the Museo de Historia y Archivo Histórico de Santa Cruz, William Rojas of the Biblioteca Municipal, Fondo Sanabria Fernández, Anita Suarez de Terceros of the Archivo Histórico Catedral de Santa Cruz, and the late Marcela Inch, former director of the Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia. Robert Flock, former vicario general of the Archdiocese of Santa Cruz, Luis Enrrique Rivero Coimbra ii and María Estela, Pastor Aguilar Peña, Walter Romero Franco, and Francisco Roig shared their personal networks and historical knowledge with me. Archival staff members at the ABNB, the Archivo Histórico Municipal de Cochabamba, the Archivo de la Universidad de San Francisco Xavier Chuquisaca, the Archivo y Biblioteca Histórico de la Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno, and the Archivo-Biblioteca Arquidiocesano de Sucre were always professional and patient. The staff members and city officials of the Alcaldía of Padilla did not hesitate to open their archives and connect me with knowledgeable residents during my visit to the town. I was able to spend many happy months at the Archivo General de Indias. Special thanks to the archival staff, and to the colleagues who shared coffee with me at La Rayuela. Thanks also to Carmen de Mora of the Universidad de Sevilla for her archival advice. Friends Silvia Fuentes, Bruno Bejar, and Rosario Luengo Olmo welcomed my family into their homes with open arms. The families and staff members of the Colegio de Educación Infantil y Primaria Valdés Leal made us feel like part of the neighborhood in Sevilla. Kris and Ximena Lane regaled me with stories in Sucre. Jonathan Scholl and Sato Masaki kept their eyes peeled for archival resources. Karen Graubart, Tamar Herzog, and Lolita Gutiérrez Brockington shared their work, ideas, and critical insights at key moments in the writing process. Funding for research travel and materials was generously supplied by the Tinker Foundation, the University of Minnesota’s Global Programs and Strategy Alliance, the Union Pacific Corporation, and the Center for Early Modern History. iii It has been my great honor and pleasure to be mentored by Sarah Chambers, my advisor, over the course of this project. Thank you for your boundless patience, prompt and perceptive editorial advice, and respectful support and encouragement. Finally, this project could not have proceeded without the support of friends and family. S.T. Jamison and Dain Ingebretson reminded me of the relevance of this work. My parents, Wade and Diana Olson, my mother-in-law, Ann Weaver, and my sister, Erin Batstone, were faithful encouragers. And as for my wife, Kimberly, and my children, Natalie and Micah, this project has shaped the life of our family over many years. Now it is a reminder of our many adventures together. iv Dedication For Kimberly, Natalie, and Micah, who made it possible. v Abstract This dissertation explores a period between the 1570s and 1620s when the Audiencia of Charcas (Modern Bolivia) was beset with problems. During this time, the Eastern Andean frontier emerged as an idealized space where the chaotic social elements that plagued Charcas, both within and without, might be more effectively placed under royal authority. The discovery and exploitation of resources in the Viceroyalty of Peru, particularly silver mines, had set in motion new patterns of human migration and mixture that would fill Spain’s Peruvian cities with a rabble that some would parse as la gente suelta: the Empire’s loose or lost peoples. This growing throng, including ambitious immigrants and disaffected children of the conquistadores, seemed to threaten the fragile order that Spanish officials had established. Moreover, Spanish control of Peru remained incomplete and tenuous. Just east of Potosi, raids of the Chiriguano and other unconquered indigenous groups crippled the development of the region’s emerging agrarian hinterland. In the frontier, idealized cities and their jurisdictions were seen as sites where royal authorities would knit together the region’s growing Spanish and mixed-race transient population, fugitive African and indigenous slaves and servants, and unconquered peoples, into an orderly republic, a community bound together under the rule of law. Over six chapters, this dissertation explores how a diverse set of actors applied Iberian ideas about vagrancy, urban planning, racial difference, and frontier geopolitics to the specific conditions of Potosí and its eastern hinterlands. I find that royal officials and prospective city founders often weighed the social reputation of frontier settlers against vi the realities of recruitment, allowing for social mobility by people of African descent. Unlike previous studies, which have analyzed either tensions within Potosí itself or Spain’s often violent relationships with unconquered peoples, this dissertation redefines the Eastern Andes as a contested internal space, shaped by the localized aspirations of the many people who strove to possess the region’s land and resources. In the frontier, low- status colonists elaborated new notions of collective honor, rooted in a shared heritage of frontier service, to pursue individual rights and privileges unavailable to them in Charcas’s urban core. vii Table of Contents List of Maps and Figures………………………………………………………………. ix Introduction. …………………………………………………………………………....1 Chapter 1. Governing the “Despoblado” ……………………………………………….40 Chapter 2. Governor’s Myths: The Gente Suelta in the Americas. ……………………102 Chapter 3. Redeeming the Conquerors: Love, Land, and Urban Planning in Peru…….173 Chapter 4. Imagined Cities and Subjects in the Eastern Andes, 1574-1624……………236 Chapter 5. Tierras de Paz, Tierras de Guerra…………………………………………...306 Chapter 6. Safety in Numbers: Honor and Collective Agency. …………………….….368 Conclusion. …………………………………………………………………………….445 Bibliography. ……………………………………………………………………….….457 viii List of Tables Map 1. “Mapa de la cordillera en que habita la nación Chiriguana que por la parte del Este confina con la provincia de los Charcas”………………...………………………....41 Map 2. The Audiencia of Charcas c. 1700, Relative to Modern Latin American National and Provincial Boundaries…………………….………………………………………....57