Towns and Indian Labor in the Central Andes: Bombon in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

Based on unpublished and rich documentation, the article seeks to establish the changes in labor relations of Indian towns (reducciones) with the emergence and consolidation of ranches and sweatshops (obrajes) in their vecinity and the drastic demographic decrease in the Peruvian central Andes (Bombon plateau) between 1667 and 1677. The article discusses current labor history topics in Peruvian and Latin American historiography, such as free and coercive labor, mita, yanaconaje, peonage and Indian towns or reducciones. This study finds that-with the emergence of individual means of coercion-in the new conditions Indian towns continue being important but they are no longer essential in the recruitment, retention and remuneration of the workers of the estates and the obraje.