Peru's Indian Peoples And The Challenge Of Spanish Conquest By Steve Stern

One of the more interesting aspects of South American exploration that to some degree gets glossed over is the way in which the Spanish seized control of the indigenous population. In his book Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest Steve Stern attempts to shed light on this brushed over area of South American conquest. Stern’s book focuses on the Huamanga during the 16th and 17th century taking us through the initial conquest, Spanish-kuraka alliances, the Taqui Onqoy crisis, the reforms of Toledo’s and the “Republic of the Indians”, as well as the rise of native elites in the 17th century. All the while Stern displays a remarkable anthropological understanding of the aboriginal culture as well as how they as a people felt
about their new foreign oppressors. In addition Stern strains to clarifying the motives behind the Spanish conquest by going against the “black legend”. Stern argues that if the Spanish wanted to set up and maintain a conquest society it would require both the breakdown of indigenous culture constructs such as the ayllu way of life in addition to the Spanish gaining legitimacy in the eyes of the kuraka leaders and the indigenous population they ruled.
According to Stern, class lectures as well as personal knowledge, with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, colonial expansion under the Spanish monarchy (specifically the crown of Castile as Charles V had yet to unify the Spanish kingdoms of Castile, Leon and Aragon) was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and continued for more than 200 years after. One of the conquistadores Stern mentions quite a bit when discussing the conquest of Peru is Francisco Pizarro, the man most closely associated with the demise of the Incan Empire. At first Pizarro could not secure funds for his infamous 3rd expedition of Peru do in part to the fact he had led two failed expeditions in 1524 and 1526 in an attempt to conquer the Incan empire. This however changed after going to Spain and communicating directly with King Charles. After explaining to King Charles that he had seen natives in northern Peru with precious metals Pizarro was able to attain the necessary support from the crown to finance his conquest of the Incan people. With the support of the Spanish crown, Pizarro, in 1532 led an expedition of a mere 168 conquistadores inland near the Incan city Cajamarca where they encountered the Inca Empire Atahualpa. The reason for this was Atahualpa was making his way to the Incan Capital of Cuzco to claim the throne that his father had lost due to death by illness (most likely smallpox contracted from Spanish expeditions). Atahualpa detested the notion of a Spanish presence in his lands so he invited these Spanish conquerors into Cajamarca in hopes of capturing them, having no fear that his army of some 80,000 men could be outmatched by the small Spanish force. Stern shows how this allowed Pizarro and his men to reach the city of Cajamarca without much resistance. In fact, on his way to Cajamarca, Pizarro was able to gain the support of Andean people whom the Incas had conquered, which helped him to capture Atahualpa. After Atahualpa’s capture Pizarro ransomed the Incan Empire for a “room full of gold” which while he received only served as full to the Spanish conquest machine. It was at this point that Pizarro decided to execute the Incan empire against the wishes of men in hopes that it would create dissention amongst the Incan ranks that the conquistadors’ could take advantage of in their conquest of Cuzco which took place later in 1532. So as Stern points out throughout his book it was a combination of these mechanisms that allowed the Incans to fall so easily to the Spanish.
One topic that Stern focuses on quite closely is the earlier alliances that came about in the post-Incan conquest of 1532 as a response to both sides (the Spanish and the Andean people) realizing they needed the support of the other.
As stated by Stern the kurakas that followed Atahualpa to Cajamarca were rather impressed by the military capabilities of the Spaniards especially the Lucanas people of Andamarca and Laramati whose kurakas asserted themselves as friends of the Spanish in hopes of forming an alliance. One of these crude alliance systems that occurred was the encomienda system imposed upon the Andean people by the conquistadores. In the encomienda, the Spanish crown granted a person, the encomendero, a number of Indians with the kuraka leaders of the specific community in charge of gathering the required tribute and labor. In this system the encomenderos served the military and political needs of the Spanish crown while also being entrusted with the wellbeing of the Indians charged to their care, in particular the instruction of the Christian faith. In return for protecting the natives from warring tribes the encomenderos was given the right to extract tribute from the Indians in the form of labor, gold, or other goods such as corn. On the surface the encomendero was an oppressive system with many cases of abuses of authority however, not all exploited the Indigenous people under them. In 1541 the cabildo (a municipal council of emcomendero elites) wanted to curtail the abuse of the Indians because it “would give the Indians reason to turn against us, killing Spaniards as they used to do” (pg.28). One encomendero in particular that had positive relations with the Indians under him was Diego Maldonado. As Stern shows Maldonado preferred to negotiate with the indigenous people, winning them over with gifts rather than subjugate them through acts violence. The Spanish as Stern points out were not the only people to take advantage of post-Incan Andean
region. Local Andean communities sacked old Incan stockpiles of grains and various goods. There was also an emerging population of individuals who left ayllu society known as yanaconas who joined their European rulers in the quest for precious metals. (pg.30)
Stern also mentions the Taqui Onqoy crisis that arose in Huamanga, Ayacucho, and Peru during the 1560s and its spread to places such as Lima, Cusco and La Paz. According to Stern the Taqui Onqoy was first noticed by the Spanish priest Luis de Olivera who witnessed Indians preaching that a pan-Andean alliance of deities would defeat the Christian god then bring death and disease upon the Spanish invaders. While it had undertones of political and culture significance at its core the Taqui Onqoy was an indigenous religious movement directly opposed to the recent invasion of the Spanish conquistadores whom sought to spread Christianity and impose their idea of the word of god (the bible). The movement encouraged the worship of pre-Spanish Andean gods known as huacas whom the Andean people felt were angered by the spread of Christianity amongst indigenous people. The huacas as it was believed would take possession of indigenous people, making them chant and dance in hopes of restoring Andean traditions. While Stern mentions it stated as a rebellion against Christianity the Taqui Onqoy morphed into a political upheaval with an ideology of keeping Andean traditions and rejecting Spanish ones. Seeking help Olivera appealed to the curate Cristobal de Albornoz who led a two to three year anti-idolatry campaign which accumulated with the condemnation of more than 8,000 Indian and the end of the Taqui Onqoy crisis. (pg.51)
One of the early key figures Stern discusses in regards to the conquest of Peru is Viceroy Francisco de Toledo. Ruling as Viceroy of Peru from 1569-1581, Toledo was responsible for many of the policies that took hold of Andean culture after the encomendero system began to weaken. The reason behind the encomendero failure was the spread of European epidemic diseases amongst the Andean peoples which sapped sources of labor as well as abuses of power by the Spaniards. To deal with these problems Toledo established reforms which he felt best dealt with the economic crisis in the Andes. First as Stern points out Toledo organized the Andean peoples into large townships which he called reducciones. The reducciones were then divided into 614 administrative districts called repartimientos each of which was headed by a kuraka. The second level of reforms imposed by Toledo was a regularized system of taxation known as the tribute tax. The tribute as Stern notes was required by all indigenous males ages 18-50 and the amount to be paid was based on the social status of each individual. The lone exception to this rule was the kurakas who were responsible for collecting the tribute. The final issue Toledo had to deal with was the establishment of the mita system, a system of rotated forced labor of the indigenous people. Toledo made use of this forced labor in the silver and mercury mines of Upper Peru which became huge sources of wealth for the Spanish colony.
Stern while

When discussing historical events one must remember that historical accounts are more a matter of perspective then necessarily fact. This makes discussing historical events such as the Spanish conquest of the Americas quite difficult giving that throughout human history the victorious (in this case the Spanish) would destroy the culture of the opposing side or assimilate their culture with that of their new subjects. This was especially true for the Spanish conquest of the America giving that it was customary for the Spanish conquistadores to build there settlements on the footprint of existing native settlements