Order (and Disorder) in Early Colonial Moquegua, Peru

Abstract

In the viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish authorities imposed several mechanisms to try to establish Christian social order among the colonists and dwindling indigenous populations, two of which were encomienda and reducción. The implementation of these and other policies and practices is examined using a case study in Moquegua, a colonial periphery in far southern Peru: the encomienda of Cochuna and the reduction site of Torata Alta. Incomplete knowledge of local conditions left the area vulnerable to social and religious disorder: overlapping boundaries, contested jurisdictions, and competing interests. Further historical archaeological consideration of such disorder can illuminate local impacts of colonialism.Keywords Peru . Spanish colonialism . Christian order . encomienda . reducción if one were to imagine an intellectually critical [Spanish] colonial archaeology, it quite likely would be a project that focused on the physical manifestations of the central concern of both the state and the church: the systematic establishment of Christian order in the New World. The creation of this order meant a process of formulating coherent political and theological policies within Spain, then transmitting and implementing the policies within colonial communities (Cummins 2002, p. 199)