José Carlos de la Puente
Texas State University, History, Faculty Member
- History, Latin American History, Ethnohistory, History of Indigenous Peoples, Social History, Communism, and 36 moreTransatlantic History, Postcolonial Studies, Race and Ethnicity, African American, Anthropology, Art History, Colonialism, Early Modern History, Migration, Tourism Studies, Imperialism, Empire, Political Science, Khipus (quipus) colonial Peru, Manuscrito de Huarochirí, Guaman Poma, Atlantic World, Andean studies, Colonial Latin American History, Spanish Colonial Peru, Atlantic history, Andean Archaeology, Incas, Indigenous Studies, Historia colonial, Quechua, Etnohistoria, Andean History, Inca Archaeology, Latin American Studies, Colonial America, Peruvian History, Aymara, Latin American and Caribbean History, Andes, and Historia Colonial De América Latinaedit
Este libro explora el mundo de los viajeros andinos a la corte de los Habsburgo. El estudio presenta estos viajes a través del Atlántico Ibérico a la vez como un reflejo de los profundos cambios operados en las sociedades indígenas... more
Este libro explora el mundo de los viajeros andinos a la corte de los Habsburgo. El estudio presenta estos viajes a través del Atlántico Ibérico a la vez como un reflejo de los profundos cambios operados en las sociedades indígenas andinas tras la Conquista y como un poderoso catalizador de estas transformaciones, con implicancias en ambas orillas del océano. El libro transporta a los lectores desde los llamados “pueblos de indios” hacia la corte virreinal y, en último término, la corte real en Madrid en donde, a través de la efectiva apropiación y redefinición de los espacios judiciales diseñados para los vasallos “indios” del rey en el siglo XVI, los viajeros, litigantes y pretendientes que emprendieron el largo camino desde los Andes a Europa ayudaron a redefinir también espacios políticos y sociales. Estos espacios darían expresión, ya en el siglo XVII, a la llamada Nación Índica, una comunidad política supuestamente autónoma e inclusiva que, en realidad, daba expresión a la nueva élite india del reino, articulada desde la ciudad de Lima y forjada precisamente a partir de estos viajes y de los procesos históricos que desencadenaron.
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After the Spanish victories over the Inca claimed Tawantinsuyu for Charles V in the 1530s, native Andeans undertook a series of perilous trips from Peru to the royal court in Spain. Ranging from an indigenous commoner entrusted with... more
After the Spanish victories over the Inca claimed Tawantinsuyu for Charles V in the 1530s, native Andeans undertook a series of perilous trips from Peru to the royal court in Spain. Ranging from an indigenous commoner entrusted with delivering birds of prey for courtly entertainment to an Inca prince who spent his days amid titles, pensions, and other royal favors, these sojourners were both exceptional and paradigmatic. Together, they shared a conviction that the sovereign’s absolute authority would guarantee that justice would be done and service would receive its due reward. As they negotiated their claims with imperial officials, Amerindian peoples helped forge the connections that sustained the expanding Habsburg realm’s imaginary and gave the modern global age its defining character.
Andean Cosmopolitans recovers these travelers’ dramatic experiences, while simultaneously highlighting their profound influences on the making and remaking of the colonial world. While Spain’s American possessions became Spanish in many ways, the Andean travelers (in their cosmopolitan lives and journeys) also helped to shape Spain in the image and likeness of Peru. De la Puente brings remarkable insights to a narrative showing how previously unknown peoples and ideas created new power structures and institutions, as well as novel ways of being urban, Indian, elite, and subject. As indigenous people articulated and defended their own views regarding the legal and political character of the “Republic of the Indians,” they became state-builders of a special kind, cocreating the colonial order.
Andean Cosmopolitans recovers these travelers’ dramatic experiences, while simultaneously highlighting their profound influences on the making and remaking of the colonial world. While Spain’s American possessions became Spanish in many ways, the Andean travelers (in their cosmopolitan lives and journeys) also helped to shape Spain in the image and likeness of Peru. De la Puente brings remarkable insights to a narrative showing how previously unknown peoples and ideas created new power structures and institutions, as well as novel ways of being urban, Indian, elite, and subject. As indigenous people articulated and defended their own views regarding the legal and political character of the “Republic of the Indians,” they became state-builders of a special kind, cocreating the colonial order.
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Idolatry's Workshop: The Manuscripts of Pablo José de Arriaga, SJ [El taller de la idolatría: los manuscritos de Pablo José de Arriaga, SJ], edited by José Carlos de la Puente Luna and Jimmy Martínez Céspedes. Lima: Biblioteca Nacional... more
Idolatry's Workshop: The Manuscripts of Pablo José de Arriaga, SJ [El taller de la idolatría: los manuscritos de Pablo José de Arriaga, SJ], edited by José Carlos de la Puente Luna and Jimmy Martínez Céspedes. Lima: Biblioteca Nacional del Perú & Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, 2021. 424 pp. ISBN: 978-612-4102-63-9.
Pablo José de Arriaga was a prominent Jesuit in seventeenth-century Lima and the author of an influential treatise, published there in 1621. His work is considered the standard manual for “extirpators of idolatry,” ecclesiastic judges tasked with rooting out “idolatrous” beliefs and “superstitions” among the indigenous populations of the viceroyalty. He collected the papers now being published (letters, reports, drafts of official decrees) while he was working on his treatise. The manuscripts offer a rare glimpse at a colonial author’s “workshop,” unveiling a constellation of native informants and collaborators behind Arriaga’s intellectual production. The publication includes an introductory essay (60,000 words), a transcription of the 40 manuscripts, and a facsimile of said manuscripts.
Pablo José de Arriaga was a prominent Jesuit in seventeenth-century Lima and the author of an influential treatise, published there in 1621. His work is considered the standard manual for “extirpators of idolatry,” ecclesiastic judges tasked with rooting out “idolatrous” beliefs and “superstitions” among the indigenous populations of the viceroyalty. He collected the papers now being published (letters, reports, drafts of official decrees) while he was working on his treatise. The manuscripts offer a rare glimpse at a colonial author’s “workshop,” unveiling a constellation of native informants and collaborators behind Arriaga’s intellectual production. The publication includes an introductory essay (60,000 words), a transcription of the 40 manuscripts, and a facsimile of said manuscripts.
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Research Interests:
In this essay, I interrogate a handful of rare village records to probe more deeply the participation of rural Native women in conflicts over inheritance in the central Andes during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. I focus... more
In this essay, I interrogate a handful of rare village records to probe more deeply the participation of rural Native women in conflicts over inheritance in the central Andes during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. I focus on the wielding of written land titles, such as wills, certified lists of fields, fragments of land inspections, and writs of protection and possession, by these women as they claimed control over plots, homes, tracts, groves, and other household and extended-family assets within the commons. Their cases suggest that, rather than undermining women’s rights to dispose of property, titling and the establishment of municipal courts and the expansion of the legal possibilities for claiming land within this jurisdiction created new opportunities for some of them to defend and enact those rights. More importantly, their cases strongly suggest that gender relations were as much constitutive of kinship, community, and ownership relations as they were mediated by them, warning us of the risks of isolating gendered forms of expressing power (and the inheritance practices that they could underscore) from other power relations operating at the village level.
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Research Interests:
Although much has been written about Indigenous land tenure in the Americas, colonial Andeanists still debate whether pre-Hispanic agropastoral communities held all pasture and farmland in common and, therefore, whether novel forms of... more
Although much has been written about Indigenous land tenure in the Americas, colonial Andeanists still debate whether pre-Hispanic agropastoral communities held all pasture and farmland in common and, therefore, whether novel forms of private or individual control over land and its products were introduced only in the aftermath of the Iberian conquest. The alleged particularities of the Andean case vis-à-vis other regions for which historians accept a plurality of pre-Hispanic and postconquest land regimes are based on a twin set of oppositions: individual versus collective, and ownership versus use. In this essay, I reassess communal land tenure patterns through the lens of Native colonial customs of commoning and uncommoning. I contend that individual and communal aspects of land within Native collectives were not opposite ends of a spectrum but instead coterminous ways of acting on-that is, exerting power and control over-the same resources.
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Un documento de 1693 esclarece la labor de traducción de testimonios escritos en lengua general al castellano por parte de los intérpretes de los naturales de la Audiencia de Lima. El caso demuestra el uso oficial de la escritura en... more
Un documento de 1693 esclarece la labor de traducción de testimonios escritos
en lengua general al castellano por parte de los intérpretes de los naturales de la Audiencia de Lima. El caso demuestra el uso oficial de la escritura en quechua como vehículo de la justicia ordinaria y refuerza la idea de que la labor de interpretación en un contexto plurilingüe como el del circuito de la Audiencia fue posible gracias al uso de una o más variantes estándar de quechua, por parte de traductores y litigantes, hasta bien entrado el siglo XVII.
A 1693 document sheds light on the translation into Castilian of witness testimonies uttered in the lengua general and recorded in writing a century earlier, as part of the activities of the interpreters-general in Lima’s appellate court (audiencia). The case demonstrates the official admission of written Quechua in judicial procedures as late as the closing decades of the seventeenth century. It reinforces the idea that the use of one or more standard varieties of Quechua by litigants and interpreters made the interpretive work of these translators in plurilingual contexts such as the court’s judicial district possible.
en lengua general al castellano por parte de los intérpretes de los naturales de la Audiencia de Lima. El caso demuestra el uso oficial de la escritura en quechua como vehículo de la justicia ordinaria y refuerza la idea de que la labor de interpretación en un contexto plurilingüe como el del circuito de la Audiencia fue posible gracias al uso de una o más variantes estándar de quechua, por parte de traductores y litigantes, hasta bien entrado el siglo XVII.
A 1693 document sheds light on the translation into Castilian of witness testimonies uttered in the lengua general and recorded in writing a century earlier, as part of the activities of the interpreters-general in Lima’s appellate court (audiencia). The case demonstrates the official admission of written Quechua in judicial procedures as late as the closing decades of the seventeenth century. It reinforces the idea that the use of one or more standard varieties of Quechua by litigants and interpreters made the interpretive work of these translators in plurilingual contexts such as the court’s judicial district possible.
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Despite the critical advances toward khipu decipherment, the specific ways in which Andean khipu masters captured and organized the course of time in their cords, in the form of ages, dates, chronologies, and calendric intervals and... more
Despite the critical advances toward khipu decipherment, the specific ways in which Andean khipu masters captured and organized the course of time in their cords, in the form of ages, dates, chronologies, and calendric intervals and cycles, remains obscure. This essay contributes to this central problem of knot making and reading traditions by enlisting the aid of an unlikely source: the memoirs of a mid-nineteenth-century gentleman who was given a striking account of how khipu masters in Cuzco’s countryside recorded specific events of a twelve-month calendar in their khipus and made accurate calculations based on them. The analysis and reconstruction of Cuzco’s calendar-demographic khipus is framed into the history of Catholic catechesis, which included early efforts at colonizing indigenous ways of thinking and experiencing time through tactile, visual, and sonic strategies. This process, rather than marginalizing knotted cords all together, as it is sometimes assumed, turned khipukamayuq into important, yet often overlooked agents for the gradual establishment of the Roman Catholic calendar in Andean rural parishes. Unraveling the basic principles for the accounting of time in these modern khipus by placing them in their historical context is a firm, and to our knowledge unprecedented, step toward future efforts at deciphering both quantitative and qualitative cords with a temporal component.
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This essay reviews the following works: Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between: Murals of the Colonial Andes. By Ananda Cohen Suarez. Austin:University ofTexas Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 304. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477309551. Of Love... more
This essay reviews the following works:
Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between: Murals of the Colonial Andes. By Ananda Cohen Suarez. Austin:University ofTexas Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 304. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477309551.
Of Love and Loathing: Marital Life, Strife, and Intimacy in the Colonial Andes, 1750–1825. By Nicholas A. Robins. Lincoln:University ofNebraska Press, 2015. Pp. x + 280. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780803277199.
Revolution in the Andes: The Age of Túpac Amaru. By Sergio Serulnikov. Translated by David Frye. Foreword by Charles F. Walker.Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 155. $22.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822354987.
The Tupac Amaru Rebellion. By Charles F. Walker.Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press ofHarvardUniversity Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 341. $29.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780674058255.
Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between: Murals of the Colonial Andes. By Ananda Cohen Suarez. Austin:University ofTexas Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 304. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477309551.
Of Love and Loathing: Marital Life, Strife, and Intimacy in the Colonial Andes, 1750–1825. By Nicholas A. Robins. Lincoln:University ofNebraska Press, 2015. Pp. x + 280. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780803277199.
Revolution in the Andes: The Age of Túpac Amaru. By Sergio Serulnikov. Translated by David Frye. Foreword by Charles F. Walker.Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 155. $22.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822354987.
The Tupac Amaru Rebellion. By Charles F. Walker.Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press ofHarvardUniversity Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 341. $29.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780674058255.
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Este ensayo problematiza nuestra visión sobre la historia y posición social de los incas en el Perú postoledano, así como la narración más general sobre el colapso del Estado incaico, a partir del análisis de una serie de acciones legales... more
Este ensayo problematiza nuestra visión sobre la historia y posición social de los incas en el Perú postoledano, así como la narración más general sobre el colapso del Estado incaico, a partir del análisis de una serie de acciones legales acometidas por los linajes reales del Cuzco para ver reconocida su nobleza como una condición hereditaria que los eximiera de tributo y servicio personal. Durante las décadas de 1570 y 1580, los orejones descendientes directos de los reyes del Tahuantinsuyo litigaron con los caciques y comunidades de los cuatro suyos, sujetos a ellos y mencionados en otras fuentes como incas de privilegio. Estos incas de privilegio les negaban estas exenciones en los tribunales reales. Articulando sus intereses con los de muchos otros actores sociales, estos incas hidalgos y pecheros, tanto o más que los funcionarios y cronistas del séquito del virrey, participaron en la construcción de las categorías y narrativas jurídicas necesarias para reconocer a alguien como “inca”, “hidalgo”, “libre” o “descendiente” de los soberanos Incas, traduciendo así el sistema jerárquico de parentesco, antes expresado en clave mítica y ritual, al género legal propio de interrogatorios, probanzas y memorias. Entre los documentos elaborados durante el juicio, se cuentan una nómina de casi doscientos descendientes de los últimos Incas y una declaración sobre los linajes e individuos sucesores de los seis primeros reyes del Cuzco. Ambos documentos, confeccionados con los testimonios de los caciques de los cuatro suyos y sus procuradores, permiten repensar el término panaca.
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This essay problematizes current understandings of the history and social position of Inca commoners and nobles in post-Toledan Peru as well as the general narrative about the collapse of the Inca state. It analyses a series of little-known legal actions undertaken by the royal lineages of Cuzco to secure recognition of their noble status as a hereditary condition exempting them from tribute and personal service. During the decades of 1570 and 1580, the orejones claiming to be direct descendants of the former kings of Tawantinsuyu came together in a lawsuit against the caciques and commons of the four suyus, their subjects, identified in later sources as Incas by privilege. These leaders and their communities had disputed the orejones’ claims to tributary exemption in the courts. Articulating their interests with those of many other social actors, these Inca hidalgos and pecheros (commoners; tribute payers), more so than the magistrates and chroniclers of the
viceroy’s entourage, participated in the construction of the juridical categories and judicial narratives needed to establish who among the larger Inca group would
be considered “noble,” “free,” or a “descendant” of the Inca kings. In so doing, they, with the aid of their advocates and procurators, translated the hierarchical kinship system previously expressed in ritual and mythical key to the legal genres included in interrogations, proofs of merit, and petitions. A list of almost two hundred descendants of the later Inca kings and a statement about the lineages and individuals who claimed direct descent from the first six Inca sovereigns are among the documents produced during the court case. Both of them, based on the testimonies of the caciques of the four suyus, allow us to reconsider the meanings of the term panaca.
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This essay problematizes current understandings of the history and social position of Inca commoners and nobles in post-Toledan Peru as well as the general narrative about the collapse of the Inca state. It analyses a series of little-known legal actions undertaken by the royal lineages of Cuzco to secure recognition of their noble status as a hereditary condition exempting them from tribute and personal service. During the decades of 1570 and 1580, the orejones claiming to be direct descendants of the former kings of Tawantinsuyu came together in a lawsuit against the caciques and commons of the four suyus, their subjects, identified in later sources as Incas by privilege. These leaders and their communities had disputed the orejones’ claims to tributary exemption in the courts. Articulating their interests with those of many other social actors, these Inca hidalgos and pecheros (commoners; tribute payers), more so than the magistrates and chroniclers of the
viceroy’s entourage, participated in the construction of the juridical categories and judicial narratives needed to establish who among the larger Inca group would
be considered “noble,” “free,” or a “descendant” of the Inca kings. In so doing, they, with the aid of their advocates and procurators, translated the hierarchical kinship system previously expressed in ritual and mythical key to the legal genres included in interrogations, proofs of merit, and petitions. A list of almost two hundred descendants of the later Inca kings and a statement about the lineages and individuals who claimed direct descent from the first six Inca sovereigns are among the documents produced during the court case. Both of them, based on the testimonies of the caciques of the four suyus, allow us to reconsider the meanings of the term panaca.
Research Interests:
This essay examines the local construction of law in San Damián de Urotambo—an indigenous community in Huarochirí—in the early seventeenth century. In Andean towns, the alcaldes (magistrates), commonly members of the local nobility, had... more
This essay examines the local construction of law in San Damián de Urotambo—an indigenous community in Huarochirí—in the early seventeenth century. In Andean towns, the alcaldes (magistrates), commonly members of the local nobility, had jurisdiction over dispute resolution and made use of Castilian law. These alcaldes, representatives of royal power, were central actors in the circulation of legal knowledge. They were also experts in the usage of Castilian judicial and notarial practices. Likewise, litigants were key agents in the process of creating a new juridical order by invoking both European and Pre-Columbian juridical traditions. This essay illustrates how these two legal spheres—Castilian and Andean—mingled and were negotiated by judges and litigants through a process of interlegality. These legal agents played a crucial role in the making of colonial law within the plural dimensions of the juridical world of San Damián de Urotambo.
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General language interpreters of Lima's High Court of Appeal (Audiencia) played a significant part in gaining access to the Spanish system of justice for the indigenous populations of Peru. These interpreters worked as translators in... more
General language interpreters of Lima's High Court of Appeal (Audiencia) played a significant part in gaining access to the Spanish system of justice for the indigenous populations of Peru. These interpreters worked as translators in lawsuits, notarial transactions, and other legal and administrative procedures conducted or supervised by the viceroy, the justices of the Audiencia, the public defender of the Indians, and other officials stationed at the viceregal court. But they also served as legal agents and solicitors for native leaders and communities litigating in Lima or aspiring to take their cases to the Supreme Council of the Indies in Spain. Through formal and informal dealings, these interpreters brokered between the king and his native subjects, thus connecting indigenous groups with the Habsburg royal court. The careers of these official translators illustrate the crucial roles played by indigenous subjects in the formation of what can be termed the ‘Spanish legal Atlantic,’ an organic network of litigants, judges, lawyers, attorneys, and documents bridging courtrooms on both shores of the ocean.