Mitayos and Markets in Colonial Huancavelica (AD 1564-1810)

Summary

Located in the Central Peruvian Andes, Huancavelica was the largest source of mercury in the Western Hemisphere and a critical source of wealth for Spain’s colonial empire. The Spanish administration mobilized labor through the infamous mita, a rotational labor tax that required colonial provinces to send one-seventh of their population to work in the mines. Forced labor in Huancavelica not only exposed these indigenous miners to the horrors of colonial mercury mining, but also brought engagement with burgeoning colonial exchange systems, including access to a wide range of household ceramics. Drawing from recent domestic excavations conducted within Santa Barbara, the central camp for indigenous labor at Huancavelica, this paper analyzes the types of ceramics used by indigenous miners. Specifically, we argue that indigenous laborers, both forced and free, had access to a much wider range of ceramics than suggested by Spanish records.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage