Slavery and the Jesuit Hacienda System of Nasca, Peru, 1619-1767

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Jesuit Missions, Plantations, and Industries" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Multi-scalar archaeological exploration offers new insights for understanding Jesuit estate systems and the slavery they depended on for agroindustrial production. Since 2009, I have conducted ethnohistorical and archaeological research on two Jesuit haciendas, San Joseph and San Francisco Xavier de la Nasca, in south coastal Peru’s Ingenio Valley. Belonging to two distinct Jesuit institutions, the estates supported schools in Cuzco and Lima, respectively. Since acquiring their first properties in Nasca in 1619, both colleges grew their haciendas by absorbing neighboring fields and non-contiguous lands throughout the region, becoming the largest, most profitable vineyards in the viceroyalty by the time of the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the Spanish Empire in 1767. Both hacienda administrations took similar approaches to property management and the large enslaved population that worked them, negotiating the cosmopolitanism of the communities and balancing obligations for evangelization and Christian discipline with the demands for agroindustrial production.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Jesuit Missions, Plantations, and Industries   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 144