Spanish Peru 1532-1560: A Colonial Society

xii+285 pages with map, tables, appendix, illustrations, bibliography and index. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 6 1/4") bound in original brown cloth with gilt lettering to spine. First edition.

In 1542, an Hispanic Peru existed which was still recognizable a hundred, two hundred, or four hundred years later. Yet the date is barely a decade after the conquest of Peru began and many years before the end of a series of hard-fought civil wars among the Spaniards. The main Peruvian towns not only were in existence, but had already assumed their permanent attributes. Lima had attained its dominance as the center of the Spanish occupation, and was an imposing city, where large, even palatial Spanish-style houses were to be seen, and artisans' and merchants' shops line the square and central streets. Outside the city was an extensive garden area whose Spanish irrigation agriculture, carried on mainly be Negro slaves, supplied the local market. The organization of commerce with Spain was mature, and the precious metals mined in the southern highlands were already providing the sinews of the colonial economy. The costal cities contained a complete civil population including representatives of all the trades and professions, a good number of Spanish women, and many semi-acculturated auxiliaries, above all Negros. The whole complex was present, though less dense, even in the remote towns of the highlands. The principal social and economic patters of the colony, and indeed of the present nations of the area, had already taken shape. working with the broad purpose of determining who the early settlers of Peru were, and what they did, Professor Lockhart has produced a readable and consequential study of early Spanish Peruvian society. His terminology, not taken from the social sciences, follows closely that used by the contemporary Spaniards themselves; each chapter offers, through individual biographies and significant detail, a general description of the characteristics and functions of one of the different social groups, taken together the chapters build up a complete picture of the society that the author calls Spanish Peru. In his use of source materials, Lockhart breaks new ground. while not neglecting the Spanish chronicles and official correspondence-the most accessible sources-he draws more upon the raw data contained in the Peruvian notarial archives, full of first-hand documents about ordinary people and the non-sensational aspects of the lives of the famous. Legal-minded Spaniards notarized sales, wills, work contracts, dowry agreements, powers of attorney, and many other insignificant personal dealings which a later age would never have committed to paper, but which in their ensemble can give some idea of the texture of life as then lived. Lockhart is happily adept at showing the relevance of the particular and ordinary to the general and momentous, and his decisive demonstration of the existence of a complex colonial society in the first thirty years of the Spanish occupation of Peru, in the midst of conquest and civil war, is of importance not only to students of Spanish colonization, but to anyone desiring to learn more of the social ramifications of conquest and immigration.

Condition:

Small abrasion at back head gutter pastedown, corners gently bumped, some occasional pencil marginalia and underlining. Jacket with closed edge tears and small chips to spine ends else a very good copy in like jacket.