Beyond the Obraje: Handicraft Production in Quito Toward the End of the Colonial Period

Abstract

Theobrajesof the Sierra and the plantations of the Coast are the poles around which, in different eras, the economy of theAudienciaof Quito seems to revolve. Woolen cloth and cacao are the two products that allowed this territory to participate in regional and international commercial circuits, and have attracted the most attention from historians in the last two decades.In a region lacking large mining centers,encomenderoswere from early times compelled to develop activities that would allow them to move in the Andean colonial sphere, which was dominated by the “Rich Hill” of Potosí, the actual force behind the formation of this great interregional market, as Carlos Sempat Assadourian has demonstrated. The inter-Andean corridor and its plateaus, suitable for the raising of sheep and a source of ready Indian labor, facilitated the development of the obrajes that were set up in Indian communities, on private haciendas, and in urban areas.