A Mirage of Colonial Consensus: Resettlement Schemes in Early Spanish Peru

Abstract

In this paper I examine struggles over space, mobility, and indigenous human geographies that centred on the reducciones (reductions), colonial towns that were created for the purpose of controlling indigenous populations in 16th-century Spanish Peru. Drawing on recent geographical debates about ‘domination’ and ‘resistance’, I question assumptions, encountered in many studies of the reducciones, about the homogeneity and coherence of Spanish concepts of colonial spatial order, and seek to demonstrate that these settlements were located at the centre of complex struggles that went far beyond binary oppositions between Andeans and Spaniards. Rather than emphasising the manner in which the reducciones were implemented by colonial authorities as instruments of spatial and behavioural control, I draw attention to the ambivalence and diversity of Spanish reactions to the reducciones and the ways in which indigenous spatial practices were closely entwined with those of the colonisers. By reinserting the reducciones into the messy matrix of everyday colonial life, I aim to contribute to current efforts to question and dismantle the dualisms upon which colonialism was itself founded.