Peru HUMAN SETTLEMENT AND POPULATION THROUGH TIME
A view of Huaraz and the
Cordillera Blanca
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Destruction from the earthquake of May 31, 1970, in
Ancash Department
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Remnants of Yungay, Callejón de Huaylas Valley, buried by
the 1970 ice avalanche from El Huascarán
Courtesy Paul L. Doughty
Ichu, an Aymara village above Lake Titicaca
Courtesy Paul L. Doughty
Plaza de Armas, Cusco, with La Merced church in
background
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
The special configuration and character of Peru's
modern
society owe their start to the Spanish conquest, when
Europeans
and Africans came into sexual contact with what had been a
racially homogeneous population. In its own conquests,
however,
the Inca Empire had embraced a wide range of cultural
groups that
spoke over fifty languages and practiced diverse customs.
As a
multicultural state, the Incas had grappled with the
problem of
tribal diversity and competition, often resolving their
disagreements with conquered peoples through violence and
repression. Another Inca solution to such dilemmas was to
forcibly relocate recalcitrant populations to more
governable
locations and replace them with trustworthy communities.
Peoples
resettled in this manner were called mitimaes, and
the
process contributed significantly to the complications of
Andean
ethnicity. In addition to these measures, the Incas often
took
the children of local leaders and other key personages as
hostages to guarantee political tranquility. In some ways,
then,
the Inca experience harshly prefigured the Spanish
conquest.
With the arrival of conquering migrants from the Old
World,
new mixed races were born. The initial importance of these
offspring of whites and Africans with native American
mothers was
minimal, however, because of the "great dying" of the
indigenous
population instigated by European diseases and the
subsequent
collapse and demoralization of the native society and
economy.
The continuous impact of repressive colonial regimes did
not
permit any resurgence of native vitality or organization,
although there were a number of rebellions and revolts.
Under
these conditions, Peru reached its nadir in 1796, near the
end of
the colonial period, when fewer than 1.1 million
inhabitants were
censured. This figure marked a fall from an estimated
pre-Columbian total of at least 16 million, although some
scholars think the figure may be twice that number, and
others
less. Peru recovered slowly, only slightly exceeding its
minimally estimated preconquest population size in 1981
(see
table 2, Appendix).
The critical factors in population growth since the
midnineteenth century have been the rapid emergence of the
mestizo
population, which grew at a rate of over 3 percent per
year
throughout the colonial period until the 1980s, and the
reduction
but not the disappearance of sweeping epidemic diseases.
Another
factor that played a role in this increase was the influx
of
foreign migrants from Europe, and especially from China
and, more
recently, Japan. The rate of growth became very high
during the
twentieth century owing to a number of factors. The then
dominant
mestizo and other mixed populations were obviously more
resistant
to the diseases to which the native peoples, lacking
natural
immunities, succumbed. The mestizos also enjoyed important
cultural advantages in a colonialist society, which
actively
discriminated against the native population on racial and
ethnic
grounds. From conquest to the present, it has been the
fate of
the native peoples not to prosper.
The Spanish colonial policy regarding population
management
in the viceroyalty, as throughout the hemisphere, was to
create
bureaucratic order through an official hierarchy of caste,
with
obligations and privileges attached thereto. The system
attempted
to keep people sorted out according to genealogical
history and
place of birth. Thus, white Spaniards ranked first,
followed by
all others: a male offspring of a Spaniard and a native
American
was called a mestizo, or cholo; of a Spaniard and
African,
a mulatto; of an African and a native American, a
zambo;
of a mestizo and indio, a salta atrás
(jump
backward). The order encompassed all of the combinations
and
recombinations of race, with over fifty commonly used
terms, many
of which--such as mestizo, mulatto, zambo,
cholo,
criollo, indio, negro (Negro or black), and
blanco (white)--survive in common usage today. For
both
white Europeans and Africans, there were two
categories--those
born in the Old World were called peninsulares and
bosales, respectively, whereas those of both races
born in
Peru were called criollos (Creoles). In the case of
whites, the
fact that Creoles were lower in rank than their peninsular
counterparts was resented and contributed eventually to
the
overthrow of colonial rule.
There were six basic castes in Colonial Peru:
Spaniards,
native Americans, mestizos, Negroes, mulattos, and
zambos.
In theory, these categories defined a person's place of
residence
and occupation, taxes, obligations to the viceroyalty
under the
mita, which churches and masses could be attended,
and
which parts of the towns could be entered. Sumptuary laws
determined the nature of one's clothing as well, and
prohibited
natives in particular from riding horses, using buttons,
having
weapons, and even owning mirrors and playing stringed
instruments. Such a system was hard, if not impossible, to
keep
on track, and its rules and powers were irregularly
applied.
Nevertheless, vestiges of the colonial social caste system
and
its associated behavior and attitudes linger in
present-day
Peruvian society in many ways.
Although largely replaced along the coast by mestizos,
Afro-Peruvians, and Chinese laborers, the native peoples
survived
biologically as well as culturally in the highlands. Their
survival was attributed to many factors: the sheer numbers
of
their original population; their relative isolation,
resulting in
part from the collapse of the society and inefficiency of
the
colonial regimes; and this assumption of the kind of
passive
defensive posture of silence and apparent submissive
behavior
that has been characterized as a "weapon of the weak." In
numerous cases, communities managed to place themselves
under the
wing of religious orders and, ironically, the hacienda
system,
with its conditions of serfdom. This developed with the
demise of
the system of serfdom called the encomienda and the
state
monopoly of selling goods to the native peoples called the
repartimiento (see Glossary).
If nothing more, by becoming
serfs on the haciendas, native Americans were defended by
landlords, who were inclined to protect their peons from
exploitation by others and especially from having to serve
in the
mita de minas
(the mine labor draft--see Glossary).
Consequently, the bastions of highland indigenous culture
have
been the small, isolated mountain villages and hamlets;
dispersed
farming and pastoral communities; and haciendas, where
populations were encapsulated under protective
exploitation and
ignored by their absentee landlords.
Data as of September 1992
|