Slavery and indigenous servitude in the Southern Andes

ZAMORA, ROMINA

Bonn

Conferencia; Joseph C- Miller Memmorial Lecture Series; 2022

Bonn Centre for dependency and slavery studies

I will focus mainly on three points. The first is the conceptual distinction between indigenous slavery and servitude. It is essential to distinguish these two forms of inter-ethnic asymmetrical dependency relationship since the former was prohibited or limited by the Catholic King (the Catholic Queen, in fact) from the beginning of the 16th century. At the same time, the latter was consolidated and persisted until the 20th century. The second point is precisely the conformation of indigenous servitude in Spanish Latin American households and farms as an oeconomical way of life. I will be delighted to talk about oeconomica as the kind of authority the Spaniards exercised over their subordinates. Similarly, I would like to talk about the institution of the encomienda proposed by the Crown of Castile and the problems that it entailed related to personal servitude. This last subject has been extensively studied by great scholars, which we will discuss in a few minutes. I hypothesize that: Contrary to its objective, the encomienda contributed to becoming the indigenous population into servants of the Spaniards.Finally, I will try to relate this talk to others given in this same Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture to refer to the similarities with their analysis on the construction of asymmetrical dependency in other places and to relate it to the other lectures on Latin America. I am grateful and indebted to the scholars who came before me because they helped me to think. Most of the things they talk about will not be covered because they are beyond my expertise, and I apologize for my lack of knowledge.