Free and Unfree Labour in the Colonial Andes in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

GIL MONTERO, RAQUEL

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL HISTORY

Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

Año: 2011 vol. 56 p. 297 - 318

0020-8590

This article analyses free and unfree labour in mining centres in the Andes during early Spanish colonial times. It focuses on two themes: the condition of indigenous or “native” people as “free labourers”, and the mita system of unfree labour. For that purpose I shall consider the cases of Potosí, the most important mining centre in the Andes, and San Antonio del Nuevo Mundo in southern Bolivia, a large mine unaffected by the mita system of labour obligations.