Peru's Indian Peoples And The Challenge Of Spanish Conquest By Steve Stern

One of the more interesting aspects of South American exploration that to some degree gets glossed over is the way in which the Spanish seized control of the indigenous population. In his book Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest Steve Stern attempts to shed light on this brushed over area of South American conquest. Stern’s book focuses on the Huamanga during the 16th and 17th century taking us through the initial conquest, Spanish-kuraka alliances, the Taqui Onqoy crisis, the reforms of Toledo’s and the “Republic of the Indians”, as well as the rise of native elites in the 17th century. All the while Stern displays a remarkable anthropological understanding of the aboriginal culture as well as how they as a people felt
As stated by Stern the kurakas that followed Atahualpa to Cajamarca were rather impressed by the military capabilities of the Spaniards especially the Lucanas people of Andamarca and Laramati whose kurakas asserted themselves as friends of the Spanish in hopes of forming an alliance. One of these crude alliance systems that occurred was the encomienda system imposed upon the Andean people by the conquistadores. In the encomienda, the Spanish crown granted a person, the encomendero, a number of Indians with the kuraka leaders of the specific community in charge of gathering the required tribute and labor. In this system the encomenderos served the military and political needs of the Spanish crown while also being entrusted with the wellbeing of the Indians charged to their care, in particular the instruction of the Christian faith. In return for protecting the natives from warring tribes the encomenderos was given the right to extract tribute from the Indians in the form of labor, gold, or other goods such as corn. On the surface the encomendero was an oppressive system with many cases of abuses of authority however, not all exploited the Indigenous people under them. In 1541 the cabildo (a municipal council of emcomendero elites) wanted to curtail the abuse of the Indians because it “would give the Indians reason to turn against us, killing Spaniards as they used to do” (pg.28). One encomendero in particular that had positive relations with the Indians under him was Diego Maldonado. As Stern shows Maldonado preferred to negotiate with the indigenous people, winning them over with gifts rather than subjugate them through acts violence. The Spanish as Stern points out were not the only people to take advantage of post-Incan Andean