Research Project

Working under colonial rule. Legal unity and pluralism in seventeenth-century Bolivia

My research centers on labor relations in seventeenth-century Charcas (present-day Bolivia), a transitional period during Spanish colonial rule (early 1530s until 1825). Within this general frame, I am interested in concrete mechanisms of coercion, labor recruitment and tribute payment, all issues related to colonial obligations that were imposed to indigenous people based on the notion of vassalage. I concentrate on the Seventeenth Century, a period of intense migration and reorganization of the colonial society, and on indigenous population, the principal labor force. Within the framework of a long-term project based on a colonial inspection ordered by the Viceroy of Peru Duke of La Palata (1681-1689), I have until now worked on the most relevant aspects of the practices I have found in labor relations, addressed in a general way the legal framework regulating such practices, and collected information about different norms that coexisted by that time. The research carried out to date suggests that during the Seventeenth Century the gap between practices and legal regulations became more pronounced. For the stay in Münster I propose, then, to reconstruct the web of the different regulatory frameworks that coexisted at that time and its evolution. Or, in other words, to approach more carefully the legal polyphony (and its variations) that was operating in that period.