The “Dueño de Indios”: Thoughts on the Consequences of the Shifting Bases of Power of the “Curaca de los Viejos Antiguos” under the Spanish in Sixteenth-Century Peru

Abstract

A MONG the documents copied into the records of the residencia of the judge of Lima's Real Audiencia and visitor to the northern provinces of Peru, Dr. Gregorio Gonzalez de Cuenca, is the transcript of the judicial proceedings against don Juan, cacique' of the Indian community of Collique. In these 1566 proceedings, the Indian witnesses distinguished between old-style and new-style chieftains. Don Juan was described by contemporaries as a cacique like the ancients or old ones who used to rule the valleys whom their Indian subjects feared. The paramount lord of Tuicume,2 a curaca who himself was identified as a chieftain the ancient mold (de los viejos antiguos), declared that don Juan was worthy of the respect of his Indian subjects, like those chieftains of times past and very unlike those who were being elevated to the position by their Spanish overlords.3 This essay uses primary sources, some written by Indian scribes, to examine, in an exploratory way, the role of the curaca during the first 40 years or so after the Spanish invasion and conquest. Using contracts, petitions, court cases, and other local-level documentation, in combination

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