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The Implications Of Godparental Ties Between Indians And Spaniards In Colonial Lima

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Paul Charney
Paul Charney*
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan
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Extract

Spaniards introduced into the New World a custom called godparenthood, compadrazgo, which had both formal and informal connotations. The more formal, ritual ties were usually established at baptism, confirmation, or marriage ceremonies between the parents and coparents (comadres and compadres), and the godchildren (ahijados) and godparents (padrinos and madrinos). The terms comadre and compadre also connote an informal reference to adults in a relationship of mutual respect and friendship which differed from the ritual forms of godparentage. Godparental relations established formally or informally among Spaniards and Indians, as well as between the two races pervaded colonial society.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , January 1991 , pp. 295 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1991

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References

1 Gambetta, Enrique Foley. Lexico del Peru (Lima, 1983);Google Scholar Foster, George M., “Cofradia and Compadrazgo in Spain and Spanish America,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 9:1 (1953), especially p. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Compadrazgo in modern Latin America has been extended to include ceremonial sponsorships, such as of houses, altars, first hair cutting, or the future crop; see Mintz, Sidney and Wolf, Eric R., “An Analysis of Ritual Co-Parenthood (Compadrazgo),” in Potter, Jack M., Diaz, May N., and Foster, George M. eds. Peasant Society: A Reader (Boston, 1967), 186–187.Google Scholar A recent issue of América Indígena 44:2 (1984) devoted itself entirely to the topic of Latin American godparenthood; see especially the introductory article by Signorini, Italo, “Forma y estructura del compadrazgo: algunos consideraciones,” 247–266.Google Scholar

2 Gibson, Charles, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810 (Stanford, 1964), 152;Google Scholar Cline, S.L., Colonial Culhuacan, 1580–1600: A Social History of an Aztec Town (Albuquerque, 1986), 71–72;Google Scholar Bronner, Fred, “Peruvian Encomenderos in 1630: Elite Circulation and Consolidation,” HAHR 57:4 (1977), 633–660;Google Scholar Blank, Stephanie, “Patrons, Clients, and Kin in Seventeenth Century Caracas: A Methodological Essay in Colonial Spanish American Society,” HAHR 54:2 (1974), 260–283;Google Scholar Spalding, Karen, Huarochirí: An Andean Society Under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford, 1984), 287–289;Google Scholar and, Foster, , “Cofradia and Compadrazgo,” 1–7.Google Scholar Even in twentieth century Peru, mestizos use their godparental ties with campesinos in order to procure their labor; see Hernández, Jesús Contreras, “El compadrazgo y los cambios en la estructura de poder local en Chinchero, Perú,” América Indígena 44:2 (1984), 357–358.Google Scholar

3 In 1600, the number of Indians populating the communities in the Lima valley stood at around 2,000. Perhaps another 2,500 Indians, many of whom emigrated from various Peruvian provinces, inhabited the city of Lima. Many of these migrants settled in the valley, marrying among themselves or with the local-born natives. See my thesis, The Destruction and Reorganization of Indian Society in the Lima Valley, Peru, 1532–1824 (Ph.D. thesis: The University of Texas at Austin, 1989), table 1.1 and chapter IV; Ayaipoma, Mario Cárdenas, “Demográfia del pueblo de Santiago del Cercado,” Revista del Archivo de la Nación, 8 (1985),Google Scholar cuadro nos. 9 and 10. In the early seventeenth century, Spaniards numbered from 9,000 to 10,000 in the city of Lima, while Blacks and Mulattoes another 11,000 to 13,000. See Bronner, Fred, “The Population of Lima, 1593–1637: In Quest of a Statistical Bench Mark,” Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv 5:2 (1979), 110–111.Google Scholar

4 A curaca was an Andean term for a native chieftain or ruler of a community. In the Lima valley, the curacas and their families virtually constituted a hereditary nobility.

5 Several scholars have published and/or analyzed wills made by members of the Indian nobility. See Franklin, Pease G. Y., “Las relaciónes entre las tierras altas y la costa del Sur del Perú: Fuentes documentales,” in Masuda, Shozo, ed., Estudios etnográficos del Peru Meridional (Tokyo, 1981), 193–221;Google Scholar de Diez Canseco, María Rostworowski, “Testamento de Don Luis de Colán, curaca en 1622,” Revista del Museo Nacional, 46 (Lima, 1982), 507–543;Google Scholar Caillavet, Chantal, “Ethno-histoire équatorienne: un testament indien inedit du XVIe siècle,” Caravelle/ Cahiers du monde hispanique et Luso-bresilien 41 (1983), 5–23;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Caillavet, Chantal, “Caciques de Otavalo en el siglo XVI: Don Alonso Maldoñado y su esposa,” Miscelánea Antropológica Ecuatoriana 2 (1982), 38–55;Google Scholar Celestino, Olinda, “La religiosidad de un noble cañare (sic) en el Valle del Mantaro, siglo XVII, a traves de su testamento,” Revista de Indias 44: 174 (1984), 547–557.Google Scholar In the early part of this century, another Peruvian scholar used wills to determine political succession within the Indian nobility of colonial Tacna, Peru; see Vidal, Rómulo Cúneo [1919], “El cacicazgo de Tacna,” in Vidal, Rómulo Cúneo, Obras completas ed. by Pastor, Ignacio Prado, 1 (Lima, 1977), 316–367.Google Scholar For Mexico, see Cline, Colonial Culhuacan, 1580–1600, who devotes her entire study to a detailed examination of wills made by the Indian inhabitants of Culhuacan.

6 For example, see de Diez Canseco, María Rostworowski, “Dos probanzas de Don Gonzalo, curaca de Lima (1555–1559),” Revista Historica 33 (Lima, 1984), 105–173.Google Scholar The transcribed testimony in these probanzas, actually presented by Lima’s curaca to provide evidence of his people’s services to the Spanish Crown, expose the early history of Spanish-Indian relations and aspects of preconquest societal organization.

7 Lockhart, James, Spanish Peru, 1532–1560: A Colonial Society (Madison, 1968).Google Scholar chapter 2 and especially p. 21.

8 Bronner, , “Peruvian Encomenderos in 1630,” 658.Google Scholar Spanish elites in other colonial cities similiarly bolstered their political and economic power through intermarriage and godparental ties; see Blank’s study on colonial Caracas in her article, “Patrons, Clients, and Kin,” 260–293; for colonial Arequipa, Davies, Keith A., Landowners in Colonial Peru (Austin, 1984), 143–160;Google Scholar for the colonial Lambayeque region, Ramirez, Susan E., Provincial Patriarchs: Land Tenure and the Economics of Power in Colonial Peru (Albuquerque, 1986), 192.Google Scholar

9 Blank, , “Patrons, Clients, and Kin,” 282–283.Google Scholar

10 Charney, , The Destruction and Reorganization, 247–261.Google Scholar

11 I liberally utilized anthropologist Barth’s concept of ethnic boundary maintenance; see Barth, Fredrick, “Introduction,” in Barth, Frederick, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston, 1969), 14–16.Google Scholar

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13 Rodrigo Alonso Castillejo (1597–1598). Archivo General de la Nación, Lima (hereafter AGN), Protocolos Notariales (hereafter PN), fols. 1474–1476; Castillejo (1599–1602), AGN, PN, fols. 159. 161, 163; Francisco García (1598). AGN. PN. fols. 478–483. All locations named at a certain distance from Lima were Spanish-built towns where Indians of the Lima valley had been relocated in the 1570s or earlier.

14 Castillejo (1597–1598), AGN, PN, fol. 1473. Curacas in other areas of colonial Peru set aside their rental income or money earned from their marketing activities to partially pay their peoples’ tribute. See Pease, , “Las relaciónes entre las tierras altas y la costa del sur.” 221 Google Scholar and Rostworowski, , “Testamento de Don Luis de Colán,” 531.Google Scholar

15 “Títulos de una chacra y tierras que Pedro de Garate poseía en el valle de la Magdalena… (1641),” AGN, Títulos de Propiedad (hereafter TP), cuaderno (hereafter c.) 241, without continuous fol. numbers.

16 “Autos seguidos por doña Luisa y doña Manuela de la Fuente, herederas de Don Juan Huaman, cacique of Huachipa, sobre su derecho a la sucesión en la propiedad de la Caja de Censo de Indios… (1623),” AGN, Real Audiencia: Causas Civiles (hereafter RACC), c. 226, fols. 1–30. Established in 1588, the Caja also could be spent on public works in the Indian communities, to assist Indians in times of famine, or in the payment of salaries for native and Spanish officials.

17 Charney, , The Destruction and Reorganization, 24–30;Google Scholar Spalding, , Huarochirí, 25–31;Google Scholar Noejovich, Hector, La economía Andina en el entorno de la conquista (Tesis M.A., Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1983), 179–180, 218;Google Scholar Stern, Steve, Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640 (Madison, 1982), 8–9.Google Scholar

18 Charney, The Destruction and Reorganization. 23–27. 323–327;Google Scholar Franklin, Pease G.Y.. “La noción de propiedad entre los Incas: un aproximación,” in Masuda, Shozo. ed., Etnografía e historia del mundo andino: continuidad v cambio (Tokyo, 1986), 4–6.Google Scholar Pease uses colonial documents pertaining to pre-contact, land tenure arrangements in Carabayllo. See also Keith, , Conquest and Agrarian Change. 111.Google Scholar

19 “Doña Francisca de Aguilar, viuda, contra los bienes de don Juan (Ana)quibe, indio difunto, sobre unas tierras (1617),” Biblioteca Nacional del Peru (hereafter BNP), B1029, fols. 1–27.

20 Ibid. fol. 23.

21 Solórzano, Juan de y Pereyra, , Política Indiana [1647], 5 vols. (Madrid, 1972), 2, 22;Google Scholar Recopilación de las leyes de los reinos de las indias, 1680, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1756), libro IV, titulo XII, ley 18.

22 Ibid. fols. 18, 23.

23 Castillejo (1599–1602), AGN, PN, fols. 1324–1325.

24 Keith, , Conquest and Agrarian Change, 94–97, 111–129.Google Scholar Competition over land, the water rights accompanying it, and labor was similiarly true among Spaniards, as well as between Indians and Spaniards in the colonial Trujillo region. See Ramirez, , Provincial Patriarchs, 67–76, 203–204, 244–250, and passim Google Scholar

25 Cristobal de Piñeda (1612–1613/1617–1618), AGN, PN, fols. 31–32.

26 “Testimonio de los autos seguidos por don Juan Baptista de Uribe, acreditando ser heredero univeral de don Juan Anaquibe, cacique del pueblo de Carabayllo (1616),” AGN, RACC, c. 152, fols. 4–5, 10, 39, 41, 69–88.

27 Ibid. fols. 39–43.

28 Ibid. fols. 106–126, 189–191.

29 Ibid. fols. 179–181.

30 Ibid. fol. 106.

31 Stern, , Peru’s Indian Peoples, 135.Google Scholar

32 Solórzano, , Política indiana (1647), 1, 408, 415.Google Scholar

33 de Díez Canseco, María Rostworowski, Señoríos indígenas de Lima y Canta (Lima, 1978), 180–183;Google Scholar Rostworowski, , Curacas y sucessiónes, costa norte (Lima, 1961), 26, 61.Google Scholar

34 Indigenous usage or custom became less recognized and respected as Spanish norms and legal procedures similiarly prevailed in the justice system of colonial New Spain. See Borah, Woodrow W., Justice By Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the half-real (Berkeley, 1983), 253–254.Google Scholar

35 Stern, , Peru’s Indian Peoples, 134–137.Google Scholar