Overview
As we discussed in class, the mita was the official mechanism that the Spanish government and, through it, also the colonists used to obtain labor from the Indigenous population attached to reducciones (Indian towns). Some Indians hired themselves out to hacienda (farming estate) owners, temporarily or permanently. Nominally, this was voluntary waged labor. But hacienda owners (also called hacendados) devised schemes to reduce payments to the Indians, or to suspend them altogether. This document, written by Spanish royal envoys Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa (who visited the Andes in the 1700s), describes some of these schemes. Please read the document carefully and answer the following questions.
1) Why did Indians attached to reducciones hire themselves out to hacendados? (5 points) 2) Why did Indians unattached to reducciones hire themselves out to hacendados? (5 points) 3) Why did hacendados hire Indians instead of relying exclusively on mita workers? (5 points) 4) Speculate: why did Spanish royal envoys visiting the Andes report the schemes devised by hacendados to the monarchy and the general public?