Indian reductions in the Andes

Reductions (Template:Lang-es) refers to the massive relocation of indigenous populations of the Americas by Spain as well as the settlement towns constructed to house them. By consolidating the previously scattered populations, Spain was able to rule more easily and efficiently.

History

Reductions were part of the larger reforms of Francisco de Toledo, the fifth viceroy of Peru, beginning in 1567. Known as the Toledo reforms, the Spanish crown aimed to "aggrandize Spanish power by consolidating viceregal rule and to revive the flow of Andean silver to the metropolitan treasury." In order to achieve these economic and political goals efficiently, Toledo attempted to relocate the scattered Native American population of the Andes into larger settlements. Before the construction of the relocation towns, Native Americans throughout Peru and colonial South America generally lived in small localized and dispersed villages, making it difficult for Spanish rule. Moreover, the purpose of the massive resettlement program "was to establish direct state control and facilitate the church's Christianization of the native population, while enhancing the collection of the tribute tax and the allocation of labor." By relocating the native population, the Spanish systems of forced tribute tax and forced labor, known as mita in Spanish, were easier to enforce.

The structural layout of the reducciones was based on a repeatable template as a Spanish-style rural town. Each settlement town was built in a rectangular or square grid formation. The reducciones were complete with a church with a stationed priest, a prison, a travelers lodge and a town square. They can best be described as a type of camp designed to model an ordered town.

The effect of the reductions was tremendous. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, a Native American chronicler, recounts the effect of the reductions in The First New Chronicle and Good Government. Prior to the resettlements, Poma describes the ways in which the Andean agricultural system thrived on the microclimates up and down the Andean mountain range. Each microclimate and corresponding agricultural product contributed to the health and well-being of the Native American population. However, the reductions destroyed this "'vertical' organization of farming." Not only were they torn from their established agricultural system, but also they were relocated in potentially completely different climate zones. Poma notes that the new sites were "sometimes set in damp lands that cause pestilence." Moreover, the settlement villages were occasionally positioned in natural disaster zones, prone to flooding or avalanche. Furthermore, the resettlements destroyed key kin and other familial relationships between villages. Therefore, the reductions also reduced the indigenous population dramatically.(In the reduxtion the risk of smallpox transmition was higher.) The reductions functioned to completely control and exploit the indigenous population, under the guise of attempting to culturally transform and "hispanicize" them.

Besides the settlements under the Toledo reforms, the Franciscans and the Jesuits also organized reductions, mainly in the Viceroyalty of Peru. These eventually achieved the most development, success, and fame, especially the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay. This was a result in a difference between the application of the reduction system between Viceroyalty of New Spain and the Viceroyalty of Peru. The work of Vasco de Quiroga—the Bishop of Michoacán who founded a number of hospital towns—and Francisco de Toledo, Count of Oropesa—the Viceroy of Peru who promoted the system and convinced the Jesuits to work within it—should be especially noted for their efforts to eliminate inhumane treatment of the natives. Father Eusebio Kino worked for humane practices at the Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert and in the forced labor conditions at the silver mines and ranchos in Provincia Interna de Sonora y Sinaloa.

See also

• Jesuit Reductions
• São Miguel das Missões in Brazil
• Jesuit Asia missions
• Cargo system
• Spanish conquest of Guatemala
• Spanish missions in Arizona
• Spanish missions in Baja California
• Spanish missions in California
• Spanish missions in the Carolinas
• Spanish missions in Florida
• Spanish missions in Georgia
• Spanish missions in Mexico
• Spanish missions in New Mexico
• Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert
• Spanish missions in South America
• Spanish missions in Texas
• Spanish missions in Trinidad
• Spanish missions in Virginia
• Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery