Indecent Living: Indigenous Women and the Politics of Representation in Early Colonial Peru
The main period of consolidation and reform of the early Peruvian colony—the 1560s through the 1580s—also marked the beginning of the invention of the economic and social character of the colony in the Spanish empire. This new role was constructed and normalized in part via a reimagination of the pre-Hispanic past, of which the colony could be seen as both an outgrowth and a corrective. Within the context of the contemporary political and economic crises in which colonial Viceroys and other functionaries found themselves during these decades—crises of  nancial realization, demographic collapse, civil rebellions and indigenous uprisings—the authors of of cial political narratives envisioned an ef cient state that would have legitimacy among both colonizers and colonized. The narratives and reports that grew out of this legitimating project developed a narrow, Cuscocentric vision as they emphasized pre-Hispanic institutions that indicated the preferred direction of the colonial state, including the Inca legal system and rules for political succession. One of the most interesting institutions thus held up for admiration and consideration was the acllahuasi , a Quechua word used by these Spaniards to refer to what was probably an array of social institutions involving groups of con ned women called acllas or mamaconas. The changing and narrowing representations of the acllas—as a harem, as productive and tradeable commodities, as “vestal virgins” or beatas, and  nally as idealized wives of the state—indicated the shifting agendas of the authors and patrons of these narratives towards a discourse that celebrated centralization, hierarchy and separation between classes and ethnic groups. While the historical narratives that emerged during and from this political debate were not necessarily instrumentalist , I argue here that the construction of this discursive terrain was a by-product that had its own effects upon, at least, our knowledge of colonial Peru. My argument is organized around some key texts written during this central period of constitution of the political economy of colonial Peru, and demonstrates how the development of a more centralized vision of the colony by its administrators and elites contributed to the construction and acceptance of a historical narrative, the terms of which were commonly deployed by those in power as well as their critics. I begin with the chronicles of conquest, written within a few years of contact by the conquistadores themselves. These reveal the spontaneous and indetermi-
They Eat from Their Labor: Work and Social Change in Colonial Bolivia
This study of the growth of an indigenous labour force in Upper Peru opens up areas of research in colonial history. It examines what kind of economic system resulted from the interaction between Spain's commercial exploitation of its colonies and traditional Andean patterns of social organization.
The Liverpool Cholera Epidemic of 1832 and Anatomical Dissection--Medical Mistrust and Civil Unrest
Asiatic cholera reached Britain for the first time in late 1831, with the main epidemic occurring during 1832. The disease caused profuse diarrhea, severe dehydration, collapse, and often death. There was widespread public fear, and the political and medical response to this new disease was variable and inadequate. In the summer of 1832, a series of "cholera riots" occurred in various towns and cities throughout Britain, frequently directed against the authorities, doctors, or both. The city of Liverpool, in the northwest of England, experienced more riots than elsewhere. Between 29 May and 10 June 1832, eight major street riots occurred, with several other minor disturbances. The object of the crowd's anger was the local medical fraternity. The public perception was that cholera victims were being removed to the hospital to be killed by doctors in order to use them for anatomical dissection. "Bring out the Burkers" was one cry of the Liverpool mobs, referring to the Burke and Hare scandal four years earlier, when two men had murdered people in Edinburgh in order to sell their bodies for dissection to the local anatomy school. This issue was of special concern to the Liverpool citizenry because in 1826, thirty-three bodies had been discovered on the Liverpool docks, about to be shipped to Scotland for dissection. Two years later a local surgeon, William Gill, was tried and found guilty of running an extensive local grave-robbing system to supply corpses for his dissection rooms. The widespread cholera rioting in Liverpool was thus as much related to local anatomical issues as it was to the national epidemic. The riots ended relatively abruptly, largely in response to an appeal by the Roman Catholic clergy read from church pulpits, and also published in the local press. In addition, a respected local doctor, James Collins, published a passionate appeal for calm. The Liverpool Cholera Riots of 1832 demonstrate the complex social responses to epidemic disease, as well as the fragile interface between the public and the medical profession.