Indian migration and community formation: an analysis of congregación in colonial Guatemala

Molding maize: the shaping of a crop diversity landscape in the western highlands of Guatemala

“…27 However, it is clear that the Indians tended to resist congregacio´n and often repopulated the countryside. 28 Colonial domination did not invariably lead to 'closed' indigenous communities. Although the communities were generally endogamous, community boundaries were often permeable to outside economic, cultural and political forces.…”

The Economic Transformation of the Inca Heartland (Cuzco, Peru) in the Late Sixteenth Century

“…Toledo became convinced that native settlement practices were an impediment to this mission: I came to have evidence that in no way could the Indians be catechized, indoctrinated, and taught, nor could they live in civil or Christian order so long as they should be living where they were, in the punas [high grasslands], gullies and canyons, and on the hills 2 The Spanish reducción derives from the Latin reducere, "to lead back, accompany," and its use reflects changing political, religious, and administrative attitudes toward "Indians" from the early period of colonization in the Caribbean to the Toledan reforms (Hanks 2010: 2, 187;see Mumford 2012: 1, 44-49). The connotation of reducción-to reassemble a wayward and scattered flock-should be considered in the broader context of the Counter-Reformation, and the language of resettlement in other times and places, such as the congregaciones in Guatemala, which use a similarly biblical herding metaphor (e.g., Lovell and Swezey 1990). Both of these terms relate to policía (urban and civil order, from the Latin politia), a civilization concept that eventually materialized as a gridded town with all of the requisite municipal and religious infrastructures.…”

Place making and place breaking: Migration and the development cycle of community in colonial Mexico

“…Nancy Farriss's 1978 article is noteworthy for its clear and innovative theoretical focus. Kevin Gosner (1979), W. George Lovell and William Swezey (1990), and David Robinson and Carolyn McGovern (1980) discuss the implications of migration for the closed corporate peasant community model, as does Farriss. A distinction must be maintained, however, between ''residence'' and ''membership.''…”