Landscapes, settlers, and workforce in colonial Catamarca (Northwestern Argentina, 16th-18th c.). A historical archaeology project

Abstract

This paper presents a collaborative work on the impact of the European conquest and colonization on the conception, construction, and management of agropastoral landscapes in Eastern Catamarca (Northwestern Argentina). This research forms part of a broader project that includes case studies from Iberian and Canarian conquest and colonization contexts from the late medieval period onward. Every colonial experiences studied so far were founded on the destruction or severe transformation of the existing society, beginning with the population itself, and the productive areas and practices. The understanding of the new colonial order requires knowledge of the previous conditions upon which further destruction and construction coexisted, as well as the adaptative tools managed both of the indigenous population and of the colonizers in the specific resulting societies. In spite of the local diversity of the new societies, some common trends can be identified in the previous peasant organizations elsewhere and in the aims and methods of the colonization. In this work, we present the main characteristics of the población process of eastern Catamarca, both in the central valley and in the mountain range then known as Sierra de Santiago or, more lately, de Guayamba (present day Ancasti), between the late 16th and 18th centuries. Using both textual and archaeological evidence in an articulated manner, we analyze how the new colonial landscapes and practices were constructed in these two areas, focusing mainly on the procedures of dispossession and the forms of capturing and consuming labor force. One of the main conclusions of the work is that, despite the initial and decisive importance of European-origin livestock in indigenous dispossession, especially in the Sierra de Santiago, the consolidation of the conquest demanded the establishment of settlers who were also farmers. We will present three cases of settlement related to agricultural development involving people initially arriving from afar: on one hand, displaced people resettled in an estancia, family groups formed from ingas who arrived with the Spaniards during the second half of the 16th century from Peru and settled in the Sierra de Santiago, and a community of African-origin slaves associated with the irrigation system of Santa Cruz, in the Catamarca Valley. Then people of regional, Andean and African origins participated in the consolidation of the new order in eastern Catamarca after being dispossessed and displaced from their places of origin. Finally, we propose some lines of future work, taking into account mainly the perspectives of generating knowledge about the colonization process from an archaeological perspective.