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Bishop Martínez Compañón's Practical Utopia in Enlightenment Peru*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Emily Berquist*
Affiliation:
California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, California

Extract

“Bishops, because they are bishops, cannot stop being vassals of their kings, and functionaries of their states. Nor are they exempt from practicing with all those around them, especially with their diocesans, works of mercy, physically as well as spiritually.

I gave [the miners] as proof of this truth one of the soliloquies of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in which he said: “You are a man, you are a citizen of the world.” —Bishop Martínez Compañón recounting his experiences with the Hualgayoc miner's guild in a letter to Viceroy Teodoro de Croix of Peru, May 1786.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2008

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank the readers for The Americas, as well as Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Susan Deans-Smith, Rhys Isaac, Susan Ramírez and Ann Twinam for insightful commentary. I am also grateful to Inmaculada Candil García and the Servicio de Gestión Administrativa in the office of Patrimonio Nacional in the Palacio Real de España for granting me permission to reprint the watercolor images from Martínez Compañón's nine volumes of Trujillo del Perú. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the August 2006 International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard University, and at the October 2006 Atlantic History Seminar at the University of Texas.

References

1 “Martínez Compañón to Viceroy Croix, Trujillo, 29 May, 1786.” Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, Miscelánea 46, Documento 20, pp. 602–627.

2 Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón y Bujanda was born on January 10, 1737, in the town of Cabredo, in the Basque region of Navarre. He studied at the universities of Huesca, Zaragosa, and Oñate, and he was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1761. Two years later he received his doctorate in Canon Law. In 1766 he was called to Madrid to serve as an advisor to the Holy Office of the Inquisition. In 1767, King Carlos III named him Cantor of the Lima Metropolitan Cathedral, and he arrived in Lima in July 1768. Two years later he was named Rector of the Saint Toribio Seminary, and from 1772 to 1773, he served as Secretary to the Sixth Lima Provincial Church Council. He was promoted to Bishop of Trujillo in 1779, when he was 42 years old. In September of 1788, he was promoted to a new post as Archbishop of Santa Fé de Bogotá. He entered the city on March 12, 1791, and died there of natural causes on August 17, 1797. For biographical details on Martínez Compañón, see the studies of Ayala, José Manuel Peréz, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón y Bujanda, Prelado Español de Colombia y el Peru (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1955)Google Scholar, and Ugarte, Ruben Vargas, Tres Figuras Señeras del Episcopado Americano (Lima: Carlos Milla Batres, 1966).Google Scholar For a recent authoritative ecclesiastical and social history of Martínez Compañón’s life and work, see Manrique, Daniel Restrepo, Sociedad y Religion en Trujillo (Peru), Bajo el Episcopado de Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, 1780–1790 (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Servicio Central de Publicaciones, Gobierno Vasco, 1992).Google Scholar

3 For more on the Bourbon Bishops, see Galué, Germán Cardozo, Michoacán en el Siglo de las Luces (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1973),Google Scholar Delgado, Paulino Castaneda, “La jerarquía ecelsiástica en la América de las Luces,” in La América Española en la Época de las Luces (Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispana, 1988),Google Scholar Truque, Marco Antonio Fonseca, Historia del delito en Colombia: el veneno del arzobispo (Bogotá: Publiarte, 1983),Google Scholar Jaramillo, Juvenal, José Pérez Calama, un clerigo Ilustrado del Siglo XVIII en la Antigua Valladolid de Michoacán (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, 1990),Google Scholar Nava-Lasa, Luis Sierra, El Cardenal Lorenzana y la Ilustración (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, Seminario Cisneros, 1973)Google Scholar, Coro, Francisco Rodríguez de, Fabián y Fuero. Un ilustrado molinés en Puebla de los Ángeles (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1988).Google Scholar

4 Feyjoo, Don Miguel, Relación Descriptiva de la ciudad, y provincia de Truxillo del Peru con noticias exactas de su estado politico según el real orden dirigido al Excelentisimo Señor Virrey Conde de Super-unda (Madrid: s.n., 1763), p. 28.Google Scholar

5 Esparza, Carlos Daniel Valcárcel, Historia de la educación colonial—Tomo II (Lima: s.n., 1968), p. 80.Google Scholar

6 Had Martínez Compañón been assigned to the viceregal capital of Lima, he would have found there a vibrant intellectual and cultural center that could support his efforts. It was the home of the University of San Marcos, the oldest in South America ( Ten, Antonio E., “Ciencia y Universidad en la America hispana: La universidad de Lima,” in Ciencia Colonial en America, ed. Lafuente, Antonio and Catala, Jose Sala [Madrid: Alianza, 1992], p. 164).Google Scholar Bueno, Cosme, “the elder statesman of science in Peru,” published his yearly almanac, Conocimiento de los Tiempos (1757–1798), from his home base in Lima (Steele, Arthur Robert, Flowers for the King—the expedition of Ruiz and Pavon and the flora of Peru [Durham: Duke University Press, 1964], p. 67).Google Scholar The city was also the home of Hipólito Unanue, who believed that cultivating commerce based on Peru’s rich natural resources could civilize and modernize the viceroyalty ( Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge, “La utopia de Hipólito Unanue: comercio, naturaleza, y religión en el Perú,” in Saberes Andinos: ciencia y tecnología en Bolivia, Ecuador y Peru, ed. Marcos Cueto [Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos 1995], p. 96).Google Scholar Another local scientist, José Eusebio Llano y Zapata, the son of an elite Limeño family, sent to the King of Spain in 1761 a manuscript detailing the natural resources of Peru entitled Memorias Histórico-Físicas-Apologéticas de la América Meridional ( Aranda, Antonio Garrido, Castañeda, Ricardo Ramírez, Figueroa, Luis Millones, Ruiz, Víctor Peralta, and Walker, Charles, eds, José Eusebio Llano Zapata. Memorias histórico, físicas, crítico, apologéticas de la América Meridional [Lima: Instituto Frances de Estudios Andinos, Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 2005])Google Scholar. From 1791 to 1794,the Sociedad de Amantes del País published Lima’s Enlightenment periodical, the Mercurio Peruano ( Quinde, Rosa Zeta, El Pensamiento Ilustrado en el Mercurio Peruano, 1791–1794 [Piura: Universidad de Piura, 2000]).Google Scholar In 1792, Padre Francisco Gonzalez Laguna oversaw the founding of Lima’s botanical garden ( Arango, Diana Soto, “La enseñanza ilustrada en las universdidades de América colonial: estudio historiográfico,” in La Ilustración en America Colonial, ed. Arango, Diana Soto, Puig-Samper, Miguel Angel y Arboleda, Luis Carlos [Madrid: CSIC, 1995], p. 105).Google Scholar Clearly, late viceregal Lima was home to many individuals who shared Martínez Compañón’s interests in botany, zoology, ethnography, and archaeology.

For more detail on the political economy of late Bourbon period throughout the Hispanic world, see Adelman, Jeremy, Republic of Capital—Buenos Aires and the Legal Transformation of the Atlantic World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999),Google Scholar Castro, Concepción de, Campomanes: estado y reformismo ilustrado (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1996),Google Scholar Deans-Smith, Susan, Bureaucrats, Planters, and Workers— The Making of the Tobacco Monopoly in Bourbon Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992)Google Scholar, Ortiz, Antonio Domínguez, Carlos III y la España de la Ilustración (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1988),Google Scholar Fisher, John R., Bourbon Peru, 1750–1824, Liverpool Latin American Studies, New Series 4 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003),CrossRefGoogle Scholar Lynch, John, Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989),Google Scholar Rodriguez, Jaime E. O., The Independence of Spanish America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sánchez-Blanco, Francisco, El Absolutismo y las Luces en el Reinado de Carlos III (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2002),Google Scholar Arango, Diana Soto, Puig-Samper, Miguel Angel y Arboleda, Luis Carlos, ed., La Ilustración en América Colonial (Madrid: CSIC, 1995),Google Scholar Stanley, J. and Stein, Barbara H., Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759–1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2003),Google Scholar Elliott, J.H., Empires of the Atlantic World. Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006),Google Scholar Subirats, Eduardo, La Ilustración Insuficiente (Madrid: Taurus, 1981),Google Scholar Albán, Juan Pedro Viqiuera, Propriety and Permissiveness in Bourbon Mexico, Sonya Lipsett-Rivera trans. (Wilmington, D.E.: Scholarly Resources, 1999),Google Scholar Walker, Charles, Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Due to the style and content of the images, scholars most often assume that Martínez Compañón commissioned a set of watercolors and that various local artisans contributed to their creation. See Gaibrois, Manuel Ballesteros, “Un Manuscrito colonial del siglo XVIII,Journal de la Société des Américanistes 27 (1935), pp. 145175;Google Scholar Borja, Arturo Jiménez, “Arte Popular en Martínez Compañón,” in Macera, Pablo, Borja, Arturo Jiménez, Franke, Irma , eds., Trujillo del Perú—Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón—Acuarelas, Siglo XVIII (Lima: Fundación del Banco Continental, 1997);Google Scholar and Restrepo, Daniel, “La visita pastoral de Don Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón a la dioceses de Trujillo (1780–1785),” in Navarro, J. et. al., eds., Vida y Obra del Obispo Martínez Compañón (Piura: Universidad de Piura, 1991).Google Scholar

Furthermore, the sheer number of images—nine entire books’ worth, with a total of 1,372 illustrations —suggests that there is no way Martínez Compañón could have specified each plant, burial tomb, or Indian costume he wanted portrayed. More likely is that the watercolors originate from Martinez Compañón’s visita; coming from both direct observations by the team of unnamed assistants who accompanied him, and from second-hand information provided by parish priests in response to the natural history questionnaire the Bishop distributed.

Another notable characteristic of the images is their unusual style. Except for some of the maps, plans, and images of archaeological ruins, the majority of the illustrations appear to have been executed by individuals with little or no European artistic training. The artisans omit important details in plant anatomy, and the representation of the human figure is often awkward at best. Who made them this way and why is this important? Often, art historians of colonial Spanish America believe that unsigned images indicate that the individuals who created them were indigenous and therefore not considered “true” artists worthy of immemorialization. (For this issue, see Dean, Carolyn, Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru [Durham: Duke University Press, 1999],Google Scholar especially chapter four.) Many of the watercolors also manifest the characteristics of what Bolivian art historian Teresa Gisbert has termed “Andean Baroque:” a lack of sophisticated use of shadowing, little understanding of perspective, repetitive forms, and a general movement away from realism (Teresa Gisbert, Iconografía y mitas indígenas en el arte [La Paz: Linea Editorial, Fundación BHN, 1994], p. 104).

Was it possible that Martínez Compañón specifically chose to use Indians from Trujillo as his collaborators so that he could prove to the King, his court, and the Atlantic scientific community that they were equal to other men? He certainly spoke of his native parishioners within these parameters, arguing that “the Indians are not how those stupid men wish to portray them,” and chiding those who “mistake them with beasts to the point of downgrading them from being human.” The Indians were not inherently different due to natural causes, he argued. Rather, they had lived under the repressive Inca regime, they had learned bad habits and vices from their Spanish neighbors, and they had not been properly educated or introduced to civil life. For the Bishop, these were all circumstantial causes for difference. He was so sure of this that he informed the King of Spain that “the Indians are equal, or very little different to the other men of their calidad [or socio-cultural status] in this area.” “Martínez Compañón to Don Juan José Urteaga, Cura y Vicario de la Provincia de Chachapoyas,” Trujillo, 26 June 1785. Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Colegios y Universidades 1, Erección y fundación de dos colegios de cholos y cholas en Trujillo.

8 For more on the natural history components of Martínez Compañón's work, see Berquist, Emily, The Science of Empire: Bishop Martínez Compañón and the Enlightenment in Peru, Ph.D. Dissertation, August 2007, University of Texas.Google Scholar

9 For more on this, see Zavala, Silvio, Sir Thomas More in New Spain—A Utopian Adventure of the Renaissance (London: The Hispanic & Luso-Brazilian Councils, 1955).Google Scholar

10 On commercial humanism, see Pocock, J.G.A., Virtue, Commerce, and History. Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The connections between Iberian and British political economy are clearly outlined for the Portuguese Empire in the work of Maxwell, Kenneth. See his Pombal: Paradox of the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)Google Scholar and Naked Tropics: Essays on Empire and Other Rogues (New York: Routledge, 2003.)

11 Restrepo, Daniel, Sociedad y Religión en Trujillo, p. 111.Google Scholar

12 Ramírez, Susan E., Provincial Patriarchs: Land Tenure and the Economics of Power in Colonial Peru (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1986), p. 139.Google Scholar

13 Restrepo, Daniel, Sociedad y Religion en Trujillo, p. 89.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 93.

15 Ibid., p. 104.

16 On the Indian rebellions of the early 1780s in Peru, see especially Serulnikov, Sergio, Subverting Colonial Authority—Challenges to Spanish Rule in Eighteenth-Century Southern Andes (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003),CrossRefGoogle Scholar Stavig, Ward, The World of Túpac Amaru—Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial Peru (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1999),Google Scholar Stern, Steve J., ed., Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1987),Google Scholar Walker, Charles, Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other studies include Galindo, Alberto Flores, Buscando un Inca: Identidad y utopia en los Andes (Lima: Instituto de Apoyo Agrario, 1987),Google Scholar Walker, Charles, “Voces discordantes: Discursos alternativos sobre el indio a fines de la colonia,” in Entre la retórica y la insurgencia: las ideas y los movimientos sociales en los Andes, siglo XVIII, ed. Walker, Charles (Cuzco: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos, 1996).Google Scholar

17 The Indian-Spanish dynamic was not uniformly explosive throughout the Peru of the 1780s. In Trujillo, hundreds of miles to the North of the epicenter of the revolts, the situation was markedly different. The main factors that had incited rebellion to the South were not as troublesome there. For instance, a common complaint of the Tupac Amaru rebels was increased tribute. By the 1780s, tribute demands in Trujillo were simply not as high ( Contreras, Carlos, Los Mineros y el rey: la economía colonial en los Andes del Norte: Hualgayoc 1770–1824 [Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos] , especially chapter 3).Google Scholar Although Trujillo did have its own uprisings, they never grew to the levels of violence experienced in the South. Nevertheless, Martínez Compañón must have realized that there were several small-scale rebellions and revolts in the 1770s in Trujillo, ( Godoy, Scarlett O’Phelan, Rebellions and Revolts in Eighteenth-Century Peru and Upper Peru [Köln, Germany: Bohlau Verlag GmbH & Cle, 1984],Google Scholar Godoy, Scarlett O’Phelan, and Saint-Geours, Yves, ed., El Norte en la Historia Regional, Siglox XVIII-XIX [Lima: Instituto de Estudios Andinos, 1998]CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Godoy, Scarlett O’Phelan, ed., El Perú en el siglo XVIII— La Era Borbónica [Lima: Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú-Instituto Riva-Agüero, 1999.])Google Scholar Mere months after he assumed his bishopric; he himself faced a small scale uprising in the town of Otusco, which he deftly pacified ( Ayala, José Manuel Pérez, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, p. 37).Google Scholar He likely had these facts in mind when he declared that parishioners would no longer owe to their parish priest camarico, or tribute in goods wherein one Indian from each ayllu or kinship group would be responsible for collecting food, hens, wood, or the like; or personal service ( Godoy, O’Phelan, Rebellions and Revolts in Eighteenth-Century Peru and Upper Peru, p. 46).Google Scholar By eliminating this source of tension between clerics and local native groups, Martinez Compañón helped to foster a less exploitive relationship between priests and their native parishioners. This promoted tranquility throughout the bishopric.

18 “Disposiciones sobre el culto Católico para las distintas parroquías de su dioceses, dictadas por el Excelentisimo Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón.” Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, Virreyes 10, Document 15, pp. 525–594.

19 For more on Bourbon monopolies, see Deans-Smith, , Bureaucrats, Planters, and Workers.Google Scholar

20 Shields, David S., Civil Tongues and Polite Letters in British America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1997), p. 159.Google Scholar

21 Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor de, Memoria sobre espectáculos y diversiones públicas/Informe sobre la Ley Agraria, ed. Carnero, Guillermo (Madrid: Cátedra, 1998), p. 186.Google Scholar

22 “Disposiciones sobre el culto Católico.”

23 Ibid.

24 For instance, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria published similar edits demanding that public officials prevent plebeian women from ending their pregnancies ( Ingrao, Charles W., The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994], p. 188).Google Scholar

25 In New Spain as early as 1612, women of African descent were prohibited from wearing jewels and fine cloth (“Mexico, 14 de Abril de 1612. Ordenanzas de la Real Audiencia de Nueva España sobre las juntas y trajes de los negros y mulatos.” Konetzke, Richard, ed., Colección de Documentos para la Historia de la Formación Social de Hispanoamérica, 1493–1810. Vol. 2 [Madrid: CSIC, 1962], p. 182).Google Scholar In 1679, King Charles II gave Viceroy Enriquez de Ri vera of New Spain permission to prohibit the use of immodest and luxurious clothes by the common people (“Buen Retiro, 29 de Diciembre de 1679. R.C. al Virrey de la Nueva España que atienda a que en lo possible se remiten las deshonestidades y trajes inmodestos que usan en Mexico.” Ibid., p. 693). In 1725, the Crown prohibited luxurious clothing for non-Spaniards because of the “frequent crimes these commit to be able to possess such expensive fineries” (“San Ildefonso, 7 de Septiembre, 1725. R.C. que aprobando un bando del Virrey del Perú para moderar el exceso en los trajes que vestían los negros, mulatos, indios, y mestizos.” Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 187). These decrees were intended to ameliorate the social confusion arising from the lower classes being able to assume elite identities through mimicking their appearance.

26 “Disposiciones sobre el culto Católico.”

27 Ibid.

28 Restrepo, Daniel, Sociedad y Religión en Trujillo, p. 88.Google Scholar

29 In outward structure, the Bishop’s town plans were quite similar to those first promulgated by Phillip II in 1573, which instructed early settlers as to how they might form a proper Spanish town with a plaza, cathedral, and straight city blocks in the Indies. The instructions also warned the colonists that Indians might not be willing participants in building on what had previously been their land. Therefore, colonists were to attempt to convince the Indians to concede to the new European settlement, but “should they not consent,” the Spanish were simply to proceed, “without doing [the Indians] other hurt than what may be necessary” ( Nuttall, Zelia, “Royal Ordinances Concerning the Laying Out of New Towns,The Hispanic American Historical Review 4 [1921], p. 753).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Harsh measures were also a key component of the Indian reducciones implemented by Viceroy Francisco Toledo of Peru. Toledo intended the reductions to gather potential laborers and to put a stop to the drastic decline in Indian population that threatened Spanish colonization efforts. They also had an added benefit of distancing the Indians from their local sites of religious devotion. However, the reductions only promoted the spread of disease and heightened population decline. Neither were the Indians willing participants. In fact, the Spaniards managing the reducciones “snatched Indians from their lands, burned their farms, and drove them in herds to the new settlements near work places.” Naturally, Indians ran away in order to resist forced labor in the mines, physical punishment, and alienation from their ancestral communities. Estragó, Margarita Durán, “The Reductions,” in The Church in Latin America 1492–1992, ed. Dussel, Enrique [London: Burns & Oates, 1992], p. 354.)Google Scholar

30 “Sobre la fundación del nuevo Pueblo de Las Playas, Piura.” Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, Virreyes 7.

31 Manrique, Daniel Restrepo, “Plan Reformador del Obispo Martínez Compañón,” in La Obra de Obispo Martinez Compañón sobre Trujillo del Perú en el siglo XVIII—Appendice II (Madrid: Ediciones Cultural Hispanica del Centro Iberoamericano de Cooperación, 1994), p. 108.Google Scholar

32 Cuccha, Bernardino, “Letter to Martínez Compañón, San Carlos, July 1784.Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Curatos.Google Scholar

33 “Intendant Saavedra to Martínez Compañón, Trujillo, December 11, 1789.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Comunicaciones Eclesiásticas, Expediente K-l-17.

34 “Sobre la fundación del nuevo Pueblo de Las Playas, Piura.”

35 Ordones, Don Joseph Thadeo, “Letter to José Gálvez, San Ildefonso, 24 September 1776.Sevilla: Archivo General de Indias, Lima, 1130.Google Scholar

36 A number of factors affected Hualgayoc’s stagnation. The Túpac Amaru rebellion, which frightened investors and slowed commerce, jeopardized Peru’s entire mining industry. The resulting end of the repartimiento meant that many indigenous families were no longer obligated to work within the Spanish economy. The creation of the new Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata in 1776 redirected Potosí’s profits away from Lima to Buenos Aires, which further damaged Peru’s economy and the mining industry. Finally, the British blockade of Spanish shipping during the American Revolutionary war severely impeded the importation of mercury, a necessary component of the smelting process.

37 “Reunión de los mineros de Micuypampa y los cerros de Hualgayoc, Fuentestiona, y Tumbuachuchu con el Obispo Martínez Compañón sobre el mejoramiento de las minas.” Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, Virreyes 11, pp. 839–899.

38 Ibid.

39 Cosio, Joseph del Campillo y, Nuevo Sistema de gobierno economico para la America (Merida: Venezuela, 1971), p. 111.Google Scholar

40 “Reunión de los mineros de Micuypampa…”

41 “Martínez Compañón to Viceroy Croix, Trujillo, 29 May 1786.” Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, Miscelánea 46, Document 20, pp. 602-627.

42 Ibid. Daniel Restrepo defines a lampa as a type of agricultural tool ( Restrepo, Daniel, Sociedad y Religión en Trujillo, p. 78). I am thankful to Susan Ramírez for directing my attention to this issue.Google Scholar

43 Martínez Compañón was not the first Spaniard to suggest that mineworkers labor on an alternating basis. As early as 1513, the Laws of Burgos mandated that Indians be allowed 40 days rest after working for five months, and that during that rest time they were only to be responsible for cultivating their fields (“Valladolid, 23 Enero 1513. Las ordenanzas para el tratamiento de los Indios [Leyes de Burgos.]” Konetzke, , ed., Colección de Documentos para la Historia de la Formación Social de Hispanoamérica, Vol. 1, p. 38).Google Scholar Although it also advocated alternating mining and agricultural tasks, Martínez Compañón’s plan proposed a much gentler work schedule. Alternating days within the week and having a family close by to help with farming and household duties was much more likely to produce the amount of food necessary to sustain a mining community.

44 Undoubtedly such a scheme is at least partially idealistic in assuming that the local plebs wanted to buy Castilian made goods under this less-coercive reincarnation of the infamous repartimiento de mercancías. However, the excellent studies by Jeremy Baskes on the repartimiento in late colonial Oaxaca indicate that “peasants accepted repartimientos voluntarily because they provided them with valued goods and inputs.” There is therefore no reason to assume that those in similar situations in Trujillo would not have welcomed the opportunity to purchase European goods. ( Baskes, Jeremy, “Coerced or Voluntary? The Repartimiento and Market Participation of Peasants in Late Colonial Oaxaca.Journal of Latin American Studies 28:1 [Feb 1996], p. 4 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Baskes, Jeremy, Indians, Merchants, and Markets: A Reinterpretation of the Repartimiento and Spanish-Indian Economic Relations in Late Colonial Oaxaca, 1750–1821 [Stanford: Stanford University, 2000.])Google Scholar

45 “Martínez Compañón to Viceroy Croix, Trujillo, 29 May 1786.”

46 Martínez Compañón, “Decretos de Visita a Cajamarca.” Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, Virreyes 15, pp. 83–92.

47 Ibid.

48 “Martínez Compañón to Viceroy Croix, Trujillo, 29 May 1786.”

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid.

52 For example, Henry, E. Lowood discusses competitions to promote agricultural advancements in eighteenth-century Germany in Patriotism, Profit, and the Promotion of Science in the German Enlightenment: The Economic and Scientific Societies, 1760–1815 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1991.)Google Scholar Shafer, Richard studies how peninsular economic societies promoted hard work through offering competitions and prizes in The Economic Societies in the Spanish World, 1763–1821 (Syracuse: Syracuse University, 1958.)Google Scholar

53 “Martínez Compañón to Viceroy Croix, Trujillo, 29 May 1786.”

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

56 Contreras, Carlos, Los Mineros y el rey, p. 107.Google Scholar

57 John Fisher reports that Peruvian mine production in fact was relatively successful from 1777 to 1824, with viceroyalty-wide production increasing from 246,000 marks in 1777 to over 500,000 by 1792. In 1799 it hit an all-time peak of 637,000 marks. Fisher, John, Silver Mines and Silver Miners in Colonial Peru, 1776–1824 (Liverpool: Center for Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, 1977), p. 108.Google Scholar Fisher also argues that by 1.790, Hualgayoc and Pasco (also in Trujillo) were the most profitable mines in Peru (clearly suggesting that at least to some extent, the reforms of the 1780s had increased productivity there. Ibid., p. 33.

58 Whitaker, Arthur, The Huancavelica Mercury Mine. A Contribution to the History of the Bourbon Renaissance in the Spanish Empire (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971), especially chapter six.Google Scholar

59 Peset, José Luis, “El colegio de minería de México,” in Carlos III y la ciencia de la Ilustración, p. 233.Google Scholar

60 Lynch, , Bourbon Spain, pp. 213214.Google Scholar

61 Quoted in Berrio, Julio Ruiz, “La Educación del Pueblo Español en el proyecto de los Ilustrados,Revista de Educación (1988), p. 171.Google Scholar

62 Educational reformers also worked at the university level, mainly in order to combat Spain’s international reputation of intellectual backwardness and conservatism. For more on this, see Lanning, John Tate, The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment in the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956),Google Scholar Arango, Soto, “La enseñanza ilustrada en las universdidades de América colonial.Google Scholar

63 Premo, Bianca, Children of the Father King: Youth, Authority, and Legal Minority in Colonial Lima (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), p. 151.Google Scholar

64 For more on the state of late colonial education in Peru, see Martin, Luis, Scholars and Schools in Colonial Peru (Texas: Southern Methodist University, 1973.)Google Scholar

65 I found no records suggesting this during my research in Colombia, Peru, or Spain. Neither have any of the previous scholars of the Bishop have been able to unearth any definitive evidence of the success of these educational projects. See Manrique, Restrepo, Sociedad y Religion en Trujillo, Peréz Ayala, Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón y Bujanda, Vargas Ugarte, Tres Figuras Señeras del Episcopado Americano. Google Scholar

66 Martínez Compañón, “Decretos de Visita, Trujillo, November 3 1785.” Sevilla: Archivo General de Indias, Estado 75, Number 109.

67 “Cedula Real, 5 noviembre 1782.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Colegios y Escuelas, Legajo 1, Folder 2: 1782–1786.

68 For example, see “Valladolid, 7 junio 1550. R.C. que a los indios se les enseñe la lengua castellana.” Konetzke, , ed., Colección de Documentos para la Historia de la Formación Social de Hispanoamérica, Vol. 1, pp. 272273.Google Scholar

69 Martínez Compañón, “Decretos de Visita, Trujillo, November 3 1785.”

70 This perspective fits within the general reform architecture of ilustrados like Martínez Compañón and José Campillo, who is typically credited with creating the fundamental Bourbon policy towards re-conquering the Indians through commerce. However, others who have studied colonial primary education have understood the Spanish-language mandates differently. Dorothy Tanck, for instance, argues that this emphasis on the use of Castilian was based on a sort of eighteenth-century policy of containment. Prohibiting Indians from speaking the language of their ancestors, the language that would remind them of their pre-Hispanic autonomy and power, would help to quell any potentially rebellious ideas ( Estrada, Dorothy Tanck de, Pueblos de indios y educación en el México colonial, 1750–1821 [México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1999], p. 165).Google Scholar Furthermore, forcing students to speak in Spanish would simplify the tasks of the secular priests who had been sent to replace the religious clergy. While the Dominican and Jesuit priests and missionaries often spoke local Indian languages, the secular clergy installed under the late Bourbons typically did not.

71 “Aranjuez, 10 de mayo de 1770. R.C. para que en los Reinos de las Indias se destierren los diferentes idiomas de que se usa, y sólo se hable en castellano.” Konetzke, , ed., Colección de Documentos para la Historia de la Formación Social de Hispanoamérica, 1493–1810. Vol. 3, p. 364.Google Scholar

72 Martínez Compañón, “Decretos de Visita, Trujillo, November 3 1785.”

73 Ibid.

74 “Martínez Compañón to José Urteaga, Trujillo, June 26, 1785.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal: Colegios y Universidades, “Erección y fundación de dos colegios.”

75 Martínez Compañón, “Decretos de Visita, Trujillo, November 3 1785.”

76 See chapter five of Estrada, Tanck de, Pueblos de indios y educación, for how school buildings were maintained in New Spain.Google Scholar

77 “Expediente sobre la remisión de 24 cajones de curiosidades de la naturaleza y del arte, recogidos por el Obispo de Trujillo (hoy Arzobispo de Santa Fé) y remitidas por el Virrey de Lima, venidas en la Fragata Rosa.” Sevilla: Archivo General de las Indias, Lima 798.

78 “Santa Visita de Piura, 19 Julio 1783.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Colegios y Universidades, “Erección y Fundación de dos colegios.”

79 “Martínez Compañón to Carlos III, Trujillo, May 15, 1786.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Colegios y Universidades, “Erección y Fundación de dos colegios.”

80 Ibid.

81 “Martínez Compañón to Amados Hijos Mios, los Indios de este Obispado de Trujillo, 31 Julio 1783.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Colegios y Universidades, “Erección y Fundación de dos colegios.” The idea of “Hispanicizing” selected Indian youth and then returning them to their towns to serve as liaisons and community role models was nothing new in the Spanish empire. For instance, a Royal decree from 1609 reveals that the School for Indian Nobles in Mexico was founded so that certain young boys might learn basic writing, reading, and figuring, and correct Christian manners, so that they might “return to their towns and be in charge of governing them.” “Madrid, 18 de septiembre de 1609. R.C. sobre el colegio de niños indios de México.” Konetzke, , ed., Colección de Documentos para la Historia de la Formación Social de Hispanoamérica, Vol. 2, pp. 169170.Google Scholar

82 “Martínez Compañón to Carlos III, Trujillo, May 15, 1786.” It should be noted that the idea of allowing certain Indians to dress in finer clothes than the others was not unique to the Bourbons. As early as 1513, the Laws of Burgos had suggested that Indian leaders and their wives be allowed to wear more luxurious clothing. However, the rationale for this allowance was more related to ideas about social hierarchy which supposed that chiefs were simply to be better dressed than those they supervised. “Valladolid, 23 enero 1513. Las ordenanzas para el tratamiento de los indios (Leyes de Burgos.)” Konetzke, , ed., Colección de Documentos para la Historia de la Formación Social de Hispanoamérica, Vol. 1, pp. 3857.Google Scholar

83 Hume, David, Of Commerce (McMaster University Department of Economics, [cited); available from http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3113/hume/commerce.hme. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

84 Cosió, Campillo y, Nuevo Sistema de gobierno economico para la America, p. 90.Google Scholar

85 “Pedro José Buque to Martínez Compañón, 23 November, 1783.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Colegios y Universidades, “Erección y Fundación de dos colegios.”

86 “Pueblo de Cajabamba a Martínez Compañón.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Colegios y Universidades, “Erección y Fundación de dos colegios.”

87 “José Urteaga to Martínez Compañón, Chachapoyas, 10 February 1786.” Trujillo: Archivo Arzobispal, Colegios y Universidades, “Erección y Fundación de dos colegios.”

88 Restrepo, Daniel, “Vida y Hechos de Martínez Compañón,” in La Obra de Martínez Compañón Sobre Trujillo del Peru, p. 86.Google Scholar

89 Pedro R. de Campomanes, Discurso sobre la educación popular, ed. Piñal, F. Augilar, Biblioteca de la literatura y el pensamiento hispanicos (Madrid: Editorial Nacional, 1978), p. 25.Google Scholar

90 The difficulties Martínez Compañón faced in implementing his socially based reforms in fact mirrored an empire-wide issue. The problems with legislating about gender, status, and family issues have been well studied by social and cultural historians. See especially Twinam, Ann, Public Lives, Private Secrets—Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999),Google Scholar Stern, Steve J., The Secret History of Gender—Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), and Bianca Premo, Children of the Father King.Google Scholar

91 In the late-eighteenth century, imperial restructuring stripped Peru of the Potosí mine profits, and the viceroyalty lost much of its trade revenue when routes were redirected to Buenos Aires. After the Indian rebellions of the early 1780s, much of Lima’s attention was directed to securing the southern areas of the viceroyalty. Trujillo was not a primary concern. In Madrid as well the Crown had dedicated resources to fighting with the American colonists against the British, and had little to spend on imple-menting local-level reforms in the Peruvian provinces.

92 Ramírez, Susan E., Provincial Patriarchs. Their decline in fortunes is outlined extensively in part three.Google Scholar

93 “Martínez Compañón to Andres de Achurra, Trujillo, May 26, 1790.” Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, Virreyes 7, pp. 559–560.

94 Compañón, Martínez, “Informe hecho acerca de las conclusiones que ha sacado de la visita general personal que realizó.Lima: Archivo Arzobispal, Papeles Importantes 1559–1924, Legajo 23, Doc XXII: 30, 1789.Google Scholar

95 Pazos, Antón M. and Manrique, Daniel Restrepo, “Acción de Martínez Compañón en Perú y Nueva Granada,” in Los Vascos y America—Ideas, Hechos, Hombres, ed. Arana, Ignacio Pérez (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1990), p. 340.Google Scholar

96 Camargo, Rafael Antolínez, El Papel Periódico de Santafé de Bogotá 1791–1797—Vehículo de las luces y la contrarrevolución (Bogotá: Editorial Presencia, 1991), pp. 5051.Google Scholar

97 Ibid.

98 “Martínez Compañón to Viceroy José de Ezpeleta, Santa Fé de Bogotá, 9 August 1791.” Bogotá: Archivo General de la Nación, Sección Enrique Ortega, Curas y Obispos, Caja 51, Carpeta 1, pp. 78–82.

99 Latorre, Armando Gómez, “Una Semblanza Histórica: El Arzobispo Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón y Bujanda,Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades Number 786J (1994), p. 630.Google Scholar

100 Foz, Foz y, Mujer y Educación en Colombia, Siglos XVI-XIX (Santafé de Bogotá: Academia Colombiana de Historia, 1997), p. 211.Google Scholar

101 I borrow the phrase “moral capital” from Christopher Brown’s recent work on early abolitionism in the British Empire. He defines it as “a resource,” that “is employed in a way that sustains the moral prestige of the actor.” Brown, Christopher Leslie, Moral Capital. Foundations of British Abolitionism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2006), p. 457.Google Scholar