[Access article in PDF] Comments, Criticism, and Debate
Less on Atusparia
Mark Thurner
It was gratifying to read in the pages of the HAHR that the eminent anthropologist and emeritus professor William W. Stein both applauds my work and graciously admits to having learned from it. I too have learned much from his previously published work on the Atusparia Uprising, and I said so in the preface to my book, From Two Republics to One Divided. However, I was disappointed by Stein's latest and in some ways extraordinary "Comment," which carried the possibly ambivalent title "Next to Nothing: More on Pedro Pablo Atusparia" (HAHR 78:2).
I do not wish to respond to each and every of the "Comment's" many allusions, in part because many of them seem to have little to do with my HAHR article, in part because I am not sure that I grasp them all, in part because I am not sure that all are entirely appropriate to this forum, and in part because "Next to Nothing" is, as far as the substantive issues go, just that. As far as I am able to tell, Stein's "Comment" adds little (no new facts, no new sources, no interpretations unfamiliar to those who have read his previous published work) to contemporary historical discourse on Atusparia. Although the "facts" attached to Atusparia, many of which have been dug up by the energetic Ancashino historian C. A. Alba Herrera, and which Stein reproduces and expands upon, may not be familiar to many HAHR readers, they are well known to regional specialists. However, it was not my purpose in the HAHR piece to delve into the life either of Atusparia or of Cáceres. Thus, I found it strange and regrettable that my choice of the rhetorical "next to nothing is known" phrase (I had originally written "little is known," which might in retrospect have been better, since Stein himself, Alba Herrera, and possibly others have used similar terms to describe the state of historical knowledge about Pedro Pablo Atusparia) should "encourage" him to "enthusiastically embark" on a "Comment" that fails to engage what the article as a whole was trying to achieve (for a punctuated appreciation, see "Relación de Mando," HAHR 77:4, 593). Still, even on the tangential grounds that Stein occupies, "More on . . . [End Page 137] Atusparia" is in certain ways less, since he chooses to ignore my lengthy discussion and historical analysis of the mediating roles and political culture of alcaldes like Atusparia developed in From Two Republics (which he elsewhere cites), including my treatment of the linkages between Atusparia, the other alcaldes, and the cacerista leadership, and then proceeds to imply that I have ignored the social milieu in which Atusparia moved. When I said that Atusparia was "a smallholding peasant residing in a humble hamlet," I was stating a fact that I was able to document. Perhaps I should have made it clear--in an article that I was obliged to cut substantially to meet the space limitations of HAHR (I do wish to note that the editors graciously granted extra space to accommodate an article that was, after significant cuts, still rather longer than the norm)--that Atusparia was, like many other smallholding peasants in the region, also other things, including at one time an artisanal worker in a small dyeing operation. But I do not think any discerning reader could have missed that Atusparia was an alcalde. As for Stein's claim that Atusparia was involved as a dependent in the wool trade, I have seen no documentation that confirms such speculations. There is no evidence that Atusparia had met Cochachin in the way Stein describes. Alzamora's influence over Atusparia, in the first instance as his patrón and in the second as his fleeting cacerista subprefect, was important, albeit in ways that Stein has missed. In From Two Republics, I was able to document taxation-related enclosure conflicts, which are briefly summarized in "Atusparia and Cáceres." These conflicts involved Alzamora's indirect and Atusparia's direct...
Less on Atusparia
Rent from DeepDyve