Allies at Odds: The Andean Church and its Indigenous Agents, 1583-1671

Introduction: Voices from the Archive

1 Introduction Voices from the Archive The Vantage Point of the Native Fiscal On 2 May 1644, the native villagers of the remote highland town of Huaraz, in the central Peruvian Andes, assembled in the public square to witness a momentous event: the investiture of Don Gonzalo Guaman Cochachin as fiscal mayor de la doctrina, or chief indigenous official of the parish. Atop the steps of the church stood the community’s leaders, including the parish priest and coadjutant clergy, the royal administrator of the district, Spanish encomenderos, Andean ethnic lords, and the officers of the native municipal council. For Guaman Cochachin to become fiscal mayor by appointment of Lima’s archbishop, with the support of Huaraz’s secular and church authorities, was the culmination of his schooling in Castilian letters and Christian doctrine. Loyal to the parish in which he was born, and versed in the language and customs of his people, he was found to be ideally suited for the tasks of pastoral service. Guaman Cochachin would teach literacy and catechism to Indian children, interpret the priest’s Spanish homily for Quechua-speaking parishioners, collect fees for the parish, and watch for ritual behaviors that the Church deemed contrary to the faith. One can imagine his arrival at the doors of the church amid congratulatory greetings and expectant stares. Attired in Spanish dress, before the town’s ruling elite, Guaman Cochachin took an oath to God that he would fulfill his office with diligence and integrity. He received the title of his appointment, signed by the vicar general, and the staff of justice, which symbolized his authority to govern and police the town. Looking out over the entire community, his newly invested powers in hand, he was, quite literally, at the center of parish life.1 Given the traditional historiography of the Peruvian Church, it is easy to ignore the power that indigenous officials had in the management of parish 2 Introduction affairs. Canonical histories of New World “spiritual conquest” mostly omit native church assistants, aside from brief discussions of their dutiful and anonymous presence alongside missionary priests, a story line that derives largely from the self-regarding statements of the original clergy themselves. Though Guaman Cochachin assumed responsibilities that countless Indians like him shared, no full account exists of the leading role that native intermediaries played in Christianity’s spread throughout the Andes or the impact that indigenous society and culture had on missionary thinking and methods.2 Familiar with Spanish language and customs, native church assistants made up a select group whom the clergy called indios ladinos: native interlocutors who communicated the will of Catholic authorities to the indigenous peoples. The contributions of indios ladinos to the making of Andean Christian society and the ways in which they used the Spanish language to describe their experience constitute the two main pillars of the present investigation of European-Andean interaction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The term indio ladino was an abstract, catch-all category that captured many social types: Andean men and women; the curacas (native lords) who mediated the contact between Spanish officials and local communities ; yanacuna, Indians who worked as servants in Spanish homes; donados , minor associates of religious convents; and lenguas, native guides and interpreters of the early Spanish explorations and campaigns of military conquest (Adorno 1991, 234; Solano 1975, 266–77).3 What united this diverse group of individuals was their common experience as intermediaries who used the Spanish language to bridge the divide between two cultures. To be sure, Spain was not alone in enlisting locally powerful allies to assist in the governance of its colonies. Throughout history, global regimes have relied upon colonized agents to instruct subjugated peoples in a new language and religion, communicate the empire’s laws, and oversee native commerce and labor. In Peru, local native authorities served myriad colonial institutions , but the Church was perhaps their leading source of employment. Most learned Spanish from missionary priests and influenced the course of Christianity at the parish and district level as much as the priests who initiated them in the language. Intermittent references in missionary literature confirm that indios ladinos were vital to Andean evangelization. Shortly after the historic Third Provincial Council of Lima (1582–1583), which codified missionary practices Introduction 3 throughout the Peruvian viceroyalty, the Jesuit provincial José de Acosta supervised the publication of a standard collection of thirty native-language sermons that...