The Bishop's Utopia. Emily Berquist Soule

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      A careful reading of the questionnaire suggests that the Bishop was already imagining how to draw the broad outlines of his utopia in Trujillo. Perhaps thinking of the Túpac Amaru Indian rebellion that had so recently threatened Spanish hegemony in the southern portions of the viceroyalty, the first section of the document sought details about “the character and natural inclination of the natives of this doctrina.” This had several facets, most of which concerned how “Hispanicized” the Indians were. Martínez Compañón wanted to know whether they spoke Spanish, a central indicator of previous meaningful interaction they had with church and state authorities. He also inquired whether there was any “noticeable difference” between the local Indians’ places in society and that of the Spanish or other castas who lived nearby. This would reveal whether they had fared well under Spanish colonial authorities, or whether they had become a permanent underclass that would have little motivation and few resources with which to support his reform agenda. Another factor that would signify a group receptive to his plans was whether “they are applied to their work or not,” as he put it. In response to this query, he must have hoped that he would not hear stereotypically negative comments such as those that would appear in Carrio’s Lazarillo a few years later, which claimed that Peru’s Indians had “no objective other than that of drunkenness” and that they were so lazy that they “would let themselves be eaten by lice” rather than work.³⁵

      Given his experience as rector of the Saint Toribio Seminary in Lima and his plans to extend primary education throughout the bishopric, Martínez Compañón inquired as to whether area children attended school, likely understanding that “differences … in education” for Indian and white children might explain why the Indians were not known for industriousness or facility with the Spanish language. If local people assumed that differences between Spaniards and Indians were based on inherent deficiencies in native bodies and minds, the Bishop needed to know about the “natural or accidental principle” to which they attributed this difference.

      Assuming that the Indians in question did work, Martínez Compañón wanted to gather more specific details about how they did so. He wanted to know if the community in question had any established commercial networks, and where these were. He hoped that the priest might suggest, if he could, “whether there might be some method or means of advancing [such commercial activity].” The Bishop knew that the people might also work in agriculture or mills, or perhaps in small workshops known as obrajes, if they did so, he wondered whether it was in order to meet their tribute duties or to earn money for themselves. He inquired as to how large these commercial operations were, including how many employees they had and whether any were assigned mita laborers. Such information would help him imagine how to improve each—perhaps through facilitating transportation along trade routes, sharing innovative agricultural techniques, or seeking updated machinery that might increase production in mills or obrajes.

      While work and productivity were key to the present and future potential of Trujillo’s Indian communities, Martínez Compañón—like most administrators in Spain’s overseas territories (as Chapter 3 will illustrate)—believed that communal living in cities or towns was also key to development. He knew that with the exception of larger population centers such as Trujillo, Piura, Cajamarca, and Chachapoyas, many miles of Trujillo were isolated and rural, with no towns to speak of. He therefore inquired if the area in question had been home to any previous urban settlements that had “been abandoned, [have] disappeared, or moved to another place.” A related question was about local population statistics: over time, had the population of Indians and castas increased or fallen in the area? This would provide valuable clues as to whether the land was rich enough to sustain a sizable population. The questionnaire asked if local census records, town traditions, and archival records (or “old books,” as he called them) showed how many city dwellers owned the land on which they lived.

      Although the first questionnaire had thoroughly covered local religious practices, Martínez Compañón saw fit to ask about them in this second one as well. He inquired whether there was “anything that smells of superstition” in the local Indian population. If so, he wondered if the priests had any suggestions for how to most effectively eradicate these beliefs, specifically “with respect to [the Indians’] character, inclinations, ideas, and customs.” While this was written in the tone of a dedicated extirpator, the Bishop’s questionnaire in fact showed him to be slightly skeptical of the harsh charges of “idolatry” that Indians often faced. Before condemning any such behavior in the local population, he wanted to know “the reasons to distrust, or believe it.” This attitude of levelheadedness toward potentially inflammatory Indian behavior would resurface throughout his time in Trujillo, helping him to maintain an air of careful detachment when observing the customs and traditions of the Indians around him.

      Almost as important as verifying that the Indians behaved like good Catholic subjects was learning whether they followed the European social norms that would signify their status as upstanding vassals of the Spanish Crown. In the questionnaire, this had to do mainly with the institution of marriage: at what age it typically happened and how it was arranged. In asking about marriage, the Bishop was quietly inquiring whether communities fostered upstanding marriages sanctified by the Church, or if they followed traditional Andean customs of trial marriage, or pantanacuy, in which young couples were encouraged to informally cohabitate before marriage. Martínez Compañón also wanted to know if his bishopric had many inhabitants who had specifically chosen celibacy, and what racial group was most likely to do so.³⁶

      In addition to investigating the present state of social relations in Trujillo, the questionnaire inquired about the area’s past. Peru’s north coast was rich in ruins from the “gentile,” or pre-Hispanic Moche and Chimú, peoples. Martínez Compañón therefore asked the priests to report “if there are any structures from the times before the conquest that are notable for their material, form, grandness, or any vestiges of that.” Regarding the people of the past, he wondered whether the priests might have heard of local people finding “any huge bones that seem to be human.” As we saw in Chapter 1, these were the giant bones that would serve as evidence to help prove that the natives of Peru were not physically weak and inferior.

      While a good deal of Martínez Compañón’s questionnaire focused on the social resources, or the people of Trujillo, he also inquired about the natural world in which they lived. Although these questions were focused on “geography, metallurgy, mineralogy, and botany,” as the Bishop put it, they were just as important in determining how to build his utopian vision of improvement. Recall that, like most early modern Europeans, Martínez Compañón believed in climatic determinism, or the idea that the Earth and the heavens that surrounded it inevitably influenced men. The second item on the questionnaire asked priests to inform him “if the weather and climate is beneficial” in their area of jurisdiction. Accordingly, he wanted to know if people there were more likely to be healthy, or to be ill much of the time. If they did suffer from repeated illnesses, he asked “which are the most common sicknesses, and their causes, and the common medicines used to cure them.”

      This question directly led to another farther down the list: if “there are any medicinal herbs, branches, or fruits, which they are, what are their shape, and the virtue of each one of them, and the mode of applying and using them.” As Chapter 6 will show, these answers formed the basis of the impressive collection of botanical information that the Bishop gathered from local informants throughout his time in Trujillo: three volumes of watercolor images showing 488 individual portraits of plants, trees, and bushes (many of which were medicinal); and ten crates of his natural history collection, half of which held exclusively plant matter and half of which mixed it with other specimens. In a related matter, question fourteen asked “if there are any resins СКАЧАТЬ