I first met Franklin and Mariana Pease on the docks of Lima’s port of El Callao in late January 1968, as I disembarked from a voyage from Barcelona, with my family, boxes of note cards, books and suitcases filled with household items. The Peases were forewarned by a letter from Seville by fellow Peruvian historian Miguel Maticorena Estrada, who had already spent years of research in the Archive of the Indies, and we must have been easy to pick out from other passengers. I was described as the typical “gringo,” tall, slender, and shorthaired. In spite of those constraints, Franklin Pease had been told that I too was interested in early colonial Peru, and especially in studying the impact of conquest on the peoples of Tawantinsuyu. Waves and smiles, then the warm embraces and introductions indicated acceptance into the Pease family, and marked...
