Garrett’s sometimes dense prose on native nobility in the Andes from 1750 to 1825 helps fill a gap in the literature. Using ample documentary evidence, he shows how the native nobilities of the Bishopric of Cuzco became an artifact of the pre-Hispanic past and a continuously evolving creation of Spanish colonialism. After two introductory chapters, he focuses on the history of the nobility’s legal and economic space within the colonial order, the organization and role of the nobility in the mid-1700s, and the collapse of the elite and the colonial system between 1780 and 1825. He concludes that the Incas of Cuzco and the great Aymara lords of the Titicaca basin actively created and perpetuated a self-conscious indigenous identity, until their contradictory actions and position made it impossible for these “indios nobles” to survive independence.
There is much to like in this substantial book. The detailed analysis of...
