The study of the “little men” of a society is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is the considerable bias of historical records in favor of the rich and powerful, whose affairs make up a proportion of the paperwork of a society far greater than the proportion of their members in relation to the population as a whole. In such a study, as in the study of any social group of considerable size and diversity, the problem of sources often becomes critical. One type of source which has recently attracted much attention is the notarial records. While these records can be used with great profit, it is difficult to reconstruct from them alone the representative life histories possible for more prominent sectors of a society, or to calculate the validity of the picture obtained from them for the group under study as a whole, since an important proportion of the transactions undertaken by members of the lower groups undoubtedly took place without the intervention of a notary, whose services cost money that could be utilized for more pressing necessities. When dealing with the lower groups, or even, though perhaps to a lesser degree, with any group of considerable size, the relatively standardized and limited, but demographically more complete information available in synthetic sources such as censuses can be used to construct a generalized profile of a given group that can be fleshed out by the specific, particular data contained in sources like the notarial records, and at the same time serve as a check on the degree to which such data can be regarded as representative of the group under study.
The census edited and introduced by Noble David Cook is a fine example of this second type of source. It originally formed part of a complete census of Lima, the other portions of which have unfortunately not been located. The document, preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid, was not unknown, but it has remained largely unconsulted by historians. It consists of a census of the Indian population within the walls of Lima in 1613, including the name, age, place of birth, period of residence in Lima, occupation, marital status, and name of cacique and corregidor of each Indian resident. As Cook shows in his introductory essay, it is possible on the basis of this source alone to delineate some of the basic characteristics of the Indian population of Lima, such as demographic profiles, occupational distribution, or patterns of migration to the capital, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The census promises to be even more useful, however, in conjunction with other sources on urban, and even rural history. A knowledge of what type of person left the Indian provinces for the capital can help define more precisely the impact of Spanish colonial policies and practices upon the native communities, for example, and the questions regarding the urban masses of colonial Lima to which the document contributes partial, but essential information are legion. Mr. Cook has done a considerable service in making this document easily available to students of colonial Andean history.
