Modern Andean historical scholarship has focused for the most part on coastal and Andean Peru. That’s understandable. The national and ecclesiastical archives of Lima and Cuzco are readily accessible, with a wide variety of documents that illuminate the development of the core of Spanish colonial activity and the indigenous response. Almost simultaneously, a comparatively minor but steady stream of both anthropological and historical studies has concentrated on Quito and Guayaquil. One has only to look at the bibliographies of John L. Phelan’s The Kingdom of Quito (1967) and the recent study by Frank Salomon (Native Lords of Quito, 1986) to note the significant increase in studies concentrating on the northern region. This is due in no small part, I suspect, to the realization of the importance of interregional economic activity. Manuel Miño Grijalva’s major contribution in this book is to summarize and assess these recent socioeconomic studies and place them in a meaningful context. This summary and analysis occupies the first 70 pages of the book; the remaining 233 pages are taken up with four already published eighteenth- and nineteenth-century documents describing the economic plight of Guayaquil and Quito.
In his historical introduction to the documents, Miño Grijalva examines four major themes: demographics, land, labor, and the textile mill—the four buildingblocks of the colonial economy. The demographic decline contributed in no small way to the acquisition of land by the Spaniards, large tracts of land that they needed in the highlands for their sheep and cattle. The mechanisms used to acquire this land are still a bit shadowy, but contrary to what the author states (p. 35), not all studies of land acquisition and agrarian development have been theoretical and general, some have been based on primary sources. Borchart’s examination of the composiciones de tierras in Chillos and my study of the College of Quito’s acquisitions are two notable exceptions. Labor and the textile mill have received a good deal of attention, and well they might, for these were the linchpins of the colonial economy. Only when silver production in Potosí declined and European vessels landed massive quantities of textiles for sale at competitive prices, did the mill decline in importance.
The documents reprinted are an account of a trip made from Lima to Caracas by Miguel de Santiesteban in 1740, an economic and geographic description of the northern region in 1761 written by Juan Romualdo Navarro, similar descriptions around 1804 by Francisco José de Caldas, and an account of Guayaquil in 1814 by Andrés Baleato. The documents are well chosen. The thread of gradual decline is clear, but always ameliorated by the perceived potential of economic growth.
There are no fireworks in this book, no new explanation of colonial economic rise and depression. Just a restatement of the traditional structure of colonial economics and society, a fine summary of recent writings, and a few gentle nudges and suggestions to help future scholars plug the more conspicuous gaps.
