Migration in Colonial Spanish America

Ranging from the sixteenth through the mid-nineteenth century, these essays provide an empirical analysis of migration in Latin America.

David J. Robinson (Edited by)

9780521030281, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 November 2006

420 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.637 kg

"...one of the most striking qualities of this volume is the extent to which the individual studies, while distinct and mostly relatively narrow in focus, reinforce and correlate with one another to a degree rarely achieved in anthologies. This is an important publication that every scholar and student of Spanish American colonial history should read." The Americas

In this collection of innovative essays an international team of contributors provides theoretical, methodological and substantive empirical analysis of migration in Latin America. Ranging in time from the sixteenth through the mid-nineteenth century, the studies will attract the attention of all Latin American specialists. They provide conclusive evidence of the ubiquity of migration in the early modern period, challenging views of immobile peasants held in the grip of static colonialism. They show that to migrate was one of the most important means of coping with Spanish colonialism. The essays are written from a multi-disciplinary perspective and thus provide data and interpretations that are novel and represent important contributions to colonial Latin American studies. They address the basic questions of who migrated, why did they migrate, how can one interpret migration fields, what role did economic opportunity or ecological conditions play, and not least, what was the impact of migrants on non-migrant communities in both rural and urban areas. The picture that emerges is one of colonial Spanish America in continual flux: spatial mobility was no less pronounced than social/racial change.

List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
Preface
1. Introduction: towards a typology of migration in colonial Spanish America David J. Robinson
2. Indian migration and community formation: an analysis of congregación in colonial Guatemala George Lovell and William R. Swezey
3. Migration in colonial Peru: an overview Noble David Cook
4. Migration processes in Upper Peru in the seventeenth century Brian Evans
5. '… residente en esa ciudad …': urban migrants in colonial Cuzco Ann Wightman
6. Frontier workers and social change: Pilaya y Paspaya (Bolivia) in the early eighteenth century Ann Zulawski
7. Student migration to colonial urban centers: Guadalajara and Lima Carman Castañeda
8. Migration, mobility, and the mining towns of colonial northern Mexico Michael M. Swann
9. Migration patterns of the novices of the Order of San Francisco in Mexico City, 1649–1749 Elsa Malvido
10. Migration to major metropoles in colonial Mexico John Kicza
11. Marriage, migration, and settling down: Parral (Nueva Vizcaya), 1770–1788 Robert McCaa
12. Informal settlement and fugitive migration amongst the Indians of late-colonial Chiapas, Mexico Rodney Watson
13. Migration and settlement in Costa Rica, 1700–1850 Hector Pérez Brignoli
14. Seventeenth-century Indian migration in the Venezuelan Andes Edda O. Samudio A.
15. Indian migrations in the Audiencia of Quito: Crown manipulation and local co-optation Karen Powers
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP]