Las ordenanzas de Jayanca (1566)

Abstract

This translation by Claudio Soltmann is of a section of the dissertation by Prof. Dr. Karoline Noack, defended in 1996 at the Freie Universität Berlin. Originally titled “Die gesellschaftliche Relevanz von Rechtsordnung und Rechtsanwendung, dargestellt anhand der visita von Gregorio González de Cuenca (1566/67) in der Nordregion des Vizekönigreiches Peru,” the thesis analyzes the visit of Judge Dr. Cuenca to the province of Trujillo in the 1560s, showing how this administrative procedure served to lay the foundations for a new colonial order in the region, within a context marked by political unrest and the economic crisis that the Crown of Castile was experiencing. The section translated here, which corresponds to the published book version of the thesis, exemplifies the research's main contributions. These include the identification of elements of pre-Hispanic institutions that were preserved during early colonization, an analysis of Dr. Cuenca's motivations for incorporating, reformulating, or restricting Indigenous norms, and an exploration of the consequences of these actions in central aspects of Andean social life, such as reciprocity practices, the structure of chiefdoms, and the reorganization of tribute to serve the nascent colonial market. In this sense, the translation also addresses the enduring analytical relevance of its arguments and the need to reintroduce into the debate, primarily in Spanish, a key study for understanding the formation of the Andean colonial order.