Multiethnic Islands in the Middle of Indigenous Lands: Native Migration to the Colonial Towns in the Northern Andes, 1550–1650

This chapter examines Indigenous migration to the Spanish colonial towns in the Northern Andes, in present-day Ecuador and Colombia, roughly between 1550 and 1650. The focus is on the gobernación of Popayán, located in the southwest of modern Colombia, which was at the time a colonial frontier, characterized by instability, unpredictability, and heterogeneity. The early colonial towns in Spanish America became melting pots of different ethnicities since the beginning. The Spanish towns were magnets that drew the Indigenous population, as they offered a chance to earn a living and freedom from paying tribute to any master. The Indigenous peoples were free vassals of the crown who were allowed to move from one place to another, but the functionaries did try to control their movement in many ways, never completely succeeding. The Indigenous workforce was indispensable in the Spanish towns. They played many key roles in the urban communities. Some of the Indigenous migrants were able to gain prominent positions in the urban society while for others it meant hard work as a servant with a wage barely enough to pay for living costs and getting into debt to their masters. Indigenous immigration shaped the Andean colonial world tremendously. While it was an essential form of Indigenous agency, it posed a problem to the Spaniards as it made it more difficult for them to control the population. On the other hand, the Spanish colonial system could not have survived without both voluntary and forced movement of the people.