Nicholas Cushner’s Farm and Factory (1982) examines Jesuit hacienda holdings in the Los Chillos valley on the southeastern slopes of Quito between 1600 and the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. Cushner uses the Black Robes to look at the rise of agrarian capitalism in colonial Quito as seen through changing systems land tenancy in this area. By examining the early imposition of private property, a monetary economy, and systems of credit and finance, Cushner argues that these hacienda showed a decidedly capitalistic orientation as early as the seventeenth century, compared to many scholars who connect capitalism with the rise of mechanized industrialization in the nineteenth century.

Citation
Cushner, Nicholas P. Farm and Factory: The Jesuits and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism in Colonial Quito, 1600-1767. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982.

By N. H. Gill
Quito, 2020