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Plotting Pachakuti: Incan Conquest Sites in the Galvin Murúa
Martín de Murúa was a Basque Mercedarian friar who wrote the Historia General del Piru (c.1580-1616), an illustrated history of what are today the South American nations of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Urban Mountain Beings: History, Indigeneity, and Geographies of Time in Quito: Fine-Dare
Fine-Dare, Kathleen S. Urban Mountain Beings: History, Indigeneity, and Geographies of Time in Quito, Ecuador. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2020.
Survival and Subjugation in Colonial Latin America
Indigenous elites stood at the intersection of political subjugation and cultural survival in Spanish and Portuguese America.
Peasant Power in Andean History
Like many global hot spots of the twentieth century, the Andes is marked by its history of structural inequality, racial conflict, and legacies of poverty and violence.
Between Two Worlds: Andean Haciendas in Colonial History
When historian James Lockhart published “Encomienda and Hacienda” in 1969, the modern historiography on the topic was already more than forty-years-old.
Ecuador’s Environmental Revolutions: Lewis
Lewis, Tammy L. Ecuador’s Environmental Revolutions: Ecoimperialists, Ecodependents, and Ecoresisters, 2017.
Moving to the Suburbs: Reducciones in Recent Latin American Historiography
In 1503, the Spanish monarchy issued its first decree for the resettlement of indigenous groups in the Caribbean so that they would “live together” and
Investigación Subacuática en las Lagunas de Yahuarcocha: Echeverría and Athens
Echeverría-Almeida and Athens underwater survey of the Laguna Yahuarcocha (Lake of Blood) builds on earlier subaquatic research performed in the lake in the early 2000s.
The Andean Wonder Drug: Cinchona Bark and Imperial Science in the Spanish Atlantic: Crawford
Matthew Crawford’s The Andean Wonder Drug is a fascinating history of quina, the medicinal tree bark of the chinchona tree, native to the Andean forests of South America.
Historia de la Conservación Ambiental en el Ecuador: Bustamante
Bustamante Ponce, Teodoro. Historia de La Conservación Ambiental En El Ecuador: Volcanes, Tortugas, Geólogos y Políticos. 1. ed. Serie Atrio. Quito, Ecuador: FLACSO Ecuador : Editorial Abya Yala, 2016.
Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorians Facing the Twenty-First Century: Marc Becker
A collection of essays on the construction and emergence of ethnic identities in the Ecuadorian Andes, edited by Marc Becker. The authors of the volume examine Afro-Ecuadorians and indigenous communities through the lens of politics, culture, religion, gender, and the environment to better understand the array of social problems facing the country. French sociologist Manuela…
Cement, Earthworms, and Cheese Factories: Religion and Community Development in Rural Ecuador: DeTemple
Citation DeTemple, Jill Michelle. Cement, Earthworms, and Cheese Factories: Religion and Community Development in Rural Ecuador. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.
The Deepest Wounds: Thomas Rogers
Thomas Rogers’ The Deepest Wounds argues that Pernambuco sugar planters “saw no distinction between land and labor” (8). Enslaved and free workers on cane plantations were demoted in elites’ eyes to a level equal with the animals and the earth – merely another natural resource to be commanded by the planters (72-73). This monograph shows…
¿Para qué sirve la memoria? : memoria, poder y resistencia en una zona florícola en el norte de Ecuador: Angus Lyall
Citation Lyall, Angus. “¿Para qué sirve la memoria? : memoria, poder y resistencia en una zona florícola en el norte de Ecuador,” July 2009.
Provisioning of the Inka Army in Wartime: Obsidian Procurement in Pambamarca, Ecuador: Ogburn et al.
Ogburn, Dennis, Samuel Connell, and Chad Gifford. “Provisioning of the Inka Army in Wartime: Obsidian Procurement in Pambamarca, Ecuador.” Journal of Archaeological Science 36, no. 3 (March 1, 2009): 740–51. Dennis Ogburn, Samuel Connell, and Chad Gifford look at sources of obsidian found at the Pambamarca fortress complex to the north and east of Quito,…
The Market for Meat in Colonial Cuenca: A Seventeenth-Century Urban Faunal Assemblage from the Southern Highlands of Ecuador: Jamieson
Citation Jamieson, Ross W. “The Market for Meat in Colonial Cuenca: A Seventeenth-Century Urban Faunal Assemblage from the Southern Highlands of Ecuador.” Historical Archaeology 42, no. 4 (December 2008): 21–37.
Holocene Environmental Change at the Upper Forest Line in Northern Ecuador: Bakker et al.
Citation Bakker, Johan, Marcela Moscol Olivera, and Henry Hooghiemstra. “Holocene Environmental Change at the Upper Forest Line in Northern Ecuador.” The Holocene 18, no. 6 (September 1, 2008): 877–93.
A Native American System of Wetland Agriculture in Different Ecosystems in the Ecuadorian Andes: Caillavet
Citation Caillavet, Chantal. “A Native American System of Wetland Agriculture in Different Ecosystems in the Ecuadorian Andes (15th-18th Centuries).” Environment and History 14, no. 3 (August 1, 2008): 331–53.
Chilean Foreign Policy: 2008
What is Chile’s current foreign policy? Chile’s current foreign policy strongly resembles the foreign policy of the Portales period, emphasizing political neutrality, non-intervention, sovereign equality, regional stability, and commercial expansion. The types of problems it faces are also similar to that era, but not specific to it, insofar as it has yet to resolve territorial…
Brazilian Foreign Policy: 2008
What is Brazil’s current foreign policy? “Brazil is not a small country. It does not, and it cannot, have the foreign policy of a small country.”[1] These words, from the current Minister of External Relations express the essence of Brazil’s foreign policy. It is a country in pursuit of major power status and, as such,…
Hacia una historia ecológica del Ecuador: propuestas para el debate: Larrea
Citation Larrea M., Carlos. Hacia Una Historia Ecológica Del Ecuador: Propuestas Para El Debate. Quito: Corporación Editora Nacional, 2006.
Agricultural and Settlement Frontiers in the Tropical Andes: The Páramo Belt of Northern Ecuador, 1960-1990: López
Citation López Sandoval, María Fernanda. Agricultural and Settlement Frontiers in the Tropical Andes: The Páramo Belt of Northern Ecuador, 1960-1990. Regensburg: Institut für Geographie an der Universität Regensburg, 2004.
Aproximación histórica de los cambios de la seguridad y consumo alimentario entre los pueblos quichuas de la sierra ecuatoriana: López
Citation López Paredes, Dolores. “Aproximación histórica de los cambios de la seguridad y consumo alimentario entre los pueblos quichuas de la sierra ecuatoriana : Otavalos y Cayambis en la cuenca del Lago San Pablo, provincia de Imbabura,” November 6, 2002. http://repositorio.flacsoandes.edu.ec/handle/10469/709.
The Economics of Deforestation: The Example of Ecuador: Wunder
Citation Wunder, Sven. The Economics of Deforestation: The Example of Ecuador. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Reencountering Development: Livelihood Transitions and Place Transformations in the Andes: Bebbington
Citation Bebbington, Anthony. “Reencountering Development: Livelihood Transitions and Place Transformations in the Andes.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90, no. 3 (2000): 495–520.
La organización del espacio en Ecuador: Cebrián
Citation Cebrián Abellán, Francisco. La organización del espacio en Ecuador. Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 1999.
With Broadax and Firebrand: Warren Dean
Warren Dean’s With Broadax and Firebrand is a history of the destructive impact of human activity on the Atlantic forests of Brazil. Chronicling social attitudes towards nature and the impact of those attitudes on the forests from pre-Columbian times to the present, he highlights the ultimately unproductive exploitation of Brazilian natural resources, which left the…
Changing Fortunes: Karl Zimmerer
Karl Zimmerer’s Changing Fortunes: Biodiversity and Peasant Livelihood in the Peruvian Andes looks at agriculture systems and species biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes in the late twentieth century. Focusing on an indigenous community in Paucartambo region, near Cuzco, the author explores the divergent fortunes of different communities in this area as they adapted to changing…
A Plague of Sheep: Elinor Melville
Elinor Melville’s A Plague of Sheep (1994) examines the effects of sheep ranching on the environment in the Valle de Mezquital in colonial Mexico. Melville traces the processes that turned a wooded, well-irrigated landscape into desolate pasture lands. She weaves disease, territorial control, ungulate irruptions, and the collapse and consolidation of regional land tenancy into…
Native Society and Disease in Colonial Ecuador: Suzanne Alchon
Suzanne Alchon: Native Society and Disease in Colonial Ecuador (1991) explores the relationship between epidemic diseases and indigenous populations in the north-central highlands of Ecuador in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Alchon argues that appreciating the role of epidemics in everything from food security to politics is critical to understanding changes in regional history in…
Andean Ecology: Adaptive Dynamics in Ecuador: Knapp
Citation Knapp, Gregory W. Andean Ecology: Adaptive Dynamics in Ecuador. Dellplain Latin American Studies, no. 27. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.
From Hacienda to Family Farm: Changes in Environment and Society in Pimampiro, Ecuador: Preston
Citation Preston, David A. “From Hacienda to Family Farm: Changes in Environment and Society in Pimampiro, Ecuador.” The Geographical Journal 156, no. 1 (1990): 31–38.
La Resistencia Andina: Galo Ramón
Citation Ramón Valarezo, Galo. La resistencia andina: Cayambe 1.500-1.800. Cuaderno de Discusión Popular. Quito: Centro Andino de Accion Popular, 1987.
Del Valle al Monte: Christoph Stadel
Citation Stadel, Christoph. “Del Valle al Monte: Altitudinal Patterns of Agricultural Activities in the Patate-Pelileo Area of Ecuador.” Mountain Research and Development 6, no. 1 (1986): 53–62.
The Andean Past: Magnus Mörner
Magnus Mörner’s The Andean Past: Land, Societies, and Conflicts (1985) is a wide-ranging survey of Andean history since conquest, focusing on classic political, social, and economic themes. In his discussion of Andean rural history, Mörner says historians should view the development of haciendas in terms of their wider commercial networks and argues that international export…
Huarochirí: Karen Spalding
Karen Spalding’s history of colonial Peru, Huarochirí, begins with the origins of Andean society, following social changes from pre-Inca days until the height of colonial rule. Written in the mid-1980s amidst a brutal economic crisis that inordinately impacted indigenous communities in areas like Huarochirí, this monograph seems an attempt to revalorize Andean society at a…
Miners of the Red Mountain: Peter Bakewell
Peter Bakewell’s Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosí, 1545-1650 (1984) looks at the changing systems of labor and production used at the silver mines of Potosí in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Bakewell questions the long-held assumption that the mines were overwhelmingly worked by forced laborers, arguing instead that declining…
Changes in the Land: William Cronon
William Cronon’s Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (1983) looks at environmental change and human landscaping in pre-Columbian and colonial New England. Cronon argues that what we think of as “nature” on the so-called American frontier was not an untouched and pristine wilderness, but a heavily landscaped environment where…
Farm and Factory: Nicholas Cushner
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…
Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Steve Stern
Stern, Steve J. Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. Steve Stern’s Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640 centers on colonial Huamanga, a strategic military and economic region along the route between Lima and Potosí. It was…
Contribución a la Etnohistoria Ecuatoriana: Moreno and Oberem
Citation Moreno Yánez, Segundo E., and Udo Oberem. Contribución a La Etnohistoria Ecuatoriana. Quito: Instituto Otavaleño de Antropología, Ediciones Abya-Yala, 1995 [1981].
Conquest and Agrarian Change: Robert Keith
Robert Keith’s 1976 Conquest and Agrarian Change: The Emergence of the Hacienda System on the Peruvian Coast, explored the rise of Spanish plantations in seven valleys along Peru’s southern coast in the second half of the sixteenth century. Keith emphasized the legacy of pre-Colombian societies in the development of the hacienda, arguing that in addition…
Los Indigenas de Altura del Ecuador: Emilio Bonifaz
Emilio Bonifaz’s Los Indigenas de Altura Del Ecuador (1979) is an agricultural history of Ecuador’s northern highlands in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, told from the viewpoint of one of the country’s wealthiest elites. While much of the social analysis of indigenous communities is based on now-discredited theories of scientific racism, his study of…
Economic Organization of the Inka State: John Murra
John Murra developed his now-famous theory of the Andean “vertical archipelago” in Formaciones Económicas y Políticas del Mundo Andino (1975, trans. Economic Organization of the Inka State, 1980), which grew out of his research in the Peruvian highlands between 1958 and 1973. Murra argued that pre-Columbian societies in the Andes sought to control a range of ecological zones…
Origen y evolución de una hacienda histórica: Emilio Bonifaz
Citation Bonifaz, Emilio. “Origen y evolución de una hacienda histórica: Guachalá’ II” Boletin de la Academia Nacional de Historia (BANH) 53, no. 115 (January-June 1970): 115-22.
La tierra siempre verde : El Ecuador visto por los cronistas de Indias, los corsarios y los viajeros ilustres: Jorge Carrera
Citation Carrera Andrade, Jorge. La tierra siempre verde : El Ecuador visto por los cronistas de Indias, los corsarios y los viajeros ilustres. Paris: Ediciones Internacionales, 1955.
Volcán de Pacaya y Terrenos Adyacentes: Map
“Volcán de Pacaya y Terrenos Adyacentes: ‘Golpe de Vista Que Ha Pintado Un Curioso y Demuestra El Bolcán Desde El Paraxe No 1 En Que Se Puso a Reconocerlo.’” Guatemala, July 26, 1775. MP-GUATEMALA, 315. Archivo General de Indias.
Perspectiva del Bolcan de Tunguragua en la Provincia de Quito y de su Erupción el Día 23 de Abril de 1773: Map
AGI. “Perspectiva del Bolcan de Tunguragua en la Provincia de Quito y de Su Erupción el Día 23 de Abril de 1773.” Quito, August 16, 1773. MP-PANAMA,180. Archivo General de Indias.
Southern Affairs 