Week 13

            I found Stern’s ideas in Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest about “The Rise of Uneasy Allies” to be interesting. He discusses the advantages of the alliance between the native Peruvian populations of Huamanga and the Spaniards. Many people may first be surprised at the fact that native populations would so quickly seek alliance with a foreign conquering power, however the natives were immediately impressed with the Spanish military capabilities, and seeing this they could “finally break the yoke of Inca rule, and advance their ethnic interests in a new, post-Incaic era” (p. 30).  Aside from breaking Incan ties, local Huamangans hoped to become more powerful against other minor native rivalries (p. 31) and be better protected from the threat of ambushes from the neo-Inca group in the Andean region.

            Stern also discusses the incentives from kurakas to the encomenderos to cooperate and maintain their alliance. Stern mentions that the native elite “received a black slave, mules, horses, livestock, and fine Inca and Spanish cloths” (p. 31). Even though the alliance was a benefit to the native society in general, “it did not imply that life was free of conflict or abuse” (p. 33); Indian workers were basically treated as a labor force for the elites. Although it is not directly mentioned in Stern’s book, I would speculate that the amount of abuse that the native workers endured was based on their encomenderos or kurakas material or political motives.

            It is evident that the native Andeans benefitted in multiple ways through their alliance with the Spaniards. However, as Stern states, there was an “uneasy mixture of force, negotiation, and alliance” (p. 34) and furthermore, “the parties of the post-Incaic alliances understood very well that, in a real sense, they needed one another” (p. 35).