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The Inka State in the Southern Highlands: State Administrative and Production Enclaves

1987; Duke University Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/482265

1527-5477

Mary B. La Lone, Darrell E. La Lone,

Migration, Education, Indigenous Social Dynamics

Inka state expansion was financed by a command economy which was able to mobilize production for the state on a vast scale. As the empire grew and required greater resources to finance its expansion, the state elaborated upon special combinations of land tenure and labor organization which brought increased production for state ends. This paper examines a particularly powerful combination of land and labor organization used by the Inka: the establishment of state enclaves for production and administration and the mobilization of mitmaq labor for service on those enclaves. Documentary evidence is presented for the sites of Guaiparmarca/Ocomarca, Raqchi, Abancay, and Cochabamba in the southern Andean highlands. The Inca busied himself for four years with the government and welfare of his subjects. Then, deeming it to devote so much time to the quiet enjoyment of without giving an opportunity for martial exercise, he gave orders that supplies and weapons should be collected with special care and his soldiers summoned for the following year. Garcilaso de la Vega (I966 [1609]: I59) Garcilaso's portrayal of the Inka who deemed it wrong to devote so much time to the quiet enjoyment of peace aptly epitomizes the expansionist state. It was precisely through the relatively infrequent enjoyment of that in such a short time the Inka state expanded from the Cuzco Valley as far south as what are today parts of Chile and northwest Argentina, and as far north as regions now bordering Colombia. Whatever gains the state harvested from absorbing such vast regions presupposed hardly less vast costs in supporting such military adventure and in maintaining vigilance against rebellions. Support of such a military enterprise would inevitably exceed the capacity of the traditional tribute system. Mobilization of a massive army created formidable food demands, while simultaneously removing tribute payers from Ethnohistory 34:I (Winter I987). Copyright ? by the American Society for Ethnohistory. ccc ooI4-I8oI/87/$I.50. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.144 on Mon, 13 Jun 2016 06:10:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Mary B. La Lone and Darrell E. La Lone food production. We believe that what we document in this paper is change in organization of land and labor to meet the requirements for state expansion. We do not intend to explore the whys of Inka expansionism here, but we can offer some observations and data on the hows. We, and others, have previously discussed Inka economy as a mobilization economy in which goods and services were channelled upward from the general populace to finance the state political structure and state expansion (D. La Lone 1982; Earle and D'Altroy I982). The Inka state seems to have financed itself primarily through direct managerial command of land, labor, and storage systems, rather than through a market exchange system (D. La Lone I982 details this argument). The organization of state land tenure, the mobilization of labor for state production (through tribute service known as mit'a, and through the resettlement of service groups known as mitmaq), and the storage and movement of goods within the empire were the important components of the Inka command economy. The state economy was able to command production on a scale vastly beyond what might be expected from communities seeking general self-sufficiency through local or small regional networks of reciprocity and redistribution organized around the principle of vertical ecology. In short, the development of the Inka command economy required a shift from the satisficing strategies of the domestic mode of production (Sahlins I97z) toward surplus production for state purposes. Extensive state expansion in the Andes, in turn, required corresponding elaborations upon forms of land tenure and labor organization which would guarantee surplus production for state financial support. Thus, to understand the processes of state expansion, we need a better understanding of corresponding developments in the organization of state lands and productive labor on those lands. Licenciado Juan Polo de Ondegardo (I916-17 [157I]: 6I), a sixteenthcentury jurist who presided over land cases in southern Peru, recognized the Inka pattern of state land ownership. Polo clearly distinguished lands committed to the state mobilization economy from those claimed as personal estates of the rulers. He argued that the Inka ruler levied tribute as a head of state rather than as a private person. He observed that much of the tribute from state lands went to fill state storehouses with foodstuffs, clothing, and especially military provisions (ibid., 66). And he recognized that the provisions kept in the storehouses were then distributed for such explicit state purposes as support for the military (ibid., 59), hospitality for visiting lords (ibid., 59), and supply for corvee laborers doing tribute service for the state (ibid., 6o). That the state storage system was organized in the interest of the statemobilization economy rather than for community welfare seems now to be clearly established both through ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence (Murra 1980; Morris 1967, 1972, I974, 1982; D'Altroy 1981; Earle and D'Altroy I982; D. La Lone I982). State storage on such a massive scale as we find in Huanuco, the Mantaro Valley, or Cochabamba clearly implies that 48 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.144 on Mon, 13 Jun 2016 06:10:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Inka State in Southern Highlands the expanding Inka state made substantial demands to increase production beyond ordinary subsistence needs. Since, furthermore, tribute was not to be taken from the taxpayer's own or community lands (Polo de Ondegardo I916-I7 [I57I]: 67), this implies substantial expansion of lands dedicated to the state and labor to service those lands. In this paper, we shall document the existence of a particularly powerful combination of land and labor organization used by the Inka for state finance: the establishment of state enclaves for production and administration, and the mobilization of mitmaq labor for service on those enclaves. Our primary sources are sixteenth-century legal documents on land-tenure cases from three sites in southern Peru. The legal materials include testimony from elderly Indian witnesses on the prehispanic organization of land and labor at the sites. State Lands in the Mobilization Economy We have known for some time, through the reports of sixteenth-century Spanish chroniclers, that the Inka state set aside lands in each community of the realm to be worked as the community's tribute obligation to the state. But examination of sixteenth-century archival records shows us a second form of Inka land tenure which supported the state and its expansion. We might best refer to these lands as enclaves, relatively large tracts of land isolated specifically for fulfilling state administrative and production needs. From our ethnohistorical research, we find that the Inka established two types of state enclaves with different functions: (I) production enclaves geared toward intensive agricultural production; and (z) administrative enclaves for control of people and tribute in different regions. Large-scale production enclaves were established in fertile valleys and other sites suited for food cultivation, especially for maize. Administrative enclaves were established at locations considered strategic for transportation and communication, tribute collection, and military control in the empire. These state enclaves were staffed by mitmaq, individuals removed from their local communities and resettled at state sites to serve the Inka as a permanent, fulltime labor force. Thus, two features which characterize Inka state enclaves are: (i) the expropriation of large tracts of land for state purposes; and (z) the mobilization of substantial amounts of mitmaq labor to service the enclaves. This combination of state enclaves serviced by mitmaq labor seems to have been expanded during the time of the last Inkas, the years of greatest state expansion, and some records document the relationship of this land-labor arrangement to finance for state expansion. The following sections present discussion of production and administrative enclaves in the southern highlands.