The Fabric of Resistance: Textile Workshops and the Rise of Rebellious Landscapes in Colonial Peru

Abstract

Di Hu's The Fabric of Resistance: Textile Workshops and the Rise of Rebellious Landscapes in Colonial Peru analyzes how obrajes (textile workshops) and haciendas (large landed estates) located in Pomacocha, in the Peruvian province of Vilcashuamán in the modern region of Ayacucho, facilitated Indigenous peoples' social landscapes. The author explores this through an innovative methodological approach that draws from “archaeology, history, architecture, demography, GIS/spatial analysis, and social network analysis” (p. 8). The author applies this methodology to examine records that include census data, diagrams of architecture, maps, legal cases, royal reports, and ledgers, to name a few of her primary sources. Hu argues that Ayacucho's Amerindian groups maintained their social landscape after being forced to relocate to new provinces under the Inca and then expanded these relationships under Spanish colonial rule, which led to an increase in rebellions in the central Andes toward the end of the eighteenth century and during the early nineteenth.To support her argument, Hu organizes The Fabric of Resistance into five succinct and well-balanced chapters that proceed in chronological order. Hu uses works from James C. Scott and Fernand Braudel to establish that although revolutions rarely occur, and are typically suppressed quickly when they do, “weapons of the weak” emerged continually to undermine hegemonic rule. Yet many scholars dismiss these events because they do not often lead to a change in regime. Hu challenges this dismissal and suggests that over a longue durée these purportedly minor actions “inform short-term events like rebellions” (p. 3). Hu explores Inca imperialism in her first chapter and the Inca labor systems that the Spanish adopted during colonial rule. The Inca forced Indigenous workers (mitmaqkuna) to relocate to new regions to help integrate newly acquired territories into the empire. Hu shows that under the Inca and the Spanish these forced laborers re-created their former social landscapes in the new territory. The Indigenous Andeans relied on these methods that influenced future generations residing in and around Pomacocha under Spanish colonialism. In Hu's second chapter, she emphasizes how Indigenous people in the Andes supported each other through these social landscapes during times of unrest, especially after major earthquakes and the epidemics that led to the death of thousands of Indigenous people in the early eighteenth century.Chapter 3 emphasizes the effect that spatial and social control had on the Indigenous workers in the Pomacocha obrajes. The author shows that when a new foreman came into the obraje, any alterations to custom (costumbre) threatened textile production. Additionally, Hu contends that food customs helped establish strong kinship bonds between different Indigenous groups laboring in the workshops. Hu's fourth chapter explores the apex of the Bourbon reforms. The author's principal focus in this chapter is how King Charles III's economic and social policies led to an increase of open rebellions in the Andes at the start of the 1760s, which culminated with the Tupac Amaru II revolt from 1780 to 1782. While the Indigenous population of Pomacocha did not participate in this rebellion, it had a lasting impact on these individuals, who took up arms against the crown in the nineteenth century.In Hu's final chapter, she shows that the Pomacocha obraje served as a pivotal staging area for Simón Bolívar and his forces. More importantly, however, Hu examines how and why the Indigenous laborers decided to support Bolívar's revolution. To answer these questions, Hu explores the identity of the Morochucos, or the Indigenous and mestizo inhabitants of the Vilcashuamán area of Ayacucho. This group proved pivotal in gaining Peru's independence from Spain. She establishes the group's evolution through a demographic analysis of surnames. The Fabric of Resistance's short conclusion suggests that the connections between Indigenous resistance in Pomacocha during the colonial period contribute to our understanding of the hacienda workers who rebelled against the hacendados (owners of haciendas) in the mid-twentieth century.Numerous historians have explored the topic of Indigenous resistance against Spanish colonialism and the aftermath of these revolts in the Andes. Several notable works in this historiography include Steve J. Stern's Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640 (1982), Alberto Flores Galindo's Buscando un inca: Identidad y utopía en los Andes (1986), Charles Walker's Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840 (1999), and Cecilia Méndez's The Plebeian Republic: The Huanta Rebellion and the Making of the Peruvian State, 1820–1850 (2005), to name a few. Like these works, Hu's The Fabric of Resistance should be considered essential reading for archaeologists, geographers, and especially historians interested in rebellions and revolutions and their aftermath in the colonial Andes.