Usurpation of communal lands of the Indian town of Chuscha (Tucumán, nineteenth century)

Abstract

The forms by which communal indigenous lands passed from indigenous to Spanish-creole hands is a multi-faceted and highly relevant issue today. In the case we deal with here, concerning the lands of the Chuscha community, recent dramatic conflicts in the context of litigation over the possession of lands have led to the murder of an indigenous person. In this paper we aim to shed light on the way these lands were appropriated at the end of the colonial period and in the first years of the revolution, within the context of increasing advances of the Spanish/criollo population onto communal indigenous lands within the jurisdiction of Tucumán. To understand this process, we reconstruct a history of this group (the Chuscha) in their autonomy and under the encomienda regime, including a reconstruction of practices of reproduction of the group and their strategies of resistances. We approach these problems through a revision of bibliographic and documentary sources focused on the period of change from communal to private property at the beginning of the XIX century. We aim to demonstrate the illegitimacy of the auction of these lands that was carried out in 1811, both in terms of the formalities of the process and with regards to the assumptions that enabled this operation, such as the supposed absence of Chuscha population. The methodology employed includes the cross-referencing and comparison of information from different sources, a deep reading of judicial documents related to the case, and a sweep of parochial documents and the escribanía protocols.