Fraccionamiento de una encomienda: una mirada desde el liderazgo indígena. Qaraqara, 1540-1569

Abstract

The “encomienda”, a royal grant that gave the right to enjoy the tribute of an indigenous group in exchange for certain obligations, spread rapidly in the Andes after the fall of the Tawantinsuyu, based on the more or less forced alliance with mallku. This paper analyses the hierarchy of indigenous authorities of an encomienda, by reconstructing the changes of a segment of the Gonzalo Pizarro´s encomienda, which included the prehispanic Qaraqara Federation - a polity that extended from northern Potosí to the Pilcomayo river, near the Chichas (Tarija Department, Bolivia) - since its concession in 1540 until the late 1560´s. Through this case study, we emphasize the dual process of prehispanic political entities segmentation on the one hand, and of empowerment of indigenous leaders from different levels, on the other.