Stern's Mythbusting: Peruvian Edition

Stern definitively supports Restall's arguments, in that the Andeans were far from crushed by the superiority, weaponry and sheer willpower of the armed entrepreneurs.  For a time, the Andeans even held the upper hand in negotiations between the two groups.  From the first contact, the Spaniards are complying with the kurakas' terms.  Nearly all labor contracts were established through the pre-existing system, as it "seemed more feasible to the colonials to base their extraction upon long-standing Andean traditions" (40).  While it makes some logical sense to not want to rock the boat, from a business standpoint the encomenderos were setting themselves up for trouble.  When a company is bought, the new owners almost always install their own management team to ensure that their own policies are being carried out, and to basically prevent mutiny within the company by the old management.  The fact that the Spanish left the old system in place for nearly 40 years after entering the Andes suggests that not only was the Andean system productive and efficient, but that the Spanish did not have the manpower or political strength to reinforce any policy changes.  This alone belies any assertion that the natives were cowed into submission and were completely subservient.  Their own actions contradict any claims of superiority that the Spanish made.

Stern's writing style and assertions are very similar to Restall's book, without the catchy title and cover art.  While Restall generally focuses his arguments as they applied in Mesoamerica, Stern focuses solely on Andean societies, and spends more time on the details of social and economic interactions.  Both authors are writing for a similar purpose with different methods: Restall attacks the misconceptions based on how they have been formed and perpetuated in the past 400 years, while Stern addresses these fallacies in a more subtle fashion and provides specific historical evidence of what actually was occurring on the ground.  Each has their own method, but they both aim towards a similar goal.