Week 14

Stern’s book, Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest, does indeed focus partly in the Black Legend dealing with Spanish Cruelty. In Chapter Four, The Political Economy of Colonialism, Stern gives great examples of how the natives felt abused by the Spanish settler’s cruelties. Under the new system set up by Toledo, natives were forced to work for a season for the Spanish settlers and in return they would receive payment for their time worked in the settler’s mine, farm, or mill (84).

However, this system was seen unfair to the native workers, who would have to leave their farmland for a season without being able to tend it when they would be working for the settlers. Many of these workers brought supplies and food with them so they would not go into debt when having to purchase items at their new working place at inflated prices. Some workers, mitayos,  even brought family members along with them to help take care of them while they worked long days in the fields, mines, or mills. These family members would not be able to help the one working in the fields but would be able to help out by preparing meals for the workers. Stern also mentions that “colonials raped women, commandeered the labors of relatives for secondary tasks, and set impossible production quotes to force mitayos to utilize the labors of their families (84).”  Thus not only did the colonials take advantage of the mitayos but also all of those who came with him. With these impossible work hours and horrible conditions it is no wonder that the mitayos did not want to do work for the Spanish (84).

The settlers’ who received the labor of the mitayos would often try to get as much labor out of the mitayos as possible. The mitayos would sometimes be worked so hard that it would cause their health to greatly diminish and become very ill. Many workers would even die from illness caused by exhaustion, mercury poisoning, and overworking. “Long, hard work in dangerous conditions pressed in on health. Back breaking, sweaty mine labor in high cold climates…invited pneumonia and respiratory ailments (Stern 84).”  Stern reconfirms his assertion that the mitayos health was greatly affected by not only dangerous conditions and unruly work hours but by the unwelcoming climate the mitayos were forced to work in. He also mentions that “Many miners who contracted the mercury sickness did not die quickly, but suffered long, debilitating illnesses (84-85).” Often times the illness would last up to two years if the victim was lucky. If the victim managed to live they would often times be left physically disabled as a result of having lived though they mercury poisoning caused by labor in the mines.

In conclusion we can see that that harsh, unrealistic work conditions, along with “impossible quotas” caused the mitayos to become victims of the Spanish’s cruelty due to Toledo’s new plan of how the natives would work to support colonists plantations, mills, and mines production.