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Abstract
Historical political ecology provides a powerful framework for understanding nature–society relations in the past. This approach is applied to municipal drinking water governance in early colonial Lima, Peru, with a focus on how power dynamics influenced sociospatial patterns of water access and control. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century archival sources are analyzed for material aspects of Lima's drinking water pipeline network and for the management strategies employed by the municipal government. Access to water is demonstrated to have shaped, reinforced, and reflected colonial social divisions and to have been linked to the spatial development of the city, including urban–rural relations.
历史政治生态学，为理解过往的自然—社会关係，提供了强而有力的架构。本文将此方法应用至秘鲁在利马殖民时期早期的市政饮用水管理，并聚焦权力动态如何影响获取以及控制水资源的社会空间模式。本文分析十六世纪和十七世纪的档案资源，以探究利马的饮用水管网路的物质层面，以及市政府所运用的管理策略。水资源的获取，已被証实形塑、强化并反映了殖民社会的分化，并与城市的空间发展相互连结，包含城市—乡村关係。
La ecología política histórica nos proporciona una potente armazón para comprender mejor las relaciones naturaleza-sociedad del pasado. Se aplicó este enfoque al estudio de la administración municipal del agua potable en Lima, Perú, a principios de la colonia, con interés concentrado en la manera como las dinámicas del poder influyeron sobre los patrones socioespaciales del acceso y control del agua. Las fuentes de archivos de los siglos XVI y XVII son analizados en lo que concierne a los aspectos materiales de la red del acueducto de agua potable de Lima, lo mismo que en lo relacionado con las estrategias de manejo utilizadas por el gobierno municipal. Se demuestra que el acceso al agua configuró, reforzó y reflejó las divisiones sociales coloniales, y que todo eso estuvo conectado con el desarrollo espacial de la ciudad, incluso las relaciones urbano-rurales.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Penn State dissertation committee members Karl Zimmerer, Derek Holdsworth, Brian King, James McCarthy, and David Webster for their comments. I am grateful to my Riva-Agüero research team: Gabriel Ramón, Gilda Cogorno, Marcos Alarcón, and Moisés Cueva, as well as to Nicanor Domínguez. This research benefited from participants in the Historical Political Ecology sessions at the 2014 Association of American Geographers meetings. I am grateful also to the 2014 Nystrom Award Review committee, to Editor Barney Warf, and to three anonymous reviewers.
Funding
This research was funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant, a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant, and a group research grant from the Riva-Agüero Institute of the Pontificial Catholic University of Peru.
Notes
1 On pre-Hispanic canals see Narváez Luna Citation(2013).
2 The Cabildo was a Spanish colonial institution with roots in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Castile responsible for governing a municipality and its surrounding region (Moore Citation1954). During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a Cabildo of a metropolis (ciudad) like Lima was made up of two mayors (Alcaldes Ordinarios) and twelve councilmen or alderman (Regidores), selected from the highest social classes of the city. The Cabildo claimed authority in Lima and its hinterland over issues such as urban planning and land grants; trade and business; food production, supply, and distribution; water rights and infrastructure; management of natural resources (e.g., firewood, pasture); and social support (e.g., assistance for the poor, education, annual fiestas). The Cabildo governed through nomination of commissioners and inspectors from among the mayors and city councilmen, as well as through appointment of outside specialists like engineers, architects, police officials, surveyors, measurement inspectors, and secretaries.
3 The LCL includes forty-five volumes covering 1535 through 1824. The first twenty-three volumes, 1534 through 1639, were transcribed and published (Lee and Bromley [1534–1637] Citation1935–1964); the remaining volumes are held as handwritten manuscripts at the Historical Archive of the Municipality of Lima (AHML). Book #2, referring to 1540 through 1544, has been missing since the sixteenth century.
4 The LCL do not describe matters that fell outside of the Cabildo's authority. This source is virtually silent on topics dealing with territory beyond Lima's jurisdiction and contains little information on non-Spanish populations. The LCL should be considered a “final draft” of the written minutes of meetings and does not provide much information about dissention or disagreement among members of this institution.
5 Locations of these connections and pipeline routes were mapped through textual description in the LCL and the valuable previous reconstruction of Lima's pipelines found in Bromley and Barbagelata Citation(1945). See also Urrutia Citation(2006).
6 The citation style used for the LCL references the date of the Cabildo meeting (LCL Day.Month [Roman Numeral].Year); this is the reference style used in Gutiérrez Citation(2005).
7 For analysis of Lima's demography and social diversity, see Bromley and Barbagelata Citation(1945), Moore Citation(1954), Keith Citation(1976), Cushner Citation(1980), Lohmann Villena (Citation1983a, Citation1983b, Citation1983c, Citation1993), Lockhart Citation(1994), Vergara Ormeño Citation(1995), Charney Citation(2001), Bromley Citation(2005), Gutiérrez Citation(2005), and Quiroz Citation(2008).
8 Prior to this date special commissioners were selected as necessary for the pipeline projects.
9 Between 1611 and 1699 there are nine years for which there are no data on the naming of commissioners, mainly due to missing pages in the LCL.
10 This man was given a title that evolved from someone named for the “cleaning and dressing of the pipes, reservoirs, and fountains of water” in the beginning of the century, to the much higher sounding “chief fountaineer” (Fontanero Mayor) by its end (from 1689).
11 The continuation was notable: Juan de Mansilla took over when his father Clemente died (LCL 29.III.1635); likewise, Pedro Fernández de Valdés replaced Juan de Mansilla when he died (LCL 1.I.1666). In 1706, Pedro was replaced by his own son Miguel Fernández de Valdés, who had assisted him for many years (LCL 2.I.1706).
12 Mansilla said that Angola had been very skilled in repairing pipes and distributing water, and after Angola died, Mansilla complained that now he had too much work to do himself and had to use two slaves (LCL 18.IV.1654). There is another reference to the two slaves who worked for Pedro Fernández de Valdés who “risked life by always being in the water” (LCL 15.VII.1667).
13 For more information on the legal aspects of extending Lima's urban hydraulic reach to these “rural” canals see Bell (forthcoming).
14 For an illustration of the Plaza Mayor and its fountain from 1680, see the painting published in Kagan (Citation2011, Figure 6.2).
15 This includes the public fountains that were part of the Cabildo's original design for the municipal pipelines and did not require special petitions. There were four other petitions for which it was not possible to identify pipeline: Álbaro de Alcocer (1598), don Manuel Artero de Loaysa (1673), Juan Bermudo de la Vega (1673; on the same pipeline as Manuel Artero de Loaysa), and don Pedro Balthazar Merino de Heredia (1692; on the same pipeline as Manuel Artero de Loaysa).
16 These concessions supplied water to hundreds (if not thousands) of residents and water users of the various convents, monasteries, colleges, schools, and hospitals managed by the religious orders, and specific patterns of access within these properties have yet to be analyzed in detail. On a per capita basis, it is probably safe to assume that private homes received more water than religious orders.
17 Unfortunately the date of this construction is unknown, although it is likely post-1650. In 1617, this area was served by a small canal (Domínguez Citation1988).
18 In 1671, a mule's load of water cost three reales (the monetary coin, not the water measure; LCL 29.X.1671).
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Martha G. Bell
MARTHA G. BELL is the Global Interactions Postdoctoral Researcher at Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include the history of land and natural resource use and the history of agricultural practices and hydraulic technologies in Peru and Latin America.