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Introduction Most indigenous communities of the Venezuelan Andean region were located, by preference, in the fertile intermontane valleys, where the adoption of appropriate agricultural techniques made possible the development of stable population centers based upon intensive agriculture. Most became established between 1000 and 1500 AD, that is just before the arrival of the Spanish in America, a period in which the pre-Hispanic cultures of the Central Andes reached a comparatively high level with respect to agricultural technology, pottery-making, and ceremonial center construction, factors which significantly influenced the northern Andean area. The irrigation system used by the Indians of the Mérida region has suggested to some the possibility that they enjoyed a centralized administration and a special type of family structure upon which their agricultural economy depended. Whatever the specifics of the internal social structure of these native groups, the Spanish encountered a densely populated area with rich agricultural and labor resources, both attributes that attracted the attention of the conquerors. The arrival of the Spanish in this area brought about immediate modifications in the human landscape: it signified a reorganization of the Indian settlement structure after their population had been seriously affected by introduced diseases; it also witnessed the introduction of new crops and animals which also brought about significant changes in the physical environment. The encomiendas and land grants (mercedes de tierras) which derived from the rights of the conquerors rapidly became fundamental elements in the new socio-spatial formation of colonial Mérida. Under Crown authority new villages (pueblos de encomiendas, pueblos de naturales), pueblos de doctrina became established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction In the history of Latin America the study of city-based regions has received a good deal of attention. For example the historiography of the Guadalajara region provides an abundance of evidence in that regard. Such studies emphasize the ties that united the regional capital to its rural agrarian structures, the evolution of a regional credit market, and the flows of migrants and capital between the city and its dependent hinterland. Here, I shall extend the perspective of urban-focused regionalism to examine the characteristics of a very special type of migration to two urban centers: students attending colleges in Guadalajara (Mexico) and Lima (Peru). For Guadalajara the analysis will use data for the entire eighteenth century; for Lima, for the period 1587 to 1621. The students who migrated to the Colegio Seminario Tridentino del Señor San José of Guadalajara, and those of the Colegio de San Martín of Lima, will be analyzed in terms of their origins, their ages, and the date of their inscription. Although obviously limited in scope, this study may serve to assist our understanding of some of the reasons that explain the attractiveness of cities like Guadalajara and Lima for young creoles who migrated over long distances, as well as to more precisely monitor their migration patterns in time and space. Only by better understanding the motivations of migrants shall we be able to fully understand the evolution of population change in specific regions. Such a study might also assist in our understanding of the centralizing tendencies that characterized the colonial period, especially in the cases of Guadalajara and Lima; the migration of students should also allow us to at least partially measure the zone of influence of each of these centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urbanization of Latin America since the Second World War, much of it characterized by the migration of impoverished rural people to primate cities, has attracted a great deal of scholarly analysis, so much that influential hypotheses, such as the “culture of poverty” and “marginality, ” are periodically posited and tested against prevailing studies and that syntheses of the considerable literature are composed. Although studies of recent migration may attempt some sort of historical overview in their introductory chapters, their treatment is handicapped by several factors. The first is that there is relatively little literature on migration to major cities in Latin American history. While some excellent studies of aspects of migration do exist, they usually cover rural areas and towns and villages and emphasize the origins of marriage partners or movement back and forth between Indian villages or small towns and the surrounding hinterland. These subjects are certainly worthy of serious study, but neither in their findings nor in the implications do they suggest what we might expect to find in patterns of migration to the major cities. The second failing is an assumption that in the past as in the present the most important component of urban migration was that conducted by the rural poor. In fact, it constituted merely one aspect of a broader and long-maintained movement by elements from a variety of socioeconomic and occupational groups towards the large cities. Finally, these studies do not appreciate the extent to which modern-day migration represents the continuation of traditions and patterns determining who within the family migrates, when, to what destination, and what relationship the migrants maintain with those who do not move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent works in historical demography have demonstrated that migration and geographical mobility were fundamental components of life in colonial Hispanic American society. Studies using vital registers to trace migration between parishes have revealed a record of mobility that was truly ubiquitous. In New Spain, among the isolated settlements of the periphery and throughout the more established towns and villages of the settled core, people frequently changed residence. In the colonial jurisdictions of Central America, migration was common. Towns were often abandoned as resources and locational advantages played out and movement into and out of the region remained constant. Similar patterns of mobility persisted at all scales throughout the pueblos and provinces of South America. Entire native communities were displaced while within the Hispanic cities of the empire, populations fluctuated widely and persistence rates remained low. In no part of the colonies, however, was geographical mobility as pronounced as it was in the mining regions, the centers of exploitation, settlement, and expansion. On the northern periphery of New Spain, where free labor was the rule and where the silver centers competed with each other for workers, migration was especially widespread. The purpose of this chapter is to uncover some basic patterns and relationships that characterized migration in this northern mining economy. After exploring the ecological basis and economic context for migration in the north, two key issues are examined: (1) the relationships between the patterns of development that mining centers followed and (2) the dimensions of the migration fields that formed around the centers; and the selective nature of migration as displayed in the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the publication of Rolando Mellafe's groundbreaking study on the importance of migration in the Viceroyalty of Peru, demographers have emphasized the significance of the city as a factor in colonial Latin American migration patterns. The city has figured prominently in various efforts to characterize general population trends and migrants have been important subgroups in analyses of the censuses of specific cities. Rather than emphasizing the role of the city in migration patterns, this study attempts to address the role of the migrant within the colonial city by utilizing a different data source: the conciertos de trabajo, or labor contracts, governing indigenous workers in seventeenth-century Cuzco. These conciertos yield a variety of data on job descriptions and distributions, periodic crises in the labor market, regional economic patterns, changing family relationships, and growing occupational identification. The detailed information from these valuable notarial documents adds a new and important dimension to the analysis of indigenous migration in colonial Peru. Although this study emphasizes migrations to the city of Cuzco, such migration did not take place in a vacuum. The city was also an important source for an urban-to-rural population outflow, as urban natives moved into depopulated lands in the countryside. Moreover, broader patterns of indigenous migration affected the provinces surrounding Cuzco. Migration within the bishopric of Cuzco varied dramatically according to regional labor trends and mita obligations, but much of that population movement involved short-scale relocation by individuals who remained within rural society. These various interrelated patterns of migration had a profound impact on the indigenous communities and played a major role in the formation of colonial society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]