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Associate Professor of History

Overview

I am a historian of colonial Latin America, focusing on the Andes. My research explores how the indigenous people of the Andes interacted with the colonial state, and how the region’s existing institutions and ruling class were integrated into the Spanish monarchy, in the half-century after the Spanish invaded and conquered Peru in 1535. Before the Spanish invasion, the central Andean highlands (modern Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador) were among the few New World regions that resembled early modern Europe, with a densely settled peasant society and an institutionalized, tribute-collecting state (the Inca empire). I focus on three lines of inquiry: first, a major Spanish campaign in 1570 to resettle Andeans into new, Spanish-style towns; second, Andean elites’ strategies for re-establishing their status as a noble class under Spanish rule; and third, Andeans’ voluntary engagement with the colonial legal system as litigants. 

Brown Affiliations

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