Inca Civilization
Article

Yanakuna and Mitma: Servants and Resettled Colonists of the Inca State

Beneath the hatun runa in the formal social ranking of the Tawantinsuyu stood two related but legally distinct categories of dependent population: the yanakuna and the mitma (also written mitmaq or mitmaqkuna). The yanakuna were retainers attached personally to the Sapa Inca, to a royal panaca, or to one of the great temples such as the Coricancha, who were removed from their natal ayllus and obligated to perpetual personal service in exchange for support by the institution they served. The mitma were colonists sent by the state to distant provinces — to the Chinchaysuyu to consolidate control of newly conquered territory, to the eastern lowlands to extract coca leaf, or to the altiplano to guard the Collasuyu frontier — and who retained use rights to land in their new settlements in exchange for military and political service to the state. The two groups together constituted perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the population of the empire in the late prehispanic period, and the Inca social hierarchy treated them as a distinct stratum, subject to the obligations of personal service and resettlement rather than to the mit’a labor obligation of the free commoner.

The yanakuna: retainers of the Sapa Inca and the panacas

The yanakuna were the most numerous and the most directly dependent of the non-free population of the empire. The chroniclers distinguish several categories of yanakuna, of which the most important were the yanakuna of the Sapa Inca (sometimes Incap yanakuna), the yanakuna of the panacas, and the yanakuna of the temples (sometimes huacap yanakuna). The yanakuna of the Sapa Inca were attached to the person of the reigning monarch and to the institutions of the imperial court; they performed the household, agricultural, and ritual work of the royal palaces in Cusco and in the royal estates scattered across the empire. The yanakuna of the panacas performed the corresponding work for the deceased sovereigns whose mummies the panacas held; a single major panaca, such as the Capac Ayllu of Pachacuti, might control 8,000 to 10,000 yanakuna scattered across the four suyus. The yanakuna of the temples performed the work of the great shrines of the state religion, including the Coricancha, the Temple of Viracocha at Raqchi, and the Temple of the Sun at Pisac.

The legal status of the yanakuna was distinct from that of the hatun runa. Yanakuna were removed from their natal ayllus — usually as children, in a process the chronicler Cieza de León described as the selection of “the handsomest and most able” — and they did not own land in their own right. They were obligated to perpetual personal service for the institution to which they were attached, and they were fed, clothed, and housed by that institution. Their children inherited their status: the chronicler Murúa recorded that the yanakuna status was hereditary in the male line, and that the children of yanakuna were raised in the household of the institution they served. Yanakuna could, however, own personal property, marry within the rules of the ayllu of the institution they served, and in some cases rise to positions of considerable authority within the institutions they served. The principal acllas of the Sapa Inca, for example, were drawn from the ranks of the yanakuna of the Temple of the Sun, and the senior acllas held real power within the imperial palace.

The colonial observer Garcilaso de la Vega, who grew up in Cusco in the mid-sixteenth century and was the son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador, recorded that the yanakuna were treated with a respect bordering on reverence, and that the principal yanakuna of the Coricancha were entitled to use a litter, to wear finer cloth, and to be addressed by a distinct title. The Spanish soldier Miguel de Estete, who accompanied Pizarro to Cusco in 1533, specifically noted that the yanakuna of the Coricancha were exempt from the mit’a labor obligation and were treated as members of the imperial household. It is misleading, therefore, to translate yanakuna as “slave” in the European sense, as the colonial chroniclers sometimes did. The yanakuna had certain ritual and legal protections, owned personal property, and could in some cases rise to positions of considerable authority.

The mitma: state-sponsored colonists

The mitma (singular mitmaq; collective mitmaqkuna or mitmaq runa) were colonists sent by the state to distant provinces to consolidate control of newly conquered territory, to exploit particular resources, or to defend vulnerable frontiers. The system is best understood as a form of state-sponsored internal colonization, organized through the mit’a labor obligation of the sending ayllus. A mitma community typically consisted of several dozen to several hundred households, drawn from a particular ayllu or panaca, and settled in a particular province of the empire. The settlement was supervised by a state-appointed official, often a member of the Sapa Inca’s household, and the community was expected to maintain its distinctive identity — its dialect of Quechua, its ritual practices, its t’oqapu textile patterns — in its new environment.

The principal functions of the mitma system were of three kinds. First, the military frontier: mitma were settled in the conquered frontier regions, particularly in the northern Chinchaysuyu and the southern Collasuyu, to provide garrisons, to hold newly built roads, and to defend against rebellion. The chronicler Sarmiento de Gamboa recorded that the Inca Huayna Capac settled mitma communities of loyal Cusco ayllus along the Qhapaq Ñan between Quito and the northern frontier of the empire, and that these mitma communities were the principal military reserve of the northern campaigns of 1493–1527. Second, the resource frontier: mitma were settled in the tropical lowlands of the Antisuyu to extract coca leaf, gold, and tropical feathers, and in the altiplano around Lake Titicaca to develop the waru waru raised fields. Third, the political frontier: mitma were settled in regions whose loyalty was suspect — particularly the former territories of the Chanka and the Kañari — to provide a counterweight to the local population and to ensure the loyalty of the provincial administration.

The legal status of the mitma was intermediate between that of the yanakuna and the hatun runa. Mitma retained use rights to land in their new settlements, and they were entitled to the protection of the state; in exchange, they owed the state military service, political loyalty, and a share of the produce of their new lands. The mitma were also expected to report any unrest in their host communities, and the chronicler Murúa recorded several cases in which mitma communities were the principal informants of provincial authorities in cases of rebellion. The mitma were, in effect, a privileged class of state-sponsored colonists, and their descendants in modern Peru and Bolivia are still recognizable as distinct communities with their own land and ritual obligations.

The economic role of yanakuna and mitma

The yanakuna and mitma together constituted a substantial portion of the empire’s labor force. The yanakuna worked the lands of the Sapa Inca, the royal panacas, and the great temples, producing the food, textiles, and ritual objects that were consumed at state feasts and distributed to the imperial servants. The mitma worked the lands of the new settlements, producing food for the local garrison and a surplus that was sent to the state stores at the provincial capital. The two groups, in effect, were the principal agents of the imperial redistribution system, and the state qollqas at the major provincial centers — particularly the 700-plus qollqas at Huánuco Pampa — were filled principally with the produce of yanakuna and mitma labor.

The Spanish chroniclers varied in their estimates of the proportion of the population constituted by yanakuna and mitma. The most reliable figures come from the colonial visitas of 1558–1570, which record the proportion of yanakuna in the ayllus of the central highlands as varying from 5 to 15 percent, and the proportion of mitma in the frontier provinces as varying from 10 to 30 percent. The ethnohistorian Maria Rostworowski estimated that, at the time of the conquest, yanakuna and mitma together constituted perhaps 1.5 to 2 million of the empire’s 10 million inhabitants. The figure is necessarily approximate, but it is consistent with the scale of the imperial redistribution system and with the number of royal estates and frontier garrisons documented in the colonial records.

The fate of yanakuna and mitma after the conquest

The Spanish conquest of 1532 transformed the legal status of yanakuna and mitma. The yanakuna, who had been the personal retainers of the dead Inca, became a source of dispute between Spanish claimants and Inca survivors: the Spanish argued that yanakuna were slaves in the Roman-law sense and therefore could be allocated as part of the encomienda grants; the surviving panacas argued that the yanakuna were the property of the panaca and that the Spanish had no right to them. The dispute was eventually resolved by the New Laws of 1542, which emancipated the yanakuna of the dead Inca and placed them under the protection of the Crown; in practice, however, many yanakuna were absorbed into the colonial servicio personal and into the encomienda and repartimiento systems, and the descendants of yanakuna communities remained a distinct and frequently disadvantaged group in the colonial and republican periods.

The mitma often retained special privileges under colonial rule. The colonial visitas record several cases in which mitma communities successfully petitioned the colonial administration for the recognition of their original land grants and for exemption from the repartimiento labor obligation. The descendants of mitma communities in the modern Peruvian and Bolivian highlands are still recognizable as distinct communities with their own land, dialect, and ritual practices, and the colonial records of mitma settlements have been used by modern ethnographers — notably John Murra in his work on the vertical archipelago — as evidence for the persistence of pre-Columbian patterns of settlement and land use into the present. The detailed treatment of the mitma and yanakuna systems, and their fate under Spanish rule, is integrated with the broader discussion of Inca provincial administration in the related article on the mit’a labor obligation.