The Colonial Mita: Forced Labor in the Andes
The colonial mita was a system of forced labor imposed on Andean indigenous communities by the Spanish colonial government of Peru from 1573 until its formal abolition in 1812. Although the name was borrowed from the Inca mit’a (a rotating labor tax that the Inca state had used for public works), the colonial version was a much more brutal institution: a draft of a fixed percentage of the male population of designated communities, sent to work for periods of months or years in the silver mines of Potosí, the mercury mines of Huancavelica, the obrajes (textile workshops), and other Spanish enterprises.
The mita was the economic engine of the colonial Andes. The great silver mines of Potosí in particular, which produced the bulk of the silver that flowed through the Spanish empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were worked primarily by mitayos (mita workers). The system shaped the demographic, social, and economic history of the Andes for more than two centuries and was a leading cause of the population decline of indigenous communities.
The Establishment of the Mita
The colonial mita was established in 1573 by the Viceroy of Peru Francisco de Toledo (1515-1582), one of the most influential colonial administrators. Toledo, who had spent years studying the Inca past and the pre-conquest mit’a, was convinced that a large part of the imperial labor system could be revived in the service of the Spanish Crown. He organized a vast roundup of indigenous people into new administrative units called reducciones, in which scattered Andean populations were concentrated in towns where they could be more easily drafted, taxed, and Christianized.
The mita districts he created were extensive: the mita of Potosí alone drew workers from more than 16 Andean provinces, and a similar draft operated for the mercury mines of Huancavelica. In each district, a fixed percentage of the male population (often one-seventh) was required to report for work in a given year, with the rotation passing to a new set of villages in the following year.
The Life of the Mitayo
The mitayos were required to provide their own food, clothing, and tools, and to walk — sometimes for weeks — from their highland villages to the mines. The journey itself was often lethal, particularly for the draft of people from the altiplano who had to descend to the lowland mines. Many workers died on the road, and many more arrived at the mines too weak to work.
The conditions in the mines were horrific. The Potosí silver mines in particular were hot, poorly ventilated, and dangerous. Mitayos typically worked twelve-hour shifts in narrow tunnels, breathing dust and mercury vapor. The official tour of duty was four months, but in practice many workers were kept on for much longer and never returned home. Mortality in the mines was extremely high: in some years, as many as one in four mitayos died in the mines, and many of those who did return home brought back disabling lung disease.
The Mita and Andean Society
The mita was a structural attack on Andean society. It tore the most productive men from the villages, left the agricultural work to be done by the elderly, the women, and the children, and disrupted the ayllu organization that was the basis of highland life. The mita also created a new social class of migrants and rootless laborers who often ended up in the growing cities of the colonial Andes.
The mita provoked periodic resistance, both in the form of flight into inaccessible regions and in the form of organized rebellion. The most famous such rebellion, the Túpac Amaru II uprising of 1780-1781, was led by a descendant of the Inca royal family who had been designated as a curaca (chief) responsible for collecting mitayos. The rebellion, which briefly took over much of southern Peru, was put down with great brutality and resulted in the execution of Túpac Amaru II and many of his followers. Despite this, the mita continued for several more decades.
The Abolition of the Mita
The mita was formally abolished by the Spanish Cortes of Cádiz in 1812, in the context of the liberal reforms of the Napoleonic era and the South American independence movements. By that time, however, the mita’s demographic damage had already been done: the indigenous population of the Andes had been reduced to a fraction of its pre-conquest size, and the social organization of highland communities had been fundamentally disrupted. The mita’s legacy persisted in the form of debt peonage, the hacienda system, and a deep distrust of state labor drafts that survives in some Andean communities to the present day.