Toledo and the Reducciones

Viceroy Toledo defined his own mission in Peru, in part, through his characterization of the pre-Hispanic Inca Empire. He prided himself on establishing a systematic and all-embracing body of law for Peru, and especially for its indigenous majority, regulating his subjects’ conduct in all matters, small and large; this was also considered the defining characteristic of the Incas. Toledo harshly criticized the Incas, and even carried out an extensive legal proceeding to officially declare them “tyrants,” thus providing a legal justification for the Spanish conquest. At the same time, his own legislative program had much in common with Spanish understandings of Inca rule. As historian David Brading writes: “In many ways, the Toledan project for Peru created what can only be called a successor-state to the Incas, with key institutions modeled on native practice.” But historians have not examined the contradiction this presents: on the one hand, Toledo’s vituperation against the Incas, on the other, his desire to emulate them. I show that the legal discourse of “tyranny,” rooted in Aristotle’s Politics, Scholastic theology, civil law commentaries, and medieval Castilian law, provided a conceptual framework for understanding the Incas. Certain aspects of Aristotelian “tyranny” were in fact the best way to rule “barbarians,” for barbarians’ own good. Tyranny was defined by specific elements: state surveillance and control, a climate of fear, the destruction of civil society, social leveling, and a monopoly by the state over its subjects’ time, labor, and property. But even while condemning the Inca regime for these methods, Toledo came to believe that these methods had enabled the Incas to rule well and to create a prosperous society in the Andes. Paradoxically, the viceroy simultaneously admired and condemned his pagan predecessors – a paradox which has made it difficult for historians to understand his program, until now.