NUMBER OF COMMUNITY INDIANS 21 



years that has accompanied the construction of railroads has 

 brought its menace even to these regions. 



Number of Indians Living in Communities 

 Such are the characteristics and the distribution of the 

 community-held lands in these highland provinces of Bolivia. 

 Statistics showing the amount of land so owned and its exact 

 distribution by political divisions of the country are hard to 

 obtain and at best are fragmentary. Since legally the community 

 no longer exists it finds no recognition in government reports. 

 The most comprehensive figures available bearing upon the 

 extent of communal land are those contained in the "Revisitas 

 indigenales" from 1850 to 1877.^^ These statistics give the 

 number of Indians who, in the specified years, paid the contri- 

 hucion territorial. From these data we can obtain not only some 

 light regarding the number of community Indians in each prov- 

 ince and department but also a basis for estimating the amount 

 of land they held and cultivated. According to these statistics 

 the number of Indian contributors to the land tax, that is the 

 number of Indians occupying parcels of community land in 1877 

 (or the last year for which data are given), was, by departments 

 and categories, as summarized in Table I. 



Table I — Indian Contributors to the Land Tax in 1877 



i» Cuadros estadisticos de las revisitas indigenales de la Republica desde el ano 

 1850 a 1877, Bol. Oficina Nad. de Inmigr., Estadisl. y Propag. Gcogr., Vol. i, 1901. 

 pp. 513-523- La Paz. 



