PREFACE 



The writer collected the materials here presented 

 while assigned to the service of the Institute of 

 Social Anthropology in Lima, Peru, during 

 1948-49. The project grew from a seminar held 

 in 1948 with Peruvian students of anthropology 

 in the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San 

 Marcos. The dearth of published demographic 

 information, especially upon the period between 

 1795 and 1876, suggested a search for appropriate 

 records of the time. The hope was almost 

 immediately fulfilled by finding the tax registers 

 for the period 1826 to 1854 in the Archivo 

 Histdrico of the Ministerio de Hacienda. 



Federico Schwab, keeper of the Archivo 

 Hist6rico, at once gave the group every facility for 

 the study of these manuscript tax registers. For 

 8 months several people worked daily in the 

 Archivo Hist6rico, abstracting and compiling 

 the head-count figures by district and province. 

 Jose" Matos, the jefe de prdctica at the Seminario 

 de Estudios Etnol6gicos in the University, 

 directed the work of abstracting the registers, 

 which was entrusted to Raul Rivera Serna and 

 Julio Basto Gir6n. These friends also searched 

 the Biblioteca Nacional for printed material. 

 I am especially grateful to Raul Rivera Serna for 

 discovering several obscure items in early Peruvian 

 newspapers. He and Humberto Ghersi, of the 

 Instituto de Estudios Etnoldgicos, accompanied 

 me on a trip to Trujillo and Piura, in the hope 

 that we would find the missing registers for the 

 northern coast provinces in one of the prefectural 

 archives. We were disappointed in this, but we 

 were rewarded by finding the entire correspondence 

 of the period relating to taxation, in Trujillo and 

 Piura, where the departmental Prefects showed 

 many courtesies. 



In Lima another group gave several months of 

 their time to typing transcripts of the geographical 

 reports or informes that accompany the tax 

 registers. For this excellent work I am grateful 

 to Rosalia Avalos and to Carmen Delgado. 



During the winter months of 1949 the same 

 group that had worked in the Archivo Hist6rico, 

 transferred their activity to the Archivo Nacional, 

 where Dr. Eduardo Coz Sarria gave them the 



run of the Secci6n de Historia. Here Raul Rivera, 

 Julio Basto, and Miguel Maticorena not only 

 sorted but classified the entire division of caxas 

 reales, or Colonial treasury accounts, consisting 

 of several thousand volumes, in their search for 

 further tax lists or population counts. The finds 

 were few but important, and the ground was laid 

 for a separate study by these workers of the fiscal 

 aspects of Colonial Indian history. The search 

 convinced us all that the missing registers would 

 not easily be found in Lima, if at all. 



At the same time Jose" Matos directed the work 

 of another group in the Archivo Arzobispal in 

 Lima, upon census papers from 1755 to 1813. 

 For various reasons these materials cannot be 

 used here, although the results are relevant to 

 general demographic study in Peru. 



As a whole the work could not have been done 

 without the active support and cooperation of the 

 professors of the Instituto de Estudios Etno- 

 logicos. I wish especially to thank my friends 

 Dr. Luis Valcarcel and Dr. Jorge C. Muelle for 

 innumerable courtesies and steady support to all 

 engaged in the investigation. 



The study here pizblished is based upon but 

 part of the materials collected. The full file of 

 notes and abstracts on other demographic ques- 

 tions was deposited in the Seminario de Estudios 

 Etnol6gicos at San Marcos University, where it 

 may be consulted by those interested. Our study 

 falls far short of exhausting the interest and con- 

 tent of the tax registers for the nineteenth century. 

 With further work these same registers would 

 yield detailed information about the composition 

 of the Peruvian population during the nineteenth 

 century, in respect to such topics as the sex ratio, 

 approximate age distribution, marital percentages, 

 statistics on fertility and mortality; and the 

 birth and death rates per thousand population. 

 For lack of time the present study treats only of 

 Indian and non-Indian caste. It is intended less 

 as a demographic study than as a preliminary 

 investigation of the social composition of the 

 Peruvian population during the past 150 vears. 



G. K. 

 Yale University. 



