INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 14 



of categories of taxation. Through a number of 

 legislative modifications the fiscal officers of the 

 period strove for a system of taxation whereby 

 every Peruvian would pay taxes in one of four 

 categories: as landowner or tenant; as artisan; as 

 mestizo laborer; or as Indian laborer. These four 

 exhaustive classes were designated as follows: 



(1) Landowners and ten- contribucidn de predios urba- 



ants. nos y rusticos. 



(2) Artisans contribucidn de patentes (or 



gremios) . 



(3) Mestizo and Negro contribucidn de castas. 



laborers. 



(4) Indian laborers contribucidn de indlgenas. 



The intention to extend taxation to the entire 

 nation, regardless of race or status, is claimed as a 

 Republican innovation in 1831: 



La Ley de 11 de Agosto 1826, despues de haber estable- 

 cido la contribucion de indijenas, conocida en el antiguo 

 Govierno por la denominacion de tributo de indios, hiso 

 extensivo este gravamen directo a toda la Nacion bajo 

 el titulo de contribucion de castas, con una tasa personal 

 de 5 pesos por cabeza de contribuyente, y con el 4 percent 

 sobre el provecho neto de los capitales fixos, como predios 

 rusticos y urbanos, y de los circulantes en todo genero de 

 industrial 



(The law of August 11, 1826, after having established 

 the levy on Indians, known under the former Government 

 as Indian tribute, extended this direct tax to the entire 

 Nation under the title of the levy upon the castes, with 

 personal tax of 5 pesos per family head, and with 4 percent 

 upon the net return of such capital values as urban and 

 rural landholdings, and the commodities of every kind of 

 industry.) 



The system is more diversified and inclusive 

 than Colonial tribute, which affected only the 

 Indian laborers. In theory, under Republican 

 administration, a matricula or register, covered 

 all taxpayers. Hence all heads of families and 

 their dependents, as well as single persons, were 

 registered anew every 5 years, in four sections, 



s Jose Serra, MS. "Memoria sobre el curso y progreso de las contribuciones 

 directas del Peru en los afios de 1830 y 1831," AHMH, O. L. 216/637. 7 fos. 



Serra preceded Paredes as chief accountant in the Contaduria general de 

 contribuciones. His attempts to organize the collection of taxes in an efficient 

 manner that would reduce peculation by provincial officials, produced so 

 much conflict that his office was abolished, and his post taken over by 

 Paredes. His memoir, cited above, displays a keen intellect thoroughly 

 aware of the institutional decadence of his time. 



one for each class of taxpayers, in all 58 provinces. 

 In each province, four matriculas were to be pre- 

 pared by the appointed fiscal officers. Each ma- 

 tricula is arranged by districts, which corresponded 

 closely to the curacies of the ecclesiastical govern- 

 ment. Each district comprises several towns, vil- 

 lages, or ayllus. In each settlement the families 

 are enumerated and classified by age, sex, and civil 

 status, in nine groups. For each town a record of 

 births, marriages, and deaths in the preceding 5- 

 year period is appended (pi. 2 illustrates a sample 

 summary of the data collected in each matricula). 



In actual practice, the surviving matriculas pro- 

 vide a firm basis for study. Fifty-one provinces 

 are accounted for in the collection at the Archivo 

 Hist6rico, and for certain provinces the record is 

 nearly continuous from 1826 to 1854 at 5-year 

 intervals. From certain provinces, especially 

 those of the northern coast above Santa Province, 

 very little has survived, and we may indeed doubt 

 whether the local authorities ever complied with 

 the tax laws by preparing the required matriculas. 

 Other lines of evidence nevertheless allow us to fill 

 in some gaps for these provinces. 



Among surviving registers the relative impor- 

 tance of the various matriculas for each province 

 may be judged by two standards. From the point 

 of view of the nineteenth-century tax collector, and 

 of the Government, only the contribucion de in- 

 digenas was significant. The other three tax 

 classes, although they were carried on the books 

 for substantial percentages of expected State in- 

 come, were never properly collected. From the 

 point of view of the modern student, only the 

 registers of the contribucion de indigenas and of the 

 contribucidn de castas were complete enough to 

 yield information valid today. The artisans' tax 

 registers were incomplete and artificial, as well as 

 numerically insignificant. The population of Peru, 

 1826-54, was overwhelmingly a population of rural 

 Indians and mestizos, rather than of artisans. A 

 separate study of the artisans' registers will surely 

 be useful for other studies. It cannot be incorpo- 

 rated here, where the principal object of attention 

 will be the Indian population from 1795 to 1940. 



