INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 14 



change. It was regulated and collected according 

 to the Ordinances of 1784. From 1826 to 1854, 

 the rate was occasionally altered, as in 1826 and 

 again in 1829. 13 The methods of accountancy and 

 of ministerial staff organization were in constant 

 flux. Some exemptions were allowed: to males 

 under 18 and over 50; to village officials, church 

 servants, and postmasters. Certain provinces 

 were occasionally exempted (e. g., Huaylas and 

 Santa in 1840) for short periods in reward for 

 exceptional military assistance during the frequent 

 coups d'etat of the time. 14 



About a quarter of the income of the State came 

 from the contribution de indigenes alone. 15 For at 

 least 25 years, the entire operating expenses of the 

 departmental governments were defrayed out of 

 the proceeds from the tax (Oviedo, 1870, vol. 15, 

 p. 2 n; Nos. 59, 60, 117, 124). 



The declarations of President Ram6n Castilla, 

 upon the abolition of the tax on July 5, 1854, give a 

 measure of the odium in which it had been held. 

 Castilla said that Independence had been an empty 

 name to most Peruvians, chiefly because of the 

 personal tax on Indians. But Providence had 

 now filled the coffers of the State with the extraor- 

 dinary income from guano exploitation, in such 

 measure as to relieve the deficit of the Treasury. 16 



The contribution de indigenas continued never- 

 theless to be exacted illegally in some provinces. 

 In 1859 Mariano Herencia Zevallos led a rebellion 

 in Cuzco Province with money raised by this 

 means. 17 



» The texts of the main decrees bearing upon taxation are printed in Oviedo, 

 1870, vol. 15, pp. 300-421. Other decrees not known to Oviedo appear through- 

 out the MS. series of papers cataloged under O. L. in AHMH. 



On the Bolivian equivalent of the contribucidn de indicenas, see Sotomayor 

 Valdes, 1874, pp. 521 ff. 



" Oviedo, 1870, vol. 15, Nos. 438, 451. Cf. MS. decrees exempting various 

 towns from tax, AHMH, O. L. 275/29 (Piura towns); O. L. 307/3 (towns in 

 Huamanga Province exempted 1844). 



• 5 The budget for 1848-49 shows anticipated income of 10,644,846 pesos, of 

 which 2,653,862, or 24.93 percent, were to be collected in contribuciones de 

 indigenas. The budget of 1848-49 is said to be the first formal budget pre- 

 pared in Peru: a printed copy is in AHMH (Presupuesto General 1849, O. L. 

 351/266). (For other figures on annual expenditure and income of the State, 

 see Dancuart, 1903-05, vol. 4, p. 49; vol. 5, p. 51. Cf. Basadre, 1946, vol. 1, 

 p. 280.) 



» Oviedo, 1870, vol. 15, No. 491. Further bibliography on guano exploita- 

 tion in Kubler, 1948. 



According to Tavara, 1856, table 4, the income of the State from all sources 

 In 1855 was as follows: 



Pesos 



Guano _ 8,610,000 



Customs _ 3,112,056 



Taxes 289,979 



Miscellaneous 797,964 



The revenue from guano alone was more than double the income from all 

 other sources. 



17 Oviedo, 1870, vol. 15, No. 496. On taxation after 1854, see Sanchez 

 Espinosa, 1944. 



THE CONTRIBUCION GENERAL DE 

 CASTAS 



Always unpopular, and always failing to produce 

 the expected income, this personal tax on the castas 

 became a perpetual political toy. Each new 

 usurper was likely to abolish the tax to gain popu- 

 lar favor. And each new usurper collected the 

 tax surreptitiously until the new form of the old 

 law was again promulgated. For instance, An- 

 tonio Gutierrez de la Fuente, then " Jefe Supremo 

 Provisorio" of the Republic, abolished the contri- 

 bution general on July 18, 1829, 18 but the operations 

 of the tax collectors do not betray their obedience 

 to his orders. 



Felipe Santiago Salaverry, the Jefe Supremo in 

 1835, again annulled the contribution general on 

 March 20 of that year. In 1839 he abolished it 

 again, after an interlude from power. Salaverry 

 then declared that the tax was odious because it 

 had weighed only "upon miserable persons, whose 

 resources hardly suffice to maintain the bare 

 necessities of life" (Oviedo, 1870, vol. 15, No. 442). 

 Again the tax collectors continued to gather the 

 fraction of the levy that their ingenuity permitted 

 them to extort from the castas, although the law 

 of 1839 was not abrogated until the executive 

 decree of 1842. 



By a verbal transformation, the same tax con- 

 tinued to be collected under a new, and this time, 

 even less popular name. The decree of 1842 legis- 

 lated that every Peruvian not classified as an 

 Indian was to be matriculated as a jornalero or 

 day laborer, and taxed at the rate of 3 pesos 4 

 reales annually. 19 The rate split the difference 

 between the extreme rates of the former "personal" 

 tax. By September 23, 1845, the contribution de 

 industria jornalera, in turn, was abrogated as 

 illegal and oppressive, this time by the Congreso 

 Constitucional, although collections were cur- 

 rently in progress throughout the Republic. 20 



From the matriculations for all provinces it is 

 clear that the personal tax was collected from non- 

 Indians at all times between 1826 and 1854. The 

 name of the tax varied expediently, and the collec- 

 tions were never an impressive source of revenue, 



18 Oviedo, 1870, vol. 15, No. 402. Broadside of decree: AHMH, O. L- 

 182/37. Official MS. copy, O. L. 182/24. 



" Dancuart, 1903, III, p. 54. The text of this decreto supremo is lacking in 

 AHMH, and was not printed in any collection of decrees available to Dan 

 cuart. 



» MS. decree. AHMH, O. L. 315/5. Cf. Oviedo, 1870, vol. 15, No. 473, 

 March 16, 1847. 



