Family, death and material culture in the age of rebellions

a research note on indigenous wills in Potosí (1750-1800)

Abstract

The complex gigantic bureaucratic machine of the Spanish administration of its colonies left behind one of the most important documentary collections from the point of view of what Spanish-American society thought of itself, what assets its social segments possessed, how they dealt with legal and legitimacy issues, how families were constituted. These are wills and  inventories. They are legal documents, of both spiritual and legal nature, written by a clerk on state letterhead, made up of  clauses that deal, among other things, with the salvation of the soul, the recognition of illegitimate children and the distribution of assets in the form of inheritance. According to the clauses in the wills, a series of aspects of daily life in colonial society can be perceived and analyzed: the testator’s geographical and ethnic origin, their age, their address and family background, their state of health, their religiosity, funeral and burial practices, their marital status and descendants, the material goods they owned, their family and social relations, their relationship with the Church, etc. are all recognized. Of course, not all of these elements are present at all times in all wills. The aim of this research is to analyze the different family configurations inferred from the wills, determining the testator’s relationship with imminent death, as well as his living conditions as an indigenous person, by analyzing the assets he left to his heirs. The documentation selected for this research consists of 30 wills of indigenous men and women; 12 wills and inventories of criollos and Spanish priests from the Charcas Court between the 1750s and 1790s; and 10 various wills from the 16th and 17th centuries. The material was identified, collected and acquired at the Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia and the Archivo Histórico de Potosí-Casa de la Moneda between 2019 and 2021