Introduction

In the history of Latin America the study of city-based regions has received a good deal of attention. For example the historiography of the Guadalajara region provides an abundance of evidence in that regard. Such studies emphasize the ties that united the regional capital to its rural agrarian structures, the evolution of a regional credit market, and the flows of migrants and capital between the city and its dependent hinterland.

Here, I shall extend the perspective of urban-focused regionalism to examine the characteristics of a very special type of migration to two urban centers: students attending colleges in Guadalajara (Mexico) and Lima (Peru). For Guadalajara the analysis will use data for the entire eighteenth century; for Lima, for the period 1587 to 1621. The students who migrated to the Colegio Seminario Tridentino del Señor San José of Guadalajara, and those of the Colegio de San Martín of Lima, will be analyzed in terms of their origins, their ages, and the date of their inscription.

Although obviously limited in scope, this study may serve to assist our understanding of some of the reasons that explain the attractiveness of cities like Guadalajara and Lima for young creoles who migrated over long distances, as well as to more precisely monitor their migration patterns in time and space. Only by better understanding the motivations of migrants shall we be able to fully understand the evolution of population change in specific regions. Such a study might also assist in our understanding of the centralizing tendencies that characterized the colonial period, especially in the cases of Guadalajara and Lima; the migration of students should also allow us to at least partially measure the zone of influence of each of these centers.