¹ On overlaps and intersections of different categories of social stratification see Canning, Kathleen, “Gender and the Politics of Class Formation: Rethinking German Labor History,” The American Historical Review 97:3 (June 1992), 737–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The article presents a profound discussion of the culturalist attempts of re-defining the concepts of class and class formation. The term “secondary cities” refers to Scobie, James R., Secondary Cities of Argentina. The Social History of Corrientes, Salta, and Mendoza, 1850–1910 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

² See the special issue entitled “Race and Ethnicity in the Andes,” Bulletin of Latin American Research, 17:2 (May 1998), particularly the article by Weismantel, Mary and Eisenman, Stephen F., “Race in the Andes: Global Movements and Popular Ontologies,” 121–142.Google Scholar The quote is taken from p. 122.

³ A superb discussion of ethnicity and racism in Peru is Manrique, Nelson, La piel y la pluma. Escritos sobre literatura, etnicidady racismo (Lima: SUR Casa de Estudios del Socialismo, 1999).Google Scholar

⁴ Bergquist, Charles, Labor in Latin America. Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986);Google Scholar Bergquist, , “What is Being Done? Some Recent Studies on the Urban Working Class and Organized Labor in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review, 16:2 (1981), 203–223;Google Scholar French, John D., The Brazilian Workers’ABC. Class Conflict and Alliances in Modern Sâo Paulo (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992);Google Scholar Daniel, James, Resistance and Integration. Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1974 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988);Google Scholar Hall, Michael and Spalding, Hobart A., “The Urban Working Class and Early Latin American Labour Movements, 1880–1930,” Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 4, c. 1870–1930, Bethell, Leslie, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 325–365;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Spalding, , “New Directions and Themes in Latin American Labor and Working Class History: A Sampler,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 28:1 (1993), 202–214.Google Scholar

⁵ On Cuzco during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries see: Mönter, Magnus, Notas sobre el comercio y los comerciantes del Cusco desde fines de la colonia hasta 1930 (Lima: IEP, 1979);Google Scholar Herrera, José Tamayo, Historia social del Cuzco republicano (Lima: Editorial Universo, 1981);Google Scholar Jacobsen, Nils, “Free Trade, Regional Elites, and the Internal Market in Southern Peru, 1895–1932,” in Guiding the Invisible Hand. Economic Liberalism and the State in Latin American History, Love, Joseph. L. and Jacobsen, Nils, eds. (New York: Praeger, 1988), pp. 145–176;Google Scholar and Krüggeler, Thomas, “Unreliable Drunkards or Honorable Citizens? Artisans in Search of their Place in the Cuzco Society (1825–1930), (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1993).Google Scholar Luís, E. Valcárcel provides an impressive description of Cuzco during the early-twentieth century in his Memorias, Mar, José Matos, José Deustua, C, and Rénique, José Luís, eds. (Lima: IEP, 1981).Google Scholar

⁶ On the demographic development of Cuzco from the late-colonial period to the early-twentieth century the literature presents contradictory and often false data. For a synthesis, see Krüggeler, Thomas “El mito de la despoblación: Apuntes para una historia demográfica del Cusco (1792–1940),” Revista Andina 16:1 (July 1998), 119–137.Google Scholar

⁷ Giesecke, Alberto A., “Informe sobre el censo levantado en la provincia del Cuzco el 10 de setiembre de 1912,” Revista Universitaria. Organo de la Universidad del Cuzco, 2:4 (March 1913), 2–51.Google Scholar

⁸ See numerous articles and municipal decrees on this topic in local newspapers between the 1890s and the 1910s.

⁹ La nueva Plaza de Armas de la ciudad del Cuzco. Tributo de gratitud al Señor Prefecto Don Juan José Núñez. Movimiento de la Tesorería del “Comité de Ornato. ” Homenaje Social (Cuzco: Imprenta de El Comercio, 1912).

¹⁰ See Herrera, Tamayo, Historia social, p. 108;Google Scholar and Valcárcel, Luís E., Memorias, p. 37.Google Scholar

¹¹ Mörner, Magnus, “Alcances y limites del cambio estructural: Cusco, Peru, 1895–1920,” Peru: El problema agrario en debate, SEPIA III, Alberto Chirif (et.al.), eds. (Cuzco: CBC, 1990), pp. 137–156, especially pp. 152–54.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid., p. 154.

¹³ These civic organizations have not received much attention so far. Only the Centro Científico has been analyzed in the context of the development of indigenismo. See Deustua, José and Rénique, José Luís, Intelectuales, indigenismo y descentralismo en el Perú 1897–1931 (Cuzco: CBC, 1984).Google Scholar

¹⁴ On the Cuzco middle-class, see the informative article “Al Margen de la Campagña Obrera,” El Sol (June 23, 1919).

¹⁵ The anthropologist Marisol de la Cadena, a leading scholar on cultural constructions of social identity in the Andes, presents the concept of decency as the central idea used to create social distance between different groups in urban Cuzco of the 1920s. Decency “was the cultural concept used by Cuzqueños to define the limits of individual ascent through ethnic transformation.” It was also “the fundamental notion of ethnicity. (…) Being mestizo or white in relation to someone else depended on one’s ‘level of decency’ relative to the other person, and was independent of differences in external racial attributes, which could or could not exist.” De la Cadena’s discussion of how decency served as a tool of social control and stratification is fascinating, indeed. However, although the author considers many different layers of the Cuzco society, in my view her analysis remains too closely linked to the common division between gente decente and gente del pueblo. Social distance was not only created by applying a concept of decency or social criteria based on ethnicity. Since the late-nineteenth century the concept of class played a significant role in urban society. de la Cadena, Marisol, “Decencia y cultura política: Los indigenistas del Cuzco en los años veinte,” Revista Andina 12:1 (1994), 79–118 and 80–81.Google Scholar

¹⁶ A good discussion of urban social structures in Latin America at the turn of the century remains James, R. Scobie, Buenos Aires. Plaza to Suburb, 1870–1910 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974),Google Scholar chapter 6. He divides the society of Buenos Aires into gente decente and gente del pueblo and acknowledges that the latter group becomes more and more differentiated in the early twentieth century. Scobie’s argument is that until 1910 the elite of Buenos Aires successfully prevents newcomers from penetrating aristocratic circles by questioning their family backgrounds. Yet the situation of a coastal urban center like Buenos Aires is quite different from a provincial town like Cuzco. The social borders of an Andean provincial aristocracy whose prestige is mainly based on land ownership and family tradition are much more vulnerable to “modern” qualities like technical knowledge and administrative skills than more cosmopolitan elites of bigger cities. For the context of the present study see also Scobie, Secondary Cities. A superb study of the urban middle class in Lima is Parker, David S., The Idea of the Middle Class. White-Collar Workers and Peruvian Society (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998).Google Scholar See his discussion of gente decente and gente del pueblo in chap. 2.

¹⁷ Walker, Charles, “Voces discordantes: Discursos alternativos sobre el indio a fines de la colonia,” Entre la retórica y la insurgencia: Las ideas y los movimientos sociales en los Andes, siglo XVIII, Walker, Charles, ed. (Cuzco: CBC, 1996), pp. 89–112.Google Scholar

¹⁸ El Rodadero (1877–78) and El Popular (1877) are two of the periodicals in which articles in defense of the Indian can be found. The latter one was highly influenced by the Cuzco university professor and bookstore owner Pio B. Mesa, who is sometimes called an “early indigenista.” See also Herrera, José Tamayo, Historia del indigenismo cuzqueño, siglos XVI–XX (Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, 1980)Google Scholar and Jacobsen, Nils, “Civilization and Its Barbarism: The Inevitability of Juan Bustamante’s Failure,” The Human Tradition in Latin America. The Nineteenth Century, Ewell, Judith and Beezley, William H., eds, (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 1989), pp. 82–102.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Rénique, José Luís, Los sueños de la sierra. Cuzco en el siglo XX (Lima: CEPES, 1991), p. 49.Google Scholar

²⁰ Valcárcel, , Memorias, p. 147.Google Scholar

²¹ Tamayo, , Historia del indigenismo, p. 181.Google Scholar

²² Cosio, Felix, “La propiedad colectiva del ayllu,” Revista Universitaria. Organo de la Universidad del Cuzco, 5:17 (1916).Google Scholar The quote is taken from Ballve, Marfil Francke, “El movimiento indigenista en el Cusco,” in Indigenismo, clases sociales y problema nacional. La discusión sobre el “problema indígena” en el Perú, Degregori, Carlos Ivan, Valderrama, Mariano, Alfajeme, Augusta, and Ballve, Marfil Francke, eds. (Lima: Ediciones CELATS, n.d.), pp. 107–186.Google Scholar

²³ Valcárcel, , El problema del indio (1926), (Lima: Biblioteca Amauta, 1976), p. 15.Google Scholar

²⁴ In her article mentioned above, De la Cadena presents a radical critique of Cuzco indigenistas. She states: “Resulting from the influence of the everyday notion of decency, more than protecting the Indians, indigenismo became a pillar of the defense of Cuzqueño gentlemen, including those hacendados against whom the Indians themselves were struggling. It thus lost its modernizing potential and instead supported a chimerical provincial aristocracy that had long ago disappeared, but that elite Cuzqueños kept recreating.” Such devastating criticism lacks the necessary sensitivity for the ideological, social, and political environment in which any historical actor is embedded. Indigenistas were indeed caught in the set of values and the ideological concepts of the aristocracy. Most indigenistas were no revolutionaries, but they sincerely struggled with the contradiction between their ideas of modernity and the dizzying question of what “indianess” was all about. Indigenismo was highly paternalistic and its weakness was that it did not develop out of the Indian world itself, but that it was a creation of young urban intellectuals. Nevertheless, accusing indigenistas of simply perpetuating the elites ideology falls short of explaining a complex historical reality. De la Cadena, “Decencia y cultura política.” De la Cadena further elab orates on her argument in “Silent Racism and Intellectual Superiority in Peru,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 17:2 (May 1998), 143–164.

²⁵ See Valcárcel, Luís E., “La cuestión agraria en el Cusco,” Revista Universitaria. Organo de la Universidad del Cuzco, 3:9 (1914), 16–38.Google Scholar This journal, which was founded in 1911, best reflects the intellectual discussions of Cuzco students.

²⁶ See one of the author’s most famous works, Mariátegui, José Carlos, Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad (1928) (Lima: Biblioteca Amauta, 1978).Google Scholar Literature on Mariátegui is overwhelming. As an introduction to the topic, see Galindo, Alberto Flores, La agonía de Mariátegui (Lima: Instituto de Apoyo Agrario, 1989), 3rd edition.Google Scholar

²⁷ See, “Acta de fundación de la Sociedad de Artesanos,” El Sol (June 10, 1936).

²⁸ See, Krüggeler, “Unreliable Drunkards?,” chap. V.

²⁹ Archives of the Sociedad de Artesanos del Cuzco, “Carta del Sub-prefecto, 11 de Agosto de 1903,” Libro Anual, 1, 1902–1903.

³⁰ On the discussion of class as a social fact or a social identity see Canning, “Gender and the Politics of Class Formation.”

³¹ “Espíritu y necesidad de asociación,” El Artesano. Organo de la “Sociedad de Artesanos” del Cuzco, 2 (October 25, 1920).

³² The political agenda of artisans can be found in numerous articles in El Artesano. On the presentation of “workers” and the “working class” as progressive elements of society in the context of the early European labor movement, see Kocka, Jiirgen, “Problems of Working-Class Formation in Germany: The Early Years, 1800–1875,” in Working Class Formation: Nineteenth Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States, Katznelson, Ira and Zolberg, Aristide R., eds. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 279–351.Google Scholar

³³ See reports from numerous public speeches held by labor representatives in local newspapers and El Artesano.

³⁴ Tamayo claims that Manuel González Prada became popular in Cuzco only after his death in 1918. In the early 1920s the Cuzco youth was heavily influenced by the anarchist’s work. See Herrera, José Tamayo, El Cuzco del Oncenio. Un ensayo de historia regional a través de la fuente de la revista “Kosko” (Lima: Universidad de Lima, 1989), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

³⁵ “Trabajo (primera parte),” La Gaceta Popular (November 27, 1901). “Trabajo, (segunda parte),” was published in Ibid. (December 9, 1901).

³⁶ “La fiesta obrera,” El Sol, (May 2, 1917).

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ See “La coca y nuestra razȧ indígena,” El Artesano, no. 3.

³⁹ The first invitation I found referred to the general assembly of the association, August 13, 1911. Archive of the Sociedad de Artesanos, “Libros Anuales,” 2, 1905–1912.

⁴⁰ Even the Catholic Church welcomed students’ activism and encouraged them to organize. See “Mucho depende de la juventud,” La Union, 1232 (March 24, 1909).

⁴¹ “Junta General Consultiva,” La Integridad Nacional, 2 (May 20, 1902).

⁴² “Para la Recepción del Ferrocarril,” La Unión, 1022 (July 6, 1908).

⁴³ “Club Internacional Del Tiro Al Blanco,” La Gaceta Popular, 164 (June 16, 1902).

⁴⁴ The archive of the Artisan Society of Cuzco contains dozens of letters exchanged between the Society and associations of riflemen, proving the key role artisans played in these clubs.

⁴⁵ On the relation between the debate over the “Indian Question” and the regional power structure, see Rénique, , Los sueños de la sierra, p. 59.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See Weismantel and Eisenman, “Race in the Andes.”

⁴⁷ See “Lesiones, Juan Villafuerte,” Archivo Departamental del Cuzco, Archivo Oscar Zambrano, Legajo 109 (1904) and “Lesiones, Santos Cano,” Ibid., Legajo 122 (1906). It is interesting to note that in judicial documents I rarely found any reference to the racial status of an individual involved in a court case. Only the term “quechua” which in exceptional cases is put after the name of a person identifies a particular individual as being considered Indian.

⁴⁸ See “Maltrato, Martin Mendoza,” Archivo Departamental del Cuzco, Archivo Oscar Zambrano, Legajo 74 (1899).

⁴⁹ “El Gobernador del Cusco,” El Sol, 1907. The 1907 volume is not available in the archive of El Sol. A copy of the article is attached to the court case, Archivo Departamental del Cuzco, Archivo de la Corte Superior del Cuzco, “Abuso de la libertad de imprenta,” Legajo 130 (1907). Following Villafuerte’s request, the court forced the author, Tomás Soto, to retract his article. Only in 1923 he was expelled from the SdA on the basis of similar accusations.

⁵⁰ See Tamayo Herrera, El Cuzco del Oncenio, chap. III.

⁵¹ Rénique, Los sueños de la sierra, chap. 4.

⁵² “El movimiento obrero en el Cuzco,” El Sol (May 16, 1917).

⁵³ “El movimiento estudiantil-obrero,” El Sol (May 18, 1917).

⁵⁴ “La evolución obrera,” El Sol, (April 13, 1918).

⁵⁵ “Vida obrera: Un discurso interesante,” El Sol (May 15, 1918).

⁵⁶ See Krüggeler, , “Unreliable Drunkards?,” pp. 220–21.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ See several letters in Sociedad de Artesanos del Cuzco, Libros Anuales, 1918–20. Among the group of students who tried to gain the support of Cuzco’s largest labor organization was Haya de la Torre, the man who later founded the Acción Popular Revolucionaria de America (APRA) and who was one of Peru’s most influential politicians of the twentieth century. Haya, who had spent some time in Cuzco between 1917 and 1918, was disappointed by what he interpreted as a conservative attitude of the local labor movement.

⁵⁸ See Krüggeler, “Unreliable Drunkards?,” chap. VI.

⁵⁹ See numerous articles in El Artesano on Luís L. Valcárcel.

⁶⁰ See Rénique, , Los sueños de la sierra, p. 68,Google Scholar and Jacobsen, Nils, Mirages of Transition. The Peruvian Altiplano, 1780–1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 344–53.Google Scholar

⁶¹ “El próximo congreso obrero departamental,” El Sol, (March 22, 1922).

⁶² See, for example, “Tumultuosa seción de la Sociedad de Artesanos,” El Sol, (April 13, 1923).

⁶³ The speech was published as Aragón, Luís Velasco, La verdad sobre el fango. Conferencia leida ante un comido popular por el escritor Luís Velasco Aragón el 22 de Abril de 1923 (Cuzco: H.G. Rozas, 1923).Google Scholar Tamayo Herrera claims that after the event Velasco Aragón was enthusiastically celebrated by his audience. Herrera, Tamayo, El Cuzco del Oncenio, p. 18.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ “La masacre de Anta: Enérgica protesta de la Sociedad de Artesanos,” El Sol, (March 15, 1923).

⁶⁵ Herrera, Tamayo, El Cuzco del Oncenio, p. 68.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ See Klaiber, Jeffrey L., “The Popular Universities and the Origins of Aprismo, 1921–1924,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 55:4 (1975), 693–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁷ “La universidad popular y la solidaridad estudiantil-obrera,” El Sol (April 9,1924).

⁶⁸ Herrera, Tamayo, El Cuzco del Oncenio, p. 67.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ “Vida Obrera: La Sociedad de Artesanos y su actual evolución,” El Sol (February 15, 1927).