Reindigenisation and economy in the Andes, c. 1820-1870, from the European look

A striking tendency in recent historical writing on the nineteenth-century Andes is that which discusses the phenomenon of reindigenisation. This phenomenon was first understood exclusively in demographic terms, when it was noted that the nineteenth century represented the only period since the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century when the process of national mestizaje was halted across several decades, and the indigenous population not only grew strongly in absolute terms, but even recovered marginally as a proportion of the whole. In the past few years, studies of reindigenisation have gone beyond the demographic aspect, to explore what historian Paul Gootenberg called its "compelling historical and anthropological implications". Thus, historians have begun to explore the consequences of a greater indigenous presence in national life, in the political, cultural, and economic spheres. Drawing on the author's current wide-ranging project on reindigenisation in the early-republican Andes, this article aims to contribute to these debates with a fresh look at the economic dimension to reindigenisation in Peru and Bolivia, based primarily on travellers' accounts