“... con capacidad legal, conocimiento bastante y libertad completa”. El uso de contratos de compraventa entre campesinos indígenas y latifundistas para legalizar la expropiación (Puno, Perú, 1880-1910)

This paper analyses in a microhistorical context the peasants' situation in the area of Chucuito (Hacienda de Collacachi), Peru, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It looks into the tense relationships between big landowners and indigenous peasants. Mostly mestizos acquired large estates, using a variety of methods, such as the violent occupation of peasant land, the expropriation of land as well as its purchase. This case study examines the latter method of acquisition and analyses the following aspects in thematic and discursive terms: the context of the purchase, who sells and who buys, the contracts in relation with indigenous complaints and the consequent expansion of the hacienda. It becomes apparent that the hacendado constructed complex genealogies so as to be able to acquire the land from those which under Peruvian law were the legal owners; it also becomes evident that some (if not many) contracts were works of fiction expressed through legal discourse and form. There is also documentation that some peasants tried to take legal action against these procedures, but normally not successfully. This method of land acquisition can therefore be seen as legalised expropriation