University of Texas Press Andean Cosmopolitans: Seeking Justice and Reward at the Spanish Royal Court

After the Spanish victories over the Inca claimed Tawantinsuyu for Charles V in the 1530s, native Andeans undertook a series of perilous trips from Peru to the royal court in Spain. Ranging from an indigenous commoner entrusted with delivering birds of prey for courtly entertainment to an Inca prince who spent his days amid titles, pensions, and other royal favors, these sojourners were both exceptional and paradigmatic. Together, they shared a conviction that the sovereign's absolute authority would guarantee that justice would be done and service would receive its due reward. As they negotiated their claims with imperial officials, Amerindian peoples helped forge the connections that sustained the expanding Habsburg realm's imaginary and gave the modern global age its defining character. Andean Cosmopolitans recovers these travelers' dramatic experiences, while simultaneously highlighting their profound influences on the making and remaking of the colonial world. While Spain's American possessions became Spanish in many ways, the Andean travelers (in their cosmopolitan lives and journeys) also helped to shape Spain in the image and likeness of Peru. De la Puente brings remarkable insights to a narrative showing how previously unknown peoples and ideas created new power structures and institutions, as well as novel ways of being urban, Indian, elite, and subject. As indigenous people articulated and defended their own views regarding the legal and political character of the "Republic of the Indians," they became state-builders of a special kind, cocreating the colonial order. Review The research presented here...is immensely solid and coherent, reflecting the most recent works within the area of global history aimed at uncovering the mutual innterrelations and influences among different areas of the globe...a vibrant and dynamic narration... Andean Cosmopolitans presents all the necessary ingredients for becoming an indispensable reference work for a vision of colonial America based on the criteria of global history.-- "Sixteenth Century Journal" (11/1/2020 12:00:00 AM) Andean Cosmopolitans is a nuanced and comprehensive study...What makes the book so exciting is its unusual historiographical combination. De la Puente Luna brings together two historiographies, each with their own traditions, methods, and paradigms: ethnohistory and Atlantic history...This beautifully documented study is also a deep exploration of the meaning of indigeneity in the Spanish Empire. The indigenous world reconstructed here is unpredictable, in flux, and fascinating.-- "H-Net Reviews, Latin America" (1/30/2020 12:00:00 AM) [An] important monograph...Anyone wanting to understand the centrality of the legal system for shifting social and power constellations in the colonial Andes needs to read this impressive work of scholarship.-- "Journal of Latin American Studies" (8/1/2019 12:00:00 AM) De La Puente has shown himself a virtuoso researcher in many archives, and at the same time a powerful renovator of New World history in the wide frame. He changes our view of the seventeenth century by clarifying how the institutions called Andean community took shape--and also by proving that community is not the whole Andean story. Everyone concerned with creating a truly 'forward-facing' history of the New World peoples will want to read Andean Cosmopolitans.-- "Ethnohistory" (7/1/2019 12:00:00 AM) José Carlos de la Puente Luna achieves a triumph of research, analysis, and prose...Experts will marvel at its simultaneously local and global scope and its profound new perspectives on the viceregal period.-- "Hispanic American Historical Review" (5/1/2019 12:00:00 AM) The remarkable strengths of de la Puente Luna's book: constant attention to the indigenous as that which is constructed in discourse and through discourse, and thus is indicative of subjection, limited by the law, yet transformative of it, in the charged con