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Urban History, Page 1 of 25 C
Cambridge University Press 2016
doi:10.1017/S0963926816000535
Bourbon manoeuvres in the
plaza: shifting urban models in
late colonial Lima
GABRIEL RAM ´
ON
Departamento de Humanidades, Secci´
on Historia, Pontificia Universidad
Catόlica del Per ´
u PUCP, Lima, Per ´
u
abstract: Most colonial Hispanic American cities were originally planned around
a main plaza,which was a multifunctional square crucial for urban life. This spatial
model for the whole city based on a main square is termed the Plaza Mayor model.
Bourbon reforms of the second half of the eighteenth century aimed at transforming
this model according to a Plaza de Armas organization. Here, these two models
(Plaza Mayor and Plaza de Armas) are characterized, and their contradictions in
terms of political projects and quotidian city life are analysed. For late colonial
Lima, Bourbon efforts to introduce the Plaza de Armas are shown to have affected
both the main function of the central square and the entire urban system.
The main plaza was a key element of Hispanic colonial urbanism. In the
Americas, Spanish cities were planned around a public square since the
early sixteenth century. This practice was initiated in some of the earliest
cities, and was later codified in the renowned Ordenanzas de descubrimiento,
nueva poblaci´
on y pacificaci´
on, 1573. During the colonial regime, as well a
good part of the republican period, this plaza was the city’s core, its centre.
Consequently, the plaza is almost always the starting point from which
the history of Hispanic American cities is explored. However, deeper
exploration of the actual relations between this square and the rest of
the city is necessary. To this end, this article discusses the thorny shift from
Plaza Mayor to Plaza de Armas: a series of episodes during the late Bourbon
period, in which the uses of this central public space were modified.
These two terms correspond to different spatial models for the use of the
central square that were clearly distinguished in late colonial documents.1
While there were already several places called Plaza de Armas in existence
in Hispanic America prior to the second half of the eighteenth century,
the Lima case is particularly informative because its Plaza de Armas was
1Hereafter the words central (or main) esplanade, plaza or square will be used
interchangeably to refer to the space occupied by the Plaza Mayor and Plaza de Armas.
For the minor public spaces in front of some churches the term plazuela will be used.
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2Urban History
designed for the centre of the city, to replace the Plaza Mayor.2The Plaza
Mayor can be conceived as a spatial model based on a specific combination
of social uses of the main plaza, and thus the city. The application of this
spatial model resulted in a particular kind of centrality, and it will be
shown how the transition to Plaza de Armas was related to the introduction
of new uses for the same square, and thus a reorganization of the city.
Considering that each kind of centrality can be associated with a specific
urban type, we are dealing with a major transformation in late colonial
Lima.3
The objective of the late colonial Spanish authorities was to switch from
a central square that functioned as a daily market and was also used for
public festivities (the Plaza Mayor) to a cleared and empty space devoted
to martial activities (the Plaza de Armas). This conceptual, functional and
political transformation of the main plaza affected the entire city and
was part of the Bourbon reformist projects of the second half of the
eighteenth century. This period was characterized by a series of political
and administrative interventions promoted by Spanish authorities that
attempted to reorganize the colonial territories. Historians basically agree
on the spirit that animated the late Bourbon reforms, but there are at
least three different perspectives on their efficacy.4Whatever the selected
perspective, analysis of specific urban elements like the central square
can contribute to better characterization of the reformist project and can
provide more data on which to base discussions of its success or failure. For
example, the same kinds of Bourbon interventions were met with varying
levels of success in different Hispanic American cities, and even within
the same city some projects achieved their goals while others did not.
While the application of these empire-wide reforms varied according to
location, the broad reformist programme can be recognized by the presence
of the same rulers in different colonial cities (which contributed to the
application of similar strategies), and in the circulation of information on
urban administration among the main colonial cities. Recently, the typical
periodization of the Bourbon reforms has been reasonably questioned,
emphasizing the importance of administrative transformations from the
first half of the eighteenth century.5However, in the case of the urban
2For a historical distinction between both concepts it is convenient to start with: S.
Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o espa ˜
nola [1539–1613] (Madrid, 2006); and
Diccionario de Autoridades [1726–39] (Madrid, 1963). On the many names of the plaza, see
A. Novick and G. Favelukes, ‘Plaza’, in C. Topalov, S. Bresciani, L. Coudroy and H. Riviere
(eds.), A aventura das palavras da cidade, atrav´
es dos tempos, das l´
ınguas e das sociedades (S˜
ao
Paulo, 2014), 498–509.
3On the relation between urban types and kinds of centralities, see the classic discussion in
H. Lefebvre, Le droit `
a la ville (Paris, 1968), 147–50, passim. I share his typological impulse,
but do not necessarily agree with the types he identifies as needing to be expanded and
refined through historical explorations like the one proposed here.
4G. Paquette, ‘The dissolution of the Spanish Atlantic monarchy’, Historical Journal, 52 (2009),
184–5.
5On this revisionist historiography, see F. Eissa-Barroso and A. V´
azquez (eds.), Early Bourbon
Spanish America Politics and Society in a Forgotten Era (1700–1759) (Leiden, 2013).
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 3
landscape, and particularly the main square, this article will show that the
main changes belong to the second half of the eighteenth century. Late
Bourbon urban interventions were highly comprehensive in the Americas,
ranging from the modification of administrative, tax and police systems
to the introduction of new precepts on aesthetics and public hygiene.
They were intended to transform the city to control its inhabitants better,
especially the lower classes, turning them into disciplined subjects. As part
of that overall project, a new series of construction projects that embodied
the reformist programme were undertaken in the main cities, such as the
extramural cemeteries.6The central plaza, a key urban element, was also
affected by this cycle of construction, as it was the most visible stage upon
which the late Bourbon project and the older urban system collided.7
To start, four main tendencies in the historiography of the central square
in Hispanic American cities can be distinguished. The first sought to
define the main features or functions of this square in general.8The
second focuses on official urban chronicles or testimonies of occasional
travellers, and offered a stereotypic or impressionistic view of that plaza.9
A third, and more sophisticated, approach was devoted to the political
reading of the festive representations staged in the plaza.10 And finally, the
6My perspective on the Bourbon project and Hispanic American cities combines: D. Brading,
‘The city in Bourbon Spanish America: elite and masses’, Comparative Urban Research,8
(1980), 71–85; J.P. Clement, ‘El nacimiento de la higiene urbana en la Am ´
erica espa˜
nola
del siglo XVIII’, Revista de Indias, 43 (1983), 77–95; M. D´
avalos, Basura e ilustraci´
on (Mexico,
1997); J.C. Estenssoro, ‘Modernismo, est´
etica, m ´
usica y fiesta: elites y cambio de actitud
frente a la cultura popular, Per ´
u 1750–1850’, in H. Urbano (ed.), Tradici ´
on y modernidad en
los Andes (Cuzco, 1992), 181–94; idem, ‘La plebe ilustrada: el pueblo en las fronteras de la
raz´
on’, in C. Walker (ed.), Entre la ret´
orica y la insurgencia: las ideas y los movimientos sociales
en los Andes, siglo XVIII (Cuzco, 1996), 33–66; L. Navarro, ‘Carlos III y Am´
erica’, in La
Am´
erica Espa˜
nola en la ´
Epoca de Carlos III (Seville, 1985), 9–16; G. Ram´
on, ‘Urbe y orden:
evidencias del reformismo borb´
onico en el tejido lime ˜
no’, in S. O’Phelan (ed.), El Per´
uen
el siglo XVIII (Lima, 1999), 295–324; idem,‘Lapol
´
ıtica borb´
onica del espacio urbano y el
cementerio general (Lima 1760–1820)’, Hist´
orica, 28 (2004), 111–13; idem, ‘Ilustrar la urbe:
planos de Lima borb´
onica’, Illapa, 7 (2010), 62–79; J. Vega, ‘Las reformas borb ´
onicas y la
ciudad americana’, in F. de Ter´
an and J. Aguilera (eds.), La ciudad hispanoamericana. El sue ˜
no
de un orden (Madrid, 1989), 240–4; J. Viqueira, ¿Relajados o reprimidos? Diversiones p´
ublicas
y vida social en la ciudad de M´
exico durante el Siglo de las Luces (Mexico, 1987); P. Voekel,
‘Peeing on the palace: bodily resistance to the Bourbon reforms in Mexico City’, Journal of
Historical Sociology, 5 (1992), 183–208; C. Walker, ‘Civilize or control? The lingering impact
of the Bourbon urban reforms’, in N. Jacobsen and C. Aljov´
ın (eds.), Political Cultures in the
Andes 1750–1950 (Urbana–Champaign, 2005), 75–87.
7For a comparative discussion of the cycles of construction of the late eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries in Lima, see G. Ram´
on, ‘El gui´
on de la cirug´
ıa urbana: Lima 1850–
1940’, in Ensayos en Ciencias Sociales (Lima, 2004), 9–33.
8D. Gade, ‘Latin American central plaza as a functional space’, in R. Tata (ed.), Latin America:
search for geographic explanations (Chapel Hill, 1978), 16–23; J. Hardoy and A. Hardoy, ’Las
plazas coloniales en Am´
erica Latina’, DANA, 15 (1983), 93–118; R. Ricard, ’La Plaza Mayor
en Espagne et en Am´
erique espagnole’, Annales ESC, 4 (1947), 433–8 ; M. Rojas, La Plaza
Mayor. El urbanismo, instrumento de dominaci´
on colonial (Barcelona, 1978). See R. Gutierrez’s
critiques of Rojas, ’Bibliografia’, DANA, 9 (1980), 117–19.
9On this narrative genre: J. Mˆ
onnet, ’¿Poes´
ıa o urbanismo? Utop´
ıas urbanas y cr´
onicas de
la ciudad de M´
exico (siglos XVI a XX)’, Historia Mexicana, 39 (1990), 727–66.
10 R. Acosta, Fiestas coloniales urbanas (Lima-Cuzco-Potos´
ı) (Lima, 1997); J.C. Estenssoro,
‘M ´
usica, discurso y poder en el r´
egimen colonial’, Pontificia Universidad Cat´
olica del
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4Urban History
fourth includes studies that deal with the commercial activities performed
in the central square and its surrounding area.11 These four tendencies
are necessarily complementary if we want to explain the history of the
plaza, but they have rarely been used together. In the first tendency,
change is often overlooked in order to present a sense of permanence. The
second and the third emphasize the festive aspects of the plaza but rarely
consider its relations with the more mundane, quotidian and actually
representative function of the plaza: the market. Yet, discussions of the
plaza that articulate historical contingency (events) and structure (long-
term trends) must necessarily incorporate this everyday dimension. The
fourth tendency has revealed a vast ‘underworld’ of semi-legal activity
related to the plaza, but has disregarded how this actually affected the
other uses, and has paid only minor attention to detailed chronology, thus
not discussing functional changes in the square. Building on the previous
historiography, this article employs an approach that integrates the four
mentioned tendencies, proposing a comprehensive reading of the urban
shift promoted by the late Bourbons starting from the central square.12
One of the consequences of ignoring this kind of articulated approach is
that the crucial shift from Plaza Mayor to Plaza de Armas has remained
fairly unnoticed in Latin American urban historiography. This lacuna is
reinforced since both terms are currently used colloquially (and sometimes
interchangeably) to allude to a physical space, while in colonial times these
terms also referred to spatial models (i.e. specific set of functions).13
As in Mexico City, the Bourbon intervention in the central esplanade of
Lima demonstrates the confrontation between metropolitan (the viceroy)
Per ´
u MA thesis, 1990, 365–94; P. Ortemberg, Rituels du pouvoir `
a Lima. De la Monarchie `
ala
R´
epublique (1735–1828) (Paris, 2012); A. Osorio, Inventing Lima: Baroque Modernity in Peru’s
South Sea Metropolis (New York, 2008); J. Valenzuela, Las liturgias del poder: celebraciones
p´
ublicas y estrategias persuasivas en Chile colonial (1609–1709) (Santiago, 2001).
11 F. Iwasaki, ‘Ambulantes y comercio colonial: iniciativas mercantiles en el virreinato
peruano’, Jahrbuch f¨
ur Geschichte Lateinamerikas, 24 (1987), 179–211; A. Mera, ‘Regatones
en la ciudad de Los Reyes, 1763–1820’, Revista del Archivo General de la Naci´
on, 28 (2013),
111–40; J. Olvera, ’La disputa por el espacio p ´
ublico: los comerciantes y vendedores de
la Plaza Mayor’, in C. Aguirre, M. D´
avalos and M. Ross (eds.), Los espacios p´
ublicos de la
ciudad. Siglos XVIII y XIX (Mexico, 2002), 84–97; and idem,Los mercados de la Plaza Mayor de
la ciudad de M´
exico (Mexico, 2007); A. Konove, ‘On the cheap: the Baratillo marketplace and
the shadow economy of eighteenth-century Mexico City’, The Americas, 72 (2015), 249–78.
12 On contingency and structure, see P. Anderson, Tras las huellas del materialismo hist´
orico
(Mexico, 1986), 34–65. Recent studies with an integrative approach on plazas include: J.
Escobar, The Plaza Mayor and the Shaping of Baroque Madrid (Cambridge, 2003); Olvera, Los
mercados.
13 Regarding the historiography of Lima, at least two important studies of the late colonial
period use these terms without considering that they correspond to different models.
While A. Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe, Lima 1760–1830: estructura de clases y sociedad
colonial (Lima, 1983), 148, 157, 173, basically employed them as synonyms, Ortemberg,
Rituels du pouvoir, noticed a shift (116–17) but did not fully incorporate this change into
the narrative (90, Fig. 7, 92, 121, 151, 162, 196, passim). For Santiago de Chile, Valenzuela,
Las liturgias del poder, also employed both terms as synonyms (65, 66, 78, 99, 253, 464). A
similar mix-up is found in A. Musset, Ciudades n´
omadas del Nuevo Mundo (Mexico, 2011),
44, 61, 62, 65, passim.
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 5
and local authorities (the city council). This intervention affected different
actors within urban Lima, whose reactions provide complementary
snapshots of the same scenario. Quarrels among these various actors help
explain the concrete agendas of the late Bourbon viceroys, the Cabildo
(city council), the ecclesiastical authorities, the person in charge of renting
and subletting the square and the minor vendors who sublet parts of it,
among others. Before dealing explicitly with the Bourbon manoeuvres
in the central plaza, however, the initial functions of this esplanade are
introduced.
A multifunctional square
Internal hierarchies within the Hispanic American colonial system led to
a degree of functional variability among cities, and therefore among their
central plazas, from Mexico to Santiago de Chile. However, under the
Plaza Mayor model these squares shared at least seven attributes.14 First,
they signalled the area where, fictionally or factually, the city had been
founded, providing them with enormous symbolic weight: the city started
there. Second, they were surrounded by the main colonial institutions,
such as the Cabildo, the viceregal palace, and the cathedral, as well as the
residences of the main vecinos, the urban elite.Third, they accommodated
the main civil, military and religious celebrations; including processions,
bullfights and public punishments. Fourth, they were the most ostentatious
point of the urban hydraulic system, with fountains that provided water
to the city. Fifth, they were centres of diffusion of information. Until other
squares were built, they were the only location where the official bandos
(decrees, urban norms, laws) were posted and where proclamations were
shouted. From these central squares, the cathedral´s bells marked the
rhythm of urban life. Sixth, they were markets. Vendors worked in the
central square, and the surrounding buildings held shops. Seventh, they
14 This list of attributes is based on general and specific studies. General: L. ´
Alvarez et al.,
‘Plazas’ et sociabilit´
eenEuropeetAm
´
erique latine (Paris, 1982); F. Chevalier et al., Forum et
Plaza Mayor dans le monde hispanique (Paris, 1978); A. Durston, ‘Un r´
egimen urban´
ıstico en
la Am´
erica hispana colonial: el trazado en damero durante los siglos XVI y XVII, Historia,
28 (1994), 59–115; V. Fraser, The Architecture of Conquest (Cambridge, 1989); R. Guti´
errez,
Arquitectura y urbanismo en Iberoam´
erica (Madrid, 1983); idem, ‘La Plaza Mayor en Am´
erica’,
in F. de Solano (ed.), La ciudad Iberoamericana hasta 1573 (Madrid, 1987), 281–303; Novick
and Favelukes, ‘Plaza’; F. de Solano, Ciudades hispanoamericanas y pueblos de indios (Seville,
1990), and the texts in nn. 8, 9, 10 and 11. Specific: G. C´
aceres, ’Plaza Mayor/Plaza de
Armas’, Pontificia Universidad Cat´
olica de Chile BA thesis, 1994; G. Favelukes, ’La Plaza,
articulador urbano (Buenos Aires 1810–1870)’, Seminario de Cr´
ıtica, 48 (1994), 29–44; R.
Hern´
andez, ’Ideolog´
ıa, proyectos y urbanizaci´
on en la ciudad de M´
exico, 1760–1850’, in
R. Hern´
andez (ed.), La ciudad de M´
exico en la primera mitad del siglo XIX (Mexico, 1994),
149–52; L. Huertas, ‘Introducci´
on al estudio de la Plaza Mayor de Lima’, Historia y Cultura,
23 (1999), 281–336; L. Luj´
an, La Plaza Mayor de Santiago de Guatemala hacia 1678 (Guatemala,
1969); J. Mesa and T. Gisbert, ‘La paz en el siglo XVIII’, Bolet´
ın del Centro de Investigaciones
Hist´
oricas y Est´
eticas, 20 (1975), 73–5; J. Olvera, ’La disputa por el espacio’; idem,Los mercados,
inter alia.
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6Urban History
served as epicentres of urban reforms; (re)ordering the plaza was the first
step before continuing on to the rest of the city.
All of these functions were present in early colonial Lima. The plaza
was the public space, described at the end of the eighteenth century
as the ‘universal centre of public functions, and reunion of the entire
neighbourhood’.15 Such multifunctionality made this square the urban
feature with the greatest number of documentary references in the
Peruvian viceroyalty (and probably on the whole continent), perhaps
only comparable with its Mexican counterpart.16 Taken as a whole, this
remarkable quantity of references forms the basis from which it is possible
to analyse in detail the shift from Plaza Mayor to Plaza de Armas.This
process corresponds with what was called the move from ‘the medieval
polyvalence to the more restricted and strict use of the modern age’
regarding the main squares in Spain.17 This transition is also related to
the official late Bourbon intention to impose the neoclassical ‘unison’ over
the baroque ‘polychorality’.18 Subsequently, in the following, this article
considers some major questions. What were the uses of the main square
in the eighteenth century? What modifications can be identified in those
uses? How was this space affected by the late Bourbon reforms? And,
finally, how did the urban system embedded in the plaza collide with the
reformist momentum?
In the mid-eighteenth century, Lima´s main square showed most of the
above listed uses, with two important changes. First, in 1562, the rollo
for public executions was moved to the riverfront and from this point
capital punishments were only rarely performed in the main plaza. Second,
in 1768, a special arena for bullfighting (Plaza de Acho) was erected in
San L´
azaro, a neighbourhood on the north side of the river, and only
the bullfights that accompanied the important celebrations (related with
the arrival of viceroys and proclamation of kings) were still held in the
central square.19 The functional multiplicity of the plaza made it Lima´s
most valuable real estate, consolidating a pattern that continued into the
15 Archivo Hist´
orico Municipal de Lima (AHML) Obras P ´
ublicas, d. 4, 24 Nov. 1798.
16 The documentary database used in this article includes: the Libro de Cabildos de Lima (LCL)
(from 1707 to 1821); the official drafts (Borradores)oftheLCL (from 1786 to 1808) and the
Libro de C´
edulas y Provisiones (LCP) (from 1730 to 1800), all held in the collections of the
AHML. Lima’s historical urban nomenclature is drawn from J. Bromley, Las viejas calles
de Lima (Lima, 2005). Previous works on Lima’s plaza include: T. Abad and S. C´
ardenas,
‘Evoluci´
on hist ´
orica del espacio urbano de la Plaza Mayor de Lima’, Universidad Nacional
de Ingenier´
ıa BA thesis, 1975; M. Dur´
an, Lima en el siglo XVII (Seville, 1994), 181–95;
Huertas, ’Introducci´
on al estudio’; E. Marco Dorta, ’La Plaza Mayor de Lima en 1680’,
Mercurio Peruano, 451/2 (1964), 37–50; G. Ram´
on, ‘El umbral de la urbe: usos de la Plaza
Mayor de Lima (XVIII–XIX)’, in Aguirre, D´
avalos and Ross (eds.), Los espacios p´
ublicos de
la ciudad, 84–97, inter alia.
17 A. Bonet, ‘Le concept de Plaza Mayor en Espagne depuis le XVIe si`
ecle’, in Chevalier et al.,
Forum et Plaza Mayor, 80.
18 Estenssoro, ‘Modernismo, est´
etica’, 182–4.
19 A detailed description in L. Lowry, ‘Forging an Indian nation’, University of California
Ph.D. thesis, 1991, 75–8, and Ram´
on, ‘El umbral de la urbe’. On the rollo: AHML/LCL,23
Dec. 1562. On late public punishments: Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe, 149; M. Fuentes,
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 7
late nineteenth century: property values increased in the central area and
decreased as one moved outwards.20 In this way, the Plaza Mayor model
had concrete effects on the whole city. Simultaneously, the market attracted
all kinds of people, securing a constant demand for the vendors and a
variety of offerings for consumers, and, therefore, assuring the commercial
value of the immediate buildings. In 1773, the logic behind the plaza’s
valorization process was described by an experienced colonial authority:
‘The houses of the square were the worst of the city, as happens almost
all over the world, since the conquistadores and owners of those places
sublet them to the permanent merchants, who are those who pay most
for renting them.’21 Even though Alonso Carri´
o was describing Cuzco’s
centre, his observation fits Lima, where early pomp gave way to monetary
pursuits.
The difference in commercial magnitude between the central and the
smaller squares, the plazuelas, becomes apparent when considering the
annual cost of the concession of this space, the ramo de toldos yasientos
(division of stalls and spaces). At least since 1730, this concession worked
in the following way: after a public auction, the winner became asentista
assuming the square’s administration, normally for five years, but the same
person could remain for decades, as happened with Joseph Guillermo
who was asentista from 1730 to 1756 and Juan Domingo Taron from 1765
to c. 1791.22 The asentista rented sections of the spaces to the vendors,
with the possibility of also renting them stalls or tents (awnings) for sun
protection. Among other obligations, the asentista had to clean the square
after celebrations, replace pavement stones and, when needed, clean the
canals crossing the plaza.23 In 1756, the asentista of the main plaza paid
4,510 pesos annually to the Cabildo, while that of the plazuela from Santa
Ana–Lima´s second market – paid 410 pesos.24 In 1774, the prices were
5,325 and 50 pesos, respectively, and in the early nineteenth century, 5,500
and 300 pesos.25 In 1815, the plazuela of Baratillo, in San L´
azaro, was rented
Memorias de los Virreyes, 6 vols. (Lima, 1859), vol. IV, 95; AHML/LCP XXIV:162r, 7 Apr.
1780; LCP XXX:267r, 23 Feb. 1788; Diario de Lima, 5 Apr. 1791:2; LCP XXIX:336r, 12 Oct. 1797;
LCP XXVII, 2 Aug. 1798; LCP XXX:350r, 10 Dec. 1799. On bullfights: Ortemberg, Rituels du
pouvoir, 116–17, passim.
20 G. Ram´
on, La Muralla y los Callejones (Lima, 1999), 54 n. 73.
21 A. Carri´
o, El lazarillo de ciegos caminantes, 2 vols. (Lima, 1974), vol. II, 61.
22 While we can speculate that the asentista system was in place from the earliest days of
the central square market, we only have clear data of its functioning from 1730. In Mexico
City, the concession was called ‘asiento de los puestos y mesillas de la Plaza Mayor’, it
was also obtained via auction, and the asentista, Francisco Cameras, remained from 1692
to 1747 (Olvera, Los mercados, 127–49).
23 AHML/LCL, 22 Feb., 14 Apr. 1742, and J. Moore, The Cabildo in Peru under the Bourbons
(Durham, NC, 1966), 115 n. 41, based on a document from 1774 on J.D. Tar ´
on.
24 Archivo General de la Naci´
on (AGN) Cabildo (CAGC) 1 c. 15 d. 14; AHML/LCL, 23 Dec.
1756.
25 AGN/CAGC 1 c. 15 d. 27, c. 17 d. 84 (1772); c. 20 d. 208 (1804), CAGC 4 c. 30 d. 59.
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8Urban History
Area of Detail
San Lázaro
Lima
Rímac River
N
5
6
7
8
9
10
1
2
3
4
1 Baratillo (p)
2 San Francisco (p)
3 Inquisición (p)
4 Main square (P)
5 Santa Ana (p)
6 San Agustín (p)
7 Monastery of La Concepción (M)
8 La Merced (p)
9 San Marcelo (p)
10 San Juan de Dios (p)
Plazas (P), Plazuelas (p), and
Other Marketplaces (M)
Rímac River
Figure 1: Plazas, plazuelas and other marketplaces in late colonial
Lima. Drawn by Martha Bell using the PlanodelaCiudaddeLima...,
attributed to Manuel Sobreviela, Bauz´
a Collection, 1796, British Library,
London; reproduced in Ram´
on, ‘Ilustrar la urbe’, 74.
as a market, and its asentista paid 25 pesos, while in 1818, the central square
drew 6,100 (see Figure 1 and Table 1).26
Besides the toldos y asientos, the central esplanade was profitable to
the Cabildo in other ways. For instance, public spectacles, like bullfights,
were performed there until the end of the eighteenth century. In these
ceremonies, the square served as an arena, with many spectators paying
for their seats. This money was used by the Cabildo for financing public
works and official festivities.27 While each function of the plaza offers a
specific chronology of the Bourbon interventions, the market, which is
best documented, provides the most complete characterization of these
reforms allowing for an integrated approach.
The market
In the mid-seventeenth century, Lima’s main square was officially
considered the epitome of the Peruvian viceroyalty’s prosperity. Authors
like Bernab´
e Cobo, 1639, and Buenaventura de Salinas y C´
ordova, 1653,
26 AHML/LCL, 4 Aug. 1818.
27 Moore, The Cabildo in Peru, 88–105; AHML/LCP XXIV, 238r/239r, 17 Nov. 1784. On the
ceremonies in the plaza during eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see Ortemberg,
Rituels du pouvoir, 43–166.
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 9
Table 1: Annual prices of the ramo de toldos y asientos (1730–1823)
Renter (asentista) Annual price (pesos)
1730–36 Joseph Guillermo 300
1736–40 Joseph Guillermo >2,000
1740 Joseph Guillermo 4,010
1742 Joseph Guillermo
1747 Joseph Guillermo 4,010∗
1752–54 Joseph Guillermo 4,010
1755 Joseph Guillermo 4,010∗∗
1756 Joseph Guillermo 4,510
1756–57 Clemente de Acosta >4,510
1761 Clemente de Acosta
1765 Juan Domingo Taronˆ
1766–74 Juan Domingo Taron 5,325
1776 Juan Domingo Taron 5,000∗
1785 Juan Domingo Taron
1786 Juan Domingo Taron 5,050∗
1799 Jose Teron 5,700∗
1804–07 Mariano Teron 5,500
1810 Mariano Teron
1810 Jose Teron 5,625∗
1810 Jose Teron 5,720
1815–18 Jose Teron
1818–21 Jose de Sarria >6,100∗
1823 Jose de Sarria 10,000∗
∗Auctioned for five years.
∗∗ Auctioned for nine and a half years.
>The agreed price was higher.
ˆ Spelling variations for Taron include Teron and Theron.
Sources: 1730–36 (AGN CAGC1 c. 15 d. 14; LCL, 22 Nov. 1755), 1736–40 (AGN
CAGC1c. 15 d. 14; LCL, 16 Mar. 1736), 1740 (AGN CAGC1 c. 15 d. 14), 1742
(AGN CAGC1 c. 15 d. 11; LCL, 14 Apr.), 1747 (AGN CAGC1 c. 15 d. 12; LCL,
24 Nov.), 1752–54 (LCL, 15 Sep., 4. May 1754), 1755 (LCL, 22 Nov.), 1756 (AGN
CAGC c. 15 d. 14; LCL, 7 Sep.) 1756–57 (LCL, 1 Oct., 13 Aug. 1757), 1761 (LCL,
15 Sep.), 1765 (LCL, 25 Apr.), 1766–74 (AGN CAGC1 c. 15 d. 27), 1776 (AGN
CAGC1 c. 16 d. 37, d. 38), 1785 (AGN CAGC1 c. 17 d. 97), 1786 (AGN CAGC1
c. 17 d. 113, d. 116), 1799 (AGN CAGC1 c. 20 d. 208), 1804–07 (AGN CAGC1
c. 20 d. 208, c. 21 d. 235), 1810 (AGN CAGC6 c. 32 d. 30), 1810 (LCL,2Mar.),
1810 (AGN CAGC1 c. 21 d. 285), 1815–18 (LCL, 14 Apr., 25 Apr. 1815; 13 Feb.,
13 Jul. 1818), 1818–21 (LCL 4 Sep.; 9 Mar. 1819; 19 Dec.1821), 1823 (LCL 9Sep.).
or paintings like the splendid Plaza Maior de Lima cabeza de los reinos
del Per´
ua
˜
no de 1680 praised its market function and its extraordinary
abundance. The market’s opulence and the diversity of produce available
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10 Urban History
Figure 2: (Colour online) Plaza Maior de Lima . . . , anonymous painting,
1680. The list on the right hand side indicates the products available for
sale in the main plaza. Lima’s cathedral and the archbishop’s palace are
in the background. At the left side is the viceregal palace. The plaza is
represented from the point of view of the Cabildo building. Museo de
Am´
erica, Madrid.
year round substantiated Lima’s potency(see Figure 2).28 Midway through
the eighteenth century, it was still possible to document several key market
characters in the square. First, the tenderos, vendors who occupied the
shops in the portals along the outer edges of the plaza, including botoneros
(button makers) (south side) and escribanos (notaries) (west side). Second,
the cajoneros, who sold diverse products in movable kiosks (cajones) placed
in front of the viceregal palace (north side), the archbishop’s palace and
the cathedral (east side). Third, the recauderas,vivanderas or abastecedoras,
female vendors who sold food products, dispersed throughout the square;
the mercachifles, peddlers. Finally, the negros angarilleros, a guild of black
slaves who transported goods and water. The intense commercial activity
associated with the plaza left an imprint on the surrounding street names:
botoneros,espaderos (swordsmiths), and guitarreros (guitar makers), among
others.29
28 B. Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1956), vol. II, 309–10; and B. Salinas
yC
´
ordova, Memorial de las historias del Nuevo Mundo Piru (Lima, 1957), 252–3. On the
anonymous painting: Marco Dorta, ’La Plaza Mayor’.
29 All the mentioned characters appear in the documentation analysed in the following pages.
On street names, see Bromley, Las viejas calles, 135, 166, 274–6, passim.
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 11
Three institutions with commercial and political interests regularly
appear in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documentation related
to the plaza. First, was the civic institution that represented the urban elite:
the Cabildo. This was the owner of the square and the main beneficiary of
the commercial activity performed there, through the annual quota paid by
the asentista.30 Second, was the Tribunal del Consulado, the rich merchant’s
guild that installed its seat immediately by the main plaza by the end of
the sixteenth century. Third, was the viceroy and his court.
To understand the commercial role of the plaza, it is necessary to consider
briefly a wider context. Lima was the concentration and distribution centre
of produce harvested in diverse rural areas, but especially in its direct
hinterland, which extended from Chancay, in the north, to Chilca, in
the south, and to Huarochir´
ı, to the east in the highlands. Goods were
taxed upon entering the urban milieu, and so were sold at higher prices
in the centre. The enormous city wall (finished 1687) controlled traffic
into and out of the city at its main gates.31 Flouting this system were
illegal middlemen, the regatones.Regatones stopped farmers en route with
products from their farms before arriving to the city walls, bought the
products at lower prices, entered the city and then re-sold the products in
the central plaza at a profit.32 Considering its location, the main square was
the opposite of the rural periphery. It was a privileged spot for supervision
and control. The described system of distribution of goods in Lima was
related to the Plaza Mayor model, and led to a sort of selective panoptism;
much more supervision and control occurred in the central square than in
the urban outskirts.
Prior to the late Bourbon reforms, two events occurred with significance
for the functioning of the main plaza. First, the reorganization of
the asentista system during the government of the viceroy marquis of
Villagarc´
ıa (1736–45), which led to both an enormous increase in the price
of the square´s rent from 300 to 4,010 pesos, and to the Cabildo gaining the
responsibility of organizing the public auctions for asentista.33 From 1736
to the end of the colonial period, the price of the plaza’s toldos y asientos
30 On the Cabildo’s social composition: G. Lohmann, Los regidores perpetuos del Cabildo de Lima
(1535–1821) (Seville, 1983). On the ownership of the main square: AHML/LCP XXII, 301,
3 Aug. 1748.
31 Biblioteca Nacional del Per ´
u (BNP), Volantes c417, 1789; V c181, 1798, LCL, 5 Jun. 1818;
Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe, 153. On this commercial circuit: J. Cosamal´
on, Indios
detr´
as de la Muralla (Lima, 1999), 45. On the functions of the Wall, see also G. Lohmann, Las
defensas militares de Lima y Callao (Seville, 1964), 205–9; and J. Juan and A. de Ulloa, Relaci´
on
Histόrica, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1748), vol. II/1, 41.
32 AHML/LCP XXII:221v, 1 Nov. 1746, AHML/LCP XXIII:212r–213r, 11 Sep. 1765/24 Feb.
1774; LCP XXVI:125r–126r, 13 Nov. 1789; LCL 28 Nov. 1806, 5 Jan. 1813, 22 Jan. 1813, 27
May 1814, 23 Aug. 1814, 22 Apr. 1817, 14 May 1818. On regatones: Mera, ‘Regatones en la
ciudad’.
33 The information on this reorganization of the market is indirect, that is, it comes from a
source from the 1750s (AGN/CAGC 1 c. 15 d. 14). No reference to the reorganization is
found in the LCL. In general, the information about the central square in the first half of
the eighteenth century is minimal in comparison with the second half.
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12 Urban History
rose continuously (see Table 1).34 The second event was the earthquake
of 1746. The destruction of many houses and the fear of potential future
quakes prompted the relocation of survivors to open spaces, like the urban
periphery and the central esplanade. Many vivanderas moved outside the
city walls following their public and a good part of the main square came
to be occupied by non-commercial tents. A wooden chapel replacing
the cathedral was also installed in the plaza. This abrupt decrease in
commercial space in the centre caused the price of the alternative location
of the market, the plazuela of Santa Ana, to double.35 Immediately after
the earthquake, the Cabildo decreased the annual price of the toldos y
asientos (from 4010 to 1700 pesos) giving two months free to the asentista
Joseph Guillermo. The Cabildo also allowed Guillermo to rent mobile kiosks
along the main bridge in exchange for the space occupied by the wooden
chapel in the plaza. In September 1747, the situation began to return to
normal after the compulsory clearing of the main square to celebrate
the proclamation of King Fernando VI. At the end of that year, Joseph
Guillermo described the plaza’s chaotic situation and asked for a discount.
Disregarding his claim, the Cabildo held a new auction, and the same
asentista obtained the rights for 1748.36
As will be shown, the official interventions in Lima’s plaza during the
second half of the eighteenth century were of two kinds. First, were
those which sought to maintain the Plaza Mayor model, termed here
‘habitual interventions’ which were associated with incidents related to
the concentration of vendors or to the ongoing conflicts between different
kinds of sellers. Second, were those manoeuvres specifically related to late
Bourbon reformism that signalled a structural shift towards the Plaza de
Armas model.
Habitual interventions
Since the early seventeenth century, if not before, colonial authorities
supervised the market organization, probably as represented in the 1680
painting, which shows the plaza market from the visual perspective of
the Cabildo’s meeting room, where products are spatially ordered (see
Figure 2). However, during the government of Manuel de Amat (1761–76),
several crises threatened the normal strategy of maintaining the market in
order. For instance, in an edict from 1765 against the regatones, viceroy Amat
denounced the constant thefts and vexations perpetuated by the regatones
against the Indians who brought their goods to the central esplanade,
34 AGN/CA GC1 c. 21 d. 282 (1814) with the C´
edula from 3 Aug. 1748; AHML/LCP XXII:301r.
35 AGN/CAGC 1 c. 15, d. 16:7r.
36 Fuentes, Memorias, vol. IV, 117–18; AGN/CAGC 1 c. 15 d. 12. On the celebrations of 1747,
see Ortemberg, Rituals du pouvoir, 79–94.
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 13
‘taking advantage of the multitude that gathers there’.37 An incident from
1772, described below, further shows the situation of the square.
In 1772, as a result of an infection attributed to some meat sold in the
plaza, the Cabildo carried out an inspection. Some vivanderas found out
about the plan ahead of time and informed their colleagues who hid
any potential evidence. To avoid similar fiascos, the Cabildo proposed a
new organization of the market by rows for each kind of product (meat,
vegetables, bread, charcoal, flowers, firewood, lard). This new layout
would provide authorities with full visual control of the products; buyers
would be able to go directly to their elected row; and pedestrians and carts
would have enough space to circulate. The viceroy Amat immediately
approved the harsh penalties for those who ignored the new rule.38 This
case shows the Cabildo and the viceroy working together to fight disarray
in the plaza; however, there were other routine or common conflicts that
incorporated more voices, a wider scenario and different solutions, like
one from the late 1780s.
In December 1787, the plaza merchants with fixed shops and thus higher
incomes, the tenderos and cajoneros, issued a complaint at the Tribunal del
Consulado against the ‘peddlers called idlers’ (‘mercachifles transe ´
untes,
llamados sanganos’) who sold clothes. They alleged that these itinerant
competitors had settled into more permanent stalls and were selling
similar products at cheaper prices, thus ruining the tenderos and cajoneros.
It was not the first time that these fixed merchants had tried to expel
the mercachifles: in a previous ruling, the peddlers had been forced to
work five blocks away from the main square. However, after some time,
they ‘returned with more strength and disorder’.39 The solution suggested
by the tenderos and cajoneros was not the same for all mercachifles,since
among them ‘there were some that were not worthy of this business at all,
since they had previously been alfalfa carriers or worked at other similar
activities of such inferior class’. This group, the ‘low-status castes’ (castas
de baja esfera) were legally forbidden from selling goods. To sustain this
claim, the merchants cited the principles of the official colonial policy,
referring to cases from Cadiz (Spain) and Mexico City, where similar low-
class sellers had been expelled from markets. There was a second group
of mercachifles that was allowed to perform commercial activities, but only
with authorization and at a distance of five blocks from the central plaza.
These vendors were allowed to sell garments at cheaper prices for people of
lower income who were unable to pay main square prices.40 The Tribunal del
Consulado accepted the claim of the tenderos and cajoneros indicating that it
37 AHML/LCP XXVIII:212r–213r, 11 Sep. 1765.
38 AHML/LCP XXIII:243r–244r, 7–8 Jul. 1772; BNP 1793, c3234.
39 AGN/Libro de Juntas del Real Tribunal del Consulado, 1770–88 H-3, 907:343r/v, 18
Dec. 1787. On this same case: Flores Galindo, Aristocracia y plebe, 156–7; and Iwasaki,
‘Ambulantes y comercio’, 208.
40 Later information on the same issue suggests that ‘low-status castes’ were black peddlers,
see: AGI, Audiencia de Lima 1547, 4 Apr. 1789, in R. Konetzke, Colecci´
on de documentos
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14 Urban History
would not be a problem to completely stop the activities of the ‘low-status’
mercachifles.TheTribunal also decided to expulse the legal mercachifles from
the plaza, agreeing to ask the viceroy for the necessary edicts to send them
to the plazuelas of the convents or to the Baratillo plazuela (see Figure 1).41
Colonial urban space was organized according to a series of interlinked
norms and its use was conditioned by multiple restrictions, particularly of
the commercial variety. The legal foundation of these spatial hierarchies
was part of the established colonial urban pattern. It led to the socially
differentiated use of the city, but not necessarily to the isolation of social
groups: it was impossible to achieve absolute segregation because the work
of the ‘low-status castes’ was essential for the rest of society.42 Despite
proposing the displacement of mercachifles, the plaza merchants needed
them, since they themselves were not able to supply all of the urban public,
particularly its poorest members. The target was to impose functional
hierarchies, translatable in concrete distances: five blocks away from the
plaza according to the tenderos and cajoneros and a move to the plazuelas
according to the Tribunal. A ‘low caste’ person could circulate in the plaza
but not as a mercachifle. The vicissitudes of the late Bourbon project for the
plaza must be understood within this broader framework.
An anomalous parade
In between the habitual interventions and the actual application of the
Bourbon project in the plaza, there was a groundbreaking incident. It dates
to 1773 during the government of Manuel de Amat, a modernist viceroy
with military training and architectonical skills. Amat received the Royal
Order of San Genaro and in honour of this achievement a simulacra of
a military operation was performed: soldiers conquered ‘a fortified place
with the shape of a crowned building, or double hornwork’ built over the
central fountain of the main square.43
Amat’s parade broke all conventions. According to Juan Domingo Taron,
the asentista de toldos y asientos, the troops remained more than three months
in the plaza, halting its commercial activity, which was the main function of
that public space. Even if Taron exaggerated in order to justify a discount
in his payment, the testimony of a Cabildo representative confirmed the
unusual situation. After listing the conditions of the asentista’s contract,
the procurador general observed ‘none of them [the conditions] express,
para la historia de la formaci´
on social de Hispanoam´
erica 1493–1810, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1962),
vol. III/2, 639–41.
41 Baratillo comes from barato,cheap.ItisnotclearifLima’sBaratillo was a specialized market
like the one from Mexico discussed by Olvera, Los mercados, 73–99.
42 Lowry, ’Forging an Indian nation’, 39–51; J. Flores, ‘Hechicer´
ıa e idolatr´
ıa en Lima colonial
(siglo XVII)’, in H. Urbano (ed.), Poder y violencia en los Andes (Cuzco, 1991), 55.
43 Puntual relaci´
on de las operaciones executadas en la Plaza Mayor de la Ciudad de los Reyes, . . . en
el sitio, ataque, defensa y rendici´
on de una fortaleza, construida en su centro; con arreglo, y
proporciones ´
a la architectura militar (Lima, c. 1773).
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 15
show relation to or have analogy with what is happening now; because
it is completely different and distinct’.44 Even if Juan Domingo Taron was
supposed to clean the plaza and to tolerate official acts celebrated there:
the present ones are of such a different kind and so sudden that they could not be
previously considered. To be honest, who in 1765 when the contract was signed
would have imagined that the army of this kingdom could have arrived to the
degree of perfection currently observed? Who would have believed that the army
would have performed in this Plaza Mayor such extraordinary operations and the
most famous of those taught in the art of war? Who would have judged that the
project of disciplining volunteer men without salary but with unrelenting zeal and
tenacity, and without regrets about leaving their trade for military training, could
have been achieved?45
The Cabildo partially recognized the claim of the asentista, confirming the
extraordinary character of the parade. When the new contract with Taron
was signed, in 1776, the price decreased from 5,325 to 5,000 pesos and
the new situation was acknowledged, indicating that to continue with the
previous contract the vendors would need to remain in the plaza.46
Significantly, that same year the Drama de dos palanganas veterano y
biso˜
no (Drama) circulated in Lima. This anonymous dialogue, attributed
to the aristocrat Francisco Ruiz Cano, was officially censored. The Drama
attacked the viceroy Amat and included critical references to his parade
of 1773.47 The Drama is a multilateral critique of Amat’s policies. First,
Ruiz Cano questioned militarization as a form of social homogenization,
or in other words, as a ladder for subaltern classes. Second, the marquis
warned of the danger of providing military training to blacks, mulattos
and, particularly, Indians, who in 1750 had planned a revolt in Lima.
Third, he criticized the despotism of the Catalan viceroy, his repressive
politics and the imposition implied by the aforementioned parade.48 These
critiques show the antipathy of a local aristocrat to the novelty imposed by
the Spanish military hierarchy represented by Amat and his entourage, and
materialized in the new main function of the plaza. The Drama emphasized
the negative economic consequences of the intervention, suggesting that ‘It
made a Plaza de Armas of what previously were Armas de Plaza, which were
the coins circulating in its shops that today are nowhere to be found.’49
Punning, Ruiz Cano was suggesting that the martial use of the esplanade
44 AGN/CAGC 1 c. 15 d. 27, fol. 9r, 1774, emphasis added.
45 Ibid., fol. 9v.
46 AGN/CAGC 1 c. 16 d. 37, fol. 7r.
47 G. Lohmann published a critical edition of the Drama as Un tr´
ıptico del Per ´
u virreinal (Chapel
Hill, 1976). Hereafter it will be referred as Drama. The attribution to Ruiz Cano was made
by R. Porras (Estenssoro, ‘Modernismo, est´
etica’, 186) and Lohmann, Drama, 18. On Amat’s
parade, Drama, 171–4. On the censorship, BNP 1777, c1494.
48 Drama, 160–2, 164–6, passim.
49 Ibid., 162. ‘Hizo Plaza de Armas la que antes era Armas de Plaza, que eran los patacones
que corr´
ıan en ella en sus Comercios, que no hay hoy con los comercios de ellas.’ This is
the first explicit use of the term (Plaza de Armas) in a colonial text to refer to the situation
of the central square of Lima.
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16 Urban History
was erasing its long-established commercial value. The aforementioned
claims of the asentista Juan Domingo Taron and the Drama are very different
kinds of sources, but their coincidence confirms that the multilateral impact
of the Bourbon intervention in the plaza was seriously interrupting the
Plaza Mayor model.
To put Ruiz Cano’s criticism towards Amat’s parade in perspective,
it must be remembered that two decades before, 1755, Ruiz Cano wrote
another text, J´
ubilos de Lima (J´
ubilos), praising the reconstruction of the
cathedral by the viceroy Manso de Velasco.50J´
ubilos is recognized as one of
the initial markers of the appropriation of classicist modernism in Lima,
a critical discourse against baroque.51 These two texts (J´
ubilos and Drama)
show the changing relations between a representative member of the
urban elite and the Bourbon viceroys (an aristocrat first praising Manso de
Velasco and then criticizing Amat). They also suggest the distance between
ideal models and their actual application, particularly when they impacted
the urban status quo. While the J´
ubilos defended a classicist architectonical
intervention (the cathedral) the Drama attacked an urban one (the plaza)
that also went against a baroque model. Even if both interventions have a
certain parallelism, their actual application had different timings because
of the opposition of locals like those represented by Ruiz Cano and the
Cabildo. As far as we know, the stylistic modification of the cathedral did not
affect the conventional social uses of that space, whereas the introduction
of the Plaza de Armas model impacted the uses of the central square and,
as we will see, the whole city.52
One decade after Amat’s parade, the asentista Juan Domingo Taron
was still protesting against the military presence in the plaza. With the
establishment of the administrative regime of the Intendencias (1784) the
new authorities revised the conditions for renting the central square but
made no major modifications. By then, the main plaza was not the only
public space affected by military training: in 1786, the plazuela of La Merced
was also accommodating the cavalry.53
50 F. Ru i z C a n o, J´
ubilos de Lima en la dedicaci´
on de su santa iglesia cathedral .. . (Lima, 1755).
51 P. Macera, ‘Lenguaje y modernismo Peruano del siglo XVIII’, in Trabajos de historia (Lima,
1977), 2, 9–77; R. Kusunoki, ‘De Ruiz Cano a Unanue: arte y reivindicaci´
on criolla en
Lima (1755–1806)’, Dieciocho, 29 (2006), 107–20; E. Wuffarden, ‘Avatares del “bello ideal”.
Modernismo clasicista versus tradiciones barrocas en Lima, 1750–1825’, in R. Mujica (ed.),
Vis i ´
on y s´
ımbolos: del virreinato criollo a la rep´
ublica peruana (Lima, 2006), 112–59.
52 On the importance of considering social uses before formal aspects to understand urban
change, see H. Lefebvre, Espace et politique (Paris, 1972), 47–8, passim. The paradigm of a
’neoclassical city’ (R. Kusunoki, ‘Entre Roma cl´
asica y Jerusal´
en santa: utop´
ıas urbanas en
Lima ilustrada (1790–1815)’, Semata, 24 (2012), 259) is not limited to stylistic change, or we
must assume a wider definition of style that includes urbanism. Further explorations of the
(dis)similarities in the introduction of neoclassical architecture and neoclassical urbanism
in Hispanic America are needed.
53 AGN/CAGC c. 16 d. 37, d. 38 (1776’s contract), c. 18 d. 116 (Intendencias), c. 17 d. 111 (La
Merced).
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 17
Bourbon manoeuvres
Besides Amat’s parade, conflicts like those described above in the section
‘Habitual interventions’ were routine or customary, especially since their
solutions sought to restore the established order: the Plaza Mayor model.
Meanwhile, another set of interventions was occurring that suggested
novel uses of this urban space: those directly related to Bourbon politics.
Overall, the late Bourbon script for Lima was characterized by the
administrative reorganization of the city, focusing on the establishment of
a system of referential points and norms on how to use the city. With that
target in mind, three key documents were produced: Divisi´
on de quarteles
y barrios (1785), Reglamento de polic´
ıa (1786) and Plano topogr´
aphico (1787).54
In parallel, a new cycle of construction was initiated, with the erection of
a group of urban establishments with – at least – three common features.
First, these institutions concentrated functions that had previously been
dispersed across different parts of the city, and therefore these projects
were now larger in size. Second, these larger constructions could not be
placed within the central urban grid due to their size, and so were placed
in the urban periphery. Third, ideas related to public hygiene influenced
the location of these new projects, reinforcing their peripheral placement.
Two examples are the bullfighting arena (1768) and the General Cemetery
(1808) in the northern and eastern extramural areas, respectively.55 This
late Bourbon cycle of construction also included specific manoeuvres
concerning the main plaza, where, between the end of the eighteenth and
beginning of nineteenth centuries it is possible to identify three important
reformist interventions.
Amat’s parade was anomalous but ‘only’ lasted three months. However,
by the end of the century, the tendency initiated in Lima by that incident
became more permanent. Neoclassical precepts were implanted in the
main cities of the Spanish empire. Regarding the main plaza, the target
was to liberate it for military use, turning that square into a sort of stage for
permanent symbols of the crown: a Plaza de Armas, with certain attributes
of a Plaza Real.56 In Mexico City, a statue of the king was placed in the
main square (installed between 1793 and 1803). Half a century before,
1739, a wooden equestrian statue of the king had already been installed on
the main bridge of Lima, immediate to the plaza, but it collapsed during
the earthquake of 1746 and was never replaced.57 Despite this specific
54 J. Escobedo, Divisi´
on de quarteles y barrios e instrucci´
on para el establecimiento de alcaldes de
barrio en la capital de Lima,andNuevo reglamento de polic´
ıa, agregado a la instrucci´
on de alcaldes
de barrio, AHML; Ram´
on, ‘Urbe y orden’, 302–6; idem, ‘Ilustrar la urbe’, 71–6.
55 Clement, ‘El nacimiento de la higiene’, 87–92; Ram´
on ‘Urbe y orden’, 316–24; idem,‘La
pol´
ıtica borb´
onica’, 111–13; and idem,‘Elgui
´
on de la cirug´
ıa’, 13.
56 Plaza Real (from Place Royal) is a kind of plaza popularized in France in the early seventeenth
century that normally included the king’s statue (R. Chartier, ‘La ville chantier’, in E. Le
Roy Ladourie et al., La ville des temps modernes (Paris, 1998), 136.
57 Even if during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the ceremonies in the central
plaza included representations of the king, they were ephemeral, Osorio, Inventing Lima,
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18 Urban History
difference, both plazas were crucial spots in the late Bourbon agenda. The
strategic role of Lima’s main square and its imbrications with the rest of
the city are evident in a quarrel between the viceroy Ambrosio O´Higgins
and the Cabildo in 1799.
In March, O´Higgins ordered the vibanderas to abandon the plaza,
including the portals, the corners and the immediate streets. From this
time on, the central esplanade would be devoted to ‘Parade, distribution
of the troop in its respective posts, monthly revision by the commissioner,
doctrinal exercises of the time of militia assembly, and everything generally
related to military service.’58 Consequently, the plazuelas of Santa Ana,
Inquisition, San Francisco, San Agust´
ın, San Marcelo and San Juan de
Dios were to become markets (see Figure 1). Basic products were to be
distributed to each plazuela, which were to be organized in calles (streets)
or filas (rows). The main plaza was cleared and its previous functions
decentralized or concentrated in the periphery, following the late Bourbon
script, which already had been applied in 1789 in Mexico’s main square
by the viceroy Revillagigedo.59
In immediate response to O’Higgins’ order, the Cabildo manifested
its opposition to the reform: ‘The Cavildo considers that the local
circumstances, or other insurmountable obstacles make it impossible
to place in every plazuela all the necessary items to supply the
neighbourhood.’60 These representatives of Lima’s elite wielded multiple
rationales. First, they rejected the possibility of placing all the products
normally available in the central plaza in each plazuela. Second, even if it
was possible to disaggregate the market function into the plazuelas,how
would they decide what kinds of foodstuffs would be assigned to each, to
supply all without harming the traders? Third, if a system that solved the
previous issues could be designed, how would they deal with ‘sellers not
recorded in a census, and that come with potatoes, salted meat, cheese,
fruits, legumes, salt, and fish from many towns of the highlands and the
coast?’61 This latter option would have required the formalization of the
other entire world beyond the city walls, which was unnecessary under
the Plaza Mayor model.
More than refurbishing a square, the viceroy wanted to replace a form
of administrative and commercial organization that since early colonial
times had guaranteed the diversity of products within the city. The Cabildo
81–102. On the equestrian statue, F. Statsny, ‘From fountain to bridge: baroque projects and
Hispanism in Lima’, in H. Millon (ed.), Circa 1700: Architecture in Europe and the Americas
(Washington, 2005), 207–24.
58 AHML/LCP XXX: 421r/422r, 21 Mar. 1799, emphasis added.
59 Konove, ‘On the cheap’, 227; Olvera, ’La disputa por el espacio’, Viqueira, ¿Relajados o
reprimidos?, 238–41; E. S´
anchez, Los due ˜
nos de la calle (Mexico, 1997), 185–93. This continental
synchrony was accompanied by the circulation of documentation between Mexico City,
Lima and Buenos Aires. See AHML/Cabildo, Superior Gobierno (CSG) d.123, 1808; LCL,
8 Oct. 1793, 8 Jan., 19 Feb., 16 Nov. 1790, 15 Mar. 1791.
60 AHML/LCL, 27 Mar. 1799.
61 Ibid.
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 19
warned that under the system of dispersed markets any supply disruption
related to unexpected circumstances in production places or in transport to
the city would be critical. If profits diminished because of this new spatial
distribution, the sellers would certainly change trades, leaving the city
unsupplied. Consumers would also be affected, particularly homeowners
‘because the houses would lose the servants for a whole morning, while
they search from plazuela to plazuela, and from section to section for what
cannot be found in a determined place’.62 True or not – the Cabildo members
added – this was ‘an excellent excuse to wander around the entire morning,
at the same time that the houses remained without cooks and without the
food to be cooked until very late in the day.’63 Moreover, the increase of the
public in the plazuelas not only caused ‘congestion in the streets, but also,
the impossibility of reaching the church doors at the centre of the plazuelas,
like San Francisco, to which is added the throng of churchgoers, without
space to park the carriages.’ This would result in religious irreverence
‘disturbing the divine services, with the noise of recauderas, cooks, and the
common people, with shouting and perhaps verbal obscenities, and in a
disorder that our religion detests, which does not happen in the Plaza Mayor
because of the distance to the church door’.64 According to the Cabildo,the
project proposed by O’Higgins not only affected the organization of Lima’s
commercial system, but also the domestic and religious realms.
Concluding their defence of the Plaza Mayor model, the Cabildo members
added a final detail: the plazuelas legally belonged to the convents. If the
relocation suggested by the viceroy was carried out, the Cabildo would lose
its revenues from the rent of the toldos y asientos. This economic privilege
should not be interrupted by the military exercises that ‘have been always
performed in the Inquisition plazuela, nor by the parade of the regiment
that has been organized in the barracks without using plazuelas,oreven
less, the Plaza Mayor’. Recognizing a long-term historical trend, the Cabildo
members observed that the already established model had actually shaped
Lima, setting the price of the properties immediate to the plaza:
This constant gathering [of people], so long-standing and of such great size, in the
Plaza Mayor has made attractive and of higher value the houses immediately next
to the shops, and stores, that are consequently taxed; and the sale of the merchants’
shops and riverside kiosks is no less conducive and also of interest to the properties
[of the Cabildo].65
In sum, the Cabildo explained how the militarization of the central plaza
and the displacement of the market would radically affect several aspects
of the whole urban system.
62 Ibid.Ram
´
on, La muralla, 54 n. 73.
63 AHML/LCL, 27 Mar. 1799.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.
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20 Urban History
A week later, O’Higgins accepted the request of the Cabildo, decreeing the
‘restitution of vibanderas and vibanderos to the Plaza Mayor.’66 The reform
was limited to leaving an open area for the transit of carts, horses and
pedestrians, reserving part of the square for the exclusive selling of meat
and fish ‘with the adequate cleanliness, that the public demands’.67 This
hasty response from the viceroy marked a victory for the Cabildo. However,
five years later, a similar dispute was raised.
In 1804, as part of his claim for lowering the rent for the toldos y asientos,
the asentista Mariano Ter ´
on observed that
Regarding its products, the plaza is not the same as it was before, its area has
been decreased with the excuse of cleaning it, and forming rows, not only have the
recauderos and recauderas left and set up shops in other streets, but also a good part of
the plaza has been reduced to a livestock corral. The burden imposed on the recuaderas
to vacate their asientos, and to clear the area in the afternoon, has had no small
influence on the abandonment of the square, it has obliged them to spend money
to transport their goods and to rent a room near the plaza as is happening with
those who have stayed there.68
Ter ´
on is describing the reduction of the central square’s commercial area
and its partial clearing leading to a Plaza de Armas. This alteration led to
higher expenses for the food vendors who needed to pay for lodging and
storage for their goods. Even if the request of the asentista was ignored by
the Cabildo, a document on the plazuela Santa Ana shows that his position
regarding the main square was not unique. In a report to the Cabildo,the
procurador general, Francisco Arias, coincided with Ter ´
on in his critiques of
the modifications to the central square, recommending that those reforms
not be applied in Santa Ana:
to the detriment of the city’s income, the public, and the miserable vendors, was
the project to clean up the Plaza Mayor. This was where 10,000 or more pesos were
wasted in the stone pavings and fillings that led to the disturbance and rage of
the public. This was where [they] wanted to characterize the Plaza Mayor as Plaza de
Armas, and where in spite of the protests against the lack of abundant and timely
supply, and the disorder of the servants, the system of keeping the Plaza empty
was maintained, and when it was impossible to ignore the cries of the public it
was decided to build a ridiculous palisade surrounded by ropes, expensive for the
city and incapable of lasting long, only adequate for the square of an Indian town: the
centre of which was reduced to a livestock corral: this benefited the people in charge
of distributing the rows and asientos [in the plaza], and by general rule, from this
point forward, the system of Plaza de Armas was established as if it were the square
of Callao, which is cleared each afternoon, and left empty the entire night.69
This document has three significant features. First, the terms of the
discussion (Plaza Mayor,Plaza de Armas) are explicit; it is the first time that
66 AHML/LCL, 5 Apr. 1799.
67 AHML/LCP XXIX:348r, Apr. 1799.
68 AGN/CAGC 1 c. 20 d. 208, emphasis added.
69 AGN/CAGC 4 c. 30 d. 59, 1804, emphasis added.
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 21
each model is mentioned by its name in an official document (Ruiz Cano
diditbeforewiththePlaza de Armas but it was an anonymous text). Second,
the comparison with the ‘Indian town’ is not accidental, and together with
the explicit terminology already mentioned, suggests the terms of the
debate. The Cabildo is defending a proposal to maintain the status quo,
the Plaza Mayor model, and was probably already being criticized (by the
viceroy) for its conservative attitude. The procurador general defends his
side by comparing the partial results of the new model with something
that everyone would certainly consider backwards: an Indian town. Third,
this document shows the affinity between the asentistas, the author of the
Drama,andtheCabildo, including the procurador general. All of these local
characters agreed in their criticism of the compulsory militarization of the
plaza during the government of the viceroy Gabriel de Avil´
es (1801–06).
This overwhelming reaction against the Plaza de Armas model suggests the
significance of the location of the market for the city administration.
Even if viceroys changed, the insistence on shifting urban models
remained. Three decades after Amat’s government, the viceroy Abascal
(1806–16) continued to support the establishment of the Plaza de Armas,
albeit in a slightly different form. The first indication of Abascal’s intentions
came from the asentista, who, in February 1807, requested a discount in
his annual payment considering the damages caused by the ‘removal of
the vendors to other plazuelas’.70 In November 1808, Abascal informed
the Cabildo that ‘regarding the extraordinary circumstances that have
happened, I have abandoned the idea of facilitating the formation of a
market [Plaza para los Abastos P´
ublicos] in a comfortable and adequate
space’.71 With ‘extraordinary circumstances’, the viceroy was probably
referring to the patriotic insurrections on the continent. With ‘Plaza de
Abastos P ´
ublicos’, he was proposing a large market in a specific building
outside the main square. That same year, Abascal had inaugurated
the General Cemetery, a project that followed this same urban logic:
concentrating a function in a huge peripheral enclosure. Abascal was going
beyond his predecessors; he did not want to distribute the market in several
plazuelas, like O’Higgins, but to concentrate and relocate it.72 In response,
the Cabildo declared that the public was ‘incapable of adjusting to the lack
of supply in the main square’.73 Finally, Abascal added that he was trying
to bring the vendors back to the central plaza. This comeback included
some partial modifications. First, the internal organization of the market
was adjusted so that the supplies ‘do not cause confusion and leave free
the centre, forming rectilinear rows around the edges [of the square]’ to
facilitate customer circulation as well as cleaning. Second, the recauderas
70 AHML/LCL, 17 Feb. 1807.
71 AHML/CSG c. 2 d. 110, 24 Nov. 1808.
72 Ram´
on, ‘La pol´
ıtica borbόnica’, 111–13.
73 BNP 1808, d389, 5r/v.
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22 Urban History
would be placed in cajones as the viceroy observed to be happening in
C´
adiz and Madrid.74
Several sources document the official reinstatement of the market in the
main plaza during the Abascal government.75 Moreover, the once expelled
mercachifles (1787) were returning with momentum to the centre. Between
1815 and 1818, these peddlers presented several requests to formalize their
presence in the coveted central space. Finally, they were officially accepted
through the creation of sanctioned ‘tendejones portatiles’ (portable small
shops).76 Together with the constant increase in the price of the central
square (see Table 1), all of these disputes indicate its renewed appeal at the
end of the colonial era, and thus the endurance of the Plaza Mayor model.
However, it was not the only market: besides the one in Santa Anta, there
were others in the Inquisition and Baratillo plazuelas (see Figure 1).77
As patriotic riots spread across the Americas, the capital of the Peruvian
viceroyalty acquired a military hue. Lima quartered numerous troops and
became a strong royalist bastion. Consequently, spaces like the Inquisition
plazuela were adapted and its main public fountain was retired.78 This
situation also impacted the central square. In 1818, the asentista asked
the Cabildo for a discount due to the ‘space occupied by the troops’.
Disregarding this request, the Cabildo held a new auction, and the new
asentista,Jos
´
e de Sarria, paid 6,100 pesos. In 1823, during the transition to
the republican regime, Sarria paid 10,000 pesos (see Table 1).79
Conclusions
The constant magnetism of the central square was the corollary of a city
planned under the Plaza Mayor model. During the eighteenth century,
many of the plaza’s early colonial functions were still in use, even growing
in scale: Lima’s population had notably increased by this time, but the area
occupied by the plaza remained the same, thus resulting in an overcrowded
and ever more valuable space. This scenario was ideal for the revival of
conflicts related to its administration. Facing these recurrent frictions, the
viceroy and the Cabildo intervened, updating old rules of use. Examples
included the proposal for the internal reorganization of the market (1772)
and the expulsion of the mercachifles (1787). On both occasions, the plaza
retained its main function: market. The arrival of the new Bourbon
political proposal from the metropolis confronted this habitual function,
andthusthePlaza Mayor model. These reforms were materialized in urban
interventions and construction projects whose mere presence contributed
74 Ibid.; AHML/LCL, 25 Nov. 1808.
75 AHML/LCL, 28 Jul. 1812; AHML/CSG d. 195, 2 Sep. 1813.
76 AHML/LCL, 7 Mar., 25 Apr. 1815; 25 Feb., 28 Feb., 4 Mar., 29 Aug., 5 Sep., 30 Sep., 19 Nov.
1817; 13 Jan., 13 Feb., 6–13 Mar., 10 Apr. 1818; AHML/CSG d. 322, 1 Mar. 1817.
77 AHML/LCL 28 Jan., 18 Feb. 1814.
78 AHML/LCL 7 Apr., 30 Apr., 26 May, 9 Jun. 1818; AHML/CSG c. 4 d. 346, 23 Jun. 1818.
79 AHML/LCL 4, 10 and 13 Jul., 4 Sep. 1818, 9 Sep. 1823.
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 23
to the complete alteration of the city of Lima, proposing a whole new urban
type.
For urban Lima, the late Bourbon reforms must be characterized by their
presences (the construction projects and relocations actually performed)
and their absences (the unfinished or unsuccessful projects). During
colonial times, the transformation from Plaza Mayor to Plaza de Armas
was incomplete, but this case is as informative as the successfully finished
extramural cemetery: both of them clearly show the implementation of a
new urban centrality reinforced by an impressive cycle of construction.
Unlike the early incidents (1772, 1787) that were related to frequent users
and quotidian disputes about the plaza, the later conflicts (1799, 1804,
1808) implied a new kind of confrontation between two levels of colonial
authorities: the viceroy and his entourage following orders from Spain
versus the Cabildo, the local elite. This basic conflict was manifested by a
volatile topic: the modification of the main and most profitable function
of the plaza. The shift of spatial models is also traceable in graphic
representations of the main square that had earlier been shown as full
of vendors (as in Figure 2) but later was represented as an empty – or
almost empty – esplanade used for martial activities. Not surprisingly,
this visual tendency began during Amat’s regime (1775) and is patent in
an engraving from 1805 (see Figure 3).80 In parallel, and even prior to any
actual urban changes, the graphic representations of the plaza evidence
an official intention, a new urban model, with novel aesthetic and political
concerns.81
While the Bourbon urban reforms were only partially applied during
the colonial period, some of their features continued to exert influence
into republican times. As in Mexico, the independent Peruvian regime
assumed some features of the Bourbon programme.82 In Lima, the link was
the regime of the Argentinian general Jos´
e de San Mart´
ın who presented
the Peruvian declaration of independence from Spain in 1821. While
extirpating all colonial symbols from Lima’s public space, San Mart´
ın
also put into practice some of the plans of the later viceroys. His decree
of June 1822 described the situation of the urban markets. First, it did not
mention the central square as a marketplace, instead locating the market
80 One of the earliest representations of the empty/militarized plaza is Plaza Mayor de la
Ciudad de Lima included in MS 400/123, 1775, Biblioteca de Catalunya (reproduced in
Drama, 99). See also Vista de la Plaza y Catedral de Lima,c. 1825–40, Museo de Arte de Lima
(MALI), Fondo Alcira Lastres de la Torre, 2000.4.1.
81 A similar process can be observed in Mexico, comparing works like Crist´
obal de
Villalpando, La Plaza Mayor de M´
exico, 1695, in F.de la Maza, El pintor Crist ´
obal de Villalpando
(Mexico, 1964), 159, and Vista de la Plaza Mayor de M´
exico reformada y hermoseada por
disposici´
on del Excelentisimo Se˜
nor Virrey Conde de Revillagigedo en el a˜
no de 1793, Archivo
General de Indias, MP, M ´
exico, 446. This graphic transformation runs in parallel to the
discursive change already identified by Mˆ
onnet, ‘Poes´
ıa o urbanismo’, 740–9; and Viqueira,
¿Relajados o reprimidos?, 15–32.
82 D´
avalos, Basura e ilustraci´
on, 146–7; N. Majluf, Escultura y espacio p´
ublico (Lima, 1994), 13;
Walker, ‘Civilize or control?’, 75, 87–91.
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24 Urban History
Figure 3: Vista de la Catedral de Lima, despues de la ereccion de sus Torres y
redificaccion general finalizada el a˜
no de 1801 . . . , engraving by J.M. Montes
de Oca, in J.M. Berm ´
udez, Fama postuma del Excelent´
ısimo ´
e Ilustr´
ısimo
se˜
nor doctor Don Juan Domingo Gonzalez de la Reguera . . . Dign´
ısimo XVI.
Arzobispo de los Reyes . . . por el mismo autor de la Oraci´
on F´
unebre (Lima,
1805).
in the plazuela of the extinct Inquisition. Second, it issued notification that
the food sellers located in the Inquisition plazuela would be distributed
in 100 ‘mobile kiosks’ to be placed in the plazuelas of Santa Ana (30),
San Agust´
ın (20), Baratillo (20), San Francisco (15), and San Juan de
Dios (15) (see Figure 1). Third, this modification was only a temporary
plan, while a more major reform was carried out: ‘While the project of a
new market corresponding in its utility and magnificence to the ideas of
the government and the people’s necessities is carried out.’ San Mart´
ın
was actually following viceroy O’Higgins’ proposal (1799), relocating the
market function to different parts of the city.83
The collapse of the colonial regime occasioned the extinction of the
Cabildo, which facilitated direct state intervention in Lima’s urban affairs.
The subordination of the church to the new republican state eased
these changes. Many ecclesiastical urban properties became national
possessions, leaving room for the reforms: it is not accidental that some of
83 Gaceta del Gobierno de Lima Independiente, 19 Apr. 1822; AHML/LCL, 4 Oct. 1823.
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Shifting urban models in late colonial Lima 25
the first republican institutions, like the National Library, the Parliament
and the National Museum occupied former religious properties. By the
late 1840s, when guano exports began to impact the national budget, a
new cycle of construction commenced, and the interest in concentrating
sellers in an enclosed space outside the plaza was renewed. The monastery
of La Concepci´
on was partially expropriated by the government, dissected
and modified to house the central market of Lima (1852). In this manner,
viceroy Abascal’s proposal (1808) was finally implemented: the market
function was concentrated in an enormous peripheral structure and the
Plaza Mayor model was left behind. This huge market was part of a series
of buildings and regulations that transformed Lima, resulting in a different
kind of urban centrality.84
84 Ram´
on, ‘El gui´
on de la cirug´
ıa’, 14–18.
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