The Bishop's Utopia. Emily Berquist Soule
area? This would provide valuable clues as to whether the land was rich enough to sustain a sizable population. The questionnaire asked if local census records, town traditions, and archival records (or “old books,” as he called them) showed how many city dwellers owned the land on which they lived.
Although the first questionnaire had thoroughly covered local religious practices, Martínez Compañón saw fit to ask about them in this second one as well. He inquired whether there was “anything that smells of superstition” in the local Indian population. If so, he wondered if the priests had any suggestions for how to most effectively eradicate these beliefs, specifically “with respect to [the Indians’] character, inclinations, ideas, and customs.” While this was written in the tone of a dedicated extirpator, the Bishop’s questionnaire in fact showed him to be slightly skeptical of the harsh charges of “idolatry” that Indians often faced. Before condemning any such behavior in the local population, he wanted to know “the reasons to distrust, or believe it.” This attitude of levelheadedness toward potentially inflammatory Indian behavior would resurface throughout his time in Trujillo, helping him to maintain an air of careful detachment when observing the customs and traditions of the Indians around him.
Almost as important as verifying that the Indians behaved like good Catholic subjects was learning whether they followed the European social norms that would signify their status as upstanding vassals of the Spanish Crown. In the questionnaire, this had to do mainly with the institution of marriage: at what age it typically happened and how it was arranged. In asking about marriage, the Bishop was quietly inquiring whether communities fostered upstanding marriages sanctified by the Church, or if they followed traditional Andean customs of trial marriage, or pantanacuy, in which young couples were encouraged to informally cohabitate before marriage. Martínez Compañón also wanted to know if his bishopric had many inhabitants who had specifically chosen celibacy, and what racial group was most likely to do so.36
In addition to investigating the present state of social relations in Trujillo, the questionnaire inquired about the area’s past. Peru’s north coast was rich in ruins from the “gentile,” or pre-Hispanic Moche and Chimú, peoples. Martínez Compañón therefore asked the priests to report “if there are any structures from the times before the conquest that are notable for their material, form, grandness, or any vestiges of that.” Regarding the people of the past, he wondered whether the priests might have heard of local people finding “any huge bones that seem to be human.” As we saw in Chapter 1, these were the giant bones that would serve as evidence to help prove that the natives of Peru were not physically weak and inferior.
While a good deal of Martínez Compañón’s questionnaire focused on the social resources, or the people of Trujillo, he also inquired about the natural world in which they lived. Although these questions were focused on “geography, metallurgy, mineralogy, and botany,” as the Bishop put it, they were just as important in determining how to build his utopian vision of improvement. Recall that, like most early modern Europeans, Martínez Compañón believed in climatic determinism, or the idea that the Earth and the heavens that surrounded it inevitably influenced men. The second item on the questionnaire asked priests to inform him “if the weather and climate is beneficial” in their area of jurisdiction. Accordingly, he wanted to know if people there were more likely to be healthy, or to be ill much of the time. If they did suffer from repeated illnesses, he asked “which are the most common sicknesses, and their causes, and the common medicines used to cure them.”
This question directly led to another farther down the list: if “there are any medicinal herbs, branches, or fruits, which they are, what are their shape, and the virtue of each one of them, and the mode of applying and using them.” As Chapter 6 will show, these answers formed the basis of the impressive collection of botanical information that the Bishop gathered from local informants throughout his time in Trujillo: three volumes of watercolor images showing 488 individual portraits of plants, trees, and bushes (many of which were medicinal); and ten crates of his natural history collection, half of which held exclusively plant matter and half of which mixed it with other specimens. In a related matter, question fourteen asked “if there are any resins or fragrant balsams, which they are, and what virtue they attribute to them.” Balsams, derived from the aromatic resin of trees and shrubs, had been seen as valuable medicines even before Dioscorides, and since the 1520s, the Spanish had sought new balsams in American nature. Along with botanical medicines, they had vast potential as commercial trade items throughout the Atlantic world.37
But Martínez Compañón also wanted to know what local natural resources might affect the health of his diocesans. He inquired as to whether “there are any mineral waters, and if there are if they are hot or temperate, sulfurous, nitrous, ferrous, or of another quality, what use they made of them, and to what effect.” It is possible that one response he received to this query is depicted in volume 2 of the watercolors, in an image that shows a “woman with leprosy bathing” (see Plate 11). In the late colonial period, Lima had its own hospital dedicated to lepers (named for their patron saint, Lazarus), and the viceroy endorsed projects to develop leprosy remedies based on balsams and ointments.38 The image shown here suggests that the waters from this mountain stream in Trujillo might have served the same purpose. Along with potential cures for endemic disease, the Bishop inquired about “any poisonous animals or insects” and what might be done about these. He asked for notice of “any strange birds or carnivorous animals,” many of which must have been those depicted in volume 6 of the watercolors.
Plant and animal life was central to understanding the local environment; and in a bishopric that held vast expanses of arid desert and rocky mountains, water was an even more essential resource. So Martínez Compañón inquired if there were any water sources in each area. Perhaps having been warned that water disputes were rampant in Trujillo (as they were in much of the Andes and still are today), he wanted to know whether these were “for the common use of the people” or if they were held privately. At the same time, water was essential to transporting commercial goods and crops. So the Bishop inquired about any local rivers, their sources and tributaries, and their navigability. In addition, he wanted to know whether each river in question had a bridge and, if not, “if it would be possible to build one, and how much, more or less, its construction would cost.” Bridges would become a central part of the Bishop’s reform agenda, especially in the watery eastern portions of Trujillo, where he managed a campaign to build a bridge over the San Antonio River in the province of Luya and Chillaos.39
Once water was secured both for irrigation and transport, the Bishop could turn to local agricultural production. He wanted to know what crops were farmed in each area, how productive the fields were, and “the method, form, and season of doing their planting, cultivating, and harvesting.” While agricultural crops provided both local comestibles and material for trade, Martínez Compañón realized that American woods were even more potentially profitable, largely because of their high demand in European markets. Of these, he wanted to know about not only “their abundance, and qualities” but also “the use they make of them, or might be able to make of them.”40
Finally, like most anyone who had any knowledge of the Indies, Martínez Compañón knew that the Spanish were still looking for the very substance that had made their earliest ventures in America so fantastically successful. He asked simply, “if there are any minerals, what they are, how they mine them, and what they produce.” These would have complemented the great silver mine at Hualgayoc in Cajamarca, which was closely linked to the economic future of the entire province. As Chapter 5 will demonstrate, his reform work there would be some of the most thoughtful and innovative of his efforts in the bishopric.41
In the end, the questionnaire presaged what Martínez Compañón’s broader reform agenda would ultimately entail. His blueprint for reform was clear: he first needed to teach the people proper Spanish language skills, manners, and work habits. To do so, he would use local primary schools. He wanted to be sure that the bishopric was sufficiently populated and that people lived healthy lives; this was why he sought demographic