By Leticia Arroyo-Abad (CUNY) and Jose-Antonio Espin-Sanchez (Yale)

Our project on the effects of forced labor in colonial Peru began years ago, when I, Leticia, was still a graduate student.

“The tyrant feudalism must be declared once and for all deposed and its influence over students of the Middle Ages finally ended” (Elizabeth Brown, 1974)

At Broadstreet, we occasionally sit down with other scholars to discuss their work.

We examine a canonical case of forced labor: the mita and the encomienda in colonial Peru. The mita was a labor draft designed to provide workers for mines, churches, and public works in colonial Peru...