demographers in their attempts to reconstruct population figures, age pyramids,
and life cycle trends for early Colonial and late-Inca populations.
Upon assuming office, the fifth viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo (1569–
1581), carried out one of the most comprehensive fact-finding missions, which
he referred to as a general inspection (visita general). While the Crown had
instructed Toledo only to undertake a tribute register (libro de tasa) of the Native
population, the viceroy used the process to collect more wide-ranging
information, including testimony on whether tribute assessment had risen or
declined in communities since the time of the Incas, as well as questions
concerning the history and fate of Native inhabitants under Spanish rule. Toledo
used the information from the visita general to effect profound changes from
Inca traditions in the organization of the rural population. Most notably, it
provided him with the blueprint for resettling the population from scattered
settlements into agglutinated towns laid out in a standardized grid pattern. Only
a portion of Toledo’s visita general survives today. It was published by Noble
David Cook in 1975, and has been mined by scholars to great benefit in efforts
to understand the culture, history, and economic organization of the Inca Empire.
Further Reading
Cook, Noble David. Tasa de la visita general de Francisco de Toledo. Lima: Universidad Nacional de San
Marcos, Dirección Universitaria de Biblioteca y Publicaciones, 1975.
———. “Visitas, Censuses, and Other Sources of Population Information.” In Guide to Documentary
Sources for Andean Studies, 1530–1900, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, vol. 1, 129–43. Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 2008.
Diez de San Miguel, Garci. Visita hecha a la provincia de Chucuito por Garci Diez de San Miguel en el año
1567 . Edited by Waldemar Espinoza Soriano. Documentos Regionales para la Etnología y Etnohistoria
Andinas, no. 1. Lima: Casa de la Cultura del Perú, 1964.
Guevara-Gil, Armando, and Frank Salomon. “A ‘Personal Visit’: Colonial Political Ritual and the Making
of Indians in the Andes.” Colonial Latin American Review 3, no. 1–2: 3–36, 1994.
Ortiz de Zuñiga, Iñigo. Visita de la provincia de León de Huánuco en 1562. Edited by John V. Murra. 2
vols. Documentos para la Historia y Etnología de Huánuco y la Selva Central, no. 1–2. Huánuco, Peru:
Universidad Nacional Hermilio Valdizán, Facultad de Letras y Educación, 1967–1972.
■GARY URTON