From soldiers to encomendero neighbors

A prosopographic reading of the trajectories and routes of the Spanish conquerors in Tucumán (1535-1600)

Abstract

Within the framework of the historical process of the first entries and journeys to “Gobernación de Tucumán, Juríes y Diaguitas”, and the subsequent process of invasion and founding of cities during the second half of the 16th century, we define our general research problem as the process of transformation of the members of the host conqueror of encomendero neighbors. These conquerors present in some cases a peculiar territorial mobility in the course of conquest and invasion. Using the prosopographic method we propose to reconstruct the trajectories of those who once settled in Tucumán continue on the move –participating in different campaigns despite having obtained an encomienda of Indians and neighborhood–, taking the cases mainly from the Proofs of Merits and Services published by Robert Levillier. We hope with this to demonstrate that the process of transformation of “soldiers into neighbors” was not linear or direct, what prevailed in this process was the constant mobilization of human, economic and political resources before -and even after- settling definitively in a city.