The colonization of the valley of Catamarca, all the way to La Rioja, which began with the 1591 expedition, was preceded by that of Sierra de El Alto-Ancasti, referred to in the documents immediately postdating the conquest as Santiago or de Guayamba. The encomienda of the Indians of Figasta (identified as Tabigasta by J.P. Vera), Alijilán (near modern El Alto and Santa Rosa) and Conando (in Andalgalá, in the west of the province), granted to Juan Bautista Alcántara in 1552, was the first awarded in the territories that now form the province of Catamarca (Levillier, 1918–1920, I, p. 350–1; Vera, 1955, p. 13–14; Guzmán, 1985, p. 242). The earliest references to the colonial practices deployed in the land of the then pueblo de indios of Tabigasta (or Tavigasta) come later, in the late 16^th century. In August 1597, Isabel de Alcántara, widow and heir of Diego de Rubira, encomendero from Tabigasta and businessman in La Plata (modern Sucre, Bolivia), sold the livestock she possessed in the sierra near the village of Tabigasta to Francisco de Salcedo, treasurer of the cathedral of Santiago del Estero (Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia -ABNB, EP.64, f. 8r-14v, f. 8, 9v).

The sale also included the land and estancias where the animals grazed, the pens, the springs, and everything in the land, as long as it did not belong to the Indians or to other people (f. 9). This clause anticipated a legal problem that had to be addressed: the Indians in the encomienda of Tabigasta were recognized as owners of the land where Diego de Rubira's livestock grazed. In order to guarantee the legality of the sale, the return to the Crown (dejación) of the encomienda had to be formally declared, leaving the Indians the right to sell the land. The transaction was formally confirmed between December 1597 and January 1598 in Santiago del Estero. The caciques, in the name of the Indians of Tabigasta, sold Francisco Salcedo “barren and depopulated land” (tierras yermas y despobladas) in Tabigasta la vieja for a hundred sheep. According to the document, the few Indians that remained in place still had plenty of land to sale, allegedly better that the ones they had given away (Archivo Histórico de la Provincia de Tucumán -AHPT, Protocolo, A, fs. 5–12v; Lizondo, 1936, p. 118–124; Gramajo, 2001, p. 38–45; Guzmán, 1985, p. 241–6).

This operation completed Isabel de Alcántara's initial sale, so Francisco de Salcedo purchased, by stages, the livestock and the land in which the cattle and horses had grazed. The introduction of European livestock in Sierra de Santiago, after 1552 and before 1597, shows that in the first stage of colonization there was some dissociation between livestock, which was managed remotely by the colonizers, and the lands in which they grazed, which was in this instance solved with the dispossession of part of this land, formalized as a sale. Another kind of colonial livestock, sheep, was used in the appropriation of the land of Tabigasta, in this case as a means of payment.

Tabigasta was surrounded by other colonial possessions: the estates of Bartolomé de Sandoval, Luis de Gallegos de Guzmán, and Francisco ynga Guamantito, a colonist arrived from the Alto Peru with the Spanish, awarded for his participation in the conquest (ABNB, EP.64. 8r−14v; Guzmán, 1985, 250, passim). Of these three, two were remote, and generally, absentee, colonists. Luis de Gallegos and Bartolomé de Sandoval resided in Santiago del Estero, and as was typical among encomienda grantees and major landowners, had a wide business portfolio (Castro and Carmignani, 2017a, p. 18–21), managed remotely through agents. This combination of land ownership and business concerns is clearly reflected in the statements submitted by the residents of Santiago del Estero in 1608 (ABNB, ALP. CaCH.623; Pérez Sáez and Pérez Sáez, 1998, p. 17–108). Luis de Gallegos y de Guzmán, owner of an estate bordering with Tabigasta, is a good illustration of the first and second generation of colonial businessmen: he lived in Santiago del Estero and had a chacra (an agricultural land) to sustain his house near the town and an estancia for ranching. Despite having authority over “up to 120 Indians,” he considered himself poor, to the point of having to manage his possessions himself (ABNB, ALP.CaCH.623, f.42).

The other Spanish encomendero with an estate next to Tabigasta, Bartolomé de Sandoval, does not feature in the 1608 statements. Sandoval died doing something that these men of affairs are found doing often: capturing people (allanamiento y conquista) in the province of Paraguay (Archivo General de Indias -AGI, Charcas, 102, n.15, f.2. Confirmación de encomienda de Pitambalá, 1654). Unlike Luis de Gallegos and Bartolomé Sandoval, who were Spanish-born and lived in Santiago del Estero, it does not seem that Francisco Guamantito (or Guamán Tito) ynga, the other estanciero in the vicinity of Tabigasta, lived outside his estate in Sierra de Santiago; 17^th and 18^th century documents about Francisco ynga and his descendants place the Guamantito and the Guamán (it is unclear whether they are one or two family lines) in different sectors of the hills, in the modern Departamento de El Alto: San José de la Cañada, the earliest (Guzmán, 1985, p. 251), Caña Cruz, Capiambalá, and other possessions north of Tabigasta. We think, therefore, that these yngas not only participated in these early distribution and purchase of mercedes, but that they were a colonizing contingent that settled in the hills early, in the late 16^th century, where they remained for generations. As we shall see, the spatial distribution of colonists, and the development of an agrarian economy, after the initial focus on stockbreeding, were the two decisive factors in the consolidation of the colonial order.

The earliest judicial file in Archivo Histórico de Catamarca is the lawsuit that pitched the Indians of Pomangasta, represented by the protector de los naturales, and Captain Andrés Gil de Esquivel. Gil de Esquivel, born in Tenerife (De la Orden, 2001), was the son-in-law of Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán and was at loggerheads with Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán Jr, his brother-in-law (the copy of the proceedings is in Archivo Histórico de la Provincia de Catamarca -AHPCat. Caja 1. Exp. 1. 1644; a fragment is transcribed in Larrouy, 1914, p. 9–10; comented by Guzmán, 1985, p. 161, passim). Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán “the elder” resided in San Miguel de Tucumán and was granted the encomienda in 1573 (AHPT, Sección Administrativa, I, fs. 1–2; Larrouy, 1915, p. 11; Lizondo, 1936, p. 77–79; Vera, 1955, p. 15–19). Around 1600, Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán's Indians, from Belicha, were reducidos in the village of Pomangasta (modern La Puerta. Figure 1), where, in addition of houses and a church, they are said to have good irrigated land, algarrobos, and hunting grounds (AHPCat. Caja 1. Exp. 1. 1644, fs. 26, passim).

Around 1625, the agent of Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán moved the Indians four leagues to the south (modern Pomancillo) and settled them in an estancia with cereal fields (sementeras), cotton fields, vineyards, and árboles de Castilla, where they bred wild mules (chúcaras) (fs. 30, 47, passim). It is likely that the fields of the colonial estancia that Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán Sr was granted as a merced, around 1600, was in former Indian land. This is suggested by the fact that the owner forbade them to sow inside the estancia, according to one of the court witnesses (f. 31). Obviously, this prohibition barred the Indians from managing the land inside the estancia, but not from working in it. Much to the contrary, for approximately 20 years, before they were definitely taken to the estancia (also called chacra), the Indians had to commute daily from the village of Pomangasta to the fields of the estancia, under the foreman's supervision (f. 34).

One of the witnesses mentions a previous failed attempt to sow cotton in the land near Pomangasta (f. 36). No doubt, this failure largely explains the daily commute and, finally, the final settlement of the Indians in the lowlands, more suitable for cotton, one of the earliest, and most decisive, for the configuration of the post-conquest agrarian landscape of the valley, colonial cultivars in Catamarca. After being forced out of the village of Pomangasta, the Indians se fueron consumiendo, according to one witness (f.35). In 1644, there were only seven of them left, and no caciques, in the estancia owned by Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán. The land around Pomangasta was left void, and the indigenous population, typically brought from Belicha and reducida in Pomangasta, withered away as labor force in the process that eliminated them as a coherent social group.

The early management of land and labor by colonists began in this instance with the expulsion of indigenous population of Belicha and their resettlement in Pomangasta, over 30 leagues away (more than 125 km). It is unclear if all the inhabitants of Belicha suffered this fate or only some, and it is also uncertain if there was population in Pomangasta when the people from Belicha were established there. As we shall see, the merced of Autigasta-Huaycama, farther south in the valley of Catamarca, shows that the early colonial action led to the total or partial displacements of population groups. In any case, the forced resettlement of people was the necessary prelude to dispossession and the extinction of these groups, not necessarily in a biological sense, but as politically relevant social groups able to manage land autonomously.

According to the record, Auti (or Autigasta) was the first merced granted after the expedition of the Spaniards in the valley of Catamarca and the foundation of La Rioja in 1591. In November of that same year, Alonso de Carrión, one of the conquerors and a new resident in La Rioja, was granted the merced of Autigasta by the governor of Tucumán (Larrouy, 1915, p. 3–8; Vera, 1955, p. 32–33; Brizuela, 2003, p. 71–75). The original records that, according to Larrouy (1915, p. 8) were in the Archivo de la Curia Eclesiástica de Catamarca, have not been found, although transcripts of the original document, in later judicial documents have survived (AHPCat, Causa Civil, Caja 14, 1872. Traslado de 1693, fs. 46r-48v).

The new Autigasta was three leagues from north to south (approximately 12.5 km) and as much from east to west, measured from the stream of Santa Cruz or of Huaycama, which ran across the middle of the merced (Figure 2). Based on a copy of the granting document, this land, over 150 km², was “barren and uninhabited.” In the document in which the new owner takes possession (July 1592), it is said that Alonso de Carrión, in addition from receiving the merced, had purchased some land from the Indians (fs. 47r-47v). This contradicts the statement in the previous document that Auti was “uninhabited” (el asiento viejo llamado Auti, f. 47r). In any case, the documents generated after the conquest consolidated a new legal order, doubly endorsed in this instance by the concession of the merced and the sale. Most importantly, these documents based the legitimacy of the process on a perception of “empty” land, like with Autigasta, or with “surplus” land in the aforementioned case of Tabigasta (for this issue, see for instance Lorandi, 1988, p. 157).

Like in earlier instances, the resettlement of indigenous populations kickstarted the sequence of dispossession and appropriation of land and labor. It is impossible to establish to what extent the physical elimination, the escapes, previous captures, and the forced displacements led by encomenderos and their mayordomos drove the severe demographic upheavals brought by colonization. In this instance, it is possible that the toponyms “Huaycama” (or “Guaycama”), one in the merced of Capayán, approximately 50 km to the southwest, and another to the north, in the former land of Rodrigo Núñez Beltrán, are traces of the forced displacement of the inhabitants of the village of Huaycama from the estancia of Autigasta, as suggested by Vera (1955, p. 33).

The población of Autigasta anticipated the creation of estancias “for larger and smaller livestock and vegetable gardens,” plus the hills and algarrobales included in the merced (AHPCat, Causa Civil, Caja 14, 1872. Traslado de 1693, f. 46r). In any case, from an early stage, the main crops in Autigasta were cotton and grapes. In 1597, barely 5 years after the merced was taken possession of, the land was sold “with cotton and vineyards” plus “pastures and springs” (f. 47v). In 1608, the buyer, Juan Bautista Muñoz, vecino of San Miguel de Tucumán, paid 450 silver pesos, a not inconsiderable amount, for 150 young bulls, with “all the cotton harvested in my villages of Guaycama in the valley.” That same year, this same Juan Bautista Muñoz guaranteed a loan for 600 pesos with 200 arrobas of cotton “in the village of Guaycama” (AHPT, Protocolos, serie A, 1588–1610, s.f. Also, Dellepiane, 1966, p. 93–96).

The specialization of the estancias in the valley of Catamarca, like in Autigasta, was made possible, first and foremost, by the appropriation of land, turned legal by the concession of mercedes and sales contracts. Labor, the other necessary factor for the development of this colonial programme, was similarly captured and legitimized through encomiendas. The gradual expansion of these appropriations, however, was indirectly correlated to the availability of indigenous labor. It seems clear that the 1590s, the period in which the earliest land appropriations took place, in both the hills of Santiago and the valley of Catamarca, witnessed the sharpest drop in indigenous population (Carmignani, 2015, p. 15–16). A report, dated to 1607, about conditions in the valley of Catamarca, where “everything is cotton,” and the hills of Santiago, referred to the encomenderos's abuses, land appropriations, and the decrease in indigenous population, part of which sought shelter in the hills, where there were still places “free from Spaniards.” These Indian cimarrones were the target of capture and punishment expeditions manned by armed Indians sent by encomenderos (Castro and Carmignani, 2017b).

Between 1630 and the end of the Calchaquí war, in 1666, some labor force were brought from the far away regions of Chaco and Calchaquí. In this way, the 350 Calchaquíes sent to La Rioja and Catamarca after the 1659 campaign were distributed “for the benefit of vineyards and cotton fields” (Lorandi, 1988, p. 163). Despite the continuing capture of families and piezas in the Chaco frontier (Guzmán, 2016, p. 76), labor from this source was becoming insufficient to supply the colonial crops. In 1693, Captain Sebastián Espeche, sole owner of Santa Cruz (Autigasta), declared to have a single male Indian and two females from repartimiento (Doucet, 1980; Farberman and Boixadós, 2006; Castro, 2017, p. 141; De la Orden, 2018, p. 150). The earliest references to the use of enslaved Africans as labor in Santa Cruz (part of the former estancia of Autigasta), date to the 1730s (Retamero and Quesada, 2024). It is, however, likely, that African slaves were an important part of the workforce in cotton and grain fields in the valley by the late 17^th century. As noted by De la Fuente (1988), the new irrigated colonial agriculture could have hardly been developed without slaves, which were a key source of labor in the most critical points in the agricultural cycle, especially in July-August and November-December.

In contrast with the strict control of African slaves in the Jesuit estancia of La Toma, also in the valley of Catamarca (De la Fuente, 1988), the slaves in Santa Cruz, more than 40 in the late 18^th century, enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy, facilitated by the lack of interest of the patrons of the chaplaincy (capellanía) to which they were attached (Figures 3, 4). The close association of irrigated fields, ranchos (small huts) in which the slaves lived, and the chapel built to their patron saint guaranteed their social cohesion and reflected their autonomy, upheld for three generations. This ability to make their own choices and manage the fields and crops, as well as the sale of the cotton produced domestically, was wiped away by the sale, and subsequent dispersion and individualization, of most members of the community (Retamero and Quesada, 2024).

Despite the large volume of documents generated during the construction of the new colonial order, references to the management of land and, especially, people, immediately after the conquest, are relatively scarce and, often, indirect. For instance, there are no known records from the concession of Tabigasta to Juan Bautista Alcántara, in 1552, to the earliest transactions undertaken several decades later, in the 1590s, by Isabel de Alcántara. This is also the case with Pomangasta. Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán was awarded, as second encomendero, the pueblos of Çucuma, Belicha, and Pomangascha in 1573 (Lizondo, 1936, p. 77–79). However, the references in the above noted lawsuit of 1644 allude to the situation as it was in 1600, when the Indians of Belicha, or some of them, had already been displaced from the village of Pomangasta, and when Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán was awarded the merced of the land of Pomancillo, where he established an estancia. Apparently, not much time passed between the conquest and the earliest distributions (1591) and references to colonial-style management of cotton and vineyard fields (1597), in the case of Autigasta. However, taking into account the proximity of the hills of El Alto-Ancasti (known as Santiago at the time), the distribution of which as mercedes and encomiendas had begun decades earlier, and references to earlier expeditions to the valley of Catamarca, it seems clear that some people were captured there before the colonizing contingent set off from Santiago del Estero in 1591 (Assadourian et al., 2005, p. 65–6). Probably, these captures and the destruction of chacras (cultivated fields), attested decades earlier in Catamarca and Salta, explain that Auti's asiento antiguo was found abandoned in 1591, when the colonization of the valley began.

Although the reasons behind the scarcity of written records about the earliest colonial operations are multiple, a direct relationship is generally observed between the intensity of the colonizing process (increase in the number of new settlers and the expansion of new crops and the fragmentation of the earlier allotments and occupation of the interstices between them) on the one hand, and the proliferation of conflicts and the increasing number of written documents, on the other. In the three examples at hand, the end of the silence or the increase in the documentation coincides with land transactions (concession of mercedes and purchases, for the most part), which can be related to the extension of cultivated land. In some instances, for example in Pomancillo, the establishment of an estancia to grow cotton, vines, and European cereals took a few decades, until after the granting of the earliest encomiendas. In Tabigasta, in the hills of El Alto-Ancasti, the earliest documents known after the award of the encomienda in 1552 had to do with the legal confirmation of rights over some lands purchased by Francisco de Salcedo, treasurer of the cathedral of Santiago del Estero, to the caciques and Indians from the village of Tabigasta between 1597 and 1599 (ABNB, EP64, 8r-16v; 752r-753v; 755v-757r; 766v-768r; Lizondo, 1936, p. 118–124). These lands, allegedly “wild and uninhabited” (yermas y despobladas), were to become “estancias with livestock and some sementeras (authors' emphasis), for shepherds and the sustenance of the country” (Lizondo, 1936, p. 119). Until then, there is no evidence for the development of a colonial-style agriculture in the hills of Tabigasta. However, the area had been frequented earlier by the livestock of Diego de Rubira and his wife and heir, Isabel Alcántara, residents in La Plata (modern Sucre). We shall have the opportunity to comment upon this later. It is in this regard significant that, the later and more abundant records, from the late 17^th and early 18^th century, contain mentions to “plow oxen,” “fanegas of corn and wheat,” and “sementeras of wheat” in this area of Sierra de El Alto-Ancasti, although stockbreeding was still the predominant activity (for instance, AHPCat, Sucesorio. Causa Civil, secc. A; caja 4; exp 180; Castro and Carmignani, 2017b; Moreno et al., 2019).

On the other hand, documents for Tabigasta, Pomangasta, and Autigasta reflect the relationship between putting down in writing rights about land and the consideration of this land as “wild and uninhabited.” This is the expression used to explain a purchase of land by Francisco de Salcedo to the local caciques and Indians, in Tabigasta la Vieja, in 1597. This consideration is based on to the fact that there “were few Indians, and less every day,” with the implication that the did not need the land (Lizondo, 1936, p. 118). The purchase, therefore, was presented as a necessary operation to put land that could (and should) be improved to use. With Autigasta, Alonso de Carrión was granted the merced “of some land and estancia.” In addition to these lands acquired by merced, the document, dated to 1592, implies that Carrión had bought land (perhaps the same or another in Autigasta) from the Indians, “who had already left” (Larrouy, 1915, p. 4). Again, a reference to the “void” on which the colonial appropriation of land rested, according to the written record.

As previously noted, Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán established the estancia of Pomán (modern Pomancillo) around 1600, building a water channel and a mill, and planting a vineyard and a cotton field in former Indian land in the “old asiento of Pomán” or Pomangasta (modern La Puerta), a few leagues to the north, where the Indians had previously been reducidos. The successors of, and litigants for, the rights over the properties of Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán also built a channel and a mill and planted vineyards and cotton in Pomangasta. Andrés Gil de Esquivel, one of the litigants, argued that Pomangasta was not a pueblo, but an estancia. This was based on his, and some witnesses', perception of the measures taken by the estancieros, who not only “injured and harassed” the Indians, but also took them to “remote provinces” to “expel them [from Pomangasta]” (AHPCat, Caja 1, Exp. 1, Causa civil núm. 4512. 1644, f.9). According to some statements, in the “old asiento of Pomán” the process was finally brought to a head in 1625, when the Indians that were left “moved on their own will [to the estancia in modern Pomancillo], because they were few,” according to one of the witnesses summoned to court (f.25). That is, by 1644, in barely a few years, this good land, “enough for over forty Indians,” with water channels and good hunting grounds, managed by the people of Belicha reducida in Pomangasta, had only seven Indians without caciques left, at which time they finally decided to move to work exclusively in the cotton and wheat fields of the colonial estancia (fs.25, 31).

These examples illustrate that the systematic introduction of European crops in these areas of Catamarca began a few decades after the first signs of colonial intervention. Although, as we shall see shortly, the new ranching practices were a decisive tool for European occupation, we think that the colonizing project was consolidated with the gradual introduction of agricultural practices. These new practices led to the proliferation of documents to legitimize the appropriation of land and the need to displace labor to the new estancias. Putting down rights in writing consolidated and legally endorsed the separation of indigenous populations from the land that they had managed until then, even after they were displaced from their places of origin, like in Pomangasta and likely also in Tabigasta.

The relationship between dispossession, a fall in population, and the predominance of personal encomiendas in the former province of Tucumán is well known (Lorandi, 1988, p. 163–5; Doucet, 1990, p. 142; Rubio Durán, 1999; Sica, 2002, p. 13). It should, however, be noted that the notion of “abandonment” or “barrenness” was not solely related to the decline in the indigenous population. I also reflected a long-standing colonial practice of transforming spaces into agricultural land and a civilizing ideology that expressed itself in the notion of land “improvement” (melioratio terrae), a centuries-long feature of medieval Europe (Bartlett, 1993, p. 152–6). The programme responded differently to local conditions. In this way, while the valley was dominated by agricultural enterprises, the hills of Santiago were for the most part used for stockbreeding from the beginning of the colonial period. As noted by Castro and Carmignani (2017a, p. 19–21), the numerous examples contained in the written record show that these regional specialties were part of a strategy that aimed for various production and business opportunities to complement one another. Although in all of these areas agriculture and stockbreeding (and their associated crafts, such as spinning and tanning, among others) coexisted in variable proportions, it has been shown that the new crops, although not universally hegemonic, were the decisive factor in fixing rights over land. Colonial stockbreeding, while not being determinant in spatially fixing territorial dominion (it was in fact, the opposite, as we shall see shortly), played a pioneering role in the process of dispossession, at least in some areas, as we shall see.

Although grazing areas for semi-wild livestock in Latin America grew especially from the second half of the 19^th century onwards, the foundations of this massive transformation were laid in the beginning of the colonial period (Van Ausdal and Wilcox, 2018, p. 186). This not only had to do with the stockbreeding practices (ranching) introduced with the conquest and hegemonically developed in different areas, but also with the associated dispossessions. The examples at hand show that stockbreeding was a decisive component in the transformation of agrarian landscapes, and perhaps the earliest. As noted, the cattle, assess (stallions) and mares owned by Diego Rubira and later by Isabel de Alcántara, absentee managers in La Plata (Sucre), grazed in Tabigasta before the first documented land purchase. One of the witnesses in the lawsuit about Pomancillo, the estancia of Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán, said that he went there to seek cotton and untamed (chúcaras) mules (AHPCat, Caja 1, Exp. 1, Causa civil núm. 4512. 1644, f.47). In Autigasta, the merced included the creation of estancias “for larger and smaller livestock.” Hundreds of larger and smaller animals featured prominently in the description of the expedition to the valley of Catamarca in 1591, which ended up with the foundation of La Rioja.

Obviously, this massive influx of European livestock was part of the programme of colonial specialization implemented with the población of the hills of Santiago and the valley of Catamarca. However, there is enough evidence to think that their introduction was also an effective tool to dispossess and undermine the indigenous communities. Of our three examples, that of Tabigasta illustrates their early (even before the arrival of new colonists) and invasive presence most clearly. We have already pointed out that the first and second generations of beneficiaries of distributions of land and people in the hills of Santiago were absentee colonists. The livestock that grazed in the sierra, near Tabigasta, was one of the business ventures managed by Diego de Rubira and Isabel de Alcántara from La Plata (for instance, ABNB, EP.10. 153–154r; ABNB, EP.48, 438–439v). The document that records the widow Alcantara's sale in favor of Francisco de Salcedo gives a rough estimate of the animals in question: 80 çerreras (wild) mares with their fowls; four garañones assess (stallions), a female donkey, an indeterminate number of horses, and 150 cows de vientre (they could breed). These animals were taken care of by four yanaconas shepherds (yegüerosos y vaqueteros) and their families. The animals grazed on land over which Rubira and Alcántara had no legal ownership, as we have said before.

This example illustrates, first, that the concession of Tabigasta as encomienda and not as merced did not prevent the use of the space associated to the pueblo given in encomienda; and second, that the initial ranching practices did not require for specific rights to be asserted over the land frequented by the livestock, nor for precise land boundaries to be put in writing (Nagel, 2018). The fact that mares, assess, and cattle roamed free in the sierra not only made that unnecessary but fairly impractical. The reference to identify the livestock was not the land it occupied, but the owner's mark. This practice is well documented in early colonial contexts. In this instance, we also know that the cattle bore Diego de Rubira's mark (herradas y señaladas con el fierro. ABNB, EP.64. f.8v). As such, the livestock had to be regularly gathered and counted in rodeos.

These stockbreeding practices, in open areas without precise boundaries, have been widely studied in various colonial contexts, both Iberian and Anglo-Saxon (e.g., on Nueva España, Chevalier, 1966, p. 84–114; Sluyter, 1996; Melville, 1997; on New England, Cronon, 2003, p. 128–148; Anderson, 2004, 2018; Probyn-Rapsey, 2022). Whether the deleterious effect they had upon indigenous spaces and populations was deliberate or not is irrelevant to the fact that they were predictable, and, ultimately, considered acceptable. Obviously, the introduction of this livestock not only had to do with the erosion of spaces and of the communities that had managed them theretofore. Stockbreeding was from the start a specialized economic activity that yielded high returns and opportunities to hegemonically dominate the construction of the social order; 80 mares and 150 cows, all of them de vientre, constitute a not unsubstantial number of animals, illustrating the speed with which herds grew from the beginning of systematic colonization. To pose just one example from the region, in 1608, Juan Bautista Muñoz, the then owner of the estancia of Autigasta, bought 150 steers and bullocks, whose price, 450 silver pesos, was guaranteed with the whole cotton production in Huaycama for the year (AHPT. Protocolos. Serie A. 1588–1610).

These open-space ranching practices have often been related to low human population density, and we have noted that, as the colonization process consolidated with an increase in fixed population, the fragmentation of initial allotments, and agricultural development, tensions for the use of space rose. Obviously, stockbreeding practices did not disappear, but had to adapt to new conditions in the midst of persistent, and often violent, conflict. In the example under analysis, the relationship between low human density and stockbreeding choices, although correct in general, must be qualified. In the previous section we saw that references to the dramatic drop in indigenous population numbers are recurrent from the 1590s and through the 17^th century (Carmignani, 2015, p. 15–16). This process coincides with the consolidation of colonial agricultural practices, especially, but not only, in the valley of Catamarca. That is, overall, it can be argued that initial ranching practices were introduced to a context in which there were more people than when the fragmentation and regularization of boundaries began, from the late 16^th century onwards. Conversely, in the valley, the rapid introduction of new colonial crops, such as cotton and vines, was parallel to a sharp demographic drop, for instance with the “abandoned” asiento (settlement) of Autigasta, and the emptying down of Pomangasta. Again, therefore, the relationship between depopulation and legitimized possession of land and the development of certain agricultural practices, hegemonic or not from a productive perspective, is clear.

The sequence of colonization in the hills of Santiago (El Alto-Ancasti) and the valley of Catamarca shows that, after the capture of booty, mostly of people, came the forced displacement of the surviving populations. It is likely that all documented indigenous populations in this study were already the result of these early population shifts. It is also possible, however, that forced displacements were only a transitory solution in the long process of peasant dispossession by colonial forces (Spalding, 1974, p. 115). In all instances, it is observed that the dislocated populations, turned into workforce, rebuilt, whenever possible, organizations with a political profile, that is, with some ability, no matter how limited, to manage some agrarian spaces and their crops.

In the above noted sale of land in Tabigasta in 1597–8, mention was made of the estancia of don Francisco ynga as one of the property's boundaries. This ynga, also known by the surname Guamantito (or Guamán Tito), purchased some of the land of the village of Capiambalá (in the modern department of El Alto) between 1593 and 1597. This transaction took place when he was already well established in the hills of Santiago, probably in the land obtained through merced for his participation in the conquest (Lafone, 1898, p. 180; Guzmán, 1985, p. 250–1). The descendants of the first Guamantito (or Guamantitos) from Peru, who were awarded new mercedes and made additional purchases, became a significant factor in consolidating the colonial dominion, and their social status reflected this accordingly, as suggested by the title of don and doña and the fact that one of these descendants married María de Gaona, a Spanish woman (AHPCat. Caja 1. Causa civil. Exp. 32, 1693). The Guamantitos illustrate the participation of indigenous people in the construction of the colonial social order alongside the Spanish, as soldiers, taking part in conquests and malocas, and colonizers (other examples in Matthew and Oudijk, 2007).

From at least the late 17^th century, the hegemonic position of the Guamantitos in this area of the hills of Santiago came under threat. In the 1690s, the Spaniard Luis Lobo de Mereles usurped part of the Guamantitos' land in Capiambalá. Although he was expelled by a court order and the Guamantitos kept the land, there is evidence to suggest that this was not an isolated incident. The wills of the granddaughters and great-granddaughters of Francisco Guamantito, the founder of the lineage, reveal that some of the women that kept the name, married to Spaniards, lost their right over the land. In this way, the main beneficiary of the land usurped by Luis Lobo de Mereles was the Spanish husband of a Guamantito woman (AHPCat. Caja 1. Causa civil. Exp. 32, 1693). Another example of the dispossession of the Guamáns was Lorenza, mestiza, single, and without children, whose land was at the center of a lawsuit between a Spanish landowner and the priest Juan Tomás Lobo de Mereles, who was very actively trying to hoard the testamentary bequests of some indigenous women in his parish (AHPCat. Sucesorios. Causa Civil. Sección M. Exp. 66, 1708). In this regard, the assets left by Teresa Guamantito, granddaughter of the first Guamantito in the hills of Santiago, are significant: 26 tame milk cows; two horses; tools; and some domestic utensils (AHPCat. Sucesorios. Causa Civil. Sección C. Caja 2. Exp. 71, 1709). This is a modest legacy compared to that left a few years later by Pascuala de Carrizo, the owner of the neighboring estancia of Guayamba, which included 823 mares, 364 mules, and over 200 cows, alongside other assets (AHPCat. Sucesorios. Causa Civil. Sección C. Caja 3. Exp. 91, 1715).

The history of the Belichas of Pomangasta was very different to that of the Guamantitos. The example of Pomangasta/Pomancillo illustrates the close link between forced displacement to the estancia and the rapid consumption of the workforce until its annihilation. As noted by Sica (2002, p. 13), uprooting people from their land destroyed the indigenous communities' ability to reproduce. In this instance, the outcome was fast. It seems clear that the forced displacement to Pomangasta, although including groups from different regions, did not undermine the ability of the Indians from Belicha and those that were likely already in Pomangasta to autonomously manage their land and hunting grounds. The initial displacement from the ancestral land did not cause an irreversible rupture of the organic relationship of indigenous groups and the land to which they were shifted. It is unclear, however, what effects this displacement had on their region of origin.

The first sign of the erosion of indigenous peasant autonomy in Pomangasta was Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán's project to build a water channel and a mill, to plant vineyards, and to build another channel for the Indians. According to the testimony of the defensor de naturales, who took part in the above noted court proceedings of 1644, this initiative was forfeited by a “general uprising” (1630s). However, the successor of Nuño Rodríguez Beltrán, his son-in-law Andrés Gil de Esquivel, did manage to poblar in the land of Pomangasta, planting a vineyard and building a mill and a channel that deprived the Indians of water (AHPCat, Caja 1, Exp. 1, Causa civil núm. 4512. 1644, f.5). This must have happened after the forced displacement to the estancia of Pomancillo, as previously noted. In fact, this shift, not to a pueblo but to an estancia, was the decisive factor in the loss of autonomy of the community of Pomangasta. By exhaustively consuming indigenous work force, the colonial estancia ended up devouring the community, without land and without the ability to rebuild inside the Spanish chacra.

As previously noted, the document granting the merced of Autigasta (1591) mentions that the land was yermas y despobladas. In another document, dated to 1592, it is said that the Indians were already gone. In 1597, the cotton field and the vineyard were already in place at the estancia. In parallel, the nearby village of Huaycama was partially depleted (Larrouy, 1915, p. 3–8; Brizuela, 2003, p. 72). References to the emptying down of the valley of Catamarca included in an inspection report dated to 1607 are unambiguous, despite the interest that, no doubt, encomenderos had to hide their Indians (De la Orden, 2018; Gordillo, 1999). The cotton fields and sementeras of the encomenderos in the valley were largely supplied with Indians captured in Calchaquí and the Chaco, especially between 1630 and the end of the Calchaquí War in 1666 (Lorandi, 1988, p. 163). The compilation of the miracles performed by the Virgen del Valle as an active combatant against the Indians illustrates the importance of these captures for the continuity of the plantations (Larrouy, 1915). Despite later incursions across the Chaco frontier (Guzmán, 2016, p. 76), the captives must have been insufficient to attend to the colonial crops in the long term.

After the initial displacements, the demanding labor conditions in the cotton fields and vineyards spurred the capture of Indians in increasingly remote frontiers. In the 18^th century, the colonial estancias in the valley of Catamarca were worked by enslaved people. The figures in inventories, parish books, and censuses in the valley of Catamarca reveal the high proportion of people of African descent (for instance Guzmán, 2007, 2016; Moreno, 2014). The estancia of Santa Cruz, in former Autigasta, was one of the main slave hubs (more than 40) in the late 18^th century. According to G. Guzmán (1985, p. 295), there were African slaves in Catamarca in the early 17^th century, only a few years after the conquest. The role played by this workforce brought from afar in sustaining the earliest cotton fields and vineyards is, however, unclear.

In any case, the small size of local indigenous communities and the limited contribution of frontier captures were one of the reasons behind the introduction of African slaves, which soon became a substantial and irreplaceable group. In addition to solving part of the main problem, that of the number of hands working in the fields, this enslaved population, mostly criolla by the 18^th century, had another advantage: to facilitate keeping the workforce in place during the critical periods in which the demands of labor for the most important colonial agricultural products overlapped. This advantage was decisive for the operation of the Jesuitic estancia of La Toma, in the valley of Catamarca (De la Fuente, 1988) but was not as important in the estancia of Santa Cruz, in the former Autigasta, at least during the second half of the 18^th century. In 1755, much of the land of the estancia of Santa Cruz, along with the attached slaves, were donated to the Church (capellanía) to cover the funeral expenses and masses for the soul of the donor and her late husband. The negligence of those in charge of managing these assets (patronos), who showed little interest in making a profit to save the souls of others, helped the slaves linked to the land, the water, and the estancia's chapel, to become a closely-knit community, able to autonomously manage the land to which they were attached and even to sell some of the produce in the market (Retamero and Quesada, 2024).

The record of the lawsuit filed by the slaves against their sale (Archivo del Obispado de Catamarca -AOCat. Capellanías, 1. Capellanía de Santa Cruz. 1796) shows that their main aim was to avoid being torn from the community, which comprised three generations and was formed by families and households (six ranchos in 1783) led by women. In addition to this bold act of resistance, the collective ability to manage the land of the capellanía to which they were tied is remarkable; in the event, the community was dissolved when the sale took place, between July and August 1796. As well as managing the land, these slaves formed family bonds, as the increase in numbers over time was the consequence of biological reproduction within the community and not of the arrival of new members from abroad. To this, we must add relationships with free persons, with which they struck commercial deals and arranged marriages (Retamero and Quesada, 2024).

The sale, authorized by the bishop of Tucumán, yielded some capital with which to explore other business ventures. But this is, in our opinion, not the most remarkable aspect of the abrupt end of the “tacit freedom” which the slaves of Santa Cruz had enjoyed. The sale reproduced the same colonial practice of dissolving productive and organizational structures that resisted, or where difficult to make compatible with, the colonial order, which was largely market-oriented and sustained by an indentured workforce. The life of these slaves in Santa Cruz was thus marked by two dispossessions, whose victims—at least most of them—only knew, at least directly, one of them: the first, the initial capture that separated them from their African origin and led to their, and their descendants', depersonalization and exclusion; the second, a generation or two later, dispossession from the social life formed in the capellanía and the land upon which this had been built. The difference with earlier cases was the speed with which this took place. The initial hegemony of the Guamantito was eroded away over several generations; the consumption of the Indians of Pomangasta took a few years; the dissolution of the African community happened in one stroke.