The central focus of this valuable book is the analysis of the social, economic and, to a lesser degree, political roles in late-colonial Peru of the Indian elite of the bishopric of Cusco (from 1784 the intendancies of Cusco and Puno) in the period from the mid-eighteenth century until the foundation in 1824–1825 of the independent republic of Peru. Arguing persuasively that the structures in place at the beginning of this period were essentially those established by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in the 1570s, Professor Garrett devotes the first two of the volume's seven chapters to an examination of the reasons for and the nature of the Spanish crown's need to incorporate the indigenous nobility – a term that embraces both the descendants of the Inca nobility of Cusco itself and the powerful hereditary caciques of the Lake Titicaca basin – into the administrative structures of the viceroyalty as intermediaries between the relatively small population of Spanish settlers and the tens of thousands of Indians who survived the demographic collapse of the first century of colonialism.

By the late-eighteenth century the non-Spanish population, overwhelmingly ‘Indian’, of the diocese of Cusco, which had numbered an estimated one million prior to the Conquest, stood at about 250,000, a figure almost double the size of that of the late-seventeenth century. The city of Cusco, which had a ‘Spanish’ population of some 17,000 according to the 1795 census, stood as a symbol of white authority and power in the region, as to a much lesser extent did that of Puno. However, the descendants of the Inca nobility, and to a lesser extent the hereditary caciques of the territories beyond the partidos of Cusco and Puno themselves, capable of speaking and writing in Spanish when necessary, were adept at operating as powerful actors within this power structure. This they achieved by using the courts to defend their privileges or, at a different level, by collaborating in the functioning of an increasingly exploitative fiscal regime. Inevitably, their incorporation undermined and contradicted the Hapsburg aim of establishing separate republics of Spaniards and Indians, which in any case was largely theoretical because of the parallel policy of granting the former access to the labour and other services of Peru's indigenous population. Within this context there was ample scope for the indigenous elite, headed symbolically by the 24 noble electors of Cusco (who annually selected the alferez real who carried the banner of Santiago in the Corpus Christi procession) to insist upon their indigenous legitimacy whilst also pursuing social and political strategies (for example, entry of their sons into the priesthood and marriages with Spaniards) that made conventional ethnic categories increasingly fuzzy round the edges.

The Rebellion of Túpac Amaru that broke out in 1780, almost at the same time as parallel movements of protest in Upper Peru, represented a serious challenge to not only the colonial state but also the privileged position within it of this indigenous elite. Its almost unanimous response, as chapter six shows, was to proclaim allegiance to the Spanish crown and participate actively in the brutal repression of the rural insurgency that continued until 1783, notwithstanding the execution of Túpac Amaru and his immediate family in 1781. However, to the surprise and dismay of the collaborators, the inflexible peninsular bureaucrats who dominated local administration in the aftermath of the rebellion, preoccupied with both restoring order and increasing the yield of tribute, pursued a conscious policy of marginalising the potentially subversive Indian elite. Increasingly, caciques found themselves liable to be registered as tributaries, and local communities witnessed the tendency for the audiencia of Cusco to confirm the appointment to cacicazgos of well-connected creoles, essentially as tax collectors rather than as the defenders of indigenous rights. Conversely, the ethnic identities incorporated in the structures of the Hapsburg period were further blurred by the attempts of local creoles to appropriate an imagined Inca identity and legitimacy as part of their quest for regional autonomy from Lima, and even, as the so-called Rebellion of Pumacahua of 1814–1815 demonstrated, the creation of an independent Peru with Cusco as its capital.

This is a rich, complex book, which throws much new light upon the history of the indigenous elite of southern Peru, particularly after 1780. It concludes with the conventional observation that the maladroit attempts of Simón Bolívar to improve the lot of the Indians by abolishing not only tribute but also cacicazgos and the inalienability of community lands brought in their train the marginalisation and pauperisation of the indigenous population of southern Peru in the post-1824, creole-dominated republic. One suspects that the next step for revisionism will be to question if this was really what happened, particularly in the Titicaca basin.