In this collection of innovative essays an international team of contributors provides theoretical, methodological and substantive empirical analyses of a long-neglected topic in Latin American research. The essays are written from a multi-disciplinary perspective and thus provide data and novel interpretations that represent an important step forward in colonial Latin American studies. The picture that emerges is one of colonial Spanish America in a state of continual flux: spatial mobility was no less pronounced than social and racial change. Covering countries as varied as Bolivia and Costa Rica, and ranging in time from the sixteenth through the mid-nineteenth century, these studies will attract the attention of all Latin American specialists.

List of figures; List of tables; Notes on contributors; Preface; 1. Introduction: towards a typology of migration in colonial Spanish America David J. Robinson; 2. Indian migration and community formation: an analysis of congregación in colonial Guatemala George Lovell and William R. Swezey; 3. Migration in colonial Peru: an overview Noble David Cook; 4. Migration processes in Upper Peru in the seventeenth century Brian Evans; 5. '... residente en esa ciudad ...': urban migrants in colonial Cuzco Ann Wightman; 6. Frontier workers and social change: Pilaya y Paspaya (Bolivia) in the early eighteenth century Ann Zulawski; 7. Student migration to colonial urban centers: Guadalajara and Lima Carman Castañeda; 8. Migration, mobility, and the mining towns of colonial northern Mexico Michael M. Swann; 9. Migration patterns of the novices of the Order of San Francisco in Mexico City, 1649-1749 Elsa Malvido; 10. Migration to major metropoles in colonial Mexico John Kicza; 11. Marriage, migration, and settling down: Parral (Nueva Vizcaya), 1770-1788 Robert McCaa; 12. Informal settlement and fugitive migration amongst the Indians of late-colonial Chiapas, Mexico Rodney Watson; 13. Migration and settlement in Costa Rica, 1700-1850 Hector Pérez Brignoli; 14. Seventeenth-century Indian migration in the Venezuelan Andes Edda O. Samudio A.; 15. Indian migrations in the Audiencia of Quito: Crown manipulation and local co-optation Karen Powers; Notes; Index.