Abstract

A dossier of documents collected in the 17th and part of the 18th centuries shows that the valley of Chada was affected by a series of Spanish decisions in different spheres (administrative, religious, spatial, economic, and others) which disrupted the existing relationship between the local indian population and the patterns in the use of the land and its resources. Chada is a microcosm of the way in which the Spanish patterns of occupation and production were imposed. The possession of land and livestock was one of the keys to the evidence of Spanish presence and authority in an área marked by visible frontiers between what belonged to the Indians and the Spaniards.