Abstract
This study looks at working dynamics in the artisan and manufacturing workshops of the city of Lima from the 16th to the 18th centuries, based on ethnic, cultural and economic criteria, through an analysis of the employment contracts that exist in the archives. That analysis shows that indigenous people, mestizos, enslaved people, freed Afro-descendants and Spaniards all worked together in the artisan and manufacturing workshops of the city but that working conditions differed, depending on their caste and the patronage they enjoyed. Slave owners and relatives obtained better conditions for their pupils than the colonial and municipal authorities obtained for their wards. The study analyses a large number of cases from the 16th and 18th centuries.We see that as the colonial period progressed, work in Lima was governed less and less by norms relating to a worker’s caste, although that does not mean there was a free labour market in the modern sense.
