What did the mita system do?

journal article

Econometrica

Vol. 78, No. 6 (November, 2010)

, pp. 1863-1903 (41 pages)

Published By: The Econometric Society

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40928464

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Abstract

This study utilizes regression discontinuity to examine the long-run impacts of the mita, an extensive forced mining labor system in effect in Peru and Bolivia between 1573 and 1812. Results indicate that a mita effect lowers household consumption by around 25% and increases the prevalence of stunted growth in children by around 6 percentage points in subjected districts today. Using data from the Spanish Empire and Peruvian Republic to trace channels of institutional persistence, I show that the mita's influence has persisted through its impacts on land tenure and public goods provision. Mita districts historically had fewer large landowners and lower educational attainment. Today, they are less integrated into road networks and their residents are substantially more likely to be subsistence farmers.

Journal Information

Econometrica publishes original articles in all branches of economics - theoretical and empirical, abstract and applied, providing wide-ranging coverage across the subject area. It promotes studies that aim at the unification of the theoretical-quantitative and the empirical-quantitative approach to economic problems and that are penetrated by constructive and rigorous thinking. It explores a unique range of topics each year - from the frontier of theoretical developments in many new and important areas, to research on current and applied economic problems, to methodologically innovative, theoretical and applied studies in econometrics.

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The Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation to statistics and mathematics.

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Mit'a was mandatory public service in the society of the Inca Empire. Its close relative, the regionally mandatory Minka is still in use in Quechua communities today and known as faena in Spanish. Mit'a was used for the construction of roads, bridges, agricultural terraces, and fortifications in ancient Peru.
Historians use the hispanicized term mita to differentiate the system as it was modified and intensified by the Spanish colonial government, creating the encomienda system.
Mit'a was effectively a form of tribute to the Inca government in the form of labor, i.e. a corvée. In the Incan Empire, public service was required in community-driven projects such as the building of their extensive road network. Military service was also mandatory.
All citizens who could perform labor were required to do so for a set number of days out of a year. The Inca Empire's wealth would cause a family often to require only sixty-five days to farm; the rest of the year was devoted entirely to the mit'a. A relative of the Mit'a is the modern Quechua system of Mink'a or faena, which is mostly applied at small-scale villages.

Machu Picchu has been declared as One of the Seven wonders of the world in 2007 at Lisbon, Spain.

Mita system was one of the best invention of Inca government. Enormous construction of highways and structures were possible because of their Mita system. In this system all the people worked for government for a certain period. This labor was free to government. During Inca period people were needed to work only 65 days to provide food for his family. So they had ample time afterwards. When someone's turn came (actually Mita means turn) he joined Mita. It was like pubic service system of modern times. Government took care of the family who was absent in the while working in Mita. In Mita people worked in building highways, construction of Emperor and nobles house, monuments, bridges, temple fields, Emperor fields and also in mines.

• The System..

Once a person turned into fifteen, it became obligatory to participate in the Mita. It remain mandatory for a person until he became fifty. But Inca government always wisely calculated the amount of time one could share in Mita. Overseers were responsible to make sure that a person after fulfilling his duty in Mita still had enough time to for his own land and family.

• Lands were categorized...

During Inca period people were mostly depended on cultivation of their land. All the filed of the Empire were divided into four category, like field of Temple, Curacas, The emperor and fields of the people. Field of the people meant fields that belonged to sick, widows, old persons, wives of the soldiers and that of his own land.

At the beginning of the plowing time people started to work first at the fields of widows, of sick people and of wives of the soldiers under the direction of the village overseers. Then they worked on their own field. Next they worked on the Temples fields and Curaca's field and finally they have to work on Emperor's filed. While they worked on the Emperor's field they usually wore their best dress and men and women chanted songs in praise of the Inca.

This fine structures were the produce of Mita system

• Soldiers benefited..

When people were engaged in war, their fields were cultivated by Mita people. So this way soldier went to the wars knowing that their fields would be taken care of and their family would be well fed and clothed. So Inca soldiers could concentrate on what they were doing and with enhanced loyalty.

• Mita during Spanish rule

Colonial administrators instituted the Mita system in 1605, requiring indigenous men to perform two to four months of forced labor in the mines or factories owned by Spanish colonials. Thus the Incas' Mita system of forced labor for the common good was misused by the Spanish for mining gold and silver for the Crown. When people were engaged in Mita they were baptized, ultimately Mita system became slavery under the guise of educating and converting the local people to Catholicism.

• Working in mines

During Inca period people had to work four months in mines, then they returned home. During Spanish regimes number of months required to work in mines remained same, but they had to go through other conditions of work, which made it impossible for them to come back home. While they worked in the mines they had to spend money on buying foods and paying taxes. Earning was so low that they were always in debt. Now the rule was that a miner could not leave the mine until he paid his debts. If a man died then his children had to work in mines to pay the debts, so eventually they were in a circle, and rarely came back home.

What was the effect of the mita system?

What was a mita and how was it used?

What was the mita system world history?