found In the Cordillera Nevada the Mesozoic rocks which form
the chain are often covered by masses of modern volcanic rock.
Similar rocks are also found in the Cordillera Negra, but the volcanic
centres appear to have been in the Sierra Nevada.
Population.—The first trustworthy enumeration of the people of Peru was made in 1793, when there were 617,700 Indians, 241,225 mestizos (Indian and white inter-mixture), 136,311 Spaniards, 40,337 negro slaves and 41,404 mulattoes, making a total of 1,076,977, exclusive of the wild Indians of the montaña. Viceroy Toledo’s enumeration of the Indians in 1575 gave them a total of 8,000,000, the greater part of whom had been sacrificed by Spanish cruelty. Others had withdrawn into the mountains and forests, and in the native villages under Spanish administration the birth rate had dropped to a small part of what it had been because the great bulk of the male population had been segregated in the mines and on the estates of the conquerors. This tells a story of depopulation under Spanish rule, to which the abandoned terraces (andenes) on the mountain sides, once highly cultivated, bear testimony. Several diverse totals have been published as the result of the census taken in 1876, which is considered imperfect. One estimate places the total at 2,660,881, comprising about 13·8% whites, 57·6% Indians, 1·9% negroes, 1·9% Asiatics, chiefly Chinese, and 24·8% mixed races. In 1996 estimates were made under official auspices (see A. Garland, Peru in 1906, Lima, 1907), which gave the population as 3,547,829, including Tacna (8000). It is believed, however, that this and other larger estimates are excessive. There is no considerable immigration.
The population of Peru is mixed, including whites, Indians, Africans, Asiatics, and their mixtures and sub-mixtures. The dominant race is of Spanish origin, to a considerable extent mixed with Indian blood. The Indians are in great part descendants of the various tribes organized under the rule of the Incas at the time of the Spanish conquest. There are two distinct general types—the coast tribes occupying the fertile river valleys, who are employed on the plantations, in domestic service in the cities, or in small industries of their own, no longer numerous, and the sierra tribes, who are agriculturists, miners, stock-breeders and packers, still comparatively numerous. In addition to these are the tribes of wild Indians of the montaña region, or eastern forests, who were never under Inca rule and are still practically independent. Their number is estimated at 150,000 to 300,000, divided into 112 tribes, and differing widely in habits, customs and material condition. Some live in settled communities and roughly cultivate the soil. Others are hunters and fishermen and are nomadic in habit. Others are intractable forest tribes, having no relations with the whites The sierra or upland Indians, the most numerous and strongest type, belong largely to the Quichua and Aymara families, the former inhabiting the regions northward of Cuzo, and the latter occupying the Titicaca basin and the sierras of Bolivia. These Indians are generally described as Cholos, a name sometimes mistakenly applied to the mestizos, while the tribes of the eastern forests are called Chunchos, barbaros, or simply Indians. The Cholos may be roughly estimated at about 1,800,000 and form by far the larger part of the sierra population. Practically all the industries and occupations of this extensive region depend upon them for labourers and servants.
The mestizos are of mixed Spanish and Indian blood. There are two general classes—the costeños or those of the coast, and the serranos or those of the sierras. The mestizos of the coast are usually traders, artisans, overseers, petty officers and clerks, and small politicians. In the sierras they have the same general occupations, but there are no social bars to their advancement, and they become lawyers, physicians, priests, merchants, officials and capitalists. The African and Asiatic elements furnish only about 2% each of the population The Africans were introduced as slaves soon after the conquest, because the coast Indians were physically incapable of performing the work required of them on the sugar estates All the heavy labour in the coast provinces was performed by them down to 1855, when African slavery was abolished. They have since preferred to live in the towns, although many continue on the plantations. The first Chinese coolies were introduced in 1849 to supply labourers on the sugar estates, which had begun to feel the effects of the suppression of the African slave traffic. At first the coolies were treated with cruelty. The scandals that resulted led to investigations and severe restrictions, and their employment now has become a matter of voluntary contract, usually for two years, in which fair dealing and good treatment are the rule. Many Chinese are also settled in the coast cities. Commercial relations have also been opened with Japan, and a small Japanese colony has been added to the population. The Spanish and African cross is to be seen in the mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons that inhabit the warm coast cities. Other race mixtures consist of the zambos (the African-Indian cross), an Asiatic graft upon these various crosses, and an extremely confusing intermixture of the various crosses, for which the Spanish races have descriptive appellations. The foreign population is chiefly concentrated in Lima and Callao, though mining and other industries have drawn small contingents to other places.
Education.—Universities and colleges were founded in Peru soon after the conquest, and Lima, Cuzco, Arequipa and Chuquisaca (now the Bolivian town of Sucre) became centres of considerable intellectual activity. Something was done for the education of the sons of the Indian “nobility,” schools being created at Lima and Cuzco. The university of San Marcos at Lima is the oldest collegiate institution in the New World, originating in a grant from Charles V. in 1551 to the Dominicans for the establishment of a college in their monastery at Lima. Its present name, however, was not adopted until 1574, two years after its first secular rector had been chosen. The college of San Carlos was founded in 1770, and the school of medicine in 1792. At Cuzco the university of San Antonio Abad was founded in 1598, and the college of San Geronimo at Arequipa in 1616. The instruction given in these institutions was of the religious-scholastic character of that time, and was wholly under the supervision of the Church. Independence opened the way for a larger measure of intellectual and educational progress, especially for the lower classes. As organized under the law of the 5th of December 1905, primary instruction is free and nominally obligatory, and is under the control of the national government. The primary schools are divided into two grades: a free elementary course of two years, and a higher course of three years, in a school called the “scholastic centre,” in which learning a trade is included. There were 1508 elementary schools and 862 scholastic centres in 1906. There are, besides these. a large number of private schools, which in 1906 carried about 22,000 pupils on their rolls, or three times the number in the public primary schools. To provide teachers six normal schools have been established, two of which (one for males and one for females) are in Lima. For intermediate or secondary instruction there are 23 national colleges for boys in the various departmental capitals, and three similar colleges for girls, in Ayacucho, Cuzco and Trujillo. In these the majority of pupils were under the direction of Belgian and German instructors. The private schools of this grade are still more numerous, and there are a number of special schools that belong to the same category. For higher instruction there are four universities: the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos at Lima, and three provincial institutions at Arequipa, Cuzco and Trujillo. All these have faculties of letters and law, and San Marcos has in addition faculties of theology, medicine, mathematics and science, philosophy and administrative and political economy. The professional schools include a school of civil and mining engineering at Lima (created 1876), a military school at Chorrillos under the direction of French instructors, a naval school at Callao, nine episcopal seminaries (one for each diocese), a national agricultural school in the vicinity of Lima (created 1902), and a few commercial schools. There is also a correctional school at Lima devoted to the education and training of youthful delinquents.
Science and Literature.—Towards the end of the 18th century scientific studies began to receive attention in Peru. M. Godin, a member of the French commission for measuring an arc of the meridian near Quito, became professor of mathematics at San Marcos in 1750; and the botanical expeditions sent out from Spain gave further zest to scientific research. Dr Gabriel Moreno (d. 1809), a native of Huamantanga in the Maritime Cordillera, studied under Dr Jussieu, and became an eminent botanist. Don Hipolito Unanue, born at Arica in 1755, wrote an important work on the climate of Lima and contributed to the Mercurio peruano. This periodical was started in 1791 at Lima, the contributors forming a society called “amantes del pais,” and it was completed in eleven volumes. It contains many valuable articles on history, topography, botany, mining, commerce and statistics An ephemeris and guide to Peru was begun by the learned geographer Dr Cosme Bueno, and continued by Dr Unanue, who brought out his guides at Lima from 1793 to 1798. In 1794 a nautical school was founded at Lima, with Andres Baleato as instructor and Pedro Alvarez as teacher of
the use of instruments. Baleato also constructed a map of Peru.
