In any study of a church or a political movement, the obvious subjects of interest are the charismatic leaders and the movers and shakers who make things happen. In this work on the colonial Andean Church, however, the intermediaries and subordinates are the centre of attention. The Indians were sacristans, secretaries and translators, but as author John Charles argues, they were much more: they worked closely with the priests, but at times they cleverly used their knowledge of the conqueror's language and legal system to advance their own interests and those of the local community.

As Charles shows in this well-documented portrayal of the colonial world, the Indians were not the passive and silent victims of an imposed order, as they were sometimes portrayed in older historiography. They acted as conscious intermediaries between the two worlds, and in so doing regained much of the power over their lives and their communities that they had lost after the conquest. Thanks to Spanish paternalism, the Indians used the legal system to their fullest advantage, often overwhelming the courts with unending litigation, much to the chagrin of colonial officials. Other studies have focused on Indian revolutions or outbreaks of idolatry, but in the long run, it was in their manipulation of the system itself – their mastery of Christian doctrine, the language, and Spanish legal procedures – that the Indians were most successful in resisting the system and maintaining their identity.

In the multifaceted colonial world, the Indians were both allies and potential subversives. What most concerned officials were the Indian catechists who, preaching in Quechua or Aymara, presumed that they knew as much or more than the priests. The chronicler Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, who depicted life in early colonial Peru, is a case in point: he drew pictures in which he both praised priests and ridiculed those who, in his opinion, fell short of the mark. Charles aptly describes the ongoing warfare between priests who accused their Indian wards of idolatry, but they frequently did so in retaliation because the Indians had first denounced them for their abusive ways. Even the quipus, the apparently innocent cords the Incas used for accounting purposes, were potentially subversive. The Indians used the cords in confession to give account of their sins – or were they mocking the priest by introducing pre-Christian accounting methods in the context of a sacrament?

Charles draws upon a wealth of colonial documents – legal papers produced in court proceedings, testimonies used in the idolatry campaigns and petitions drawn up by the native assistants themselves – to reconstruct this insightful portrait of colonial Andean society. The documents strengthen the argument that Guamán Poma and other well-known Indian or mestizo chroniclers were not the exception: they were but the more famous among a great number of native scribes, translators and local caciques who entered the fray and made their voice heard. The Indian lenguas, or interpreters, were especially important. They had a command of both Spanish and the Indian languages, which many priests did not. Even if he knew the languages, the priest was always an outsider who depended on his native ‘allies’ to communicate to his wards.

Charles' work contributes significantly to the growing body of literature, duly cited by the author, which aims to penetrate the world of the Andean native subordinates who worked closely with colonial authorities and especially the priests. The overall impression which this work conveys is that the real movers and shakers in colonial Andean society were the native assistants who adroitly moved from the Indian world to the Spanish world and back, while at the same time using their knowledge of both worlds to advance their own interests. The stereotype of passive and ignorant native subordinates has for some time been giving way to a more realistic view of colonial society. This fascinating study of native church assistants should serve to finally do away altogether with that stereotype.