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The purpose of a colonial endeavor is never explicit. Though a colonizer projects some motivations more clearly than others, there always emerges multiple motives behind their involvement in a certain country or region. In the Andes, the multiple motivations of its various colonizers have constructed the coca-consciousness that currently defines Andean life. In this section, I will break down some of the motivations behind Spanish Colonialism in the Andes, illustrating how it set the stage for coca’s current position as a symbol of cultural and economic survival.

Motivations

Upon their arrival in the Andes in the sixteenth century and continuing through the early 1800s, the Spanish unabashedly pursued a dualistic moral and economic mission. In 1524, Pizarro set out to explore the unknown lands of what we today call Colombia and Peru. Mortimer reports that “rumors of fabulous wealth” in the area initially incited the explorer’s interest (Mortimer 1901: 91). However, as Mortimer goes on to illustrate, his desire for plunder was only satiable when coupled with religious justification. After initially encountering stiff resistance from the indigenous people, Pizarro sought help from the Spanish colony in Panama. Initially, the governor of this colony was not inclined to assist Pizarro as he considered him to be nothing more than a “rash adventurer” (Mortimer 1901: 92). It was until Pizarro’s assistant, Father Hernando de Luque (a Catholic Priest) presented a religiously based argument that the governor agreed to help the conquistador. Thus, as Mortimer states, religion was “the inspiring force, and plunder…the objective points” of the Spanish’s Latin American conquests (Mortimer 1901: 92). Though rumors of wealth drew the Spanish to the Andes, they could only legitimately access this wealth when they coupled their secular ambitions with a higher moral purpose.

Contributions to a Coca Consciousness

This dualistic colonial endeavor played a significant role in solidifying coca as an integral component of the Andean identity. In the Incan culture, coca was regarded as “the divine plant” that permeated and brought meaning to all of Andean existence (Mortimer 1901: 7). Allen reports that in order to be considered Runa or a ‘real -person’ in Andean culture, one must chew coca. She states that “to chew coca is to affirm the attitudes and values - the habits of mind and body – that are characteristic of indigenous Andean culture” (Allen 1988: 22). In this sense, we see that prior to the Spanish conquest of the 1500s, coca was not Andean but simply constituted a component of everyday human life. Though it was integrally linked to a person’s humanity, the construction of a conscious Andean identity had not yet begun.
It was not until the Spanish invasion of the 1500s that a specifically Andean identity began to develop. As the Comaroffs state, that arrival of a colonizing force causes the colonized to gradually “…objectify their world in relation to a novel other, thereby inventing for themselves a self-conscious coherence and distinctness” (Comaroff 2002: 501). The Spanish represented this initial objectifying force in the Andes. As Mortimer states, “…these invaders did not simply overthrow the existing government and permit native customs to continue under a new control, but they attempted to annihilate not only the people but their customs and traditions” (Mortimer 1901: 97). This attempt by the Spanish to overwhelm any sense of Andean indigenous identity in favor of a Spanish identity provided a competing and often hostile objectification of humanity. Such an objectification gave the Andean people ‘an other’ off of which to develop an individual and consciously Andean identity.

The coca leaf played a significant role in this emerging Andean consciousness as it emerged as a key symbol, differentiating the colonized from their colonizers. Allen states,
“it was out of this historical situation – the colonial holocaust… – that the cultural identity of Runakuna (Plural form of Runa, Quechua for human being) took shape, and that coca use came to signify Indianness” (Allen 1988: 221). When the Spanish first arrived in the Andes, a long and bitter debate erupted over the continuation of coca production in the Andes. Those involved in the moralizing mission of the church called for its complete eradication from society. Sanabria states that “…because [coca] was deeply embedded in the Andean cosmology and world view, [it] was an intractable barrier to the Christianization of the ‘pagans’” (Sanabria 1993: 39). This initial attack on coca by the Church acted to accentuate coca as an Andean symbol, giving it more value in the Andean consciousness than less controversial symbols.

However, the economic faction of the Spanish colonizing force took issue with the Church’s calls for prohibition. They feared that without coca, the indigenous “…would neither work nor mine…,” bringing the entire colonial economy to a halt (Sanabria 1993: 40, Mortimer 1901: 9). Succumbing to these powerful economic fears, the Spanish permitted the existence of Coca. This act, in addition to preserving the legality of a crucial Andean symbol, also laid the foundation on which coca production would become an essential Andean industry. After its official legalization, the demand for coca by the indigenous miners and other labors increased. This demand constructed coca as a profitable commodity, inspiring both Andean peasants and mestizos to use their fields for coca cultivation. Furthermore, this new profitability facilitated the expansion of coca cultivation into areas in which coca had previously been absent. One such area was Bolivia’s Chapare region, in a sense, laying the seeds (excuse the pun) for, what in the middle twentieth century would become one of the world’s largest coca producing areas.