In this forum, four scholars re-examine the noble or commoner status of Indigenous Andean chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. They debate the validity of his assertions and how the conditions of his life should frame our reasoning. They re-consider how written documents were used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A handful of archival documents generated by petitions and lawsuits fuels this scholarly reconsideration of his lineage, local status, and economic circumstances. These court cases enliven the study of this fascinating historical figure who wrote a long letter to the King accompanied by hundreds of line drawings. In the first article in the forum, historians Adrian Masters and Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra shape the discussions over Guaman Poma’s rank and status into a debate. They unequivocally declare Guaman Poma a commoner who unsuccessfully attempted to use an increasingly document-oriented colonial system to gain power and official recognition. They assert that this commoner Lázaro was an imposter whipped for falsely asserting an Indigenous elite heritage (cacique). They argue that Lázaro’s commoner status further elevates his historical importance for the study of the early modern era. In two responses to these assertions, historians Francisco Quiroz Chueca and José de la Puente Luna point out the many ways scholars have already been raising questions about Guaman Poma’s identity, and they voice caution about how much the existing documents can definitively resolve these questions. In a rebuttal, Masters and Cañizares-Esguerra return to underscore why they think Guaman Poma was an “uncommon commoner.”

This article parts from the premise that the famous Andean chronicler don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, long understood as a native lord, was the indigenous commoner Lázaro. This insight, rarely acknowledged by scholars, opens new horizons. It expands our understanding of the transformations gripping Andes society at the end of the sixteenth century, which was experiencing a steady but unmistakable ‘archivalization’ in which social status became increasingly tied to documentary collections. Lázaro’s quest to fashion himself as a lord ran headfirst into this archival record, revealing new challenges commoners faced in navigating post-conquest society. Centering Lázaro as the author of the opus the Primera nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615) also reveals important aspects about its structure, content, and aims. We argue that Guaman Poma’s work was primarily a critique of this emerging archive; he cast himself as a Christ-like ecclesiastical investigator. He listened to the poor, Christ-like, yielding him secret insights into Peru’s woes. But he was also like Christ in that he possessed an ancient Davidic lineage: He was a commoner-king. We conclude by rethinking Lázaro’s life and work through the lens of other commoner-iconoclasts of microhistorical fame: Martin Guerre and Mennochio.

Guaman Poma does not need to be presented as a superhero to highlight his place in history as the author of a codex containing a protest, a proposal, and a history of the Andes. Indeed, the case of Guaman Poma must be understood in its historical context, as it has been studied since its publication in Paris almost a century ago, in 1936. Thanks to rigorous studies by scholars from many countries, we are increasingly learning more about the author and his work, concluding that this is a completely plausible case—a product of the circumstances in which he lived, was formed, and developed over several decades during the consolidation of the colonial regime in the Andes.

We demonstrate that there is almost universal historiographical consensus that Guaman Poma was an Indigenous elite, partly because all his various writings claimed he was and partly because his vast access to paper, print, and knowledge could have not possibly be accessed by a commoner. We trace many commoners in early seventeenth century Peru that, like Guaman Poma, mastered literacy, print culture, and vast knowledge, while claiming noble status. He was not alone. We also insist that his Coronica demonstrates profound changes in bottom-up indigenous political dialogue in the wake of the Toledan reforms of the 1570s. As claims now began to be supported by archival documentation, social mobility could no longer rely solely on charismatic authority and mobilization of witnesses. Guaman Poma repeatedly failed at producing archival documentation to back up his claims to nobility, testing the patience of multiple Indigenous communities and leading to a life of expulsion, itinerancy, and poverty that paradoxically helped to make his genealogical claims even more grandiose.