Kasha Tampu

Kasha Tampu, or Cajatambo, belonged to an Andean region reorganised after the Spanish conquest through encomiendas and then a corregimiento. The new jurisdiction established in 1576 reunited much of the territory of the earlier Inca province. Paths climbed the river valleys from the coast and joined routes towards Huaylas and Huánuco, carrying people and goods between settlements.

From the late sixteenth century, textile workshops sent cloth and sheep's wool through this network, while mining drew further traffic towards the coast. Silver discovered at Chingos in 1584 raised hopes of another Potosí, but within a few years miners were ruined and the centre failed to meet those expectations. Churches founded across the district in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries also gave the reorganised settlements new places of worship, adapted by local builders to Andean materials and Christian ritual.