Historical Context of the Q'ente and Santa Rita De Q'ente Properties (Historic Sanctuary of Machupicchu) and Its Implications for the Machupicchu Property

Baca A.I.U. · Urban Book Series (2025) · DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-94226-6_14

Resumen

The first antecedents regarding the ownership of the Q’ente and Santa Rita de Q’ente properties come from the Sillque hacienda. During the colonial period (seventeenth–eighteenth century), the Sillque hacienda, owned by the Betlemitas, covered extensive territories located on the left bank of the Ollantaytambo and Machupicchu districts. In the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the usufruct of the lands of the Sillque hacienda was accessed through various mechanisms such as inheritance, donation, purchase and sale, leasing, among others, which caused the fragmentation of the Sillque hacienda. In 1944, the Sillque hacienda (also called Cutija or Primavera), owned by Tomasa Ferro de Abrill, was divided among her heirs. As a result of this division, lot No. 4 or Q’ente property was awarded to José E. Abrill Vizcarra, who in September 1944 transferred it by purchase and sale to the Zavaleta Flores family. This transfer did not include the main archeological monuments located on the left bank of the current Historic Sanctuary of Machupicchu. In 1969, the Q’ente and Santa Rita de Q’ente properties were expropriated by the Agrarian Reform Law and registered in the name of the Peruvian government. Since 1977, the government has been assuming the legal defense and has demonstrated through historical and legal analysis that the transfers made during colonial and republican times were illegitimate and affected the intangibility and inalienability of the lands of the current Historic Sanctuary of Machupicchu. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.