The Cerro de la Sal or Cerro de Sal, (''Mountain of Salt'') is located in
Villa Rica District of
Oxapampa Province in
Pasco Department
Pasco () is a department and region in central Peru. Its capital is Cerro de Pasco.
Political division
The region is divided into 3 provinces (, singular: ), which are composed of 28 districts (''distritos'', singular: ''distrito'').
Provin ...
,
Peru
Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
. The Cerro de la Sal was an important source of salt for the pre-Columbian
indigenous people
There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
of the
Amazon Basin
The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries ...
in Peru. Because of the seasonal concentration at the mountain by indigenous people (Indians), especially the
Asháninka
The Asháninka or Asháninca are an Indigenous people living in the rainforests in the regions of Junín, Pasco, Huanuco, and Ucayali in Peru, and in the State of Acre in Brazil. Their ancestral lands are in the forests of Junín, Pasco, H ...
and
Yanesha (Amuesha), Spanish missionaries, settlers, and soldiers were attracted to the Cerro de la Sal as early as 1635. Several attempts by
Franciscan
The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...
missionaries to establish
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
missions in the area were thwarted by uprisings of the indigenous people. In the late 19th century the Peruvian government established a foothold leading to the settlement of Europeans and Andean peoples in the area.
Cerro de la Sal is used loosely to refer to the surrounding region and to the chain of mountains extending eastward from the salt deposits.
Description
Google Earth locates the Cerro de la Sal about north of the town of Villa Rica. José Amich, an 18th-century Franciscan missionary, described the Cerro (mountain or hill) as shaped like a loaf of bread, running for "three leagues," , to the southwest and many more leagues to the northeast. The vein of salt was on the surface near the summit of the mountain and was "thirty varas," wide. The salt was mixed with stone and red clay. The Cerro de la Sal extends southwestern to near the Paucartambo River which merges with the
Chanchamayo River
The Chanchamayo River (possibly from Quechua ''chanchay'' to walk and leap about, to walk quickly and confused, ''chancha chancha'' to walk quickly and irregularly, ''shancha'' a kind of bird, ''mayu'' river,) is a river in the Junín Region in Per ...
from the south. Below the junction, the river was initially called the River de la Sal, but later became known as the
Perené River
The Perené River () is a Peruvian river on the eastern slopes of the South American Andes.
It is formed at the confluence of the Chanchamayo and Paucartambo Rivers, above the community of Perené, actually two pueblos of Santa Ana and Pampa ...
. The rivers were the principal means of transporting the salt from the Cerro to the people living in the lowlands of the Amazon Basin.
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The Cerro de la Sal has an elevation of about and is surrounded by higher mountains that rise to a maximum elevation of about . Below elevations of about the climate is
tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...
(Af in the
Köppen Classification Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
). Above that elevation the climate is sub-tropical (Cfb in the Köppen Classification).
Indigenous people
In pre-Columbian times, the indigenous people living in the Cerro de la Sal area had commercial relationships with the
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...
, but retained their independence.
The Cerro de la Sal was the preferred source of salt for the region to the east called the
Gran Pajonal
The Gran Pajonal (Great Scrubland or Great Savanna) is an isolated interfluvial plateau in the Amazon Basin of Peru. It is located in the departments of Ucayali, Pasco and Junín. The plateau is inhabited by the Asháninka or Ashéninka peopl ...
with indications that it was traded as far away as
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
to the
Tupi people
The Tupi people, a subdivision of the Tupi-Guarani linguistic families, were one of the largest groups of indigenous peoples in Brazil before its colonization. Scholars believe that while they first settled in the Amazon rainforest, from abo ...
, despite the difficulty of transporting water-soluble salt in a humid region.
[ Downloaded from JSTOR.] The
Asháninka
The Asháninka or Asháninca are an Indigenous people living in the rainforests in the regions of Junín, Pasco, Huanuco, and Ucayali in Peru, and in the State of Acre in Brazil. Their ancestral lands are in the forests of Junín, Pasco, H ...
or Campa who lived in the Amazon basin east of the Cerro and in the Gran Pajonal, seem to have exercised control over the salt deposits, bartering the rights to mine the salt for feathers, birds, monkeys, clothes, and other items with other peoples. The
Yanesa (Amuesha), who lived north of the Cerro, were also present.
The Asháninka and others congregated near the Cerro by the hundreds in the comparatively dry months of July through September to mine the salt. The workers cut blocks of salt from the vein weighing approximately each. Each block was carried by a porter a few kilometers to the Paucartambo River. The salt was loaded onto
balsa
''Ochroma pyramidale'', commonly known as balsa, is a large, fast-growing tree native to the Americas. It is the sole member of the genus ''Ochroma'', and is classified in the subfamily Bombacoideae of the mallow family Malvaceae. The tree is fa ...
wood
raft
A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barre ...
s and transported down the river to the peoples living in the low jungles of the Amazon Basin. As many as 600 rafts per season carried salt down the rivers.
During the other nine months of the year the Cerro de la Sal was almost abandoned. A Spanish expedition in May 1691 found only 44 people there of whom a few were mining salt. Reasons for the seasonality of people at the Cerro de la Sal include the difficulty of navigating the flooded highland rivers during the rainy season and the fact that the Cerro has an elevation above the maximum elevation for the cultivation of
manioc
''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...
, the principal food crop of the indigenous people of the low jungles.
Catholic missionaries
The Spanish religious, military and secular authorities realized the strategic importance of the Cerro de la Sal early in the 17th century.
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
Franciscan
The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...
missionaries were attracted to the Cerro de la Sal because of the seasonal congregation of large numbers of indigenous people there. A large number of Christian missions collectively called the Cerro de la Sal missions would be established in the region. In 1635 a Franciscan mission was established at Quimiri, later
La Merced, and the Franciscans requested 50 Spanish soldiers to control access to the salt mines to bring the indigenous people under the control of the Spanish.
The indigenous people were resistant. In 1637, the pioneering missionaries, Jerónimo Jimenez and Cristóbal Larrios, and five more Spaniards were killed by the indigenous. In 1641 and 1645, five additional Franciscans were killed and the Cerro de la Sal missions were abandoned.
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From about 1645 to 1651 a Spanish adventurer known as
Pedro Bohórquez
Pedro Chamijo (1602 in Granada, Spain – January 3, 1667 in Lima, Peru), more commonly known as Pedro Bohórquez (or Bohorques) or Inca Hualpa, was a Spanish adventurer in the Viceroyalty of Peru. He was probably born in Spain, but some sources sa ...
led an expedition of 40 men to the Cerro de la Sal area in search of the fabled city of
Paititi
Paititi is a legendary Inca lost city or utopian rich land. It allegedly lies east of the Andes, hidden somewhere within the remote rainforests of southeast Peru, northern Bolivia or northwest Brazil. The Paititi legend in Peru revolves around the ...
, reputed to be lost in the Amazon rain forests. During a stay at Quimiri, Bohórquez and his men abused the local Asháninka people, some of whom had been converted to Christianity by the Franciscans. In 1673, the Franciscans returned again to the Cerro de la Sal area, but in 1674 a convert named Mangoré killed 5 missionaries with arrows. Mangoré opposed the Franciscan's attempt to abolish
polygyny
Polygyny () is a form of polygamy entailing the marriage of a man to several women. The term polygyny is from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); .
Incidence
Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any other continent. Some scholar ...
. Mangoré's attempts to wipe out the Christians ended when Christian converts killed him at Quimiri. The missions of Quimiri and Huancabamba survived that uprising, but were destroyed and three priests killed in 1694.
In 1709, the Franciscans came back to the Cerro de la Sal area, this time with more resources and personnel. From a base at the
Convent of Santa Rosa de Ocopa in the Andes, they reestablished missions at Cerro de la Sal and Quimiri, and along the salt trading route down the
Perene River at Metraro, Eneno, Epillo, Pichana, and San Judas Tadeo. To attract the indigenous people the missionaries distributed steel knives and fishhooks as well as religious materials. Once again the missions failed. An epidemic in 1722-1723 reduced the population of Eneno from 800 to 220 and the other Cerro de la Sal missions suffered similarly. The indigenous people avoided the missions, associating them with disease and death. From 1742 to 1752, a messianic movement headed by
Juan Santos Atahualpa destroyed the missions and the Spanish lost control of Cerro de la Sal and much of the region. The indigenous people led by Juan Santos defeated Spanish military expeditions sent to the region and for the next 100 years were unmolested by the Spanish and their Peruvian successors. Eleven Franciscan missionaries in the Cerro de la Sal missions were killed by the indigenous people during the 18th century.
Peru gains control
The Peruvian government, now independent from Spain, established a fortress in 1842 at what became the town of
San Ramon along the Chanchamayo River south of the Cerro de la Sal. Thus, the government began the reconquest of the region lost during the Juan Santos Atahualpa rebellion. It was a "violent conquest" and initially unsuccessful due to the opposition of the Asháninka. Military expeditions in 1868 and 1869 were unsuccessful, but destroyed or confiscated much Ashásnika property. The government proposed stationing up to 200 soldiers at the Cerro de la Sal. This was never realized, but beginning in 1873, the Peruvian government promoted the settlement of people imported from Europe. Several thousand Italians were settled south of the Cerro de la Sal in Asháninka territory and Germans and Austrians were settled north of the Cerro in Amuesha territory. In the 1890s, a British company, the
Peruvian Corporation, gained a concession along the rivers near the Cerro de la Sal and sold land to British and Dutch settlers. Peruvians, including landless Peruvians displaced in the Andes, also began to migrate into the region to obtain land.
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In 1896 and 1897 a Catholic priest, Gabriel Sala, visited the Cerro de la Sal. He found that European settlers had been preventing the indigenous people from mining the salt for their use and instead enslaving them to exploit the salt for commerce. The government encouraged the settlers to exploit the salt by granting it exemptions from taxes and created a Salt Monopoly to market the salt. The response of the Asháninka had been to destroy the farmsteads of British settlers. However, the advance of the European and Andean settlers (plus Chinese brought in as farm workers) during the
rubber boom
The Amazon rubber cycle or boom (, ; , ) was an important part of the socioeconomic history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related to the commercialization of rubber and the genocide of indigenous peoples.
Cente ...
was inexorable and the indigenous were forced away from the Cerro de la Sal. The nearby town of Villa Rica was founded in 1928 by settlers of German ancestry from
Pozuzo and
coffee
Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
became the principal cash crop of the region. Until the 1980s the indigenous people continued to visit Cerro de la Sal and extract salt to carry back to their homes in the more remote parts of the Amazon Basin.
References
{{reflist
Edible salt
Mountains of the Department of Junín
Economic history of Peru
Mountains of the Department of Pasco
Amazon basin
History of Indigenous peoples of South America