Through archaeological survey and excavation, coupled with archival research, I will examine how Spanish conquest and colonization transformed the social and natural landscapes of the Viceroyalty of Peru in the 16th and 17th centuries AD - specifically, through the forced resettlement of indigenous people into planned towns (the reducci6n movement) in the Zana and Chaman river valleys, on Peru's north coast. I hope to clarify the scale and scope of the movement and the processes through which it was enacted -particularly how indigenous socio-political structures, culture, and agency influenced its articulation at local scales. In turn, I will investigate the effects of the movement and parallel changes in colonial political economy on indigenous daily life and cultural practices. By placing these developments in their long-term context, I will consider their formative role in colonial ethnogenesis and the development of early modern European statecraft. By so doing, I will also provide a research model that can be applied in other regions of the Americas to characterize this critical but poorly-known colonial phenomenon.