ABSTRACT
The Chibcha were a sedentary agricultural people with local, ranked political hierarchies, and incipient state formation at the regional level when the Spanish conquerors arrived in 1537. One of the earliest documents containing data on population is a partial estimate that appears to refer to tributary Indians in some Sabana communities in 1556. It includes Indian pueblos within a six league radius of Santa Fe, and was part of the information submitted by clergy to the crown as the basis for their petition for aid in building monasteries. There were two visitas carried out in the early seventeenth century, from which population figures on a few communities are available. One was done in 1600, and has very little on population as such aside from the infrequent mention of numbers of indios útiles. The other was carried out in 1603-1604, and has a breakdown of population, distinguishing tributaries from other categories of natives, but covering a very limited number of communities.
