Villa Rica District

The Paucartambo River is the southern border of Villa Rica District.

Indigenous people. In pre-Columbian and colonial Peru, what would later become the Villa Rica District was important for a large vein of salt, the Cerro de la Sal (Hill of Salt). The exposed salt vein was about 17 metres (56 ft) wide and ran along the top of a hill for a distance of about 13 kilometres (8.1 mi). The Cerro de la Sal was the preferred source of salt for the indigenous people in the region and they congregated there 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 of a size, approximately 20 kilograms (44 lb), that could be carried by a single porter a few miles to the Paucartambo River. The salt was loaded onto balsa wood rafts and transported down the Paucartambo River to its junction with the Chanchamayo River, forming the Perené River, and hence onward to the peoples living in the low jungles of the Amazon Basin. As many as 600 rafts per season carried salt down the rivers.[5]

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.[6] Reasons for the seasonality of the Cerro de la Sal include the difficulty of navigating the flooded rivers during the rainy season and the fact that the Cerro is above the 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) maximum elevation for the cultivation of manioc, the principal food crop of the indigenous people of the low jungles.[7] The Asháninka or Campa were the most numerous of the peoples mining the salt but a few Yanesa (Amuesha) were also present.[8]

Roman Catholic missionaries. Roman Catholic Franciscan 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 and, thus, bring the indigenous people under the control of the Spanish.[9] In 1637, the pioneering missionaries, Jerónimo Jimenez and Cristóbal Larrios, and another five Spaniards were killed by the indigenous people. In 1641 and 1645, five more Franciscans were killed and the Cerro de la Sal missions were abandoned until 1673.[10]

From about 1645 to 1651 a Spanish adventurer known as Pedro Bohórquez led an expedition to the Cerro de la Sal area in search of the fabled city of Paititi, 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.[11] 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. Mangoré's attempts to wipe out the Christians ended when Christian converts killed him at Quimiri. The missions of Quimiri and Huancabamba survived the uprising, but all missionaries were withdrawn from the Cerro de la Sal region in 1689.[12]

Villa Rica has a Af (tropical, humid, no pronounced dry season) climate under the Koppen Classification system. However, the climate borders on Aw (tropical savannah with a dry season) and Cfb (subtropical mountain climate, "eternal spring.") Measured by the Trewartha climate classification system the climate is Arbb (tropical rainforest with warm summers and winters). Villa Rica's climate is modified by its altitude which results in lower average temperatures year than low-elevation tropics. The monthly deviation in average temperatures between the hottest and coldest months is only 1.8 degrees C (3 degrees F). The austral winter months of June and July are fairly dry, but precipitation is abundant during the remainder of the year.

• Yanachaga–Chemillén National Park