The Europeans who conquered and colonized the Americas after 1492 did not find vast empty lands, as they sometimes proclaimed, but rather lands populated by communities dating back thousands of years. A large portion of the indigenous populations quickly succumbed to diseases and hardships brought by the European colonizers, but many survived, often in dominant numbers, as in Bolivia and much of the highlands of the Andes mountain region.
1492年征服美洲并实行殖民统治的欧洲人找到的并不是荒无人烟的广阔土地，这与他们自己的说法并不一致，相反，这里的土地上原来已经住着很多人，有些已经在这里生活了几千年之久。土著居民中的很大一部分不久就死于欧洲殖民者带来的疾病和生活困难，但也有很多人活了下来，而且在数量上占据了绝对优势，玻利维亚和安第斯山区都属于这种情况。