The object of this article is to shed light on the circulation of colonial Spanish American elites.1 Treatments of this theme are frequently encountered. As the bureaucrats took control, we are told, the conquistadors and their descendants lost position through impoverishment, lawsuits, and revocations. Newcomers waxed rich in trade, acquired land, purchased office and title, and married colonial heiresses. There is little agreement, however, on the means or extent of this social turnover.2
Here an attempt will be made, for seventeenth-century Peru, to relate upward mobility to residence in the viceregal capital and access to the viceroy. The study ranges over Greater Peru, with its capital Lima and its three audiencia districts of Quito, Lima, and La Plata (or Charcas), in which viceroys held appointive power. The time reference is 1630 although for purposes of comparison the conquest generation is considered as well.
Among the conquerors of Peru, the encomienda was the hallmark of success. This grant of Indian labor and tribute within a defined boundary afforded the grantee a lordly rank and life-style. Encomenderos of various social origins dominated the town councils and many aspects of the economy.3 But what was the role of the encomienda by 1630, when, of some 34,000 Spaniards residing permanently in Greater Peru,4 just over 300 held encomiendas?
The last figure is based on a schedule of the 365 Peruvian encomiendas and their beneficiaries, the “Relazion de los Feudatarios deste Reyno,” for short “Feudatarios.”5 The document is included in the four-volume manuscript “Noticia general del Perú” by Francisco López de Caravantes6 who attributes the compilation to Don Gaspar de Escalona Agüero, under orders from Viceroy Conde de Chinchón. The latter wished to concentrate the encomenderos in Lima against a threatened enemy attack. Chinchón’s call to the “Feudatarios” was issued on October 12, 1630, no doubt as soon as the list was completed. We learn this from the 1629–1639 diary kept in Lima by Juan Antonio Suardo.7
Who were the “Feudatarios?” Were they of conquistador stock, or at least born in Peru? Were they related to each other and to other people of importance? How wealthy were they and how well placed in office? To deal with these questions, I have consulted notarial records in Peru, petitions and letters in Spain, and Guillermo Lohmann Villena’s genealogical compilations.8 I have also compared Caravantes’ “Feudatarios” with a nearly coeval list of 149 “Knights and Nobles Who Are in Lima,” the “Caualleros.”9 Caravantes (or Escalona, to the extent he was faithfully copied) usually indicates the encomenderos’ place of residence. Matching it with the district of the encomiendas, I have been able to find a pattern of absentee holdings and to draw conclusions about the geographical scale of status.
Income
By 1630 encomiendas as sources of income or influence had declined considerably, though they still conferred social luster. The economic base of the encomienda, ostensibly at least, was Indian tribute; however, three-fourths of the Indians had died in the century after the conquest.10 Consequently encomiendas alone no longer insured a seigneurial existence. The ones mentioned in petitions of around 1629–1635 paid, respectively, 220, 250, 500, 700, and 1,484 tribute pesos of twelve and one-half reales, whereas petitioners craved 4,000.11 One-third of these amounts were paid in taxes.12 An encomienda yielding 8,000 pesos (probably pesos of eight reales) was newsworthy, one of 8,000 ducats (of eleven reales) a proud boast.13 Moreover, complained the viceroy, high-income encomiendas were “almost always” given to residents of Spain.14 The assertion can be illustrated by Count Altamira’s 11,000 pesos-of-eight holding at Cajamarca or Secretary Juan de Salazar’s 1,500 pesos-of-eight holding at Huarochirí.15 The usual after-taxes annuities ranged far lower, about half of them amounting to only 400 tribute pesos, or 625 pesos-of-eight.16 One encomendera was so poor, she had to pawn her bedstead and clothing.17
Some encomenderos were content with no cash at all.18 Others tried to sell their encomiendas illegally, under subterfuge.19 Don Juan del Pulgar, sixteenth “Feudatario” in the Huamanga district, ceded his rights for an annual 450 pesos-of-eight to one Francisco Hernández Crespo. The transfer occurred in 1622, shortly after Don Juan had been pronounced of age, had married, moved to Lima, and had to pay off debts.20
Politically, the encomenderos lost authority over “their” Indians with the institution of the rural governorship, or corregimiento, in 1565. Encomenderos were debarred from holding the new office, although viceroys disregarded this prohibition, and in 1630 even the crown again permitted them to become corregidores.21 The corregimiento constituted a foremost patronage plum. Though the term of office was two years—to the encomienda’s two generations—it yielded “up to twenty and thirty thousand pesos” in illegal income.22 Some of it came from embezzling the tribute owed to encomenderos, as is implied by viceregal orders to corregidors and is stated outright by Suardo.23
Status
What the encomienda lacked in power and profit it made up in prestige, for as a status symbol it had few substitutes. In 1630 there were few marks of nobility in Peru. The Spanish nobiliar estate was defined formally by hidalguía and by título, distinctions reminiscent of those between squires and peers in England. No holders of títulos, such as counts or marquesses, resided permanently in Peru until late in the seventeenth century, if we except three doubtful cases.24Hidalguía depended on acknowledged lineage. Hidalgos were exempt from pechos, the taxes paid in Spain by commoners.25 In Peru there were no such taxes, however, and Spanish immigrants, far from home, found it possible to claim and “prove” noble descent.26 Lima’s municipal trustee maintained in 1635 that “all those who call themselves hidalgos get away with it.”27
With hidalguías meaningless and títulos so rare, we can still look for intermediate groupings. In Spain, according to Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, the group of caballeros “constituted an authentic nobiliar middle class.”28 In Lima, the diarist Suardo speaks of “caballeros and foremost people” or caballería y nobleza.29 He associates caballeros with viceregal retainers, cathedral prebendaries, oidors, university faculty, alcaldes and councilmen of the cabildo.30 In Cuzco, the father of one “Feudatario” was Alcalde de los Naturales “for the estate of caballeros hijosdalgo.”31 In both towns the label was apparently applied somewhat fluidly to the most prominent as a group. Likewise, the 149 “Knights and Nobles Who Are in Lima” may be thought of as “locally certified” notables. As it happens, only 25 out of these 149 “Caualleros” were also “Feudatarios.”32 By that token only one-sixth of Lima’s select still held encomiendas (though at least two more were close kinsmen of encomenderos).33 The list of “Caualleros” was not, however, exhaustive; such compilations never are. The prominence of at least a dozen additional Lima residents, who do not appear on either list, can be presumed from their testimony concerning applicants to yet another high honor.34
That honor was the hábito, or membership in one of the noble military orders, which brought recognition of hidalguía along with “purity of blood.” Spain’s caballeros pursued it obsessively as a stepping stone to the título.35 In Lima, Suardo singled out hábitos from among the other knights,36 naming over fifty of them; “Caualleros” lists seven and “Feudatarios” only one.37 Actually, a dozen more encomenderos, or their sons or fathers, belonged to these orders in 1630, and an additional eleven would be admitted by 1644.38 In that year fifty-one hábitos can be counted in Greater Peru.39 The “Feudatarios” thus remained substantially represented within this category, the highest formal grouping before títulos were granted in Peru.
Two other institutions served to symbolize high status in Peru: the viceregal guard of Lances and Muskets (lanzas y arcabuces) and the landed entail (mayorazgo or vínculo).40 Of the fourteen to fifteen mayorazgos founded in Lima before 1630,41 at least eight were held by “Feudatarios” and five more by close relatives.42 The 150-man guard was instituted in the 1550s, paid from tribute out of Charcas, and intended to be manned above all by descendants of the conquistadors in Lima. Their pay was gradually reduced and Viceroy Esquilache eliminated it in 1618, but they continued “to serve at their own expense,” escorting viceroys on horseback as a show of status and exerting a claim on patronage.43 Their former incomes were funnelled to treasury officials and to the lawyers and lobbyists who presided over the guard’s dissolution (and not infrequent pauperization).44 Between 1630 and 1632 some arrears were paid, often posthumously, to 104 guardsmen. Only fourteen of them were “Feudatarios” or close relatives.45 Four additional lanzas-encomenderos are mentioned by Guillermo Lohmann and Juan Bromley.46
Colonial Peru offered such varied avenues of asserting preeminence that it would be virtually impossible to document the role of the “Feudatarios” in all of them. Some encomenderos, or their immediate relatives, possessed the means to build stately chapels, patronize monasteries, and purchase city councilorships;47 others were reputed sufficiently “pure-blooded” to become familiars of the Inquisition,48 or sufficiently genteel to join exclusive religious brotherhoods, such as Lima’s Encarnación.49
But the encomienda itself surpassed these honors. Encomenderos were admitted to sittings of the audiencia; so were lanzas, “that they might resemble encomenderos.” An encomendero in one’s family tree was displayed by would-be familiars even though the two positions were legally incompatible. And Jurist Juan de Solórzano y Pereyra (who returned from Peru in 1627) compared the “Feudatarios” with peninsular lords and títulos.50
Encomenderos were also identified with citizens or vecinos, as though they were the citizens of a town. This was the usage of the conquest period upheld still by Pedro de León Portocarrero, the Portuguese crypto-Jew who lived in Lima until 1615.51 In some senses, however, usage widened. In population counts taken around 1630, “vecino” could mean householder or any resident Spaniard, as is clear from the population figures assigned Lima by three monastic chroniclers. The Franciscan Buenaventura de Sahnas speaks of households (humos) and assumes 4,500 vecinos in a city of 40,000 residents. The Jesuit Bernabé Cobo counts “5,000 to 6,000 Spanish vecinos or up to 25,000 souls, along with the transients.” The Carmelite Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa records “between 9,000 and 10,000 Spanish vecinos, not counting transients.”52 Yet despite this extension, the older terminology survived. Five of the “Caualleros” are called “vecinos encomenderos.” Suardo also favors this term, and it may actually have appeared in the roster Caravantes was copying.53 In 1647, Solórzano still understood vecino to mean encomendero, though he had to explain this to his readers.54
Beneméritos and Bureaucrat Bridegrooms
The idea of encomienda-holding was closely associated with the feudal idea of military service in return for income from domain. The encomenderos thus constituted a partly hereditary quasi-nobility whose degree of divergence from peninsular nobility has been debated by Solórzano and by several modern scholars.55 The New World origin of the institution further deepened this nobiliar nexus. The first American encomenderos had sprung up in the course of the conquest, that “last chance in Spanish history to win nobility by deeds of arms.”56
The beneméritos, sons of these conquistadors and of the earliest settlers, enjoyed a prior claim on encomiendas. But, because of royal and viceregal favoritism, their share of the holdings declined steadily. Royal appointees and viceregal retainers were constantly being foisted upon marriageable encomenderas. The classification benemérito was extended to war veterans, specifically to those of the Indies armada and to “the twelve beneméritos of Chile” named yearly by that warlike captaincy’s governor. However, most of the accretions came from the ranks of royal officials and treasurers, in flagrant defiance of the written law.57
The “Feudatarios” compilation leads us to a number of individuals in each of these categories. Of the military men, one had explored the Solomons, then governed Panama. Two had fought in Flanders, three more had commanded troops in Chile, and two had met Francis Drake’s attack on Panama.58 Viceregal favor secured the encomiendas of two “Feudatarios” and of the fathers of two more. All were Spanish-born retainers or relatives of the viceroys. One native of Guadalajara married an encomendera and had his holding profitably permuted by a protecting viceroy. The matrimonial road from the peninsula to a Peruvian encomienda was also followed by at least seven royal ministros and viceregal criados. Add to these five treasury officials, including one whose two daughters married encomenderos of old Peruvian families.59 Among the fathers of “Feudatarios,” the Madrid-born alguacil mayor of the Inquisition wed a granddaughter of a conquistador; the Andalusian alguacil mayor of the Audiencia chose the heiress of Polo de Ondegardo, noted legalist of an earlier generation; and the Extremaduran Don Francisco de Valverde y Mercado, veteran governor of Panama, took for wife an encomendera who was the sister of Juan de Solórzano, then oidor in Lima. Their son and their daughter married into benemérito families with encomiendas, including the Peruvian Valverdes of conquest fame.60
“Feudatario” matches were pursued by the highest officials. The president of the Consejo de Hacienda married a sister of an encomendero, while Oidor Don Blas de Torres Altamirano married that same encomendero’s daughter. The encomendera Doña María de Lartaún was the daughter of Oidor Fernández de Racalde and the widow of the Mexican oidor, Don Alonso Bravo de Saravia. Oidors Acuña and Muñoz de Cuéllar had encomendera wives, while Oidors Merlo de la Fuente, Jiménez Montalvo, and Castro Padilla also married into encomienda-holding families.61 Finally, the aged president of the Quito Audiencia, Doctor Don Antonio de Morga, “married a pretty, vivacious young creole from Lima, Doña Ana María de Rivera Verdugo,” sixth “Feudataria” of La Paz.62
For nearly a century the benemérito component among encomenderos had thus been steadily eroded. Lawsuits and royal grants further accelerated the process. Its results become apparent if we compare the three-hundred-odd “Feudatarios” of 1630 with the 235 grantees in Governor Pedro de la Gasca’s distribution of 1548.63 Only eighty family names, borne by over a hundred of the “Feudatarios,” appear on both listings, although thirty of these names seem to me too common to warrant any conclusion. Where Gasca’s schedule mentions eleven women, Caravantes and Escalona list seventy encomenderas. The latter also record sixteen pensioneros, a category unknown to Gasca. (Pensioneros received one-life shares of grants already assigned, a kind of “preferred stock” encomienda.)64 Caravantes’ pensioneros, encomenderas and new names bespeak an age no longer dominated by the beneméritos.
The Limits of Social Mobility
It would be a mistake, however, to divide the encomenderos into native sons, presumably “noble” but flagging, and an upstart element of immigrants. True, Solórzano castigates the bridegrooms of encomenderas as “unworthy upstarts who look for older women so as to inherit their encomiendas more quickly”; while Salinas derides the newcomers’ trumped up lineages, contrasting them with “the illustrious and ancient houses of Lima.”65 Yet they are stating a half-truth and giving vent to local myths. The more complex social scene does not indicate any simple dichotomy of peninsular Spaniards and Spanish “criollos” (though the latter designation had made its appearance in Peru by 1630).66
Upward mobility had its limitations in the Hispanic world, even in the loose overseas society. No Peruvian encomendera stooped to a mere adventurer. “Feudatarios” does not contain the name of any of the Lima residents who in 1621 paid a Spaniard fifty pesos a head for upgrading their pedigrees, nor that of any of several fraudulent hábitos.67
Hardly a merchant or son of a merchant appears among the “Feudatarios.” This can be gleaned from María Encarnación Rodríguez Vicente’s roster of persons connected with the Lima merchant guild through 1630. The names of nine encomenderos also belong to merchants, but they were not relatives, as may be verified from their differing ancestry, places of origin and residence, dates of arrival, and their full appellations.68 That leaves the Sevillian Diego Núñez de Campoverde and the Limeños Don Juan de Herrera and Hernando de Santa Cruz. Herrera’s “base” origin was thrown at him when he vainly applied for an hábito in 1649. His accuser and fellow “Feudatario,” Don Juan de Valencia, called him “a bastard and a Mestizo who has bought his way up and is the son and grandson of a broker (corredor de lonja).” In fact, his father had been a protégé of Viceroy Esquilache.69 Santa Cruz’ sister married a mayorazgo who was promptly disinherited. Yet Santa Cruz became an inquisitorial familiar and his descendants reached social pinnacles (while his in-laws signed a formal agreement of reconciliation within their family).70
Núñez de Campoverde chose a somewhat different course. In 1584, at the age of twenty-five, he immigrated from Seville, engaged in trade, acquired vineyards in Pisco and a seat on Lima’s cabildo. The position afforded a slightly more accessible avenue to gentility. In 1630 there were twenty-one regidors, including the municipal notary and his son, the alcalde de la hermandad. At least five of the twenty-one were Spanish-born, at least nine were merchants or sons or inlaws of merchants, and eleven owned landed estates. Four were sons of regidors, four were relatives of “Feudatarios,” and ten were married or would soon have their children marry into “Feudatario” families. The regidors consistently elected alcaldes and procuradores from among “Feudatarios” or husbands of “Feudatarias.” But Campoverde was the only regidor actually to hold an encomienda, and he held it by marriage.71
A tabulation of our data on the cabildo (Table I) shows that immigrants with a background in commerce might become regidors and intermarry with “Feudatarios.” However their cases were exceptional.
In general, Spanish-born “Feudatarios” in Peru were long-term residents.72 They may have identified with the Goths, as Salinas mockingly put it, but they also felt a bond with the conquistadors. They might represent the Peruvian encomenderos at court, as did Contador Don Bartolomé de Hoznayo, quondam householder of Viceroy Velasco.73 It even happened that a newcomer boasted conquistador lineage.74
Solórzano’s charge of social climbing by peninsular bridegrooms cannot apply to the judges of the Audiencia. Some of these were American-born, such as the Bogotanos Villela and Pérez Salazar, or Peruvian beneméritos in their own right (with “Feudatario” sons or nephews) such as Torres Altamirano and Bravo de Saravia.75 Their marriages benefited both sides, giving rise to local power cliques. Oidor Pérez Salazar smuggled goods with the help of his merchant son-in-law; Oidor Gómez de Sanabria covered up embezzlements and even abetted the escape of a “Feudatario” relative following a murder. At least their denouncers leveled such charges.76
Successful Encomenderos
The benemérito partners had, after all, more to gain from such marriage alliances. With tributes falling off precipitously, the encomenderos had to search for alternative sources of support. Had they lived up to the military vocation of their estate, the “Feudatarios” might have served as commanders in the Chilean conflict. Only a very few members of their families actually did so.77 Chinchón’s 1630 conscription surely was not intended to provide for the defense of Lima, a city the viceroy considered indefensible,78 but rather to levy a monetary fine on the “draft dodgers,” as he did soon thereafter.79
The rural estate offered a more steadfast possibility of diversification. The shift from encomiendas and tribute to land ownership and market production was one in which some encomenderos participated actively and with considerable competitive advantage. But they were a minority within the larger community of encomienda holders. They could not exclude successful landlords with other backgrounds, including merchants. As shown in two recent studies, the accumulation of land by non-encomenderos and its increasingly commercial utilization became pronounced in Arequipa before 1600 and near Lima around 1630.80 Indeed, the transformation of Lima’s countryside must have anticipated that of Arequipa. This hypothesis, suggested by the larger Lima market, can be sustained by overwhelming evidence from Lima’s notarial records. By 1630, over 200 irrigated farms (huertas, chacras) dotted the Valley of Lima.81 The cabildo, whose rural involvement and “non-Feudatary” nature have been shown, controlled the distribution of water for its own benefit (withholding it from the Indians).82
The legal profession afforded the “Feudatarios” another escape from penury. Five (including one son or brother) were admitted to the bar of the Audiencia. Four of these were American-born catedráticos at San Marcos. Three descended from conquistadors; three represented the Lima cabildo; and three become oidors.83
For quick enrichment there was viceregal appointment to a corregimiento. Chinchón controlled over sixty of these prizes, to which he managed to make 250 appointments in something over a decade. Forty-two of them went to thirty-five encomenderos or husbands of encomenderas; at least two additional “Feudatarios” were hold-over corregidors from the previous viceregal term.84 Encomienda-holding corregidors were more likely to hail from Spain and to live in Lima. Close to a third were peninsulares and half of the remainder only first-generation Peruvians.85 Caravantes and Escalona locate half of them in Lima and few did not reside there permanently.
Strivers’ row led straight through the viceregal palace. Solórzano’s opinion notwithstanding, it could also lead away from the encomienda. To improve his economic lot an encomendero might play the suitor (pretensor) after viceregal favor (merced). Favor-seeking is evident in the assignment of encomenderos as corregidors. Two of the appointees were rewarded for marrying, one for taking a war orphan, another for accepting a criada of the vicereine, while a third man, who had given bond to a corregidor now deceased, “asked most insistently” to replace him “to be able to repay the treasury.”86 Conversely, favor-seeking indicates that benemeritous lineage was no substitute for more tangible assets in the marriage market. True, an impoverished lanza with “Feudatario” relatives “was given wife and dowry solely for his quality” but the corregimiento he received at the time surely influenced the match.87 And Chinchón chivalrously added corregimientos to the dowry of two daughters of “Feudatarios.”88
The pretensores, estate owners, and lawyers among “Feudatarios” were becoming increasingly differentiated from the mass of encomienda holders. Marriage alliances “peninsularized” their family trees, at times reducing benemeritous ancestry to a thin distaff line.
A Coalescing Elite
The most robust “Feudatario” clans were the ones twice founded, the first time by a peninsular conqueror, the second time by a peninsular bureaucrat. Conquistador Jerónimo de Aliaga’s daughter married the Galician, Don Francisco Ruiz de Nevamuel, a brother of Viceroy Toledo’s Secretario de la Gobernación, Don Alvaro. And four of Don Alvaro’s children married into conquistador families. In 1630 their descendants, or their spouses, included six “Feudatarios.”89 In all, between a sixth and a seventh of the 300-odd encomenderos living in Greater Peru were closely allied by blood or marriage. Their branches joined together the great conquistador houses of Nicolás de Ribera el Viejo in Lima and Diego de Peralta Cabeza de Vaca in Arequipa, among others; but they were also studded with peninsular accretions.90 About a third of these encomenderos were indeed Spanish-born or married to Spaniards from the peninsula.91 Most of the others had at least one immigrant parent. Only nine or ten were Peruvian-born of Peruvian-born parents and not married to peninsulares.92 Close to the center of this formidable network we find the reigning Secretario de la Gobernación, Don Joseph de Cáceres y Ulloa. Typically, he had inherited his office from his mother’s husband; and, of his grandfathers, the paternal had been Governor Gasca’s lieutenant and the maternal a conquistador. Both Don Joseph and his son were “Feudatarios.”93
The Lima residents among these related “Feudatarios” constituted the true elite within the nominal elite of all other encomienda holders. Sixteen of their names (about half of the total) reappear among Suardo’s newsworthy, Chinchón’s corregidors, and the notables listed as “Caualleros.”94 This proportion is very high as the list of prominent Lima encomenderos also includes six women and two or three children. Only two Huanucanos extend the list beyond Lima.95 Conversely, I have only discovered six “Feudatarios”—all of them living in Lima—whose names also figure among the “Caualleros,” Chinchón’s nominees and Suardo’s notables, but who do not seem to belong to “the” families.98
The Lima–Elite Correlation
The connection between effective elite status and Lima residency can be roughly confirmed from the two basic sets of data Caravantes copied from Escalona: the location of the encomiendas and the residence of their holders. To analyze this connection we must first deduct from the 365 encomiendas one quadruple-holding and eighteen probable double-holdings.97 This leaves 344 encomenderos.98
Attempting to pinpoint the residence of each encomendero is no easy task. Caravantes assigns four conflicting locations among his double-holdings, and fails to locate the residence in 101 of his entries. A number of these can be derived from internal evidence and with the use of other outside sources. Nine Lima residents are found in notarial records, “Caualleros,” Suardo, and in a near duplicate listing of the encomenderos which is limited to the Lima district.99 Three Quiteños are perhaps discoverable in Suardo, in John L. Phelan’s study on Quito, and in Peter Marzahl’s on Popayán.100 A 1605 questionnaire which primarily concerns the Quito area helps locate sixteen additional “Feudatarios.”101 Guillermo Lohmann Villena’s and José Antonio Del Busto Duthurburu’s genealogical researches guide us to another eight locations.102 Three more can be ascertained by looking up each encomendero’s second holding,103 and another three can be deduced through family association.104Títulos and court officials may be safely assigned to Spain. The Marqués of Oropesa returned there with his “Feudataria” mother in 1627.105 Only the vicereine, thirty-fifth encomendera of Cuzco, shall be considered Limeña. The problem of transiency also affects “Feudatarios” in out-of-the-way places. They might be corregidors living permanently in greater centers. This can be shown for five Limeños106 and one Potosino;107 but three other “suspected corregidors” must be left at their stated abodes for lack of other evidence.108 Local governors (the one with his son) may also account for two of Caravantes’ conflicting reports of residence; of the remaining contradictions, one is immaterial and one remains unresolved.109 In spite of the varied sources, an irritating forty unknown addresses remain (or actually thirty-nine since two pertain to a single encomendero). One can only surmise that most would be found in the same district as the encomienda.
The actual Peruvian place names have been located with the help of standard sources110 or identified from printed documents.111 For purposes of regional groupings, south coast residents may be considered Limeños,112 and the districts of La Plata and La Paz may be treated as the single unit of the Audiencia of Charcas; so, too, will be the extra-Peruvian areas of Chile and New Granada. Cajatambo will be conjoined to nearby Huancavelica. Otherwise all place names are classified in accordance with contemporary jurisdictions.113
These classifications permit the schematic overview of encomiendas in Table II and of encomenderos in Table III. Table IV has been drawn up to estimate the extent of “home rule” in each district. The number of ecnomenderos residing in a given district is set against those with encomiendas in it but residing elsewhere. Unknown residences have been excluded. It might be surmised, however, that these “unknowns” also resided in their home districts. This assumption is incorporated into Table V.
The result of the geographical breakdown indicates a relatively low level of home control. On the average, a little over fifty percent of the encomenderos of any district resided therein. Even with the inclusion of unknown residents this figure fails to reach sixty percent. The best protected districts were Lima, Quito, and Chachapoyas, less than a third of whose encomiendas were held by outsiders. These proportions were reversed in La Paz and in Huánuco, the two most despoiled districts.
I suspect that the reason for these disparate local conditions differed in each case. Lima encomenderos must have used influence at the viceregal palace and the royal court; Chachapoyas was surely too poor to prove desirable; the great number of Quito encomiendas suggests they were small and unprofitable. To the contrary, the outside exploitation of La Paz can be related to the populousness of its encomiendas, at least in Viceroy Toledo’s day.114 “Feudatarios” from Huánuco migrated steadily to Lima and thus became outsiders in their former home district.115
No clear-cut pattern has emerged thus far, relating home control to the centricity, or peripherality, of encomendero residence. However, there still remains the possibility of examining the control exercised by the encomenderos residing in each region over the encomiendas of districts other than their own. Under this option the meaning of a “home-rule index” is inverted. The smaller the proportion of resident encomenderos, the greater their relative control elsewhere. Tables VI and VII offer alternative calculations, with or without the assumption that unknown residences belong to their home districts.
This time the evidence is overwhelming. Encomenderos who reside in Lima hold grants in other districts in over seventy percent of all the instances. In every other region but one the ratio is more than reversed. Arequipa, with over forty-five percent of outside holdings, stands out as a poor second. Chachapoyas is third but nearly all its outside encomiendas are held in nearby Trujillo, whose “Feudatarios” reciprocate. If the two districts are treated as a unit, their imperial power plummets to some three percent.116
Significantly, Lima’s encomenderos outdistance those living in Spain. The latter claim 8.4 percent of Peru’s holdings while 27.7 percent pertain to Limeños. And three Limeños in Spain might have tipped this balance still more in Lima’s favor.117 True, according to the viceroy, peninsular residents held some of the most valuable of all the encomiendas. But the dominance of Lima dwellers among the “Feudatarios” suggests that, for them at least, the Spanish empire was not a simple conglomerate of concentric circles. Its hub lay not in Madrid but in Lima.
Conclusions
The centripetal power of Lima is demonstrable in the case of over a dozen Peruvian “Feudatarios” who moved there within a few years of 1630.118 Those who remained in the provinces were generally of pure benemérito stock. Out of the ten I have listed (in note 92, above), four were said to live in Cuzco and two in Arequipa. The move to Lima was correlated to marriage with peninsular Spaniards. As has been shown, both of these factors were frequently associated with upward mobility.
Our conclusions thus begin to fall into a consistent pattern. In 1630 benemérito lineage no longer guaranteed effective elite status. The encomienda still commanded respect but its association with the beneméritos had become weakened. The conversion of the symbolic value of the encomienda into genuine elite participation was often effected by peninsular immigrants or by a minority of beneméritos who had intermarried with them. This resulted in an interlocking elite within the older, nominal elite of conqueror families holding encomiendas. The new, effective elite derived its strength from sources other than the much impoverished and debilitated encomienda. Its mainsprings were office, land and trade, all centering in Lima.
Why then should we concentrate on the “Feudatarios” as a group? I believe the answer to be threefold. The prestige of encomienda-holding, and the complex of nobiliar ideas associated with it, conditioned the use of other means to upward mobility. In Lima commerce was paramount and agriculture ancillary to it. But commerce, in addition to its notorious hazards, was considered degrading. The heads of the merchant guild had to divest themselves of open stores and they kept struggling for the trappings of knighthood.119 “Feudatarios” only married merchants or merchants’ sons who had acquired estates and council seats. Bureaucrats, on the other hand, were not hampered by the inhibitions of the “Feudatarios” nor threatened by bankruptcy like the merchants. An oidor would ally his family in marriage with both “Feudatarios” and merchants, as did Pérez Salazar, providing a link between these two “estates.” A generation earlier, the nephew of Viceroy Enríquez, Don Domingo de Garro, was at once a big businessman, an official of the Lima treasury and an encomendero.120
Moreover, the changing condition of the “Feudatarios” points to changes in society at large. And these in turn would soon affect “Feudatario” standards. Santa Cruz capped his social and commercial success by purchasing, in effect, the post of contador on Lima’s audit board from the crown.121 Changing values also allowed the son of Núñez de Campoverde to proclaim publicly his partnership with a merchant.122
Finally, the great web of successful families, rooted in Lima and branching out into other parts of Peru (especially into the south), constituted an additional agency of social superiority. A benemérito could propel himself to the forefront of society by using his relatives; and these were multiplied through the ties of compadrazgo.123 In 1630 a substantial proportion of Lima’s true elite continued to be made up of “Feudatarios” who were also beneméritos.
Or were they? They had become so thoroughly intermingled with peninsular immigrants, especially with government officials, that any distinction among the two origins had almost lost meaning. In November of 1630 “the nobility and knighthood” of Lima rode forth to celebrate the birth of the prince royal. The event is fully covered in the naive prose of Suardo and the atrocious verses of Rodrigo de Carvajal y Robles. This hidalgo immigrant from Antequera was a longterm resident with benemérito in-laws. In his “epic” he tries hard to set off the noble houses of peninsulares (especially Andalusians) while applying the bombastic accolade of grandee to three native “Feudatarios.”124 Clearly, the hundred-odd men he so flatters constitute a new, fairly cohesive, and yet (as Carvajal’s own experience proves) a relatively open elite.
The article is based on materials consulted in the following archives: Archivo General de Indias, Seville (AGI); Archivo General de la Nación del Perú, Lima (AGNP); Archivo Histórico del Ministerio de Hacienda, Lima (AHMH); Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (BNM); Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, Lima (BNP); Biblioteca de Palacio, Madrid (BPM); Biblioteca de la Universidad, Seville (BUS); and Real Academia de Historia, Madrid (RAH).
See, for example, Jorge Basadre, Perú, problema y posibilidad (Lima, 1931), pp. 52–55; Clarence H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (New York, 1947), p. 211; Mario Góngora, El estado en el derecho indiano (Santiago, 1951), pp. 180–187; J. M. Ots Capdequí, Instituciones (Barcelona, 1959), p. 8; Guillermo Céspedes del Castillo, “La sociedad colonial americana en los siglos XVI y XVII,” in Jaime Vicens Vives, ed., Historia de España y América, 5 vols. (Barcelona, 1961), III, 496–497; and Richard M. Morse, “The Heritage of Latin America,” in Louis Hartz, ed., The Founding of New Societies (New York, 1964), p. 136.
See James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 1532–1560 (Madison, 1968).
Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendia y descripción de las Indias Occidentales, ed. Charles U. Clark (Washington, 1948), pars. 1066–1141, 1154–1613, 1627–1828; summarized by Jorge E. Hardoy and Carmen Aranovich, “Escalas y funciones urbanas en América hispánica hacia el año 1600—primeras conclusiones,” in Hardoy and R. P. Schaedel, eds., El proceso de urbanizatión en América desde sus orígenes hasta nuestros días (Buenos Aires, 1969), pp. 182, 184, 189–191. With thirty-eight lesser towns unaccounted for, Hardoy and Aranovich total 32,354 Spanish men and women for Greater Perú. Vázquez wrote around 1630 when Don Fernando Arias de Ugarte became archbishop of Lima; see par. 1237. Vázquez’s rural population figures have been impugned by Noble David Cook in his edition of Tasa de la visita general de Francisco Toledo (Lima, 1975), pp. xix-xxi, and Cuadro 4.
“Relazion de los Feudatarios deste Reyno” (hereafter “Feudatarios”) in discurso 10 of Francisco López de Caravantes, “Tercera parte de la noticia general de las prouincias del Peru que pertenece al Gouierno de la guerra . . . Los Reyes . . . 1631,” BPM, 1633/II. “Feudatarios” will be referenced hereafter by district (given) and number (supplied within each district); for instance, “Feudatarios,” Chachapoyas 11 for Francisco Brabo del Aguila whose name appears eleventh under the District of Chachapoyas.
BPM, 1632/I; BPM, 1633/II; BPM, 1634/III; and BPM, 1635/IV.
Juan Antonio Suardo, Diario de Lima, ed. Rubén Vargas Ugarte, 2 vols. (Lima, 1936), I, 105. “Feudatarios” must have been compiled between Apr. 12 and Oct. 19, 1630; see Suardo, Diario, I, 69, 107, and “Feudatarios,” Chachapoyas 8, Lima 2. The dates in Suardo will be referenced hereafter by day.month.year with 1600 omitted; for instance, Suardo, Diario, II, 42/25.8.34 stands for Suardo, Diario, volume II, page 42, entry of August 25, 1634.
Guillermo Lohmann Villena, Los americanos en las órdenes nobiliarias (1529–1900), 2 vols. (Madrid, 1947); and “Informaciones genealógicas de Peruanos seguidas ante el Santo Oficio,” Revista del Instituto Peruano de Investigaciones Genealógicas (hereafter RIPIG), 8(1955), 7–110, and 9(1956), 115–226.
“Memoria de los caualleros y hijos de algo que ay en Lima” (hereafter “Caualleros”), BUS, 330/122, ff. 210–212 and 214–216 (second copy).
Noble David Cook, “The Indian Population of Peru, 1570–1620” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Texas, 1973), Tables 10.1 and 10.2. Cook estimates 2,738,673 Indians and 552,411 tributaries in 1530; 601,645 Indians and 122,679 tributaries in 1630. These estimates cover Peru proper, omitting the Quito and Charcas audiencias.
AGI, Lima, leg. 160, dateless (ca. 1629) petition of Don Luis de Nevares y Castillo; AGI, Lima, leg. 161, dateless petition (seen Jan. 12, 1635) of Doña Barbola María Faxardo de Villaroel; AGI, Lima, leg. 162, dateless (ca. 1635) petitions of Don Francisco de las Quentas Niño and Don Francisco de Aluarado Touar; AGI, Lima, leg. 229, dateless petition (seen Oct. 10, 1635) of Don Gerónimo de Montenegro.
López de Caravantes, “Noticia . . . cuarta parte,” discurso 7, ff. 192–197; Viceroy Guadalcázar’s relatión, or final report to Chinchón, his successor, RAH, Colección Mata Linares, vol. 44, ff. 69–69v, par. 82.
Suardo, Diario, I, 83/25.6.30; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 430 (in 1639).
Chinchón to King, Hacienda 54, Lima, Oct. 10, 1630, AGI, Lima, leg. 43.
AGNP, Protocolos 2047, Joan de Zamudio 1632, ff. 557v-558, and Protocolos 1961, Juan de Valenzuela 1632/B, ff. 366–367v; “Feudatarios,” Trujillo 29, Lima 28. Altamira’s encomienda paid 5,061 tribute pesos, or 7,908 of eight, supplemented by clothing and produce. The 11,000 figure represents the lessee’s rental.
Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, pars. 1832–1893.
AGNP, Protocolos 1777, Diego Sánchez Vadillo 1632/B, ff. 1545–1548; being the May 7, 1632, testament of Doña Florencia Niño de Gusman, pensionera in the Aymaraes district. Cf. “Feudatarios,” Lima 36.
Colección de documentas inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organizatión de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceanía, 42 vols. (Madrid, 1864–1884, hereafter CDIAO), IX, 262. Esteban de Amores y Herrera (“Feudatarios,” Quito 53) only had the benefit of Indian labor at Guayaquil around 1605.
Madelaine Glynne Dervel Evans, “The Landed Aristocracy in Peru: 1600–1680” (Ph.D. Diss., University College London, 1972), p. 38.
AGNP, Protocolos 1837, Lorenzo de Sobarzo 1622, ff. 193–212v, 219–219v, 253–261v (July through August, 1622).
Lohmann Villena, El corregidor de indios en el Perú bajo los Austrias (Madrid, 1957), pp. 51, 69, 103, 143, 154; Suardo, Diario, I, 93/17.8.30.
Chinchón to King, Gobiemo secular 37, Lima, Apr. 18, 1630, AGI, Lima, leg. 43.
GNP, Superior Gobiemo, leg. 3, cuad. 50; Suardo, Diario, I, 33/26.10.29.
Rubén Vargas Ugarte, Títulos nobiliarios en el Perú (Lima, 1948), pp. 16, 31, for titles assumed in Lima around 1616, 1632, and 1656. My doubts arise from Suardo’s failure to mention the first two. Now, Suardo worshipfully calls “marqués” the Baides heir and the viceroy’s infant son from the moment their titles become known: Suardo, Diario, II 121/10.3.36, 130/8.6.36, and passim thereafter.
Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, La sociedad española en el siglo XVII, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1963, 1970), I, 170-173.
President of the Quito Audiencia, Don Antonio de Morga, to Chinchón, Quito, May 1, 1632; encl. in Chinchón to King, Hacienda 44, Lima, May 9, 1633, AGI, Lima, leg. 44.
Libro 23 de los cabildos desta Ciudad de los Reyes...1634 hasta 1637, ed. Juan Bromley (Lima, 1964), p. 211; being the Apr. 23, 1635, declaration of the depositario general, Gerónimo López de Saauedra: “Todos los que se llaman a hidalgos salen dello.”
Domínguez Ortiz, La sociedad, I, 196, 198.
Suardo, Diario, I, 220/21.4.32 and II, 119/27.2.36—cavalleros y gente principal, I, 101/26.9.30, II, 46/24.9.34, 49/23.10.34—cavalleros y gente lucida; and II, 198/2.2.39—toda la cavallería y nobleza.
Suardo, Diario, I, 3/15.5.29, 81/16.6.30, 82/17.6.30, 92/7.8.30, 112/ 3.11.30, and II, 181/10.2.38 (nobleza).
Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 236; “Feudatarios,” Cuzco 28.
“Caualleros,” ff. 210-212; “Feudatarios,” Lima 6, 16, 17, 20, 26, 36, 37, 39, Trujillo 7, Guanuco 1, 9, 13, 17, Guamanga 15, 16, Cuzco 6, 15, 38, Arequipa 5, La Paz 3, 12, 16, 30, and double-holdings Lima 22-Guanuco 8 and Lima 31-Lima 38.
Don Gregorio Polanco (“Caualleros,” f. 210) was probably a son of Doña Ynes de Ampuero (“Feudatarios,” Lima 34), “widow of Gregorio Polanco” (AGNP, Protocolos 1837, Sobarzo 1622, f. 248); Don Francisco Sigoney (“Caualleros,” f. 212) was brother-in-law of Doña María de Lartaún (“Feudatarios,” Lima 11) according to Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 338.
Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, II, 15, 60, 61, with testimonies given in Lima in 1629, 1631, and 1637.
Domínguez Ortiz, La sociedad, I, 197, 198, 203-208.
Suardo, Diario, I, 156/18.4.31 and 172/18.7.31.
“Feudatarios,” Arequipa 4; “Caualleros,” ff. 210-212; Suardo, Diario, passim.
Suardo, Diario, I, 5, 44, 71, 76, 101, 160; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 111, 119, 148, 155, 161, 187, 269, 284, 352, 429, 465, and II, 14, 21, 25, 29, 33, 60, 81.
Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, xxxv, citing a letter by Viceroy Mancera.
The major heritable offices of correo mayor and escribano del mar del sur were also called mayorazgo or vínculo. See AGNP, Superior Gobierno, leg. 3, cuad. 47; and Chinchón to King, Hacienda 65, Lima, May 27, 1638, AGI, Lima, leg. 48.
Bernabé Cobo, “Historia de la fundación de Lima,” Monografías históricas sobre la ciudad de Lima, 2 vols. (Lima, 1935), I, 73. Cobo wrote in 1629; see I, 46.
Jorge de Amézaga Calmet, “El conquistador don Diego de Agüero y los mayorazgos de su casa,” RIPIG, 15(1970), 165-176; José de la Riva Agüero, El primer alcalde de Lima, Nicolás de Ribera el Viejo y su posteridad (Lima, 1935), p. 34; Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de ultramar, 25 vols. (Madrid, 1885-1932, hereafter CDIU), XVI, 30-31; AGNP, Protocolos 1837, Sobarzo 1622, f. 52, Protocolos 1960 and 1961, Valenzuela 1632/A (ff. 98-101) and 1632/B (ff. 1087, 1104v, 1109, 1113), and Superior Gobierno, leg. 3, cuad. 47; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 155, 161, II, 68, 115; “Feudatarios,” Lima 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 27, 29, 30, 33, Guamanga 15, Quito 65, 73, and double-holding Lima 14-Cuzco 8.
Lohmann Villena, “Las compañías de gentiles hombres lanzas y arcabuces de la guarda del virreinato del Perú,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos, 13 (1956), 141-215; Cobo, “Historia,” Monografías, I, 92-95; López de Caravantes, “Noticia,” BPM, 1632/I, disc. 3, par. 85; RAH, Colección Muñoz, vol. 34, f. 170v.
Juan de Solórzano y Pereyra, Política indiana, 5 vols. (Madrid, 1972), II, book 3, ch. 33, par. 12, p. 408; Suardo, Diario, II, 12/15.2.34; AGNP, Protocolos 1283, Martín de Ochandiano 1646, ff. 566-568v.
“Libro de...consignaciones...Agosto de 1631 hasta junio de 1632,” AHMH, 67, ff. 24-27v, 41-45; AGNP, Protocolos 135, Cristóbal de Arauz 1632, ff. 617-618, and Protocolos 97, Pedro Alvarez de Quiroz 1632/36, ff. 257-259; “Feudatarios,” Lima 4, 27, 29, 34, Guanuco 6, Chachapoyas 1, Guamanga 10, Cuzco 54, 70, La Paz 3, Quito 6, 73, and double-holding Lima 14-Cuzco 8.
Juan Bromley Seminario, “La ciudad de Lima en 1630,” Revista Histórica, 24(Lima, 1959), 281, 317 (n. 255); Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, II, 15, 159; “Feudatarios,” Lima 9, Trujillo 24, Arequipa 8, 18.
CDIAO, IX, 382; CDIU, XVI, 43, 52, XVII, 103; Suardo, Diario, I, 145/ 19.2.31; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, par. 1235; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 155.
Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG, 8(1955), 14-16, 32, 35, 36, 44, 48-52, 55, 56, 106, 107, and 9(1956), 116, 124-128, 164, 165, 170, 180 187-189, 201, 207, 209, 211.
Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, pars. 1259, 1260; Suardo, Diario, I, 108/26.10.30; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 35.
Solórzano y Pereyra, Política, II, bk. 3, ch. 25, par. 59, p. 296, and ch. 33, par. 20, p. 409; III, bk. 4, ch. 24, par. 37, p. 370. Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG, 8(1955), 32, 9(1956), 188, 189, 213.
Anon., Descripción del virreinato del Perú. Crónica inédita de los comienzos del siglo XVII, ed. Boieslao Lewin (Rosario, 1958), pp. 32, 41; Lohmann Villena, “Una incógnita despejada: La identidad del judío portugués autor de la ‘Discriçion general del Piru,’” Revista de Indias, 119-120(1970), 315—387.
Buenaventura de Salinas y Córdova, Memorial de las Historias del Nuevo Mundo Pirv (Lima, 1957), pp. 245-246; Cobo, “Historia,” Monografías, I, 46, 47; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, par. 1226. Salinas and Cobo speak of “this year of 1630” and “1629,” respectively; Vázquez records a 1630 event.
“Caualleros,” ff. 210-212; Suardo, Diario, I, 157, 180, 301, II, 20, 42, 191, 195, 196 (also “vecino feudatario,” “cavallero feudatario”); “Feudatarios,” Cuzco 24, “Don Fernando Cartajena y Encomendero,” but see Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG 8(1955), 48, and Los americanos, I, 211, 212.
Solórzano y Pereyra, Política, II, bk. 3, ch. 25, par. 59, p. 296.
Solórzano y Pereyra, Política, II, bk. 3, ch. 2, pars. 10, 23, 28, 30, 31, pp. 15, 18, 27, and ch. 25, par. 59, p. 296; Ricardo Zorraquín Becú “La condición jurdíca de los grupos sociales superiores en la Argentina (siglos XVI a XVIII),” Revista del Instituto de Historia del Derecho, 12 (Buenos Aires, 1961), 109, 125, 126; Alfredo García Gallo, “El encomendero indiano,” Revista de Estudios Políticos, 11:55 (Madrid, 1951), 141-161; Richard Konetzke, “Die Entstehung des Adels in Hispanoamerika während der Kolonialzeit,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 39 (Wiesbaden, 1952), 215-250; Góngora, El estado, pp. 186, 187; Manuel Belaunde Guinassi, La encomienda en el Perú (Lima, 1945), p. 250.
Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, xx.
“Instrución que Vuestra Magestad da al conde de Chinchón, AGI, Indiferente, leg. 512, bk. 1, ff. 116-117V, items 18-20; Antonio Rodríguez de León Pinelo, Tratado de confirmaciones reales (Madrid, 1630), ch. 9, pars. 20, 21, p. 53, ch. 10, pars. 1-22, pp. 54-69v; Solórzano y Pereyra, Político, II, bk. 3, pars. 1, 41-48, pp. 21, 22, 30, 31, ch. 6, pars. 33-52, pp. 48-65, and ch. 7, par. 29, p. 94.
“Feudatarios,” Lima 19, Cuzco 31, La Plata 5, Quito 4, 18, 21; CDIU, XV, 71-74, XVI, 32, 188-197, 227, XVIII, 247; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, pars. 891, 1964, Kenneth R. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages (New York, 1967), pp. 174, 175; Bromley Seminario, “La ciudad,” p. 312, n. 208. The father of Doña Lorenza de Sotomayor (“Feudatarios,” Cuzco 31), Don Alonso, had fought in Chile and Panama.
AGNP, Causas Civiles, leg. 75, cuad. 285, ff. 700, 726, 826, 830, and Protocolos 1283, Ochandiano 1646, ff. 694-701v; Evans, “The Landed Aristocracy,” p. 35; Riva Agüero, El primer alcalde, pp. 82, 83; Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG, 8(1955), 50, 51, 9(1956), 170, 188, 189, and Los americanos, I, 150, 284, 285, 414, II, 15, 142, 145, 146; Suardo, Diario, II, 42/25.8.34, 103/22.10.35, 159/22.1.37; “Feudatarios,” Lima 4, 11, 16, 37, Trujillo 36, Cuzco 24, 29, 62, Arequipa 3, La Plata 2, La Paz 3, 12, 13, 34, double-holdings Chachapoyas 2-Cuzco 9, Cuzco 27-67.
CDIAO, XVII, 315, 348, 349, XXI, 39-43; Solórzano y Pereyra, Política, II, bk. 3, ch. 6, par. 61, p. 66; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 63, 64, 74, 120, 429-431; “Feudatarios,” Lima 21, Trujillo 15, Cuzco 29, 55, Arequipa 8.
Pedro Rodríguez Crespo, “Parentescos de los oidores de Lima con los grupos superiores de la sociedad colonial,” RIPIG, 14(1965), 17-24; Manuel Moreyra Paz Soldán, “Dos oidores del primer tercio del siglo XVII,” Mercurio Peruano, 27(Lima, 1946), 537-551; Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG, 9(1956), 192, and Los americanos, I, 97, 98, 209, 338, 339, 432, II, 20, 21, 115, 126, 127; CDIU, XVI, 47; AGNP, Causas Civiles, leg. 75, cuad. 285, f. 716; “Feudatarios,” Lima 3, 11, Cuzco 29, La Paz 24, 30, Quito 73.
John L. Phelan, The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century (Madison, 1967), p. 186; Suardo, Diario, I, 158/1.5.31 (marriage by proxy). Because of its purely European nature, I have excluded the kinship of Oidor Arriola to the Larraspurus (“Feudatarios,” Quito 15); see Chinchón to King, Gobierno 48, Lima, May 26, 1629, AGI, Lima, leg. 42.
Rafael Loredo, Los repartos (Lima, 1958), pp. 352-361. Joint family grants are counted as single units.
Solórzano y Pereyra, Política, II, bk. 3, ch. 4, 34-42, and ch. 27, par. 39, 326.
Salinas y Córdova, Memorial, p. 246; Solórzano y Pereyra, Política, II, bk. 3, ch. 23, par. 26, 263.
Chinchón to Marqués de Villena, Lima, June 3, 1637, BUS, 330/122, f. 388v, and Salinas y Córdova, Memorial, p. 169; both explain “criollo” as applied to native Spanish Americans. Suardo, Diario, I, 3, 28, 69, 82, 300, II, 44, 65, uses “cavallero criollo” and adds place of origin. However, Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, par. 915, only knows of colored creoles.
Don Pedro Mexía de Ovando, La ovandina de la nohleza (Madrid, 1915), pp. xi, xii, passim; CDIU, XVIII, 225; Suardo, Diario, II, 192/13.10.38.
María Encarnación Rodríguez Vicente, El tribunal del consulado de Lima en la primera mitad del siglo XVII (Madrid, 1960), pp. 382-392; “Feudatarios,” Lima 15, Trujillo 5, 8, 20, Arequipa 17, La Paz 21, Quito 43, 75, and doubleholding Chachapoyas 2-Cuzco 9; CDIAO, IX, 262, 366-369; Suardo, Diario, II, 87, n. *; Bromley Seminario, “La ciudad,” p. 300, n. 96; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 155, 338, 385, 429, II, 25, 26, 32, 144, 187.
Others accused him of retailing and of Canarian (Guanche) descent. Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 14, 15, 68, 69; “Feudatarios,” Trujillo 5, double-holding La Paz 5-20; Rodríguez Vicente, El tribunal, pp. 382, 386.
AGNP, Protocolos 1961, Valenzuela 1632/B, ff. 1087-1163; Rodríguez Crespo, “Parentescos,” pp. 17-20; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, II, 115, 126-128; Rodríguez Vicente, El tribunal, pp. 302, 306, 392, 407.
“Feudatarios,” Guanuco 3; Juan Bromley Seminario, “Alcaldes de la Ciudad de Lima en el Siglo XVII,” Revista Histórica 23(Lima, 1957-1958), 5-28; Bromley Seminario, “La ciudad,” pp. 298-300, ns. 83-105 (ascribes encomiendas to Regidors Torres Bohórquez and Prieto de Abreu); RAH, Col. Mata Linares, vol. 21, ff. 123, 327; Sala del Crimen to Chinchón, Lima, May 14, 1637, AGI, Lima, leg. 48; AGNP, Protocolos 1777, Sánchez Vadillo 1632/B, ff. 1645-1645v; Rodríguez Vicente, El tribunal, pp. 33, 44, 382-392; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 13, 48, 114, 135, 245, 365, 373, 455, II, 68, 109; Suardo, Diario, I, 26, 71, II, 24, 26, 174, 181, 185.
CDIAO, XIX, 199, 200; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 162, 365, II, 61; Bromley Seminario, “La ciudad,” pp. 293, 305, ns. 41, 147; “Feudatarios,” Lima 4, 11, Guanuco 3, Cuzco 6, Arequipa 16. Around 1630 chapetón did not just mean “peninsular” but greenhorn and usually poor and boor.
Solórzano y Pereyra, Político, II, bk. 3, ch. 28, par. 8, 332; Evans, “The Landed Aristocracy,” p. 35; “Feudatarios,” Cuzco 6.
Undated petition (seen Apr. 2, 1636) of Don Andrés Méndez de Arbieto y Salbatierra, AGI, Lima, leg. 162. Bom in Granada and in Peru since 1628, Don Andrés was the grand nephew of Conquistador Martín Hurtado de Arbieto.
Manuel de Mendiburu, Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Perú, 8 vols. (Lima, 1874-1890), VII, 167, 177; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 126, 209, II, 156, 157; Bromley Seminario, “La ciudad,” p. 314, n. 229; “Feudatarios,” Guanuco 13, Arequipa 3.
Don Juan de Sandoval y Sotomayor to King, Lima, May 26, 1635, and anonymous denunciation of Sanabria, Lima, Apr. 12, 1636, AGI, Lima, leg. 162; Suardo, Diario, I, 75/13.5.30; “Feudatarios,” Trujillo 5.
Chinchón’s 1629-1633 report on appointments (see Riuera, Verdugo, Villacorta), AGI, Lima, leg. 45; Suardo, Diario, II, 6/10.1.34, 177/28.11.37, 178/ 1.12.37; ’’Feudatarios,” Trujillo 20, Cuzco 15, La Paz 15, Quito 31, 71.
Chinchón to King, guerra 65, Lima, May 24, 1629, AGI, Lima, leg. 1, bk. 1.
Suardo, Diario, I, 181/30.8.31.
Keith Arfon Davies, “The Rural Domain in the City of Arequipa, 1540-1665” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Connecticut, 1974), pp. 13-58, 208-227; Evans, “The Landed Aristocracy,” pp. 107-130, 161, 339-359.
Salinas y Córdova, Memorial, p. 252. See too: Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio, par. 1224, and Cobo, “Historia,” Monografías, I, 73.
Protector Domingo de Luna to King, Lima, May 30, 1629, AGI, Lima, leg. 160 (ff. 5v-6v).
Carlos Zavala Oyague, Historia del Perú (Lima, 1951), p. 105; Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG, 8(1955), 44, and Los americanos, I, 75, 135, II, 96, 221, 222; Bromley Seminario, “La ciudad,” p. 300, n. 103; Suardo, Diario, II, 140, 144-146, 174; AGNP, Protocolos 262, Pedro de Carranza 1628/32, ff. 335, 355v, and Protocolos 1837, Sobarzo 1622, f. 315; “Feudatarios,” Lima 7, 25, Guanuco 9, Guamanga 8, La Plata 7.
Chinchón’s five reports on appointments, 1629-1633, 1633-1635, 1635-1636, 1636-1637, and 1637-1638, AGI, Lima, legs. 44-48; Suardo, Diario, I, 9, 51, 67, 84, 90, 117, 166, 237, 242, 286, II, 21, 34, 53, 81, 114, 118, 124, 144-147, 150, 152, 175, 177, 184, 195; “Feudatarios,” Lima 2, 12-14, 16, 20, 22, 24, 36, Trujillo 1, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 26, 34, Guanuco 1, 4, 8-10, 12, 13, 17, Guamanga 12, 13, Cuzco 8, 27, 29, 62, 64, 66, 67, 72, Arequipa 5, 16, La Paz 7, 13, 24, Quito 9, 31, 57.
Probable peninsulares: Camacho, Céspedes, Don Lorenzo Dávila, Don Agustín de Espinosa, Gonzalez de Ayala, Mejía de Sandoval, Don Rodrigo de Mendoza, Negrete, Niño de Valenzuela, Ordoñez de Valencia, Salas y Valdes; sons of peninsulares: Altamirano, Cuentas, Don Francisco and Don Luis de Mendoza, Niño de Guzman, Padilla, Tello de Sotomayor, Don Juan de Valencia. AGNP, Protocolos, 1283, Ochandiano 1646, ff. 694-701v; AGI, Lima, legs. 160, 162 (Ordoñez de Valencia; Gonzalez Ayala’s sons are “very benemeritous”) ; CDIAO, XIX, 199, 200, XX, 168; CDIU, XVI, 41, 193, XVII, 35, 36; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 285, II, 15, 60–64, 81, 128, 131, 144–147, 156–159; “Feudatarios,” Lima 16, 20, 36, Trujillo 5, 7, 10, 13, Guanuco 1, 10, 13, 17, Guamanga 12, Arequipa 5, Cuzco 62, La Paz 13, Quito 9, double-holdings of Arequipa 1–16, Cuzco 27–67.
Suardo, Diario, I, 9, 67, 117; “Feudatarios,” Guamanga 13, Arequipa 5, double-holding Trujillo 34-Quito 57.
BNP, B-873; AGNP, Causas Civiles, leg. 93, cuad. 346, ff. 4v, 73v-74; “Feudatarios,” La Paz 3.
Suardo, Diario, I, 282/23.7.33, II, 63/17.1.35; “Feudatarios,” La Plata 7, Quito 18.
Mendiburu, Diccionario, VI, 2, 3; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, II, 5, 26, 109, 115, 130, 219; “Feudatarios,” Lima 8, 27, 30, Cuzco 62, Arequipa 17, Quito 73.
AGNP, Protocolos 1837, Sobarzo 1622, ff. 52–52v; José Antonio Del Busto Duthurburu, “La casa de Peralta en el Perú,” RIPIG, 15(1970), 99–140, and 16(1975), 15–84; Riva Agüero, El primer alcalde, passim; Bromley Seminario, “Alcaldes,” p. 27; Lohmann Villena, “Infonnaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG, 9(1956), 124, 125, and Los americanos, I, 62–64, 120, 135, 149, 157, 161, 211, 246, 262, 284, 285, 315, 352, 390, 429–432, 465, II, 21–26, 31, 63, 64, 81, 103, 115, 128, 148, 156, 219, 450.
“Feudatarios,” Lima 4, 11, 21, 30, 33, Trujillo 15, Guanuco 10, Cuzco 6, 59, 63, Arequipa 8, La Plata 3, double-holdings of Chachapoyas 2-Cuzco 9, Cuzco 27–67.
“Feudatarios,” Guamanga 8, Cuzco 28, 29, 48, Arequipa 10, La Paz 28, 29, double-holdings Lima 5-Quito 69, Lima 14-Cuzco 8; and probably Quito 65.
James Lockhart, The Men of Cajamarca (Austin, 1972), p. 365; Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, II, 14; Protocolos 1970, Valenzuela 1635, f. 21; “Feudatarios,” Arequipa 10, double-holding Lima 5-Quito 69.
“Feudatarios,” Lima 2, 12, 13, 30, 36, Trujillo 1, Guanuco 10, Cuzco 6, 62, Arequipa 5, 10, La Paz 3, 24, double-holdings of Lima 14-Cuzco 8, Lima 22-Guanuco 8, Cuzco 27–67.
“Feudatarios,” Guanuco 12, 17 (Arias Davila, Tello de Sotomayor).
“Feudatarios,” Lima 20, Trujillo 7, Guanuco 1, 9, Cuzco 15, double-holding Lima 31–38 (Don Lorenzo Davila, Don Pedro de Céspedes, Larrinaga, Ordoñez de Valencia, Don Joseph de Riuera, and Don Juan Roldán Davila).
“Feudatarios,” Guamanga 1, 5, and Cuzco 20, 42 are Oropesa’s. The twin holdings are Lima 5-Quito 69, Lima 14-Cuzco 8, Lima 18-Cuzco 32, Lima 22-Guanuco 8, Lima 24-Cuzco 72, Lima 31–38, Trujillo 14-Cuzco 50, Trujillo 30-Chachapoyas 4, Trujillo 34-Quito 57, Chachapoyas 2-Cuzco 9, Guamanga 18-Cuzco 17, Cuzco 27–67, Cuzco 34–53, Arequipa 1–16, La Plata 5-Quito 4, La Plata 6-La Paz 4, La Paz 5–20, Quito 58–60. Excluded as improbable: Lima 2-Arequipa 4, Cuzco 56-Arequipa 16; doubtful: Cuzco 2-Quito 26, La Paz 1-Quito 32.
Actually two more at the shared encomiendas of “Feudatarios,” Cuzco 1 and Quito 47; but they apparently concern single families.
“Encomenderos del distrito de la ciudad de los Reyes,” BUS, 330/122, item 67, f. 411; AGNP, Protocolos 1837, Sobarzo 1622, ff. 52–52v; “Caualleros,” ff. 210–212; Suardo, Diario, passim; “Feudatarios,” Lima 4, 15, Guamanga 16, Arequipa 10, Cuzco 69, La Paz 16, 24, 34, Quito 65.
Peter Marzahl, “Creoles and Government: The Cabildo of Popayán,” HAHR, 54(Nov. 1974), 640; Phelan, The Kingdom of Quito, p. 25; Suardo, Diario, I, 83/25.6.30; “Feudatarios,” Quito 14, 47, 55.
CDIAO, VIII, 389, IX, 261, 262, 307, 359, 362–382, 464, 495, 496, XVIII, 292; CDIU, XVI, 52, XVII, 100, XVIII, 225. To Lima: “Feudatarios,” Arequipa 14; to Cuzco: Quito 42; to La Plata: La Plata 17; to towns in the Quito district: Chachapoyas 10, Quito 41, 43, 47, 53, 56, 59, 63, 67, 68, 75, 76.
Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG 8(1955), 35, 36, 81, 82, and Los americanos, I, 103, 211, 212, 341, II, 13, 115, 126–128. To Lima: “Feudatarios,” Quito 61, 73; to Cuzco: La Paz 23, 33; to La Plata: La Plata 18; to La Paz: La Paz 17; to Quito: La Paz 26. Del Busto Duthurburu, “La casa de Peralta,” RIPIG, 15(1970), 112; “Feudatarios,” La Paz 21 to Arequipa.
“Feudatarios,” Lima 5-Quito 69, Chachapoyas 2-Cuzco 9, Trujillo 34-Quito 57.
“Feudatarios,” Lima 3 (wife of La Plata oidor), Cuzco 33 (cf. Cuzco 59), Arequipa 12 (cf. La Paz 14).
Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, II, 33; cf. “Feudatarios,” Cuzco 47.
“Feudatarios,” Lima 2, 19, Cuzco 64, double-holdings Lima 14-Cuzco 8, Trujillo 34-Quito 57; “Encomenderos . . . distrito . . . Reyes;” CDIAO, IX, 358, 370, 382; Suardo, Diario, I, 107/19.10.30, 117/18.11.30, 171/13.7.31; Bromley Seminario, “La ciudad,” pp. 307, 310, ns. 164, 194; Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas, RIPIG 9(1956), 201, and Los americanos, I, 17.
“Feudatarios,” Guamanga 12; CDIU, XVII, 35, 36.
“Feudatarios,” Guanuco 15, Arequipa 3, 15.
To Lima: Don Francisco de Alvarado (1635 petition, AGI, Lima, leg. 162), and Mendoza Carvajal with his son (Suardo, Diario, I, 93, 243); “Feudatarios,” Lima 24-Cuzco 72, Arequipa 1–16, 4. “Feudatarios,” Trujillo 30-Chacha-poyas 4 state residence in a same district; Trujillo 14-Cuzco 50 shall be divided by halves.
Germán Stiglich, Diccionario geográfico del Perú (Lima, 1922); Lohmann Villena, El corregidor; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio; Carlos Peñaherrera and Alberto Tauro, Atlas histórico geográfico y de paisajes peruanos (Lima, 1970); USAF flight charts 199–201 (Washington, 1948, 1950, 1951).
CDIAO, IX, 337; “Feudatarios,” La Plata 3. “Oropesa” is Cochabamba.
“Encomenderos . . . distrito . . . Reyes”; Suardo, Diario (on Sigoney); Bromley Seminario, “Alcaldes,” p. 18; “Feudatarios,” Lima 6, 13, Chachapoyas 15.
Lohmann Villena, El corregidor, pp. 595–600, map p. 200.
Cook, ed. Tasa,p. xviii.
Magnus Mörner, La corona española y los foráneos en los pueblos de indios de América (Stockholm, 1970), pp. 289, 290; Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendia, par. 1364.
Trujillanos and Chachapoyanos with encomiendas in both districts are twenty-nine out of thirty known residences. See Table III.
“Feudatarios,” Lima 12, Cuzco 46, 63; Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG, 9(1956), 115, and Los americanos, I, 95, 119.
AGNP, Protocolos 262, Carranza 1628/32, ff. 355v-356, Protocolos 1837, Sobarzo 1620 (ff. 297–300) and 1622 (ff. 193v-195), Protocolos 1961, Valenzuela 1632/B, ff. 263–267v; CDIAO, VIII, 422; Lohmann Villena, “Informaciones genealógicas,” RIPIG, 8(1955), 44, and Los americanos, I, 155, 221, 227, 429, II, 63, 64, 450; “Feudatarios,” Lima 7, 15, 20, 25, Trujillo 28, Guanuco 9, 17, Guamanga 15, 16, La Paz 28, 29, double-holding Lima 31–38.
Rodríguez Vicente, El tribunal, pp. 77, 78, 108, 285.
AGNP, Causas Civiles, leg. 75, cuad. 285, ff. 826, 830–830v, 874v; Bromley Seminario, “Alcaldes,” p. 8; “Feudatarios,” Lima 11.
Chinchón to King, Gobierno 46, Lima, Jan. 18, 1637, AGI, Lima, leg. 48.
AGNP, Protocolos 1643, Cristóbal Rodríguez 1632, ff. 203–207 (“obligación” at Lima, May 18, 1632); Lohmann Villena, Los americanos, I, 364.
Itself an index of social cohesion. See Stephanie Blank, “Patrons, Clients, and Kin in Seventeenth-Century Caracas,” HAHR, 54(May 1974), 260–283.
Rodrigo de Carvajal y Robles, Fiestas de Lima, ed. F. López Estrada, (Seville, 1950), silva 12, verses 36–38, 75–81, silva 15, verses 47–56; “Feudatarios,” Lima 2, 29, double-holding Lima 22-Guanuco 8; Francisco López Estrada, “Datos para la biografía de Rodrigo de Carvajal y Robles,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos, 9(1952), 577–596.
Author notes
The author is a member of the Department of Spanish and Latin American studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
