Quito, audiencia subordinada

The vast and disparate territories that made up the Viceroyalty of Peru challenged the ingenuity of the Spanish kings to devise an administrative system that would guarantee a modicum of efficiency and stability to the overseas empire. The creation of several new audiencias between 1559 and 1573, accomplished in response to a demonstrated need for more effective government, constituted a de facto decentralization of the viceroyalty and led inevitably to bitter jurisdictional conflicts between Lima and its satellite audiencias. In his study, Ismael Sánchez examines the origin and nature of these conflicts in the case of one of the new subordinate audiencias, Quito. Through an exhaustive perusal of correspondence, the author persuasively documents the heated clashes with both Lima and Madrid over critical issues of local governance, among which the administration of patronage in the form of land, labor, and public offices figured prominently. Though Sánchez concludes that royal restrictions were frequently honored in the breach, his study nevertheless is a convincing account of the labyrinthine complexities of colonial administration and of the terrible frustrations experienced by local officials in the colonial hierarchy.