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Peru Colonial Administration
The expansion of a colonial administrative apparatus
and
bureaucracy paralleled the economic reorganization. The
viceroyalty was divided into audiences
(
audiencias--see Glossary),
which were further subdivided into provinces or
districts
(
corregimientos--see Glossary) and
finally municipalities, which included a city or town, governed by
town councils
cabildos--see Glossary),
composed of the most
prominent citizens, mostly encomenderos in the
early years and later
hacendados (see Glossary).
The most important royal official was the viceroy, who
had a host of responsibilities ranging from general
administration (particularly tax collection and construction of public
works) and internal and external defense to support of the church
and protection of the native population. He was surrounded by
a number of other judicial, ecclesiastical, and treasury
officials,
who also reported to the Council of the Indies, the main
governing body located in Spain. This configuration of
royal
officials, along with an official review of his tenure
called the
residencia (see Glossary),
served as a check on viceregal power.
In the early years of the conquest, the crown was
particularly concerned with preventing the conquistadors
or
encomenderos from establishing themselves as a
feudal
aristocracy capable of thwarting royal interests.
Therefore, it
moved quickly to quell the civil disturbances that had
racked
Peru immediately after the conquest and to decree the New
Laws of
1542, which deprived the encomenderos and their
heirs of
their rights to native American goods and services.
The early administrative functions of the
encomenderos
over the indigenous population (protection and
Christianization)
were taken over by new state-appointed officials called
correqidores de indios (governors of Indians--see Glossary).
They were charged at the provincial level with
the
administration of justice, control of commercial relations
between native Americans and Spaniards, and the collection
of the
tribute tax. The corregidores (Spanish magistrates)
were
assisted by curacas, members of the native elite,
who had
been used by the conquerors from the very beginning as
mediators
between the native population and the Europeans. Over time
the
corregidores used their office to accumulate wealth
and
power to dominate rural society, establishing mutual
alliances
with local and regional elites such as the curacas,
native
American functionaries, municipal officials, rural priests
(doctrineros), landowners, merchants, miners, and
others,
as well as native and mestizo subordinates.
As the crown's political authority was consolidated in
the
second half of the sixteenth century, so too was its
ability to
regulate and control the colonial economy. Operating
according to
the mercantilistic strictures of the times, the crown
sought to
maximize investment in valuable export production, such as
silver
and later other mineral and agricultural commodities,
while
supplying the new colonial market with manufactured
imports, so
as to create a favorable balance of trade for the
metropolis.
However, the tightly regulated trading monopoly,
headquartered in
Seville, was not always able to provision the colonies
effectively. Assadorian shows that most urban and mining
demand,
particularly among the laboring population, was met by
internal
Andean production (rough-hewn clothing, foodstuffs, yerba
mate
tea, chicha beer, and the like) from haciendas,
indigenous
communities, and textile factories
(
obrajes--see Glossary).
According to him, the value of these Andean
products
amounted to fully 60 to 70 percent of the value of silver
exports
and elite imports linking Peru and Europe. In any case,
the crown
was successful in managing the colonial export economy
through
the development of a bureaucratic and interventionist
state,
characterized by a plethora of mercantilistic rules that
regulated the conduct of business and commerce. In doing
so,
Spain left both a mercantilist and export-oriented pattern
and
legacy of "development" in the Andes that has survived up
to the
present day, and which remains a problem of contemporary
underdevelopment.
Data as of September 1992
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