Sold – America 1594: The Viceroy of the Spanish New World Tightens the

In 1535, the Spanish crown founded Lima, Peru and organized all administrative functions in the region around that city. It was not, however, until 1572 that the Viceroyalty took coherent form under Francisco de Toledo, who conquered the last great Inca leader. The principal role of the Viceroy was to organize the King’s possessions, help ensure safe passage to Spain and provide the King with as many new financial resources as possible.

Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, 2nd Marquis de Canete, was an officer of the Spanish military forces that conquered the Incas in Chile and later became Governor of the Province of Chile, subservient to his father who was the Viceroy of Chile and Peru. After his father’s death, King Phillip II appointed him to succeed as Viceroy. During the rule of the junior de Canete, the Spanish crown worked to control every facet of the lives of colonist and conquered alike. Each new act of discovery and conquest could be made solely in the name of the King of Spain, who had the right of de facto ownership of all lands. Similarly, every proprietary land decision emanated directly from the court in the name of the King himself. Another important policy was the use of land as capital and bourse. Conquistadors and their men were paid by the King in land and bounty from their conquests, a means of financing expeditions and infrastructure projects without emptying the royal coffers. Similarly, the rebuilding of the Spanish Armada, recently defeated by the British in 1588, was in part financed by funds from the colonial lands, another reason that all property came to and from the Crown.

In 1591, Phillip II issued two royal and far reaching edicts intended to better control the system of land allocation. The first edict punished those who illegally occupied land that the crown considered its own; the second provisionally returned to royal ownership much land that had been taken by the Conquistadors and colonizers. The Court would examine them, determine the validity of these land titles and their potential use to the Crown; it then returned some land and kept some. The 2nd Marquis as Viceroy had to enforce these laws.

Document signed by both the Marquis of Canete as Viceroy and Antonio Bautista, Royal Registrar of Lands, Peru, in Spanish colonial court script , October 30, 1594, consisting of a series of sub-documents (12 pages in total) showing this new system of land and bounty allocation outside Lima, and demonstrating the Crown’s use of colonial resources in part to help finance the rebuilding of the Armada.

The document begins with a re-statement of the law giving the Viceroy the right to represent the King and requisition all private land – provisions called the Realengos. “Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Canete, Viceroy, governor and captain in these kingdoms and providences of Peru, tierra firma, and Chile, the King my ruler by a royal edict has ordered and sent me to restore to his majesty all the lands held…without just and legitimate title, to have them examined and reclaimed by him.” In repeating the language of the law, the document continues in the King’s voice, “These lands might be admitted in convenient and expedient form so that serving me with that which is just, that I might found and put to sea a royal Armada in order to ensure that these realms and the ships that go and come might not be harmed by enemies…With the agreement of my Council of the Indies I give you the power, commission and authority…You may, for all those who hold land without just and legitimate title, confirm the quantity and quality of their property and issue them new titles…and also take those lands which have been neither occupied nor bestowed, reserving always the necessary space for public places. Made at the Prado [Spanish royal palace in Madrid], November 1, 1591.”

The middle portions of the document show the bureaucracy of 16th century America in action in disposing of the land, and include copies of testimony from the head of the Court and Mayor Francisco Coello, who testifies that “appeared Francisco Rodriguez de Soria, resident in this city and presented certain documents which read to be his claim on a subdivision of land called Deomas and the Island of Caravallo [Southwest and East of Lima, respectively]…and I order that these said lands might be examined by Juan de Grajales of this commission.”

The measurement of the land by the Royal mediator, Juan de Grajales, follows and it is presented to the Court on August 25, 1594, approving de Soria’s ownership of 45 fanegadas (about 6 acres) of land in Omas and 9 in Caravallo. On September 18 the Mayor agreed and the court accountant, Antonio Bautista, entered the values into the record. With the property investigated and re-granted to the possessor, the Viceroy approves on September 23, writing “His Majesty confirms and gives title to Francisco Rodriguez de Soria of the 45 fanegadas he has on Omas and on the Island of Caravallo of 9 fanegadas…” A fascinating American document from 26 years before the Mayflower.