The Viceroyalty of Peru was created in 1542 as an administrative district to exercise control over most of lands invaded by the Europeans in South America. It governed from the capital of Lima, Peru.
The Viceroyalty of Peru was one of the two viceroyalties in the Americas from the 16th to the 18th centuries (1544-1826). The creation of Viceroyalties of New Granada and Rio de la Plata at the expense of Peru's territory reduced the importance of Lima and shifted the lucrative Andean Trade to Buenos Aires.
In order to understand how lucrative it was and how this Viceroyalties exercised its power in the New World, we take as an example what was happening in Peru during the time of the Viceroy Pedro Antonio Fernandez de Castro.
Pedro Antonio Fernandez de Castro (20 October 1632-6 December 1672), 10th Count of Lemos was Viceroy of Peru from 1667 (age of 35) until his death. He was educated for the milicia. He was a court favorite when King Charles II appointed him Viceroy of Peru. He married a wealthy widow, since 1663(she had been the 3rd wife of Enrique Pimentel), in Madrid, on 20 July 1664. She was the daughter of the 8th Duke of Gandia. The Count and Countess of Lemos arrived in Peru at the Port of Callao on November 9, 1667. They were received by the Spanish of the colony with so much pomp.
In order to understand how this "Noble Society" made its way up, a brief summary of the ancestry of the House of Castro (from where Fernandez de Castro ancestry came from) is presented.
In the12th century Leon and Castilla, it was uncommon for the lords of the Southern Frontier (primaty responsibility the defence against the Almoravids) attend the itinerant royal court. Fernando Garcia de Hita, a Castillian nobleman, founder of the House of Castro, seems to have done both. He was given charge of several Frontier Fiefs (tenencias) and still managed to witness to 12 Royal Charters during the reign of Urraca. He was the Royal Official in charge of Guadalajara and Madinaceli in 1107. In 1,111 Fernando convinced Count Henry of Portugal to break his alliance with King Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarre, and negotiate a renewed alliance between Alfonso and Queen Urraca, after she distanced herself from Count Henry.
Fernando 1st wife was Trigidia, a relative of the powerful Count Pedro Ansurez. She died before him, leaving 2 sons: Gutierre Fernandez de Castro and Rodrigo Fernandez de Castro. Fernando 2nd wife, Stephanie, daughter of Count Ememgol V of Urgell. On 12 November of 1119 Fernando had a grant of Bride Wealth drawn up for his 2nd wife. He bestowed on her his 1/2 of properties at Castro-Jeriz and Cerrato, adquired with his 1st wife and divided between him and his children. Earlier that year, Queen Urraca had granted those lands at Uceda and some others at Hita to the betrothed couple. Also she granted the lands at Cevico to Stephanie to be held independently of her husband or his existing children. Fernando disregarded this Royal Charter, placing greater stock in aristocratic custom based on Visigothic Law, by which he acquired 1/2 of all his wife's acquisitions during their marriage.
The couple had 2 daughters: Urraca Fernandez and Sancha Fernandez. Urraca was betrothed to Count Rodrigo Martinez, who granted her a Bride Wealth when she was only 10 years old. Stephanie also bore 2 sons to Fernando: Pedro Fernandez de Castro, who became the 1st Grand Master of the Order of James, and Martin Fernandez de Castro. Fernando died in 1125. After 10 years of being a widow and still young, married Count Rodrigo Gonzales de Lara in 1135.
In April 1126 Gutierre and Rodrigo Fernandez Castro made submission to the new king (later emperor) Alfonso VII, along with the rest of the Castillian nobility. In 1137 Rodrigo succeded Count Rodrigo Gonzales de Lara as governor of Toledo. Shortly after he raided the environs of Cordoba and defeated an army under Tashfin Ibn Ali, the future sultan. The mercenary experiences against the moors were indeed great. In April 1139 Rodrigo and his brother were ordered to besiege Oreja with their own knights assisted by local cavalry and infantry units of the Frontier Towns. He was dead by 1148. His eldest son, Fernando, the "Castilian," became the leader of the House of Castro.
The House of Castro, then is believed to have its origins in Castille, and the name is deriving from the Town of Castro-Geriz (Province of Burgos), and it had deep Branches and strong ties in Visigothic Galicia.
In 1665 the rich "mine owners" Jose Gaspar Salcedo, brothers from the Province of Paucar-Colla (now part of Puno Region), "revolted against the colonial government." The reason of the "revolution" was that they had discovered the very rich Lay-Cacota silver mines in 1657, and by this time they were the richest men in Latin America. The Salcedo brothers, who were Andalusians having women from Inca's nobility as his in-laws, were equal-opportunity employers in relation to his European background. The local people who really did the hard work of mine exploitation were treated as slaves. The way in which they hired people showed preference for Andalusians, Castilians, Creoles, and their in-laws growing family of mixed race (mestizo), than to Catalans, Galicians, and Basques. This type of friction formed a rival faction which battled the main stream faction of the Salcedos. The Royal Audiencia blamed the Salcedos for the riots, but the Salcedos defeated the Royalist Troops and became the undisputed authority in the Town.
When Fernandez de Castro, who was from Galicia, known as good mercenaries, came to Peru, this rebellion had reached such proportion that he felt he needed to resolve the conflict in his own way. He left to Paucar-Colla on June 7, 1668, and soon suppressed the Rellion with "an iron hand," and sentenced Jose Salcedo and 41 others to de. His brother Gaspar Salcedo was banished for 6 years and fined 12,000 francs and costs. He also ordered the population (10,000 people) of the Town of San Luis Alva, the settlement that had grown up around the mines, be removed to a short distance to the town of Puno, which he made the capital of the province, securing for himself all the wealth of the Salcedo family. After all the wealth confiscated including the property of the lucrative mines was transfered to his Royal and personal Crown, he burned San Luis the Alva, who was before him, the land and the town of the Salcedo family that also had strong connections with the Spanish Crown.
The sentences were appealed to the Crown of Spain, where they were reversed. Gaspar Salcedo was freed and the fines were refunded. What was offered in trading for that freedom is not known. A natural son of Jose, his brother, also named Jose, was made Marques de Villa Rica by King Philip V in 1703. Before his reign in Spain (1Nov.1700-15Jan.1724), Philip occupied an exalted place in the Royal Family of France as a grandson of King Louis XIV. His father , Louis, the grand Dauphin, had the strongest genealogical claim to the throne of Spain when it became vacant in 1700. Since the Grand Dauphin and Philip's older brother, Louis, Duke of burgundy, could not be displaced from their place in the succession to the French Throne, King Charles II of Spain named Philip as his heir in his will. It was well known that the union of France and Spain under one Monarch would upset the balance of power in Europe, such that other European powers would take steps to prevent it. Indeed, Philip's accession in Spain provoked the 14-year War of the Spanish Succession, which continued until the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) forbade any future possibility of unifying the French and Spanish Crowns. Philip was the 1st member of the House of Bourbon to rule as king of Spain. The sum of his 2 reigns, 45 years and 21 days, is the longest in modern Spanish history.
In other words, European Monarchies forever will need the material riches in order to maintain its power, however, the Incan Empire reached the fullest of its power without exploiting it. The had the natural balance of its nature and was the main reason why they called themselves "The Empire of the Children of the Sun."
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