Manuscript relating to to the surco town about Indian taxes. Apprx 16-3/4" x 12", watermarked, laid paper. When the Spanish landed in 1531, Peru's territory was the nucleus of the highly developed Inca civilization. Centered at Cuzco, the Inca Empire extended over a vast region from northern Ecuador to central Chile. In search of Inca wealth, the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro, who arrived in the territory after the Inca had fought a debilitating civil war, conquered the weakened people. The Spanish captured the Inca capital at Cuzco by 1533 and had consolidated their control by 1541, when Pizarro was assassinated. Establishing a stable colonial government was delayed for some time by native revolts and bands of the Conquistadores fighting among themselves. The initiation of an encomienda system meant that the Conquistadores extracted tribute for personal service, part of which was forwarded to Seville in return for converting the natives to Christianity. Title to the land itself remained with the king of Spain. As governor of Peru, Pizarro used the encomienda system to grant virtually unlimited authority over groups of native Peruvians to his soldier companions, forming the colonial land-tenure structure. The occupants of the land were now expected to raise Old World cattle and poultry and crops for their landlords....
...Resistance was punished with the severity that has given rise to the "Black Legend". The census taken by the last Quipucamayoc indicated that there were 12 million inhabitants of Inca Peru: 45 years later, under viceroy Toledo, the census figures amounted to only 1,100,000 Indians. The attrition was not an organized genocide, but the results were similar. Inca cities were given Spanish Christian names and rebuilt as Spanish towns centered around a plaza with a church or cathedral facing an official residence. A few Inca cities like Cusco retained native masonry for the foundations of their walls. Other Inca sites, like Huanuco Viejo, were abandoned for cities at lower altitudes more hospitable to the Spanish. Once the Viceroyalty of Peru was established, Gold and silver from the Andes enriched the conquerors, and Peru became the principal source of Spanish wealth and power in South America. Pizarro founded Lima in 1535. The viceroyalty established at Lima in 1542 initially had jurisdiction over all of Spanish South America except Portuguese Brazil, which was part of the king's personal dominions 1580 - 1640. Through Lima passed the flow of colonial wealth, trekked across the isthmus of Panama and shipped to Seville. The rest of Peru was dependent upon Lima, in a pattern that persists today.On the local level, the Spanish encomenderos depended on local chieftains (curacas) to control even the most remote settlements, in a rigorous hierarchy. By the 18th century. Lima had become the most distinguished and aristocratic colonial capital, seat of the university and the chief Spanish stronghold in America. When Pizarro was assassinated by the faction of Diego Almagro in 1541, the stability of the regime was unseated by civil war. In response, the first viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela was sent out from Spain in 1544. He was killed by Francisco's brother, Gonzalo Pizarro. But the viceroyalty under Pedro de la Gasca eventually prevailed, Gonzalo was captured and executed. The Inca were not entirely suppressed. In the 18th century, there were fourteen large uprisings, the most outstanding of which were the uprising led by Juan Santos Atahualpa in 1742, and in 1780 the Sierra uprising, led by Tupac Amaru. Viceroyalty of Peru Created in 1542, the Viceroyalty of Peru (in Spanish, Virreinato del Perú) contained most of Spanish-ruled South America until the creation of the separate viceroyalties of New Granada (now Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá and Venezuela, the last-named previously in the Viceroyalty of New Spain) in 1717 and the La Plata (Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay) in 1776. The Viceroyalty ended with the independence of the republics of Chile (1818) and Peru (1821). During the 17th century the Viceroyalty contained six audiencias or provincial administrations: Panamá, Santa Fé de Bogotá (Colombia), Quito (Ecuador), Lima (Peru proper), Charcas (Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay) and Chile.
400/600 Sold $149.50
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