Peruvian Encomenderos in 1630: Elite Circulation and Consolidation

Abstract

THE object of this article is to shed light on the circulation of colonial Spanish American elites.1 Treatments of this theme are frequently encountered. As the bureaucrats took control, we are told, the conquistadors and their descendants lost position through impoverishment, lawsuits, and revocations. Newcomers waxed rich in trade, acquired land, purchased office and title, and married colonial heiresses. There is little agreement, however, on the means or extent of this social turnover.2 Here an attempt will be made, for seventeenth-century Peru, to relate upward mobility to residence in the viceregal capital and access to the viceroy. The study ranges over Greater Peru, with its capital Lima and its three audiencia districts of Quito, Lima, and La Plata (or Charcas), in which viceroys held appointive power. The time reference is 1630 although for purposes of comparison the conquest generation is considered as well. Among the conquerors of Peru, the encomienda was the hallmark of success. This grant of Indian labor and tribute within a defined boundary afforded the grantee a lordly rank and life-style. Enco-