The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century: Bureaucratic Politics in the Spanish Empire

Phelan, John Leddy, The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century: Bureaucratic Politics in the Spanish Empire, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.

Reviewed in The Catholic Historical Review © 1971.

From the author’s Introduction:

This book is not merely a biography of Antonio Morga as such, nor is it intended only as a case study of the government of the audiencia kingdom of Quito from 1615 to 1636, when Dr. Morga served as president of that tribunal. The larger purpose is to explore the inner workings of the bureaucracy of the Spanish empire. A good deal but not all of the illustrative material comes from those two decades of the Morga administration.
The book falls into three sections. The first part deals with how an audiencia resolved some major problems as diverse as the conquests of frontier areas, the regulation of Indian labor, and defense measures against the Dutch. Some of the special characteristics of the colonial bureaucracy, such as graft and immorality, recruitment and promotion, crime and punishment, are the concerns of the second section. The visita general system by which the central authorities in Madrid evaluated the conduct and the performance of magistrates overseas is the central focus of the last part.
A recurrent theme is the interaction of the magistrates in the audiencia with their superiors in Lima and Madrid and their nominal inferiors in the provinces. Another focus is the interrelationship between the bureaucracy and each major segment, as well as among segments, of that multiracial society. The primary objective of the whole study is to unravel the intricate web of authority, responsibility, and decision-making in that governmental labyrinth. This book addresses itself to such questions as to what extent magistrates overseas enjoyed some initiative without jeopardizing central control and in what manner various sectors in that heterogeneous society influenced the decisions of regional magistrates in the audiencias and the central authorities in Madrid.