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Municipal Organization of the Rancherias of Pearls*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Francisco Domínguez Compañy*
Affiliation:
Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.

Extract

The metropolis made full and very exacting regulations for everything that referred to the obtaining and control of precious metals and stones. Even in the first days of Spanish colonial expansion in America, the regulations contained in capitulations and instructions were innumerable. Later on, laws, royal cedulas, ordinances, and other juridical norms ordained in a detailed manner the requisites to which all had to submit who proposed to exploit the deposits of precious metals or the pearl fisheries. They regulated the manner in which they were to be established, the work of the Indians in them, and, above all, the control of production and the participation of the crown in the benefit obtained.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1964

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Footnotes

*

Translated by Fintan B. Warren, O. F. M.

References

1 II, Cédula of Carlos in Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las Indias (first published in Madrid, 1681), ley I, tit. xxv, lib. ivGoogle Scholar.

2 Cédula of Felipe III, May 26, 1609, ibid., ley XVII, tit. xv, lib. vi, says: “Ordenamos y mandamos a los virreyes del Perú ó ministros á quienes tocare el gobierno de aquel reino, que procuren poblar los indios necesarios en la comarca de las minas de Potosí. . . .” Another decree of Felipe III in the ordinance of personal service of 1601, ley XXI of the same titulo and libro, determines that, concerning the mines of mercury, “los procuren avecindar . . . para que siendo necesario el repartimiento se haga en ellos. . . .” And there is another law of more general scope which decrees that, concerning the mines, “haciendo elección de sitios acomodados, y sanos, hagan y funden poblaciones de indios, donde se recojan, y vivan en Pueblos formados, y tengan la Doctrina, Hospitales, y todo lo demas necesario. . . .” Ordinance 21 of personal service of 1601, ibid., ley X, tit. iii, lib. vi.

3 Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, cap. cxxxv, lib. i.

4 Ordinance 43 de Población of Felipe II, of 1573, Recopilación, ley II, tit. vii, lib. iv.

5 Law of Felipe II, of December 23, 1583, ibid., ley XI, tit. vi, lib. iii.

6 Cédula of Felipe II, of December 20, 1593, ibid., ley II.

7 Cédula of Felipe II, of December 23, 1583, ibid., ley XIII.

8 Law of Carlos II and the Reina Gobernadora, ibid, ley I, tit. xxv, lib. iv.

9 Cédula of September 30, 1595, ibid., ley XXVIII, tit. iv, lib. iii.

10 Cédula of Felipe II of May 24, 1579, ibid., ley II, tit. xxv, lib. iv.

11 Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, cap. clxv, lib. iii.

12 Ibid., cap. cxxxv, lib. i.

13 Cédula dated in Valladolid, April 21, 1554, Recopilación, ley VI, tit. x, lib. iv.

14 Ordinance 93 of Felipe II, signed in Segovia, July 13, 1573.

15 Ordinance 5 on the government of pearl gathering, signed by Felipe II, May 18, 1591, Recopilación, ley X, tit. xxv, lib. iv.

16 Ordinance 12 of the same, ibid., ley VII.

17 Cédula of Fernando V, of December 10, 1512, ibid., ley XXIX.

18 Cédula of Felipe II, of December 2, 1578, ibid., ley XXX.

19 Law of Carlos II and the Reina Gobernadora, ibid., ley III.

20 Ordinance 5 on the government of pearl gathering, ibid., ley X.

21 Ibid., ley XI.

22 Ibid., ley IV.

23 Cédula of Felipe II, ibid., ley VIII.

24 Cédula of Felipe II, ibid., ley IX, corresponds to Ordinance 11 of 1591 on the government of pearl gathering.

25 Ordinances 5 and 15 of the same, Recopilación, ley XVIII, tit. xxv, lib. iv.

26 Ordinance of Carlos I, December 13, 1527, ibid., ley XLV.

27 Ordinances 18 and 19 on the government of pearl gathering, ibid., ley XXII and XXIV.

28 Cédulas of Felipe II, April 23, 1594, and October 4, 1595, ibid., ley XII.

29 Ordinance 6 on the government of pearl gathering, ibid., ley XV.

30 Ordinance 20, ibid., ley XIX.

31 Ordinance 30, ibid., ley XXI.

32 Ordinance 13, ibid., ley XXVIL.

33 Ordinances 3 and 8, ibid., ley V.

34 Ordinances 12 and 13, ibid., ley VI and XVII.

35 Ordinance 8, ibid., ley XIV.

36 Cédula of Felipe II, June 2, 1585, and ordinance of Felipe III of 1601, ibid., ley XXXI.

37 Felipe III, Aranjuez, May 26, 1609, ibid., ley XI, tit. xi, lib. vi.

38 Las Casas, Historia de la Indias, lib. ii, cap. xlv, and lib. iii, cap. clxv.

39 Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del mar océano, decada 4, lib. vi, cap. xii.

40 Juan de Solorzano Pereira, Política indiana, lib. II, cap. xvi, no. 49.

41 Ordinance 18 on the government of pearl gathering, Recopilación, ley XXXII, tit. xxv, lib. iv.