Importance of the Viceroyalty of Peru

Of all its colonial domains, it was the most precious territorial entity for the Spanish crown due to the enormous wealth that it brought from the abundance of metals. precious that it housed, and because it was one of the bastions that offered the greatest resistance to the various revolutionary movements that dominated the first part of the 19th century in the region.

The most significant, wealthy, and Crown-aligned Spanish colonial entity

His establishment, after the Spanish conquest, meant the fall of the Inca Empire, one of the most prominent of the pre-Columbian era and that was an emblem of cultural, artistic, and scientist.

It was the most prosperous in economic matters, due to its deposits minerals, absolute suppliers of its great riches: reserves of mercury and silver, and also for the satisfactory economic organization established by his most notable authority, Viceroy Alvarez de Toledo, through the system of the half.

The mita basically consisted of a tax on the job which reached already married men, between the ages of 16 and 50, who were legally obliged to comply with it, contributing their labor force to the mines.

The money collected by this tax was destined to pay for the development of infrastructure, among other actions.

The mineral wealth was key to the splendor and power that it expressed

Natural conditions made mining the star economic activity, to the detriment of agriculture.

Potosí used to be the entity's most emblematic mining center.

Most of the mining cities were erected in authentic emporiums that brought him a abundant wealth to the Spanish crown that jealously took care that the production reached its destination according.

If for this to happen it was necessary to apply violence and coercion, the viceregal authorities did not hesitate to do so.

Thanks to this material provision, this viceroyalty financed many of the wars against the revolutionaries and the aborigines.

The capital of the viceroyalty, Lima, was undoubtedly the city that at that time represented the opulence at its best, especially through the Spanish authorities and the owners of the deposits.

Between 1542 and 1824 it covered a large area of ​​South America, although it lost important territorial possessions that gave rise to two other entities with similar relevance. policy, in the 18th century: the viceroyalty of Nueva Granada and the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.

He expressed the fiercest resistance against the emancipation

When, at the beginning of the 19th century, emancipatory ideas began to penetrate deeply and prosper in the society colonial this viceroyalty was the one that resisted the most and acted as the axis of the Spanish resistance, even, it faced in arms with others like the aforementioned from Río de la Plata who was one of the first to agitate and support a revolution against oppression Spanish.

As it happened with all the colonies of Spain, the conquest that was launched after the discovery of Columbus was characterized by violence and the subjugation of the population native, facts from which this vast and rich South American region was not exempt.