page_title: Viceroyalty of Peru
section_title: The last Spanish Habsburgs (1643–1713)
hierarchical_section_title: Viceroyalty of Peru / History / The last Spanish Habsburgs (1643–1713)
caption_attribution_description: English: Coloured area (all): Theoretical extension at the moment of its creation in 1542 Dark area: Colonized area in its maximum extension ca 1650 Light areas: Areas which were never effectively controlled by the Spanish Brown-coloured area: The Viceroyalty a few years before its end in 1818 Deutsch: Farbiger Bereich insgesamt: De-Iure-Ausdehnung bei Gründung des Vizekönigreichs Peru (1542) Dunkel getönter Bereich: effektiv beherrschtes Gebiet zum Zeitpunkt der größten Ausdehnung (um 1650) Hell getönter Bereich: theoretisch beherrschtes, aber effektiv niemals kontrolliertes Gebiet Brauner Bereich: Ausdehnung des Vizekönigreichs bei seinem Untergang (1818)
context_page_description: The Viceroyalty of Peru was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of Spanish-ruled South America, governed from the capital of Lima. Peru was one of the two Spanish Viceroyalties in the Americas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
  The Spanish did not resist the Portuguese expansion of Brazil across the meridian established by the Treaty of Tordesillas. The treaty was rendered meaningless between 1580 and 1640 while Spain controlled Portugal. The creation during the 18th century of Viceroyalties of New Granada and Río de la Plata reduced the importance of Lima and shifted the lucrative Andean trade to Buenos Aires, while the fall of the mining and textile production accelerated the progressive decay of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Eventually, the viceroyalty would dissolve, as with much of the Spanish Empire, when challenged by national independence movements at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
context_section_description: Viceroys had to protect the Pacific coast from French contraband and English and Dutch pirates. They expanded the naval forces, fortified the ports of Valdivia, Valparaíso, Arica and Callao and constructed city walls in Lima (1686) and Trujillo (1685–1687). Nevertheless, the famous English privateer Henry Morgan took Chagres and captured and sacked the city of Panama in the early part of 1670. Also Peruvian forces repelled the attacks by Edward David (1684 and 1686), Charles Wager and Thomas Colb (1708). The Peace of Utrecht allowed the British to send ships and merchandise to the fair at Portobello.
  In this period, revolts were common. Around 1656, Pedro Bohórquez crowned himself Inca (emperor) of the Calchaquí Indians, inciting the indigenous population to revolt. From 1665 until 1668, the rich mineowners José and Gaspar Salcedo revolted against the colonial government. The clergy were opposed to the nomination of prelates from Spain. Viceroy Diego Ladrón de Guevara had to take measures against an uprising of slaves at the hacienda of Huachipa de Lima. There were terrible earthquakes (1655, 1687) and epidemics, too.
  During Baltasar de la Cueva Enríquez's administration, the laws of the Indies were compiled. Diego de Benavides y de la Cueva issued the Ordenanza de Obrajes (Ordenance of Manufactures) in 1664 and Pedro Álvarez de Toledo y Leiva introduced the papel sellado (literally, sealed paper). In 1683 Melchor de Navarra y Rocafull reestablished the Lima mint, which had been closed since 1572. Viceroy Diego Ladrón de Guevara increased the production of silver in the mines of Potosí, and stimulated production in other mines at San Nicolás, Cajatambo and Huancavelica. He limited the manufacture of aguardiente from sugar cane to authorized factories, which he taxed heavily.
  The Churches of Los Desamparados (1672), La Buena Muerte and the convent of Mínimos de San Francisco de Paula were finished and opened. The Hospital of Espiritu Santo in Lima and San Bartolomé hospital were built.
caption: Colonized area in its maximum extension ca 1650 (dark green) and the Viceroyalty in 1816 (dark brown)
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