{
  "id": "lanzas-y-arcabuzes-del-peru",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Lanzas y Arcabuzes: the viceroy of Peru's standing guard, created in 1554 as a substitute for the power to grant encomiendas and paid out of the rents of encomiendas that had fallen vacant",
  "summary": "In 1554 the viceroy of Peru was sent out with the power to grant encomiendas withdrawn from him, and told instead to find other ways to reward the deserving. He answered by raising companies of horse and foot, Lanzas, Arcabuzes and Alabarderos, and charging their pay — 114,500 pesos de plata ensayada a year — on the rents of the best encomiendas then falling vacant. Two of his successors were ordered to disband them and refused; a cédula of 1568 settled their numbers and their pay.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "colonial-law",
    "colonial-institutions",
    "encomienda",
    "military",
    "military-history",
    "peru",
    "lima",
    "americas",
    "spanish-empire",
    "sixteenth-century",
    "public-finance",
    "fiscal-history",
    "tribute",
    "colonial-administration",
    "legal-history"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "cedula-de-las-lanzas-y-arcabuzes-de-1568"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "reformacion-de-las-lanzas-y-arcabuzes-del-peru"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "prorrata-y-reversion-de-los-sueldos-de-las-lanzas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "encomienda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "solorzano-politica-indiana"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "vuelta-de-las-encomiendas-a-la-corona"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "modos-de-acabarse-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tercia-parte-de-las-encomiendas-del-peru"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tratos-sobre-la-perpetuidad-de-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "razones-contra-la-perpetuidad-de-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "ministros-y-encomiendas-de-las-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tributos-y-tasas-de-los-indios"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "relaciones-de-gobierno-de-los-virreyes"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "situados-de-nueva-espana"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "consejo-de-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "segunda-carga-de-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "narrativa-y-calidades-de-los-titulos-de-encomienda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "milicia-y-descripcion-de-las-indias-1599"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "What were the Lanzas and Arcabuzes of colonial Peru?",
    "How was the viceroy of Peru's guard paid for?",
    "What happened to the income of an encomienda when it fell vacant in Peru?",
    "Could a viceroy of Peru create a standing military company on his own authority?",
    "How did the Spanish crown reward conquistadors once encomiendas stopped being granted?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "The chapter and its place in the work. Libro III, capítulo XXXIII of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana is headed \"DE LOS GENTILES HOMBRES, llamados Lanzas, y Arcabuzes en el Perú, y Entretenidos de la Nueva-España: y dudas, que se han ofrecido sobre sus consignaciones, y reformaciones.\" It is the last chapter of libro III and the last of the first part of the work, \"FIN DE LA PART. PRIM.\" being printed beneath its close. Its printed SUMARIO runs to head 34, and its body to §34. The author opens at §1 by saying he treats these men last \"para dar remate à este Libro\" because they \"parece, que constituyen otra cierta especie de Encomenderos, ò son como figura de ellos\" — that is, he classifies a salaried guard as a kind of encomendero. This entry is scoped to §§1-5, the origin of the companies and the first two attempts to reform them; the cédula of 1568, the reform of 1618 and the law of arrears are treated in separate entries and nothing here rests on them.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-lanzas-origen-y-consignacion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The foundation is dated, named and costed, and its stated cause is the removal of a power rather than a military threat. At §2 Don Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, Marqués de Cañete — \"el Viejo\", distinguished from his son who held the same office — was sent as viceroy of Peru in 1554 with the faculty other viceroys had carried to grant encomiendas taken away from him, \"porque entonces se estaba tratando, si convendria perpetuarlas\". Taking occasion from the words of the royal cédula which, while forbidding him to encomendar, told him to seek other means \"como entretener, consolar, y remunerar à los beneméritos de aquella tierra\", and judging that it might also suit \"la seguridad, y guarda\" of that land and of his own person, he \"instituyó, y formó unas Compañias de Soldados, de à cavallo, à los quales llamó Lanzas, y Arcabuzes, y otra de Infantes, ò Soldados de à pié, que llamó Alabarderos, à imitacion de los que en Castilla llamamos Continuos, y les consignó en las rentas de las mejores Encomiendas, que entonces vacaban 114U500. pesos de plata ensayada en tal forma, que cada uno de los Lanzas ganasse cada año mil pesos, y de los Arcabuzes 500, y de los Alabarderos 180.\" Their charge was \"acudir à la defensa del Reyno en las ocasiones, que se ofreciessen, y acompañar con sus armas, y cavallos la Persona del Virrey, donde quiera que fuesse, para que assi su Dignidad, y la de su Magestad, que en ella se representa, fuesse mas respetable.\"",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-lanzas-origen-y-consignacion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The money was Indian tribute, and the page says so in its own terms. The salaries were \"consignados\" on the rents of vacant encomiendas, and the cédula of 1560 that ordered the companies reduced spoke of putting into the royal crown \"los tributos, que se les pagan\" — the tribute of the towns whose encomiendas had fallen in. What the treatise nowhere says in these paragraphs is what those towns paid, whether the sums they owed changed when their tribute was redirected from an encomendero to a company of soldiers, or whether they were told. This entry asserts neither that the burden changed nor that it did not; it records that the question is not raised on the pages read.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-lanzas-origen-y-consignacion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "The legality of the foundation was doubted from the start, and on two separate grounds. At §3 it was \"puesto en duda, si pudo este Virrey criar estas compañias, y hacerles la consignacion referida en aquellas Encomiendas, que salieron litigiosas, como lo tengo apuntado en el Capit. V. de este Libro\", and separately \"huvo muchos, que escribieron, que no havia necesidad de ellas\". For that reason the Conde de Nieva, provided for the same viceroyalty in 1559, was charged by a particular cédula of 28 September 1560 \"que las reformasse, y pusiesse en la Corona Real los tributos, que se les pagan, dexando solos 30. Soldados de à cavallo, y 20. de à pié, que se tuvieron por bastantes para la guarda, asistencia, y servicio de su Persona.\" The order would have cut the establishment by roughly four fifths.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-lanzas-origen-y-consignacion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "Two successive governors refused to carry the order out, and the reason given is that the pay was held to be a reward already earned. At §4 \"El Conde sobresseyó en el cumplimiento de esta Cedula, juzgando no era decente, ni conveniente, lo que por ella se le ordenaba, y que podria ocasionar desconsuelos, y alteraciones, en los que se reformassen, especialmente por averseles dado estas plazas, y sueldos, no solo por lo que havian de servir; sino tambien en premio, y remuneracion de lo que antes havian servido ellos, ò sus passados.\" The Licenciado Lope García de Castro of the Consejo Real de las Indias, who in 1563 succeeded the Conde de Nieva in the offices of President and Governor of those provinces, \"lo mismo sintió, y hizo despues\". A royal order to disband a standing force was thus suspended twice over by the men sent to execute it, and the treatise reports the refusals without censure.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-lanzas-origen-y-consignacion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "The settlement of 1568 fixed both the numbers and the pay, and cut the pay of the horse. At §5 matters ran on so \"hasta el año de 1568, que proveido para el mismo Virreynado Don Francisco de Toledo, se volviò à tratar de ello con mas cuidado que antes, y se despachó Cedula, que despues de averlo pesado, y pensado bien todo, mandó, se conservassen 100. Lanzas, 50. Arcabuzeros, y otros tantos Alabarderos, y que los Lanzas ganassen 800. pesos ensayados de sueldo cada año, los Arcabuzes 500, y los Alabarderos 300.\" The lanza's thousand pesos of 1554 became eight hundred; the halberdier's hundred and eighty became three hundred. That cédula, the author adds, \"se contienen plenamente el oficio, obligaciones, è instrucciones de los referidos\", and it and the others \"están recopiladas en el quarto tomo de las impressas\".",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-lanzas-origen-y-consignacion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "Patronage was written into the instrument itself, and the same sentence tries to fence it. At §5 some of those cédulas \"permiten à los Virreyes, que puedan repartir 10. plazas de estos Lanzas entre sus criados, y familiares, y que las demàs las provean precisamente entre beneméritos con cargo, de que ayan de tener, y sustentar armas, y cavallos, y que las rentas consignadas para sus sueldos se traygan à la Real Caxa de la Ciudad de Lima, y de alli se les hagan á todos sus pagas con igualdad.\" Ten of a hundred places were reserved by law to the viceroy's own household; the remainder were tied to merit and to the duty of keeping arms and horses; and the money was routed through the royal treasury at Lima so that payment should be equal. The provision that concedes the patronage and the provision that limits it stand in one sentence.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-lanzas-origen-y-consignacion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c8",
      "text": "What this entry establishes and what it does not. It establishes that a standing guard of horse and foot was raised in Peru in 1554 by the viceroy Marqués de Cañete; that its stated occasion was the withdrawal of his power to grant encomiendas and a royal instruction to find other ways of rewarding the deserving; that its pay was charged on the rents of encomiendas falling vacant, at 114,500 pesos de plata ensayada, with named rates for each rank; that its legality was doubted both because the encomiendas charged were in litigation and because the companies were thought unnecessary; that a cédula of 28 September 1560 ordered it cut to fifty men and that the Conde de Nieva and afterwards Lope García de Castro declined to execute that order on the ground that the places were remuneration for service already done; and that a cédula of 1568 fixed the establishment at 100 lanzas, 50 arcabuceros and 50 alabarderos at 800, 500 and 300 pesos. It establishes nothing about whether the companies were ever used in the field: not one engagement, muster or campaign appears in these paragraphs. It establishes nothing about the Indian towns whose tribute paid them. None of the cédulas named was opened in its own register or printing; they are known here only as this book reports them, and the author writes as a minister of the Council of the Indies about an institution his own court administered.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-lanzas-origen-y-consignacion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [],
  "faqs": [],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "industry_observation",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Accounts of the encomienda in English follow the grant from the conquistador to the crown and stop; accounts of colonial American armed force begin with the eighteenth-century militias. This object prints the institution that sits between them and is told almost nowhere: a permanent, salaried, viceregal guard founded in Peru in 1554 and funded, by name and by figure, out of the tribute of encomiendas that had fallen vacant. It is worth telling because of why it existed. The viceroy had just had the power to grant encomiendas taken away from him while Madrid debated making them hereditary, and was told to find some other way to reward the conquerors' generation; the companies were that other way, which is why the treatise files them under encomienda law and calls the men \"otra cierta especie de Encomenderos\". Around that the object sets the things a celebratory account would drop and a hostile one would miss: that the crown twice ordered the force cut by four fifths and twice was disobeyed by the man sent to do it, with the reason given in his own words; that ten of the hundred places were reserved by law to the viceroy's servants while the rest were tied to merit and to keeping arms; and that the pay of a lanza was cut by a fifth in 1568. It is explicit that the money was Indian tribute, and equally explicit that these pages say nothing at all about what the towns that paid it owed, or whether anything changed for them when their tribute was redirected to a company of cavalry.",
  "confidence": 0.85,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-21",
  "media": [],
  "x": {},
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  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Lanzas y Arcabuzes: the viceroy of Peru's standing guard, created in 1554 as a substitute for the power to grant encomiendas and paid out of the rents of encomiendas that had fallen vacant",
    "description": "In 1554 the viceroy of Peru was sent out with the power to grant encomiendas withdrawn from him, and told instead to find other ways to reward the deserving. He answered by raising companies of horse and foot, Lanzas, Arcabuzes and Alabarderos, and charging their pay — 114,500 pesos de plata ensayada a year — on the rents of the best encomiendas then falling vacant. Two of his successors were ordered to disband them and refused; a cédula of 1568 settled their numbers and their pay.",
    "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/lanzas-y-arcabuzes-del-peru",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-21",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Política Indiana, libro III, capítulo XXXIII, §§1-5 — the origin of the companies of Lanzas, Arcabuzes and Alabarderos of Peru and their consignment on vacant encomienda rents: the chapter heading 'DE LOS GENTILES HOMBRES, llamados Lanzas, y Arcabuzes en el Perú, y Entretenidos de la Nueva-España: y dudas, que se han ofrecido sobre sus consignaciones, y reformaciones', its printed SUMARIO of thirty-four heads ending on page 429, and the framing at §1 that these men 'parece, que constituyen otra cierta especie de Encomenderos, ò son como figura de ellos'; the foundation at §2, that Don Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, Marqués de Cañete 'el Viejo', sent as viceroy of Peru in 1554 with the power to grant encomiendas withdrawn from him because perpetuity was then under discussion, took occasion from the words of the Cédula Real which, forbidding him to encomendar, told him to seek other means 'como entretener, consolar, y remunerar à los beneméritos de aquella tierra', and judging it might also suit the security and guard of that land and of his own person 'instituyó, y formó unas Compañias de Soldados, de à cavallo, à los quales llamó Lanzas, y Arcabuzes, y otra de Infantes, ò Soldados de à pié, que llamó Alabarderos, à imitacion de los que en Castilla llamamos Continuos, y les consignó en las rentas de las mejores Encomiendas, que entonces vacaban 114U500. pesos de plata ensayada en tal forma, que cada uno de los Lanzas ganasse cada año mil pesos, y de los Arcabuzes 500, y de los Alabarderos 180. con cargo, y obligacion de acudir à la defensa del Reyno en las ocasiones, que se ofreciessen, y acompañar con sus armas, y cavallos la Persona del Virrey, donde quiera que fuesse, para que assi su Dignidad, y la de su Magestad, que en ella se representa, fuesse mas respetable'; the doubt at §3 whether the viceroy could create them and make that consignment 'en aquellas Encomiendas, que salieron litigiosas, como lo tengo apuntado en el Capit. V. de este Libro', with many writing that there was no need of the companies at all, and the charge given for that reason to the Conde de Nieva, provided for the same viceroyalty in 1559, by a particular cédula of 28 September 1560 'que las reformasse, y pusiesse en la Corona Real los tributos, que se les pagan, dexando solos 30. Soldados de à cavallo, y 20. de à pié, que se tuvieron por bastantes para la guarda, asistencia, y servicio de su Persona'; the refusal at §4, 'El Conde sobresseyó en el cumplimiento de esta Cedula, juzgando no era decente, ni conveniente, lo que por ella se le ordenaba, y que podria ocasionar desconsuelos, y alteraciones, en los que se reformassen, especialmente por averseles dado estas plazas, y sueldos, no solo por lo que havian de servir; sino tambien en premio, y remuneracion de lo que antes havian servido ellos, ò sus passados', in which the Licenciado Lope García de Castro of the Consejo Real de las Indias, who succeeded the Conde de Nieva in 1563 as President and Governor, concurred and did the same; and the settlement at §5, that it ran on so until 1568 when Don Francisco de Toledo was provided for the same viceroyalty, the matter was treated with more care, and a cédula was despatched which, 'despues de averlo pesado, y pensado bien todo, mandó, se conservassen 100. Lanzas, 50. Arcabuzeros, y otros tantos Alabarderos, y que los Lanzas ganassen 800. pesos ensayados de sueldo cada año, los Arcabuzes 500, y los Alabarderos 300', this cédula containing fully 'el oficio, obligaciones, è instrucciones de los referidos', it and the others being recopiladas in the fourth printed tome, and some of them permitting the viceroys 'que puedan repartir 10. plazas de estos Lanzas entre sus criados, y familiares, y que las demàs las provean precisamente entre beneméritos con cargo, de que ayan de tener, y sustentar armas, y cavallos, y que las rentas consignadas para sus sueldos se traygan à la Real Caxa de la Ciudad de Lima, y de alli se les hagan á todos sus pagas con igualdad'",
        "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=huEykw_YtzYC&pg=PA429"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Lanzas y Arcabuzes: the viceroy of Peru's standing guard, created in 1554 as a substitute for the power to grant encomiendas and paid out of the rents of encomiendas that had fallen vacant"
  }
}