The Audiencia de La Plata de los Charcas: a royal high court over Upper Peru, obeyed as the king himself

In 1559 the crown erected at the silver city of La Plata — the Indian Chuquisaca — a Real Audiencia, an appellate court through which an Indian town or a Spanish subject of Upper Peru could reach royal justice. The Recopilación ordered its decrees obeyed "como si fueran de el Rey", and its writ reached even into Lima's district. The same court sat over 188 Indian towns and the Potosí its mita drained: its justice and its extraction stand on the same ground.