Cacicazgos — the indigenous lordships recognised in the law of the Indies
Spanish law kept the pre-conquest indigenous lordships in being as heritable offices. A whole title of the Recopilación orders the Audiencias to hear Indians suing over cacicazgos, to restore those unjustly dispossessed, and to leave the succession to "el antiguo derecho, y costumbre". The same title bars mestizos from holding one, forbids caciques to call themselves lords, and records that caciques were overworking and overtaxing their own people.
Why this wins its question: English-language accounts of indigenous nobility under Spanish rule are usually a sentence about caciques being co-opted as tax collectors, with no text behind it. Read in the code itself, the cacicazgo is a defined legal estate: heritable by pre-conquest custom that viceroys were expressly denied discretion to override, litigable before the Audiencias with restitution available for unjust dispossession, shielded from removal by local judges, and served by royally endowed colleges for the heirs. Every one of those is quoted here from digitised printings opened page by page — and so are the three laws in the same título recording that caciques oppressed their own people, that mestizos were barred, and that no cacique might call himself a lord.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Libro VI of the Recopilación carries a whole título — "TÍTULO SIETE. DE LOS CACIQUES" — and its first law states the principle. Ley j (Philip II and the Princess Governor, Valladolid, 26 February 1557) reasons that "Algunos naturales de las Indias eran en tiempo de su infidelidad Caciques, y Señores de Pueblos, y porque despues de su conversion á nuestra Santa Fe Católica, es justo que conserven sus derechos, y el haber venido á nuestra obediencia no los haga de peor condicion", and commands the royal Audiencias that when caciques or principales descended from the first lords claim to succeed "en aquel género de Señorío, ó Cacicazgo, y sobre esto pidieren justicia, se la hagan, llamadas, y oidas las partes á quien tocare, con toda brevedad".
Ley ij (19 June 1558) reserves cacicazgo litigation to the Audiencias "privativamente", requires them to inform themselves "de oficio", and — where they find that some "están despojados injustamente de sus Cacicazgos, y jurisdicciones, derechos, y rentas, que con ellos les eran debidos" — to make restitution; the same law extends this to towns dispossessed of "el derecho, que hubieren tenido de elegir Caciques", so that an elective as well as a hereditary claim was actionable.
Succession follows indigenous custom, not royal discretion. Ley iij (Philip III, San Lorenzo, 19 July 1614; Philip IV, Madrid, 11 February 1628) states that "Desde el descubrimiento de las Indias se ha estado en posesion, y costumbre, que en los Cacicazgos sucedan los hijos á sus padres: Mandamos que en esto no se haga novedad, y los Vireyes, Audiencias, y Gobernadores no tengan arbitrio en quitarlos á unos, y darlos á otros, dexando la sucesion al antiguo derecho, y costumbre."
The lordship was protected against local justice. Ley iiij (Philip II, Ordenanza 82 de Audiencias of 1593; Toledo, 25 May 1596) rules that "LAS Justicias ordinarias no puedan privar á los Caciques de sus Cacicazgos por ninguna causa criminal, ó querella, pena de privacion de oficio, y cincuenta mil maravedis para nuestra Cámara", reserving the matter to the Audiencias and the oidores visitadores of the district; ley xij (Valladolid, 22 February 1549) adds that "Ningun Juez ordinario pueda prender Cacique, ni Principal" outside the form there prescribed.
Recognition stopped short of lordship in the full sense, and the code says why. Ley v (Charles V and the Empress Governor, Valladolid, 26 February 1538) forbids caciques "que se puedan llamar, ó intitular Señores de los Pueblos, porque así conviene á nuestro servicio, y preeminencia Real", allowing them only the styles "Caciques, ó Principales" and ordering penalties on any who take the higher title. The cacicazgo was retained as a subordinate office inside a monarchy, not as a surviving sovereignty.
The office was closed by descent. Ley vj (Philip II, Madrid, 11 January and 5 March 1576) commands "que los Mestizos no puedan ser Caciques, y si algunos lo fueren, sean luego removidos de los Cacicazgos, y que estos se dén á Indios en la forma estatuida" — the same exclusion of the mixed-descent population that the neighbouring título applies to the protectores de indios.
Ley vij (20 October 1568) treats detachment from a cacique as a harm to be undone: "En algunas partes de las Indias se han separado muchos Indios de sus Caciques, y no conviene permitirlo", ordering that whenever such places fall vacant they be reincorporated "al gobierno y jurisdiccion del Cacicazgo natural, cuyos eran", and that caciques and principales suffer no injury from the separations made for reducciones and encomenderos.
The strongest evidence against reading this title as a charter of indigenous self-rule is printed inside it. Ley viij (Charles V and the Prince Governor, Toro, 18 January 1552; Philip IV, Madrid, 1 February 1628; San Lorenzo, 19 July 1654) opens: "EN algunos Pueblos tienen los Caciques, y Principales tan oprimidos, y sujetos á los Indios, que se sirven de ellos en todo quanto es de su voluntad, y llevan mas tributos de los permitidos, con que son fatigados, y vexados". Viceroys and Audiencias are to find out what tributes, services and vassalages the caciques take, whether these descend from antiquity and legitimate title "percibiéndolo con gusto de los Indios", or are "impuesto tiránicamente contra razon y justicia", and to moderate the excess.
Ley x (Philip II, San Lorenzo, 8 July 1577) is more concrete still: "OCupan ordinariamente los Caciques á los Indios de sus Pueblos en chacras, estancias y otras grangerías, y los molestan, y apremian sin pagarles su trabajo" — and orders that wages be paid in front of the doctrinero, "con que cesarian los muchos agravios que reciben, y la comun necesidad y pobreza en que muchos Indios viven por esta causa".
The cacique was also an instrument of the colonial labour draft, and the law shows the machinery breaking. Ley xj (Philip III, Aranjuez, 26 May 1609) records that "POR estar despobladas algunas Provincias, no pueden los Caciques enterar el repartimiento que les toca, y las Justicias, y dueños de minas los fuerzan á que á su costa alquilen, y cumplan el número de Indios que les faltan, en que reciben grande perjuicio, y daño", ordering viceroys and president-governors to remedy the excess. Depopulation, forced quotas and a lord made personally liable for the shortfall are all in one sentence of the crown's own text.
Heirs to cacicazgos had schools founded for them at royal expense. Recopilación libro I, título XXIII, ley xj (Charles V, Madrid, 8 December 1535, with confirmations to Philip III, 20 March 1620) states that "PAra que los hijos de Caciques, que han de gobernar á los Indios, sean desde niños instruidos en nuestra Santa Fe Católica, se fundáron por nuestro órden algunos Colegios en las Provincias del Perú, dotados con renta, que para este efecto se consignó", and orders more founded in the principal cities of Peru and New Spain, where the sons of caciques are to be taken "de pequeña edad" and taught "Christiandad, buenas costumbres, policía y lengua Castellana, y se les consigne renta competente á su crianza y educacion".
What is being quoted is a code, not a report of practice. These are the orders of the crown as gathered in the compilation of 1680 and read here in the fourth impression of 1791; several of the laws are re-issues decades apart of a rule already given, which is itself evidence that the earlier order was not being kept. Nothing here shows how many cacicazgo suits succeeded, or how often an Audiencia restored a dispossessed lineage.