Escribanos and the public record of the Indies
The notaries of Spanish America were licensed from Madrid, examined, required to keep their registers sewn and signed and to write out names and sums in full without abbreviations, and forbidden by law to charge an Indian who came to court as plaintiff or defendant. Their offices could be bought and sold; their protocols could not leave with the buyer. That rule is why the archives exist.
Why this wins its question: The depth of colonial Spanish American notarial archives is a commonplace of Latin American historiography and is almost never explained; where the escribano appears in English-language accounts he is a fee-taking cog. The explanation is a título of the code, quoted here from page scans of a digitised 1791 printing: licensing from the Council of the Indies justified in the text by lost autos and "variedad en el hecho de la verdad"; registers ordered sewn and signed and written without abbreviations; a statutory exemption from fees for Indian litigants, with a fourfold penalty and loss of office, plus two laws closing the tambo and municipal-office loopholes; a repeatedly re-issued tariff that shows the exemption was evaded; and the 1628 rule that an office could be sold only if the protocols stayed behind. Both halves — venal offices and an archive protected against them — are on the record, each with its monarch, place and date.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The office was licensed from Madrid, and the reason given is documentary reliability. Recopilación libro V, título 8, ley j — Philip II at Madrid, 5 August 1564, with confirmations printed in the margin running through 1568, 1570, 1607, 1621, 1645, 1650, 1652, 1653, 1665, 1666 and Carlos II on 31 December 1669 — records that viceroys, audiencias, governors and other justices had been naming people to write and act in visitas, residencias and public instruments "como si propiamente fueran nuestros Escribanos Reales, de que ha resultado venir los autos, pesquisas, y averiguaciones con notables yerros, y nulidades", and that such men did not keep "la seguridad, y buena forma de los registros, y protocolos ... con la custodia necesaria, de que se sigue confusion, y variedad en el hecho de la verdad, porque algunas veces se pierden los autos y escrituras, y con ellos la relacion de lo cierto". Only holders of a royal title and notaría despatched by the Council of the Indies may act: granting it "es acto de jurisdiccion, y parte de nuestro Señorío Real".
The physical form of the record was legislated. Ley xx (Philip II, Ordenanza 134 de Audiencias de 1595) orders that the escribanos "sean muy puntuales en tener los registros cosidos, y signados"; ley xxj (Ordenanza 137) that all escribanos and receptores "escriban sin abreviaturas, poniendo por extenso y letra los nombres y cantidades". A register sewn into a book, signed, and with names and figures spelled out in words is a document designed to survive and to resist alteration.
Indian litigants were exempted from notarial and court fees by statute. Ley xxv — the Emperor Charles and the Prince Governor at Madrid, 9 December 1551, with Philip II and the Princess Governor at Valladolid, 5 June 1559, again at San Lorenzo, 8 August 1587, at Valladolid, 29 July 1592, Philip III at Madrid, 12 December 1619, and Carlos II with the Queen Governor — reads: "Atento á la mucha pobreza de los Indios, y á que no dexan de seguir sus pleytos y causas: Mandamos que litigando como actores ó reos, no se les lleven derechos, y las Comunidades y Caciques no paguen mas que la mitad de lo que montaren, ajustado al arancel de estos Reynos de Castilla, sin multiplicacion". The judge, minister or escribano of any city, town or place of the Indies who breaks it must return the money fourfold and forfeit his office, and the presidents, audiencias and governors are to enforce the penalties "irremisiblemente".
Two neighbouring laws close the obvious loopholes. Ley xxiij — Philip II at San Lorenzo, 15 June 1573 — forbids charging the Indian alguaciles posted at the tambos on the roads for the annual mandamientos issued to them, "atento á que sirven sin salario, ni emolumentos"; ley xxiiij — Madrid, 28 June 1561 and 19 April 1583 — requires the escribanos de gobernación to put every office provided for a given Indian town into a single mandamiento, to take no excessive fees, and to charge what is due to "las calpizcas, que son bienes públicos del Concejo de aquel Pueblo". Free access to the notary was worth little if the same money could be taken through a side door, and the code names the side doors.
The fee rules were repeated because they were broken. Ley xxvj — Philip II at Madrid, 17 February 1589 — orders all escribanos of the audiencias, of gobernación and royal to keep the arancel and "no excedan de los aranceles en la cobranza de sus derechos: y donde se practicare que sea ménos, se ajusten al estilo de cada Provincia"; ley xxvij — Philip III at Elvas, 12 May 1619 — has the audiencias issue provisiones so that ecclesiastical notaries too have a fixed schedule, "moderándolos", and that those who exceed it be punished "conforme á justicia, buen gobierno, y bien público". A tariff legislated four times over thirty years is a tariff that was being ignored.
The office was property and could be sold; the archive was not, and could not. Escribanías appear in libro VIII, título 21 among the "oficios vendibles, y renunciables" — bought from the crown and passed on by renunciation for money — and ley vij of that título, Philip IV at Madrid, 6 April 1628, orders the viceroys, presidents, oidores, governors and justices of the Indies not to admit any renunciation "si no constare, que los protocolos, y registros quedan originalmente en poder de los Escribanos del Número, ó Públicos, que son ante quien se han de hacer, como lo disponen las leyes". The venality is a real defect of the system and belongs on the record beside the rule that kept the papers in place when the office changed hands.
Continuity was protected at the other end too. The law printed at the head of folio 150 — Philip II at Madrid, 11 September 1570, and Philip III there on 11 February 1614 — requires royal escribanos empowered to draw public instruments, if they leave, to "dexen los registros al Escribano del Cabildo", and to bind themselves before him to do so before using the office, on pain of deprivation, five hundred ducados to the Cámara and the damages of the parties, the audiencias to enforce it. The protocol outlived the notary by design.