The conflict-of-interest bar on the crown's own ministers: why councillors, viceroys and judges could not receive encomiendas
From an ordinance of the Council of the Indies of 1571 and a chapter of the New Laws of 1542, the men who distributed encomiendas were forbidden to receive them: councillors, viceroys, presidents, oidores, fiscales, royal officials and governors. A cédula of 1619 extended the bar to kin within the fourth degree and to household servants. The same pages record the crown dispensing for its own ministers, the 1619 rule moderated in 1623, and two cases the author saw himself.
Why this wins its question: The question of whether Spanish colonial administration had conflict-of-interest rules is usually answered with an anecdote about corruption, or not answered at all. This object answers it from the chapter of the Política Indiana that colonial governors and the Council of the Indies actually used, and it answers it in both directions on the same pages. It prints the list of barred offices from §43; the legislative chain from chapter XXVI of the New Laws of 1542 through cédulas of 1544 and 1546 to the cédula of San Lorenzo of 12 December 1619 that reached kin within the fourth degree and household servants; and the two reasons the laws give for themselves, the second being that an official holding encomiendas would not punish abuses against the Indians in his charge. Then it prints the defeats in the same voice: the crown dispensing for its own councillors and viceroys, with Deuteronomy's ox cited for it; the 1619 rule moderated in 1623 as impracticable; the author's own narrowing of the bar for alguaciles mayores; his defence of a lawful tilt towards blood; the Pizarro encomienda declared well provided; and the double encomienda a viceroy gave as a dowry inside the author's own family, which the Council cut in half.
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 rule is stated as a list of offices, and the list is the substance of the claim. In libro III, capítulo VI of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana, §43 finds forbidden to receive and enjoy encomiendas "los señores Consejeros del Supremo Consejo de las Indias: como parece por una de sus Ordenanzas, y à los Virreyes, Presidentes, Oidores, Alcaldes, y Fiscales de las Audiencias de ellas, y à los Escribanos de Camara, Contadores de los Tribunales de las Contadurias Mayores de Quentas, Oficiales Reales, Governadores, y otros Ministros de Justicia, de quienes se pueda temer, que con la mano del Oficio la tendrán para negociarlas". The 1736 editor's asterisked margin refers the ordinance to the Council's ordinances of 1571, chapter 37, and the rule to leyes 12 and 13, título 8, libro 6 and ley 5, título 5, libro 2 of the Recopilación.
The legislative history given for it runs from the New Laws to a cédula that reached servants. At §44 the prohibition had a chapter of its own, "el XXVI. entre las dichas nuevas leyes del año de 1542", renewed and even extended to the sons of those named by later cédulas of 1544 and 1546; and last of all "se despachó una muy notable en San Lorenzo à 12. de Diciembre del año de 1619. que volviendo à avivar las antiguas, que estaban, ò muertas, ò relaxadas, las apretó con mayores penas, y las estendió à todos los parientes de los referidos dentro del quarto grado de consanguinidad, ò afinidad, y aun à sus Criados familiares, y paniaguados". That the older laws were "either dead or relaxed" is the crown's own description of them, reported by its own minister.
The reasons are stated in the laws themselves, and the second of them is the one that makes this a protective rule and not merely an anti-corruption rule. At §45 no better reasons can be considered than those the laws specify: "la mucha mano, que tales Ministros podrian tener en pedir, y adquirir para sí, y los suyos las Encomiendas, defraudando con esto del premio de ellas à los mas beneméritos, para quienes se instituyeron"; and, second, "obrando esse mismo favor, en que no fuessen castigados, como convenia, los excessos, que cometiessen contra los Indios encomendados". An official who held encomiendas would not punish the abuses of encomenderos, and the law says so in its own preamble.
A contemporary critic is quoted at §46 for how the abuse worked in practice, and the quotation is the harshest sentence in the chapter. Bartolomé de Albornoz is cited as saying that it began at the very beginning: some of those who granted encomiendas in the Indies, the better to serve their own ends, "señalaban Repartimientos, y quadrillas de Indios à los privados de los Reyes, Secretarios, y à los del Consejo, que estaban à su lado, para tener en ellos favor, y que estos, como no residian en las Indias, ponian Mayordomos en ellas, que como eran mercenarios alquilados, y no Pastores, no curaban de las ovejas, mas de para el fruto". The corpus carries Albornoz's Arte de los contractos separately; here he is being used by a crown minister as evidence against the crown's own household.
The boundaries of the rule were litigated, and Solórzano reports two narrowings, one of which is his own act as a judge. At §47 a royal cédula of 29 August 1544 declared that the lieutenants of governors and the ordinary alcaldes of some towns were not comprehended in the prohibition; and at §48 "con cuyo exemplo Yo respondi, y practiqué lo mismo en los Alguaciles Mayores de las Audiencias, ò Ciudades de las Indias, por no los hallar comprehendidos en las dichas Cedulas, ni con tanta mano, y autoridad en su ministerio, que lo puedan tampoco estar en la razon de ellas: y assi he visto, y oido, que muchas veces se les han passado, y confirmado las Encomiendas en el Consejo". The author of the treatise is telling the reader how he himself narrowed the rule he is expounding.
One office was made to choose between its fees and its encomienda, which is a different technique and worth separating. At §§49 and 50 the escribanos de gobernación are held prohibited, though the point was disputed in the case of D. Joseph de Cáceres y Ulloa of the viceroyalty of Peru; and Antonio de León Pinelo held any escribano prohibited, citing a cédula given at El Pardo on 14 November 1590 ordering that they choose "el Tabelionato, o la Encomienda", as though supposing the two incompatible, or that it does not look well that they be joined in one person.
The rule's defeat is printed by the same author immediately after he expounds it, and he defends the defeat. At §51 "vemos muchas veces, que la Magestad Real, que es el Dueño absoluto de estas Encomiendas, y de sus leyes [...] las suele dar à sus Consejeros, Virreyes, y otros de los assi prohibidos, quando sus meritos, y servicios mueven su pecho, y clemencia à gratificarselos"; and it seems, he adds, that there is no great excess in this, since those who administer the affairs of the Indies with intelligence, fidelity and care, and the distribution of their rewards, may and should sometimes be worthy "de alcanzar de ellas algun bocado, como del buey, que trilla, lo dixo el Deuteronomio". The ox that treads out the corn is the crown jurist's figure for a councillor of the Indies taking an encomienda.
The strictest version of the rule lasted four years, and the reason given for cutting it back is a real one. At §52 the cédula of 1619, which deprived even the relatives, servants and dependants of such ministers of these grants, "luego que se despachó, pareció sumamente rigurosa, è impracticable: pues si ellos por sí tuvieron meritos bastantes para pretenderlas, y recibirlas, no era justo, les hiciesse daño el acertar à tener un pariente, ò amigo por Virrey, Consejero, ù Oidor, ni que fuesse gravado por odio ageno". It was declared and moderated by another cédula given at Madrid on 19 March 1623, which allowed those who could prove merits and services of their own, and that they were not negotiating merely under colour of kinship or familiarity, to be held capable.
Solórzano then defends favour to kin in general terms, and this entry prints it because it is the period's own answer to the modern objection. At §53 he holds the moderation justified, "como el peso de ellos no cargue mucho por esta parte: pues no es del todo culpable, ni reprehensible, que en igualdad de valanzas, nos dexemos inclinar à la sangre, ò alianza", citing Cassiodorus for the view that in doing so we follow the law of nature; and at §54 he cites a text and gloss blaming those who, by showing themselves excessively just and scrupulous, refuse to judge for their own or to do them good. The rule against ministers enriching their families is being read down by a minister who thought a tilt towards blood was lawful when the scales were even.
The one named encomienda case in the run is the most famous family in the conquest of Peru, and the outcome went the family's way. At §55, in the terms of these encomiendas and before the prohibitions issued, "se ventiló este caso sobre una muy pingue, que aquel gran Conquistador, y primer Virrey del Perú D. Francisco Pizarro dio à una hija natural suya llamada Doña Francisca, quando la casó con su hermano Hernando Pizarro, y aunque se le movió pleyto, que duró mucho tiempo, al fin se vino à declarar por bien proveida". Two of the sheet's phrases are quoted as it prints them and nothing in this entry rests on either: "primer Virrey del Perú", and "quando la casó con su hermano". No source on the offices Francisco Pizarro held, and none on the date or circumstances of Doña Francisca's marriage, was opened here; both should be checked before they are repeated, and this entry makes no assertion about who arranged the marriage or when. What the passage does establish is the point it is cited for: a rich encomienda that Francisco Pizarro gave to his natural daughter was litigated at length and in the end declared well provided, and Solórzano places the case before the prohibitions he has been expounding.
The corrective he adds in the next paragraph is the sentence to quote if only one is quoted from this chapter. Whatever the law allows, §56 says, those who have such matters in their charge must proceed "con gran tiento [...] sin exceder los debidos compasses de la razon, y justicia, cuya atencion, y consideracion ha de vencer, y preponderar siempre à la sangre, amistad, y à otros qualesquier humanos respectos". The duty of justice is stated to outweigh blood and friendship, by the same author who has just argued that a tilt towards blood is natural.
A second case, further down the same chapter, implicates the author's own family and shows the Council enforcing against it. At §61, among cases he saw practised many times, Solórzano reports "un Cavallero ilustre de Arequipa, llamado Don Juan Cegarra de Casaos, que haviendo casado con una sobrina mia, hija de D. Francisco Balverde de Mercado, mi cuñado, que fue Presidente de Panamá", to whom the Marqués de Montesclaros as viceroy of Peru gave, as a dowry on that account, two encomiendas together, there being no vacancy of one that would yield a competent sum by itself; and when confirmation came to be sought from the Council, "le mandaron quitar la una de ellas, que se llama de los Collapas". A viceroy granted a double encomienda as a marriage portion inside the treatise-writer's own kin network, and the Council in Madrid cut it in half.
What this chapter is evidence of, and what it is not, should be said before anyone uses it. It is evidence that Spanish colonial law had an explicit, dated and repeatedly re-enacted conflict-of-interest code covering the distribution of its principal reward, that the code named among its own purposes the protection of encomendados from unpunished abuse, that it reached kin to the fourth degree and household servants after 1619, and that its limits were argued in the Council. It is equally evidence that the code was dispensed from by the crown for its own councillors and viceroys, that the 1619 extension was cut back within four years, and that the author, himself a minister of the Council, thought a preference for blood lawful where merits were equal. It is not evidence of frequency: no register of grants, confirmations or refusals was opened for this entry, and the two cases named here - Doña Francisca Pizarro and the Collapas encomienda - are the only ones the passage names. The separate code governing the judges of the Indies, on marriage, property, trade and gifts, is carried in this corpus from the Recopilación itself.