Chapter VI - The Reorganisation of the Audiencia, 1570–72

Summary

The paternal government of the Spanish Indies demanded constant reference to Spain over comparatively trifling matters, and quickly accumulated, in consequence, great stacks of papers—reports, orders, recommendations, account books, petitions—which defied adequate classification and to some extent defeated the very purpose of record-keeping, since in any general inquiry, references to the archives proved far too slow and laborious a task for overworked officials. Special summaries and testimonies had to be prepared for individual cases, therefore, by persons having direct knowledge of the facts. In 1568 a commission was issued to Fray Juan de Ovando, of the supreme council of the Inquisition, to conduct a general visita of the Council of the Indies. In order to avoid the superhuman task of reviewing the whole body of records of the Indies administration, the visitador secured decrees in 1569, commanding the senior oidor of each audiencia to draw up an attested summary of the manner of government in his district, the cédulas and orders issued to the court of which he was a member since its foundation, and the measures taken to give effect to those orders. The Averiguaciones compiled in answer to Ovando's questionnaire by the licentiate Contreras, then senior oidor at Guadalajara, form a substantial vellum-bound volume. They make no mention of the miserable conflicts with the second bishop, which had occupied so much of the oidores' time and attention during the 1560's, and which ended only with the elevation of the oidor Mendiola to the See; naturally, also, they contain no revelations of serious incompetence or dishonesty on the part of the oidores.