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Viceroyalty of Peru

Ruled from Lima, the original and vastest Spanish realm in South America, built on the wreck of the Inca and the silver of Potosi.

Whittled down by the Bourbon partitions of 1717 and 1776, the rump viceroyalty was the last royalist bastion until the Battle of Ayacucho (1824) sealed Peruvian independence.

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Borders over time

The atlas holds 4 border frames for Viceroyalty of Peru — the shape you scrub through changes in 1542 · 1717 · 1776 · 1821.

Moments from the Chronicle

• 1542 Viceroyalty of Peru established On 20 November 1542 Charles V issued the New Laws creating the Viceroyalty of Peru, ruled from Lima, which would govern nearly all of Spanish South America for a century and a half.
• 1563 Royal Audiencia of Quito created By royal decree of 29 August 1563 Philip II established the Audiencia of Quito, giving the equatorial Andes their own high court under the Viceroyalty of Peru.
• 1824 Battle of Ayacucho On 9 December 1824 Sucre destroyed the last royalist army in the Peruvian sierra, ending the Viceroyalty of Peru and Spanish rule on the South American mainland.

Further reading

• Colonial Latin America Mark A. Burkholder & Lyman L. Johnson · 1990

  A standard survey of colonial Spanish America, with Peru and the Potosí silver economy at its core.

• The Cambridge History of Latin America Leslie Bethell · 1984

  Multi-volume reference for the viceroyalty of Peru through the Bourbon partitions and independence (broad reference).

• The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder · 1927 · fiction

  Five lives converging on a rope bridge in 1714 colonial Peru.

Sources

• Viceroyalty of Peru — Wikipedia