Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
system of tribute, the regulations for preserving game and for forest
conservancy, and the administrative details. Here and there he points
out a way in which the legislation of the Incas might be imitated and
utilized by their conquerors.[1235]
Agustin de Zarate, though a lawyer by profession, had been employed for
some years in the financial department of the Spanish government before
he went out to Peru with the Viceroy Blasco Nuñez to examine into the
accounts of the colony. On his return to Spain he was entrusted with
a similar mission in Flanders. His _Provincìa del Peru_ was first
published at Antwerp in 1555.[1236] Unacquainted with the native
languages, and ignorant of the true significance of much that he was
told, Zarate was yet a shrewd observer, and his evidence is valuable as
regards what came under his own immediate observation. He gives one of
the best descriptions of the Inca roads.
The _Relacion_ of Fernando de Santillan is a work which may be classed
with the reports of Polo de Ondegardo, and its author had equal
advantages in collecting information. Going out to Peru as one of
the judges of the Audiencia in 1550,[1237] Santillan was for a short
time at the head of the government, after the death of the Viceroy
Mendoza, and he took the field to suppress the rebellion of Giron. He
afterwards served in Chile and at Quito, where he was commissioned to
establish the court of justice. Returning to Spain, he took orders,
and was appointed Bishop of the La Plata, but died at Lima, on his
way to his distant see, in 1576. The _Relacion_ of Santillan remained
in manuscript, in the library of the Escurial, until it was edited by
Don Márcos Jiménez de la Espada in 1879. This report appears to have
been prepared in obedience to a decree desiring the judges of Lima to
examine aged and learned Indians regarding the administrative system of
the Incas. The report of Santillan is mainly devoted to a discussion of
the laws and customs relating to the collection of tribute. He bears
testimony to the excellence of the Inca government, and to the wretched
condition to which the country had since been reduced by Spanish
misrule.
The work of the Licentiate Juan de Matienzo, a contemporary of
Ondegardo, entitled _Gobierno de el Peru_, is still in manuscript. Like
Santillan and Ondegardo, Matienzo discusses the ancient institutions
with a view to the organization of the best possible system under
Spanish rule.[1238]
Melchor Bravo de Saravia, another judge of the Royal Audience at Lima,
and a contemporary of Santillan, is said to have written a work on the
antiquities of Peru; but it is either lost or has not yet been placed
within reach of the student. It is referred to by Velasco. Cieza de
Leon mentions, at the end of his Second Part, that his own work had
been perused by the learned judges Hernando de Santillan and Bravo de
Saravia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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