Viceroyalties

Instructions and a questionnaire, issued in 1577 by the Office of the Cronista Mayor, were distributed to local officials in the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru to direct the gathering of information.

Spanish conquest seeAlso Spanish Caribbean Islands in the American Viceroyalties 1600.

The Viceroyalty of Peru also had those two important elements, so that New Spain and Peru were the seats of Spanish power and the source of its wealth, until other viceroyalties were created in Spanish South America in the late 18th century.

This evolved from the Council of the Indies and Viceroyalties into an Intendant system, raise more revenue and promote greater efficiency.

This Viceroyalty included some other provinces of northwestern South America which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalties of New Spain or Peru and correspond mainly to today's Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama.