#viceroyalty

I’d expect it to be about all the Viceroyalty of New Spain, but if I find extra or different info about the Asia and Oceania territories, I’ll make a note about it :)

For anyone lost with this question, here’s a fast reminder of everyone’s history lessons about the Spanish Empire: a viceroyalty (”virreinato” in Spanish) was an administrative institution created at the end of the 15th century for the proper government of the territories of the Spanish Empire, it was headed by a viceroy (”virrey” or “visorey” in Spanish) in representation of the Spanish Crown. All that we all know, but since the Spanish Empire had such a big amount of territories, the viceroys became the governors of each area, and it was considered a province of the empire, not a colony, since those territories had the same rights as any other province in their European territories.

The overseas territories of the Spanish Empire were:

The Viceroyalty of the New Spain. Their biggest territory, divided by Captaincies and Kingdoms. Included modern day Mexico, part of the US (the states of California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Florida and parts of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana), the southwestern part of British Columbia of present-day Canada; the Captaincy General of Guatemala (formed by modern Guatemala, the Mexican state of Chiapas, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua); the Captaincy General of Cuba (current Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and Guadeloupe); and the Captaincy General of the Philippines (including the Philippines, Guam, the Caroline Islands, the Mariana Islands and the short lived Spanish Formosa in modern-day northern Taiwan). The capital was Mexico City.

The Viceroyalty of Peru. Included (at some point) modern day Peru, Chile, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Guyana and Venezuela. The capital was Lima.

The Viceroyalty of New Granada. Included modern day Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá and Venezuela, as a Guyana, parts of Brazil, and Peru. It was originally a Kingdom of the Viceroyalty of Peru, separated from it in 1717. The capital was Santa Fé de Bogotá.

Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. Included modern day Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and Bolivia. Oddly enough, the Spanish Guinea (modern Equatorial Guinea) in Africa, depended administratively of this Viceroyalty. The capital was Buenos Aires.

🔵  Here’s a little BLUESDAY inspiration from our Arts of the Americas collection, currently on view in Infinite Blue.

The blue background of these twelve portraits of Inca kings could have been produced with a variety of pigments that were available in the Viceroyalty of Peru in the eighteenth century: Prussian blue, from Germany; indigo, from the Americas; and smalt, imported from Europe.

In the Viceroyalty of Peru, the choice of a blue background for these portraits was strategic, elevating the subjects as blue did in European paintings of rulers and nobles. Following the European tradition, Cuzco’s surviving Inca aristocracy likely commissioned these portraits to document their royal heritage and thus legitimize their political and social authority.

"Portrait of Don Joaquín Manuel Fernández de Santa at 4 years old" by Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez, 18th century.