Acuerdo

Acuerdo (real acuerdo), the regularly scheduled meeting of the judges of a tribunal (audiencia) with its president and crown attorney (fiscal) or attorneys to discuss matters of political administration. Exclusively at this meeting was correspondence from the king to be opened and read. When treasury officials were added to the group, the acuerdo was called a junta de hacienda. The decisions reached at an acuerdo were termed autos acordados and had the force of law. Through the acuerdo, the audiencia exercised its political authority. The legislative and administrative authority that emanated from the acuerdo gave the American audiencias significantly greater power than was exercised by their peninsular counterparts. Since the decisions were issued jointly by the region's chief executive and its audiencia, moreover, they carried considerable weight. The chief executive of the audiencia district was responsible for implementing the acuerdo's decisions.

See alsoAudiencia .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, 4 vols. (1681; repr. 1973), libro II, título XV, leyes xxiii, xxvi, xxvii, xxviii, xxx.

Clarence H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (1947), p. 134.

John H. Parry, The Audiencia of New Galicia in the Sixteenth Century (1948), pp. 8, 137-138.

Additional Bibliography

Sanciñena Asurmendi, Teresa. La audiencia en México en el reinado de Carlos III. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1999.

                                 Mark A. Burkholder