Sarmiento de Sotomayor, García

García Sarmiento de Sotomayor (count of Salvatierra), viceroy of Peru (1648–1654). Faced with the continuing decline in crown revenues, Salvatierra initiated various policies to increase state income. Citing weaknesses in the official trade system of the consulado (merchant guild), Salvatierra proposed altering that system to reduce smuggling and collect more taxes. Salvatierra wanted to increase Indian tribute payments as well, but his inconsistent policies, including initiating and then suspending a census of the Indian community, failed. Although not as effective as his predecessor, the marquis of Mancera, Salvatierra did raise some crown revenues through composiciones de tierras, the practice of declaring Indian lands depopulated or abandoned and thus the property of the crown, subject to sale to private investors. His efforts to tighten control over the regional treasuries were less successful.

See alsoPeru: From the Conquest through Independence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kenneth J. Andrien, Crisis and Decline: The Viceroyalty of Peru in the Seventeenth Century (1985).

Ann M. Wightman, Indigenous Migration and Social Change: The Forasteros of Cuzco, 1570–1720 (1990).

Additional Bibliography

Osorio, Alejandra. "The King in Lima: Simulacra, Ritual, and Rule in Seventeenth-Century Peru." The Hispanic American Historical Review 84 (Aug 2004): 447-474.

San Cristobal Sebastian, Antonio. La casa virreinal limeña de 1570 a 1687. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Peru, 2003.

Torres Arancivia, Eduardo. Corte de virreyes: El entorno del poder en el Perú en el siglo XVII. Lima: Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú, Fondo Editorial, 2006.

                                      Ann M. Wightman