Granada, and Buenos Ayres, a number of more or less independent captain-generalcies, and twelve audiencias, including those at Santo Domingo and Manila.[1]
The provinces of royal officials were merely revenue districts, whose heads received their appointment from the king, and administered their office under a certain supervision from the viceroy and governors attending their councils; yet they were responsible only to the finance tribunal of the viceregal capital, and this again reported direct to Spain.[2] Adelantamientos was an early term for gubernatorial districts, generally of undefined limits, to be extended. by further conquest. Gobernaciones were the provinces of governors who usually held also the office of captain-general, and at the audiencia capitals acted as presidents of this body. Over them the audiencias had a passive supervision with active interference only in judicial matters,[3] and the viceroy could control them only in a limited degree as royal representative. In 1786 the gubernatorial districts were replaced by intendencias, under intendentes, who combined in themselves the political, judicial, financial, and military control, assisted by an asesor.[4] Their subdelegados exercised in county capitals similar jurisdiction in subordinate degree, replacing gradually alcaldes mayores and corregidores who had for nearly three centuries been ruling as district or county magistrates, with political and economic supervision, sometimes indeed as governors.[5] These minor rulers also were appointed chiefly by the
- ↑ The creation, jurisdiction, and composition of each may be found in Recop. de Ind., i. 323 et seq.; Zamora, Bib. Leg. Ult.,i. and passim.
- ↑ As will be explained in the chapter on finance.
- ↑ Florida was subject to no audiencia, owing to its distance.
- ↑ As explained in another chapter.
- ↑ The alcaldes mayores of New Spain under Cortés were merely intrusted with judicial matters, as we have seen; later those of San Luis Potosi and other places acted also as lieutenants for captain-generals, and exercised in other respects the duties and ceremonies of governors. The term therefore does not always convey a clear idea of what the dignity consisted. Corregidores were intended to replaee encomenderos when the Indians fell to the crown, as explained in Hist. Mex., ii. 329-30, but alcaldes mayores undertook similar duties.
