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Urban Scales and Functions in Spanish America Toward the Year 1600: First Conclusions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Jorge E. Hardoy
Jorge E. Hardoy*
Affiliation:
Carmen Aranovich
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IN THIS WORK WE PRESENT THE FIRST CONCLUSIONS OF AN ONGOING INvestigation concerning the process of urbanization in the Spanish colonies in America, at a particular moment in their history. We cover a period of approximately 50 years, between the decades of 1570-80 and that which ends in 1630.

Type
Topical Review
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , Fall 1970 , pp. 57 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

The authors were director and assistant for investigations, respectively, of the Team for Aegional and Urban Studies of the University of Buenos Aires until July 1966. At present, they hold the same positions in the Center for Regional and Urban Studies, a private research organization. Dr. Hardoy is a career member as investigator with the National Council of Technical and Scientific Investigations. The article was translated by Elmer Beal, Jr.

This study was first presented as a paper at the XXXVII Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, held at Mar del Plata in September 1966. (See “Conclusions and Evaluations of the Symposium on ‘The Process of Urbanization in America since its Origins to the Present Time,‘” Latin American Research Review, 2:2 (Winter, 1967), 76-90. A slightly modified version of the paper was published in Spanish in the proceedings of the Congress: El proceso de urbanización en América desde sus origines hasta nuestros dias/The Urbanization Process in America from its Origins to the Present Day, Jorge E. Hardoy and Richard P. Schaedel, eds. (Buenos Aires, 1969), 171-208. An amplified version of the original paper has been published under the title “Urbanización en América Hispánica entre 1580 y 1630,” Boletín del Centro de Investigaciones Históricas y Estéticas, Fac. de Arquetectura y Urbanismo, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 11 (May 1969), 9-89.

References

NOTES

1. Jorge E. Hardoy and Carmen Aranovich, “Escalas y funciones urbanas en América hacia el año 1600: un ensayo metodológico”; a work presented to the Jornadas de la Asociación Argentina de Historia Social y Económica, Buenos Aires, Aug. 24-26, 1966.

2. Among other censuses used are: the Censos de Lima, 1599 and 1614; of Panamá, 1610; of Santiago de Chile, 1613; of the Villar de Don Pardo o Ríobamba, 1605; of Zacatecas, 1608; of Buenos Aires, 1622; and of México, 1599.

3. We refer specifically to the modern cartographic collections of: Manuel Carrera Stampa, “Planos de la ciudad de México,” 1949; Germán Latorre, “La cartografía colonial americana,” Sevilla, 1916; F. Chueca Goiria and L. Torres Albas, “Planos de ciudades iberoamericanas y filipinas,” Madrid, 1951; Félix F. Ovter, “Cartas y planos inéditos de los siglos XVII y XVIII y primer decenio del XIX,” Buenos Aires, 1930; Pedro Torres Lanza, “Relación descriptiva de los mapas, planos, etc. del Virreinato de Buenos Aires existentes en el Archivo General de Indias,” Buenos Aires, 1921; A. Teullard, “Los planos más antiguos de Buenos Aires (1580-1880),” Buenos Aires, 1940; Diego Angulo Iñiguez, “Planos de monumentos arquitectónicos de América y Filipinas,” Sevilla, 1933-1939; Manuel Toussaint, F. Gómez de Orozco, and J. Fernández, “Planos de la ciudad de México; siglos XVI y XVII”; (México, 1938), Municipalidad de Buenos Aires, “Documentos y planos relativos al periodo edilicio colonial de la ciudad de Buenos Aires,” Buenos Aires, 1910; and others.

4. Woodrow Borah and Sherburne F. Cook, “The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest,” Ibero-Americana, No. 45, 4 (Berkeley, 1963).

5. George Kubler, “The Quechua in the Colonial World,” Handbook of South American Indians, II, 331-410 (Washington, D.C., 1946).

6. John W. Cooper, “The Araucanians,” in Handbook of South American Indians, II, 687-760 (Washington, D.C., 1946).

7. By 1518, the accountant for the king, Gil González Dávila, noted in a report the situation which had been created in the island of Santo Domingo by the general depopulation. The replies to a questionnaire given to a number of people in 1520 are also illsutrative of the causes of the depopulation of the island. Both reports are in Vol. I of the “Colección de documentos inéditos.” See Vol. V of the same collection for information on the depopulation of the island of Cuba, in a fragment of a letter from the then bishop of Cuba, dated April 20, 1556.

8. See Vol. V, 522-529 of the “Colección de documentos inéditos for a letter from the bishop of León, province of Nicaragua.

9. Cieza de León, who toured Peru around 1547, refers to this situation; see, for exmaple, Ch. XXXIV of “La crónica del Perú,” Colección Austral, No. 507, Espasa-Calpe (Buenos Aires, 1945).

10. Woodrow Borah, “New Spain's Century of Depression,” in Ibero-Americana, No. 35, 6 (Berkeley, 1951).

11. We have estimated the Spanish population in some examples. It was 37.8 percent of the population of Lima in 1614; 21.2 percent of Panama's in 1610; 16.2 percent of Santiago de Chile's in 1613; and 33 percent of Zacatecas' in 1608.

12. Kubler, “The Quechua in the Colonial World,” 338, Table 2.

13. In order to establish the growth index of the urban population, we have considered only the number of vecinos mentioned by López de Velazco and Vázquez de Espinosa in their works. For the purpose of facilitating the comparison, all of López de Velazco's information is analyzed as if it corresponded to the year 1580, and that of Vázquez de Espinosa as if it corresponded to the year 1630. We have utilized the following editions: Juan López de Velazco, “Geografía y descripción universal de las Indias,” collected from the year 1571 to 1574, and published for the first time in the Boletín de la Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid, Madrid, 1894; and Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripción de las Indias Occidentales, transcribed from the original manuscript by Charles Upson Clark, published by the Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 108 (Washington, D. C., 1948).

14. We understand the absolute index to be the relation which exists between the number of vecinos in 1630 and the number of vecinos in 1580. This index permits us to measure growth independently from the number of cities which evisted in each viceroyalty or audinecia in 1580 and 1630.

15. We understand the relative index to be that which is obtained by establishing the number of vecinos per city with population data for 1630 and 1580. Carrying out the quotient of the two values obtained for both dates gives us the relative growth which occurred in each viceroyalty or audiencia.

16. Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripción, 260.

17. Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripción, 261.

18. Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripción, 172.

19. Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripción, 208.

20. Vázquez de Espinosa, Compendio y descripción, 342.

21. Among the primary sources of regional interest which were consulted, including the modern collections, are: Bernardo Aldrete, Del origen y principio de la lengua castellana (Madrid, 1674), written around 1600; Joaquín García Iczabalceta, Relación de los obispados de Tlaxcala, Michoacán, Oaxaca y otros lugares en el Siglo XVI (México, 1904); Antonio de Herrera, Historia de las Indias (Buenos Aires, 1945-47); Fray Buenaventura de Salinas, Memorial de las historias del Nuevo Mundo-Perú, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima, 1957); Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Papeles de Nueva España, I-VII (Madrid, 1905-06); José de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Madrid, 1792), edited for the first time in 1608; Alonso de la Mota y Escobar, Descripción geográfica de los reinos de Nueva Galicia, Nueva Viscaya y Nueva León (Madrid, 1940); Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, Milicia y descripción de las Indias (Madrid, 1892), edited for the first time in 1599; Juan Matienzo, Gobierno del Peru (Buenos Aires, 1910), written before 1573; Author unknown, Descripción del Virreinato del Perú a comienzos del siglo XVII (Rosario, 1958); Diego de Encinas, Cedulario indiano (Madrid 1954-46), reproduction of the edition of 1593; Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento de América y Oceania, 42 vols. (Madrid, 1864-1884); Marcos Jiménez de la Espada, Relaciones cartográficas de Indias (1881-1897); Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, Crónica de la Nueva España (Madrid, 1914); Germán Latorre, Relaciones geográficas de Indias (Sevilla, 1919); Juan de Cárdenas, Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las Indias, edition in facsimile (Madrid, 1945), original published in 1591; Instituto Histórico de Marina, Colección de diarios y relaciones para la historia de los viajes y descubrimientos, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1943); Fray Reginaldo de Lizarraga, Descriptión breve de toda la tierra del Perú, Tucumán, Rio de la Plata y Chile, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, XV (Madrid, 1909), 485-660; P. Rubén Vargas Ugarte, Relaciones de Viajes (XVI, XVII, and XVIIIth centuries) (Lima, 1947); Fernández Piedrahita, Historia de la conquista del Nuevo Reino de Granada, Biblioteca Popular de Colombia, vols. 12-15 (Bogotá, 1942). Among sources for localities are: Juan B. Antonelli, “A Relation of Ports,” in R. Haklyut, ed., Principal Navigations, X, 135-56 (Glasgow, 1901); Luis Capoche, Relación del asiento y villa imperial de Potosí (Madrid, 1959), written around 1585; J. and F. de Mogaburu, Diario de Lima (1629-1634) (Lima, 1935); Padre Bernabé Cobo, Historia de la fundación de Lima (Madrid, 1956), finished in 1639; Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala (México, 1892).

22. Among other contemporary works consulted which were of particular use are: Woodrow Borah, Silk Raising in Colonial Mexico (Berkeley, 1943) and, “Early Colonial Trade and Navigation between Mexico and Peru,” Ibero-Americana, No. 38 (Berkeley, 1954); Enrico Marco Dorta, Cartagena de Indias (Cartagena, 1960); Vicente Riva Palacio, México a través de los siglos (México, 1887-89); Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, Historia de Valparaíso (Valparaíso, 1869-72), and Historia de Santiago (Santiago de Chile, 1924); I. A. Wright, The Early History of Cuba, 1492-1586 (New York, 1916); Nicolás Bensio Moreno, Buenos Aires, estudio crítico de su población (Buenos Aires, 1939); José Barba Gelata and Juan Bromley, Evolución urbana de la ciudad de Lima (Lima, 1940); M. Toussaint, F. Gómez de Orosco, and J. Fernández, Planos de la ciudad de México; siglos XVI y XVII (México, 1938); Lewis Hanke, The Imperial City of Potosí (The Hague, 1956); C. H. Haring, El comercio y la navegación entre España y las Indias en época de los Hapsburgos (Paris, 1939); Ricardo Machain Lafuente, Buenos Aires en el siglo XVII (Buenos Aires, 1944), and La Asunción de antaño (Buenos Aires, 1942); George Kubler, Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century (New Haven, 1948); François Chevalier, “Significations sociales de la fondation de Puebla de los Angeles,” in Revista de Historia de América, No. 23, 105-130; Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal, Imagen del mundo hacia 1570 (Madrid, 1944); Sherburne F. Cook and Lesley B. Simpson, The Population of Central Mexico in the Sixteeenth Century (Berkeley, 1948).

23. Barnabé Cobo, Historia.

24. Harold Benjamin, Higher Education in the Americas (New York, 1965).

25. López de Velasco, “Geografía y descripción,” 186.