proclivity of the Native peoples of Peru and Mexico to accept Christianity
reflected the role of divine providence rather than the arrival, before
Columbus, of an evangelizing apostle.Further Reading
Acosta, José de. Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Edited by Jane E. Managan. Translated by
Frances López-Morillas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
Marzal, Manuel M. “Acosta, José de (1540–1600).” In Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean
Studies, 1530–1900, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, vol. 2, 11–15. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 2008.
■ADRIANA VON HAGENADMINISTRATION
The Spaniards who toppled the Inca Empire found it convenient to view the Inca
ruler as an absolute monarch who could be engaged as an ally or deposed and
replaced with a more pliable substitute. The failure to achieve a lasting
partnership with an Inca ruler raised questions of what kind of Colonial
administration Spain might develop in the Andes, which led to a fierce debate
over the “good government” of the Inca Empire. As the Spanish crown
centralized its administrative authority and frustrated the feudalistic ambitions of
the early conquistadors, Spanish monarchs desired to know how Atahualpa, the
Inca ruler murdered by the Spaniards, and his ancestors had ruled (see Invasion,
Spanish). Early descriptions of Inca imperial hierarchy focused on
administrative practices before the conquest as a means of identifying legitimate
ways that the Crown could lay claim to indigenous labor and productive
resources. The diverse ideological aims of Colonial writers and their Andean
informants contribute to contradictions in narratives of sovereignty and
administrative hierarchy, although there is general agreement about many
elements of imperial statecraft.