POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE SPANISH EMPIRE 99
residencia (judicial review) of their conduct at the
end of their term of offi ce. This took the form of a
public hearing at which all who chose could appear
before the judge of residence to present charges
or testify for or against the offi cial in question. At
the end of the process, the judge found the offi cial
guilty or innocent of part or all of the charges and
handed down a sentence that could be appealed
to the Council of the Indies. Another device, the
visita, was an investigation of offi cial conduct, usu-
ally made unannounced by a visitador specially
appointed for this purpose by the crown or, in the
case of lesser offi cials, by the viceroy in consulta-
tion with the audiencia. As a rule, the visita was no
more effective than the residencia in preventing or
punishing offi cial misdeeds.
The only political institution in the Indies that
satisfi ed to some degree local aspirations for self-
rule was the town council, known as the cabildo
orayuntamiento. Any suggestion, however, that
the cabildo had some kind of democratic charac-
ter has no basis in fact. At an early date, the crown
assumed the right to appoint the regidores (coun-
cilmen) and alcaldes. Under Philip II and his suc-
cessors, it became the established practice for the
king to sell these posts to the highest bidder, with a
right of resale or bequest, on condition that a cer-
tain portion of the value be paid to the crown as a
tax at each transfer. In some towns, however, ca-
bildo members elected their successors.
Throughout the colonial period, the municipal
councils were closed, self-perpetuating oligarchies
of rich landowners, mine owners, and merchants,
who “ran the council as an exclusive club.” These
men frequently received no salaries for their duties
and used their positions to award themselves mu-
nicipal lands and native labor and in general serve
the narrow interests of their class. Their offi cial
tasks included supervision of local markets, distri-
bution of town lands, and local taxation. They also
elected the alcaldes, who administered justice as
courts of fi rst instance. Vigilantly supervised by the
provincial governor, or corregidor, who frequently
intervened in its affairs, the cabildo soon lost the
autonomy of the early days. Yet despite its undem-
ocratic character, ineffi ciency, and waning prestige
and autonomy, the cabildo was not without poten-
tial signifi cance. As the only political institution
in which the creoles (American-born Spaniards)
were largely represented, it was destined to play
an important part in the coming of the nineteenth-
century wars of independence.
The offi cials and agencies just described repre-
sented only a small part of the apparatus of colonial
government. A large number of secretaries (escri-
banos) attended to the paperwork of the various de-
partments. As a rule, they collected no salaries but
were reimbursed by fees for their services. Police
offi cers, collectors of the royal fi fth, alcaldes with
special jurisdiction, and the like were abundant.
Under Charles V control of such offi ces often lay in
the hands of high Spanish offi cials, who sold them
to individuals who proposed to go to the Indies to
exploit their fee-earning possibilities. Beginning
with Philip II, many of these offi ces were with-
drawn from private patronage and sold directly
by the crown, usually to the highest bidder. In the
second half of the seventeenth century, the sale
of offi ces by the crown or the viceroy spread from
fee-earning positions to higher, salaried posts. As a
rule, the benefi ciaries of such transactions sought
to return to Spain rich, having made the highest
possible profi t on their investment. Consequently,
corruption in this period became structural in gov-
ernment. Colonial offi cials, high and low, abused
their trusts in innumerable and ingenious ways.
If the royal authority was more or less supreme
in the capitals and the surrounding countryside,
the same was not true of more distant and isolated
regions. In such areas, royal authority was very re-
mote, and the power of the great landowners was
virtually absolute. On their large, self-suffi cient es-
tates, they dispensed justice in the manner of feu-
dal lords, holding court and imprisoning peons in
their own jails; they raised and maintained their
own private armies; and they generally acted as
monarchs of all they surveyed. Sometimes these
powerful individuals combined their de facto mili-
tary and judicial power with an offi cial title, which
made them representatives of the crown in their
vicinities. Spain’s growing economic and political
weakness in the late seventeenth century, which
loosened the ties between the mother country and
its colonies, favored this decentralization of power.