Lope García de Castro

Lope García de Castro (* 1516 in Villanueva de Valduenza, León, Spain; † January 8, 1576 in Madrid, Spain ) was a Spanish jurist who served as President of the Real Audiencia held the official duties of a viceroy of Peru from 1564 to 1569, without formally to hold this office.

From 1534 studied García law at the Colegio de San Bartolomé the University of Salamanca, to 1541, he taught there as well. He was sent as a judge ( Oidor ) to Valladolid and became a member of the India Council, which provided the management of the Spanish colonies.

1563 King Philip II appointed him as governor of Peru, Captain-General and President of the Real Audiencia of Lima - as the successor of Viceroy Diego López de Zúñiga y Velasco, Count of Nieva. García embarked in October 1563 in Cadiz and reached Panama in June 1564; from there he traveled to Callao, where he arrived in October 1564.

He reorganized the financial system and built in 1566 a mint in Lima. He got some new taxes and fees, finished the permanent forced labor of the Indians in the estates of the Spanish conquistadores, thus contributing to the stabilization of the financial and economic situation in the colony.

To improve the administration he shared the Viceroyalty of 1565 into provinces. Under his tenure, the area of Tucumán and Cuzco fell into the Verantwortungsbereicht the Real Audiencia of Charcas. 1567 took his nephew Álvaro de Mendaña a sea expedition to the Pacific, where she discovered the Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal and other islands of the South Seas.

Inside, he struck down an uprising of the Indians in 1565 and Jauja a rebellion of the mestizos of Cuzco 1567.

When Francisco de Toledo was appointed as the new Viceroy, García returned to Spain, where he took up his post in the Indies again until he died in Madrid in 1576.

Sources and links

• Biography (in Spanish ) - accessed 21 March 2012

• Man
• Spaniard
• Born in 1516
• Died 1576
• Viceroyalty of Peru