Diego López de Zúñiga y Velasco
Diego López de Zúñiga y Velasco , 4th Count of Nieva de Cameros (Spanish: Conde de Nieva de Cameros) (* around 1500 in Burgos , Castile , Spain ; † February 18, 1564 in Lima , Peru ) was a Spanish officer who served as Viceroy of Peru from 1561 until his assassination in 1564 .
Life
Military career
López began a career as an officer in the Spanish army and fought under King Philip II in the service of the Spanish crown in North Africa, Italy, Flanders and Germany. At the end of 1558, King Philip sent him to South America as viceroy from Peru. Due to adverse circumstances, his departure was prevented for over a year, and he did not set out from Cádiz until the end of February 1560 . After a long stay in Panama , López reached Lima in February 1561.
Viceroy in Peru
An important topic of his tenure was the question of whether the native Indians should be permanently obliged to do forced labor in the country estates ( encomenderos ) of the Spaniards. Another question was the administrative allocation of the Potosí silver mines . Regardless of this, the ruthless exploitation of resources by the Spaniards continued: During López's tenure, the Spanish treasury received 651,000 ducats from Peru.
López campaigned to make the colonial administration more independent of the economic interests of the people involved and in 1564 forbade the judges ( oidores ) to establish or take over their own business enterprises in the colony. During his term of office, the first work on the construction of the Plaza de Armas of Lima and other urban planning innovations (such as the forerunners of a sewage system) fell.
He had a reputation for being lavish on public goods and was considered a notorious philanderer, which went so far that he was urged to restrain his lifestyle in a royal charter from Madrid (dated February 27, 1563).
He was murdered by a group of conquistadores at the gates of the government palace.
Web links
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza |
Viceroy of Peru 1561–1564 |
Lope García de Castro |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | López de Zúñiga y Velasco, Diego |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Conde de Nieva |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish officer, Viceroy of Peru |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1500 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Burgos , Spain |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 18, 1564 |
| Place of death | Lima , Peru |