In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

51 introduction u pon the death of Diego pérez de la torre in 1538, the eight-year-old provincia of nueva Galicia was left without a royal administrator. two years earlier pérez de la torre had been dispatched from spain to nueva Galicia to arrest the provincia’s founding governor, nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, and take over leadership of the government there. 1 He made the arrest as ordered upon his arrival in the ciudad de méxico, where he found Guzmán, and departed for compostela, the seat of his jurisdiction. But his tenure was to last only two years. perhaps designated as early as August 1538 by viceroy Antonio de mendoza to succeed pérez de la torre and conduct a residencia, or judicial review, of his administration was francisco vázquez de coronado, then about 28 years old. 2 when the viceroy’s young subordinate reached nueva Galicia he found that pérez had died from injuries suffered in a fall from a horse while in battle with natives of the provincia . 3 consequently, he immediately assumed office and determined that a residencia of his predecessor’s performance was unnecessary. so it was that vázquez de coronado was already in possession of the office of governor of nueva Galicia and exercising its duties when the king’s confirmation of his appointment arrived sometime during the second half of 1539, in the form of the royal cédula published here. the steps that would lead to the launching of an expedition to tierra nueva were already well under way. marcos de niza was even then making his hurried return trip from the north. participants in the expedition were being recruited, many of them already preparing to depart for compostela later in the year. vázquez de coronado may well have received the king’s cédula while in the ciudad de méxico after escorting fray marcos to the viceregal court so that he could make a formal report of his reconnaissance to cíbola. with the exception of the opening lines of the body of the royal cédula, the appointment letter is a formulaic text varying only slightly from other commissions of royal officials of this period. 4 for example, the grant of authority to summon residents and vecinos into the governor’s presence and caution them about the penalty of banishment is a standard element in such cédulas and should not be taken as implying special royal concern about or provision for nueva Galicia or vázquez de coronado. the cédula grants no extraordinary powers and refers only to customary procedures. there were at this time hundreds of oidores, governors, alcaldes, and lesser officials serving the spanish monarch in the new world. the appointment of francisco vázquez de coronado was looked upon as nothing out of the ordinary. Despite its status as a set form, the cédula lays out in brief outline the institutional framework within which the young governor was required to work. that framework included a preexisting hierarchical bureaucracy of appointed functionaries within a matrix of spanish and indian communities . Although nueva Galicia at the time can rightly be Document 5 Decree of the King Appointing Vázquez de Coronado Governor of Nueva Galicia, April 18, 1539 John carter Brown Library, Brown university tello, Crónica miscelánea de la sancta provincia de Xalisco, libro segundo, fols. 406r–407v 52 DocuMent 5 considered a frontier with regard to spanish occupation, its administrators adhered to the same formalities and the same code of institutional behavior that were then being observed in the peripatetic royal court in valladolid, madrid, sevilla, or toledo. the only surviving copy of the cédula addressed to vázquez de coronado has been preserved thanks to an assiduous seventeenth-century franciscan chronicler, fray Antonio tello. Born about 1567 in Galicia in the humid northwest of spain, tello studied at the university and entered the order of friars minor (the franciscans) in salamanca. 5 when he heeded the missionary call and was assigned to the franciscan province of santiago de Jalisco in nueva españa is not known. But his duties in the province led to extensive travel over many years while he served as guardián at several conventos throughout Jalisco. 6 As the province’s first official chronicler, fray Antonio read copiously in books written about the new world and amassed a sizable collection of documents relating to franciscan...

Share