Viceroyalty In Peru In The 16th Century

Staring at the audience through his fingers, the subject of the Laughing Fool holds a pair of glasses, instead of wearing them. This 16th century dutch painting indicated the ignorance and blindness for immorality. Similarly, the Spanish imperial painting, the Portrait of a Young Woman, 1795-1810, depicted a young lady wearing extravagant clothing that displayed her wealth, but there were more to be implicated through the painting, especially the ignorance of the slave trades and the sugar trade, the complex history of how she drew her wealth.
Patronized to paint by the Peruvian viceroyalties in Lima between 1790 and 1810, Pedro José Diaz painted the young woman with features of wealth shown through her clothes and decorations. Her earrings
After the conquest of Peru in the 16th century by Cortes, the spanish made Lima the head city, and it became the most powerful financial hub in the “New World”. Moreover, many viceroyalties gathered and strengthened the center of the city by reorganizing the city around the idea of centrality. During the early 17th century, novel ideas of ideal cities emerged and according to Botero, “men were drawn to good air, beauty, and all the wonderful things that delighted and fed ‘the eye of the people with admiration and wonder’. ” Without doubt, the viceroyalties were indulged in lives of pleasure and delight and the painting of a young woman accurately reflected their
It was suspected that the young lady was the daughter of the Salazar Gabino family, who drew their wealth from sugar cane productions and trades. In fact, sugar cane business had started long before the painting was made. After the conquer of Peru in 1532, the Spanish initiated the production and trades of sugar, obtaining slave labor through a system called the “Encomienda”. The system assigned a client to demand tributes from and enslave the indigenous people, and the “Encomendero” were to convert these people into Christians. Nevertheless, the system was abandoned after the Law of 1542, which limited the exploitations of native americans in Spanish colonies. Laws were passed, the amount of labor for the Spanish did not significantly decrease, since they still enslaved people from Africa and Asia. By the end of 16th century, the Spanish remained the biggest importer of sugar, producing 80% of world’s sugar