We, the King: Creating Royal Legislation in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish New World

The King challenges the dominant top-down interpretation of the Spanish Empire and its monarchs' decrees in the New World, revealing how ordinary subjects had much more say in government and law-making than previously acknowledged. Adrian Masters' analysis of these decrees illustrates how law-making was aided and abetted by subjects from various backgrounds, reimagining our understandings of kingship, imperial rule, colonialism, and the origins of racial categories.

Format: Hardback
Length: 342 pages
Publication date: 09 March 2023
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

The conventional top-down interpretation of the Spanish Empire and its monarchs' decrees in the New World is challenged by the King. He demonstrates how common people had a far greater influence on government and law-making than previously thought. Over 110,000 pages of decrees covering a wide range of topics were issued by the King during the viceregal period, which lasted from the post-1492 conquest until 1598. Adrian Masters uses meticulous analysis of these decrees to show how subjects from a variety of backgrounds, including powerful court women, indigenous commoners, Afro-descendant raftsmen, secret saboteurs, pirates, sovereign Chiriguano Indians, and secretaries' wives, helped and encouraged law-making. Numerous petitions and labor prompted the creation of a complex body of legislation and legal categories that demonstrate how this empire was built "from the bottom up." We, the King, offers a fresh perspective on kingship, imperial rule, colonialism, and the origins of racial categories, which is original and innovative.

Weight: 660g
Dimension: 158 x 236 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781009315418