ABSTRACT
"As Your Lordship probably knows," viceroy Martín Enríquez told his successor in 1580, "in this land there are two republics to govern, one of Indians and one of Spaniards, and His Majesty sent us here mainly [to take care of] all that concerns the Indians and their protection, and this has to be attended to with the utmost care because, as the weakest part, the Indians are such a wretched people that any Christian heart is obliged to feel much pity for them." 1 Similarly, but half a century later, another viceroy, the marquis of Cadereita, would assert at the end of his rule that he had always concerned himself with the "preservation and increase of the wretched Indian natives, who so much need the protection of the viceroys in the name of His Majesty," never consenting to "any excesses of the powerful who badly use the sweat and blood of these people." 2 It is clear from these remarks that viceregal discourse fully shared in the rhetoric of wretchedness. In that sense, the comments by these two viceroys reflected faithfully the language of the Instructions given by the monarch to every viceroy before leaving for the New World. In them, the king would always instruct the viceroys that, "One of the things about which you must show the greatest care is the good treatment of the natives, because the safe preservation of those kingdoms and provinces depends upon it, as you will realize by the cédulas which have been issued for their good treatment and the moderation in the use of their services and work, for which they must be rewarded sufficiently." 3
