ABSTRACT
The Council of the Indies, chartered in 1524, stood at the head of the Spanish imperial administration almost to the close of the colonial period. Under the king the council was the supreme legislative, judicial, and executive institution of colonial government. A striking feature of colonial political life was the frequent nonobservance of Spanish colonial law. Political theater played a vital role in projecting and maintaining control over the Latin American colonies. Corruption became a structural element of the government of the Indies in the seventeenth century. Colonial officials, high and low, prostituted their trust in innumerable and ingenious ways. The colonial city was born just as the freedom and authority of the communes or towns of Spain were passing away. The Jesuits early established their leadership in the work of Indian conversion and in the religious and educational life of Brazil in general. The government of Portuguese Brazil broadly resembled that of the Spanish Indies in its spirit, structure.
