Understanding Spanish Colonialism from the Unusual Perspective of Diego Fernández de Córdoba

This volume in a series of world history case studies analyzes Spanish colonialism in the early seventeenth century by examining the career of Diego Fernández de Córdoba. Fernández served as viceroy of both New Spain (Mexico) and Peru during a period that featured strained race relations, new socio-economic tensions, and bitter conflicts between Catholic religious orders. His measured responses to Jews, the Inquisition, women, and local rebellions reveal a man determined to hold a vast empire together through the power of compromise. What emerges is a new understanding of an often-overlooked period in Latin American history. This book is a volume in the Understanding World History Through Biography series. It is the first work ever written in English about Fernández.