Fernández de Castro Andrade y Portugal, Pedro Antonio (c. 1635–1672)

Pedro Antonio Fernández de Castro Andrade y Portugal (Conde de Lemos; b. ca. 1635; d. 6 December 1672), viceroy of Peru (1667–1672). The tenth count of Lemos, Pedro Fernández de Castro was born in Spain and was only thirty-three when he assumed his post in Lima in November 1667. Upon arrival his most immediate task was quelling a civil war in the mining area of Laycacota in the province of Paucarolla, where armed bands led by the Salcedo brothers, Gaspar and José, who terrorized other miners. In 1668 Lemos personally led a force of soldiers and militia into the mountains to put down the revolt, ruthlessly executing forty-two rebels. Returning to Lima in 1669 after visiting Chucuito and Cuzco, Lemos attached himself to the Jesuits, supporting their missions in the interior at Mojos and on the Marañon River and the construction of a sumptuous new chapel for their church of Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, dedicated in June 1672. At the same time the viceroy sponsored construction of a new convent for female penitents and the Betelmite Indian Hospital of Santa Ana. An outspoken critic of the forced labor system (Mita) that supplied workers for the silver mines at Potosí, Lemos advocated its elimination but was successful only in reducing the number of mita Indians by half to approximately 2,000 annually.

Devout, fervent, and somewhat pompous, Lemos loved the panoply surrounding rites and ceremonies, ordering thirty masses each for the forty-two rebels he executed and elegant celebrations whenever religious or state occasions called for them. After only five years in office, Lemos suddenly fell ill and died at the age of thirty-eight.

See alsoSpanish Empire; Viceroyalty, Viceroy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Basadre, Jorge. El Conde de Lemos y su tiempo. Lima: Editorial Huascaran, 1945.

Mendiburu, Manuel De ed., Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Peru, vol. 3. Lima: Imprenta Enrique Palacios, 1978.

Miller, Robert R. ed. Chronicle of Colonial Lima: The Diary of Josephe and Francisco Mugaburu, 1640–1687. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975.

                                        John Jay TePaske