Toledo y Leyva, Pedro de (1585–1654)

Pedro de Toledo y Leyva (Marqués de Mancera; b. 1585; d. 9 March 1654), viceroy of Peru (1639–1648). Designated the first marqués de Mancera in 1633, former governor of Galicia, and a member of Philip IV's Council of War, Mancera took office as viceroy of Peru in December 1639. He was a vigorous administrator with a mixed reputation. On the one hand he was known for his charity, piety, and Christian fervor. A special friend to the Dominicans, he established a chair of Thomistic theology at the University of San Marcos in Lima exclusively for a Dominican and supported construction of a Dominican church and the school of Santo Tomás. Also in Lima he helped to found a Carmelite nunnery, a hospice and hermitage for the Franciscans, and hospitals for Indians, blacks (San Bartolomé), and the poor. In addition he assisted Franciscan missions in Panataguas with public funds.

On the other hand, Mancera was an efficient but oftentimes arbitrary administrator. On one occasion he ordered the expulsion of all Portuguese Jews living in Peru—6,000 by one estimate—and on another the removal of Lima prostitutes to Valdivia, Chile, to stimulate population growth in that remote region. Imposing a highly unpopular tax on meat and wine to pay the costs, he strengthened fortifications at the port of Callao, where his son Antonio Sebastián was commandant, and built two new galleons for the Pacific fleet (Armada del Sur). He also suppressed sixteen holidays, opened new veins at the mercury mine of Huancavelica, and revamped the tribute system. Eager to immortalize himself, Mancera gave his name to the new fort at Valdivia and to the town of Pisco (San Clemente de Mancera). He stepped down as viceroy on 20 September 1648.

See alsoPeru: From the Conquest Through Independence .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuel De Mendiburu, ed., Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Perú, vol. 10 (1934).

Robert R. Miller, ed., Chronicle of Colonial Lima: The Diary of Josephe and Francisco Mugaburu (1975).

Additional Bibliography

Silverblatt, Irene Marsha. Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.

                                      John Jay TePaske