Proving merits before the Council of the Indies

The petición from the indigenous people of Cogua y Nemeza as guarantor of the probanza de servicios of friar Pedro de Aguado 1569-1575

Abstract

This article aims to elucidate how the chronicler, and provincial of the Franciscan Order in the New Kingdom of Granada, friar Pedro de Aguado, when traveling to Spain in 1575 as procurator of his province before the Council of the Indies in Madrid, used informatively a petición sent to the Council years earlier, in 1569, by the indigenous of the pueblos of Cogua and Nemeza, located in the New Kingdom, in order to substantiate and legitimize his probanza de servicios, also made by the authorities of Real Audiencia de Santa Fe. These indigenous people were evangelized by Aguado, and the success of his religious conversion served as an instrument to legitimize his actions before the Council, as a vassal, religious and procurator of a province known by the local and peninsular authorities for being constantly immersed in political and religious disputes. In this sense, by demonstrating the narrative and juridical strategies that link both documents, the article presents a little explored documentary facet - and sometimes ignored- of this Franciscan, talks about his daily action in the Indies and becomes indispensable for understanding his trajectory, as well as the documentary relevance of his Chronicle Recopilación Historial. In this way, we analyze points of coupling and tension between petición and probanza, considering the organizations of the Franciscan mission and evangelization in the New Kingdom of Granada, the ability of the indigenous people of Cogua and Nemeza and Aguado’s historic as a subject contemplated in different documents belonging to the Archivo General de Indias, especially his probanza de servicios.