CONSTRUCTION OF AN INSTITUTIONAL PRAXIS IN PERU OF THE XVI CENTURY: THE VOLUNTEERING OF THE GIFTS

The Austrias requested twenty voluntary gifts from the viceroyalty of Peru, which allowed them to collect at least 7,487,935 pesos. However, to date, not much is known about it, and only in recent times has historiography begun to focus on this collection tool. This article aims to begin to fill this gap, by examining the many edited sources published during the 19th and 20th centuries. Using this varied documentation will allow quantifying with more precision the gifts requested; to define the procedures implemented by the agents involved in its collection; to understand the political and legal culture that legitimized the collection of the voluntary gifts; to deny the erroneous belief, nonetheless, still often considered legitimate by historiography, as it derives from the Castilian experience, which qualifies as forced services the voluntary gifts requested by the Habsburgs of Spain in the American territories, in general, and in the viceroyalty of Perú, in particular.