Aaron Andressen
Jared Ally
Gabriela Guerra
Oriana Reta
Pedro de Castro Hinojosa was a relatively minor colonial official whose ambition,
creativity, and questionable paperwork placed him at the center of major debates about
corruption and state-building in early colonial Peru. Although he began with a small
administrative post, he quickly tried to expand his influence by presenting documents that
granted him far more power than he had been officially given. These actions brought attention
not only to his own behavior but also to the broader weaknesses in the colonial bureaucracy,
where forged titles, flexible paperwork, and personal ambition could easily blur the line between
legitimate authority and abuse. Although he acted out of both personal ambition and a real desire
to improve the colonial system, he ultimately failed because people resisted him, the
administration was full of contradictions, and his forgeries were eventually exposed.
Pedro de Castro Hinojosa framed his authority within this administrative landscape by
presenting himself as both a legitimately appointed official and an agent of ongoing reforms. His
1581 appointment as administrator of the Communities and Hospitals of Paria was genuine, but
he later claimed additional authority, such as inspector and visitador of the roads, bridges,
tambos, chasquis, and Indigenous villages across “these kingdoms of Peru”, by inserting
substitute pages into his título.1 Castro defended these alterations as normal bureaucratic
practice, arguing that officials frequently revised documents in haste and that viceroys often gave
verbal consent for such modifications.2 He further maintained that his expanded jurisdiction
aligned with the monarchy’s broader infrastructural vision, insisting that enterprising officials
were expected to identify new administrative needs and act accordingly. Although many
1
2
Mumford, 14-15.
Mumford, 22.
contemporaries doubted the authenticity of his documents, Castro justified his enlarged authority
as both procedurally acceptable and substantively necessary for maintaining roads, restoring
reducciones, and enforcing the spatial order that undergirded Spanish rule in the Andes.
Pedro de Castro Hinojosa’s motivations were a mix of personal ambition, economic
self-interest, and genuine reformist zeal. Although he was legitimately appointed as
administrator of the Communities and Hospitals of Paria, he stretched this modest post into
something much larger by altering his título so that it also named him “a lower-level judge (juez)
and an inspector (visitador) with authority over the infrastructure for travel and communication
throughout Peru—roads, bridges, inns, and mail service.”2 He used forged and modified
documents to “upgrade” his identity, building what Mumford calls “a picaresque career of
self-promotion and doubtful documentation,”1 and whenever one document was questioned, he
produced new, equally dubious paperwork to defend himself. This strategy was not just about the
official salary; the real money and influence came from the side deals and opportunities that
came with controlling land, credit, and labor through his positions. At the same time, Castro was
not only a schemer—he actually threw himself into projects that colonial officials claimed to
value, like reinforcing reducciones, improving tambos, and trying to hold indigenous migrants to
their assigned communities. Priests in Paria even praised his unusual ability to work with
marginalized groups such as the Urus, suggesting that he saw himself as a capable protector and
organizer of indigenous populations, not just an exploiter. Finally, he framed his actions as part
of a larger ideological mission, presenting himself as continuing Viceroy Toledo’s grand program
of “policing and reforming Peru’s infrastructure and its resettlements”6 and invoking both royal
and divine backing in his letters. In this sense, Castro’s motivation blended self-fashioning and
corruption with a sincere, if self-serving, belief that he was helping to build and reform the
colonial state.
Castro’s downfall came from a combination of suspicious paperwork, political resistance,
and his own overreach. His título raised doubts because its pages had different handwriting,
paper, and formatting, and it did not match the official version recorded in Lima.3 He also relied
on other documents, such as a 1583 cédula, along with testimonies that seemed unlikely or
clearly fabricated.4 Local Spanish elites pushed back against him because his efforts to restore
resettlements threatened their access to Indigenous labor, and corregidores, priests, and
landowners accused him of going too far.5 Castro worsened his situation by acting like a judge on
the road, trying cases, imprisoning travelers, and issuing harsh orders. Once officials noticed
irregularities in his documents, they launched a long investigation that lasted fifteen years. He
was imprisoned in La Plata, escaped while claiming innocence, and eventually lost his final
appeal in 1602.6 He was convicted of forgery, exiled, and permanently banned from office.
Overall, Pedro de Castro Hinojosa embodied the contradictions and vulnerabilities of the
colonial system, using manipulation, forged documents, and strategic self-presentation to climb
far beyond the limits of his original appointment. His rise was only possible because the Spanish
Crown’s administration in Peru operated through flexible procedures, inconsistent oversight, and
a reliance on paperwork that was both essential and easy to manipulate. Castro learned to
navigate these ambiguities, exploiting the looseness of bureaucratic practice to craft a public
identity that the system never fully controlled. His downfall came when his ambitions grew too
large for the colonial government to ignore. By stretching his authority to an impossible scale
3
Mumford, 13.
Mumford, 21.
4
Mumford, 22.
5
Mumford, 20.
6
Mumford, 23.
5
and assuming roles that no single official could realistically perform, he eventually triggered the
doubts and investigations that unraveled his fabricated career. In the end, Pedro de Castro
Hinojosa’s story illustrates how far a determined individual could go in sixteenth-century Peru
through forgery, improvisation, and audacity—and how even such a system of loopholes had its
limits.
Bibliography
Mumford, Jeremy Ravi. “Forgery and Tambos: False Documents, Imagined Incas, and the
Making of Andean Space.” In Corruption in the Iberian Empires: Greed, Custom, and
Colonial Networks, edited by Christoph Rosenmüller, 13-32. University of New Mexico
Press, 2017.