Читать книгу The Audiencia in the Spanish Colonies - Charles Henry Cunningham - Страница 5

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The audiencia was primarily a judicial tribunal. It has been considered almost entirely as such by these modern historical writers who have referred to it in passing. Its legislative, administrative, executive, and ecclesiastical functions have received little attention. This may be owing to the fact that little or no documentary study of the audiencia has heretofore been made. A great deal of attention has been devoted in this book to the non-judicial functions of the audiencia. A chapter has been given, indeed, to its purely judicial activities, but the chief purpose of this investigation has been to show that the audiencia was more than a court of justice, and to bring out its governmental and ecclesiastical functions.

This study will be confined, chronologically, to the period extending from the time of the creation of the audiencia, at the close of the sixteenth century, to the end of the eighteenth. This limitation is advisable, first, because the vastness of the subject requires it, and second, because the audiencia became more concerned with judicial and less with administrative, political, and economic affairs through the constitutional changes which were made at the close of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The audiencia thus loses its interest, from our present viewpoint, after the eighteenth century. Again, it may be said that owing to the loss of colonies by Spain in the early nineteenth century, and the general anarchy that prevailed after 1810, a continuation of an intensive study beyond that period would be without value because its subject-matter would be no longer characteristic.

In assuming that the Audiencia of Manila was typical of all the audiencias in the Spanish colonial system, it is not claimed that the tribunal in the Philippines was identical in every function and detail with those of the other colonies of Spain. It is no doubt true that local conditions brought about pronounced differences and that each audiencia had its own local characteristics and powers, which differed from those of the others. The subject is so vast, however, and the research required for a comparative study of all these institutions would be so extensive that it would occupy more than a lifetime to complete it.

The main interest of this investigation does not lie in the organization, the scope, nature, or detailed powers of the audiencia as an institution of the Philippines, but in its larger relation to the general field of Spanish colonial history and government. It applies to the entire field of Spanish colonial administration. It is related to the government of Perú, New Spain, Cuba, and other colonies wherein there were audiencias, and where functions similar to those of the Manila tribunal were exercised. The establishment of all these audiencias was part of the same movement, and the act of their creation was the product of experience gained in Spain through efforts at centralization there. The audiencias of the colonies were alike dependent on the Council of the Indies; common institutions and departments of government existed in Spain for the control and regulation of the tribunals of the colonies. All were of equal judicial rank before the Council of the Indies, and cases appealed to the latter from the several audiencias were treated in the same manner and considered as having equal rank and importance. The general powers and attributes of these audiencias were prescribed in the same code, the Recopilación, and general laws and cédulas of reform were expedited from time to time and sent to the tribunals of all the colonies. Such is the basis, therefore, of the claim that this is in reality a study of the audiencia as an institution, illustrated particularly by the history of that of the Philippines.

A study of the audiencia of any colony is concerned with all of the problems that came up in its life—with legal, political, ecclesiastical, and social conditions. It will be seen that the audiencia was the one tribunal which regulated, checked, and often controlled both church and state in the colonies; it represented the king, and its duty was to see that the royal commands were obeyed; it was the royal audiencia. Isolated as were the officials of the Philippines, in those distant seas, removed from any but the most remote influence of the home government, beset on all sides by hostile forces, and dependent on themselves alone, conditions there present an especially favorable field wherein to note the ultimate possibilities of the authority of the audiencia. It is the design of this treatise to examine conditions in the Philippines under the aspects noted, and to assign them their place in the history of Spanish colonization. The investigation of what was, beyond doubt, the most important and many-sided institution in the Spanish administration of the Philippines provides a means of approach to that larger field of study.

A survey of the Spanish colonial system or a study of the government of any one colony will reveal the fact that political life and power there were vested chiefly in three institutions. Upon these the peace, prosperity and security of each colony largely depended. These institutions were the audiencia, the office of viceroy, or captain-general, and the church. By means of the two former the royal interests in the colony were represented, and through the latter one of the chief aims of Spain’s colonial system was effected, namely, the conversion of infidels and the subsequent care of their souls. The church added to its own power in various ways. No study of Spanish colonial institutions would be complete which failed to consider the church as a political power. It is to a consideration of these three chief factors of colonial government, and their interrelation, that this study will be dedicated. After a review of the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Audiencia of Manila, we shall devote ourselves to a detailed study of the audiencia itself. We shall first notice the audiencia’s judicial functions as a court of ordinary justice and secondarily as a court of residencia. The second part of this section will be concerned with the semi-judicial and administrative functions of the audiencia.

The title of captain-general was primarily of military significance, and it was exercised alike by viceroys and governors; the official designation of the former being “my viceroy and captain-general” and that of the latter being “my governor and captain-general.” Not all governors were captains-general.

The viceroys in the larger divisions and the captains-general in the smaller ones represented the king as head of the church and state in their several districts. Because these officials were so powerful and their duties so multitudinous, they came into contact with every department of the government. The audiencias came into relation with these officials most frequently. It is therefore necessary to study the governor and captain-general first from the viewpoint of his position as chief executive of the colony and as representative of the king. The frequency of their relations and the identity of their spheres of authority suggest that we give attention to the conflicts of jurisdiction of the governor and audiencia; finally, we shall take note of the occasions on which the audiencia assumed the government on the event of a vacancy, noticing the laws authorizing such action and the principles underlying them.

The importance of the church in the Spanish colonial system has already been alluded to. The extent of its power and the frequency and importance of its relations with the audiencia demand considerable attention. After studying the general phases of the relations of the audiencia and the church, we shall see that the tribunal exercised ecclesiastical authority of a very pronounced character. This power it derived from two sources: first, from the authority that was entrusted to it by virtue of the royal patronage; second, from its status as a court of justice with jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs similar to that which it had as an ordinary tribunal of justice. The above is an outline of the plan of this book.

That which impresses the modern student most with regard to Spanish administrative machinery was its failure to effect deliberately the division of powers which, with our traditions, we consider essential to a well-balanced government. The terms “executive” and “judicial” are employed in this book, as they were in Spain’s colonies, to designate functions rather than departments. The viceroy, as president of the audiencia, had cognizance of certain judicial matters, and more or less participation in them, though he was forbidden to act as judge, especially over affairs in which he had already officiated as executive. The audiencia likewise shared many executive functions, yet it was not judge of its own acts, for when judgment was passed on the administrative acts or judicial pronouncements of an oidor, either on appeal or by review of sentence, that magistrate was expected to retire, or to be occupied with some other case. So, while there was no judicial department with solely judicial functions, or a legislative or executive department, as they are known in some modern states, there existed certain interrelations which did not entirely result in confusion, as one might suppose. On the contrary, it may be often noted that as a resultant of this system, men and acts of an exceedingly well-balanced and statesmanlike character were produced. We shall see, moreover, that they were far from meriting the disapprobation that is frequently heaped upon so-called Spanish governmental incapacity.

The defects which appear so conspicuous in Spanish administration were largely due to the extremely methodical turn of the Spanish official mind, the vastness of the empire which was to be governed, and the lack of facilities available for efficient administration. It was a government of expedientes, literally a government on paper. All acts, estimates, budgets, and plans had to be drafted and written out, duplicates and triplicates of each report had to be made, advice had to be taken, and opinions rendered, whether the matter went any further than the theoretical stage or not. We do much the same in our modern age, but inventions and labor-saving devices have fortunately spared us much of the time and effort which a few centuries ago had to be expended to accomplish proportionate results. The apparent unwieldiness of the Spanish colonial empire would have been materially reduced by the use of the telegraph, cable, steamship, typewriter and carbon-paper.

An effort has been made that this should be something more than a theoretical dissertation. A knowledge that certain laws were promulgated is only half of what is necessary in a study of this character. It is imperative to understand how these laws were applied, and whether they were efficiently and effectively carried out. Every phase of the audiencia’s history has, therefore, been illustrated wherever possible with one or more concrete cases, taken from actual practice. Many of these illustrations are comparatively insignificant by themselves, involving persons of no historical importance and concerning matters of a seemingly trivial nature. Nevertheless, it has been necessary to consider these matters carefully because they were typical and true to actual conditions, and because they reveal better than anything else could the affairs which were the concern of the audiencia, showing the part played by the tribunal in the life of the colony.

In the preparation of this work due deference has been paid to the standard authorities usually cited by writers of Spanish-American history. So little attention has been given by students of Spanish colonial history to the audiencia as an institution, however, that the present writer has been obliged to depend almost entirely on the hitherto untouched documentary material in Spain and the Philippines, and to place almost his sole reliance upon it. This material consists of laws, cédulas, royal orders, ordinances, correspondence, and lastly, but most important, records of cases and actual happenings in the form of letters, memorials, reports, complaints and contemporary accounts. These latter convey, as nothing else can, an idea of how the laws were carried out, what was their effect, what part the audiencia played in the interpretation and execution of the law, and the relations of the tribunal to the other authorities and institutions of government. Of this sort of material there is much, and in its light the history of the Spanish colonies and of their institutions yet remains to be written.