Qualla: Real Audiencia of Quito https://qualla.com/real-audiencia-of-quito en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/r/b/n/real-audiencia-of-quito-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Real Audiencia of Quito https://qualla.com/real-audiencia-of-quito Real Audiencia of Quito: Introduction https://qualla.com/real-audiencia-of-quito/ Photo credit Rinaldo Wurglitsch, CC BY 2.0. On 29 August 1563, in the Castilian town of Guadalajara, Philip II of Spain signed a decree creating a new colonial government in a city he had never seen. Quito sat more than 9,000 kilometers away, perched at 2,850 meters in the Andes, and his order would give it jurisdiction over a territory the size of Western Europe. The Real Audiencia of Quito was a court, a capital, and a cartographic assertion. Its boundaries ran from the Pacific coast inland across what is now Ecuador, swept south into northern Peru, north into the Colombian highlands, and east into the unmapped Amazon. For 259 years, this piece of parchment defined a country that did not yet exist.

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Image: Rinaldo Wurglitsch | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/r/b/n/real-audiencia-of-quito-wp/6rbn-real-audiencia-of-quito-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Real Audiencia of Quito: A Court in the Mountains https://qualla.com/real-audiencia-of-quito/ Photo credit Bbb, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Audiencia was part court, part cabinet, part royal pretender. Its structure was specified in exacting detail: a president, four oidores who served as civil judges and doubled as alcaldes del crimen for criminal cases, a crown attorney known as the fiscal, an alguacil mayor wh...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/r/b/n/real-audiencia-of-quito-wp/6rbn-real-audiencia-of-quito-a-court-in-the-mountains.mp3 0:06 2 full Real Audiencia of Quito: Effective Autonomy https://qualla.com/real-audiencia-of-quito/ Photo credit per above, Public domain. In theory the Audiencia answered to a viceroy. In practice, the viceroy was too far away to matter. When the Audiencia was founded, its nominal superior was the Viceroyalty of Peru, headquartered in Lima, roughly 2,000 kilometers of mountain and jungle distant. A message took wee...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/r/b/n/real-audiencia-of-quito-wp/6rbn-real-audiencia-of-quito-effective-autonomy.mp3 0:06 3 full Real Audiencia of Quito: The Presidents https://qualla.com/real-audiencia-of-quito/ Photo credit Jojagal, CC0. Forty-one men held the presidency of the Real Audiencia between 1563 and 1822. The first was Hernando de Santillan, who served eight years and drafted the foundational ordinances for the court. Antonio de Morga, a Spanish jurist and chronicler who had served in Manila and written...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/r/b/n/real-audiencia-of-quito-wp/6rbn-real-audiencia-of-quito-the-presidents.mp3 0:06 4 full Real Audiencia of Quito: Revolution and Reconquest https://qualla.com/real-audiencia-of-quito/ Photo credit Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 10 August 1809, a group of Quito creoles deposed Ruiz de Castilla and established the First Autonomous Junta under Juan Pio Montufar. It was one of the earliest independence movements in Spanish America, predating most of the famous declarations by years. Royal forces from Lim...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/r/b/n/real-audiencia-of-quito-wp/6rbn-real-audiencia-of-quito-revolution-and-reconquest.mp3 0:06 5 full