91Â鶹¹ú²ú¾«Æ·×ÔÅÄ

The Villa de La Plata (known since 1825 as Sucre) was the seat of the La Plata Royal Audience (RALP) which, alongside the Royal Audience of Charcas (later known as Bolivia), produced documentation corresponding to the domain. The fonds covers the years 1561-1825 and reflects the governmental, administrative and judicial functions of the RALP. Although the royal order for the creation of the audience was never found, the judges are known to have been appointed in 1558. The initial territorial jurisdiction was only 100 leagues but, starting in 1563, it expanded from one ocean to the other: from Arica (now in Chile) on the Pacific to Buenos Aires, Argentina on the Atlantic. It also included Paraguay and the province of Tucumán. The Audience maintained this extension until the creation of the Audience of Buenos Aires in 1783 and that of Cuzco in 1784.

The RALP was created as a court of appeal, subordinate to the Viceroyalty of Peru and the Rio de la Plata. However, due to the great distance between Charcas and Lima, seat of the Viceroyalty of Peru, the RALP assumed governing authority functions which included managing the Potosí silver mine exploitation conflicts as well as the civil wars and revolts in Charcas. 144 linear meters of documentation bear witness to the economic, military, ecclesiastical, cultural and social issues within the administrative jurisdiction of an immense territory. The collections provide information regarding the development of the silver mines in Potosí and therefore transcend the Charcas region and even Hispanic America itself. The exploitation of the Potosí mines, along with the mines in Zacatecas (Mexico), initiated the mechanisms of an extensive economic network that extended from American soil to the entire known world.

The silver from Potosí, extracted with an effective mining system created in Spain, was exported to the Iberian Peninsula, crossed all of Europe and continued to the markets of Asia and the Far East. The documentation offers evidence of the first link in an extensive globalized circuit of silver trade in the 16th and 17th centuries. As a result of a popular revolt in La Plata, in 1809 the RALP assumed the role of government at the beginning of the independence wars in Charcas and throughout Spanish America. When the Republic of Bolivia was created in 1825, the judicial functions of the RALP were transferred to the Corte Superior de Chuquisaca and shortly thereafter to the National Supreme Court.

This fond was inscribed on the Memory of the World International Register and on the MoW Regional Register for Latin America and the Caribbean in 2011.