Baltasar de la Cueva Enriquez

Baltasar de la Cueva Enriquez , was Count of Castellar and XX Viceroy of Peru. He was born in Madrid in 1626. Second son of Don Francisco de la Cueva and Doña Ana Enríquez . He studied Civil and Canon Law at the University of Salamanca, where he opted for the title of licentiate in 1647, later exercising the rectory of the Colegio Mayor de San Bartolomé. It is said that he was appointed to occupy the position of dean in the cathedral chapter of Salamanca, but since he had not received priestly orders, he was transferred to a position as oidor at the court of Granada in 1654. Five years later he was promoted to the court real, as prosecutor of the Council of Military Orders. He had diplomatic responsibilities before the governments of Venice and the Holy Germanic Empire him before joining, in 1671, the Supreme Council of the Indies as a titular member. He means this to say that he had some theoretical experience of the business peruleros when on September 26, 1673, by dispatches from King Carlos II, he was called to occupy the vacant Viceroyalty of Peru.
After making some inspections in the region of the Panamanian isthmus, he disembarked at the port of Paita and followed the road to Lima by land. His official entry of him into this city, on August 15, 1674 , was carried out with extraordinary pomp:the image of a triumphal arch remains that was decorated with 400 silver bars, in demonstration of the opulence that the country still enjoyed. In any case, the viceroy had a laborious and liberal performance, of the most plain and deferential in the management of public affairs. In his Government Report, he boasts that he personally received the memorials and appeals that individuals wished to send him, listening to everyone in the audience without any hindrance.
Zealous defender of the royal treasury, in the space of four years he collected more than four million pesos, not counting 3,500 quintals of quicksilver that he sent to Mexico; and when he (abruptly) left the government, about two million in current silver remained in the cash. Knowing that the royal officials of the province of La Paz had defrauded the Crown, he ordered an investigation and punished two of the main defendants by hanging. To this hardness in the tax collection effort were added the negative effects of a series of bankruptcies experienced by the trade, which earned him the animosity of the merchants grouped in the Lima Consulate. They filed a complaint against the viceroy before the Council of the Indies, by virtue of which the monarch -in an unprecedented trait- ordered the count of Castellar to be immediately separated from his high functions, "after receiving the dispatch in which I send it to you to send”. Thus, in an unexpected way, the ruler was dismissed on July 7, 1678 and forced to take a seat outside Lima until his residence trial was aired. The degraded official retired to live in Paita and later in the town of Santiago de Surco. By the judgment of his residence trial (issued on April 24, 1680) it was known that Castellar had exercised his position in due form, acquitting him of all the accusations that the passionate officials of the Treasury had formulated against him in collusion with the merchants. , and how lightly they had been protected by the Madrid authorities. The character, restored to his image of probity, remained in Lima until September 1681.
Don Baltasar de la Cueva, who together with the Count of Castellar held the title of Marquis of Malagón, was married to Teresa Arias de Castellar . He spent his last years of life in the town and court of Madrid, reinstated to the position of minister of the Council of the Indies. There he died on April 2, 1689, at the age of 63 .