Juan Manuel de Mendoza y Luna, third Marquis of Montesclaros and XI Viceroy of Peru . He was born in Guadalajara (Castilla) in 1571 and died in Madrid on October 9, 1628. Son of don Juán Hurtado de Mendoza and doña Isabel Manrique de Padilla. As befitted him because of his status as a scion of an illustrious lineage, he began his career in arms at a very young age.
In 1591, in the campaign carried out by Felipe II in Portugal, he was already a spear captain. Honored with the habit of knight of the order of Santiago, he received in 1600 the appointment of corregidor in the city of Seville, the "gate and port of the Indies".
He was entrusted twice to succeed the count of Monterrey in governmental tasks, first as viceroy of New Spain and later as viceroy of Peru. He arrived in Mexico in October 1603 and served for five years in the administration of that country. In addition to some urban benefit works, he ordered the improvement of several roads and the rationalization of economic activities. He left Acapulco in August 1607 and sailed directly to Callao. The "first viceroy-poet in America" (as Aurelio Miró Quesada has called him) came in the company of his wife, Doña Ana de Mendoza, and willing to promote his literary hobbies, for which he surrounded himself in the palace with a procession of poets and men of letters.
Juan Manuel de Mendoza y Luna as Viceroy of Peru
He was solemnly received in the city of the Kings on December 21, 1607 . The Marquis of Montesclaros exercised the government of the Peruvian Viceroyalty for eight years. During this period he authorized the establishment of the court of the Consulate of Lima (1613), erecting the bishoprics of Arequipa, Huamanga and La Paz. Mendoza y Luna ordered the construction of the stone bridge over the Rímac river, for three hundred years the main link between the residents of the capital and the suburb of San Lázaro; and he ordered the improvement of the decoration of the Alameda de los Descalzos. He appointed judges to visit the community funds, as well as ordered them to do so in the mills and ranches to pay the wages of the Indians who served the Spanish. During his rule, gold mines were discovered in the province of Condesuyos. On October 19, 1609, the city of Lima suffered a great tremor, which resulted in the destruction of the royal houses, the town hall and part of the port of Callao . He sent to visit the royal army that was in the port of the capital, and for its officers to attend the obligation of their positions, he made them ordinances according to the quality of each minister. He found the royal army with old galleons, due to which he had the galleons "San Joseph" and "Santa Ana" made, sold three useless ones and reformed some. Because there was little artillery in the army and lack of ammunition in the warehouses, he ordered some pieces to be melted down and sent to Spain for a thousand arquebuses and five hundred muskets.
The government of the Marquis of Montesclaros is saddened by the catastrophe that occurred when confronting the Dutch pirate Joris Spilbergen in front of the port of Cerro Azul. After a hard-fought battle, the Spanish captain ignored the admiral of her own nation and scuttled her. The Dutch remained for eight days in the Callao roadstead, sowing obvious panic. Finally, on December 18, 1615, he left the government in the hands of the new viceroy, Prince of Esquilache. Before leaving, he affixed his signature to the Relation of the State in which the Kingdom of Peru is found, a document dated in the Chacara de Mantilla and written with particular talent, grace, and humor.
His double government in America did not disappoint the expectations encrypted in his resolute spirit and decision to face the problems, although without departing from the discretion that prudence advised. Back in the metropolis, Don Juan de Mendoza y Luna was appointed a member of the Council of State and War (1619), held the office of General Treasurer of the Crown of Aragon and came to hold, by appointment in 1628, the presidency of the Council of Aragon. In reward for his good services, he was granted for two lives an annual income of six thousand ducats on indigenous tribute from Peru.