MÁS QUE UNA DENUNCIA DE PRÁCTICAS ILÍCITAS EN LA AMÉRICA HISPANA DEL SIGLO XVIII: los males Públicos Del Perú

Abstract

The present work aims to analyse one of the memoranda sent to Felipe V himself giving a good account of the corruption that abounded in the Kingdom of Peru in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Labeled as Los Males Públicos del Perú, the value of this document results both from its content and its detailed depiction of the Peruvian context and its implications for approaching different dimensions of the political, institutional, and even social and moral history of the Hispanic world of the Early Modern period. The results obtained indicate that this writing was much more than an apparent, innocent and anonymous service to the king for the sake of the common good, refuting historiographical formulations hitherto held on it.