Judith Mansilla

Judith Mansilla’s current project, supported by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, examines the mismanagement, fraud, and abuse of power in the seventeenth-century royal treasury of Lima, the principal administrative and financial center of Spanish South America. Focusing on the career of a treasury official who became the subject of multiple investigations, the study reveals how imperial governance functioned on the ground, often through negotiation, circumvention, and corruption. Drawing on detailed archival research from Peru and Spain, the project examines how officials manipulated legal and financial systems for personal gain and how these practices were contested by other actors within the colonial bureaucracy. In addition to analyzing institutional dysfunction, the book also explores broader themes of accountability, imperial control, and the lived experience of colonial rule. By situating local abuses within the larger framework of the Spanish Empire, the project contributes to ongoing debates about the nature of colonial administration and the role of corruption in early modern state formation.