FUENTES PRIMARIAS PARA EL ESTUDIO DE LAS RENTAS DE PROPIOS Y ARBITRIOS DE LOS MUNICIPIOS INDIANOS.

Economical, judicial and political administration in Spanish America was supported, ultimately, by councils and their local governments. On the one hand, as legal representatives of the royal authority, they were the most close and direct link with the vassals of the absolutist hierarchy. On the other hand Cabildos were the first representatives of the population they ruled, they administer justice, collect taxes and give public services. In both ways, managing up for their superior authorities and managing down applying the current legacy, the ability of councils to act was limited, mainly by the lack of economical resources. Moreover, politics autonomously adopted by local governments depended on several factors as the local economy, their recognized authority and the favours received. All these things affected the ways in which the councils acted and to their interests, and consequently to the types of documents they generated which are the ones we can more frequently find nowadays. The order of those documents, the analysis of their appearances and frequencies, just as the study of the given favours and the communications maintained, provide us lots of relevant and original information that will offer, through comparative studies, new answers and questions on the subject. Questions that will need new historical methods to be solved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]