El conocimiento como necesidad de Estado: las encuestas oficiales sobre Nueva España durante el reinado de Carlos V

Abstract

While Philip II’s initiatives in the field of statistics (such as the Relaciones Geográficas) have been attended to, very little has been done with regard to the Crownpromoted American encuestas in the time of Charles V, which originated a rich amount of documentation. This is a very serious gap, since it has meant overlooking the political significance of the statistical or pre-statistical initiatives in the first half of the 16th Century, which were both symptomatic and expressive of a new pattern as regards public administration and the State. This new pattern based on the necessity of knowledge appeared very early in Spain and in it America played a key role. It is precisely this process which is studied in this article.