Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/540

520 Granada, and Buenos Ayres, a number of more or less independent captain-generalcies, and twelve audiencias, including those at Santo Domingo and Manila.

The provinces of royal officials were merely revenue districts, whose heads received their appointment from the king, and administered their office under a certain supervision from the viceroy and governors attending their councils; yet they were responsible only to the finance tribunal of the viceregal capital, and this again reported direct to Spain. Adelantamientos was an early term for gubernatorial districts, generally of undefined limits, to be extended. by further conquest. Gobernaciones were the provinces of governors who usually held also the office of captain-general, and at the audiencia capitals acted as presidents of this body. Over them the audiencias had a passive supervision with active interference only in judicial matters, and the viceroy could control them only in a limited degree as royal representative. In 1786 the gubernatorial districts were replaced by intendencias, under intendentes, who combined in themselves the political, judicial, financial, and military control, assisted by an asesor. Their subdelegados exercised in county capitals similar jurisdiction in subordinate degree, replacing gradually alcaldes mayores and corregidores who had for nearly three centuries been ruling as district or county magistrates, with political and economic supervision, sometimes indeed as governors. These minor rulers also were appointed chiefly by the