Patria Potestad in Transit: Legal Power and Family Mobility in 16th-Century Peru

In the mid-1500s Spanish men used poderes to temporarily assign legal power to others (typically males) to escort their wives and/or children from Spain to Peru or to Peru from another location within the Spanish empire. This paper analyzes these documents from archives in Lima and Arequipa along with letters and related notarial documents. Drawing on foundational work about family in transatlantic context (Altman, 2000) and legal discourse and family (Premo, 2005), this paper aims to make a contribution by highlighting the practice of using poderes to move family members. The practice itself prompts a consideration of how paternal and patriarchal power was enacted in contexts of high mobility in the mid-sixteenth century Spanish empire. In order to best understand this practice, the paper will employ a spatial analysis that will map the movement of family members as well as visualize the networks of power (or the execution of power) created when third parties were contracted and entrusted to act as a stand-in for the father/husband by land or by sea.