Polo Ondegardo (c. 1520 in Valladolid – 1575 in Ciudad Rica de La Plata) was a Spanish colonial jurist, civil servant, businessman and thinker who proposed an intellectual and political vision of profound influence in the earliest troubled stage of the contact between the Hispanic and the American Indigenous world. He was born in Valladolid, when the city was the capital of the kingdom of Castile, to a prominent noble family that had strong ties to the royal family. He spent his entire adult life in South America in what is now Peru and Bolivia. He was involved in the political and economic management of the Spanish colony and based on his good knowledge of the laws as (licentiate) acquired a deep knowledge and practical experience of the Native Americans in the southern Andes, being an encomendero, (inspector general) and corregidor (district governor and judicial official) in the provinces of Charcas (today Bolivia) and Cusco. His administrative reports, well known and appreciated by his peers and contemporaries, have had wide repercussions in the field of Andean studies up to the present time.
Biography Family and early life Some sourcesGarcía Miranda, Carlos. (2015). Los informes de Juan Polo de Ondegardo: producción y recepción crítica - Letras (Lima) - 86(123), 125-140. include the name Juan (John) in his Christian name, but according to recent researchesVelaochaga Dam, Carlos; Herrera Villagra, Alejandro; Warthon Calero, Rafael (eds.) (2017). Crónicas tempranas del siglo XVI. Tomo II. El patrimonio hegemónico de la escritura: Descripciones historiográficas del Cusco (1542-1590) - Dirección Desconcentrada de Cultura de Cusco – Ministerio de Cultura de PeruHampe Martínez, Teodoro (2016). El licenciado Polo Ondegardo (1520-1575). Biografía de un jurista castellano en los Andes coloniales - in XVIII Congreso Internacional de Historia del Derecho Indiano - Córdoba 2012 - Instituto Internacional de Historia del Derecho Indiano / editors: Aspell, Marcela; Agüero Alejandro; Llamosas, Esteban Federico - 1st edition 2016 - Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Volume II his name was solely Polo: he never used the name Juan and always signed his manuscript works as (the licentiate Polo).
There are no documentary elements that provide the date of the birth of Polo Ondegardo in the city of Valladolid, nor the years of his study at the University of Salamanca. From a testimonial statement made in March 1550, in which he stated that he was then over 30 years old, it can be inferred that he might be born around 1520 or perhaps some years earlier.Hampe Martínez, Teodoro (1991). Agustín de Zárate, contador y cronista indiano (Estudio biográfico). In: Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez, tome 27-2, 1991. Epoque moderne. pp. 129-154;
He was the eldest of the seven children of Diego López de León Ondegardo and Jerónima de Zárate. His father, (nobleman) of Valladolid with Milanese ancestors, was (receiver, administrator) of the Inquisition of Granada, that is the person who managed the incomes, taxes and other goods of any kind of the Inquisition. The López de León Ondegardo family was for sure an important one since the was appointed directly by the king and acted on behalf of the crown, who was responsible for disposing of the confiscated assets of condemned persons. His mother was the daughter of Lope Diaz de Zárate a court official who served as a chamber clerk (secretary) both in the and in the Council of Castile, the highest administrative and judicial body of the Spanish monarchy at that time. Polo's uncle (his mother's brother) was Agustin de Zárate, fiscal auditor and general accountant of the Viceroyalty of Peru and Province of Tierra Firme and later chronicler.
Polo's father died in 1534 while he was studying in Valladolid for his bachelorship of law which he obtained in 1538. The Zárate family took direct charge of the education of the seven Ondegardo siblings with a financial aid of 7,000 maravedís by their grandfather and when he died in 1538 his property was partitioned between his children Agustin and Jerónima (Polo's mother).They both received the amount of 564,525 maravedís, distributed in household furniture, silver objects and income titles in the jurisdiction of Valladolid and nearby country. Through the same will Polo received a special grant of 90 ducats to complete his studies at the University of Salamanca. Unfortunately Polo's name does not appear in registers of the university which at the time were incomplete.
In Salamanca, Polo most probably attended the lessons of Francisco de Vitoria, founder of the philosophy of human rights known as School of Salamanca, which supported the just titles of Castile and the legitimacy of the war against the Native Americans, called Indians at that time, but defending the rights of the natives to be free from foreign dominion, to the possession of their goods and territories and to govern themselves.Fossa, Lydia (1997). Cultural barriers in describing the Andean world: Polo Ondegardo's 1571 Notables daños. in “… Hay orden y cuenta y razón tan delicada…” el licenciado Polo Ondegardo, analista respetuoso In fact Polo's subsequent political position identified with the "intermediate" conception of the School of Salamanca, which distanced itself from the extreme positions either in favor of the Native Americans or the Spaniards. He defended the recognition of indigenous people as human beings, the preservation of their culture and traditional customs, and at the same time the promotion of evangelization by showing an attitude in favor of humanitarian principles but also in favor of the economic and political interests of the king.
Peru civil war In 1543, having already obtained the title of licentiate, Polo joined his uncle Agustín de Zárate, appointed general accountant of Peru and Tierra Firme, and embarked for South America, in the huge (52 ships) fleet of Blasco Núñez Vela, the newly appointed first viceroy. Núñez was charged with the task of enforcing the New Laws aimed at removing most of the power from the conquistadors and returning it to the king. Polo traveled in the same galleon as his brother Diego de Zárate,some of the Ondegardo siblings used their mother's surname: Zárate the judges of the new (Royal Tribunal) to be set up in Lima and the newly appointed governor of Nicaragua Rodrigo de Contreras (whose daughter Polo would later marry). On that ship traveled also Diego Martín, cleric and Hernando Pizarro's butler, who was charged of the interests of his lord in Peru and who carried out propaganda action spreading a negative image of the viceroy. Through Diego Martín, Polo became administrator of all of Hernando Pizarro's wealths. After a stop in Panama, Polo arrived in Lima in June 1544, along with this uncle Agustín de Zárate and the other members of his entourage. A couple of months later the uprising of the Peruvian started against the royal authority, which led to the acceptance of Gonzalo Pizarro as governor in Lima and the deposition of the viceroy Núñez Vela by the . In 1545 Polo was acting lawyer for the Royal Treasury in the accounting mission carried out by his uncle Zárate who, at the end of it, left for Spain, while Polo and the other members of his entourage remained in Peru, involved in the rebellion of the .
Polo moved to the city of Cuzco, where he publicly supported the Pizarro side and in 1547 was forced by the field master Francisco de Carvajal, the Demon of the Andes, to return to Lima and take charge in favor of the . In the meantime the king had named Pedro de la Gasca president of the and acting viceroy in an attempt to try a peaceful settlement of the dispute. As soon as Polo was aware of this appointment, he changed his mind and joined the royalist troops in the Jauja Valley. On request of Agustín de Zárate he wrote the (Report of the things that happened in the alterations of Peru after Blasco Núñez Vela entered it). In April 1548, at the Battle of Jaquijahuana in today Pampa de Anta, from Cusco, Pizarro's forces were defeated by Gasca's army. Pizarro and Carvajal were executed, while most of the pizarristas were pardoned. Polo was dispatched to Charcas (today Bolivia) as investigating judge of those involved in the rebellion. He was also appointed as judge of residence of the public officials of Charcas and received as a grant by Gasca an of Natives in Cochabamba.
Polo as encomendero in Charcas While in Charcas he was charged by the local with the task of understanding the work of indigenous workers in the silver mines in Potosí. To fulfill his task he carried out a survey with the kurakas (local indigenous governors) and indigenous workers of the Potosí mines. In order to collect the precious data he included in his manuscripts, Polo was probably the first person to carry out inquiries with interviews to people, in what has now become a well-known anthropological technique. His inquiries were programmed with scientific meticulousness, because, in addition to asking the Natives he included the data retrieved form quipus and the other few Inca graphic documents. At the end of his task Polo was also capable of sending more than 3,700 silver bars to the Royal Treasury.
Polo never forgot the support of the Zárate family to his studies at the University of Salamanca. There is a letter Polo wrote in 1550 from Potosí in which he states having instituted an income for the endowment of Isabelica, daughter of his uncle Agustín de Zárate.
At the beginning of 1550 he left his office of judge in Charcas and moved to Lima becoming an advisor on government business to the newly established archbishop Jerónimo de Loayza. Thanks to his good offices Polo received from Loayza a land extension to his in Charcas and in 1552 he eventually settled in (today Sucre), capital of the region.
In the war against the rebel Francisco Hernández Girón, Polo, despite being a lawyer, fought as a royalist infantry captain at the Battle of Chuquinga and was seriously wounded by a harquebus to the leg in the battle of Pucara on October 8, 1554, where Girón was defeated, imprisoned and later executed.
in Cusco Polo became a very wealthy person. A document records a transaction carried out by Polo in favor of his mother in Spain: he deposited 14,000 pesos in silver at the Royal Teasury in Peru which was exchanged for his mother with (perpetual property right) at the Casa de la Contratación (royal office for indies) in Seville (September 20, 1556). In 1557 he received an income of 10,000 ducats from the viceroyalty of Peru, for his office as attorney.
In 1558 Polo received from the viceroy Marquis of Cañete the appointment of corregidor (district governor and judicial official) of the province of Cuzco and took possession of this office at the end of the year.
In Cusco he carried out a deep inquiry on the religious practices of the natives, which led to his (Treaty and inquiry into the errors and superstitions of the Indians). He investigated in detail the religion and society of the Andean communities and found out the location of the huacas (shrines) along the ceque system in the four suyus (regions) of the former Inca Empire.
From the chroniclers either contemporary of Polo (Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Cristóbal de Molina) or several years later, (José de Acosta, Antonio de la Calancha, Bernabé Cobo) it is known that he found the embalmed bodies and the representative statues ( statue, brother; called idols by the Spaniards) of several Sapa Incas and some of their wives.