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ssss1 That same year, Hakluyt presented Queen Elizabeth with his treatise, A Discourse on Western Planting ([1584] 1877), a secret document to be read only by the queen, Walsingham, and a couple other high-ranking court officers (Scammell 2016). In this work, Hakluyt “outlined a new approach to colonial expansion, unlike that of the Spanish. Instead of concentrating on the conquest of indigenous peoples and the commandeering and feudal administration of their wealth and land, as in the Spanish approach, Hakluyt proposed exporting the discontented and underemployed of England to new and relatively empty lands, with their abundance of raw materials. The colonists would harvest these resources, which would feed the growing manufacturing capability of England” (Helfers 1997, 160–86).

ssss1 In Juan de Matienzo’s ([1567] 1967, 207) Gobierno del Perú, the author exalts Mendoza’s qualities as statesman and elevates him to the position of archetype for Spanish viceroys. Likewise, in the dedication of the Relación de Michoacán, Fray Jerónimo de Alcalá ([1567] 1967, 5–6) refers to Mendoza in lofty terms that evoke the language reserved for monarchs, particularly the idea that Mendoza had been “elected by God” to govern over the peoples of New Spain. Contemporary works like La Utopía Mexicana del Siglo XVI, by Guillermo Tovar de Teresa (1992), read Mendoza’s tenure through the lens of a statesman who was creating a viceroyalty based on an intellectual exercise grounded in philosophical and historical reflection and not only responding to practical needs of immediate effect.