Los Sánchez Navarrete y Gonzales de Salazar: una poderosa familia en el puerto de Paita en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII

Abstract

In the 18th century the Sánchez Navarrete y Gonzales de Salazar family was one of the most important in the port of Paita. The surname is one of the most emblematic for the study of the strategies implemented by the Hispanic American elites in order to preserve their privileges. This family managed to establish an interesting set of relationships within and beyond the viceroyalty in all contexts, allowing it to maintain its preeminence up to the second half of the 19th century. The strategies implemented were: positioning as port authorities, marriages with local wealthy Creole women, family links with Spanish citizens living on the peninsula and with landholders and, finally, the higher education of some of the family’s members outside the province. An important factor in the control they established was the privileged location of their centre of operations in the northern part of Peru.