A viceroyalty was an entity headed by a viceroy. It dates back to the administration of the Spanish-held territories in Southern Italy from the early fifteenth century onwards, most notably by the year 1428, the term “vice rex” was used to refer the Viceroy of Sicily in the official documents of the Crown of Aragon, which in the sixteenth century it passed through Catalan as “visrei” to later pass to Spanish as “visorey”.
British Empire
India India was governed by the Governor-General and Viceroy of India from 1858 to 1947, commonly shortened to "Viceroy of India".
Ireland Ireland was governed by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who was the representative of the British Monarchy in Ireland from the Williamite period until independence, was also called the Viceroy of Ireland.
France Viceroyalty of New France
Portuguese Empire In the scope of the Portuguese Empire, the term "Viceroyalty of Brazil" is also occasionally used to designate the colonial State of Brazil, in the historic period while its governors had the title of "Viceroy". Some of the governors of Portuguese India were also called "Viceroy".
Viceroyalty of Brazil Governors of Portuguese India
Russian Empire List of viceroyalties of the Russian Empire
Spanish Empire The viceroyalty (Spanish: virreinato) was a local, political, social, and administrative institution, created by the Spanish monarchy in the late fifteenth century, for ruling its possessions. The administration over the vast territories of the Spanish Empire was carried out by viceroys, who became governors of an area, which was considered not as a colony but as a province of the empire, with the same rights as any other province in Peninsular Spain.
Europe
America and Asia
Controversy over whether the American Viceroyalties were Colonies or Provinces According to the lawyer Fernando de Trazegnies, the status of the Viceroyalties was like that of a Kingdom among the Kingdoms of the Indies, and that the fact that legal Pluralism was practiced in Derecho Indiano would be sufficient proof that the Crown did not seek to practice a Exploitative colonialism (where local institutions, which protect the socioeconomic rights of the Vassal people, are ignored, under the excuse of the Right of Conquest), if not political integration into the Hispanic Monarchy in the same plural way that had already been done with the rest of its territories in Europe, based on the characteristic Fueros of the traditional and composite Monarchy that maintained the regional laws of each nation integrated into the Spanish Monarchy (and that was even practiced within peninsular Spain after the Reconquista, such as the Fueros of Aragón or the Fueros of Navarra). This would be evidenced by the creation of the República de Indios in which the political traditions of indigenous customary law would remain alive as a state within the several states that made up the Composite Monarchy, or the desire of the Spanish conquistadors to make pacts with the Natural Lords of the new lands (indigenous nobility and chiefs) to legitimize the conquest in natural law and integrate them into the seigneurial system, respecting the sovereignty of the natives and their ethnic lordships, which could not be deprived of their rights and was only possible its annexation to the Spanish Empire through alliance pacts (whose conditions of such pacts had to include the part of the indigenous sovereign, protector of the common Indian).
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