author
Charles Henry Cunningham
b. 1885
A historian of Spain’s colonial world, this early 20th-century scholar wrote a detailed study of the Audiencia of Manila and helped shape the academic study of Spanish American history.
1 Audiobook
The Audiencia in the Spanish Colonies As illustrated by the Audiencia of Manila (1583-1800)
by Charles Henry Cunningham
About the author
Born in 1885, Charles Henry Cunningham was an American academic whose work focused on Spanish colonial institutions and Spanish American history. His best-known book, The Audiencia in the Spanish Colonies: As Illustrated by the Audiencia of Manila (1583–1800), was published by the University of California Press in 1919.
The book’s title page identifies him as an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Texas, and his writings also include "The Institutional Background of Spanish American History," published in the first volume of The Hispanic American Historical Review in 1918. Together, these works show a scholar interested in how government, law, and empire shaped life in the Spanish colonies.
Although easily overlooked today, Cunningham belonged to an important generation of historians who treated colonial administration as a serious field of study. His work remains of interest to readers drawn to the history of the Philippines, the Spanish Empire, and the institutions behind colonial rule.