A valuable new reference work for students of the Spanish Empire, this dictionary presents biographies of the 172 men who served on the Council of the Indies--the supreme judicial tribunal for Spain's colonial empire--from the time of Philip V's reforms in 1717 to the French invasion in 1808. Based on the extensive documentation contained in Spanish archives and on various secondary sources, it offers a wealth of historical detail on a period that is important both to Spanish history and to the development of the New World.