He has been praised as the "supreme organizer" of the immense viceroyalty, giving it a legal structure and strengthening institutions by which the Spanish colony functioned for more than two hundred years.

At the age of eight he moved to the court of King Charles I of Spain, to serve as a page to the queen consorts Leonor and Isabel.

Francisco de Toledo was fifteen years old when in 1530 King Charles I accepted him at home, accompanying that emperor until his last days in the most varied circumstances of both peace and war.

This personal contact with the monarch, who adopted the prudent policy, "Machiavellianism" and the tendency to seek balances between his partners, would serve as a useful experience for further governmental work.

The first military action in which he intervened was the Conquest of Tunis (1535), a great triumph of the imperial troops over the Ottoman Turks who snatched the plaza in North Africa.

Once participated in the expedition to the Ottoman Algiers in North Africa, campaign which ended in failure due to bad weather (1541).

In all this time Álvarez de Toledo was near the emperor Charles V. He met the Spanish negotiations with England to start a new war against France.

The conquest of the Inca Empire by Francisco Pizarro in 1532-1533 had given Spain enormous wealth, but Toledo inherited a chaotic situation.

Except for Roman Catholic priests, Spaniards were forbidden from living among the Indians and the Spanish extracted tribute and labor from the Andean population through their indigenous leaders, the caciques or kurakas.

Other than the often brutal demands of the Spanish colonists for labor and tribute, the Andean Indian cultures remained in many ways little changed from the days when the Incas ruled.

[11][12] Toledo conceived and implemented an ambitious program to "put down neo-Inca insurrection, strengthen colonial government and legal institutions, indoctrinate the native populace in Catholicism, and shore up faltering revenue streams" from mining.

[13] Following the recommendations of the king, Álvarez de Toledo set out to visit the territories under his charge—a task never previously attempted due to the vast extent of the Viceroyalty of Peru and one that would undoubtedly prove arduous.

This undertaking aimed to reshape the economy, territory, and Andean society within the Kingdoms of Peru and established the following objectives:[14] • Develop a new tax rate ledger.

Shocked by the numerous judicial records from local disputes, he demonstrated his pragmatism by burning all the files, considering them useless.

On December 15, he entered Huamanga (modern Ayacucho), where he attended to various projects, including focusing on the famous Huancavelica mercury mines.

In Cusco from mid-February 1571 until October 5, 1572, he witnessed the grandeur of its architecture and population, aiming to restore Inca institutions and laws, recognizing their value and adapting them for governing indigenous people.

He expanded settlements, distributed land ownership, planned the construction of churches, schools, and hospitals, and approved the creation of indigenous councils, allowing self-governance.

From Cusco, Álvarez de Toledo managed, administered, and transformed the challenging conditions he encountered with admirable dedication and patience, becoming the most impactful viceroy in Peruvian history.

As a result, the general visitors, who were experienced in law, mediated disputes over chieftaincies, imposed fines on encomenderos and chiefs found guilty of mistreating natives, and enforced legal obligations.

Licentiates and professionals in judicial administration, including fiscal officers, judges, lawyers, and royal marshals, were often joined by armed men, such as captains and nobles, and local residents.

This action, among other decisions by Francisco Álvarez de Toledo, fostered strong animosity against him from certain officials, priests, and encomenderos discontented with the viceroy’s reforms.

When Toledo arrived in Peru in 1569, a Neo-Inca state with an emperor, Titu Cusi, still existed outside Spanish rule in the remote jungle city of Vilcabamba.

Toledo initially hoped to lure Titu Cusi and other Inca nobles to Spanish authority by offering them estates and riches, but in the course of his investigations on the inspection tour, his opinion hardened.

The scattered settlements made it difficult for Spanish colonial authorities to impose their rule, but the Andeans' livelihood and survival was often dependent upon their exploitation of several different environments at different elevations and characteristics, the so-called vertical archipelago.

A primary motivation for Toledo's reductions "was to establish direct state control and facilitate the church's Christianization of the native population, while enhancing the collection of the tribute tax and the allocation of labor.

"[21] Toledo said the reductions would protect natives from "being exploited by local landowners and miners, harassed by the colonial judicial system, and deceived by a false religion."

In 1574, Toledo accompanied a military expedition to the Chaco region in what is now southeastern Bolivia to repress the Eastern Bolivian Guaraní people who the Inca and Spanish called Chiriguanos (a pejorative name).