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Colonial era

On 15 August 1540, Spanish lieutenant Garcí Manuel de Carbajal named the cluster of Native American villages in the area "Villa de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora del Valle Hermoso de Arequipa". At the time of its foundation, Arequipa already had a city council because Carbajal also led relocation efforts for an existing coastal city named Villa Hermosa de Camana. The name was shortened to Villa Hermosa de Arequipa. Charles V of Germany and I of Spain gave the town a status of 'city' by Royal Decree on 22 September 1541. The relocation efforts were led by Garcí Manuel de Carbajal, who was selected as the political authority for the foundation of the new town. Among the first public works carried out in the city are the Main Church, the City Hall, the bridge on the Chili River and the monastery of Nuestra Señora de Gracia.

The city became one of the most known and important in the Viceroyalty of Peru, being second from the capital, Lima. A town council was organized soon after the city of founded, which was in charge of electing mayors and authorities for the city. The organization was broken during civil wars carried out by rebel groups, leading up to the Peruvian War of Independence. Since 1553, by order of Viceroy Martín Enríquez de Almanza, the application of the system of insaculation and under this system a mayor "of neighbors" and another "of soldiers" are elected, who were later replaced by the mayor "of neighbors" and "of citizens."

The Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa began construction in 1544 but was destroyed due to an earthquake in 1583. The cathedral was rebuilt in 1590 and in 1609, Pope Paul V created the Arequpa Diocese. The cathedral was complete in 1950.

One aspect that distinguished Arequipa from other localities in Peru, and Lima, in particular, was the explicit public adherence of the city's ruling classes to the Spanish Crown during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the eighteenth century, with the occurrence of the different indigenous and mestizo movements and rebellions, Arequipa maintained a political balance and closed adherence to the directives coming from the kings of Spain, a phenomenon called "fidelismo" that had as notable defenders Francisco de Paula Quiroz, Mariano de Rivero, Nicólas Fernández, and José Miguel de Lastarria. In the uprising of Túpac Amaru II he confronted the city with a column of troops that he armed at his expense, and helped destroy the siege of the city of La Paz, which earns it the qualification of "Restoration Province of the Collao". For these services, King Charles IV issued a Royal Decree in the city of San Lorenzo on December 5, 1805, in which he ordered her to be called and titled Fidelísima.

Independence

Since the Spanish founding of Arequipa, the mostly Spanish population retained heavy loyalty to the Spanish crown, a phenomenon called fidelismo. Among its most notable proponents were Francisco de Paula Quiroz, Mariano de Rivero, Nicolás Fernández, and José Miguel de Lastarria. In 1805, the Spanish Monarchy gave the city the title of Faithful by Royal Charter. Because of its distance from other Peruvian cities, Arequipa was not heavily influenced by libertarian movements and was mostly loyal to the Spanish Empire. In 1814, Mateo Pumacahua 's pro-independence troops only briefly occupied Arequipa. The city would remain under Spanish control until the Battle of Ayacucho (1824), due to struggles for local political power.