Spanish colonization of the Americas

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Spanish colonization of the Americas
History of the conquest

Inter caetera
Alaska
California
Florida
Guatemala
Mexico
Peru
Yucatán

Conquistadores

Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
Hernán Cortés
Juan Ponce de León
Francisco de Montejo
Pánfilo de Narváez
Francisco Pizarro
Diego de Almagro
Hernando de Soto
Sebastián de Belalcázar
Pedro de Valdivia
Juan de Oñate
Francisco de Orellana

The Spanish colonization of the Americas was Spain's conquest, settlement, and rule over much of the western hemisphere . Beginning with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, the Spanish Empire gradually expanded from early small settlements in the Caribbean to over three centuries to include Central America, most of South America, Mexico, what today is Southwestern United States, the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of North America, reaching Alaska[1]. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Spanish possessions in America began a series of independence movements, which culminated in Spain's loss of all of its colonies on the mainland of North, Central and South America by 1825. The remaining Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines were occupied by the United States following the Spanish-American War (1898), ending Spanish rule in the Americas. The Spanish settled in many different places all over America.

Contents

[edit] Christopher Columbus

Portuguese explorers had recently been establishing new routes north along the West African coast, and it seemed likely that the Portuguese caravels would shortly reach the rich trading areas of Asia by traveling east. After his failure to persuade the King of Portugal to sponsor his expedition, Columbus was able to convince the recently crowned monarchs of the Kingdom of Castille and the Kingdom of Aragon, Isabella and Ferdinand, to finance his novel idea: to reach the trading partners in Asia by traveling directly west across the Atlantic Ocean.

Columbus's voyages were also taking place at the end of seven centuries of the Reconquista, in which the last Moorish kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula (in Granada) was brought under Christian control. The Native Americans, like the Moors in Spain, were for a time considered without rights as long as they were not converted to Catholicism.

Columbus was made governor of the new territories and made several more journeys across the Atlantic Ocean. He profited from the labour of native slaves, whom he forced to mine gold; he also attempted to sell some slaves to Spain.[citation needed] While generally regarded as an excellent navigator, he was a poor administrator and was stripped of the governorship in 1500.[citation needed]

On his immediate discovery of the Taíno people (one of three local Arawak-speaking indigenous groups), whom he met right after arriving on the island of Hispaniola on his first voyage, Columbus got the impression that he could conquer these people easily. In his journal he wrote, "I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I please" - and he proceeded to do just that.

He kidnapped some ten to twenty-five Indians and took them back to Spain. Only about seven or eight survived this journey but with the parrots, gold trinkets and other exotic loot Columbus displayed to the Spanish government he was able to persuade them into providing him with seventeen ships nearly 1,500 men, cannons, crossbows, guns, cavalry, and attack dogs for voyage.

He returned to Hispaniola and the Arawaks in 1493 demanding food, gold, spun cotton and whatever else they could get from the Indians. Cooperation was ensured by a punishment system: any minor offense by an Arawak would result in a Spaniard cutting off his ears or nose only to be sent back to the village as living, breathing, bleeding example of the work expected and the brutality the Spaniards were capable of.

The Tainos began to resist by refusing to plant for the Spanish, abandoning captured towns, etc. but over time this rebellion grew physically violent. Nonetheless the Indian "sticks and stones" were no match to the guns and harmless to the armor the Spanish wore. Columbus used this resistance by the Indians as an excuse to wage war and on March 24, 1495 the famed explorer set out to conquer this race that he thought so "inferior" and "stupid."

Naturally the Spanish won and according to Kirkpatrick Sale, who quotes Ferdinand Columbus's biography of his father: "The soldiers mowed down dozens with point-blank volleys, loosed the dogs to rip open limbs and bellies, chased fleeing Indians into the bush to skewer them on sword and pike and 'with God's aid soon gained complete victory, killing many Indians and capturing others who were also killed.

This led to a massive Spanish slave trade, in which Columbus brought back some 500 "specimens" to work as slaves in Spain while another 500 stayed as slaves for the crew left in the Americas.

Still, Columbus could not find the gold he was looking for all along. And refusing to call it slavery, Columbus resorted to this "forced labor." Indians were forced to mine for gold, raise Spanish food, provide sexual companionship, and even carry the Spanish everywhere they went. And beyond these cruel acts the Spanish disrupted the culture. Forcing the Tainos to work in mines led to widespread malnutrition and furthermore, an intrusion of European livestock and diseases caused further damage.[citation needed]

The Tainos often refused to participate in the new lifestyle being forced upon them by the Spanish which resulted in suicide. In addition, children were often killed as a perceived escape from a terrible life to come.[citation needed]

Before Columbus's arrival, hundreds of thousands of people populated Hispaniola alone. By 1509, only 60,000 Tainos remained there. In addition to the disruption in North America, Columbus is expected to have carried a total of 5,000 slaves across the Atlantic; more than any single person in history.[citation needed]

[edit] Conquest of Mexico

See also: Conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Hernando de Soto (explorer), and Bartolomé de las Casas

On his fourth and final voyage to America in 1502, Columbus encountered a large canoe off the coast of what is now Honduras filled with trade goods. He boarded the canoe and rifled through the cargo which included cacao beans, copper and flint axes, copper bells, pottery, and colorful cotton garments. He took one prisoner and what he wanted from the cargo and let the canoe continue. This was the first contact of the Spanish with the civilizations of Central America.[citation needed]

In 1513, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and led the first European expedition to see the Pacific Ocean from the west coast of the New World. In an action with enduring historical import, Balboa claimed the Pacific Ocean and all the lands adjoining it for the Spanish Crown. It was 1517 before another expedition from Cuba visited Central America, landing on the coast of the Yucatán in search of slaves. This was followed by a phase of conquest. The Spaniards, just having finished a war against the Muslim Moors in the Iberian peninsula, began toppling the local American civilizations, and attempted to impose Christianity.

There is a difference between the Spanish conquest of Mexico and the Spanish conquest of Yucatán. Although the Yucatán Peninsula is part of the modern-day country of Mexico, the Spanish conquest of Mexico refers to the conquest of the Mexica/Aztec empire by Hernán Cortés from 1519–21. It is April 22, 1519, the day Hernán Cortés landed ashore and founded the city of Veracruz, that marks the beginning of almost 303 years of Spanish hegemony over the region. The Spanish conquest of Yucatán, on the other hand, refers to the conquest of the Maya states from 1551–1697.

[edit] Conquest of Peru

In the early 16th-century, a group of Spaniards led by Francisco Pizarro succeeded in toppling the Inca Empire. They took advantage of a recent civil war in the empire (between the groups of the brothers: Atahualpa and Huascar) to capture the ruling monarch, Inca Atahualpa in the city of Cajamarca on November 16, 1532. In the following years the conquistadors managed to consolidate their power over the whole Andean region, repressing successive indigenous rebellions until the establishment of the Viceroyalty of Perú in 1542 and the fall of the resistance of Vilcabamba in 1572.

[edit] Spanish colonies expand

See also: Spanish Main
Anachronous map of the Spanish Empire in red, and the Spanish Habsburg realms in Europe (1516-1714) in orange.
Anachronous map of the Spanish Empire in red, and the Spanish Habsburg realms in Europe (1516-1714) in orange.

The Spanish had explored much of America but claims to many parts of the continent were never consolidated, particularly in the north of America. Areas in the Americas under Spanish control included the western half of South America and most of Central America, Mexico, parts of the Caribbean and much of the United States.

Spain saw a struggle between the Conquistadores and the royal authority. The Conquistadores soldiers and officers were given vast territories and Indian labourers (Encomiendas) in place of payment or loot. Rebellions were frequent (See Lope de Aguirre, Gonzalo Pizarro). The Spanish Crown resorted to several systems of government, including Adelantados, Captaincy General, Viceroyalties, Lieutenant General-Governors and others.

[edit] Caribbean

Main article: Spanish West Indies

The Spanish colonies in the Caribbean consisted of the present day nations of Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Trinidad, and the Bay Islands.

The islands that would later become the Spanish West Indies were the focus of the voyages of Christopher Columbus in America. Largely due to the familiarity that Europeans gained from Columbus's voyages, the islands were also the first lands to be permanently colonized by Europeans in the Americas. The Spanish West Indies were also the most enduring part of Spain's American Empire, only being surrendered in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War.

Some smaller islands were ceded to other European powers as a result of war, or diplomatic agreements during the 17th and 18th centuries. Others such as Dominican Republic gained their independence in the 19th century.

[edit] South America

See also: Viceroyalty of New Granada, Viceroyalty of Peru, and Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata

[edit] Central America

The following bulleted countries, known as the Federal Republic of Central America, became independent from Spain in 1821 during the Mexican War of Independence:

  • Panama - Declared independence from Colombia in 1903.

[edit] North America

[edit] Independence

During the Peninsular War, when Spain itself was occupied by Napoleonic troops, several assemblies were established by the criollos to rule the lands in the name of Ferdinand VII of Spain. Meanwhile, on July 16, 1809 the first declaration of independence from Spanish rule was signed at La Paz (in modern Bolivia), which began a movement for independence that soon spread across Spain's American colonies. This experience of self-government, the influence of liberalism, and the ideas of the French and American Revolutions influenced the Libertadores. All of the colonies except Cuba and Puerto Rico eventually freed themselves, often with help from the British Empire, which sought to break the Spanish monopoly on trade in America.

In 1898, the United States won the Spanish-American War and occupied Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, ending Spanish rule in America. Spanish settlement of the region continued, however, as the early 20th century saw a stream of immigration of poor people and political exiles from Spain to the former American colonies, especially Cuba, Mexico and Argentina. After the 1970s, the flow became reversed as hispanic Americans began settling in Spain. In the 1990s, Spanish companies like Repsol and Telefonica invested in most countries in America particularly in South America, often buying newly privatized companies.

Currently, the Ibero-American countries, along with Spain and Portugal, have organized themselves as the Comunidad Iberoamericana de Naciones.

Many Spanish-speaking American countries are part of a continental organization called the Organization of American States that includes most countries of America and that seeks to build continental unity.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sources about the presence of Spaniards in Alaska, British Columbia and Oregon: Study of the Instituto Cervantes, Study of the Fundació d'Estudis Històrics de Catalunya. In fact, New Spain formally ruled the Southwestern part of what today is the British Columbia (Source)

[edit] Further reading

  • David A. Brading, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, I492-1867 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993

[edit] See also

European colonization
of the Americas
History of the Americas
British colonization
Courland colonization
Danish colonization
Dutch colonization
French colonization
German colonization
Portuguese colonization
Russian colonization
Scottish colonization
Spanish colonization
Swedish colonization
Norse colonization
Decolonization

[edit] External links


Spanish Empire
Viceroyalties: New Spain · Peru · New Granada · Rio de la Plata
Real Audiencias: Mexico · Guadalajara · Guatemala · Manila · Santo Domingo
Lima · Cusco · Chile · Bogota · Panama · Caracas · Quito · Buenos Aires · Charcas
Captancies General: Philippines · Cuba · Yucatán · Guatemala · Venezuela · Chile · Puerto Rico