Spanish colonization of the Americas

Christopher Columbus

The Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas began with the arrival in America of Christopher Columbus in 1492. He had been searching for a new route to the Asian Indies and was convinced he had found it. 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. While generally regarded as an excellent navigator, he was a poor administrator and was stripped of the governorship in 1500.

Early settlement

Word of Columbus' discovery caused trouble between Spain and Portugal, each of whom had been given Papal permission to colonize the region. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, was an attempt to resolve this conflict. It split the mostly unknown New World into two spheres of influence; however, once it was fully charted, most of the New World fell into the Spanish sphere, Portugal keeping Brazil.

Early settlements by the Spanish were on the islands of the Caribbean. On his fourth and final voyage 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.

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 Muslims in the Iberian peninsula, began toppling the local American civilizations, and attempted to impose a new religion (Christianity).

See also: Conquistador, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Bartolomé de las Casas, Spanish Conquest of Yucatan, Spanish conquest of Peru.

Effect on natives

European diseases (smallpox, influenza, measles and typhus) to which the native populations had no resistance, and cruel systems of forced labor (such as the infamous haciendas and mining industry's mita), decimated the American population. The diseases usually preceded the Spanish invaders, and the resulting population loss (between 30 and 90 percent in some cases) severely weakened the native civilizations' ability to resist the invaders.

After conquering an area, the colonists usually enslaved the native people, using them for forced labor. However disease continued to kill them off in large numbers, and so African slaves, who had already developed immunities to these diseases, were quickly brought in to replace them.

The Spaniards were committed to converting their American subjects to Christianity, often by force, and were quick to purge any native cultural practices that hindered this end. However, most initial attempts at this were only partially successful, as American groups simply blended Catholicism with their traditional beliefs. On the other hand, the Spaniards did not impose their language to the degree they did their religion, and the Catholic Church's evangelization in Quichua, Nahuatl and Guarani actually contributed to the expansion of these American languages, equipping them with writing systems. Many native artworks were considered pagan idols and destroyed by Spanish explorers. This included the many gold and silver sculptures found in the Americas, which were melted down before transport to Europe.

In some areas, particularly in Mexico, the Natives and the Spaniards interbred, forming a Mestizo class. These and the original Americans were often forced to pay unfair taxes to the Spanish government and were punished harshly for disobeying their laws. In other areas, the Natives stayed ethnically distinct, and continued to resist for more than two centuries.

Nowadays, descendants of Native Americans constitute a major part of the population of the countries that comprised most of the Spanish Empire in America, with the exception of Argentina, Uruguay and the countries of the Caribbean. Two Amerindian languages, Quechua and Guaraní, have reached rank of co-official languages in Latin American countries. There have been and are Latin American Presidents of Native American origin, such as Benito Juárez in Mexico, Alejandro Toledo in Peru, and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

Slavery

As large numbers of Indians died under the cruel working conditions in Spanish mines, ranches and encomiendas, and as Bartolomé de Las Casas and others began to call attention to Spanish mistreatment of the natives, landowners in New Spain began to look for alternative sources of labor. Starting in the 1530s, black slaves from Africa began to be imported to the Spanish New World, especially to the Caribbean coasts and islands. The descendants of these slaves would become members of the african and mulatto (mixed-race) classes in Latin-American society. Some slaves escaped to form palenque communities, some of which survive to this day, with their own African-influenced dialects of Spanish. African spirituality and musical styles would influence the developing Latin-American culture.

Spanish colonies

Areas in the Americas under Spanish control included most of South and Central America, Mexico, parts of the Caribbean and much of the United States.

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

Caribbean

Spain claimed all islands in the Caribbean although they did not settle all of them. They had settlements in the Windward and Leeward Islands and:

Antigua and Barbuda
Cuba
Hispaniola, the modern Dominican Republic and Haiti
Jamaica
Puerto Rico

South America

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

Argentina - Buenos Aires founded in 1536. Re-founded in 1580 as it was forcefully abandoned in 1541; independence was formally declared in 1816.
Bolivia - La Paz founded in 1548. Independent in 1825.
Chile - In 1541, the Spanish conquered the Incas in Perú, opening the way to the South, however, Spain could only advanced as far as the Itata river, where they met the fierce Araucanians. Chile won its independence from Spain in 1818
Colombia - In 1510, Spaniards founded Darien, the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of the Americas. In 1538, they established the colony of New Granada. Independence in 1810.
Ecuador - Conquistador Francisco Pizarro conquered the land in 1532; left Spain in 1809 to form Greater Colombia.
Paraguay - Asuncion, Paraguay was founded in 1537. Independent from 1811.
Peru - Conquered from the Incas in 1531 by Francisco Pizarro. Peru won its independence from Spain in 1821.
Uruguay - Taken by Spain from Portugal in 1778. Part of Brazil from 1821-1828. Independence in 1828.
Venezuela - Caracas was founded in 1567. Independent in July 5 1811.

Central America

Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala - Settled by Spanish in 1523,
Honduras
Nicaragua - Founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba

These above countries became independent from Spain in 1821 during Mexico's war of independence.

Panama - As part of Colombia, independent in 1810. Declared independence from Colombia in 1903.

North America

New Spain: Mexico, Texas, California, and New Mexico. The 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty replaced nebulous boundaries with a demarcated border at Spain's expense.
Spanish Florida: Modern-day Florida including parts of modern-day Alabama and Mississippi.
Louisiana, consisting of the present-day U.S. states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Idaho: Spain owned this territory from 1762–1800 and based its administration in New Orleans. The north and interior was only sparsely settled by French inhabitants and new immigrants. Nomadic Indians, newly horsed, made up most of the new residents on the Great Plains where Spanish control was confined to the south. A system of forts and frontier posts, inherited from the French, protected Spanish interests along the Mississippi as far north as Michigan.

Northern extent of Spanish influence

In 1720, the Villasur expedition from Santa Fe met and attempted to parley with French- allied Pawnee in what is now Nebraska. Negotiations were unsuccessful, and a battle ensued; the Spanish were badly defeated, with only 13 managing to return to New Mexico. Although this was a small engagement, it is significant in that it was the deepest penetration of the Spanish into the Great Plains, establishing the limit to Spanish expansion and influence there.

In an effort to exclude Britain and Russia from the eastern Pacific, the Spanish crown sent Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra north from Mexico in 1775 to find and control the fabled Northwest Passage. In 1781, a Spanish expedition during the American Revolutionary War left St. Louis, Missouri (then under Spanish control) and reached as far as Fort St. Joseph at Niles, Michigan where they captured the fort while the British were away. Spanish territorial claims based on this furthest north penetration of Spain in North America were not supported at the treaty negotiations.

The Nootka Convention (1791) resolved the dispute between Spain and Great Britain about the British settlements in Oregon to British Columbia. In 1791, the King of Spain gave Alejandro Malaspina command of an around-the-world scientific expedition, with orders to locate the Northwest Passage and search for gold, precious stones, and any American, British, or Russian settlements along the northwest coast.

In the end, the North Pacific rivalry proved too costly for Spain, which withdrew from the region in 1819, leaving little more than a few place names.

Independence

During the Peninsula War, several assemblies were established by the criollos to rule the lands in the name of Ferdinand VII of Spain. This experience of self-government and the influence of Liberalism and the ideas of the French and American Revolutions brought the struggle for independence, led by the Libertadores. The colonies freed themselves, often with help from the British Empire, which aimed to trade without the Spanish monopoly.

In 1898, the United States won the Spanish-American War and occupied Cuba and Puerto Rico, ending Spanish occupation in the Americas. Still, the early 20th century saw a stream of immigration of poor people and political exiles from Spain to the former colonies, especially Cuba, Mexico and Argentina. After the 1970s, the flow was inverted. In the 1990s, Spanish companies like Repsol and Telefonica invested in South America, often buying privatized companies.

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

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