1.6 Characteristics of Spanish Colonialism in the Americas

Political Administration

The Spanish empire in the Americas came to be called New Spain. Its administration was formally centralized by King Philip II (1556 - 1598) and governed from Madrid. A Supreme Council for the Indies, appointed by the king, made and oversaw the implementation of colonial policy.

By 1700 the empire was divided into four viceroyalties, each ruled by a viceroy (royal governor) appointed by the king. They were the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Mexico and North America); Viceroyalty of New Grenada (Venezuela and Colombia); Viceroyalty of Peru; Viceroyalty of La Plata (Argentina).

Economy

A plantation economy based on the encomienda system existed in Mexico, Central America, and on the West Indian islands. The encomienda system was similar to the land tenure system in Spain. Lands were distributed by the crown in large estates. The Indian populations on these lands were placed under the “trust” of a Spanish landholder (encomiendero) and were required to provide both labor and rents in the form of crops. The encomienda was later replaced by a similar land and labor system called the hacienda system. In both cases, Indian labor was brutally exploited by the Spanish landlords. The resulting depletion of the Indian populations led to the need to import slaves from Africa to work the lands.

Indian labor was also exploited in intensive gold and silver mining in both Mexico and Peru. The 1545 discovery of silver deposits at Potosí in Peru opened a new source of wealth for Spain. By 1550 Spanish America was sending back to Spain 500,000 pounds of silver and 10, 000 pounds of gold a year.

Christianization

The Crusading spirit that finally ended the 700-year Reconquista against the Moorish (Muslim) rule in Spain in 1492 carried over in the conquest of the Americas. With the conquistadores came the Catholic Church. Intensive missionary activity, especially by the Jesuits, sought to convert the Indian populations to Christianity. Those Indians that did not convert by choice were forced to become Christians. The Christianization of the Indians did not, however, affect their treatment by their Spanish masters. By 1555 there were some 22 dioceses in Mexico and Peru.

Enculturation

Throughout Spanish America the Spanish culture became dominant. The Spanish language, institutions, customs, religion, values, ethics, morals, and styles of art and architecture were all transported to the New World by the colonists, clergy, and bureaucrats. By 1551 universities had been established in the West Indies, Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador. In the same year Mexico City, the largest Spanish city in the Americas, was as sophisticated in its refinements as any city in Spain, with paved and lighted streets, police protection, a public water system, a magnificent cathedral, palaces, theaters, and publishing houses.

By 1574 there were some 200 Spanish cities in the Western Hemisphere. (By comparison, the first permanent English and French settlements would not be founded until 1607 and 1608 respectively.) The first permanent Spanish settlement in what is now the United States is St. Augustine (Florida), founded in 1565. The Spanish founded the settlement in order to prevent the French, who were now exploring along the North American coasts, from getting a foothold in the Americas.

Between 1500 and 1600 some 200,000 Spaniards (mostly male) had immigrated to the Americas and subjugated some five million Indians. Here, many Spaniards intermarried with Indian women creating a mixed mestizo race. Over time the Spanish-American population developed an unofficial “caste” system. At the top of society were the Peninsulares, those colonists native to Castilian Spain. They were often the highest-ranking officials in the colonial government and the Church and usually lived in the Americas only for the tenure of their office. Of lesser social standing were the creoles, persons of Spanish descent born in the Americas. Below the Creoles were the mestizos, those, as mentioned above, of mixed white and Indian race. Creoles and mestizos could own land and were engaged in all aspects of colonial economic life. At the bottom of the social scale were the Indians, largely living as serfs. Outside of the social scale but certainly part of economic life were African slaves. Africans were first brought to Spanish America in the 1550s. Ironically, the import of slaves began as a humanitarian policy intended to relieve the hardships of the Indians.

The brutality suffered by the Indians raised concerns and protest among some Spaniards. In the 1550s the humanitarian activism of the Dominican monk Bartolome de Las Casas sought to lessen and modify the Spanish mistreatment of the native populations. To reduce the reliance on Indian labor, de Las Casas recommended that the Spanish import slaves from Africa. African slaves, he reasoned, could survive the Atlantic voyage, could live in the New World, were immune to many of the diseases that killed the Indians, and were skilled farmers.

In 1573 King Philip II decreed the Laws of the Indies, a series of laws that not only regulated all aspects of life in New Spain but created a new plan for Spanish settlement for newly occupied territories. These new laws established three categories of settlements, most of which would be in the North American regions that today comprise California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Presidios were military settlements; forts to provide protection for settled regions. Missions were religious settlements for missionary work. These were to be economically self-sufficient with farm surpluses and some craft manufacturing for sale or export to Spain. Pueblos were planned farming towns and were required to recreate Spanish culture and architecture. (The Spanish word pueblo, meaning people, later came to be used to identify a broad range of southwestern Native-American peoples, a Native-American community, and the multi-storied adobe houses of the Pueblo people.)

The Impact of Spanish Rule on the Native Americans

Indians were required to work as tenant serfs paying taxes and rents. In effect, servitude in the encomienda and hacienda systems was virtual slavery. The mining of gold and silver required the labor of large numbers of Indians. Brutal treatment and unsafe mining conditions caused the deaths of thousands. European diseases (especially syphilis and smallpox) decimated the Indian populations. From an original estimate of some 50 million Indians in Spanish America in 1500, the population had fallen to some four million by 1700.

And in North America? “The Good-for-Nothing Lands”

It is not the intent here to discuss Spanish exploration in America north of Mexico. There were several attempts to explore the North American interior in the hope that it would yield additional sources of gold and silver. It did not. In fact, on Spanish maps at the time, what are today large regions of the United States were labeled Tierras de Ningun Provecho, the “Good-for-Nothing Lands.” (Langer, Western Civilization, 32).

In 1521 Ponce de Leon explored into the interior of Florida in search of a reputed Fountain of Youth. He would be disappointed. Between 1539 and 1542 Hernando de Soto led an ambitious expedition exploring areas that are today the western Carolinas and across the Mississippi River as far west as Oklahoma. De Soto died in 1542 but the expedition continued on for another year exploring the region of Arkansas before returning to Cuba in 1543. At the same time de Soto was in the Mississippi region, another expedition, led by Francisco Coronado, moved north from Mexico City into what is today Arizona and New Mexico. Coronado was searching for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, cities reputed rich with gold. While they did come across the Zuñi town of Hawikuh, which had a sophisticated level of urban culture, the cities of gold proved elusive. This same expedition discovered the Grand Canyon and named the site that is today the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. On reaching as far as Kansas, Coronado abandoned the search for the Seven Cities and returned to Mexico in 1541. While these expeditions did not find the wealth the Spanish sought, they did claim the lands they explored for Spain. It would be many years, however, before the Spanish began to see value in the “Good-for-Nothing Lands” and begin settlements in the American Southwest.[1]

In conclusion, the 16^th century as an Age of Discovery was the result of the dynamic forces that characterized Europe as it emerged from the Middle Ages. The legacy of the Crusades and the rise of a money economy were factors that gave spiritual and economic impetus for expansion. “New Monarchs” in Portugal and Spain, interested in expanding their sovereignty, saw value in opportunities to be made abroad and were willing to sponsor mariners who likewise would benefit financially. The Renaissance sparked renewed interest in navigation and a general intellectual curiosity about world beyond Europe. Innovations in ship design made long voyages possible. Once discovered, the “New World” would be conquered, its once-powerful and wealthy Indian cultures destroyed and their peoples enslaved. The New World would belong to Europe.

Sources for Europe’s Age of Discovery

Durant, Will. The Reformation. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957.

Hale, John R. Age of Exploration. New York: Time-Life Books, 1974.

Humble, Richard. The Explorers. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1978.

Innes, Hammond. The Conquistadors. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969.

Leonard, Jonathan. Ancient America. New York: Time-Life Books, 1967.

Manchester, William. A World Lit Only by Fire. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1992.

Morton, W. Scott. China Its History and Culture. New York: McGraw Hill, 1995.

Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., ed. The Almanac of American History. New York: Putnam, 1983.

Wetterau, Bruce. The Macmillan Concise Dictionary of World History. New York: Macmillan, 1983.

[1] Spain’s interest in establishing settlements in the southwest came largely for strategic reasons. By the early 1700s France, Britain, and even Russia were establishing a colonial presence in North America. Spain’s claim to its lands would be stronger if settled. We are familiar with the following southwestern American cities founded as Spanish settlements: Santa Fe (1609), Albuquerque (1706), San Antonio (1718), San Diego (1769), San Francisco (1776), Los Angeles (1781).