•SPAIN and

•SPANISH AMERICA
•
Lecture 4

• Early Colonial Spanish America

• (the Hapsburgs)

By the end of this lecture you
should have a basic
• How the Spanish empire
developed
• The extent of the Spanish
empire at its high point
• The challenges facing the
monarchy in Spain in
controlling their territories
• What the New Laws were
• How the empire was
governed
• The peoples within the
empire
• How trade and
communications happened

understanding of:
Key dates so far:
• 1492 Discovery of the Caribbean Islands
• 1521 Fall of the Aztec capital
• 1535 Manco Inca fails to retake the Inca capital
• 1542 Royal army sent to Peru
• 1544 Rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro
• 1549 Pacification of the rebel Spanish in the Inca empire
 Rulers of Spain during this period
• Isabella of Castile (d.1504)
• Ruled Castile at time of
discovery
• Sponsored the voyage of
Columbus
• Was Queen during the
conquest and settlement
of the Caribbean
• Juana (married Philip the
Fair of Burgundy)
• 1504-1555 ruler of Castile
(and later Aragón) in
name only
• Juana’s father, Ferdinand, ruled on her behalf
• Then her son Carlos I (1516-56)
• He was the first Habsburg ruler (and better known
as the Emperor Charles V)
• The conquest of the Aztec Empire and later the
Inca Empire took place under their joint rule
• Introduction of the New Laws (1542) to protect
the natives and control the Spanish colonists
• Also in 1550-51 the Valladolid debate on the
status and rights of the native peoples took place
• Remaining Habsburg
kings

• Felipe II (1556-1598)

• Felipe III (1598-1621)

• Felipe IV (1621-1665)

• Carlos II (1665-1700)
 • Smaller sedentary societies (Taíno in the
Caribbean)
• Major urban civilizations (Maya, Aztec, Inca)
• Nomadic and semi-settled populations (e.g.
the Mapuche in Chile or the Plains tribes in
North America)
Populations • Massive decline in the native population
base due to introduction of European
diseases to which they had no immunity
(90%+ population decline)
Queen Isabella and
mestizaje
• Encouraged marriage between Spanish settlers and native
women
• Bernal Díaz writes of alliances with native leaders cemented
through marriages
• Mestizo children born of these marriages
• It was common for Spanish men to have native mistresses
outside of marriage
• Status of mestizo children depended on the status of their
father and their own legitimacy or illegitimacy
El Inca Garcilaso de la
Vega
• Son of an Inca royal and a Spanish soldier
• Bilingual in Spanish and Quechua, also educated in Latin
• Age 20 travelled to Spain to seek social advancement
• Claims rejected by the Crown because father linked to
Gonzalo Pizarro’s rebellion
• Connected with this father’s family – made heir to his
uncle’s estate
• Joined the army and helped put down the morisco revolt
(descendants of the Moors in Spain)
• Wrote Royal Commentaries of the Incas, based on what
he had learned of the Inca empire from his mother’s
family
• And General History of Peru about the period of Spanish
conquest
 • Designed to protect native Americans from
enslavement and abuse
• Curb the power of the encomenderos
• Prevent the emergence of a new aristocracy in
the New World
New Laws • Encomiendas were to revert to the crown on
1542 the death of their holder
• This provoked rebellion in Peru
• Compromise allowed one extension into the
next generation
• However, native labour was replaced with slave
labour from Africa
 • 1550-1700 estimated that 350,000 individuals were
brought in enforced slavery from West Africa to
Spanish America
• Mostly urban workers (some of whom were able to
work to buy their freedom)
• Had legal protections against abuse

Slave Trade • Courts assumed all were free unless owner could
prove otherwise
• Catholic Church also offered protection
• Religious brotherhoods raised money to free
enslaved people
• Numerous runaway communities in remote regions
Race, class and casta paintings

• These paintings represented attempts to define (and

therefore control) the variants of ethnic and racial
mixing in the Americas.

• Indian (indigenous American)

• European (Peninsulares – born in Spain; Creoles – of
Spanish blood but born in America)
• African
• and
• Mestizo (European and Indian)
• Mulatto (European and African)
• Zambo (Indian and African)
African presence
• Slave trade already existed in the Iberian
Peninsula since before 1450, following
Portuguese contacts with West Africa
• Forcibly enslaved Africans and descendants
of these subjects, along with free men of
colour were present in the early years of
exploration and settlement and some served
as soldiers
• Born in Senegal, Juan Valiente, became an
encomendero in Chile
• Many of these were Hispanicized people
 • Challenge of imposing and maintaining
control over so vast an empire from so great
a distance
Challenges • Threat of indigenous uprisings
to imperial • Threat from overly ambitious Spanish
conquistadors
order • Over time a new challenge in the growing
mestizo population
• Challenges from other European powers
 • Viceroyalties
Governance • Under the Habsburgs
• Major appointments only • New Spain (1525)
went to Peninsulares –
• Peru (created 1542)
creoles were excluded
territory from this was
later made into new
viceroyalties:
Under the Bourbons
• New Granada (1717)
• Rio de la Plata (1776)
 Government structures

• Royal Authority • Ultimate authority

• Viceroys • Direct representatives of the Crown

• Viceroyalties • The territories these appointed to

• Governors • Responsible for smaller units within the

• (all of the above Peninsulares only) viceroyalties

• Mayor • Some of the few posts open to creoles

• Town Council
 • Church

Catholic • Highest office available only to Peninsulares

Church • Evangelizing mission

• Jesuit presence
• Importance of convents

• Church a major landowner

• Cathedral’s central position in each city

Gender Patriarchal society

•Women had limited societally accepted options

•Women had the right to own and to bequeath property
•Widows were entitled to half of the communal
property/wealth

• Most positions of power held by men

• Marriage
• Convent

• Legitimate children had right to inherit share of father’s

property (male and female alike)
 • Strictly regulated and only • Seville and Cadiz (Spain)
Trade and permitted directly between: • designated ports in New
the Fleet World

System • Control of goods • Monopoly

• High taxation
• Undersupply
• Threat from piracy
Dynastic
Change
Last Habsburg
Charles II
First Bourbon
Philip V
1790 Spanish Empire