Spain & Colonies

The Spanish colonization of the Americas began with the arrival in the Western Hemisphere of Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón) in 1492. more...

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From early small settlements in the Carribean, the Spanish gradually expanded their range to include Central America, most of South America, Mexico, and southern portions of today's United States.

The effect of European diseases and superior weapons on the native populations was often dramatic. Despite a long history of warfare and a developed warrior class among some of the native cultures, targeted native cultures were not able to withstand the Spanish conquest, and eventually succumbed. In some cases, the conquered peoples vanished, and in other cases they were incorporated into the colonial system.

The Spanish colonies in the New World gained independence from Spain in the Nineteenth Century, including Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492. He had been searching for a new route to the Asian Indies and was convinced he had found it. The Spanish Crown's search for this new route occurred in the context of the recently accomplished Reconquista pushing the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula. The Native Americans, similar to the remaining Moors in Spain, were 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. 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 in 1492 caused tension between Spain and Portugal; this dispute was resolved in large part by Pope Alexander VI with the papal bull of 1493, and related bulls and treaties which followed. For example, the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, was a further attempt to resolve this conflict. The combination of all these events divided the globe, including the mostly unknown New World, into two spheres of influence; however, once the division was fully charted, most of the New World fell into the Spanish sphere, Portugal keeping a small part of what became 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.

Read more at Wikipedia.org