Spain Expansion
Last Updated    12/29/2007     12/28/2007

By 1535, Spain had the largest colonial empire.
Spain sent thousands of people to its colonies.

Mexico and Peru
In the early 1500s, Spain had conquered the Native Americans empires in Mexico and Peru.
The colonies were governed by the Council of the Indies.
The colonies were divided into two districts.
New Spain was Mexico.
New Castile was Peru.
Each viceroyalty was ruled by a viceroy.
The colonists sent gold and silver back to Spain.
Their plantations produced cocoa, coffee, tobacco, tea, and sugar.
Native Americans did all of the heavy work.
Many died of overwork, starvation, or disease.
The Spanish brought slaves to the Americas.
Most of the slaves worked on plantations in the Caribbean.
 

Slavery and the Roman Catholic Church
Spanish attitudes about slavery were heavily influenced by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
These views were very different from attitudes forming about slavery in the rest of Europe at the time, especially in Protestant England.
The Spanish believed that all people, slave or free, had a soul that was redeemable.
Further, they thought that slavery was an unnatural condition, and by no means a permanent situation.
Slaves were merely ordinary people caught in an unfortunate situation and whose humanity ought to be recognized.
Furthermore, any slave accused of a crime received a trial equal to that of a Spanish citizen.
The Church and the Spanish Crown encouraged the freeing of bonded servants.
Any slave could be freed as long as they proved their worth to society and professed the Catholic faith.
The beating of slaves was frowned upon.
Freed Africans were even allowed to intermarry with "pure" Spaniards.
The Africans were not treated equally, but there was a significant free black caste that evolved under the Spanish government in the New World.

Social Order
At the top were peninsulares, Spainards born in Spain.
Next were Creoles, people of Spanish descent born in the Americas.
Then came Mestizos, people of mixed European and Native American ancestry.
They were followed by Native Americans.
At the lowest level were blacks.
Peninsulares served as viceroys or important church leaders.
Mestizoz were mostly artisans and merchants.

Cities
Cities reflected the social structure.
The cities were centered on a square.
On one side was the cathedral.
On theother three sides were government headquarters and the homes of the peninsulares.
Father out were the houses of Creoles and mestizos.

The Church
The Roman Catholic Church played a large part in Spanish colonization.
The church controlled the best lands.
The church did not pay taxes.
The church charged an income tax of 10%.
Las Casas tried to improve the life of the Native Americans.
The church built schools, hospitals, and asylums.
It established the first two universities.
One was the University of Mexico.
the other was Sam Marcos University in Lima.

The Decline of an Empire
Spain did not hold on to the wealth that the colonies provided.
The Spanish Inquisition had driven out the Jews and the Muslims.
They had ben the backbone of Spanish industry.
Spain then had to buy goods made in northern Europe.
Spanish treasure ships were being robbed by English, French, and Dutch pirates.
1588, the Spanish Armada was defeated by the English.
The Americas were opened to colonization by England, the Netherlands, and France.

Bibliography
Greenblatt, Miriam, and Lemmo, Peter. Human Heritage A World History. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw-Hill, 2001.