The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and the Inca Empire were two of the greatest feats of military history. The Spanish conquistadors were a bold, ambitious lot. They faced overwhelming odds, nearly impossible topographies, and enemies who had built themselves into the most powerful empires in Mesoamerica and South America. And yet, through cunning, courage, and a little bit of luck, the Spanish overcame all obstacles to establish a massive empire that stretched from present-day Florida to the southern tip of Chile.
This blog will be about the Spanish empire in the Americas. But it won’t just focus on conquistadors like Hernán Cortés or Francisco Pizarro. It will also be about the common people who made up the bulk of population–the merchants, farmers, artisans, servants, and slaves–and how they struggled to live within an empire that was constantly changing under their feet. It will also be about how native peoples adapted to Spanish rule and fought back against it when they could. Because when we look at these empires today with our modern sensibilities and our postcolonial bias, we tend to see them as products of conquest without understanding what it was like for people living in them at the time.
Although this is a blog
The Spanish empire was the largest the world had ever seen. At its peak, it included not just Spain itself and its colonies in the Americas but also Portugal and most of Italy, and even parts of Germany.
All that is well-known. But how did it happen? How did a tiny country on the periphery of Europe come to build a global empire?
In 1492, when Christopher Columbus set off to find a western route to Asia, Spain was the poorest country in Western Europe. It had no industry and little commerce; most of its people lived in small villages, worked at subsistence agriculture, and got by with barter. There was little surplus wealth to pay for an army or a government bureaucracy. And while Spain lay between two great continents, Europe and Africa, it was itself cut off from both by geography: there were no good natural land routes through Spain itself.
The Spanish empire is a story of how limited resources can be turned into a great fortune if they are used wisely. The Spanish managed to create a vast overseas empire because they pursued three policies more effectively than any other society in history: colonization, conversion to Christianity, and trade. There were many reasons for their success at these policies—some advantages unique to Spain and some common advantages that other
The Spanish empire in the Americas was one of the world’s largest empires, and in many ways it was one of the most successful. After all, it lasted for three-and-a-half centuries. But how did Spain get there? How did they expand their empire to cover so much territory, so quickly?
The answer is that they were able to expand because they had a lot of help from other countries. Instead of an entirely Spanish empire, it was more like a European empire, with Spain at its centre. Spaniards got to the New World first, but they didn’t make all the important decisions. They were just one of several major players.
And yet when we look at history books, we don’t see this. We see this picture:
But really it looks more like this:
In other words, Spain was not just the leader: it was the whole army! And it wasn’t even their army to begin with – it was mostly just borrowed parts from other armies.
The Spanish Empire in the New World was a vast territorial empire that stretched across the Atlantic Ocean to the southern tip of the Americas, and across the Pacific Ocean to present-day California. It included territories on every continent and at its height, in the late 16th century, it was the largest empire in the world.
The Spanish Empire’s influence on American culture is a subject often discussed by historians, because of its impact in both hemispheres. The following are some of the ways that it still influences our lives today:
1. Language
Many words from Spanish (and even some from Nahuatl) were incorporated into English as well as other European languages during the Age of Discovery. Some examples include words like “chaparral” (from chaparro—a type of scrub oak common in Spain) and “adobe” (from adobado, meaning “sun-dried”). Other words that have survived into modern English include “tortilla”, “canyon”, “ranch”, and “adobe”.
2. Food
The basic staples of Mexican cuisine originated with indigenous Mesoamerican civilizations, such as corn, beans, and chili peppers, which were introduced by the Spanish. However, many other foods also came to Mexico through Spain after
The Spanish Empire was the first global empire in history. It was ruled from Madrid, in modern-day Spain, and at its height ruled territories in Europe, North, Central and South America, the Philippines and several Pacific Ocean archipelagos.
The Spanish Empire began around 1492, when the explorer Christopher Columbus arrived on Hispaniola island in the Caribbean. He had been hired by a Spanish monarch to find a new trade route to India. Columbus discovered that Hispaniola and Cuba were islands off a much larger landmass: North America.
The Spanish Empire began with Columbus’ arrival in 1492. In 1513, another explorer — this time Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who crossed Central America to reach the Pacific Ocean — brought word of this discovery back to Spain, which launched an expedition that year led by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro. In 1519 Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico with 500 men after marching across Mexico from Veracruz. The Aztec capital city fell to his forces on August 13, 1521. By 1524 most of present-day Mexico was under Spanish control except for a few isolated regions such as the Tarascan state and areas in the south such as Xochimilco and Oax
The text is accompanied by photographs, paintings, and maps that help explain what was happening.
The site is divided into four sections: “Overview,” “The Spanish Arrival,” “The Conquest,” and “The Colonial Period.” Each section includes a slideshow with an introduction and text and images.
The first section includes an overview of the Spanish Empire and its sources of wealth, including the Spanish Crown’s relationship to the Catholic Church. The second section begins with Columbus’s voyage in 1492 and ends with the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521. The third section covers the years from 1522 to about 1600, when the conquest of Mexico was completed. The fourth section discusses how Spain governed its empire, life on colonial plantations, the spread of Christianity, and reasons for Spain’s decline as a world power.
A timeline highlights key events in the history of Spain’s American colonies; links to related articles provide more details on specific topics.
An annotated bibliography introduces students to books they can use as they explore further beyond this site.
To fight the English, they established a small fort at St. Augustine, Florida and built a string of missions throughout what is now southern Georgia and the Florida panhandle. The building of these missions would be overseen by Franciscan missionaries on land belonging to the Creek Indians.
Note: One of the reasons the Spanish did not build more missions in Georgia was because they had trouble making it through the marshy areas near the coast. They had trouble with many things, including hostile natives, disease, and lack of support.
Tensions between Native Americans and Europeans were not all one sided. Take for example that in 1566, a Spanish ship returning from Mexico was wrecked along the coast of present day Georgia. A group of Spaniards and Indians then started off on foot to travel to St. Augustine via inland routes. Before reaching there though, they were attacked by another group of Indians who most likely killed them all.
This was just one event in a long series of conflicts between the Spanish and the Indians in Florida during this time period.
The Spanish would also have problems with their own neighbors to the north. The French tended to have better luck trading with the Creeks than did their southern neighbors. This created tension between them and caused some border disputes between them over
