Steed, Paul P., 1923-

Spain’s presence in the Western Hemisphere began with Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage to the Caribbean seeking a westward route to Asia. Columbus (like others who followed him) failed to find such a route, but did claim the island of Hispaniola for Spain. In the next thirty years the Spanish also explored and established settlements in Jamaica and Cuba.

Spain’s fortunes in the Americas improved dramatically in the 1520s with the conquest of Mexico. Conquistador Hernando Cortés entered Mexico and defeated the Aztec Empire based in the city of Tenochtitlan in 1521. The former Aztec capital, rebuilt and renamed Mexico City, became the principal Spanish city in the Americas. Spain established a more formalized system of government there by designating Mexico as a viceroyalty. The viceroy, appointed by the Spanish monarch, was the chief administrator of the colony, but also shared decision-making with an audiencia, which functioned both as a court and as a sort of advisory body for the Spanish colonial government.

The incredible wealth that Spain gained as a result of the conquest of the Aztecs prompted other explorers to investigate other regions of the hemisphere in the hopes of duplicating what Cortés had done. In Central America, Spain established settlements in Panama around 1519. In 1531, Francisco Pizarro led a military force against the Inca Empire in Peru, and a second viceroyalty was created in Lima in 1543. There, the viceroy controlled most of Peru and Bolivia as the Spanish moved farther into the South American interior. Through the rest of the 1500s, Spain continued to explore its claimed territories in the Americas and refine its method of governance. Another viceroy was appointed in 1739 to administer New Granada, comprising parts of present-day Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, and Ecuador; and a fourth viceroyalty was created in 1776 to oversee Argentina.

Spain’s rapidly-expanding empire also grew to include possessions in Asia, most significantly the Philippines. Spain maintained bases in the Philippine islands as a stopping-off point in its growing commerce with China. Manila was founded in 1571, and Spanish galleons began regularly traveling not only between Europe and points in the Americas, but also between the Pacific coast of the Americas and Asia. The vast supply of precious metals in the American colonies enabled Spain to buy silk and other luxury items from China-to the extent that goods purchased in China bound for European consumers followed routes across the Pacific to the Americas and then across the Atlantic.

Spain, possessing a truly worldwide empire of colonies and trading posts, remained powerful into the 1600s. Its dominance of the Western Hemisphere, however, was challenged by England and France as they began establishing colonies of their own in North America. Weak leadership from Spain’s monarchy, a faltering domestic economy, and attacks upon its colonial possessions and silver-laden ships en route to Europe all reduced Spain’s ability to control events. Most Spanish colonies in the Americas gained independence in the 1820s and 1830s, and Spain lost her last three possessions-Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines-to the United States in 1898.

Sources:

Chamberlain, Muriel E. The Longman Companion to the Formation of European Empires: 1488-1920. New York: Longman, 2000.

Raudzens, George. Empires: Europe and Globalization, 1492-1788. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999.