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Viceroyalty of New Spain
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The Viceroyalty of New Spain was a territorial entity forming part of the Spanish Empire, established over much of North America by the Hispanic Monarchy during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, between the 16th and 19th centuries.
It originated after the fall of México-Tenochtitlan, the principal event of the conquest, which properly speaking did not conclude until much later, since its territory continued to grow toward the north.
It was officially created on March 8, 1535. Its first Viceroy was Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco, and the capital of the Viceroyalty was Mexico City, established on top of the former México-Tenochtitlan.
It covered an enormous area that comprised the territories of Spain in North America, Central America, Asia and Oceania.
It included what is today Mexico, plus the present-day states of California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Florida and parts of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, in the present-day United States; as well as the southwestern part of British Columbia in present-day Canada; plus the Captaincy General of Guatemala (which included the present-day countries of Guatemala, the state of Chiapas, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua); plus the Captaincy General of Cuba (present-day Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and Guadeloupe). It also encompassed the Captaincy General of the Philippines (comprising the Philippines, the Caroline Islands and the Mariana Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, in Asia and Oceania). From 1626 to 1642 the Spaniards settled in the north of the island of Taiwan (called by the Portuguese Formosa ("Beautiful" in Castilian).[2]
The political organization divided the viceroyalty into kingdoms and captaincies general. The kingdoms were those of New Spain (distinct from the viceroyalty itself); Nueva Galicia (1530); Captaincy General of Guatemala (1540); Nueva Vizcaya (1562); New Kingdom of León (1569); Santa Fe de Nuevo México (1598); Nueva Extremadura (1674) and Nuevo Santander (1746). There were also five captaincies: the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo (1535), the Captaincy General of Yucatán (1565), the Captaincy General of the Philippines (1574), the Captaincy General of Puerto Rico (1582) and the Captaincy General of Cuba (1777). These territorial subdivisions had a Governor and Captain General (who in New Spain was the Viceroy himself, who added this title to his other dignities). In Guatemala, Santo Domingo and Nueva Galicia, these officials were called president governors, since they headed royal audiencias. For this reason, these audiencias were considered "praetorial".[3]
The most important lordship of New Spain was the Marquisate of the Valley of Oaxaca, property of Hernán Cortés and his descendants, which included a set of vast territories where the marquises held civil and criminal jurisdiction, and the right to grant lands, waters and forests, and within which lay their main holdings (cattle ranches, agricultural estates, sugar mills, fulling mills and shipyards).[4] The other lordship was the Duchy of Atrisco, granted in 1708 by King Philip V to José Sarmiento de Valladares, former Viceroy of New Spain and married to the Countess of Moctezuma, with civil and criminal jurisdiction over Atlixco, Tepeaca, Guachinango, Ixtepeji and Tula de Allende.[5]
King Charles III introduced reforms to the organization of the viceroyalty in 1786, known as the Bourbon reforms in New Spain, by which the intendancies were created, which made it possible to limit, to a certain extent, the powers of the Viceroy.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Viceroyalty fell into crisis, aggravated by the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain and its direct consequence in the Viceroyalty, the political crisis in Mexico of 1808, which ended the government of José de Iturrigaray and later gave rise to the Valladolid Conspiracy and the Querétaro Conspiracy. The latter was the direct antecedent of the Mexican war of independence, which, upon its conclusion in 1821, brought about the disintegration of most of the Viceroyalty in American lands, giving way to the First Mexican Empire, in which Agustín de Iturbide would finally be crowned.
Territories
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Captaincy General of Guatemala
The Captaincy General of Guatemala was the second in importance of the viceroyalty and was founded by order of Charles I in 1536. Around 1609, the Real Audiencia ruled that the Viceroy of New Spain should not, under any circumstances, be the Governor of Guatemala. This represented a great advance in the autonomy of the region. The first capital of the kingdom was Gracias a Dios, in Honduras, but in 1549 it was moved to what is today Antigua Guatemala. In 1773 a series of earthquakes prompted the change of capital, so the new site designated to house the seat of the Captaincy was Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción. The promulgation of the Constitution of Cádiz opened a new stage of liberalism in the Captaincy, with which they achieved even more freedom and independence from the rest of Spain.
In 1821 independence was proclaimed, and two years later the five provinces —Province of Ciudad Real de Chiapas, Province of Guatemala, Province of San Salvador, Province of Comayagua and Province of Nicaragua and Costa Rica— constituted themselves as the United Provinces of Central America, after the fall of Agustín I as Emperor of Mexico. However, Chiapas joined the nascent Mexican Republic, while the other provinces formed the present-day countries of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Captaincy General of Yucatán
The Captaincy General of Yucatán was a governorate and administrative zone belonging to Castile, created in 1565, which was under the direct dependence of the King for military and governmental matters. However, since it did not have a royal audiencia, it had to resort to the Real Audiencia of Mexico in the Viceroyalty of New Spain to settle legal matters. The Viceroy of New Spain could also appoint interim governors in the Province of Yucatán, while the King appointed his own. The "Province and Captaincy General of Yucatán" encompassed the present-day Mexican territories of Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatán, while the territories of northern Petén and present-day Belize also nominally belonged to it.
This Captaincy General was created from the conquests led by Francisco de Montejo the Adelantado, who together with his son and nephew, both namesakes, subdued the Maya groups that inhabited the Yucatán Peninsula upon his arrival at the dawn of the 16th century. These groups, which mounted a fierce defense of their territory, were the descendants of those who had made up the coalition of states that had been formed and dissolved some time before the arrival of the Spaniards, and which had been called the League of Mayapán. The conquest of Yucatán was the latest of those that ultimately made up the Viceroyalty of New Spain, since the last Maya strongholds were not entirely subdued until the year 1697 —that is, more than a century and a half after the conquest of Mexico—, with the conquest of Tayasal.[6]
History
The conquest of Mexico
After the conquest of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada in 1492, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, united in marriage, financed the expedition of Christopher Columbus, who arrived on October 12 at the Island of Guanahani, which he renamed «San Salvador». Columbus believed he had fulfilled his longed-for goal of reaching the Indies of the spices by sailing the Ocean Sea. The Spaniards continued exploring the New World, and in 1517, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba reached the coast of Yucatán. After two clashes with the Maya, Hernández de Córdoba was wounded and died upon his return to Cuba.
In 1518 Juan de Grijalva reached Campeche and Tabasco. In the latter place he met with the cacique or Maya governor Tabscoob and heard about a powerful city, capital of the largest empire in Mesoamerica, Great Tenochtitlan, culminating his voyage in Veracruz. In 1519, under the appointment of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, governor of Cuba (then called Fernandina, in honor of the King of Aragon), Hernán Cortés set sail and reached the newly discovered territories in February. In March he arrived in Tabasco, where he defeated the natives at the Battle of Centla, founding the town of Santa María de la Victoria, which would be the first Spanish settlement in New Spain. It is here that he was given Malintzin, who would be his great translator and a key figure in the conquest. He continued his journey and founded La Villa Rica de la Veracruz in Aztec territory, the first institutionalized European town in the New World.
On November 8, Cortés arrived at México-Tenochtitlan.[7]
Several premonitions in previous years led Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, Aztec sovereign or tlatoani, to believe that the end of his empire was near. An ancient prophecy stated that Quetzalcóatl, founder of his empire, would return in the guise of a white, bearded man. For this reason, upon seeing Cortés, he believed that the prophecy had been fulfilled and lodged him in his palace, built by Axayácatl. The Spaniards decided to take advantage of the situation to obtain riches and influence within the Aztec court. Several sectors of society disagreed and decided to make Moctezuma see his error, but the tlatoani refused to accept his fault. In June 1520, a handful of Spanish men detained Moctezuma and proclaimed the conquest, but the people rioted. Cortés ordered Moctezuma to go out and calm his subjects, who instead of obeying their monarch began to stone him. The Emperor died a few days later. Cuitláhuac, brother of Moctezuma and lord of Iztapalapa, was elected tlatoani of Tenochtitlan and, in response to the Massacre in the Great Temple,[8] decided to launch the people against the Spaniards on June 30. The indigenous strategies, with the help of the Tlatelolcas, managed to drive the conquerors out of the city, who in the act lost about a thousand soldiers and several fortunes in money and gold. It is said that Cortés wept in defeat at the foot of an ahuehuete, which is why this event is known as the Noche Triste.[9]
During his journey to Great Tenochtitlan, Cortés had secured alliances with peoples subjugated by the Aztecs, such as Tlaxcala and Chalco. Seeing himself defeated, he joined his forces with those of his allies, and in January 1521, more than six months after his defeat, Cortés began the march toward the city that had seen him vanquished on the Noche Triste. The Aztecs were now ruled by Cuauhtémoc, since Cuitláhuac had died in November, a victim of smallpox, a disease carried by some Spaniards and to which many natives were highly vulnerable. In March, Cortés began the siege of the city, cutting off its water and its basic resources of sanitation, communication and trade. Despite its alliances with Tetzcuco and Tlacopan, the city had to surrender on August 13, thus marking the beginning of Spanish rule. Cuauhtémoc, the Aztec leader, tried to escape by raft across Lake Texcoco, but was arrested. Imprisoned in Coyoacán, his feet were burned to make him confess the location of his treasure. After he refused, he was taken on an expedition to Central America, in 1525. Suspicions of conspiracy condemned him to death, carried out by hanging on February 28, 1525.[10]
The foundation
The term "New Spain" was coined by Hernán Cortés himself, who proposed to Emperor Charles V in his letter of relation of 1520 that all that land be called "the new Spain of the Ocean Sea", because of its similarity to Spain in its fertility, size and climate.[11]
After the military actions, with the Mexica capital subdued by arms and the subjugation of the rest of central Mexico underway, Hernán Cortés ordered the demolition of México-Tenochtitlan and the construction of the new capital on its remains, assigning the master builder Alonso García Bravo to lay it out in the Spanish style. The Spaniards made Mexico City the capital of a construct they called New Spain, encompassing within it all the lordships allied with or subdued by the hosts of Cortés. The first New Spanish society was formed around the upper circle of captains of the expedition, with Hernán Cortés as captain general of the newly conquered territories, who organized further expeditions to control territories. The Western economic system was gradually implanted, including agricultural, commercial and financial practices, although many indigenous structures continued practically intact, such as the mobility of goods, the tribute structures and some local powers.[12]
The natives, always the majority in society, after being subdued militarily or having recognized Spanish vassalage, were gathered into towns or republics of Indians, which were constituted either by reorganizing important settlements in the Western fashion while leaving the same governors in place, or through congregations, formed by settling the populations of several scattered towns into a single one, or else as workers in the first encomiendas and obrajes. An essential point is that, beginning with this process, a demographic collapse of the indigenous societies took place, with people dying by the hundreds as a result of exploitation and epidemics, reaching a critical point in the middle of the 16th century. Among the aims of these congregations was the evangelization of the natives, a process that was paramount in 16th-century Spanish policy and that was carried out by the main religious orders.[13]
The Catholic missionaries
In the 16th century, the Spaniards under the command of Hernán Cortés conquered the Mexica and took possession of their properties. The missionary work of the Catholic Church began with the arrival of the mendicant orders: Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians, who evangelized the most populated localities, starting from Anáhuac and moving outward, and created new ones where the population was scattered. In the course of the second decade of that century, Cristóbal de Olid, Pedro de Alvarado and Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, in the name of the Crown of Castile, conquered a large part of Mexican territory, except for the north of the country, where the Chichimeca tribes survived until the beginning of the 17th century, when they were almost exterminated. In that same century, the work of the friars who came to New Spain made it possible to extend the population centers to Nuevo León, where Cerralvo, Cadereyta and Sabinas Hidalgo were founded.[14]
In that same period, the work of the Franciscans made possible the founding of Paso del Norte, in 1682. Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, a New Spanish intellectual and geographer, devoted himself to cartography in the Nuevas Filipinas (Tejas) and in the port of Panzacola, where the fort of San Carlos was built to defend the locality from pirate attacks.[15]
The Society of Jesus gradually replaced the work of the Franciscans, but expanded it in the cultural and educational sphere. Eusebio Francisco Kino was a missionary born in Trento, Italy, who arrived in New Spain around 1680. His missions spread through Sonora and Arizona, but his greatest work was the founding of Magdalena de Kino, in the north of Sonoran territory. His work of founding and his geographical knowledge were summarized in the work of his fellow Jesuit Francisco Javier Alegre, Los apostólicos afanes, dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV, and published in Rome in 1749.[16]
Kino's work inspired other Jesuits to continue the work of founding well into the 18th century, with the founding of San Antonio de Béjar and the bay of Espíritu Santo, both in Texas. But in 1767, Charles III expelled the Jesuits from his dominions for attacking the doctrines of the Church and of the King, and their former missions passed to the Dominicans, who extended them as far as Paraguay and Ecuador. Junípero Serra, a native of the Balearic Islands, founded in Alta California the missions of San Diego de Alcalá, San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, San Gabriel Arcángel, San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, San Francisco de Asís and San Juan Capistrano, among others. The Italian Peri received a mandate from Pius VI to evangelize the lands of Chihuahua, where in 1798 he founded the Mission San Luis Rey. The work of evangelization and settlement did not stop until 1830, when the Viceroyalty no longer existed and many of the countries that had made it up had already achieved their independence.[17]
Colonization and conquest of the Philippines
In the viceregal era of 1521, the navigator Ferdinand Magellan, in the service of Spain, reached the Philippine archipelago and took legal possession of the islands under the Spanish throne, but without leaving a single soldier or any Spaniard whatsoever on the islands who might count toward Spain's colonization. Although it was known that the natives were extremely docile, and there was moreover a desire to wrest power from Portugal in the East Indies, Hernán Cortés sent three ships bound for Asia, which set sail from Zihuatanejo in 1527.[18] On the way, two of them were shipwrecked and the third arrived, but did not return because it had not found the return current. Later, in 1541, López de Villalobos was sent by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza to lead an expedition to the East Indies in search of new trade routes. His expedition departed from Puerto de Navidad in 1542 aboard four caravels.[19]
In 1543 the fleet touched the southern coast of the island of Luzon (Philippines), where they explored the coast and made contact with the natives of the archipelago. From there they set out farther east until reaching the island of Leyte, and they named them the Philippine Islands in honor of King Philip II. Because of hunger and a ship that was ruined in a navigation accident, the expedition was disastrous and they had to seek refuge in the Moluccas, a Portuguese dominion, and after some skirmishes they were taken prisoner. Villalobos died a prisoner in 1544 on the island of Amboina. The rest of the crew managed to escape and return to New Spain, where they told their stories to the Viceroy, and thus the Captaincy General of the Philippines came to be considered part of New Spain.[20]
The attempt to colonize the Philippines did not end there. Viceroy Luis de Velasco commissioned Miguel López de Legazpi to put to sea on a new expedition. He set sail from Puerto de Navidad, Nueva Galicia (currently Jalisco) on November 21, 1564, and on the voyage he conquered Guaján, the Islands of Saavedra/Islands of the Painted Ones (Marshall Islands) and the Mariana Islands, and touched Samar on April 27, 1565. Spanish dominion was also expanded to several points on the island of Formosa, the Moluccas (Tidore) and northern Borneo (Sabah). Skillfully, López de Legazpi avoided antagonizing the inhabitants of the islands, who were said to bare their shame to the air, no more and no less, and he found no resistance in exploring them. Owing to the scarcity of supplies, Legazpi was forced to move from island to island and expanded the dominions there. The movement was easy, since on the islands, as in Mexico, the clans were rivals, and Legazpi easily established bonds of friendship that allowed him to move from island to island, soon raising the first Spanish settlements: the Villa del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús and Villa de San Miguel.[21]
The conquest of the Philippines, so named in honor of King Philip II, by Miguel López de Legazpi made it possible for the Philippine Galleon to visit New Spanish lands for the first time in 1565. In time this route would become the main link uniting Spain's possessions in America with its strongholds in Asia. In that year, Philip II was reigning, in England Elizabeth I was ruling, eighteen years had passed since the death of the principal Spanish conqueror, Hernán Cortés, and the Jesuit Hernando Menéndez de Avilés founded the first missions in San Agustín de la Florida. One of the main sites where goods brought from the East were stored was New Orleans, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, which was conquered by Andrew Jackson in 1815, coinciding with the pro-independence rebellion in New Spain. The routes were established for more than two centuries. However, the routes from the East to the port of Acapulco, where the goods were usually unloaded, were plagued with risks, diseases and pirate attacks from Australia. The products handled were silk, spices and gold. The route was the means of linking the internal trade of Spain's overseas possessions, but at the same time liberal ideas were transmitted to the colonies of America, since in the Philippines there was greater freedom of expression. The last galleon arrived in Mexico in 1813, a few days before the capture of the port at the hands of José María Morelos.[22]
17th century
This century was that of the greatest New Spanish expansion, in contrast to what happened in the metropole, which entered into decline. In 1598, Philip II died, leaving as heir his son Philip III, who handed over the government to ministers such as the Duke of Lerma and the Duke of Uceda, who did not know how to manage the government and drew Spain into wars to defend the Catholic religion, or, as under Philip IV, during the Thirty Years' War, in which Spain lost its possessions in Holland through the Peace of Westphalia (1648). The policy of Philip III was continued by his son Philip IV, who reigned from 1621 to 1665. During his reign the so-called Spanish Golden Age took place, with exponents such as Luis de Góngora and Lope de Vega in literature, and Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in painting. Charles II succeeded his father in 1665 and ruled for ten years under the regency of his mother, Mariana of Austria, who surrounded herself with foreign ministers and married her son on two occasions (to María Luisa de Orleans in 1679 and to Mariana de Neoburgo in 1689), but the Monarch had no offspring. Upon his death in 1700, the King named as his successor Philip of Anjou, grandson of the French King Louis XIV. However, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Leopold I, refused to accept this arrangement and the War of the Spanish Succession began, in which the French heir triumphed, but the conflict seriously depleted New Spanish finances.[23]
The viceroys of New Spain experienced their heyday in this era. In 1611, Luis de Velasco, formerly Viceroy of Peru, sent a delegation to visit Japanese lands and establish commercial contacts with that nation, and thus was born the Nao de China, which for three hundred years unloaded in Acapulco the merchandise coming from Eastern territories. The Marquis of Cerralvo, Rodrigo Pacheco y Osorio, was accused of corruption and of inefficiency in government, since during his term the port of Veracruz was sacked by Dutch pirates, with a large part of the royal funds being lost in the act. Moreover, upon leaving office he took with him more than three hundred thousand gold pesos, and a pearl with inlaid diamonds that he gave to the King. Other viceroys who suffered the attacks of English and Dutch corsairs were Viceroy Armendáriz, who organized the Armada de Barlovento to stop attacks by English filibusters on the New Spanish coasts, and the Count of Salvatierra, García Sarmiento de Sotomayor, who ordered the protection of the coasts of California and thereby freed from assaults the ships coming from China. By 1649 the number of convents in the capital had grown to such an extent that the inhabitants found it necessary to send a letter to King Philip IV asking that no more such establishments be founded in the capital, since they were out of proportion with the number of inhabitants, but the King declined to respond. In May of that same year, the largest auto-da-fé recorded in the annals of the Mexican Inquisition took place; those penanced numbered 109, of whom 13 were relaxed in person, that is, they died at the stake.[24] The 17th century in New Spain was characterized by an era of constant peace, which was only interrupted when the Indians rose up in arms; the best known of these caciques were Gaspar Yanga, leader of the indigenous rebellion of 1609, and Jacinto Canek, who rose up in arms in 1770 against the Crown in Yucatán. Pirate incursions into port cities were very frequent: in 1678 they penetrated Campeche and were stopped at Alvarado, and on May 15, 1683, the corsair Lorencillo took Veracruz. The expansion underwent few changes during this century, the most important being the founding of the town of Albuquerque in the north. Upon learning of the birth of Prince Felipe Próspero de Austria in 1657, the Viceroy sent an endowment of two hundred fifty thousand gold pesos annually for a period of fifteen years, which ended when the Prince died in 1661. During the government of Viceroy Gaspar de la Cerda y Mendoza, Count of Galve, the Armada de Barlovento traversed Tejas to drive the French out of its territory, just as happened in Santo Domingo.[25]
18th century
The century began with the accession of the House of Bourbon to the Spanish throne, bringing Philip V as the first King of the Spanish Bourbons. The War of the Spanish Succession, which arose from the naming of the Duke of Anjou as heir to the crown, broke out in Spain and Europe. In 1713 the Peace of Utrecht put an end to the conflict, but forced Spain to cede Gibraltar to the British Crown. Philip V abdicated in 1724 in favor of his son Louis I, who died in August of the same year. The King had to return to the throne until his death in 1746, and was succeeded by his son Ferdinand VI, who died without offspring in 1759, whereupon his brother Charles III was proclaimed King. This King would carry out the reforms characteristic of Enlightened Despotism, which had a great effect in New Spain.[26]
Piracy had declined, and many of the men who had worked in that activity went on to swell the ranks of the British navy, which by 1670 had consolidated its power. Ferdinand VI anticipated attacks on the Spanish coasts, so during his reign he enlarged the fleet. Education increased greatly under the reign of the Bourbons, of clear French influence. Since the first school, founded by Pedro de Gante in 1534, the matter of public education had stagnated. Except for the founding of the Royal and Pontifical University of San Ildefonso (1553) and the Royal College of Zacatecas (1616), the viceroys did not concern themselves with education. It was not until 1773 that the Royal Academy of Fine Arts was founded, and in 1783 the College of Mining, where the chemist Andrés Manuel del Río studied. Cultural dissemination made it possible for the first newspaper of New Spain, El mercurio volante, to be published in 1693, and from 1728 La Gaceta de México was published. In the territory of the Purépechas, Vasco de Quiroga began the evangelization of the natives and in 1540 founded the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo, where many priests and professionals were trained during the centuries of the colony and afterward, such as Miguel Hidalgo. Astronomy also developed, in the figures of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and José Antonio Alzate. Meanwhile, the theater of New Spain was an important part of the Spanish Golden Age, with exponents such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. Likewise, in 1806 the work The Barber of Seville was performed for the first time in America. Thus, during the 18th century the economy grew slowly, but the arts developed to their greatest splendor.[27]
The reign of Charles III
Charles of Bourbon and Farnese was born in 1716, the son of Philip V and Isabel de Farnesio. He ascended the throne of Spain in 1759, after his half-brother Ferdinand VI died without offspring. During his reign he enlarged the militia, devoted himself to building up Madrid and signed a Family Compact with Louis XV of France, which led to the participation of the Spanish Crown in the Seven Years' War. The defeat of the Hispano-French alliance in that war forced Spain to cede in the Treaty of Paris (1763) Florida, the territories west of the Mississippi River, and rights over Honduras and Newfoundland. To the British colonies of North America, the Monarch sent Antonio de Ulloa as visitor and ambassador. At that time the viceroyalty of New Spain expanded enormously by acquiring Spanish Louisiana and by recovering —after defeating the English— Spanish Florida. This same politician served in New Spain as adviser to Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez, who in 1786 carried out the reform of the public administration. This change ultimately became the legacy of Charles III in New Spain, since it established the creation of intendancies, directed by Spaniards and not by the former indigenous caciques in the service of the Viceroy, a practice derived from Cortés. The King sought to reduce the influence of the governors through the decentralization of power, and made the intendancies effective as of December 1, 1786. Another act carried out by Charles III was the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from Spain, on June 25, 1767, as Portugal (1759) and France (1764) had already done. The explanation the King gave to Pope Clement XIII was that the Jesuits spread the ideas of the Enlightenment and sought to overthrow the monarchs; he also attributed to them responsibility for the Esquilache riot (1766). The Pope accepted, and seven years later Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus.[28]
Independences and territorial changes in New Spain
From 1798 onward, rebellions against Spanish rule were brewing, such as that of that year, known as the Machete Rebellion, which sought to assassinate Viceroy Miguel José de Azanza and proclaim independence. However, shortly before the plot broke out, those responsible for it were arrested.
Abolition of the viceroyalty of New Spain
The viceroyalties were abolished during the periods in which the Constitution of Cádiz was in force, in 1812 and 1820. The territory was divided into twenty fully autonomous provinces directly dependent on Madrid. For the Viceroyalty of New Spain, its divisions were initially six, and two were later added: San Luis de Potosí and Nicaragua. On May 31, 1820, Juan Ruiz de Apodaca reestablished the Spanish constitution in the Viceroyalty of New Spain for the last time.
| American provinces | Capital |
|---|---|
| New Spain | Mexico |
| Eastern Interior Provinces | Monterrey |
| Western Interior Provinces | Durango |
| San Luis Potosí | Guanajuato |
| Nueva Galicia | Guadalajara |
| Yucatán | Mérida |
| Guatemala (Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Chiapas) | Guatemala |
| Nicaragua (Nicaragua, Costa Rica) | León |
Mexico
The instability of the Spanish monarchy occurred during the government of José de Iturrigaray (1803–1808). Toward the end of 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte, in agreement with Godoy and Charles IV, occupied Spain in order to invade Portugal. In March 1808, the Spanish people rose up and proclaimed Ferdinand of Bourbon King of Spain. Napoleon, through the Abdications of Bayonne, handed the Crown of Spain to his brother Joseph Bonaparte and began the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain.[29]
In Mexico, the criollos of the Ayuntamiento, led by Francisco Primo de Verdad y Ramos and Juan Francisco Azcárate y Lezama, proposed a system of popular government in the absence of the King, which was unanimously rejected by the Spanish sector of the Real Audiencia. A few days later, when Iturrigaray refused to grant recognition to the Junta of Seville and the Junta of Oviedo, the Spaniards decided to overthrow him, arguing that he intended to make himself King of New Spain. Pedro de Garibay was named to replace him, but in May 1809 he was replaced by the Archbishop of Mexico, Francisco Xavier de Lizana y Beaumont, who granted freedom to those involved in the Valladolid Conspiracy (December 1809), which sought to make the kingdom independent. The successor to this conspiracy was the Querétaro Conspiracy, headed by Miguel Hidalgo and formed by Miguel Domínguez, Corregidor of Querétaro, and his wife Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, and the military men Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama and Mariano Abasolo. The conspiracy was discovered and Hidalgo brought the insurrection forward to the early morning of September 16, when the Mexican War of Independence began, with the event known as the Grito de Dolores.[30]
Hidalgo quickly managed to gather more than 60,000 men and peacefully took San Miguel el Grande, Celaya and Salamanca. Upon entering Guanajuato on September 28, the Taking of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas took place, followed days later by the consequent sacking. The insurgent troops marched to Valladolid, which they entered peacefully on October 17, and it was in Acámbaro that Hidalgo was proclaimed Generalissimo of the Americas and Allende captain general. On that visit he received the adherence of Ignacio López Rayón and José María Morelos. After entering Toluca on October 5, the insurgents defeated the royalists of Torcuato Trujillo on October 30 at the Battle of Monte de las Cruces, but Hidalgo refused to take Mexico City, which would have allowed the insurgents to win the war, since they would have captured the capital.[31] They withdrew to the Bajío, where Félix María Calleja del Rey defeated them at the Battle of Aculco on November 7. Disagreement among the insurgents led Allende, Abasolo and Aldama to withdraw to Guanajuato, where Calleja defeated them on November 26. Hidalgo marched to Valladolid and later to Guadalajara, which had been taken on the very day of the defeat at Aculco by José Antonio Torres, nicknamed El amo. In both cities massacres of Spaniards were committed. After their defeat in Guanajuato, the military faction of the insurgency joined Hidalgo in Guadalajara, where the first government of Mexico was established. On January 17, 1811, Calleja finally defeated the insurgents at the Battle of Calderón Bridge, and they fled to the north of the country with the intention of taking refuge in the United States of America. In Zacatecas Hidalgo was stripped of military command in favor of Allende, and on March 21 Ignacio Elizondo laid a trap for them and captured them at the Norias de Acatita de Baján. The insurgents were put on trial in Chihuahua and executed: Allende, Aldama and Jiménez on June 26 (Abasolo's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in Cádiz, Spain), and Hidalgo was shot on July 30. After their execution, they were decapitated and their heads were displayed at the Alhóndiga de Granaditas.[32][33]
José María Morelos, commissioned by Hidalgo to raise troops in the south of the country, was the next leader of the insurgency, a title he disputed with Ignacio López Rayón. In the course of 1811 he won positions such as Chilpancingo, Tixtla, Chilapa and Tehuacán, but was defeated at Acapulco. Between February 9 and May 2, 1812 he was besieged in Cuautla by Calleja, but defeated him by breaking the encirclement, which led to Calleja's removal from the royalist army. On November 25, 1812 he took Oaxaca, and in 1813 he captured Acapulco and organized the Congress of Chilpancingo, where the Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America was signed; in 1814 he produced the Constitution of Apatzingán. After a series of defeats (at Lomas de Santa María, Puruarán and at Las Águilas) he was captured at Temalaca on November 5, 1815, and executed in the capital on December 22 of that year. His army included Leonardo Bravo, Nicolás Bravo, Hermenegildo Galeana, Mariano Matamoros, Guadalupe Victoria and Vicente Guerrero. The last two were the ones who continued the struggle after Morelos's death, and many insurgents deserted because of the pardon policy carried out by Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, Calleja's replacement in the viceroyalty.
Agustín de Iturbide, victor over Morelos at Lomas de Santa María, was commissioned by Apodaca to stop Guerrero and Pedro Ascencio Alquisiras, who were fighting in the south. Iturbide and Guerrero reached an agreement in the Plan of Iguala and united their armies into the Army of the Three Guarantees, which entered Mexico City in triumph on September 27, 1821, thus ending in Mexico the War of Independence and Spanish rule.[34]
Central America
The former Kingdom of Guatemala —divided into several intendancies as a result of the Bourbon reforms— was transformed into constitutional provinces that declared themselves independent from Spain on September 15, 1821. Despite the opposition of San Salvador and Costa Rica, Central America joined the Mexican Empire in December 1821. After the abolition of the monarchy in Mexico, the United Provinces of Central America constituted themselves as an independent country.
United States of America
The territories of New Spain north of the Río Bravo, by various paths, came to form an integral part of the United States of America.
In 1803 the United States bought from France the territory of Louisiana, which Napoleon in turn had received from Spain in 1800 through the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
The United States bought the territory of Florida from Spain in the year 1821. Its cession was carried out by governor José Coppinger under the Adams–Onís Treaty, with the American Andrew Jackson being the one in charge of carrying out the transfer of sovereignty. Likewise, the United States also acquired the rights to the Spanish claims in the Oregon territory.
In 1835 the Republic of Texas proclaimed its independence, which was not accepted by Mexico. In 1845 the United States incorporated Texas into its union, which led to the Mexican–American War of 1846 to 1848, which allowed the United States to annex the territories of Alta California and New Mexico. The new border was defined by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, and was adjusted through the Mexican sale of La Mesilla to the United States in 1854.
Finally, in 1898, after the Spanish–American War, the last colonial territories of the Philippines, Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico ceased to be part of Spain.
Political organization
New Spain was the first viceroyalty to be erected, and therefore the place where the Spanish model of governance was put into practice. The Viceroy, a term that etymologically means in place of the king, concentrated all public power, as has already been said. He was freely appointed and removed by the King; whenever the sovereign wished, he could dismiss the Viceroy. In New Spain he played the role of a sovereign, but in reality he only obeyed the orders of the King of Spain. He executed the laws promulgated in the metropole and was in charge of overseeing the affairs of State. The entire structure of government depended on the Viceroy: alcaldes mayores, corregidores, local stewards, ayuntamientos and heads of Indian towns.[35]
Many viceroys of New Spain would go on to hold the same office in the Viceroyalty of Peru, and the transfer from Mexico to Lima was the most coveted prize among the colonial authorities. The Viceroy received a salary as such and as President of the Audiencia. In addition, he received money for the upkeep of a guard. Salaries were raised as Spanish rule became established. A Mexican Viceroy received 27,000 pesos annually, while a Peruvian one earned 41,000 pesos annually. Under the Bourbons, both viceroys received 60,000 pesos annually and in some cases even more, which is explained by the devaluation of the currency. In both the later Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, the viceroys received 40,000 pesos annually.
The Royal Council of the Indies was instituted in 1519, and from 1524 it was conferred supreme authority to rule on matters concerning the provinces of the New World. Its main mission was to prepare the ground for the viceroyalties, creating laws, institutionalizing the Indian towns, regulating trade, organizing public administration, overseeing the ports and overseas public business, and ratifying the appointment of officials. When the law of the viceroyalties came into force, the Council of the Indies took into its own hands the defense of the natives against the abuses of the Spaniards; a prominent member during this stage was Bartolomé de las Casas. Other institutions of New Spain were the corregimientos, which administered justice and were appointed by the Audiencia. They were also directed by the alcaldes mayores.[36]
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As a preventive measure, the government of Spain established a complicated system of bureaucracy to make cumbersome any procedure that might endanger the interests of the Crown, as the Duke of Lerma made evident in a letter written to the Monarch Philip III in 1608. Another approach taken was to counter petitions and demands for power on the part of the former conquerors and of the indigenous caciques. The population of New Spain had to go to the established authorities to carry out their procedures. Generally, those in charge of public services handled the business only for their own private interest; procedures used to be very costly and slow, and on many occasions they were filed away among so many cases that never reached a resolution. The bureaucracy increased its power by asking the King for more staff, under the supposed premise of improving the service provided. In reality, this system acquired such influence over all aspects of New Spanish society that Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez raised with Charles III the need for an urgent reform of the system, which would come in 1786 with the first of the Bourbon reforms of that year.[37]
Historical stages
Cortés took charge of the government of the newly conquered colony with the titles of captain general of justicia mayor and Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, which he granted himself upon leaving the ayuntamiento of the Villa Rica de la Veracruz. The conqueror occupied the former residence of the tlatoanis in Coyoacán, but later moved to Mexico City. During his government he consolidated the mission of the encomiendas among the conquerors, also distributing the grants (mercedes) of land and the fruits, and establishing the workshops for artisanal production. Cristóbal de Olid set out on an expedition to Honduras but decided to ally himself with Velázquez against Cortés, who sent Captain Francisco de las Casas to stop him and bring him to justice. Cortés was not informed of Casas's expedition, so the Governor of New Spain set out in person to stop Olid, and took with him his prisoner Cuauhtémoc, who on the way was accused of conspiracy and hanged near Tabasco.[38]
Cortés's absence was used by his enemies to inform the King of Spain, Charles I, of his mismanagement and of accusations of corruption. The King sent the visitor Peralmíndez Chirino, who instituted the government of the royal officials, but allowed Cortés to keep his title of marquis. The royal officials were quickly branded as troublesome, and the new visitor, Gonzalo de Salazar, did not hesitate to remove them.[39]
In 1527, the King observed the disaster caused by the royal officials and named the first Audiencia, composed of a President (Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán) and four oidores (Alonso de Parada, Francisco Maldonado, Juan Ortiz de Matienzo and Diego Delgadillo), who had powers only in the judicial, civil and criminal sphere, but often intervened in matters concerning public administration. Juan de Zumárraga, first Archbishop of Mexico, informed the King of the irregularities committed by the members of the first audiencia, especially by Beltrán de Guzmán, so the King established the second audiencia. It was made up of President Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal (Bishop of Michoacán), and its oidores were Juan Salmerón, Alonso Maldonado, Francisco Zeínos and Vasco de Quiroga. The members of this second audiencia managed to restore the rights of the indigenous peoples, reduce tributes, free slaves and suppress the encomiendas (restored years later by Philip II.[40]
Institution of the viceroyalty
The Spanish Crown considered it advisable to establish the Council of the Indies, a regulatory body that was to regulate the laws and the authorities of New Spain and the other conquered territories, but its action was limited because of the almost unlimited powers of the viceroys. Then the Casa de Contratación of Seville was born, with the same functions as the previous body but with economic and financial authority; its main task was to regulate the trade of the Spanish possessions in the New World and to oversee the safety of merchant ships along the waterways of the Spanish Empire. Another of its tasks was to prevent smuggling, to the point that trade with foreigners was punished by sentencing to capital punishment. The House of Austria neglected the care of the seas and of trade, and thus smuggling became an attractive activity for the subjects, since the King did not allow trade with other powers.[41][42]
Charles I considered it advisable to establish the viceroyalty, governed by a Viceroy who would represent the crown and enforce the promulgated laws. Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco was the first viceroy sent to New Spain, in 1535, and the one who was to reconcile the differences between Spaniards and natives. At that date the limits of the viceroyalty were not known with certainty, so Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca led in 1537 an expedition lasting eight years to determine the territory of the colony. The conclusions the explorers presented to the King were that to the northeast lay Florida, that it reached as far as the limits of California, and that the limit of New Spain was the Hibueras. Charles I promulgated the matter of the extent in a letter to Viceroy Luis de Velasco in 1555, likewise asking him to explore numerous unpopulated territories. In 1572 Philip II issued the ordinances on the functions of the Viceroy, which consisted of administering the colony, issuing military orders, rendering civil and ecclesiastical judgments, founding towns and cities, conducting censuses and compiling population data, overseeing the functioning of public works and collecting revenues, of which one fifth was sent to Spain.[43]
The King of Spain
The King was the supreme authority of Spain and its colonies, and his government was absolute in character. The King held exclusive legislative power, which took the form of royal decrees (reales cédulas) and royal orders; he could declare war, sign peace, administer justice and mint coins. In the course of the three centuries during which the Viceroyalty of New Spain existed, eleven monarchs succeeded one another, grouped in two dynasties:
House of Austria
- Charles I (1521 – 1556)
- Philip II (1556 – 1598)
- Philip III (1598 – 1621)
- Philip IV (1621 – 1665)
- Charles II (1665 – 1700)
House of Bourbon
- Philip V (1700 – 1724)
- Louis I (1724)
- Philip V (1724 – 1746)
- Ferdinand VI (1746 – 1759)
- Charles III (1759 – 1788)
- Charles IV (1788 – 1808)
- Ferdinand VII (1808 – 1821)
The Viceroy
From the very institution of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the figure of the Viceroy acquired weight and influence because he concentrated in his person all the responsibilities of the public administration of the viceroyalty; both judicial and legislative matters fell to the Viceroy, as the personal representative of the King of Spain. Between 1535, the date of the institution of the viceroyalty, and 1821, when independence was consummated, there were more than 62 viceroys, the best known being:
- Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco: A native of Old Castile, he took part in the War of the Communities of Castile serving the King, and for that reason he was named Viceroy. He founded Valladolid, in honor of his native city, carried out the first census in 1539, brought the printing press to Mexico in 1549 and founded several Indian towns.
- Luis de Velasco: Successor of Mendoza, when the latter was named Viceroy of Peru in 1550. He put new laws into practice, strengthened the power of the King, created new hospitals and in 1553 inaugurated the courses of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico.
- Martín Enríquez de Almansa:[44] Successor of Luis de Velasco. He was viceroy between 1568 and 1580. In the face of harassment by the Chichimeca Indians on the silver route between Mexico City and the newly discovered mineral deposit of Zacatecas, he ordered the construction of seven forts, of which the one at Ojuelos de Jalisco survives to this day. During his viceroyalty the Holy Inquisition was established in New Spain. He was later Viceroy of Peru.
- Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa: Part of the enlightened embellishment carried out in Europe by Charles III, he did the same in New Spain, and particularly in Mexico City. He founded promenades, alamedas, hospitals and a sanatorium for the mentally ill. He sanitized the city through the construction of a drain and founded the Montepío. He died in office as viceroy in 1779.
- Vicente Güemes Pacheco: Second Marquis of Revillagigedo, he was moreover the only viceroy born in America (Cuba, 1740). He arrived in New Spain with a mandate to reinforce the army in the face of an imminent British invasion, which ultimately did not occur. He gave special importance to education and created the first population register in New Spain.
- Juan O'Donojú: Recognized as the last viceroy sent by the Spanish government, in 1821. Of Irish descent, he fought in the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain as a soldier of José de Palafox y Melcí in the Sieges of Zaragoza, the city from which he came. He was taken prisoner to Nantes, but was freed in 1814, at the end of the war. He declared himself a liberal and against Ferdinand VII, for which he was imprisoned in Cádiz. He was part of the troops of Rafael de Riego, who upon triumphing named him superior political chief of New Spain. Known for his philanthropy, he agreed to the independence of the colony with Agustín de Iturbide in the Treaties of Córdoba (August 24, 1821). When the war was consummated, he was made part of the government, but died of tuberculosis, in the capital, on October 8, 1821.[45]
The Real Audiencia and the institutions of the Indies
The Real Audiencia of Mexico was the principal institution of justice in the Castilian-Aragonese Crown, with the exception of the foral territories of the Crown of Aragon. It was instituted by Henry II of Castile, and Charles I created it in Mexico around 1527, under the presidency of Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán. Among its main functions were administering justice and taking charge of power during a vacancy of the viceroyalty.[46]
Hernán Cortés decided to establish the government in the town of Coyoacán, south of Lake Texcoco, because the city of Tenochtitlan had been left in poor condition. From there he governed with the title of Captain General and Justicia Mayor. From Coyoacán the expeditions of conquest set out with the purpose of subduing the indigenous peoples of the various regions of what would become the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1528 the government was entrusted to the First Real Audiencia of Mexico, presided over by Nuño de Guzmán. In 1535 the Viceroyalty of New Spain was created, its first viceroy being Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco.
Its structure and powers were established by Charles II, in the Compilation of the Laws of the Indies, in 1680.
In the City of Mexico Tenuxtitlan, Head of the Provinces of New Spain, there shall reside another Royal Audiencia and Chancery of ours, with a Viceroy, Governor and Captain General and our Lieutenant, who shall be President: eight Oidors: four Alcaldes del Crimen: and two Fiscales: one for Civil matters, and the other for Criminal matters: an Alguacil mayor: a Lieutenant of the Grand Chancellor: and the other necessary Ministers and Officials; which shall have as its district the Provinces properly called those of New Spain, together with those of Yucatán, Cozumel and Tabasco: and along the Coast of the North Sea and the Mexican Gulf, as far as the Cape of Florida: and along the South Sea, from where the boundaries of the Audiencia of Guatemala end to where those of Galicia begin, as they are marked out for them by the laws of this title, bordering them to the East and West: with the North Sea and the Province of Florida to the North: and with the South Sea to the South.[47]
The royal Patronage consisted of the set of privileges and special powers that the Popes granted to the Kings of Spain and Portugal in exchange for their supporting the evangelization and establishment of the Church in America. It came about as a consequence of the papal bulls Romanus Pontifex (1455) and Inter Caetera (1456), for the benefit of Portugal on its Atlantic routes, and of the so-called Alexandrine Bulls issued in 1493, immediately after the Discovery, at the request of the Catholic Monarchs, given their influence with the Borgia Pope. Among these privileges were the appointment of bishops and other ecclesiastical dignities and the collection of tithes and other contributions from the faithful. Likewise, the royal patronage allowed the Church to have numerous missionaries and the necessary economic and financial resources at its disposal and, above all, facilitated their mobilization and distribution. However, it also had other consequences less favorable from the papal perspective, such as the subjection of the Church to royal power, isolation from Rome and the relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline and religious discipline as the authority of the bishops and religious superiors weakened. In another order of things, at the time of independence nearly the entire episcopate was Spanish of peninsular origin and not criollo. Institutions such as the encomienda and debates such as that of the just titles make clear the true importance of religious justification for colonial rule. The control of the Hispanic and Portuguese Monarchy over America provoked the envy of other European monarchies and is not unrelated to movements such as the Reformation or, in Catholic France, Gallicanism or regalism.[48]
Population and physical environment
Effects of the conquest on the population
The physical environment was varied, combining temperate climates (central Mexico), arid climates (north) and cold climates (the Sierra Madre Oriental and Occidental ranges). With the migration of Spaniards to the New World came products and domestic animals such as horses, cows, pigs and poultry. The plant species brought to New Spain were diverse, such as wheat, oats, sugarcane, banana and the orange tree. However, from the very course of the Conquest there was a sharp decline in the Indigenous population of New Spain, caused by contact with the Spanish world, owing to the diseases brought by the conquistadors, such as smallpox and tuberculosis, which the natives could not resist because of their lack of defenses. Other factors that influenced the depopulation were the loss of the ecological balance of the American world, the lack of food production, the inequitable distribution of wealth, the displacement of agriculture by mining and commerce, systems of repartimiento that affected the labor force, the reduction of cultivable land, the introduction of livestock farming and new measures that changed the system of cultivation. The religious living in the territory of the Viceroyalty regarded the death of the Indigenous people from the epidemics as a divine punishment, often attributing it to the slavery, forced labor and restricted captivity to which the natives were subjected. Diego de Landa, a friar of Yucatán, wrote that the Indigenous people refused to reproduce, for fear that their children would suffer the same conditions as they did, even going so far as to commit infanticide to avoid it. Other reasons attributed by the priests as causes were vices, especially that of alcohol and aguardiente, both brought to New Spain by the Spaniards.[49]
Components of development in mestizaje
When the Spaniards conquered the territories of New Spain, the Iberian Peninsula saw an opportunity to emigrate to the new Spanish dominions in order to obtain better living conditions. On arriving in the lands they had hoped for, mestizaje, that is, mixing with the Indigenous people, gave rise to mestizaje in the Americas. After the plague that wiped out half of the Indigenous population, the rulers of New Spain were forced to import slaves from the possessions of Spain in Africa. Contrary to what happened in New Spain, the thirteen colonies of North America did not experience a process of mestizaje, because the religious beliefs of the settlers, mostly merchants of the Protestant religion, prevented them from establishing physical or sexual contact with any ethnic group different from their own.[50] On the other hand, the absence of white European women during the first years of the conquest in Hispanic America led the Spanish conquistadors to produce, with the native Indian women of each area, through marriage, abduction, rape and concubinage, a new mestizo population.[51]
Mestizaje was carried out almost exclusively by Spanish men, never by women, which shows that it was not a matter of an absence of racial prejudice. The Spaniard never married an Indian woman; he simply took several Indian women as concubines, generally those who served in his house, and had children with them. Even though the Indian women had been converted to Christianity, it was unthinkable for a Spaniard to marry one of them; he married only European women when they arrived in New Spain, and it was with them that he had his legitimate children, which did not prevent him from continuing to father children with his Indian servants or concubines.[52]
_Cervantes_y_Altamirano_de_Velasco_-_Ignacio_Ayala_-_overall.jpg)
The pyramid of castes in New Spain was made up chiefly of six population groups, the largest and most numerous in the Viceroyalty:
- Peninsular Spaniards: The owners of the land and of businesses in New Spain; for the most part they were people with failed businesses who came to make their fortune in the colony in order to ease their economic situation somewhat. The mixing of these groups with others gave rise to mestizaje.
- Criollos: Children of peninsular Spaniards, but settled in the Viceroyalty. They did not enjoy privileges as their parents did, but they participated semi-actively in the administration of property and in minor public works. This social group led the fall of New Spain at the dawn of the 19th century.
- Mestizos: The product of the mixing of Spaniards and Indigenous people, they were the ones who worked the products of the land and the countryside.
- Indigenous people: Natives of New Spain, they lost control of their territories after the conquest and were forced to work their lands for Spanish interests; they constituted the most numerous part of the population.[53]
- Blacks: Brought from Africa to perform forced labor in the mines, they immediately mixed with the Indigenous people, the social class with which they had the most contact, and thus the zambos were born.
- Asians: The least numerous group in New Spain, they were mostly Chinese and Japanese who did business sporadically in the territory, but many of them settled in New Spain and thus created a new caste: the cambujos (of Asian and Indian).[54]
The castes
The castes were one of the most important complements in New Spain, and they arose from the various mixtures among the predominant groups of New Spain (Blacks, Spaniards and Indigenous people). Both in the official records and in the popular imagination, these castes have passed into history with a name and characteristics that distinguished them from other peoples and races. In the social hierarchy, the main castes were those arising from the union of a Spaniard with a member of another social class. From the mixtures of these, the rest arose. The classification of the castes was not official[55] and several systems were created[56] in which the names or the unions vary, with the exception of the main ones, which usually have the same names:
- Mestizo: child of a Spaniard and an Indigenous person.
- Castizo: result of the union of a Spaniard and a mestizo.
- Mulato: descendant of a Spaniard and a Black person.
- Morisco: result of the union of a Spaniard and a mulatto.
- Albino (sometimes chino):[57] child of a Spaniard and a morisco.
To this list one could add the español, as a descendant of a Spaniard and a morisco.[56][57] From the preceding castes arose new mixtures whose names vary from one system to another and which received the most varied names: tornatrás, saltatrás, tentenelaire, lobo, zambaigo, cambujo, genízaro, albarazado, calpamulo, which attempt to classify the great ethnic variety that mestizaje in New Spain entailed.
Introduction of African slaves to New Spain
The first shipment of African slaves arrived in the Antilles in 1501, coming from Nigeria. In that country, the conquistadors selected slaves with special characteristics: all had to be robust males over 18 years of age, capable of enduring long voyages without dying or falling ill. Black slaves were taken to New Spain from 1560, and their main work was in the mines, but in some parts of the country, such as Chihuahua, they were used as sugarcane farmhands, and even as herdsmen and guards. The slave trade became a profitable business for the Spaniards, who in turn bought them from the Portuguese. The Indigenous people caused many problems for their Spanish masters, such as rebelliousness and little resistance to disease. During its first century of existence, the slave trade came from Cape Verde, but in the 17th century the Congo and Angola displaced it as the main source of slaves. Throughout the entire viceregal period, Blacks endured working conditions bordering on slavery, and many died as a result of mistreatment. On December 6, 1810, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the insurgent movement, decreed the freedom of the slaves, which would become effective in 1821.[58]
Size and distribution of the population
At the time of the conquest, New Spain was in principle made up solely of the Indigenous groups. However, epidemics and forced labor caused the ten million Indigenous people to decline to eight million in the 17th century, to seven in the 18th century and to three and a half in the 19th century. An important part of this decline was the displacement of the Indigenous groups. Most of those present in the Bajío moved to the mining settlements (reales mineros) of Zacatecas and Aguascalientes, while others settled on the outskirts of cities such as Querétaro, Guanajuato and Orizaba.[59]
The white population experienced accelerated growth from the second half of the 16th century onward, when the great migration to New Spain by merchants coming from the Peninsula took place. Often the children of Spaniards were also considered as such, but in the practice of public administration they were called criollos. By 1570 there were 63,000 Spaniards in the whole territory of New Spain; in 1759 the figure rose to 600,000, and in 1800 to one million white inhabitants. The places of greatest concentration and importance for this group were Mexico City, Guanajuato, Puebla, Guadalajara, Veracruz and Oaxaca. Other places of relevant mining importance were Durango and Zacatecas, where there were towns of agricultural and livestock production that were taken advantage of by the Spaniards for their exploitation. The Bajío acquired enormous economic importance in the 18th century owing to the Spanish haciendas located in that part of the region, where the presence of Spaniards was of great importance.[60]
Blacks were imported to New Spain to carry out mine exploitation work, and at their peak they came to number 20,000, although at the end of the Viceroyalty there were only 10,000.[42] This was mainly due to their mixing with other ethnic groups. They were concentrated in the agricultural regions and mining settlements, such as Mexico and Puebla. Another initially minority group was the mestizos, who were children of Spaniards and Indigenous people and were usually discriminated against because of their origin, which they themselves often concealed. At the beginning of the 17th century this group began to grow, and by 1805 they numbered more than a million and a half. They were concentrated in the important cities, mining networks and uninhabited coasts.[61]
Social relations and ethnic diversity
The Spaniards held a place of social privilege; they could obtain the labor of Indigenous people and Blacks without having to pay for their services. The Indigenous people performed forced labor for the Spaniards. Blacks lived as slaves of the peninsulars and the criollos. In this way the system of ethnic classes in New Spain took shape, whereby a group did or did not have privileges depending on its ethnic ancestry. Mestizaje brought with it the appearance of new ethnic groups who found it increasingly difficult to enter the circle of colonial society. In the processes of formation of the ethnic groups resulting from mestizaje, some autochthonous issues specific to the region had an influence. The nomadic communities resisted the conquering onslaught of the Spaniards for many years, and around 1605 the peninsular troops gave up and began the process of evangelization that culminated in the fall of the tribes in 1630.[62]
Situation of the Indigenous peoples
The Indigenous people lived, for the most part, on the summits of high mountains and in ravines, hoping to flee from their conquerors, for which reason they were considered nomads for a long time. The second Audiencia wrote to Charles I in 1531 to report on the population of New Spain, and in referring to the Indians it stated that they lacked order and polity, and that moreover they were disorganized and without a fixed place in which to settle. For this reason, the King replied that one of the priorities of the new government was to be the pacification of the native peoples. In general, throughout the entire viceregal period, they had few opportunities for development and for acquiring farmland. The peninsular Spaniards monopolized most of the businesses and the Indigenous people were relegated to the background. Evangelization also made them adopt the Catholic religion and destroy their ancient idols. The political organization that the Spaniards allowed them to keep distinguished the ruling caciques, who enjoyed privileges, from the Indigenous people of the lowest social class.[63][64]
When the Spaniards arrived in the New World, they encountered very well-constituted civilizations: the theocratic empire of the Incas, which was at its height, the confederation of the Aztecs and the Maya culture. The conflicts between the different peoples, such as the wars between the Aztecs and the Tlaxcaltecs, facilitated the Spanish conquest.
The writer Eduardo Galeano regards the mita as a "machine for grinding up Indians" because, although Spanish laws protected the Indians against possible injustices that might be committed against them, the reality was that in practice these laws were not complied with and the Indians ended up subjected to forced labor in the encomiendas. The differences of status in legal conditions, upon declaring the Indians "persons" and not objects of slavery, did not greatly change their quality of life.
Fray Rodrigo de Loaysa wrote that "these poor Indians are like sardines in the sea. Just as the other fish pursue the sardines to make prey of them and devour them, so everyone in these lands pursues the wretched Indians."
The encomenderos demanded that the caciques permanently replace the dead Indians, the mitayos. A yard built of stones, which still exists, was a corral in which the mine owners divided up the Indians among themselves. Indian men and women were divided up just like the lands.
According to José María Ots Capdequí, lands were sold with the Indians included, and they were inherited: when they were given in encomienda they belonged to the encomendero for the term of two lives, that is, also to his heir.[65]
Economy
Exploitation of raw materials and precious minerals
The main economic activities of the Viceroyalty were mining, agriculture (maize, cacao and other products native to ancient Mesoamerica), livestock farming (introduced by the Europeans, who brought most of the animals raised) and commerce (limited solely to Spanish possessions, an act of mercantilism). Another important element in the development of New Spain was the role played by the Catholic Church, which achieved great power by acquiring large properties and monopolizing education, health services and other areas of public administration.
The mineral resources found beneath the soil of New Spain, with important mining centers such as Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas and Hidalgo, constituted one of the greatest sources of wealth for the Crown, used in Europe to finance State expenditures, the costs of wars or to mint circulating currency.
Mining was the economic activity that received the most impetus in the colony, since anyone could set a mine in operation as long as he handed over a fifth of his profits to the Spanish Crown. It was also an incentive for the conquest, exploration and colonization of new territories. The main mines of New Spain were those of Zacatecas (1546), Pachuca (1552), Fresnillo and Guanajuato (1554), and finally San Luis Potosí (1592). These cities also received a large number of settlers owing to the hope of many inhabitants of New Spain of attaining a better standard of living.[66][67]
According to Eduardo Galeano, "the mines required large displacements of population and dismantled the communal agricultural units; not only did they extinguish countless lives through forced labor, but also, indirectly, they brought down the collective system of cultivation. The Indians were led to the mine shafts, subjected to the servitude of the encomenderos and forced to hand over for nothing the lands that they were obliged to leave or neglect."[68]
The patio process was discovered by Bartolomé de Medina in 1554, and its main consequence was an increase in mining activity, since the new system required less time and less labor and reduced the number of workers needed for the job. However, Medina's method entailed a greater economic cost (the system consisted of salt, iron pyrite, copper and mercury — then known as azogue —), but the cost was quickly offset and mining continued its growth.[69]
Mining in New Spain faced several problems, such as:
- A scarce labor force as the Indigenous population (the main workers in the mines) was reduced during the epidemics of the 16th century. This drawback was solved with the importation of Black slaves.
- The importation of mercury was prohibited and punished with capital punishment from 1589, by decree of Philip II. The reason given was that the English were the largest traders in that product and, Spain being their main enemy, its colonies could not trade with the British Crown. The prohibition encouraged smuggling with English pirates, such as Henry Morgan.
- The harshness of the work in the mines caused diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis in the miners, which often led to their death or to their leaving work. The incentives offered were usually very meager, and the workers often caused revolts against the employers.[70]
The golden age of the mines was reached in the 17th century, and its best representative was the Valenciana mine, located in Guanajuato and owned by Antonio de Obregón, Count of la Valenciana. In the period from 1788 to 1808, the mine produced 30 million pesos, an amount greater than the gross domestic product of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Silver was the main product of the mines of New Spain, and its importance was reflected in the proliferation of silversmithing, which little by little gained great prestige throughout the world. The Aztecs had also developed this activity on a smaller scale, which the inhabitants of New Spain expanded. The Antilles and the Philippines were the main markets for the silver produced in New Spain. In 1729, at the celebration of the wedding of Ferdinand of Bourbon and Savoy, Prince of Asturias, with Barbara of Braganza, in Badajoz, Extremadura, the gifts presented were of silver from New Spain.[71]
According to the laws in force at the time, private individuals could own land, but all the riches of the subsoil were the property of the Crown.[72] In most cases, any Spaniard or Indian[73] could exploit a mine as long as a part of the production, the so-called "quinto real" (royal fifth), went to the Royal Coffers. Direct participation of the Crown in the operations was not usual except in the case of mercury, a mineral essential for the extraction of silver. This and the fact that its production was concentrated in only two points of the empire (Almadén in Castile and Huancavelica in Peru) led the Crown to monopolize its exploitation directly or through contractors.[72] In this way, the State could control the price of this metal and, at the same time, ensure that the silver mines correctly paid the share that corresponded to the Royal Treasury (owing to the correspondence between the mercury used and the silver resulting from the process).[72] From the arrival of the first shipment in 1559, the mines of Almadén would be in charge of supplying the mercury that New Spain needed. The operations of New Spain only had to resort to mercury from Huancavelica when Almadén's production collapsed in the mid-17th century. However, the Peruvian product was more expensive and of lower quality, so that as soon as Almadén recovered at the end of the same century, New Spain once again imported all its mercury from there.[74]
Formation of the large estates
The first distributions of land were carried out by the conquistadors without the permission of the monarchs, but they were later confirmed by them. In addition to the possessions recognized by the King and the lands acquired by the Spaniards, there were the mercedes reales (royal grants), lands ceded by the King in exchange for a payment, which could be granted by means of a title to a private individual or to a specific town. The most extensive, famous and well known was the Marquisate of the Valley of Oaxaca, owned by Hernán Cortés and populated by more than 23,000 Indigenous people, where the basis of the economy of the southeast of New Spain was established.[75]
The Repartimiento was the basis of public administration during those years of consolidation of the Viceroyalty. The conquistadors appropriated the gold, the royal fifth went to the Crown, the tithe to the Church. The towns that were the original owners of the land were dispossessed of it by means of the so-called mercedes reales. The encomiendas arose at the beginning of the 17th century; it was a system in which the Indigenous people were entirely at the service of the conquistador, who had the obligation to give them a Christian education and to defend their territory from any attack. Another characteristic element of this system was the haciendas, which arose when the encomienda system began to decline. They were characterized by the hoarding of the territory around them, which usually happened in the north and center of the country.[76]
Half of the landed property and of the capital existing in New Spain belonged to the Church, which held numerous mortgages on other lands that did not belong to it.
The role of the encomenderos
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From the European point of view of that time, the legitimacy of the Spanish Conquest of the New World came from the obligation of the Spanish Crown to convert its newly acquired pagan subjects, that is, a continuation of the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. Only the most important lordships, such as Mexico itself, the Tlaxcaltecs and a few others, would remain subject to the government of the King. To administer the Indigenous population, the figure of the encomendero was introduced. The encomendero was to protect and evangelize the Indians; in exchange, he could keep their tribute and personal service.[77] During the first years the decisive factor in this relationship lay more with the caciques than with the encomenderos, since the latter, despite their prerogatives, were in a position of extreme weakness. Their weapons and their capacity to respond were few, considering that they no longer formed an army but were dispersed. Only after some years, and with the backing of a stronger Spanish presence in New Spain, were the encomenderos able to impose their wishes even against the will of the local leaders.
Indian women were taken for every use, that is, as servants and concubines at the same time.[52]
Commerce
The economy of America was structured according to the needs of the European market, at the service of the Spanish Crown. The American territories sent to Europe gold, silver, copper, mercury, diamonds and foodstuffs such as sugar and cacao, and received salt, wine, oil, weapons, cloth, textiles and luxury articles, as well as slaves.
The port of Veracruz was its main port on the Atlantic Ocean, and that of Acapulco the main one on the Pacific Ocean. Both ports were fundamental for overseas commerce, especially with Asia, as was the case of the Manila galleon (also known as the Nao de China), which was a ship that made two voyages a year between Manila and Acapulco, whose goods were then transported overland from Acapulco to Veracruz and subsequently reshipped from Veracruz to Cádiz, Spain. Thus, the ships that sailed from Veracruz were generally loaded with goods from the East coming from the commercial centers of the Philippines, plus the precious metals and natural resources of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. However, these resources did not translate into development for the metropole, owing to Spain's frequent involvement in wars in Europe, as well as to the constant losses to overseas shipping caused by the attacks of the companies of buccaneers (English), corsairs (Dutch) and pirates (mixed). These companies were initially financed first by the Amsterdam stock exchange — the first in history, whose origin was due precisely to the need for sources of financing for pirate enterprises — and later by the London stock exchange. This is what some authors call the "historical process of transfer of wealth from the south to the north".[78]
Agriculture
Around 1565 the Crown established the rules for the cultivation of European plants in America. Wheat was the main crop of the Spaniards in the Viceroyalty and had its greatest boom in the area of Atlixco, Puebla. The Indigenous people had less opportunity to enter into agricultural contracts, but on their lands they could sow and harvest maize, beans, cacao, maguey, agave and chili. Sugarcane was the crop most protected by the Crown, and unlike others, its production was not limited to one social group, which benefited landowners, cane growers, ingenieros (owners of sugar mills), sugar producers, millers and trapiches.[79]
The grapevine and the olive were two of the agricultural products most developed by the peninsular Spaniards of the Viceroyalty, but their trade ended in 1596 in order to protect the interests of the Crown. It was then that the trade in the silkworm began, with mulberry trees planted throughout the country, but especially in the Bajío. It was from this plant that Miguel Hidalgo would obtain resources in his time as parish priest of Dolores. However, the merchants usually faced competition from the sellers of the Philippines, since their oriental silk was usually more highly prized than that produced in New Spain.[80] The agriculture of the Indigenous world was based on maize, which was added as the main food to the daily diet of the inhabitants of New Spain, together with beans and chili. Maguey was used for the production of pulque, paper and other products. It consisted of a plant of dry fibers from which the pulp was extracted; needles and nails were made from its thorns. Agave was produced in the region of Jalisco, where it was exploited together with indigo from 1750 by French industrialists such as André de Saint-Julien. In the town of Tequila the beverage of the same name was made from agave.[81]
Sociodemographic and economic effects of mining
Mining, as the main economic activity, generated a new context in the society of the Viceroyalty. Gold and silver became consolidated as export products, served as a link between Spain and its colony, and also joined the world economy with that of the incipient Viceroyalty. The boom of gold as the main mined material led Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa, Viceroy of New Spain, to issue in 1772 an edict establishing the gold coin as the official currency of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, a measure that had the consent of the King of Spain and of the Count of Aranda, prime minister.[82]
Commerce, agriculture and livestock farming were consolidated and strengthened by the measure taken by Bucareli, as were other areas such as manufactures and handicrafts. In addition, gold prevented the devaluation of the currency for a long time by providing a stable medium of exchange. Another activity that benefited from mining was the exploration of the north of the country, abandoned since the Chichimec fall; but the discovery of mines led missionaries, farmers and ranchers to settle on the vast prairies of the north, turning those inhospitable, barren and desolate areas into zones of production, such as Monterrey, capital of the New Kingdom of León. Thus, mining consolidated its position as the most profitable economic activity in the Viceroyalty, but it declined in the mid-19th century, with the rise of industry, the collapse of the mines because of the wars, and the devaluation of the gold coin in 1882.[83]
Monopolies
The Spanish Crown restricted the commerce of its colony to protect its interests, which was an incentive for smuggling. Veracruz was the port through which commerce with Spain was conducted, and the goods were unloaded in Cádiz, where commissioners of the Casa de Contratación of Seville inspected the goods. On the other hand, Acapulco was the channel of communication with the Philippines, and where its products were received. The merchants of Spain and of the Viceroyalty signed agreements to establish monopolies and thus benefit themselves. In addition, there was no commercial relationship among the colonies themselves, since everything went to the metropole.[84]
The implementation of the alcabalas and the almojarifazgo contributed to hindering the commercial development of the Viceroyalty, since products were taxed excessively. The separatist rebellions of Catalonia and Portugal led the prime minister Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares to restrict commerce even further, provoking an economic crisis and food shortages, which brought about his fall from office. The monopolies were somewhat eliminated with the reforms of Charles III, but many prohibitions remained in force until the time of independence. However, smuggling helped to ease somewhat the scarce commercial supply that existed at that time.[85]
The role of the Church
Legal basis
By means of the first brief Inter caetera, signed by Pope Alexander VI, the Catholic Monarchs were granted, in payment for their services and their fidelity to the Catholic Church, the authorization and powers necessary to evangelize the inhabitants of the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus barely a year earlier, this bull serving as the legal support that allowed the peninsulars the evangelization of and dominion over the newly discovered lands. This papal document was signed on May 3, 1493.
Evangelization
Evangelization in New Spain was a process that entailed — through the teaching, whether voluntary or compulsory, of the Catholic religion — the transmission of Western culture in the territories of New Spain, involving, in addition to religion, the Spanish language and European usages and customs. The Catholic religion was a key element in the expansion of the Spanish kingdoms (Castile-Aragon, and Portugal) from the Middle Ages, and a fundamental point in their later development, as the Catholic Church was a political ally of the Spaniards and the conquistadors, who justified their expansive actions by divine right and the teaching of the Catholic faith to the infidels.[15]
In the case of New Spain, the teaching of religion was a primary necessity, since there were enormous population centers in Mesoamerica with an advanced degree of religious development, as well as theocratic states and practices opposed to Western religious principles, such as human sacrifice and polygamy.
Millions of Indigenous people were indoctrinated in Christianity by the Spanish kingdoms for two fundamental purposes: eternal salvation and the profession of the Catholic faith, and immediate integration into Western customs.[86]
Religious orders
By order of the Archbishop Primate of Spain, Alonso de Fonseca y Ulloa, and at the request of the ruler of New Spain Hernán Cortés, two hundred Franciscans arrived in New Spain in 1523, led by Pedro de Gante (a relative of Charles I), Juan de Tecto and Juan de Aora, members of Castilian high society. Aora and Tecto were taken by Cortés to evangelize the Hibueras, but they died on the journey. Gante, meanwhile, continued his work in New Spain, founded hospitals and schools, established a convent and taught arts and trades to the natives. He died in 1572, after almost fifty years of work. In 1524 a new generation of Franciscan missionaries arrived, who played a preponderant role as defenders of the Indigenous people and their lands; they settled mainly in Michoacán and Puebla. Some prominent Franciscans in New Spain were:
- Juan de Zumárraga: First Bishop of Mexico, later raised to archbishop by Clement VII. He fought against the ancient Indigenous beliefs, thereby destroying many Indigenous temples and codices. He played an important role in the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe in 1531, which in turn contributed to the evangelization of many Indigenous people.
- Vasco de Quiroga: A Castilian aristocrat, he settled in Pátzcuaro and later in Valladolid, where he founded the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo. He founded workshops for artisans and peasants, for which he was called "Tata Vasco" by the Purépecha Indigenous people.[87]
The Dominicans were the other important order established in the Viceroyalty, shortly after the Franciscans. They arrived around 1526 and established their missions in Oaxaca and Chiapas. Bartolomé de las Casas presided over this religious organization during his stay in New Spain, and in 1542 he wrote to the King informing him about the social situation in New Spain, letters which he later compiled in his work "Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias". Francisco de Vitoria, of the same order, spread ideas contrary to those of De las Casas, and the Council of the Indies summoned both of them to debate their ideas before that body. It was between 1550 and 1551 that Vitoria, De las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda argued their positions in the so-called "Aula Triste" of the Palace of Santa Cruz. This event is known as the Junta of Valladolid. The ideas of De las Casas had greater impact on the oidores, which was reflected in the Laws of the Indies of 1552.[88]
The Augustinians were the third order in importance, arriving in 1534 and spreading through the Mixteca and the State of Guerrero, but later they achieved their expansion through the Huasteca of San Luis Potosí and Veracruz, and a few years later into Michoacán. Among others, Francisco de la Cruz, Agustín de la Coruña and Jerónimo Jiménez stood out. On the basis of donations, the order acquired large properties that eventually became haciendas and latifundia.
These three orders were the most influential and the ones that built great buildings for their religion, which over the centuries can still be seen standing.[89][90]
The minor orders devoted themselves to running hospitals and schools, such as the Juaninos, the Hipólitos, the Carmelites and the Mercedarians, in addition to some female orders such as the Poor Clares. The greatest achievement of the tertiary orders was the Hospital de Jesús, for centuries the largest hospital in the capital, in which the remains of Cortés rest.[91]
Relations of the Church with the State and the Indigenous peoples
The Indigenous peoples were at first hostile to the new doctrine, and many of them refused to accept the Catholic religion as the sole official one. The friars took charge of the work of evangelization and education, and in this task they destroyed vestiges of their ancient culture. At the same time, they integrated values of pre-Hispanic Mexico. The Inquisition was established in 1571 on the model of the Spanish one; it watched over and repressed manifestations contrary to religion, often leading those it sentenced to capital punishment. At first, the religious clashed with Philip II, since the priests wished to abolish the slavery and servitude prevailing among the Indigenous people, but the King refused and was on the point of expelling them from his dominions. Pope Sixtus V intervened and reconciled both parties.[92]
The Inquisition
The Spanish Inquisition was established in the Crown of Castile and in the Crown of Aragon by order of Isabella I and Ferdinand II, in 1479. Pedro de Arbués was the first Inquisitor General, murdered in 1485. After the fall of Granada, the Moors and Jews who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled in 1492, some of them tried by the Inquisition, executed and their property confiscated.
Upon taking possession of the New World, Paul III, pontiff of Rome, suggested to Charles I that he establish the Holy Office of the Inquisition in America, but the wars in which the Emperor was embroiled prevented him from carrying out this aim.
Charles I abdicated in favor of his son Philip II, who during the first years followed his father's policy, but was able to institute the Holy Office in New Spain around 1571. From 1569 the first tribunals were established in Lima and Cartagena de Indias.
Fernando Valdés, Inquisitor General with his seat in Toledo, issued the first dispensations for the Inquisition of New Spain. From the first years of the conquest, provisions had already been issued for the persecution of heretics, the punishment of blasphemies (instituted by Cortés in 1520, a year before the fall of Tenochtitlan) and the trial of idolaters, whose first case was brought by Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán against a town of Tarascans, in 1530.
Pedro Moya y Contreras was the first Inquisitor General of the Viceroyalty until his death in 1591. Paul IV organized the index of prohibited books, which remained in force in New Spain until 1820, the year of the suppression of the Holy Office.
Torture was used as a method of obtaining confessions and of punishing, and those condemned were often publicly exhibited wearing a sanbenito, shortly before being burned at the stake in autos-da-fé.
The revolution of Rafael del Riego, which gave rise to the Liberal Triennium, definitively suppressed the Inquisition in March 1820, its last activities being the persecution of liberals opposed to Ferdinand VII.
In America the Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition was fostered, with the accounts of those sentenced as a source of reference.[93]
The Virgin of Guadalupe and her image for evangelization
Evangelization in New Spain was not an easy task, especially in the first years of the Conquest, when pre-Hispanic religious customs were still deeply rooted.
It was in this atmosphere of tension and religious strain, caused by the destruction by the conquistadors of the elements of the ancient religion, that, according to Catholic belief, in 1531 the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared, who over time became a symbol of the nation, strengthened Mexican identity and was the most important symbol used in the evangelization of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.[94][95]
According to the tradition recorded years later in the Nican Mopohua,[96] on December 9, 1531, an Indigenous man was walking on the slopes of the Valley of Mexico. His name was Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church), and he was looking for medicines to relieve the illnesses suffered by his uncle Bernardino.
The apparition of the Virgin to Juan Diego took place with the aim of obtaining a shrine for her veneration on the hill of Tepeyac, the place where the manifestations occurred. To Juan Diego's astonishment, the Virgin made a series of requests unknown today, but the Indigenous man felt fear and paid no attention to the apparition. A few days later, on December 11, Juan Diego went up to the capital again, but did so by another way to avoid contact with the apparition. Again the Virgin came out to meet him on his path and repeated her requests to him, but Juan Diego refused once more.
On December 12 the Virgin revealed her name to him: Guadalupe, and told him that she would grant health to his uncle Bernardino, but asked him to take some Castilian roses to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga as a sign of the divine apparition. Juan Bernardino, the messenger's uncle, was healed a few hours after the meeting between his nephew and the Virgin.
Juan Diego, meanwhile, presented himself before the Bishop of Mexico and some people of high society, showing them the Castilian roses in his cloak, on which the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe had moreover been imprinted. Zumárraga attributed the event to divine intervention, took Juan Diego's ayate and ordered it to be publicly displayed.
Years later, this story was related in the Nican Mopohua, written in Nahuatl by Luis Lasso de la Vega.
Juan Diego died in 1548, was beatified in 1990 and canonized in 2002, both processes by John Paul II.
Alonso de Montúfar, Zumárraga's successor in the archbishopric of Mexico, ordered the construction of the original basilica of Guadalupe, inaugurated in 1708, and with the status of a sanctuary from 1738, granted by Benedict XIV, who also designated the Virgin of Guadalupe Patroness of Mexico and Empress of America.
The ravages of the civil wars of Mexico damaged the structure of the basilica, so that in 1968 the architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez took on the project of the new Basilica, inaugurated on October 12, 1976.[97]
The importance of the image lies in the fact that for centuries it has played a preponderant role in the history of Mexico as an unofficial national symbol, since its feast day (December 12) was not abolished from the calendar by the Reform Laws; it inspired the insurgents as the standard of their struggle, and it is considered by most of the Mexican people and by the Catholic Church as the patroness of Mexico and of all America.[98]
Conflicts of the Church with the Spanish Crown
After the accession of the first Bourbon to the Spanish Crown, Philip V, in 1700, the new monarch surrounded himself with Francophile advisers hostile to the peninsular clergy, which immediately generated conflicts that extended throughout the entire 18th century.
The overpopulation of clerics and nuns led the King, advised by his wife Isabel de Farnesio, to issue prohibitions in 1717 on founding new convents in America, and in 1734 they were barred from receiving new members for a period of ten years.
Ferdinand VI, son and successor of the former, had a conciliatory policy toward the Church and even signed a concordat with Benedict XIV in 1753, but the following year he prevented the clergy from intervening in the drafting of wills.
When Ferdinand VI died without issue, the throne passed into the hands of his liberal brother Charles III, formerly King of Naples. In his new dominions he applied the same anticlerical policies as in Naples. The Count of Aranda, his prime minister, informed him of the danger that the Jesuits represented for the Crown, because of their liberal teachings and their alliance with Clement XIII, so the King decided to expel them in 1767, thus causing the collapse of the educational system of New Spain, since the Jesuits were the foremost educators of the youth of New Spain. The army led the Jesuits into exile and also repressed popular demonstrations of repudiation of Charles III's measure, such as those that arose in San Luis Potosí, Uruapan, Pátzcuaro and Guanajuato. The King's order was executed by Viceroy Carlos Francisco de Croix and by the visitador José de Gálvez, who years later became viceroy and applied the "Real cédula sobre enajenación de bienes y cobro de capitales de capellanías y obras pías para la consolidación de vales reales" (Royal decree on the alienation of property and collection of capital from chaplaincies and pious works for the consolidation of royal bonds), which at a single stroke destroyed the economic structure of the Church in the Crown, which had functioned for more than two centuries. The funds collected went to strengthen the Spanish navy and army, since French revolutionary ideas were beginning to cross borders.[99]
Economic power of the Church in New Spain
The Church in Spain, as was the case in the rest of Christendom, was divided into two great clergies: the secular clergy — made up of priests who do not belong to any religious order and who are subject to the authority of the bishops — and the regular clergy, formed by the religious orders of men and women, subject to the rules that their order imposes on them.
This structure was brought to New Spain, where it underwent some changes, but its essence was maintained throughout the entire Hispanic era.
The tithe was undoubtedly the basis of the clerical economy of New Spain, instituted by Alexander VI in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494). It was a kind of income tax, equivalent to one tenth of the earnings obtained by each subject in a year with respect to his real estate, livestock and agricultural holdings, as well as commercial ones. For the most part, the tithe was used to cover the needs of the priests and to pay tribute to the Crown; the rest was sent to the Pope, who distributed it in Christendom according to his discretion.
Thus, many orders consolidated their power by acquiring haciendas, thereby accumulating many latifundia considered to be "in mortmain," which were not disentailed until 1856 under Benito Juárez.
The Viceroyalty granted "merced de estancias" (grants of ranch land) to certain particularly poor colleges, although this ran counter to the Church holding real estate, a rule dictated by Pius VI.
Other orders, such as the Augustinians, owned tracts of land for raising sheep.
Chaplaincies (capellanías) were one of the largest sources of income for the Church; they consisted of a levy imposed on rural properties, houses, shops or workshops, similar to a mortgage. The censos consisted of an annual rent or a mortgage on a property.[100]
Culture and science
Context
This Viceroyalty was the foundation of the cultural and racial mosaic of the American period. Over the 300 years of the Viceroyalty, the Nahuatl, Maya, Toltec, Mixtec, Zapotec and Spanish cultures merged within it. There was also a great deal of racial mixing: mestizos, mulattoes, castizos, etc. Figures such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón stand out as its most notable contributors to Spanish literature, as does Manuel Tolsá in architecture. In financial institutions, Pedro Romero de Terreros stood out as the founder of the Sacro y Real Monte de Piedad de Ánimas, the forerunner of the Nacional Monte de Piedad (also called Monte Pío), the origin of microcredit worldwide. Also notable are the chemical discoveries of Andrés Manuel del Río, discoverer of erythronium, later renamed vanadium, in the periodic table of the chemical elements.[101]
The following styles existed in architecture:
Education
During the Viceroyalty, schools were in the hands of the Church, and these educational centers were usually located next to Catholic churches.
At first, education was limited to Spaniards and criollos, but in 1523 Pedro de Gante established the first trade school for indigenous people, called the "Escuela de Artes y Oficios de San José de los Naturales".
Shortly afterward came the founding of the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, devoted to indigenous education, but at a level comparable to the trade schools. The criollos, for their part, were educated by Jesuits and Augustinians. In 1576 these two orders founded the Colegio de San Pedro y San Pablo, supported by wealthy merchants whose sons attended to receive an education.
The Colegio de San Ildefonso was the work of the Jesuits and became the largest humanistic center of the 18th century.
The Dominicans were important in the teaching of Catholic doctrine and theology, founding the first seminaries in Mexico City and Puebla. In 1575 Luis de León Romero founded the Colegio de San Luis, which granted recognition throughout the order to the Dominican priests who graduated from the institution. The Colegio de las Vizcaínas was the first lay institution devoted to the education of women. Thus, many of the country's schools became seedbeds of the new Mexican identity and forerunners of the independence of New Spain.[103]
The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico
On September 21, 1551, at the request of New Spanish society, King Charles I issued in Toro (Zamora), Castile and León, the decree creating the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico. The founding and educational work of the religious colleges of New Spain was an important factor in the establishment of the University, which initially took as its model the University of Salamanca, at that time the most important in Spain and one of the most prestigious in Europe. The University was inaugurated on January 25, 1553.[104][105]
The claustro soon became the highest body of the university, made up of the rector, the schoolmaster and the professors. The main courses were Greek, Hebrew, philosophy, theology and grammar, which were taught in Latin. The Laws of the Indies were the basis of many of the institution's constitutions, which nonetheless changed over time to adapt to the needs of the country. The rector was usually a Spanish man of letters appointed by the King of Spain or, failing that, by the Council of the Indies; he was a figure of great authority and renown, who moreover lent great solemnity to the ceremonies held. The degrees granted by the University were, from lowest to highest: bachiller, maestro, licenciado and doctor, but the last was granted only to those who passed their final examination with honors. Some of the most distinguished degrees at the institution were master in philosophy and in theology, licentiate in law and doctor of medicine.[106]
Fine arts
Painting
Painting developed greatly in Europe during the time of the conquest, and for several of the Spanish conquistadors it was a priority to represent their triumphs through the fine arts. For a time it was believed that around 1538 the first Spanish painter arrived in New Spain, named Rodrigo de Cifuentes, a fictitious figure. It is mistakenly said that Cifuentes's work consisted of decorating several convents in Tlaxcala and depicting in his art the conversion of the principal Tlaxcalan lords to Christianity, in a painting now lost entitled El bautizo de los caciques de Tlaxcala (The Baptism of the Caciques of Tlaxcala), in what was considered the oldest convent in America (the former Convent of San Francisco in Tlaxcala). Notable painters of that time were Francisco de Morales, Francisco de Zumaya, Andrés de la Concha and Juan de Arrúe. But the most notable of the New Spanish 16th century was, without doubt, the Flemish Simón Pereyns, who settled in New Spain from 1566 and, together with the aforementioned painters, formed a cultural group that dominated New Spanish painting until 1620. Religious painting was the most common in the 17th century, and much of it is found in the National Museum of the Viceroyalty in Tepotzotlán. The most notable painters were José de Ibarra, the Basque Baltasar de Echave and Cristóbal de Villalpando. Toward the middle of that century Miguel Cabrera emerged, a well-known portraitist who captured in his paintings various scenes of daily life in New Spain and also portrayed Sigüenza and Sor Juana. Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez, another painter of the period, used to portray viceroys, archbishops, bishops, corregidores and potentates. With the rise of the independence movements, painting acquired a nationalist touch that lasted well into the 20th century.[107]
Sculpture
As happened with painting, sculpture from the beginning of colonization served the evangelizing needs of the Church, whether in decorating the façades of religious buildings or in producing altarpieces and images for worship. In addition to sculptures brought from the Peninsula, European artists arrived, mainly Spaniards, who created workshops and introduced the system of craft guilds, which indigenous people and mestizos would gradually join over time. These introduced native pre-Columbian influences that would give rise to regional schools with their own personality. In the 17th century a sculptural school emerged in Guatemala which by the 18th century was one of the most outstanding on the continent, together with the Quito school, the latter in the Viceroyalty of Peru.[108] In Mexico, alongside free-standing sculpture, the construction of altarpieces reached a great development; these are considered among the most representative works of Ibero-American art.
Notable sculptors include Salvador de Ocampo in Mexico City, the Coras, José Antonio Villegas Cora and Zacarías Cora, in Puebla, and Quirio Cataño and Mateo de Zúñiga in Guatemala.
Shortly before the outbreak of the war of independence, the Valencian Manuel Tolsá began teaching sculpture and set up a workshop for that art at the Academy of San Carlos. It is said that, thanks to the collaboration of his pupils, he was able to conceive and carry out the well-known equestrian statue of Charles IV, commissioned by Viceroy Branciforte.[109]
Music
Another of the arts that received the support of the Church was music. Those who practiced it often had to compose several scores for performance at Masses. Antonio Sarrier, who studied music in Italy, introduced the musical avant-garde in New Spain by composing a sonata with a fugue. Juan Matías and Antonio de Salazar, both from Oaxaca, composed a Treatise on Harmony that for a long time served for the teaching of music in New Spain.[110] In 1711 the opera La Parténope premiered in Mexico City, with music by Manuel de Sumaya, chapel master of the cathedral and the greatest Mexican Baroque composer. The special importance of this opera is that it is the first composed in North America and the first opera composed on the American continent by an American composer. This opera marks the beginning of the fruitful and still little-studied history of Latin American operatic creation, uninterrupted since then for three hundred years. During the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, music emerged in New Spain with the same splendor and color as the contemporary Baroque music of Europe. The musical compositions were dedicated to the religious worship of the time, and also, in some cases, to representing the deepest human feelings.
There is a large number of musical and documentary works describing musical activity around the Catholic Church during the viceregal period of Mexico. Among the cities with the greatest musical development were Mexico City, the city of Puebla, Oaxaca, Tepotzotlán and Valladolid (today called Morelia).
- Pedro de Gante (1480–1572). Founder of the first music school in New Spain.
- Juan Xuárez (1539). First chapel master of the Cathedral of Mexico.
- Hernando Franco (1532–85). Chapel master of the Cathedral of Mexico.
- Juan de Lienas. New Spanish composer of the late 16th century.
- Pedro Bermúdez. Chapel master of the Cathedral of Puebla during the first decade of the 17th century.
- Bernardo de Peralta y Escudero. Composer of polyphonic works for the Cathedral of Puebla.
- Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla. (Chapel master between 1629 and 1664). The most important Mexican composer of the 17th century.
- Francisco López Capillas. Puebla. Second half of the 17th century.
- Miguel Matheo de Dallo y Lana. Puebla.
- Juan Navarro Gaditanus. (c. 1550 – c. 1610) Franciscan friar. Cathedral of Morelia, Convent of Santa Rosa de María. Valladolid.
- Antonio de Salazar. Chapel master of the Cathedral of Mexico between 1688 and 1715.
- Ignacio de Jerusalem y Stella. Italian composer. Chapel master of the Cathedral of Mexico from 1749 to 1769.
- Matheo Tollis de la Roca. Successor of Ignacio de Jerusalem.
- Manuel de Sumaya (Zumaya). Composer of the second known opera of the New World.
- José Aldana. (1758–1810). The most important composer of the second half of the 18th century in New Spain.
- Manuel Arenzana. (c. 1762–1821). Chapel master of Puebla in the early 19th century. A musical style in line with the new European trends of the time.
Architecture
Most Spanish cities of the New World were built on plans based on the design of a chessboard, where the focal point was the center of the city. There stood the churches, the cathedral (if the city was an episcopal see), the houses of the founders, the town hall and the palace of the Regidor. The neighborhoods and markets usually lay outside the city; the streets followed cardinal lines and were framed toward the center. The city model was taken from Toledo, then the capital of Spain, and was applied for the first time in Mexico City around 1524.[111]
Monastic architecture followed styles predominant in Europe, such as Renaissance, Gothic, Mudéjar and Plateresque. An example of Gothic is the Cathedral of Guadalajara, while examples of Plateresque are the Casa Montejo (Mérida) and the churches of Cuernavaca, Cholula, Izamal and Acolman. All these buildings were inspired by models from Andalusia and Castile, which also flourished in Quito (Ecuador) and Cuzco (Peru). By the end of the 16th century a new architectural current reached the Viceroyalty: Mudéjar, which arose from the fusion of Moorish customs with Christian traditions and had its greatest flowering in the territories of the Crown of Aragon. Characterized by the use of bricks, azulejos, fountains and double crossed arches, one of its characteristic constructions in New Spain was the Fuente de la Reina, located in Chiapa de Corzo.[112]
The successor of the Renaissance as the main European art was the Baroque, born of the Counter-Reformation as an ecclesiastical need to spread Catholic doctrine in a more sensory and less rationalist way. It predominated until the early 18th century, with a marked preference for monumental forms, theatrical effects and movement of decorative forms in architectural plans, and it was also usually decorated with figures of plants and animals. Most Catholic churches were built in this style, such as the Church of Santa Mónica in Guadalajara, the Church of Tepoztlán and the Church of Santa Prisca in Taxco.[113]
Neoclassicism violently displaced the Baroque after the arrival of the Bourbons in Spain (1713), thus disdaining columns—replaced by pilasters—and white became the predominant color, representing modernity. Manuel Tolsá, a Valencian architect, was the greatest exponent of the New Spanish Rococo; his best-known works were the Palacio de Minería and the equestrian statue of Charles IV, known as El Caballito.[114]
José Benito Churriguera, an architect from Madrid, was the Patriarch of a well-known family of artists. He imposed his own interpretation of the Baroque, known as Churrigueresque. This new current was characterized by abundant and fanciful decoration and the use of pilasters and estípites. In New Spain it was exemplified in the churches of the Bajío, especially Guanajuato.[115]
Literature
Several periods can be distinguished in the viceregal literature of Mexico. In the first, literature is tied to the historical moment of the conquest, and letters and chronicles abound.
- Itinerario de la armada del rey católico a la isla de Yucatán [...], probably by Juan Díaz (1480–1549).
- Relación de algunas cosas de las que acaescieron a Hernando Cortés [...], by Andrés de Tapia (1498?–1561).
- Cartas de relación by Hernán Cortés (1485–1547).
- Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492–1584).
- Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590).
- Historia de las Indias, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias, Apologética historia [...], etc. by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566).
- Historia general de las Indias, La Conquista de México, by Francisco López de Gómara (1511–1566).
- Antigüedades de la Nueva España, by Francisco Hernández (1517–1578).
- Relación de las cosas de Yucatán, by Fray Diego de Landa (1524–1579).
- Crónica mexicana and Crónica mexicáyotl, by Hernando de Alvarado Tezozómoc (c. 1525–c. 1610).
- Historia de Tlaxcala by Diego Muñoz Camargo (c. 1530–c. 1600).
- Historia Chichimeca by Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl (1568?–1648).
- Historia general de las Indias occidentales y particular de la gobernación de Chiapa y Guatemala by Fray Antonio de Remesal.
In the following period Baroque art flourished. Many of the well-known authors of the century ventured with greater or lesser success into the field of literary games, with works such as anagrams, emblems and labyrinths. There were notable authors in poetry, lyric, narrative and drama.
- Bernardo de Balbuena (1562–1627). Born in Spain, a graduate of the University of Mexico, author of Grandeza mexicana.
- Francisco Cervantes de Salazar (1514?–1575). Born in Spain, he was professor of rhetoric and later rector of the University of Mexico, author of a Crónica de la Nueva España and of poems and Latin dialogues (following Vives) on Mexican themes intended for the teaching of Latin.
- Gutierre de Cetina (1520–c. 1567). Born in Spain, he lived and died in Mexico. His poetic output predates his stay in Mexico, but there has been speculation about the existence of a New Spanish theatrical work that was later lost.
- Fernando de Córdoba y Bocanegra (1565–1689). Born in Mexico, he died in Puebla. Two mystical stanzas survive, Canción al amor divino and Canción al santísimo nombre de Jesús.
- Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza (1581–1639).
- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695).
- Miguel de Guevara (c. 1586–after 1646). Augustinian friar in Michoacán, with a gift for indigenous languages. A manuscript of his from 1638 includes, among other poems, the sonnet No me mueve mi Dios para quererte..., which is why he is among the group of poets to whom its authorship has been attributed, although the famous sonnet appears from 1628 in anthologies published in Spain.
- Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá (1555–1620). Born in Puebla, he took part in the conquest of New Mexico. Author of the poem Historia de la nueva México (1610) and of several printed memorials.
- Antonio de Saavedra Guzmán (?–?; published in 1599). Author of the poem El peregrino indiano, a eulogy of Cortés.
- Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700).
- Francisco de Terrazas (?–?; he is known to have been alive between 1525 and 1600). A Mexican, close to Cortés, praised by Cervantes as a poet (in La Galatea). Fragments of his poem Conquista y Mundo Nuevo survive.
- 18th century
In the 18th century Enlightenment and classicist writers emerged:
- Diego José Abad (1727–1779).
- Francisco Javier Alegre (1729–1788).
- Francisco Javier Clavijero (1731–1787).
- Rafael Landívar (1731–1793).
- José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (1776–1827), El pensador mexicano.
- Fray Servando Teresa de Mier (1765–1827).
- Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora
Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora was born in the capital of the Viceroyalty around 1645, into an aristocratic family originally from Navarre. He received a careful education from his parents, who were related to Luis de Góngora y Argote, the greatest exponent of Baroque culteranismo. His education focused on philosophy, mathematics, the sciences and historiography. At the age of 15 he entered a Jesuit seminary, from which he was expelled a few months later for going out at night, something forbidden by the statutes. Nevertheless, Góngora found in the seminary his first scientific and literary impulses. He graduated in theology and mathematics from the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, but never served as a priest. In 1679, to commemorate the 148th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Góngora wrote Primavera Indiana, a pamphlet in which he extolled devotion to the patroness of Mexico. In 1681 a comet appeared in the sky over Mexico City, and Góngora took it upon himself to describe the object and thus convince many superstitious citizens of the harmless nature of the event. In 1690 he published his most important work, Libra astronómica, and two years later he directed a settlement program in the Bay of Pensacola. His main works are Las Glorias de Querétaro (1668) and several books of poems. He died in 1700 and was a contemporary of Newton and Leibniz.[116][117]
- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was born in San Miguel Nepantla in 1651, but lost both her father and mother in 1654 and was raised by her grandfather. At three and a half years of age she began to read and shortly afterward to write; her first composition was a loa for the festival of Corpus Christi in 1658. The following year she expressed a desire to enter a school to study literature and the arts, but the rules of the time prevented a woman from preparing herself and studying.[118] In 1667 Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo Molina y Salazar examined her together with several scholars of the time and determined that the young woman was prepared to enter the university, but she decided to withdraw into a convent to write for the rest of her life. A presumed lesbian relationship between Sor Juana and the Vicereine, the Marchioness of Mancera, has been suggested, which supposedly can be established through her poems:
I, then, my adored Phyllis,
who revere your deity,
who idolize your disdain
and who venerate your severity:
[...]
Being a woman, or being absent,
is no impediment to loving you;
for you know that souls
know neither distance nor sex
For the rest of her life Sor Juana wrote several books of poems, such as Décimas y sonetos, but she also ventured into lyric, allegory, the sonnet, and sacred, festive and popular poetry. The author of several villancicos, she composed several plays during her life, such as Los empeños de una casa, Amor es más laberinto and El divino Narciso. Her best-known prose loa is Neptuno alegórico. The Bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, under the pseudonym Sor Filotea de la Cruz, wrote to her censuring her behavior as improper for the time. The series of letters Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz was an account of the life of the poet, who died ill with smallpox on April 17, 1695, at the age of 43. She contracted the disease while caring for the sick in the most destitute corners of the capital.[121]
See also
History
- History of Mexico
- Act of Independence of the Mexican Empire
- Mestizaje in America
- Foreign relations of New Spain
- Viceroys of New Spain
- Treaty of San Lorenzo (1795)
- Immigration to New Spain
Territories
- Alta California
- Captaincy General of Cuba
- Captaincy General of Guatemala
- Captaincy General of the Philippines
- Captaincy General of Yucatán
- Commandancy General of the Internal Provinces
- Spanish governorate of Taiwan
- Captaincy General of Santo Domingo
- The Floridas
- Louisiana (New Spain)
- Nootka Territory
- Oregon Territory
People
Other Viceroyalties
Museums
- Juan Gamboa Guzmán Art Gallery of Mérida, a museum of the period
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 In May 1808 the so-called «Abdications of Bayonne» took place, a process by which Charles IV and Ferdinand VII ceded their rights to the Throne in favor of Napoleon Bonaparte, who in turn ceded them to his brother Joseph. Neither the Council of Castile nor the authorities of the overseas possessions recognized Joseph as their sovereign, declaring Ferdinand the only legitimate king. The war against the French troops in the Peninsula and the lack of a clear authority caused a vacuum that would lead the American possessions toward their independence.
- ↑ El Portal de la Rosa de los Vientos - Españoles en Taiwan (llamada Isla Formosa -Isla Hermosa-).
- ↑ Gerhard, Peter (2000). Geografía histórica de la Nueva España, 1519-1821 (in español). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. pp. 10–17.
- ↑ Chevalier, François (1951). "El marquesado del Valle. Reflejos medievales" (PDF). Historia Mexicana Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 48-61 (in español). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 14, 2014. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
- ↑ Francisco de Icaza Dufour. "Los escribanos en los señoríos de Nueva España" (PDF) (in español). Retrieved June 8, 2015.
- ↑ Molina Solís, Juan Francisco (1896). Historia del Descubrimiento y Conquista de Yucatán (in español). Mérida, Yucatán.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ↑ "Exploradores y viajeros por España y el nuevo mundo" (in español). CervantesVirtual.com. Retrieved March 18, 2008.
- ↑ This massacre occurred a few days after the riot that deposed Moctezuma. Cortés had to leave the metropolis, since an emissary of Velázquez, Pánfilo de Narváez, was waiting for him on the Veracruz coast to fight him for his disobedience to the governor of Cuba. Alvarado took advantage of his superior's absence to order his troops to advance on an indigenous festival held at the Templo Mayor, killing on the spot more than five hundred people, counting women and children.
- ↑ "La conquista de la Nueva España" (in español). ArteHistoria.com. Archived from the original (HTML) on March 27, 2008. Retrieved March 17, 2008.
- ↑ Ángel María Garibay. "La muerte de Cuauhtémoc" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on August 21, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
- ↑ González Cárdenas, Verónica Alejandra (2012). "La efectividad del discurso cortesiano en la Segunda Carta de Relación al emperador Carlos V". In Francisco A. Rubio Durán (ed.). Retazos de la pluralidad: perspectivas de la realidad histórica latinoamericana (PDF) (in español). pp. 19–71. ISBN 9788496178892.
- ↑ LOCKHART, James (1999). Los nahuas después de la Conquista (in español). Fondo de Cultura Económica.
- ↑ HASSIG, Ross (1985). Comercio, tributo y transportes. La economía política del Valle de México en el siglo XVI (in español). Alianza Editorial Mexicana.
- ↑ Students of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (April 3, 2007). "El virreinato de Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved October 12, 2007.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 RICARD, Robert (1949). La Conquista Espiritual de México (in español). Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
- ↑ "Vida y obra del padre Eusebio Francisco Kino" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 17, 2008.
- ↑ University of La Rioja. "Evangelización en la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 17, 2008.
- ↑ Stefan Zweig, Magallanes: El hombre y su gesta, Editorial Debate, Madrid 2005, ISBN 84-8306-610-6.
- ↑ "Ruy López de Villalobos y el bautizo de Filipinas" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved August 5, 2008.
- ↑ "Expedición y conquista de Filipinas" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on January 5, 2009. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
- ↑ "Las conquistas tardías del siglo XVI" (in español). ArteHistoria.com. Archived from the original (HTML) on September 15, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
- ↑ Gorka Rosain Unda. "La conquista de las Filipinas" (HTML) (in español).
- ↑ "La España del Barroco" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 18, 2008.
- ↑ Pedro Huergo Caso (April 11, 2016). "Un día como hoy, en México, el mayor Auto de Fe del Nuevo Mundo". Enlace Judío México (in español). Retrieved August 19, 2016.
- ↑ "Los virreyes de Nueva España" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 15, 2008. Retrieved March 18, 2008.
- ↑ "Las reformas de Carlos III en Nueva España" (in español). ArteHistoria.com. Archived from the original (HTML) on April 3, 2008. Retrieved March 20, 2008.
- ↑ "Arte y arquitectura en Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 21, 2008.
- ↑ "Reinado de Carlos III" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 3, 2008. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
- ↑ "La Guerra de la Independencia Española; los inicios" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved January 21, 2008.
- ↑ "El grito de Dolores y sus antecedentes" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 18, 2008.
- ↑ There are disagreements about the reason or reasons that led Hidalgo to make this decision. One of them is the proximity of a military encounter with Calleja's forces. Other historians state that had Mexico been taken, the insurgents would have caused a far greater sacking than that of Guanajuato, which the plebs of the capital would have joined, and that the priest's decision sought to avoid this. Lucas Alamán explains that the Inquisition imprisoned the children and the widow of Manuel Hidalgo, the priest's brother, and that Venegas threatened to behead them if the insurgents advanced
- ↑ "Campaña de Hidalgo" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on March 3, 2008. Retrieved March 18, 2008.
- ↑ Local legend in Guanajuato says that at night it is possible to see Hidalgo's eyes at one of the corners. It is also told that the officer who carried the head of the Father of the Nation to the alhóndiga, to mock the priest, kicked the cage containing his head, laughing. And that after he hung up the cage, his horse went wild and he was left badly battered
- ↑ "La Guerra de Independencia de México" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 18, 2008.
- ↑ "Papel del Virrey de Nueva España" (PDF) (in español). Retrieved March 27, 2008.
- ↑ Monografías.com. (in español) http://www.monografias.com/trabajos4/conseind/conseind.shtml. Retrieved March 27, 2008.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ↑ "Historia de la Burocracia en México" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 28, 2008.
- ↑ "Gobierno de Cortés" (in español). Wikilearning. Archived from the original (HTML) on March 28, 2008. Retrieved March 19, 2008.
- ↑ (in español).
{{cite web}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help);|format=requires|url=(help); Missing or empty|title=(help); Missing or empty|url=(help) - ↑ "Audiencias gobernadoras en Nueva España (1527-1535)" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on June 14, 2006. Retrieved March 19, 2008.
- ↑ Pedro Pérez Herrero. "El comercio en la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 23, 2008.
- ↑ "Las instituciones del Antiguo Régimen en América" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 5, 2008. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
- ↑ His biography in Spanish can be consulted at http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mart%C3%ADn_Enr%C3%ADquez_de_Almansa while the biography in English, which is somewhat more extensive, can be consulted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mart%C3%ADn_Enr%C3%ADquez_de_Almanza
- ↑ "Virreyes de Nueva España" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 5, 2008. Retrieved March 25, 2008.
- ↑ "Recopilación de las Leyes de Indias (1680), Título Quince. De las Audiencias y Chancillerias Reales de las Indias" (PDF) (in español).
- ↑ Law III (Audiencia y Chancilleria Real de México en la Nueva España) of Title XV (De las Audiencias y Chancillerias Reales de las Indias)
- ↑ Documento de trabajo (cuarta redacción) para la IV Conferencia del Episcopado Latino Americano, «Secunda Relatio», p. 26. [1]
- ↑ "Pandemias y epidemias en la Nueva España, siglo XVI" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on March 22, 2008. Retrieved March 28, 2008.
- ↑ Juan Manuel Pérez Zevallos. "El mestizaje en la Nueva España y el movimiento de población" (in español). University of La Rioja.
{{cite web}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help);|format=requires|url=(help); Missing or empty|url=(help) - ↑ Reyna Pastor. "Mujeres en España y en Hispanoamérica". Historia de las mujeres, tomo III, Del Renacimiento a la Edad Moderna, pág. 555 (in español). Madrid, Santillana 2000. ISBN 84-306-0390-5.
- ↑ 52.0 52.1 Alberto M. Salas. "El mestizaje en la conquista de América". Historia de las mujeres, tomo III, Del Renacimiento a la Edad Moderna, pág. 563 (in español). Madrid, Santillana 2000. ISBN 84-306-0390-5.
- ↑ "http://www.banrepcultural.org/blaavirtual/geografia/viage4/viageq2b.htm" (in español).
{{cite web}}: External link in|title= - ↑ "La Sociedad Colonial, Españoles y Aborígenes: Choque Cultural" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved March 30, 2008.
- ↑ De la Torre, Francisco. Estructura socioeconómica de México. Ed. Progreso
- ↑ 56.0 56.1 Martínez Montiel, Luz M. (2005). Inmigración y diversidad cultural en México. UNAM
- ↑ 57.0 57.1 Iturriaga, José E. (2006). Ustedes y nosotros. UNAM
- ↑ Bobby Vaughn. "Afroméxico: El pulso de la población negra en México: una historia recordada, olvidada y vuelta a recordar" (HTML) (in español). Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE). Retrieved March 30, 2008.
- ↑ "La población indígena en la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). TulaHidalgo.com. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
- ↑ "Historia económica, política y social de México" (HTML) (in español). Monografías.com. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
- ↑ "Composición pluricultural de México y de la Nueva España" (in español). National Autonomous University of Mexico. Archived from the original (HTML) on March 5, 2008. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
- ↑ Bertrand, Michael. "Elites, parentesco y relaciones sociales en nueva España" (HTML) (in español). University of La Rioja. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
- ↑ This term was inherited from the era of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
- ↑ "Problemas de la colonización en Nueva España" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on July 20, 2008. Retrieved March 31, 2008.
- ↑ José María Ots y Capdequí (1957). El Estado Español en las Indias (in español). México, Fondo de Cultura Económica. OCLC 3254214. Archived from the original on October 13, 2012. Retrieved August 19, 2012.
- ↑ The dates given in this paragraph correspond to the date of discovery of the mine and of its start of operations.
- ↑ María del Refugio González. "Ordenanzas de la minería de la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 4, 2008.
- ↑ Galeano, Eduardo (1983). "Fiebre del oro, fiebre de la plata. Pág. 66". Las venas abiertas de América Latina (in español). Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI. ISBN 950-562-629-0.
- ↑ Frédérique Langue. "Mineros y poder en Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 4, 2008.
- ↑ "Mineros y poder en Nueva España. El caso de Zacatecas en vísperas ..." (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 4, 2008.
- ↑ "Cámara de Minería de México" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 4, 2008.
- ↑ 72.0 72.1 72.2 Arias, Patricia (1990). El Colegio de Michoacán A.C. (ed.). Industria y Estado en la vida de México (in español).
- ↑ Gutiérrez, Harim (2006). Historia de México (in español). Vol. 1. Pearson Educación.
- ↑ Canudas Sandoval, Enrique (2005). Las Venas de Plata en la Historia de México. Síntesis de Historia Económica. Siglo XIX (in español). Vol. 1. Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco & Editorial Utopía.
- ↑ "Mercedes reales en México" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 6, 2008. Retrieved April 4, 2008.
- ↑ "La formación del sistema colonial: repartos y encomiendas" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 4, 2008.
- ↑ "El sistema de encomienda como aparato de control" (HTML) (in español). Monografías.com. Retrieved April 6, 2008.
- ↑ "Política española y comercio colonial" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on June 30, 2006. Retrieved April 6, 2008.
- ↑ "El pasado de la agricultura en México" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on March 23, 2008. Retrieved April 4, 2008.
- ↑ Joaquín Maniau. "Compendio de la historia de la Real Hacienda de la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 5, 2008.
- ↑ María de Lourdes Godinez Calderón. "La agricultura en México, un atlas en blanco y negro" (in español). Instituto de Geografía de la UNAM. Archived from the original (HTML) on April 12, 2008. Retrieved April 5, 2008.
- ↑ "Inteligencia y Tecnología Minera en México" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 5, 2008.
- ↑ "Minería en México, canteras, minas, extraccion de minerales y metales" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 20, 2008. Retrieved April 5, 2008.
- ↑ María Luisa Laviana Cuetos. "El monopolio comercial en América" (in español). ArteHistoria.com. Archived from the original (HTML) on April 3, 2008. Retrieved April 5, 2008.
- ↑ "Historia de los monopolios en México" (PDF) (in español). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 7, 2007. Retrieved April 5, 2008.
- ↑ "Evangelización en América" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 6, 2008.
- ↑ José María Iraburu. "Los primeros franciscanos de México" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 8, 2008.
- ↑ Magdalena Vences Vidal. "Dominicos ejemplares en Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). University of La Rioja. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
- ↑ Magdalena Vences Vidal. "Agustinos ejemplares en Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). University of La Rioja. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
- ↑ Insúa Rodríguez, Pedro. "La influencia de las órdenes religiosas en la sociedad novohispana" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 8, 2008.
- ↑ Magdalena Vences Vidal. "Órdenes terciarias en Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). University of La Rioja. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
- ↑ "La contrarreforma española, el reinado de Felipe II" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 4, 2008. Retrieved April 12, 2008.
- ↑ "Inquisición en la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved May 1, 2008.
- ↑ José Luis Guerrero. "Una Evangelización Perfectamente Inculturada" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 16, 2008. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
- ↑ LEÓN PORTILLA, Miguel (2000). Fondo de Cultura Económica (ed.). Tonantzín Guadalupe, Pensamiento náhuatl y mensaje cristiano en el "Nican mopohua" (in español). Mexico City.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ↑ There are disagreements about the historicity of the apparition; for a full debate see «El encuentro con Guadalupe»
- ↑ "Patrona de México y Emperatriz de las Américas" (in español). Archived from the original on April 30, 2008. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
- ↑ "La Virgen de Guadalupe...un símbolo mexicano" (in español). El Siglo de Torreón. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
- ↑ BLANCO MARTÍNEZ, Rogelio. La Ilustración en Europa y en España (in español). Editorial Endymion. ISBN 84-7731-339-3.
- ↑ "Poder económico de la Iglesia en Nueva España" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 20, 2008. Retrieved April 15, 2008.
- ↑ Jaime González Rodríguez. "Carlos V y la cultura de Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Complutense University of Madrid. Retrieved April 6, 2008.
- ↑ "Arte y Arquitectura en la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 6, 2008.
- ↑ "La Educación en el Virreinato de la Nueva España" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 21, 2008. Retrieved April 17, 2008.
- ↑ "Inauguración de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on June 24, 2008. Retrieved April 24, 2008.
- ↑ "Creación de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on January 3, 2009. Retrieved April 24, 2008.
- ↑ Humberto Musacchio. "Real y Pontificia Universidad de México". Gran diccion enciclopédico de México visual (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 24, 2008. Retrieved April 25, 2008.
- ↑ "Arte y cultura en la colonia" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on October 13, 2008. Retrieved May 3, 2008.
- ↑ Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales. "La pintura y la escultura en Hispanoamérica, pp. 4" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved November 4, 2018.
- ↑ María del Consuelo Maquivar. "La escultura religiosa en la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved May 4, 2008.
- ↑ "Historia de la música de México" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 23, 2008. Retrieved May 4, 2008.
- ↑ "LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA ARQUITECTURA EN LA NUEVA ESPAÑA DURANTE EL período barroco" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 27, 2008.
- ↑ Guadalupe Moreno Avilés. "El arte mudéjar en Nueva España" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on January 14, 2009. Retrieved April 27, 2008.
- ↑ "El barroco en la arquitectura novohispana" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 29, 2008.
- ↑ "El neoclásico de la Nueva España" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 29, 2008.
- ↑ "el churrigueresco del siglo XVIII" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 29, 2008.
- ↑ "Biografía de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 26, 2008.
- ↑ "Vida y obra de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 26, 2008.
- ↑ The typical role of women in the society of the Viceroyalty was to be housewives with no training other than for embroidering and cooking, and it was frowned upon for a woman to try to educate herself and excel in areas traditionally reserved for men.
- ↑ Villena, Luis Antonio de (Ed.) (2002). Amores iguales. Antología de la poesía gay y lésbica (in español). Madrid: La Esfera. ISBN 84-9734-061-2.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) - ↑ "Cultura Lesbiana :: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on May 9, 2008. Retrieved April 27, 2008.
- ↑ Mexicodesconocido.com.mx. "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695)" (HTML) (in español). Retrieved April 27, 2008.
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INAH
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- Wright Carr, David Charles. "Estudios sobre las culturas de México" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on May 18, 2013. Retrieved March 17, 2008.
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- "Protagonistas de la Historia. Ficha Nueva España" (in español). ArteHistoria.com. Archived from the original (HTML) on March 27, 2008. Retrieved March 17, 2008.
- "Historia de México, la Nueva España" (in español). Archived from the original (HTML) on April 20, 2008. Retrieved March 17, 2008.
