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231-453: In contrast to the neighboring Spanish possessions , which had several viceroyalties with jurisdiction initially over New Spain (Mexico) and Peru , and in the eighteenth century expanded with the viceroyalties of the Río de la Plata (Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia) and New Granada (Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador and Guyana), the colony of Brazil was settled mainly in the coastal area by

462-468: A Papal dispensation . Consequently, Ferdinand's father forged a papal dispensation for the two to marry. Isabella believed that the dispensation was authentic and the marriage went ahead. A genuine papal dispensation arrived afterwards. Later Pope Alexander VI bestowed upon them the title of 'los Reyes Católicos' ('the Catholic Monarchs'). Henry IV , half brother of Isabella, considered

693-596: A Christian institution. Conquest and evangelization were inseparable in Spanish America. The first order to make the trip to the Americas were the Franciscans, led by Pedro de Gante. Franciscans believed that living a spiritual life of poverty and holiness was the best way to be an example that inspired others to convert. The friars would walk into the towns barefoot as a display of their surrender to God in

924-424: A Spanish viewpoint, the castas paintings would most-likely have provided a sort of sense to the madness that was mixed races. There were political implications of this portrait as well. The mestizo child appears to be literate with a satisfied grin facing his father alluding to the opportunity the child has due to his father being European. A central question from the time of first Contact with indigenous populations

1155-596: A century. During the early colonial era and under the Habsburgs, the crown established a regional layer of colonial jurisdiction in the institution of Corregimiento , which was between the Audiencia and town councils . Corregimiento expanded "royal authority from the urban centers into the countryside and over the indigenous population." As with many colonial institutions, corregimiento had its roots in Castile when

1386-496: A chain of presidios , military forts or garrisons, that provided Spanish settlers protection from Indian attacks. In Mexico during the sixteenth-century Chichimeca War , presidios guarded the transit of silver from the mines of Zacatecas to Mexico City. As many as 60 salaried soldiers were garrisoned in presidios. Presidios had resident commanders, who set up commercial enterprises of imported merchandise, selling it to soldiers as well as Indian allies. The other frontier institution

1617-498: A distilled spirit derived from sugarcane, and shells, for slaves. This comprised what is now known as the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas during the colonial period. Merchants during the sugar age were crucial to the economic development of the colony, the link between the sugar production areas, coastal Portuguese cities, and Europe. Merchants in the early came from many nations, including Germans, Flemings, and Italians, but Portuguese merchants came to dominate

1848-648: A few in the Indies was in practice not closed, with European merchant houses supplying Spanish merchants in the Spanish port of Seville with high quality textiles and other manufactured goods that Spain itself could not supply. Much of the silver of the Indies was diverted into those European merchant houses. Crown officials in the Indies enabled the creation of a whole commercial system in which they could coerce native populations to participate while reaping profits themselves in cooperation with merchants. The Spanish conquest

2079-512: A few months before Cabral landed, Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón came to the northeastern coast of Brazil and deployed many armed men ashore with no means of communicating with the indigenous people. One of his ships and captains was captured by indigenous people and eight of his men were killed. Cabral no doubt learned from this to treat communication with the utmost priority. Cabral left two degredados (criminal exiles) in Brazil to learn

2310-498: A key group for the administration of the Spanish Empire, since they served as intermediaries between crown officials and indigenous communities. Indigenous noblemen could serve on cabildos , ride horses, and carry firearms. The crown's recognition of indigenous elites as nobles meant that these men were incorporated into colonial system with privileges separating them from Indian commoners. Indian noblemen were thus crucial to

2541-613: A kind of parasitic economy where proximity to settled areas were usually prerequisites for their long-term success. Unlike the palenque in Spanish America or maroon settlements in the West Indies , Portuguese officials rebuked any kind of agreements to standardize the quilombos out of the fear of drawing even more fugitive slaves to their communities. The largest of the quilombos was the Quilombo dos Palmares , located in today's Alagoas state, which grew to many thousands during

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2772-412: A large fleet led by Tomé de Sousa set sail to Brazil to establish a central government in the colony. Tomé de Sousa, the first Governor-General of Brazil, brought detailed instructions, prepared by the king's aides, about how to administer and foster the development of the colony. His first act was the foundation of the capital city, Salvador , in northeastern Brazil, in today's state of Bahia . The city

3003-417: A larger set of defenses against slave uprisings that had been orchestrated by cities and towns. At the same time, some Amerindians resisted the colonizers’ efforts to prevent uprisings by surreptitiously incorporating into their villages those who had escaped slavery. Many of the details surrounding the inner political and social structure of the quilombos remain a mystery, and the information available today

3234-553: A policy that secular clerics had long sought for the central areas of empire, with their large indigenous populations. Although implementation was slow and incomplete, it was an assertion of royal power over the clergy and the quality of parish priests improved, since the Ordenanza mandated competitive examination to fill vacant positions. Religious orders along with the Jesuits embarked on further evangelization in frontier regions of

3465-652: A portion of the Caribbean, and the Philippines, and the viceroyalty of Peru (founded 1542) having jurisdiction over Spanish South America. Viceroys served as the vice-patron of the Catholic Church, including the Inquisition , established in the seats of the viceroyalties (Mexico City and Peru). Viceroys were responsible for good governance of their territories, economic development, and humane treatment of

3696-431: A public herald. They were in charge of distributing land to the neighbors, establishing local taxes, dealing with the public order, inspecting jails and hospitals, preserving the roads and public works such as irrigation ditches and bridges, supervising the public health, regulating the festive activities, monitoring market prices, or the protection of Indians. After the reign of Philip II, the municipal offices, including

3927-462: A quarter of appointees being born in the Indies by 1687. During a financial crisis in the late seventeenth century, the crown began selling Audiencia appointments, and American-born Spaniards held 45% of Audiencia appointments. Although there were restrictions of appointees' ties to local elite society and participation in the local economy, they acquired dispensations from the cash-strapped crown. Audiencia judgments and other functions became more tied to

4158-673: A relatively small Spanish force but with local translators and the crucial support of thousands of native allies, achieved the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the campaigns of 1519–1521. This territory later became the Viceroyalty of New Spain , present day Mexico. Of equal importance was the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire by Francisco Pizarro , which would become the Viceroyalty of Peru . The Spanish conquest of

4389-471: A role in colonial Brazil. Their "importance in the colonial may be one explanation why the Inquisition was not permanently established in Brazil during the Iberian Union ." New Christians were well integrated into institutional life, serving in civil as well as ecclesiastical offices. The relative lack of persecution and abundance of opportunity allowed them to have a significant place in society. With

4620-651: A sedentary farming lifestyle. The Jesuits had frequent disputes with other colonists who wanted to enslave the natives, but also with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church itself. Following the creation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of São Salvador da Bahia by the Pope, Bishop Pero Fernandes Sardinha arrived in Bahia in 1552 and took issue with the Jesuit mission led by Manoel da Nóbrega. Sardinha opposed

4851-426: A set of officiales reales (royal officials). The officials of the royal treasury included up to four positions: a tesorero (treasurer), who guarded money on hand and made payments; a contador (accountant or comptroller), who recorded income and payments, maintained records, and interpreted royal instructions; a factor , who guarded weapons and supplies belonging to the king, and disposed of tribute collected in

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5082-424: A sort of theater of conversion. With this began the practice of evangelization of the peoples of the new world as supported by the Spanish government. Religious orders in Spanish America had their own internal structures and were organizationally autonomous, but nonetheless were very important to the structure of colonial society. They had their own resources and hierarchies. Though some orders took vows of poverty, by

5313-434: A strategic defensive base for the Spanish ships full of gold and silver being sent to Spain from its New World dominions. The Portuguese mariner sailing for Castile, Ferdinand Magellan , died while in the Philippines commanding a Castilian expedition in 1522, which was the first to circumnavigate the globe . The Basque commander Juan Sebastián Elcano led the expedition to success. Spain sought to enforce their rights in

5544-404: Is debated whether previous Portuguese explorers had already been in Brazil, this date is widely and politically accepted as the day of the discovery of Brazil by Europeans. The place where Álvares Cabral arrived is now known as Porto Seguro , in northeastern Brazil . Cabral was leading a large fleet of 13 ships and more than 1,000 men following Vasco da Gama 's way to India, around Africa. Cabral

5775-806: Is limited by the fact that it usually comes from colonial accounts of their destruction. More is known about the Quilombo dos Palmares because it was "the longest-lived and largest fugitive community" in Colonial Brazil. Like any polity, Palmares and other quilombos changed over time. Quilombos drew on both African and European influences, often emulating the realities of colonial society in Brazil. In Palmares, slavery, which also existed in Africa, continued. Quilombos , like plantations, were most likely composed of people from different African groups. Religious syncretism, combining African and Christian elements,

6006-492: Is the first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in the continental United States. Crown of Castile The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then Castilian king, Ferdinand III , to

6237-484: The sistema de castas in hierarchical order, but there was some fluidity in the system rather than absolute rigidity. Men of color began to apply to the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, but in 1688 Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza attempted to prevent their entrance by drafting new regulations barring blacks and mulattoes. In small Mexican parishes, dark complected priests served while their mixed-race heritage

6468-640: The Americas came through Castile which was one of the more dynamic, rich, and advanced territories in Europe in the 16th century. It started to realise that it could become immersed within an empire. This, added to the broken promise of Charles, only increased hostility towards the king. In 1520 in Toledo Parliament rejected a further subsidy for the king. Parliament in Santiago de Compostela reached

6699-506: The Aztec Empire , asserting permanent royal control over its possessions. Regions with dense indigenous populations and sources of mineral wealth attracting Spanish settlers became colonial centers, while those without such resources were peripheral to crown interest. Once regions incorporated into the empire and their importance assessed, overseas possessions came under stronger or weaker crown control. The crown learned its lesson with

6930-536: The Catholic Monarchs centralize power over municipalities. In the Indies, corregimiento initially functioned to bring control over Spanish settlers who exploited the indigenous populations held in encomienda , to protect the shrinking indigenous populations and prevent the formation of an aristocracy of conquerors and powerful settlers. The royal official in charge of a district was the Corregidor , who

7161-566: The Compromise of Caspe in 1412, Ferdinand left Castile to become King of Aragon . Upon the death of his mother, John II at the age of 14, took to the throne and married his cousin Maria of Aragon . The young king entrusted his government to regent Álvaro de Luna , the most influential person in court and allied with the lesser nobility, the cities, the clergy, and the Jews. This brought together

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7392-629: The Concordia de Villafáfila of 1506, Ferdinand returned to Aragon and Phillip was recognized as King of Castile, with Joanna a co-monarch. In the Treaty of Villafáfila in 1506 King Ferdinand the Catholic renounced not only the government of Castile in favour of his son-in-law Philip I of Castile but also the lordship of the Indies, withholding a half of the income of the kingdoms of the Indies. Joanna of Castile and Philip immediately added to their titles

7623-673: The Cortes of both kingdoms were held jointly. The Cortes of 1258 in Valladolid comprised representatives of Castile, Extremadura and León (" de Castiella e de Estremadura e de tierra de León ") and those of Seville in 1261 of Castile, León and all other kingdoms (" de Castiella e de León e de todos los otros nuestros Regnos "). Subsequent Cortes were celebrated separately, for example in 1301 that of Castile in Burgos and that of León in Zamora, but

7854-675: The Count-Duke of Olivares , the king's favourite (valido) from 1621 to 1643, tried to introduce a series of reforms. Among these was the Unión de Armas , the creation of a new army of 140,000 reservists. Every territory within the kingdom contributed citizens proportionally in order to maintain the force. His aims of union did not work and the Spanish Crown continued as a confederation of kingdoms. Luis Méndez de Haro took over from Olivares as favourite Philip IV between 1659 and 1665. This

8085-564: The Dutch West India Company in Brazil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence of the count John Maurice of Nassau as governor (1637–1644) in Recife (renamed Mauritstaad ). Nassau invited scientific commissions to research the local flora and fauna, resulting in added knowledge of the territory. Moreover, he set up a city project for Recife and Olinda, which was partially accomplished. Remnants survive into

8316-460: The House of Trastámara 's position and created peace between England and Castile. During the reign of Henry III royal power was restored, overshadowing the much powerful Castilian nobility. In his later years Henry delegated some of his power to his brother Ferdinand I of Antequera , who would be regent, along with his wife Catherine of Lancaster , during the childhood of his son John II . After

8547-597: The Kingdom of Asturias . The Kingdom of Castile appeared initially as a county of the Kingdom of León. From the second half of the 10th century to the first half of the 11th century it changed hands between León and the Kingdom of Navarre. In the 11th century, it became a kingdom in its own right. The two kingdoms had been united twice previously: From 1199 to 1201 under Alfonso VIII the Castilian king's armies invaded

8778-476: The Kingdom of Navarre , annexing thereafter Álava , Durangaldea and Gipuzkoa , including San Sebastián and Vitoria (Gasteiz) . However, these western Basque territories saw their Navarrese charters confirmed under Castilian rule. Ferdinand III received the Kingdom of Castile from his mother, Queen Berengaria of Castile granddaughter of Sancho III in 1217, and the Kingdom of León from his father Alfonso IX of León son of Ferdinand II in 1230. From then on

9009-714: The Moluccan islands , which led a conflict with the Portuguese, but the issue was resolved with the Treaty of Zaragoza (1525), settling the location of the antimeridian of Tordesillas, which would divide the world into two equal hemispheres . From then on, maritime expeditions led to the discovery of several archipelagos in the South Pacific as the Pitcairn Islands , the Marquesas , Tuvalu , Vanuatu ,

9240-596: The Morisco Revolt (1568–1571), which was put down by John of Austria . Castile entered a phase of recession in 1575; Spain as a whole followed, which provoked the suspension of wages (the third of his reign). In 1590 the Cortes approved the millones ; a new tax on food. This exhausted Castilian cities and hindered the economy. In 1596, pay was once again suspended. In the previous kingdoms, positions in national institutions were filled by educated gentlemen. Philip II's administrators would normally come from either

9471-659: The Ordenamiento de Alcalá (1348) and the Leyes de Toro (1505). These laws continued to be in force until 1889, when a new Spanish civil code, the Código Civil Español, was enacted. In the 13th century there were many languages spoken in the Kingdoms of León and Castile among them Castilian , Leonese , Basque and Galician-Portuguese . But, as the century progressed, Castilian gained increasing prominence as

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9702-569: The República de Indios , men were explicitly excluded from ordination to the Catholic priesthood and obligation for military service as well as the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Indians under colonial rule who lived in pueblos de indios had crown protections due to their statuses as legal minors. Due to the lack of prior exposure to the Catholic faith, Queen Isabella had declared all indigenous peoples her subjects. This differed from people of

9933-591: The Solomon Islands or New Guinea , to which Spain laid claim. Most important in Pacific exploration was the claim on the Philippines , which was populous and strategically located for the Spanish settlement of Manila and entrepôt for trade with China. On 27 April 1565, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines was founded by Miguel López de Legazpi and the service of Manila Galleons

10164-546: The Tupi language was compiled by Joseph of Anchieta and printed in Coimbra in 1595. The Jesuits often gathered the aborigines into communities of resettlement called aldeias , similar in intent to the reductions implemented by Francisco de Toledo in southern Peru during the 1560s. where the natives worked for the community and were evangelized. Founded in the aftermath of the campaign undertaken by Mem de Sá from 1557 to force

10395-713: The Tzeltal Rebellion of 1712 and most spectacularly in Peru with the Tupac Amaru Rebellion (1780–81) saw indigenous noblemen leading uprisings against the Spanish state. In the República de Españoles , class and race hierarchies were codified in institutional structures. Spaniards emigrating to The Indies were to be Old Christians of pure Christian heritage , with the crown excluding New Christians , converts from Judaism and their descendants, because of their suspect religious status. The crown established

10626-610: The University of Alcalá or the University of Salamanca . After Philip III the nobility once again asserted their right to govern the country. In order to show that there was a new order ruling there was a cleansing of the blood of Spain . Religious persecution led Philip to declare the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609. Faced with the collapse of the Exchequer, in order to maintain the hegemony of Philip IV's Spanish Empire,

10857-661: The War of the Castilian Succession broke out over who would ascend to the throne. It lasted until 1479 when Isabella and her supporters came out victorious. After Isabella's victory in the civil war and Ferdinand's ascension to the Aragonese throne the two crowns were united under the same monarchs. However, this was a personal union and both kingdoms remained administratively separate to some extent, each maintaining largely its own laws; both parliaments remained separate,

11088-592: The War of the Spanish Succession . After the war, all the territories were unified as a single country under the Crown of Spain . North – Septentrional South – Meridional In the viceroyalties the viceroy, whose term etymologically means "in the place of the king", concentrated all public power. They were freely appointed and removed by the Monarch, when the sovereign wanted he/she could remove

11319-462: The aldeias by colonists eager to steal laborers for themselves thus causing natives to flee the settlements. The aldeia model would again be used, though also unsuccessfully, by the Governor of the captaincy of São Paulo, Luís António de Sousa Botelho Mourão  [ pt ] , in 1765, in order to encourage mestizos , natives, and mulattoes to abandon slash-and-burn agriculture and adopt

11550-589: The fondo legal . They managed their own affairs internally through Indian town government under the supervision of royal officials, the corregidores and alcaldes mayores . Although indigenous men were barred from becoming priests, indigenous communities created religious confraternities under priestly supervision, which functioned as burial societies for their individual members, but also organized community celebrations for their patron saint. Blacks also had separate confraternities, which likewise contributed to community formation and cohesion, reinforcing identity within

11781-697: The 1530s (later in the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1717 and present day Colombia ), Lima in 1535 as the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Buenos Aires in 1536 (later in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776), and Santiago in 1541. Florida was colonized in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés when he founded St. Augustine and then promptly destroyed Fort Caroline in French Florida and massacred its several hundred Huguenot inhabitants after they surrendered. Saint Augustine quickly became

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12012-526: The African continent because these populations had theoretically been exposed to Catholicism and chose not to follow it. This religious differentiation is important because it gave indigenous communities legal protections from members of the Républica de Españoles. In fact, an often overlooked aspect of the colonial legal system was that members of the pueblos de indios could appeal to the crown and circumvent

12243-584: The Americas , its justification for the conversion to Catholicism and more specifically about the relations between the European settlers and the natives of the New World . It consisted of a number of opposing views about the way natives were to be integrated into colonial life, their conversion to Christianity and their rights and obligations. According to the French historian Jean Dumont The Valladolid debate

12474-545: The Americas. Official records indicate that at least 75% of the silver was taken across the Atlantic to Spain and no more than 25% across the Pacific to China. Some modern researchers argue that due to rampant smuggling about 50% went to China. In the 16th century "perhaps 240,000 Europeans" entered American ports. Further Spanish settlements were progressively established in the New World: New Granada in

12705-454: The Americas. African slaves had a higher monetary value than indigenous slaves largely because many of them came from agricultural societies and thus were already familiar with the work needed to maintain the profitable sugar plantations of Brazil. Also, African slaves were already immune to several of the Old World diseases that killed many indigenous people and were less likely to flee, as compared to indigenous slaves, since their place of origin

12936-424: The Americas. For example, the Brazilian colony was at first thought of as a commercial asset that would facilitate trade between the Portuguese and India and not a place to be settled to develop a society. The social model of conquest in Brazil was one geared toward commerce and entrepreneurial ideals rather than conquest as was the case in the Spanish realm. As time progressed, the Portuguese crown found that having

13167-483: The Caribbean became the focus of the crown in its roles as sovereigns of the empire and patron of the Catholic Church. Spanish conquerors holding grants of indigenous labor in encomienda ruthlessly exploited them Spanish. A number of friars in the early period came to the vigorous defense of the indigenous populations, who were new converts to Christianity. Prominent Dominican friars in Santo Domingo, especially Antonio de Montesinos and Bartolomé de las Casas denounced

13398-454: The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) in Seville. Ships and cargoes were registered, and emigrants vetted to prevent migration of anyone not of old Christian heritage and facilitated the migration of families and women. In addition, the Casa de Contratación took charge of the fiscal organization, and of the organization and judicial control of the trade with the Indies. The politics of asserting royal authority opposite to Columbus caused

13629-422: The Council of the Indies and the king without the requirement of requesting authorization from the viceroy. This direct correspondence of the Audiencia with the Council of the Indies made it possible for the council to give the Audiencia direction on general aspects of government. Audiencias were a significant base of power and influence for American-born elites, starting in the late sixteenth century, with nearly

13860-422: The Crown not having a strong administrative hold due to Brazil's reliance on its exportation economy. Pernambuco, the most successful captaincy, belonged to Duarte Coelho , who founded the city of Olinda in 1536. His captaincy prospered with engenhos , sugarcane mills, installed after 1542 producing sugar. Sugar was a very valuable good in Europe, and its production became the main Brazilian colonial product for

14091-407: The Crown of Castile into a global empire in the 16th Century. The title of "King of Castile" remained in use by the Habsburg rulers during the 16th and 17th centuries. Charles I was King of Aragon, Majorca , Valencia , and Sicily , and Count of Barcelona , Roussillon and Cerdagne , as well as King of Castile and León, 1516–1556. In the early 18th century, Philip of Bourbon won the War of

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14322-409: The Dutch controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe ( Dutch Brazil ), without, however, penetrating the interior. The large Dutch ships were unable to moor in the coastal inlets where lighter Portuguese shipping came and went. Ironically, the result of the Dutch capture of the sugar coast was a higher price of sugar in Amsterdam . During the Nieuw Holland episode, the colonists of

14553-468: The French were again expelled from São Luís by the Portuguese. Since the initial attempts to find gold and silver failed, the Portuguese colonists adopted an economy based on the production of agricultural goods that were to be exported to Europe. Tobacco and cotton and some other agricultural goods were produced, but sugar became by far the most important Brazilian colonial product until the early 18th century. The first sugarcane farms were established in

14784-506: The Iberian Union (1580–1640), many migrated to Spanish America. In 1580, a succession crisis led to the union of Portugal and Spain being ruled by the Habsburg king Philip II . The unification of the crowns of the two Iberian kingdoms, known as the Iberian Union, lasted until 1640 when the Portuguese revolted. During the union the institutions of both kingdoms remained separate. For Portuguese merchants, many of whom were Christian converts from Judaism ("New Christians") or their descendants,

15015-413: The Inquisition in Mexico and Peru in 1571, and later Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), to guard Catholics from the influence of crypto-Jews , Protestants, and foreigners. Church practices established and maintained racial hierarchies by recording baptism, marriage, and burial were kept separate registers for different racial groups. Churches were also physically divided by race. Race mixture ( mestizaje )

15246-417: The Jesuit mission at São Vicente in late 1552 to return only at the conclusion of the Sardinha's tenure. The action of the Jesuits saved many natives from slavery , but also disturbed their ancestral way of life and inadvertently helped spread infectious diseases against which the aborigines had no natural defenses. Slave labour and trade were essential for the economy of Brazil and other American colonies, and

15477-463: The Jesuits taking part in indigenous dances and playing indigenous instruments since he viewed these activities had little effect on conversion. The use of interpreters at confession by the Jesuits was also railed against by Sardinha who opposed the appropriation of indigenous culture for evangelization. Sardinha also challenged the Jesuit prohibition on waging war against and enslaving the indigenous population, eventually forcing Nóbrega to leave Bahia for

15708-529: The Jesuits usually did not object to the enslavement of African people. The potential riches of tropical Brazil led the French, who did not recognize the Tordesillas Treaty that divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese, to attempt to colonize parts of Brazil. In 1555, the Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon founded a settlement within Guanabara Bay , in an island in front of today's Rio de Janeiro. The colony, named France Antarctique , led to conflict with Governor General Mem de Sá, who waged war against

15939-417: The Maya began in 1524, but the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries. After the conquest of Mexico, rumors of golden cities ( Quivira and Cíbola in North America and El Dorado in South America) motivated several other expeditions. Many of those returned without having found their goal, or finding it much less valuable than

16170-420: The Ocean Sea were also a part of the Crown of Castile when transformed from lordships to kingdoms of the heirs of Castile in 1506, with the Treaty of Villafáfila , and upon the death of Ferdinand the Catholic. The discovery of the Pacific Ocean , the conquest of the Aztec Empire , the conquest of the Inca Empire , the Spanish conquest of New Granada as well as the conquest of the Philippines all helped shape

16401-413: The Portuguese Crown's point of view, its realm was expanded with relatively little cost to itself. On the Atlantic islands of the Azores , Madeira , and São Tomé , the Portuguese began plantation production of sugarcane using forced labor, a precedent for Brazil's sugar production in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Portuguese discovery of Brazil was preceded by a series of treaties between

16632-509: The Portuguese and a large black slave population working on sugar plantations and mines. The boom and bust of the economic cycles were linked to export products. Brazil's sugar age, with the development of plantation slavery, merchants serving as middle men between production sites, Brazilian ports, and Europe was undermined by the growth of the sugar industry in the Caribbean on islands that European powers seized from Spain. Gold and diamonds were discovered and mined in southern Brazil through

16863-495: The Portuguese attempted several times to conquer Palmares, until an army led by famed São Paulo-born Domingos Jorge Velho managed to destroy the great quilombo and kill Zumbi in 1695. Brazilian feature film director Carlos Diegues made a film about Palmares called simply Quilombo . Of the many quilombos that once existed in Brazil, some have survived to this day as isolated rural communities. Portuguese colonists sought to destroy these fugitive communities because they threatened

17094-433: The Portuguese crown from the high costs of colonization. The captaincies granted control over large areas of land and all that resided upon it. Furthermore, the splitting of land highlights the economic importance a large amount of land would have for red-dye producing trees and sugar plantations. Thus, between 1534 and 1536 king John III divided the land into 15 captaincy colonies, which were given to those who wanted and had

17325-422: The Portuguese expel the French from a colony they had established at present-day Rio de Janeiro . The first attempt to colonize Brazil followed the system of hereditary captaincies ( Capitanias Hereditárias ), which had previously been used successfully in the colonization of Madeira. These captaincies were granted by royal decree to private owners, namely to merchants, soldiers, sailors, and petty nobility, saving

17556-601: The Portuguese frequently relied on the help of Europeans who lived together with the indigenous people and knew their languages and culture. The most famous of these were João Ramalho , who lived among the Guaianaz tribe near today's São Paulo , and Diogo Álvares Correia, who acquired the name Caramuru , who lived among the Tupinambá natives near today's Salvador. Over time, the Portuguese realized that some European countries, especially France, were also sending excursions to

17787-500: The Portuguese monarchy beginning to move from a crusading and looting-centric attitude, to a trade-centric attitude when approaching new lands. The latter attitude required communication and cooperation with indigenous people, thus, interpreters. This informed Cabral's actions in Brazil. As Cabral realized that no one in his convoy spoke the language of the indigenous people in Brazil, he took every effort to avoid violence and conflict and used music and humor as forms of communication. Just

18018-416: The Portuguese. By 1580, as many as 40,000 natives could have been taken from the interior to toil as slaves on Brazil's interior, and this enslavement of indigenous people continued right throughout the colonial period. The period of sugar-based economy (1530 – c. 1700) is known as the sugar cycle in Brazil. The development of the sugar complex occurred over time, with a variety of models. The dependencies of

18249-628: The Pyrenees was annexed to Castile. Charles I received the Crown of Castile, the Crown of Aragon and the empire through a combination of dynastic marriages and premature deaths: Charles I was not well received in Castile. This was partly because he was a foreign-born king (born in Ghent ), and even before his arrival in Castile he had granted important positions to Flemish citizens and had used Castilian money to fund his court. The Castilian nobility and

18480-476: The Spanish Succession and imposed unification policies over the Crown of Aragon , supporters of their enemies. This unified the Crown of Aragon and the Crown of Castile into the kingdom of Spain. Even though the Nueva Planta decrees did not formally abolish the Crown of Castile, the country (of Castile and Aragon) was called "Spain" by both contemporaries and historians. The Kingdom of León arose out of

18711-577: The aborigens. After the end of the period of conquests, it was necessary to manage extensive and different territories with a strong bureaucracy. In the face of the impossibility of the Castilian institutions to take care of the New World affairs, other new institutions were created. As the basic political entity it was the governorate, or province. The governors exercised judicial ordinary functions of first instance, and prerogatives of government legislating by ordinances. To these political functions of

18942-612: The above-mentioned Henry, who disputed Peter's right to the throne once the latter became king. In the resulting struggle, in which both brothers claimed to be king, Pedro allied himself with Edward, Prince of Wales , "the Black Prince". In 1367, the Black Prince defeated Henry II's allies at the Battle of Nájera , restoring Pedro's control of the kingdom. The Black Prince, seeing that the king would not reimburse his expenses, left Castile. Henry, who had fled to France, took advantage of

19173-567: The appointments to the King for civil government as well as ecclesiastical appointments, and pronouncing judicial sentences; as maximum authority in the overseas territories, the Council of the Indies took over both the institutions in the Indies as the defense of the interests of the Crown, the Catholic Church, and of indigenous peoples. With the 1508 papal grant to the crown of the Patronato real,

19404-470: The boundaries for dioceses and parishes. The creation of the ecclesiastical hierarchy with priests who not members of religious orders, those known as the diocesan or secular clergy , marked a turning point in the crown's control over the religious sphere. In 1574, Philip II promulgated the Order of Patronage (Ordenaza del Patronato) ordering the religious orders to turn over their parishes to the secular clergy,

19635-801: The capital of the State of Brazil was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. In 1775 all Brazilian States (Brasil, Maranhão and Grão-Pará) were unified into the Viceroyalty of Brazil , with Rio de Janeiro as capital, and the title of the king's representative was officially changed to that of Viceroy of Brazil. As in Portugal, each colonial village and city had a city council ( câmara municipal ), whose members were prominent figures of colonial society (land owners, merchants, slave traders). Colonial city councils were responsible for regulating commerce, public infrastructure, professional artisans, prisons etc. Tomé de Sousa, first Governor General of Brazil, brought

19866-462: The case that Joanna "didn't want to or couldn't fulfil her duties". In the 'Salamanca Agreement' of 1505, it was decided that the government would be shared by Philip I, Ferdinand V and Joanna. However, poor relations between Phillip, who was supported by the Castilian nobility, and Ferdinand resulted in Ferdinand renouncing his regent's powers in Castile in order to avoid an armed conflict. Through

20097-584: The cities were on the verge of an uprising to defend their rights. Many Castilians favoured the king's younger brother Ferdinand , who grew up in Castile, and in fact the Council of Castile opposed the idea of Charles as King of Castile. In 1518 the Castilian parliament in Valladolid named the Wallonian Jean de Sauvage as its president. This caused angry protests in the parliament, which rejected

20328-485: The city. He then moved on to occupy Santiago de Compostela , Pontevedra and Vigo . He asked John I , Henry II's son, to give up the throne in favor of Constance. John declined but proposed that his son, the Infante Henry , marry John of Gaunt's daughter Catherine . The proposal was accepted, and the title Prince of Asturias was created for Henry and Catherine. This ended the dynastic conflict, strengthened

20559-437: The coast of Africa on the way. They sought sources of gold, ivory, and African slaves, high value goods in the African trade. The Portuguese set up fortified trading feitorias (factories), whereby permanent, fairly small commercial settlements anchored trade in a region. The initial costs of setting up these commercial posts was borne by private investors, who in turn received hereditary titles and commercial advantages. From

20790-521: The coast: they sacked Salvador in 1604, from which they removed large amounts of gold and silver before a joint Spanish-Portuguese fleet recaptured the town. The city was captured again by the Dutch in May 1624 before being surrendered to a Luso-Spanish armada 11 months later. From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in commercial Recife and aristocratic Olinda. With the capture of Paraíba in 1635,

21021-455: The coastal native population and the declaration of king Sebastian I 's 1570 law which proclaimed the liberty of Brazilian natives, the enslavement of indigenous people increased after 1570. A new slave trade emerged where indigenous people were brought from the sertões or "inland wilderness frontiers" by mixed-race mameluco under the loophole in the 1570 law that they were captured in just wars against native groups who "customarily" attacked

21252-463: The colonial system, such as membership of cabildos, so that they were in the hands of local, American-born ( crillo ) elites. During the Bourbon era, even when the crown systematically appointed peninsular-born Spaniards to royal posts rather than American-born, the cabildos remained in the hands of local elites. As the empire expanded into areas of less dense indigenous populations, the crown created

21483-473: The colony in 1560. Estácio de Sá, nephew of the Governor, founded Rio de Janeiro in 1565 and managed to expel the last French settlers in 1567. Jesuit priests Manuel da Nóbrega and Joseph of Anchieta were instrumental in the Portuguese victory by pacifying the natives who supported the French. Another French colony, France Équinoxiale , was founded in 1612 in present-day São Luís , in the North of Brazil. In 1614

21714-422: The colony serve as a trading post was not ideal for regulating land claims in the Americas, so it decided that the best way to keep control of their land was to settle it. Thus, the land was divided into fifteen private, hereditary captaincies , the most successful of which being Pernambuco and São Vicente . Pernambuco succeeded by growing sugarcane. São Vicente prospered by enslaving indigenous native people from

21945-504: The communities' rights in court. In Mexico, this was facilitated by the 1599 establishment of the General Indian Court ( Juzgado General de Indios ), which heard legal disputes in which indigenous communities and individuals were engaged. With legal mechanisms for dispute-resolution, there were relatively few outbreaks of violence and rebellion against crown rule. Eighteenth-century rebellions in long-peaceful areas of Mexico,

22176-660: The completion and end of the Reconquista . Also in 1492, the Christopher Columbus maritime expedition claimed the newly found lands in the Americas for the Crown of Castile and began the New World conquests. In 1497 Castile conquered Melilla on the north coast of North Africa. After Castile's conquest of the Kingdom of Granada, its politics turned towards the Mediterranean, and Castile militarily helped Aragon in its problems with France, culminating in

22407-518: The cost quadrupled. During his reign, as well as increasing existing taxes he created some new ones, among them the excusado in 1567. That same year Philip ordered the proclamation of the La Pragmática ; an act whereby all Moriscos had to abandon all Moorish traditions and become true Catholics. This edict limited religious, linguistic and cultural freedom of the Morisco population and provoked

22638-441: The councilors, were auctioned to alleviate the need for money of the Crown, even the offices could also be sold, which became hereditary, so that the government of the cities went on to hands of urban oligarchies. In order to control the municipal life, the Crown ordered the appointment of corregidores and alcaldes mayores to exert greater political control and judicial functions in minor districts. Their functions were governing

22869-575: The countryside. Although Indians were classified as part of the República de Indios , their offspring of unions with Españoles and Africans were castas . White-Indian mixtures were more socially acceptable in the Hispanic sphere, with the possibility over generations of mixed-race offspring being classified as Español. Any offspring with African ancestry could never remove the "stain" of their racial heritage, since Africans were seen as "natural slaves". Eighteenth-century paintings depicted elites' ideas of

23100-525: The course of a few years and replace them with newly imported enslaved people. Areas where manioc , a subsistence crop, was cultivated also utilized high numbers of enslaved peoples. In these areas, 40 to 60 percent of the population was enslaved. These regions were characterized by fewer work demands and better living and working conditions for enslaved peoples as compared to labor conditions for enslaved populations in sugar regions. The Portuguese attempted to severely restrict colonial trade, meaning that Brazil

23331-443: The crown also melded existing indigenous rule into a Spanish pattern, with the establishment of cabildos and the participation of indigenous elites as officials holding Spanish titles. There were a variable number of councilors ( regidores ), depending on the size of the town, also two municipal judges ( alcaldes menores ), who were judges of first instance, and also other officials as police chief, inspector of supplies, court clerk, and

23562-419: The crown as a key administrative institution with royal authority and loyalty to the crown as opposed to conquerors and first settlers. Although constituted as the highest judicial authority in their territorial jurisdiction, they also had executive and legislative authority, and served as the executive on an interim basis. Judges ( oidores ) held "formidable power. Their role in judicial affairs and in overseeing

23793-412: The crown, rather than the pope, exercised absolute power over the Catholic Church in the Americas and the Philippines, a privilege the crown zealously guarded against erosion or incursion. Crown approval through the Council of the Indies was needed for the establishment of bishoprics, building of churches, appointment of all clerics. In 1721, at the beginning of the Bourbon monarchy, the crown transferred

24024-586: The death of Alfonso XI a dynastic conflict started between his sons, the Infantes Peter (Pedro) and Henry , Count of Trastámara, which became entangled in the Hundred Years' War (between England and France). Alfonso XI had married Maria of Portugal with whom he had his heir, the Infante Peter. However, the King also had many illegitimate children with Eleanor of Guzman , among them

24255-453: The death, unauthorized absence, retirement or removal of a governor, the treasury officials would jointly govern the province until a new governor appointed by the king could take up his duties. Treasury officials were supposed to be paid out of the income from the province, and were normally prohibited from engaging in income-producing activities. The protection of the indigenous populations from enslavement and exploitation by Spanish settlers

24486-464: The defeat of the French colonists of France Antarctique by managing to pacify the Tamoio natives, who had previously fought the Portuguese. The Jesuits took part in the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1565. The success of the Jesuits in converting the indigenous people to Catholicism is linked to their capacity to understand the native culture, especially the language. The first grammar of

24717-409: The defense against pirates. Only São Paulo was an important inland city. Unlike the network of towns and cities that developed in most areas of Spanish America, the coastal cities and their hinterlands were oriented toward Portugal directly with little connection otherwise. With sugar as the major export commodity in the early period and the necessity to process cane into exportable refined sugar on-site,

24948-404: The disruption of Portuguese rule with the Dutch incursion. Palmares was governed by leaders Ganga Zumba and his successor, Zumbi . The terminology for the settlements and leaders come directly from Angola, with quilombo, an Angolan word for military villages of diverse settlers, and the nganga a nzumbi "was the priest responsible for the spiritual defense of the community." The Dutch and later

25179-653: The dominating partner in the union. As a result of the Reconquista (Reconquest) the Castilian aristocracy had become very powerful. The monarchs needed to assert their authority over the nobility and the clergy. With this end in mind they founded a law enforcement body, the Consejo de la Hermandad , more commonly known as the Santa Hermandad (the Holy Brotherhood), which was staffed and funded by

25410-483: The dynamics in the indigenous communities and their relationship to the Spanish. After the fall of the Aztec and Inca empires, the rulers of the empires were replaced by the Spanish monarchy, while retaining much of the hierarchical indigenous structures. The crown recognized noble status of elite Indians, giving them exemption from the head-tax and the right to use the nobles title don and doña . Indigenous noblemen were

25641-403: The early Caribbean period, particularly Frey Nicolás de Ovando , who was sent to investigate the administration of Francisco de Bobadilla , the governor appointed to succeed Christopher Columbus. Later ecclesiastics served as interim viceroys, general inspectors (visitadores), and other high posts. The crown established control over trade and emigration to the Indies with the 1503 establishment

25872-443: The early Spanish period, especially when the economy was still based on extracting tribute and labor from commoner Indians who had rendered goods and service to their overlords in the prehispanic period. Caciques mobilized their populations for encomenderos and, later, repartimiento recipients chosen by the crown. The noblemen became the officers of the cabildo in indigenous communities, regulating internal affairs, as well as defending

26103-511: The early colonial period, the crown authorized friars of Catholic religious orders ( Franciscans , Dominicans , and Augustinians ) to function as priests during the conversion of indigenous populations. During the early Age of Discovery , the diocesan clergy in Spain was poorly educated and considered of a low moral standing, and the Catholic Monarchs were reluctant to allow them to spearhead evangelization. Each order set up networks of parishes in

26334-671: The early colonial period. Spanish universities expanded to train lawyer-bureaucrats ( letrados ) for administrative positions in Spain and its overseas empire. The end of the Habsburg dynasty in 1700 saw major administrative reforms in the eighteenth century under the Bourbon monarchy, starting with the first Spanish Bourbon monarch, Philip V (r. 1700–1746) and reaching its apogee under Charles III (r. 1759–1788). The reorganization of administration has been called "a revolution in government." Reforms sought to centralize government control through reorganization of administration, reinvigorate

26565-409: The economic and social order of the slave regime in Brazil. There was a constant fear among colonists that enslaved peoples would revolt and resist slavery. Two settler objectives were to discourage enslaved peoples from trying to escape and to close down their options for escape. Strategies used by Portuguese colonists to prevent enslaved people from fleeing included apprehending escapees before they had

26796-543: The economies of Spain and the Spanish empire through changes in mercantile and fiscal policies, defend Spanish colonies and territorial claims through the establishment of a standing military, undermine the power of the Catholic church, and rein in the power of the American-born elites. The crown relied on ecclesiastics as important councilors and royal officials in the governance of their overseas territories. Archbishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca , Isabella's confessor,

27027-463: The empire. The Jesuits resisted crown control, refusing to pay the tithe on their estates that supported the ecclesiastical hierarchy and came into conflict with bishops. The most prominent example is in Puebla, Mexico, when Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza was driven from his bishopric by the Jesuits. The bishop challenged the Jesuits' continuing to hold Indian parishes and function as priests without

27258-478: The end of the 17th century, and remained under Spanish control until 1898. In the 18th century, Spain was concerned with increasing Russian and British influence in the Pacific Northwest of North America and sent several expeditions to explore and further shore up Spanish claims to the region. The empire in the Indies was a newly established dependency of the kingdom of Castile alone, so crown power

27489-460: The end of the colonial era. Brazilian cities were largely port cities and the colonial administrative capital was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro in response to the rise and fall of export products' importance. Unlike Spanish America, which fragmented into many republics upon independence , Brazil remained a single administrative unit under a monarch as the Empire of Brazil , giving rise to

27720-735: The enslavement of indigenous people continued. The Portuguese had established several commercial facilities in West Africa , where West African slaves were bought from African slave traders. The enslaved West Africans were then sent via slave ships to Brazil, chained and in crowded conditions. Enslaved West Africans were more desirable and practical because many came from sedentary, agriculture-based societies and did not require as much training in how to farm as did members of Amerindian societies, which tended to not be primarily agricultural. Africans were also less vulnerable to disease than Amerindians were. The importation of enslaved Africans into Brazil

27951-445: The fact that The Queen Isabel was the first monarch that laid the first stone for the protection of the indigenous peoples in her testament in which the Catholic monarch prohibited the enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Then the first such in 1542; the legal thought behind them was the basis of modern International law . Taking advantage of their extreme remoteness from royal power, some colonists were disagree with

28182-534: The farm included a casa-grande (big house) where the owner of the farm lived with his family, and the senzala , where the slaves were kept. A notable early study of this complex is by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre . This arrangement was depicted in engravings and paintings by Frans Post as a feature of an apparently harmonious society. Initially, the Portuguese relied on enslaved Amerindians to work on sugarcane harvesting and processing, but they soon began importing enslaved Africans from West Africa, though

28413-420: The first and only channels of interaction between all of the world's continents, thus beginning the process of globalization . In addition to the imperial and economic undertaking of discovery and colonization of lands distant from Europe, these years were filled with pronounced advancements in cartography , shipbuilding and navigational instruments , of which the Portuguese explorers took advantage. In 1494,

28644-413: The first group of Jesuits to the colony. More than any other religious order, the Jesuits represented the spiritual side of the enterprise and were destined to play a central role in the colonial history of Brazil. The spreading of the Catholic faith was an important justification for the Portuguese conquests, and the Jesuits were officially supported by the king, who instructed Tomé de Sousa to give them all

28875-421: The first universities in Europe. In the 13th century, emerging groups of local grazers coalesced into the powerful Mesta , the headpin for wool trade over the following three centuries. In time, Castile would become a leading export market for wool in the late middle ages. The Castilian Civil War pitting supporters of Henry of Trastámara against Peter I entailed a struggle of competing factions, with

29106-553: The former party being favoured by the Castilian nobility (and, to a lesser extent, the Clergy), whereas the latter party lied on the side of Jews', conversos ' and town councils' interests. A substantial transfer from the royal patrimony to the nobles ensued upon the prevail of the Trastámaras in the conflict. Likewise, the resulting dynastic change ran parallel to a radicalization of the antisemitic sentiment in Castile. On

29337-402: The governance of the huge indigenous population. Through their continued loyalty to the crown, they maintained their positions of power within their communities but also served as agents of colonial governance. The Spanish Empire's use of local elites to rule large populations that are ethnically distinct from the rulers has long been practiced by earlier empires. Indian caciques were crucial in

29568-418: The governor, it could be joined the military ones, according to military requirements, with the rank of Captain general . The office of captain general involved to be the supreme military chief of the whole territory and he was responsible for recruiting and providing troops, the fortification of the territory, the supply and the shipbuilding. Provinces in the Spanish Empire had a royal treasury controlled by

29799-467: The implementation of royal legislation made their decisions important for the communities they served." Since their appointments were for life or the pleasure of the monarch, they had a continuity of power and authority that viceroys and captains-general lacked because of their shorter-term appointments. They were the "center of the administrative system [and] gave the government of the Indies a strong basis of permanence and continuity." Their main function

30030-457: The indigenous and following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and the Spanish conquest of Peru , more stringent laws to control conquerors' and settlers' exercise of power, especially their maltreatment of the indigenous populations, were promulgated, known as the New Laws (1542). The crown aimed to prevent the formation of an aristocracy in the Indies not under crown control. Despite

30261-481: The indigenous people and severe disputes with other colonizers and the bishop. Wars against the natives around Salvador consumed much of his government. The fact that the first bishop of Brazil, Pero Fernandes Sardinha , was killed and eaten by the Caeté natives after a shipwreck in 1556 illustrates how strained the situation was between the Portuguese and many indigenous communities. The third Governor-General of Brazil

30492-459: The indigenous populations. In the eighteenth-century reforms, the Viceroyalty of Peru was reorganized, splitting off portions to form the Viceroyalty of New Granada (Colombia) (1739) and the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata (Argentina) (1776), leaving Peru with jurisdiction over Peru, Charcas, and Chile. Viceroys were of high social standing, almost without exception born in Spain, and served fixed terms. The Audiencias were initially constituted by

30723-403: The king, as owner of the Indies, agreed capitulación (an itemized contract) with the specifics of the conditions of the expedition in a particular territory. The individual leaders of expeditions ( adelantados ) assumed the expenses of the venture and in return received as reward the grant from the government of the conquered territories; and in addition, they received instructions about treating

30954-539: The kingdoms of Indies, Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea. Phillip died and Ferdinand returned in 1507 once again to be regent for Joanna. Her isolated confinement-imprisonment in the Santa Clara Convent at Tordesillas , to last over forty years until death, began with her father's orders in 1510. In 1512 a joint Castilian-Aragonese force invaded Navarre and most of the Kingdom of Navarre south of

31185-611: The kings of Portugal and Castile , following Portuguese sailings down the coast of Africa to India and the voyages to the Caribbean of the Genoese mariner sailing for Castile, Christopher Columbus . The most decisive of these treaties was the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, which created the Tordesillas Meridian, dividing the world between the two kingdoms. All land discovered or to be discovered east of that meridian

31416-412: The land to extract brazilwood. Worried about foreign incursions and hoping to find mineral riches, the Portuguese crown decided to send large missions to take possession of the land and fight the French. In 1530, an expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa arrived in Brazil to patrol the entire coast, expel the French, and create the first colonial villages like São Vicente on the coast. Because Brazil

31647-451: The land. The other thirteen captaincies failed, leading the king to make colonization a royal effort rather than a private one. In 1549, Tomé de Sousa sailed to Brazil to establish a central government. He brought along Jesuit priests, who set up missions , forbidding natives to express their own cultures, and converting many to Catholicism. The Jesuits' work to dominate the indigenous native’s cultural expression and way of living helped

31878-764: The language of culture and communication – one example of this is the Cantar de Mio Cid . In the last years of the reign of Ferdinand III , Castilian began to be used for some important documents, such as the Visigothic Code , the basis of the legal code for Christians living in Muslim Cordova , but it was during the reign of Alfonso X that it became the official language. Henceforth all public documents were written in Castilian, likewise all translations of Arabic legal and government documents were made into Castilian instead of Latin. Some scholars think that

32109-502: The largest country in Latin America. Just as Spanish and Roman Catholicism were a core source of cohesion among Spain's vast and multi-ethnic territories, Brazilian society was united by the Portuguese language and Roman Catholicism. As the only Lusophone polity in the Americas, the Portuguese language was - and remains - particularly important to Brazilian identity. Portugal pioneered the European charting of sea routes that were

32340-455: The laws when they saw their power being reduced, forcing a partial suppression of these New Laws . The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of a colonized people by colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio , in the Spanish city of Valladolid , it was a moral and theological debate about the colonization of

32571-403: The legal system in the Républica de Españoles. The statuses of the indigenous populations as legal minors barred them from becoming priests, but the républica de indios operated with a fair amount of autonomy. Missionaries also acted as guardians against encomendero exploitation. Indian communities had protections of traditional lands by the creation of community lands that could not be alienated,

32802-588: The line of succession. After the death of Alfonso in an accident, Henry IV signed the Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando with his half-sister Isabella I in which he named her heiress in return for her marrying a prince chosen by him. In October 1469 Isabella I and Ferdinand II , heir to the throne of Aragon , married in secret in the Palacio de los Vivero in Castilian Valladolid . The consequence

33033-478: The locality and less to the crown and impartial justice. During the Bourbon Reforms in the mid-eighteenth century, the crown systematically sought to centralize power in its own hands and diminish that of its overseas possessions, appointing peninsular-born Spaniards to Audiencias. American-born elite men complained bitterly about the change, since they lost access to power that they had enjoyed for nearly

33264-516: The main responsibility for governing the overseas empire from the Council of the Indies to the Ministry of the Navy and the Indies, which were subsequently divided into two separate ministries in 1754. The impossibility of the physical presence of the monarch and the necessity of strong royal governance in the Indies resulted in the appointment of viceroys ("vice-kings"), the direct representation of

33495-605: The maltreatment and pressed the crown to act to protect the indigenous populations. The crown enacted Laws of Burgos (1513) and the Requerimiento to curb the power of the Spanish conquerors and give indigenous populations the opportunity to peacefully embrace Spanish authority and Christianity. Neither was effective in its purpose. Las Casas was officially appointed Protector of the Indians and spent his life arguing forcefully on their behalf. The New Laws of 1542, limiting

33726-402: The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella as breaking the Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando , under which Isabella would ascend to the Castilian throne on his death only if her suitor was approved by him. Henry wanted to ally Castile with Portugal or France rather than Aragon. He therefore decided to name his daughter Infanta Joanna as heiress to the throne rather than Isabella I. When he died in 1474

33957-401: The means to administer and explore them. The captains were granted ample powers to administer and profit from their possessions. From the 15 original captaincies, only two, Pernambuco and São Vicente, prospered. The failure of most captaincies was related to the resistance of the indigenous native people, shipwrecks and internal disputes between the colonizers.. Failure can also be attributed to

34188-410: The mid-16th century and were the key for the success of the captaincies of São Vicente and Pernambuco, leading sugarcane plantations to quickly spread to other coastal areas in colonial Brazil. Initially, the Portuguese attempted to utilize Indian slaves for sugar cultivation, but shifted to the use of black African slave labor. While the availability of Amerindians did decrease due to epidemics afflicting

34419-422: The modern era. After several years of open warfare, the Dutch finally withdrew in 1654; the Portuguese paid off a war debt in payments of salt. Few Dutch cultural and ethnic influences remain, but Albert Eckhout 's paintings of amerindians and slaves, as well as his still lifes are important works of baroque art. Unlike neighboring Spanish America, Brazil was a slave society from its outset. The African slave trade

34650-425: The monarch, in both civil and ecclesiastical spheres. Viceroyalties were the largest territory unit of administration in the civil and religious spheres and the boundaries of civil and ecclesiastical governance coincided by design, to ensure crown control over both bureaucracies. Until the eighteenth century, there were just two viceroyalties, with the Viceroyalty of New Spain (founded 1535) administering North America,

34881-469: The monarchs decided that those who would not convert would be expelled. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 people were expelled from Castile. From 1502 onwards, they began to convert the Muslim population. Between 1478 and 1497 the monarchs' forces conquered the three Canary Islands of Gran Canaria , La Palma and Tenerife . On 2 January 1492 the monarchs entered Granada 's Alhambra marking

35112-416: The most common forms of resistance involved engaging in sluggishness and sabotage . Other ways these enslaved peoples resisted was by exacting violence upon themselves and their babies, often to the point of death, and by seeking revenge against their masters. Another type of resistance to slavery was flight and, with the dense vegetation of the tropics, runaway slaves fled in numbers and for slave owners, this

35343-529: The municipalities. They also took further measures against the nobility, destroying feudal castles, prohibiting private wars and reducing the power of the Adelantados (a governor-like military office in regions recently conquered). The monarchy incorporated military orders under the Consejo de las Órdenes in 1495, reinforced royal judicial power over the feudal one and transformed the Audiencias into

35574-537: The mutual dislikes of the king shared by the greater Castilian nobility and the Aragonese Infantes , sons of Ferdinand I of Antequera , who sought to control the Castilian crown. This eventually led to war in 1429 and 1430 between the two kingdoms. Álvaro de Luna won the war and expelled the Aragonese Infantes from Castile. Henry IV unsuccessfully tried to re-establish the peace with

35805-532: The native languages and to serve as interpreters in the future. The practice of leaving degredados in new lands to serve as interpreters came straight from the colonization of the islands off of the West African coast 80 years before Cabral landed in Brazil. After Cabral's voyage, the Portuguese focused their efforts on their possessions in Africa and India and showed little interest in Brazil. Between 1500 and 1530, relatively few Portuguese expeditions came to

36036-421: The new land to chart the coast and to obtain brazilwood. In Europe, this wood was used to produce a valuable red dye to luxury textiles. To extract brazilwood from the tropical rainforest, the Portuguese and other Europeans relied on the work of the natives, who initially worked in exchange for European goods like mirrors, scissors, knives and axes. In this early stage of the colonization of Brazil, and also later,

36267-476: The next 150 years. The captaincy of São Vicente, owned by Martim Afonso de Sousa, also produced sugar but its main economic activity was capturing indigenous native people to trade them as slaves. With the failure of most captaincies and the menacing presence of French ships along the Brazilian coast, the government of king John III decided to turn the colonization of Brazil back into a royal enterprise. In 1549,

36498-482: The nobility that his father, John II, had shattered. When his second wife, Joan of Portugal , gave birth to Infanta Joanna , it was claimed that she was the result of an affair of the Queen with Beltrán de la Cueva , one of the King's chief ministers. The King, besieged by riots and the demands of the nobles, had to sign a treaty in which he named as his successor his half-brother Alfonso , leaving Infanta Joanna out of

36729-435: The number of cities represented in the Cortes varied over the next century, until John I permanently set those that would be allowed to send representatives ( procuradores ): Burgos , Toledo , León, Sevilla, Córdoba, Murcia, Jaén, Zamora , Segovia , Ávila , Salamanca , Cuenca , Toro , Valladolid , Soria , Madrid and Guadalajara (with Granada added after its conquest in 1492). Under Alfonso X , most sessions of

36960-485: The only common institution would be the Inquisition . Despite their titles of "Monarchs of Castile, Leon, Aragon and Sicily" Ferdinand and Isabella reigned over their respective territories, although they also took decisions together. Its central position, larger territorial area (three times greater than that of Aragon) and larger population (4.3 million as opposed to the 1 million in Aragon) led to Castile becoming

37191-530: The only monarch of Spain. Philip II continued the politics of Charles I, but unlike his father he made Castile the core of the Spanish Empire , centralising all administration in Madrid . The other Spanish regions maintained certain degree of autonomy, being governed by a Viceroy . In fact, since the reign of Charles I the financial burden of the empire had fallen mainly on Castile, but under Philip II

37422-489: The opportunity and recommenced the fight. Henry finally was victorious in 1369 in the Battle of Montiel , in which he had Peter killed. In 1371 the brother of the Black Prince, John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster , married Constance , Peter's daughter. In 1386, he claimed the Crown of Castile in the name of his wife, the legitimate heir according to the Cortes de Seville of 1361. He arrived in A Coruña with an army and took

37653-473: The opportunity to band together. Slave catchers mounted expeditions with the intent to destroy fugitive communities. These expeditions destroyed mocambos and either killed or re-enslaved inhabitants These expeditions were conducted by soldiers and mercenaries, many of whom were supported by local people or by the government's military. As a result, many fugitive communities were heavily fortified. Amerindians were sometimes utilized as ‘slave catchers’ or as part of

37884-474: The pagan indigenous populations, as well as African slaves not previously Christian, and incorporating them into Christendom. Catholicism remains the dominant religion in Spanish America. The crown also imposed restrictions on emigration to the Americas, excluding Jews and crypto-Jews , Protestants, and foreigners, using the Casa de Contratación to vet potential emigres and issue licenses to travel. The portrait to

38115-418: The power of encomenderos, were a result. Beginning in 1522 in the newly conquered Mexico, government units in the Spanish Empire had a royal treasury controlled by a set of officiales reales (royal officials). There were also sub-treasuries at important ports and mining districts. The officials of the royal treasury at each level of government typically included two to four positions: a tesorero (treasurer),

38346-534: The presence of foreigners in its deliberations. Despite threats, the parliament led by Juan de Zumel representing Burgos , resisted and forced the king to respect the laws of Castile, remove all foreigners from important governmental posts, and learn to speak Castilian . After taking his oath, Charles received a subsidy of 600,000 ducats. Charles was conscious of the fact that he had options to become emperor and needed to impose his authority over Castile to gain access to its riches for his imperial goals. The riches from

38577-443: The province, and collected the king's share of any war booty. The veedor , or overseer, position quickly disappeared in most jurisdictions, subsumed into the position of factor . Depending on the conditions in a jurisdiction, the position of factor/veedor was often eliminated, as well. The treasury officials were appointed by the king, and were largely independent of the authority of the viceroy, audiencia president or governor. On

38808-471: The province; and a veedor (overseer), who was responsible for contacts with native inhabitants of the province, and collected the king's share of any war booty. The treasury officials were appointed by the king, and were largely independent of the authority of the governor. Treasury officials were generally paid out of the income from the province and were normally prohibited from engaging in personal income-producing activities. The indigenous populations in

39039-543: The reconquest of Naples for the Crown of Aragon in 1504. Later that same year, Queen Isabella died, on November 26. Upon Queen Isabella I's death 1504, the crown passed to her daughter Joanna , who was married to Philip of Austria (nicknamed 'Philip the Handsome'). But Isabella knew of her daughter's possible mental health incapacities ( and so nicknamed 'Juana la Loca' or 'Joanna the Mad' ) and named Ferdinand as regent in

39270-562: The representatives demanded that the parliaments be reunited from then on. Although the individual kingdoms and cities initially retained their individual historical rights-including the Old Fuero of Castile (Viejo Fuero de Castilla) and the different fueros of the municipal councils of Castile, León, Extremadura and Andalucía-a unified legal code for the entire new kingdom was created in the Siete Partidas ( c.  1265 ),

39501-428: The required royal licenses. His fall from power is viewed as an example of the weakening of the crown in the mid-seventeenth century since it failed to protect their duly appointed bishop. The crown expelled the Jesuits from Spain and The Indies in 1767 during the Bourbon Reforms . Spanish settlers sought to live in towns and cities, with governance being accomplished through the town council or Cabildo . The cabildo

39732-415: The respective municipalities, administering of justice and being appellate judges in the alcaldes menores ' judgments, but only the corregidor could preside over the cabildo . However, both charges were also put up for sale freely since the late 16th century. </ref> Most Spanish settlers came to the Indies as permanent residents, established families and businesses, and sought advancement in

39963-543: The revolts released Joanna, claiming to support her to be the sole monarch and encouraging her to agree the dethronement of Charles. While sympathetic to revolts, Joanna however refused to sign any documents to support them or depose her son. Los comuneros were defeated one year later (1521). After their defeat, Parliament was reduced to a merely consultative body. To prevent Joanna from being proposed to be an alternative monarch by opponents again, Charles continued her confinement until her death in 1555, after which Charles became

40194-417: The right was most likely used as a souvenir. For those who traveled to the New World and back it was common to bring back souvenirs as there were a great interest in what the New World meant. The land would be significantly different but there was a special emphasis put on the emerging mixed races. Not only was there whites mixing with blacks but there were natives mixing with both whites and blacks as well. From

40425-455: The rule of Christopher Columbus and his heirs in the Caribbean, and they never subsequently gave authorization of sweeping powers to explorers and conquerors. The Catholic Monarchs ' conquest of Granada in 1492 and their expulsion of the Jews "were militant expressions of religious statehood at the moment of the beginning of the American colonization." The crown's power in the religious sphere

40656-548: The same decision. Finally, when Parliament was held in A Coruña , many members were bribed and others denied entry, with the result that the subsidy was approved. Those members who voted in favour were attacked by the Castilian people and their houses were burned. Parliament was not the only opposition which Charles would come up against. When he left Castile in 1520, the Castilian War of the Communities broke out, and

40887-404: The senior official who guarded money on hand and made payments; a contador (accountant or comptroller ), who recorded income and payments, maintained records, and interpreted royal instructions; a factor , who guarded weapons and supplies belonging to the king, and disposed of tribute collected in the province; and a veedor (overseer), who was responsible for contacts with native inhabitants of

41118-693: The sites of institutional life of church and state, as well as urban groups of merchants. Unlike many areas of Spanish America, there was no dense, sedentary indigenous population which had already created settlements, but cities and towns in Brazil were similar to those in Spanish Colonial Venezuela . Port cities allowed Portuguese trade goods to enter, including African slaves, and export goods of sugar and later gold and coffee to be exported to Portugal and beyond. Coastal cities of Olinda (founded 1537), Salvador (1549), Santos (1545), Vitória (1551), and Rio de Janeiro (1565) were also vital in

41349-576: The states of Brasil , with Salvador as capital, and Maranhão , with its capital in São Luís . The state of Maranhão was still further divided in 1737 into the Maranhão e Piauí and Grão-Pará e Rio Negro , with its capital in Belém do Pará . Each state had its own Governor. After 1640, the governors of Brazil coming from the high nobility started to use the title of Vice-rei ( Viceroy ). In 1763

41580-494: The status of individuals and groups in the empire in both the civil and religious spheres, with Spaniards (peninsular- and American-born) monopolizing positions of economic privilege and political power. Royal law and Catholicism codified and maintained hierarchies of class and race, while all were subjects of the crown and mandated to be Catholic. The crown took active steps to establish and maintain Catholicism by evangelizing

41811-431: The submission of Salvadoran natives, the aldeias marked the transition of Jesuit policy from conversion by persuasion alone to the acceptance of force as a means of organizing natives with a means to then evangelizing them. Nevertheless, these aldeias were unattractive to the natives due to the introduction of epidemic diseases to the communities, the forced settlement of aldeia natives elsewhere to labor, and raiding of

42042-588: The substitution of Castilian for Latin was due to the strength of the new language, whereas others consider that it was due to the influence of Hebrew-speaking intellectuals who were hostile towards Latin, the language of the Christian Church. In 1492, under the Catholic Monarchs , the first edition of the Grammar of the Castilian Language by Antonio de Nebrija was published. Castilian

42273-402: The sugar engenhos had resident artisans and barber-surgeons, and functioned in some ways as small towns. Also unlike most Spanish settlements, Brazilian cities and towns did not have a uniform lay-out of central plaza and a check board pattern of streets, often because the topography defeated such an orderly layout. Converted Jews, so-called New Christians , many of whom were merchants, played

42504-535: The support needed to Christianise the indigenous people. The first Jesuits, guided by Father Manuel da Nóbrega and including prominent figures like Juan de Azpilcueta Navarro, Leonardo Nunes and later Joseph of Anchieta , established the first Jesuit missions in Salvador and in São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga , the settlement that gave rise to the city of São Paulo . Nóbrega and Anchieta were instrumental in

42735-459: The suppression of his privileges in The Indies and the creation of territorial governance under royal authority. These governorates, also called as provinces, were the basic of the territorial government of the Indies, and arose as the territories were conquered and colonized. To carry out the expedition ( entrada ), which entailed exploration, conquest, and initial settlement of the territory,

42966-425: The supreme judicial bodies. The crown also sought to better control the cities, and so in 1480 in the Cortes of Toledo it created the corregidores , representatives of the crown, which supervised the city councils. In religion, they reformed religious orders and sought unity of the various sections of the church. They pressured Jews to convert to Catholicism, in some cases persecuted by the Inquisition. Finally in 1492,

43197-410: The territories' imperial era between 15th and 19th centuries. To the end of its imperial rule, Spain called its overseas possessions in the Americas and the Philippines "The Indies", an enduring remnant of Columbus's notion that he had reached Asia by sailing west. When these territories reach a high level of importance, the crown established the Council of the Indies in 1524, following the conquest of

43428-410: The throne has been titled Prince of Asturias since the 14th century. Almost immediately after the union of the two kingdoms under Ferdinand III, the parliaments of Castile and León were united. It was divided into three estates, which corresponded with the nobility, the church and the cities, and included representation from Castile , León , Galicia , Toledo , and the Basque Provinces . Initially

43659-463: The time the second wave of friars came to the Americas and as their numbers grew, the orders began amassing wealth and thus became key economic players. The church, as this wealthy power, had huge estates and built large constructions such as gilded monasteries and cathedrals. Priests themselves also became wealthy landowners. Orders like the Franciscans also established schools for the indigenous elites as well as hired indigenous laborers, thereby shifting

43890-621: The trade in Brazil. During the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns (1580–1640), to be active in Spanish America as well, especially trading African slaves. Even though Brazilian sugar was reputed as being of high quality, the industry faced a crisis during the 17th and 18th centuries when the Dutch and the French started producing sugar in the Antilles , located much closer to Europe, causing sugar prices to fall. Brazil had coastal cities and towns, which have been considered far less important than colonial settlements in Spanish America, but like Spanish America, urban settlements were important as

44121-400: The trees. Portuguese seafarers in the early fifteenth century, as an extension of the Portuguese Reconquista , began to expand from a small area of the Iberian Peninsula, to seizing the Muslim fortress of Ceuta in North Africa. Its maritime exploration then proceeded down the coast of West Africa and across the Indian Ocean to the south Asian subcontinent, as well as the Atlantic islands off

44352-418: The two kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula divided the New World between them in the Treaty of Tordesillas , and in 1500 navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in what is now Brazil and laid claim to it in the name of king Manuel I of Portugal . The Portuguese identified in Portuguese brazilwood as a valuable red dye source and an exploitable product, and attempted to force indigenous groups in Brazil to cut

44583-558: The two kingdoms were united under the name of the Kingdom of León and Castile, or simply as the Crown of Castile. Ferdinand III later conquered the Guadalquivir Valley , while his son Alfonso X conquered the Kingdom of Murcia from Al-Andalus , further extending the area of the Crown of Castile. Given this, the kings of the Crown of Castile traditionally styled themselves "King of Castile , León , Toledo , Galicia , Murcia , Jaén , Córdoba , Seville , and Lord of Biscay and Molina ", among other possessions they later gained. The heir to

44814-429: The union of crowns presented commercial opportunities in the slave trade to Spanish America. The Seventeen Provinces obtained independence from Spain in 1581, leading Philip II to prohibit commerce with Dutch ships, including in Brazil. Since the Dutch had invested large sums in financing sugar production in the Brazilian Northeast and were important as shippers of sugar, a conflict began with Dutch privateers plundering

45045-439: The vacant Leonese throne . It continued to exist as a separate entity after the personal union in 1469 of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs up to the promulgation of the Nueva Planta decrees by Philip V in 1716. In 1492, the voyage of Christopher Columbus and the discovery of the Americas were major events in the history of Castile. The West Indies , Islands and Mainland of

45276-447: The various regions (provinces), sited in existing Indian settlements, where Christian churches were built and where evangelization of the indigenous was based. However, after the 1550s, the crown increasingly favored the diocesan clergy over the religious orders since the diocesan clergy was under the direct authority of the crown, while religious orders were with their own internal regulations and leadership. The crown had authority to draw

45507-457: The victims of this raiding were not white sugar planters but blacks who sold produce grown on their own plots. Other accounts document the actions of members of quilombos to successfully prospect gold and diamonds and to engage in trade with white-controlled cities. While the reasons for fugitive settlement are varied, quilombos were rarely wholly self-sufficient and although inhabitants may have engaged in agricultural pursuits, they depended on

45738-461: Was Mem de Sá (1557–1573). He was an efficient administrator who managed to defeat the indigenous people and, with the help of the Jesuits, expel the French ( Huguenots and some previous Catholic settlers) from their colony of France Antarctique . As part of this process, his nephew, Estácio de Sá , founded the city of Rio de Janeiro there in 1565. The huge size of Brazil led to the colony being divided in two after 1621 when king Philip II created

45969-421: Was a dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1479 when Ferdinand ascended to the Aragonese throne. This union however was not effective until the reign of his grandson Charles I (Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) . Ferdinand and Isabella were related and had married without papal approval. Although Isabella wanted to marry Ferdinand, she refused to proceed with the marriage until she received

46200-450: Was a fact of colonial society, with the three racial groups, European whites ( españoles ), Africans ( negros ), and Indians ( indios ) producing mixed-race offspring, or castas . There was a pyramid of racial status with the apex being the small number of European white ( españoles ), a slightly larger number of mixed-race castas, who, like the whites were mainly urban dwelling, and the largest populations were Indians living in communities in

46431-428: Was a major turning point in world history "In that moment in Spain appeared the dawn of the human rights" . In 1524 the Council of the Indies was established, following the system of Councils that advised the monarch and made decisions on his behalf about specific matters of government. Based in Castile, with the assignment of the governance of the Indies, it was thus responsible for drafting legislation, proposing

46662-403: Was a result of the planters' preference for male labor, and men in quilombos not only raided for crops and goods, but for women; the women taken back to the quilombos were often black or mulatto . Spanish America Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas . The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during

46893-413: Was able to safely enter and leave Brazil in ten days, despite having no means of communication with the indigenous people there, due to the experience Portuguese explorers, such as Gama, had been amassing over the past few decades in interacting with foreign peoples. The Portuguese colonization, around 80 years earlier, of islands off West Africa such as São Tomé and Príncipe , were the first examples of

47124-440: Was absolute in its overseas possessions through the papacy's grant of the Patronato real , and "Catholicism was indissolubly linked with royal authority." Church-State relations were established in the conquest era and remained stable until the end of the Habsburg era in 1700, when the Bourbon monarchs implemented major reforms and changed the relationship between crown and altar. The crown's administration of its overseas empire

47355-655: Was an "endemic problem." The realities of being on a frontier that was policed in less than optimal ways fostered the successful escapes of enslaved people. Since the early 17th century there are indications of runaway slaves organizing themselves into settlements in the Brazilian hinterland. These settlements, called mocambos and quilombos , were usually small and relatively close to sugar fields, and attracted not only African slaves but also people of indigenous origin. Quilombos were often viewed by Portuguese colonists as "parasitic," relying upon theft of livestock and crops, "extortion, and sporadic raiding" for sustenance. Often,

47586-414: Was an item of dispute for more than two and a half centuries but clearly established the Portuguese in America. It was replaced by the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, and both reflect the present extent of Brazil's coastline. On 22 April 1500, during the reign of king Manuel I , a fleet led by navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil and took possession of the land in the name of the king. Although it

47817-406: Was appointed by the viceroy, usually for a five-year term. Corregidores collected the tribute from indigenous communities and regulated forced indigenous labor. Alcaldías mayores were larger districts with a royal appointee, the Alcalde mayor . As the indigenous populations declined, the need for corregimiento decreased and then suppressed, with the alcaldía mayor remaining an institution until it

48048-427: Was built on a slope by a bay ( All Saints Bay ) and was divided into an upper administrative area and a lower commercial area with a harbour. Tomé de Sousa also visited the captaincies to repair the villages and reorganise their economies. In 1551, the Diocese of São Salvador da Bahia was established in the colony, with its seat in Salvador. The second Governor General, Duarte da Costa (1553–1557), faced conflicts with

48279-411: Was composed of the prominent residents ( vecinos ) of the municipality, so that governance was restricted to a male elite, with majority of the population exercising power. Cities were governed on the same pattern as in Spain and in the Indies the city was the framework of Spanish life. The cities were Spanish and the countryside indigenous. In areas of previous indigenous empires with settled populations,

48510-423: Was established in the Laws of Burgos , 1512–1513. The laws were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in the Americas, particularly with regards to treatment of native Indians in the institution of the encomienda . They forbade the maltreatment of natives, and endorsed the Indian Reductions with attempts of conversion to Catholicism. Upon their failure to effectively protect

48741-445: Was eventually carried to the Americas in the 16th century by the conquistadors . Because of Castilian's importance in the land ruled by the Spanish Crown , the language is also known as Spanish. Furthermore, in the 13th century many universities were founded where instruction was in Castilian, such as the Leonese University of Salamanca , the Castilian Estudio General of Palencia and the University of Valladolid , which were among

48972-422: Was facilitated by the spread of diseases such as smallpox , common in Europe but never present in the New World, which reduced the indigenous populations in the Americas . This sometimes caused a labor shortage for plantations and public works and so the colonists informally and gradually, at first, initiated the Atlantic slave trade . One of the most accomplished conquistadors was Hernán Cortés , who, leading

49203-415: Was heavily influenced by the rise of sugar and gold industries in the colony; from 1600 until 1650, sugar accounted for 95% of Brazil's exports. Slave labor demands varied based on region and on the type of harvest crop. In the Bahia region, where sugar was the main crop, conditions for enslaved peoples were extremely harsh. It was often cheaper for slaveowners to literally work enslaved peoples to death over

49434-411: Was hoped. Indeed, the New World colonies only began to yield a substantial part of the Crown's revenues with the establishment of mines such as that of Potosí (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) both started in 1546. By the late 16th century, silver from the Americas accounted for one-fifth of Spain's total budget. Eventually the world's stock of precious metal was doubled or even tripled by silver from

49665-452: Was implemented by royal officials in both the civil and religious spheres, often with overlapping jurisdictions. The crown could administer the empire in the Indies by using native elites as intermediaries with the large indigenous populations. Administrative costs of empire were kept low, with a small number of Spanish officials generally paid low salaries. Crown policy to maintain a closed commercial system limited to one port in Spain and only

49896-402: Was in order to alleviate interior conflicts sparked off by his predecessor (revolts in Portugal , Catalonia and Andalusia ) and achieve peace in Europe. Upon the death of Philip IV in 1665, and with the incapacity of Charles II to govern, Spain suffered an economic slowdown and battles for power between the different 'favourites'. The death of Charles II in 1700 without descendants provoked

50127-496: Was inaugurated. The Manila Galleons shipped goods from all over Asia across the Pacific to Acapulco on the coast of Mexico. From there, the goods were transshipped across Mexico to the Spanish treasure fleets , for shipment to Spain. The Spanish trading port of Manila facilitated this trade in 1572. Although Spain claimed islands in the Pacific, it did not encounter or claim the Hawaiian Islands. The control of Guam , Mariana Islands , Caroline Islands , and Palau came later, from

50358-427: Was inherent to the economic and social structure of the colony. Years before the North American slave trade got underway, more slaves had been brought to Brazil than would ever reach the Thirteen Colonies . It can be estimated that around 35% of all Africans captured in the Atlantic slave trade were sent to Brazil. The slave trade in Brazil would continue for nearly two hundred years and last the longest of any country in

50589-407: Was judicial, as a court of justice of second instance —court of appeal— in penal and civil matters, but also the Audiencias were courts the first instance in the city where it had its headquarters, and also in the cases involving the Royal Treasury. Besides court of justice, the Audiencias had functions of government as counterweight the authority of the viceroys, since they could communicate with both

50820-422: Was left unacknowledged. In 1776, the crown attempted to prevent marriages between racially unequal partners by issuing the Royal Pragmatic on Marriage , taking approval of marriages away from the couple and placing it in their parents' hands. The marriage between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian conquistador in 1565 in St. Augustine (Spanish Florida),

51051-408: Was not home to larger civilizations like the Aztec and the Inca in Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese could not place themselves on an established social structure. This, coupled with the fact that tangible material wealth was not found until the 18th century, made the relationship between the Portuguese and the Brazilian colony very different from the relationship of the Spanish to their possessions in

51282-592: Was not impeded by any existing cortes (i.e. parliament), administrative or ecclesiastical institution, or seigneurial group. The crown sought to establish and maintain control over its overseas possessions through a complex, hierarchical bureaucracy, which in many ways was decentralized. The crown asserted is authority and sovereignty of the territory and vassals it claimed, collected taxes, maintained public order, meted out justice, and established policies for governance of large indigenous populations. Many institutions established in Castile found expression in The Indies from

51513-506: Was on religious conversion, missionaries served as "diplomatic agents, peace emissaries to hostile tribes ... and they were also expected to hold the line against nomadic nonmissionary Indians as well as other European powers." On the frontier of empire, Indians were seen as sin razón , ("without reason"); non-Indian populations were described as gente de razón ("people of reason"), who could be mixed-race castas or black and had greater social mobility in frontier regions. Codes regulated

51744-419: Was only allowed to export and import goods from Portugal and other Portuguese colonies. Brazil exported sugar, tobacco, cotton and native products and imported from Portugal wine , olive oil , textiles and luxury goods – the latter imported by Portugal from other European countries. Africa played an essential role as the supplier of slaves, and Brazilian slave traders in Africa frequently exchanged cachaça ,

51975-433: Was prevalent. The Bahian quilombo of Buraco de Tatu is described as a "well-organized" village in which people probably practiced monogamy and lived on rectangular-shaped houses that made up neat rows, emulating a plantation senzala . Quilombos were often well fortified, with swampy dikes and false roads leading to "covered traps" and "sharpened stakes," like those used in Africa. The gender imbalance among African slaves

52206-465: Was replaced in the eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms by royal officials, Intendants . The salary of officials during the Habsburg era were paltry, but the corregidor or alcalde mayor in densely populated areas of indigenous settlement with a valuable product could use his office for personal enrichment. As with many other royal posts, these positions were sold, starting in 1677. The Bourbon-era intendants were appointed and relatively well paid. During

52437-493: Was so inaccessible. However, many African slaves did in fact flee and created their own communities of runaway slaves called quilombos , which often became established political and economic entities. Work on the sugarcane plantations in Northeast Brazil and other areas relied heavily on slave labor , mostly of west African origin. Tijmen vd P. Had a immense role in slave oppression and torture of escaped africans These enslaved people worked to resist slavery in many ways. Some of

52668-455: Was tasked with reining in Columbus's independence. He strongly influenced the formulation of colonial policy under the Catholic Monarchs, and was instrumental in establishing the Casa de Contratación (1503), which enabled crown control over trade and immigration. Ovando fitted out Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation, and became the first President of the Council of the Indies in 1524. Ecclesiastics also functioned as administrators overseas in

52899-410: Was the religious mission to convert the indigenous populations. Missions were established with royal authority through the Patronato real . The Jesuits were effective missionaries in frontier areas until their expulsion from Spain and its empire in 1767. The Franciscans took over some former Jesuit missions and continued the expansion of areas incorporated into the empire. Although their primary focus

53130-458: Was their relationship to the crown and to Christianity. Once those issues were resolved theologically, in practice the crown sought to protect its new vassals. It did so by dividing peoples of the Americas into the República de Indios , the native populations, and the República de Españoles . The República de Españoles was the entire Hispanic sector, composed of Spaniards, but also Africans (enslaved and free), as well as mixed-race castas . Within

53361-420: Was to be the property of Portugal, and everything to the west of it went to Spain. The Tordesillas Meridian divided South America into two parts, leaving a large chunk of land to be exploited by the Spaniards. The Treaty of Tordesillas has been called the earliest document in Brazilian history, since it determined that part of South America would be settled by Portugal instead of Spain. The Treaty of Tordesillas

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