This subcategory contains 54 links

1512-1513. The Laws of Burgos(556 clicks)
"This was the first systematic code to govern the conduct of settlers in America, particularly in their relations with the native Indians. Among other innovations, the Laws initiated the official use of the old Spanish legal term encomienda, with its implication of duty as well as privilege, in place of the term repartimiento, hitherto used in the Indies to describe the distribution of groups of Indians to individual Spaniards for compulsory labor. The provisions in the Laws for the protection of the natives were considered by the Dominicans to be inadequate and unenforceable; but they represented the first small breach in the wall of officiaL indifference."

Acosta on the question of castas in Peru, 1585(478 clicks)
José de Acosta, a Jesuit chronicler of Spanish South America in the late sixteenth century, wrote on the interbreeding of Spaniards with non-Europeans.

Bartolome de las Casas(557 clicks)
Beginning of a biography of the famous defender of the Indians. Includes photos.

Bibliography on History of Ideas in Colonial Latin America(423 clicks)
From H-Net

Biographic Sources On Spaniards In The New World, 16th-17th Centuries(456 clicks)
From Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, ed. Charles W. Hackett (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1923), vol. 1, pp. 33-69, passim.

Burial of an Archbishop-Viceroy in Mexico City, 1612(459 clicks)
By Hubert Howe Bancroft, a 19th century historian.

Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America(471 clicks)
1542 document. "THIS SIXTEENTH-CENTURY odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca's is one of the great true epics of history. It is the semi-official report to the king of Spain by the ranking surviving officer of a royal expedition to conquer Florida which fantastically miscarried. Four out of a land-force of 300 men--by wits, stamina and luck--found their way back to civilization after eight harrowing years and roughly 6,000 miles over mostly unknown reaches of North America. They were the first Europeans to see and live to report the interior of Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and northernmost Mexico; the 'possum and the buffalo; the Mississippi and the Pecos; pine-nut mash and mesquite-bean flour; and a long string of Indian Stone Age tribes. What these wanderers merely heard and surmised had just as great an effect on subsequent events as what they learned at first hand."

Caribbean Pirates(497 clicks)
Images and a document. Spanish empire.

Castas(700 clicks)
Think sheet on castes/castas. Nice images to illustrate Spanish ideas on genetic mixtures.

Causation and the Spanish American Independence Movements(413 clicks)
PROBLEM: Why did virtually all of Spain's American colonies eschew their allegiance to her and declare themselves independent republics during the first quarter of the l9th century after some 300 years of voluntary obedience to and defense of the Crown?

Charles III: Expulsion of the Jesuits (l767)(476 clicks)
Translated original document.

Colonial Latin America(473 clicks)
"Bring alive the study of Colonial Latin America - this collection of images, sounds, and text can help approach this history in a creative and mind expanding way."

Colonial Latin America Chronology(439 clicks)
From Peter Bakewell at Emory.

Colonial Latin American Economic History database(461 clicks)
" This Web Site, created and managed by Richard L. Garner, is dedicated to the study of the Economic History of Colonial Latin America and the Atlantic World. It includes on-line essays that analyze colonial economic data, data sets including the accounts of the Spanish royal treasury, and a bibliography that contains more than 2,000 titles."

COLONIAL Spain & Portugal Chronology: Latin American Colonial Period(447 clicks)
Chronology as an aid to students and others.

Conquerors to Bureaucrats, bureaucracy ascendant, 1550--(445 clicks)
A slide show from the University of Michigan

Donald J. Mabry, Colonial Latin America(455 clicks)
Colonial Latin America is an outstanding and brief history of the colonial period of Latin America. Buy a copy from Llumina Press and enjoy!

Economy(449 clicks)
Notes on the Spanish American colonial economy.

Engraving of Brazilian Natives(469 clicks)
Jean de Léry, 1578

European Backgrounds to the Discovery of America(437 clicks)
Brief notes on the Spanish and Portuguese national monarchies.

Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Paraíba, 1580-1822(510 clicks)
Scholarly book by Alida C. Metcalf

Frontier Missions in Texas (611 clicks)

Government and Law in Spanish Colonial America(465 clicks)
Extensive notes on the government and law in Spanish Colonial America

Howse, Derek, and Norman J. W. Thrower, editors A Buccaneer's Atlas: Basil Ringrose's South Sea Wa(651 clicks)
Scholarly book but images omitted

Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa on castas in Spanish South America(512 clicks)
Spanish commentators on the South American colonies in the mid-eighteenth century.

Late Colonial images(459 clicks)
Dr. Kris Lang presents images from the late colonial period. Click on the thumbnails.

Letter from Lope de Aguirre, rebel, to King Philip of Spain, 1561(436 clicks)
The following translation is by Tom Holloway, History, Cornell University, from the version published in A. Arellano Moreno (org.), DOCUMENTOS PARA LA HISTORIA ECONOMICA DE VENEZUELA, (Caracas, Univ. Central, 1961).

Merchant's letter of 1553(481 clicks)
The letter of 1553 from a merchant in Seville to his partner and agent in Lima.

Metcalf, Alida C. Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Paraíba, 1580-1822(535 clicks)
Scholarly book

Notes on Periods in Colonial Brazilian History(466 clicks)
Brief outline of Brazil in its colonial era, identifying major periods.

Notes on Spanish Imperial Defense of Latin America(440 clicks)
Brief notes on how Spain defended its New World empire. By Don Mabry.

Paying the Price of Freedom: Family and Labor Among Lima's Slaves, 1800-185(486 clicks)
Scholarly book by Christine Hünefeldt

Pirates Ports of Call(449 clicks)
Slideshow prepared by Dr. Kris Lane. The thumbnails lead to larger images.

Purchasing Whiteness: Race and Status in Colonial Latin America(590 clicks)

Review of Aguirre: The Re-creation of a Sixteenth Century Across South America(407 clicks)
Peter Winn's informative review of a controversial conquistador and rogue.

Royal Instructions for the Viceroy Mendoza(588 clicks)
"instructions given by the Emperor Charles V to Don Antonio de Mendoza, first viceroy of New Spain (Mexico) in 1535. The instructions reveal not only what the Spanish crown intended a viceroy to do in those early years of the empire, but also the crown's notions of the colonies' usefulness to Spain."

Slavery in Brazil: The World of the Sugar Plantation(441 clicks)

Spaniards Supervise Black Slaves in the Mines of Hispaniola(440 clicks)
Engraving by Theodor de Bry, 1590.

Spanish Colonial Administration(638 clicks)
Think sheet with links.

Structure of the Spanish Colonial System(438 clicks)
The structure of the New World Spanish empire.

The 'Door of the Seas and the Key to the Universe'(482 clicks)
Subtitle: Indian Politics and Imperial Rivalry in the Darien, 1640-1750. Book by Ignacio Galluo Diaz.

The Colonial Elite of Early Caracas: Formation and Crisis, 1567-1767(650 clicks)
Scholarly book by Robert J. Ferry

The Death of Tupac Amaru(618 clicks)

The Encomienda(461 clicks)
Essay by Meredith Scott explaining the system and its effects.

The Inquisition in 17th-Century Peru: Cases of Portuguese Judaizers(468 clicks)
From Henry C. Lea: The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, 1908

The New Laws of the Indies, 1542(484 clicks)
"The Laws and ordinances newly made by His Majesty for the government of the Indies and good treatment and preservation of the Indians created a set of pro-Indian laws - so pro-Indian that they some had to be revoked in Mexico and in Peru due to settler opposition. where the viceroy was killed when he attempted to enforce them."

Total Shipping Tonnage Between Spain and Spanish America(462 clicks)
1500-1650. Graph showing the volume of trade.

TransAtlantic trade, between Spain and America(465 clicks)
Think sheet with links.

Tupac-Amarau(539 clicks)

Verdes Trigos(328 clicks)
Henrique Chagas, a Brazilian lawyer, includes info and photos of Paraguayan missions in this web site.

Viceregal Government(316 clicks)
Excellent organizational chart

Viceroyalty of New Spain, ca. 1650(312 clicks)
Colored simple map showing Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, ca. 1650

Viceroyalty of Peru, ca. 1650(314 clicks)
Simple, colored map showing the extent of the Viceroyalty.

Wind and Ocean Currents in Summer(297 clicks)
Map of Atlantic winds and currents in summer. Important to understand sailing ships crossing the Atlantic.