This subcategory contains 54 links

1512-1513. The Laws of Burgos(578 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(500 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(579 clicks)
Beginning of a biography of the famous defender of the Indians. Includes photos.

Bibliography on History of Ideas in Colonial Latin America(447 clicks)
From H-Net

Biographic Sources On Spaniards In The New World, 16th-17th Centuries(479 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From Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, ed.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(482 clicks)
By Hubert Howe Bancroft, a 19th century historian.

Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America(495 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(519 clicks)
Images and a document. Spanish empire.

Castas(725 clicks)
Think sheet on castes/castas. Nice images to illustrate Spanish ideas on genetic mixtures.

Causation and the Spanish American Independence Movements(435 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)(498 clicks)
Translated original document.

Colonial Latin America(496 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(462 clicks)
From Peter Bakewell at Emory.

Colonial Latin American Economic History database(483 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(471 clicks)
Chronology as an aid to students and others.

Conquerors to Bureaucrats, bureaucracy ascendant, 1550--(468 clicks)
A slide show from the University of Michigan

Donald J. Mabry, Colonial Latin America(477 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(472 clicks)
Notes on the Spanish American colonial economy.

Engraving of Brazilian Natives(492 clicks)
Jean de Léry, 1578

European Backgrounds to the Discovery of America(460 clicks)
Brief notes on the Spanish and Portuguese national monarchies.

Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Paraíba, 1580-1822(532 clicks)
Scholarly book by Alida C. Metcalf

Frontier Missions in Texas (635 clicks)

Government and Law in Spanish Colonial America(488 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(673 clicks)
Scholarly book but images omitted

Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa on castas in Spanish South America(535 clicks)
Spanish commentators on the South American colonies in the mid-eighteenth century.

Late Colonial images(481 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(459 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(504 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(557 clicks)
Scholarly book

Notes on Periods in Colonial Brazilian History(489 clicks)
Brief outline of Brazil in its colonial era, identifying major periods.

Notes on Spanish Imperial Defense of Latin America(462 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(508 clicks)
Scholarly book by Christine Hünefeldt

Pirates Ports of Call(471 clicks)
Slideshow prepared by Dr. Kris Lane. The thumbnails lead to larger images.

Purchasing Whiteness: Race and Status in Colonial Latin America(612 clicks)

Review of Aguirre: The Re-creation of a Sixteenth Century Across South America(430 clicks)
Peter Winn's informative review of a controversial conquistador and rogue.

Royal Instructions for the Viceroy Mendoza(610 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(465 clicks)

Spaniards Supervise Black Slaves in the Mines of Hispaniola(463 clicks)
Engraving by Theodor de Bry, 1590.

Spanish Colonial Administration(661 clicks)
Think sheet with links.

Structure of the Spanish Colonial System(461 clicks)
The structure of the New World Spanish empire.

The 'Door of the Seas and the Key to the Universe'(504 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(673 clicks)
Scholarly book by Robert J. Ferry

The Death of Tupac Amaru(641 clicks)

The Encomienda(483 clicks)
Essay by Meredith Scott explaining the system and its effects.

The Inquisition in 17th-Century Peru: Cases of Portuguese Judaizers(490 clicks)
From Henry C. Lea: The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, 1908

The New Laws of the Indies, 1542(506 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(486 clicks)
1500-1650. Graph showing the volume of trade.

TransAtlantic trade, between Spain and America(488 clicks)
Think sheet with links.

Tupac-Amarau(562 clicks)

Verdes Trigos(350 clicks)
Henrique Chagas, a Brazilian lawyer, includes info and photos of Paraguayan missions in this web site.

Viceregal Government(340 clicks)
Excellent organizational chart

Viceroyalty of New Spain, ca. 1650(334 clicks)
Colored simple map showing Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, ca. 1650

Viceroyalty of Peru, ca. 1650(337 clicks)
Simple, colored map showing the extent of the Viceroyalty.

Wind and Ocean Currents in Summer(321 clicks)
Map of Atlantic winds and currents in summer. Important to understand sailing ships crossing the Atlantic.