GRADE 7 - Spain's American Empire

Spanish Empire

The Spanish Empire in the New World was a disaster for Native Americans. The Spanish for their part could never really decide what to do with the Native Americans. On the one hand, they believed that they were introducing Native Americans to Christianity and to the arts of civilization and some believed that Native Americans had a right to their lands and should not be economically or politically exploited. This benign attitude was paternalistic: the Spanish would introduce Native Americans to salvation and school them in European civilization. On the other hand, the Spanish ruthlessly massacred native populations and freely enslaved them in some of the most cruel slave practices ever seen on the face of the earth. The average Native American slave lasted barely a year under his or her Spanish masters.

Tumacacori Mission Tumacácori is derived from two Pima words, chu-uma and kakul, probably having reference to a flat, rocky place. Father Kino established it as a mission in January 1691, one day before Guevavi, making it the oldest mission site in Arizona.

Churrigueresque Church - This church in Potosi, Bolivia, is an example of the Churrigueresque architectural style that was brought to Latin America from Spain in the 18^th century. This style is characterized by elaborate ornamentation and open, curving shapes. The style was named for the Churriguera family of Spain; many members of this family were architects and sculptors.

Colonial Church, Cuzco, Peru -Much of the colonial architecture built during the 16th century in Latin America is still standing. This late Renaissance church in the city of Cuzco dates from the Spanish occupation.

Catholic Church, Chile Spanish colonists brought the Roman Catholic faith to the Americas and established it as the region’s official religion during the 16th century. In present-day Chile, about four-fifths of the population follows Catholicism, although the country officially disestablished the church in 1925.

Catholic Church in Spanish America- It's Missions

Until 500 years ago, Spain was the leading nation in sending missionaries to the far corners of the world. Through Catholic monastic orders, such as the Jesuits, Dominicans, Augustinians and the Franciscans, a form of Christianity advanced in the world. Unfortunately, it was also through these orders that the great religious persecutions of the 15th century were fostered through the Spanish Inquisition under the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

It is a little known footnote of history that 1492 is also the year that the last Jews were expelled from Spain. Shortly before Columbus' ships left the harbor of Palos, he recorded this event. The gold that was looted by the Spanish monarchs from the Moors, Protestants and Jews was used to finance Columbus' first voyage. Yet the voyage of Columbus was to open up a world where people could come and worship God in freedom.

In retrospect, this period of Roman Catholic missionary expansion represents a mixed picture. The conquistadors imposed Spanish civilization and Roman Catholicism by force, at times treating the Native Americans with cruelty. However, many of the Spanish missionaries and explorers had pure intentions. There were advances of the gospel in salvation and in educational and charitable work. But their work suffered the shame of being entangled with colonialism and the unredeemed aspects of western culture.

Spanish Missions of California

In the 18th century, what is now California was populated mostly by Native Americans. Late in the century, Franciscan missions sponsored by Spain and the Roman Catholic church played an important role in establishing European settlement in the region. The Spaniards, who had already colonized parts of Mexico to the south, wanted to protect those colonies and extend their influence northward. The Roman Catholic church wanted to convert Native Americans to Christianity. The mission system supported both goals. The first Franciscan mission in California (Mission San Diego de Alcalá) was established by Father Junípero Serra in what in now San Diego. Fifty-four years later in 1823, the Franciscans founded their last of 21 missions at San Francisco Solano. Each mission had an armed presidio to protect it. Each sought to teach the Native Americans both Christianity and European farming methods. Many of the mission churches remain today as living examples of history.

Spanish American Social Classes

Latin American Social Class System
Peninsulares	Spanish official sent to govern Latin American colonies. They controlled government completely.
Creoles	American born Spanish gentry, They owned most of the land but were treated like second-class citizens, and were denied political rights.
Mestizos	Spanish/Native America- denied basic political, economic, and social rights due to their mixed heritage.
Mulattoes	Spanish/African- denied basic political, economic, and social rights due to their mixed heritage.
Native Americans & Slaves	Lowest social class. They had no rights and were often treated poorly and used as a labor source by the plantation owning Creoles.

Peninsulares

In the colonial caste system of Spanish America, a peninsular was a citizen born in the metropolitan part of the Spanish Empire, modernly called just Spain, in Iberian Peninsula. This word was used to separate the Spanish citizens in a colony in America from the criollos or creoles (those born in the Americas of Iberian parents), the mestizos (or those of "mixed" ancestry) and the Amerindians, all of whom were native people, born in the colony. Despective synonyms were godos ("Goths") and gachupines.

Colonial officials at the highest levels arrived from Spain or Portugal to fulfill their duty to govern Iberian colonies in Latin America. Often, the Peninsulares had large quantities of land and owned the natives that lived there. They defended the Cádiz monopoly on trade, upsetting the Creoles, prone to smuggle with British and French colonies. They worked to preserve Spanish or Portuguese power and acted as agents of patrol, in certain cases. Those who were born in Europe and migrated from Europe to Spanish or Portuguese colonies were also deemed peninsulares. In colonial social hierarchy, the peninsulares were nominally at the top, followed by criollos or creoles, who developed a fully-entrenched powerful local aristocracy during the 17th and 18th century.

Creoles

During the colonial era of the Philippines, the term "Filipino" served the same purpose as the term "Criollo" in Latin America, though there it implied the birth of the unmixed Spaniard person in the Philippines. "Insular" had a synonymous meaning with "Filipino", and also implied the birth of a Spaniard on the islands. Those Spaniards that were born in Europe were still denominated "Peninsulares".

The term "Filipino" was drastically changed during the Philippine Revolution when it was taken by nationalistic natives from the governing Spanish and Spanish-mestizo minority, and was transformed into a national designation to include the native majority as well.

Today, "Filipino" stands for the exact opposite of its colonial meaning, and is now used in reference for the population majority, the unmixed native Malays of the archipelago, while ironically it now somewhat excludes the 1% mixed Spanish-descended minority (Spanish-mestizos) who are seen, and often regard themselves, as foreigners.

The population of Spanish-mestizos (native Malay and Spanish or Mexican) in the Philippines has never accounted for more than 1% of the demographics of the Philippines. Meanwhile, numbers of creoles have always accounted for even fewer than the Spanish-mestizos, and today number only 17,000 (0.02%) amid a population of native Filipinos not far from 90 million.

Mestizos

In contrast to Latin America, where mestizos (European/Amerindian) quickly came to comprise the population majority, in the Philippines the combined number of all types of Filipino-mestisos had never accounted for more than 2% of a population which - apart from a Chinese and Spanish minority which numbered fewer than the mestisos - was exclusively native Malay. Upon Spanish and Mexican retreat at the end of colonial occupation, this rarity of mestisos among a native Filipino majority enabled them to position themselves at the top of a caste-based social structure which had been previously established by the Spanish, and where Spaniards had occupied the highest rank. Mestisos now held the greatest governing influence in the country, almost absolute control of commerce and industry, and disposed of an excessively disproportionate share of wealth.

Conversely, the Latino mestizo counterparts, who now comprised the "common" majority of Latin America, possessed little governing influence, lived subsistantly, and were ruled by a long and well-established Spanish creole population that was to stay put. Often times, the only factor distinguishing the life conditions of Latino mestizos from that of the downtrodden Amerindians was merely their higher position in caste due to their Spanish ancestry. In essence, at the lack of a post-colonial Spanish creole presence in the Philippines, the small minority of Filipino-mestisos filled in the role that was being exercised by, what had by that time become, a relatively large Spanish creole population in Latin America.

Mestizos

Mulattos

During the late 19th century, Filipino mestisos initiated most movements and revolts against Spain. One such movement lead by the national hero of the Philippines, Chinese-mestiso José Rizal, was the Propaganda Movement. Though the efforts of these movements and their intended goals failed, Filipino mestisos were also the ones to initiate the calls for Filipino revolt and, with the aid of the Spanish-American War, subsequent independence.

By the time the Philippines had gained independence from Spain, Filipino mestisos had placed themselves as the fundamental role players in the founding of the modern Philippine government, and in the majority of its key positions. The first president of the First Philippine Republic, Emilio Aguinaldo, was a Chinese-mestiso, while the next and first president of the Philippine Commonwealth, Manuel L. Quezón, was a Spanish-mestiso, and the next president, Sergio Osmeña, was another Chinese-mestiso, etc. Today, despite constituting one of the smallest minorities, mestisos continue to hold a monopoly over the country’s economic and corrupt oligarchic political systems.

Spanish-mestisos have long constituted the great majority of the upper class and are extremely endogamous, rarely intermingling with those outside their ethnic group.

Today, a great majority are either in politics or high-ranking executives of commerce and industry and hold great control over the country's economy. An almost equally large number are also members of the entertainment industry, which they have saturated disproportionately. The biased favouritism responsible for their overwhelming presence in film and television is deeply-rooted on established Filipino "ideals of beauty" that are determined based on the possession of partial European ancestry, and which stem from colonial concepts. See also Colonial mentality. One famous Spanish-mestisa residing outside of the Philippines is Isabel Preysler; in her youth a stunningly beautiful model in Spain, mother of Enrique Iglesias and ex-wife of Spanish music legend Julio Iglesias.

Chinese-mestisos also form part of both the upper and middle classes. Most are successful and prosperous business people, and also highly involved in the running of the country. Some are also in the entertainment industry

Encomiedas

The conquest of the Aztec empire required an enormous effort and a tremendous sacrifice by Cortés's army, and after their victory, the soldiers demanded what they had come for: prestige and wealth. The spoils from the city largely had been lost; Cortés had to resort to some other strategy to provide for his men. The conquistador had already surveyed all Aztec records related to tributes and tributary towns, and on the basis of this information, he decided to distribute grants of people and land among his men. This practice had already been tried in the Caribbean, and Cortés himself had received encomiendas , grants of land and people, in Hispaniola in 1509 and in Cuba in 1511. Granting encomiendas became an institution throughout New Spain to ensure subordination of the conquered populations and the use of their labor by the Spanish colonizers, as well as a means to reward Spanish subjects for services rendered to the crown.

From the 16^th to the early 19^th Centuries, Spain’s American colonies were not allowed to conduct trade with each other or any other countries. Under a system known as Mercantilism, Spanish colonies like Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico and Perú could only export raw materials such as sugar cane, tobacco, indigo, etc. at cheap prices to Spain while importing finished goods such as rum, cigars, tools, etc. at expensive prices from the Spanish Crown. Under these conditions, the Spanish crown drained the potential wealth of its American colonies. A rigid class system based on race was created in the Spanish colonies that upheld the commercial monopoly held by the Spanish Crown. At the top of the class system were Spain’s representatives, known as Peninsulares, who usually held the top military, religious and judicial positions. Then came the Creoles, who were usually the sons and grandchildren of Peninsulares born in the Americas and who owned large farms (Plantations/haciendas), mines or were wholesale merchants. Under the creoles were two groups of mixed-blood people, mulattos (of European and African origin) and mestizos (of European and Native American origin) who were usually artisans (skilled laborers) or small farmers. The lowest two classes were composed of Native Americans and Africans, who were usually slaves. This situation led to the serious problems of economic injustice and social injustice in Spain’s American colonies.
It is 1810 and you have just been elected to the Spanish Cortés (the newly formed ‘liberal’ Parliament formed to oust the French-imposed king from Spain) You are a delegate of the American colonies. You are going to investigate the social and economic problems that exist in the Spanish American colonies during the early 19^th Century. In an address to the Cortés you will advocate on behalf of the Spanish American colonies for policy solutions to these economic and social problems.

Bartolomé de las Casas

(Originally CASAUS)

Born at Seville, probably in 1474; d. at Madrid, 1566. His family was from France and settled at Seville. He called himself Casaus during his youth, and changed the name to Casas later on.

Francisco Casaus, or Casas, the father of Bartolomé, had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage and brought back an Indian boy whom he left to his son as a servant. Bartolomé studied law at Salamanca, took his degree of Licentiate, and enjoyed a fair reputation as a lawyer. He possessed the confidence of the Spanish Governors of the Antilles after the departure of Columbus, and the first of these, Ovando, took him to the Island of Hispañola in 1502. Both Ovando and his successor, Velasquez, relied, in more ways than one, on the advice of Las Casas, who did not, however, remain much longer a layman, for in 1510 we find him a secular priest.

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