Colonial Mexico
The Viceroyalty of New Spain
Consolidating New Spain
 The Spanish Claims on America
 Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494
 Casa de Contratación (1503, Seville)
 Council of the Indies (1524)
 Settling New Spain
 Extending the Conquest: Nuño de Guzmán,
Francisco Coronado, Juan de Oñate
 The Legacy of Cortes
 The Threat of Foreign Competition
Administering an Empire
 The Viceroyalty of New Spain
 The “Republic of Spaniards”
 The Viceroy
 Antonio de Mendoza, Luis de Velasco (the elder)
 The Audiencia
 Oidores
 The Visitador: Royal Oversight
 Corregidores, Alcaldes Mayores, or
Gobernadores
The Local Context
 The Cabildo [Ayuntamiento]
 Town Councils
 Tensions between Local and Royal Agendas
 The Growth of Local Aristocracies
 Peninsulares and Criollos: The
Distinction Emerges
The “Republic of the
Indians”
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Corregidores de Indios
The Role of the Cacique
Indian Depopulation
The “Indian Question”
 The Encomienda
 The Power of Encomenderos
 The New Laws of the Indies (1542)
 Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de
Sepúlveda (the 1550 debate)
 The Repartimiento
The Spanish Imperial
System
 The Imperial Monopoly
 Mercantilism
 A Fragmentation of Authority
 The State as All-Present, but Not AllPowerful
 “I Obey but Do Not Comply.”
The Economy of New
Spain
 The Example of Cortes
 The Advance of the Hacienda
 Hacendados
 Marriage and Entail
 An Unstable Elite, at first
 Agriculture & Livestock
 Mining
 Zacatecas, San Luis Postosí
 The Quinto (Royal Fifth)
 The Beginnings of Manufacturing
 Obrajes
Alcoman Monastery
Altar at National Cathedral
Interior View, Cholula Cathedral
Cuernavaca
San Jose Mission, San Antonio
Valladolid
Yaxcabá (in the Yucatán)
The Church in Colonial
Mexico
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The Spanish “Patronato Real”
Secular and Regular Clergy
The Church vs. the Encomenderos
The Accession of Phillip II (1559)
 Eroding the Church’s Position
 The Work of Conversion
 The Inquisition, 1571
 “Syncretism”
 Wordliness
 Fueros, Property Accumulation
Colonial Society
 The Vagaries of Race
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Peninsulares, Criollos
Mestizos
Indians
Africans
Becoming “White”
 The Status and Role of Women
 Population in Mexico