Guided Reading: Latin American Colonies
Name_________________________
Effects of the Spanish Conquistadors
1. How did Spain become so wealthy?
2. Why did some surviving Native Americans convert to Christianity after so many of their fellow
natives died?
3. What influences Latin American culture today?
Spanish and Portuguese Colonies in the Americas
1. What are viceroys?
2. What type of colonial rulers were the Spanish?
3. How did the Spanish control trade? What sort of import/exports did they control?
4. Explain the encomienda system as the reading describes it. What were some results of it?
5. Who was Bartolome de Las Casas?
6. What cultures “blended” in Latin America?
7. Draw a pyramid depicting the reading’s description of “a layered society”. Make sure you put
the social “elites” at the top of the pyramid. In each block of the pyramid describe the group
that you’ve placed there.
8. What was the Treaty of Tordesillas?
9. Who settled Brazil?
10. In what ways were the Spanish and Portuguese empires in the Americas similar? In what ways
were they different?
11. Write a 3-part thesis statement analyzing the overall impact of the Age of Exploration on
Latin America.