Spanish Colonies in North America
Where and why did Spain establish colonies in North America, and how did native peoples resist colonization?
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Spanish Colonies in North America
Spain and other countries struggled to gain control over North America as a continent. These countries crossed the Atlantic for various reasons where while their government viewed the whole idea from different perspectives. The differences between the colonizers and the government created a conflict of interest, either to their advantage or their disadvantage. For example, Spain has ruled autocratic sovereigns, and their rule was absolute, which means that their colonists went to America as Crown servants. The English colonies defeated both the French and Spanish colonies by 1763, gaining dominance in North America in the French and Indian war.
The regions that managed to be under the Spanish colonies retained national characteristics that still stand up to date. The Spain colonies sponsored by the Crown gained wealth and managed to expand their empire (Reich, 2016). They claimed the majority of southwestern and southern parts and some other parts of the California coast. These parts include Florida, St. Augustine, Santa Fe, and New Mexico, including many California and Texas cities. The first colonizers happened to be missionaries, conquistadores, and soldiers, then traders and farmers followed later on.
The Spanish colonies acquired gold and silver from America, which made them grow rich. The Spanish colonizers settled in those regions due to their confinement in religion, the military posts that shielded them from encroachment by other colonizers and the small towns contained civilian. Spain was then able to establish the first civilian town in Texas and a permanent settlement in California in 1769. Spain was able to inhibit economic development in its colonies since they had already acquired military control and converted the religion in those areas. Trade was also restricted, manufacturing of products was prohibited by Spain, which impeded the growth of towns and civilians’ selling to soldiers.
The Spanish colonizers introduced livestock like goats, cows and horses and crops like tomatoes, Kentucky bluegrass, and different weeds. The livestock ate the grass, a native in those regions that transformed the area into a new environment full of cactus, mesquite, and sagebrush. They also introduced certain diseases found in the tropics, which cut the Indian settlers’ populations by more than half. In simple terms, the reason Spain colonized America was because of the profits they would gain and the need to spread their way of Christianity because they were Catholics, indigenous conversions.
Different strategies were deployed during colonization, which involved violence to enforce their rules over the indigenous residents. The American natives responded to the Spanish colonialism in various ways as they tried to resist. These ways included strategies that kept regularly changing (n.d, San Jose State University). They deployed diverse tactics and some social actions that helped them cope with the structured and repressive regime. Some of these strategies were maintenance of social distance from the colonizers, destruction of relationships with the elites of missions, and quitting leadership roles by becoming resistant to leaders.
The Americans resisted the swift retribution, military actions and destruction of the gentile villages who were non-Christians. The response involved any reaction to emphasize or the new strategies introduced by the colonial system. Simultaneously, the resistance included the usual weapons of the inferior groups like dissimulation, false compliance, foot-dragging, feigned ignorance, pilfering, arson, slander and sabotage, among others. The charismatic Native Americans of high ranks and status led the resistance. These ranks were based on the lineage or rather appointed by people as mission officers.
References
Reich, J. R. (2016). Colonial America. Routledge.
(n.d.). San Jose State University. https://www.sjsu.edu/anthropology/docs/projectfolder/Flores- Gustavo-thesis.pdf
