Questions tagged [spanish-empire]
The overseas territories held by Spain from the early 16th century. The twilight of the empire is generally considered to be the early 19th century although it did not formally end until 1975 when Spain withdrew from the Spanish Sahara.
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What is the true history of the blue bricks of Old San Juan?
During a recent visit to Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, I was told that the distinctive blue bricks on its streets (see here) were cast from steel byproducts, served as ballast in Spanish ships, and were ...
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Was impressment widespread outside the British Empire and its colonies?
I recently found a source referenced on wikipedia — Hill, J. R. (2002). The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy. Oxford University Press. pp. 135–137. ISBN 0-19-860527-7. — which allegedly ...
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What were the duties and qualifications of the office of "fiscal" in a Pueblo in New Spain?
Looking through marriage records for a certain place now in State of Mexico, Mexico, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, I notice that often the witnesses at pre-marriage registrations and at ...
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If he was garroted, why do depictions show Atahualpa being burned at stake?
I'm reading the Wikipedia page about the execution of Atahualpa.
It says he was garroted:
In accordance with his request, he was executed by strangling with a garrote on July 26, 1533
But the ...
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When were the last autonomous indigenous American settlements conquered by the Spanish?
We are generally taught about when Cortez and his allies in Tlaxcala defeated the Triple Alliance (Aztec) in 1521 and Francisco Pizarro in Peru in 1533. I also know Francisco de Montejo established ...
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Why was the Spanish kingdom in America called New Spain if Spain didn't exist as a country back then?
When the conquistadores arrived in America, the territory of current Spain was divided into multiple crowns/kingdoms but it wasn't what we know today as Spain. I understand at that moment the ...
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Were the Spanish conquistadors really motivated by myths like El Dorado?
I teach secondary school History classes. Our school library contains old academic works (from the 60s-80s) and unreliable children's academic literature. These all claim that ancient myths motivated ...
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How did Incas chroniclers learn to draw?
I came across the magnificent work of an Inca chronicler named Waman Puma de Ayala -- or Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala -- and I wondered: how did he learn to draw his codex?
Resources for viewing his ...
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What does "Quivira" refer to? [closed]
I've found this term "Quivira", both here and in an old journal by some explorer published in the 1500s. What I'm confused about if is "Quivira" is a term that was applied to the ...
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Was merchant Hugh McCulloch the first Scotsman to set foot in California?
In June 1822 the Scottish merchant Hugh McCulloch landed at San Diego from the brig John Begg. He was the founding partner of the business McCulloch Hartnell & Co which for three years from 1 ...
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Was any object from Anza's expeditions conserved?
In the 1770s, Juan Bautista de Anza led two overland expeditions from Sinaloa to Alta California. The first was for reconnaissance and the second, larger and better known, for the purpose of ...
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Please help identify these old coins found in Germany?
We found these two identical coins in our garden (near Wuerzburg, lower Franconia / northern Bavaria):
Coin side A: coat-of-arms of sorts:
(the scale units are centimetres / millimetres)
Coin Side ...
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When did the defeated General José de la Cruz sail back to Spain?
José de la Cruz was a Spanish military commander in Mexico's wars of independence. He was finally defeated by his ex-subordinate, Pedro Celestino Negrete in Durango, just after the Treaty of Córdoba, ...
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For whom would this priest write a long geographical report on his parish?
In 1777, the assistant pastor of Tamazula, Nueva Vizcaya composed a detailed report on the local geography, climate, natural history, and mineralogy, listing the many plants and animals and few ...
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How did people cut "pieces of eight"?
The Spanish silver peso was a very common coin consisting of "fine quality silver, assayed at .931 or .916," according to CoinWeek. Under some circumstances one peso coins, worth eight reales, would ...
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Is there basis in saying Venezuela was Aragonese?
So... This sounds like a silly question even to me, but this is the background. In the recent TV show, Bolivar, there is an Inspector of Weights and Measures for Caracas who comes in to weigh a ...
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Did the "loss" of the American territories in the first third of the 19th century have any impact on Spanish intellectual discourse?
The defeat in the war against the USA in 1898 and the subsequent loss of Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines had an enormous, long-term impact on Spanish intellectuals (Generation of 98).
However, ...
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Did the Jesuit missions in New Spain coerce native labor?
Several Catholic orders operated missions in colonial Mexico; Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits (before their expulsion) all had their own strategies. Alejandro Murguía in The Medicine of Memory ...
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How close did a Manila galleon ever come to Hawaii?
Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Manila galleons sailed regularly between Mexico and the Philippines. Consistent ocean currents informed their clockwise route. After the Spanish had ...
user18968
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Why was Saturnino Martín Cerezo honored by the Spanish government?
Saturnino Martín Cerezo (page not available in English) a lieutenant in the Spanish army, was involved in the famous Siege of Baler, in which a small contingent of Spanish soldiers held out against ...
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Until when did Castile consider all Basques to be noble?
According to J. I. Israel's Race, Class, and Politics in Colonial Mexico: 1610-1670 (pp. 112-113), Basques in the Spanish empire had a special universal claim to nobility:
Perhaps the most ...
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Were surname upgrades a well known practice in the Spanish Empire?
People everywhere have names, and some seek to change their name. Spanish speaking people in particular generally have two surnames, paternal and maternal, in that order. Whether the maternal one ...
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Which is more correct, Carlos I or Carlos V?
I asked this in the Spanish StackExchange and they send me here.
One very well known emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) is known as Charles V (or in Spanish: Carlos V), but it is also known as ...
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How did the conquistadors imagine the "lake of gold" to be like?
According to this article "Archaeology and Legend- How Old Is Acoma?", and a high school history textbook, some Spanish sent out expeditions to look for a "lake of gold". I've found scarce information ...
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Were the islands/countries discovered by Hispanic explorers named after Mozarabic feast days? [closed]
The Spanish and Portuguese often named newly discovered countries and islands after the feast days they were discovered, especially during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It is always assumed ...
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When in 1775 was Anza in Culiacán?
Juan Bautista de Anza made an exploratory expedition to Alta California in 1774, then was sent again to take colonist families with him. As the expedition moved north, he recruited them in Culiacán, ...
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By when was the Manila galleon well known?
Spain managed to start up the Manila galleon system in the 1560s, linking the Philippines with Mexico. The Spanish crown used its control of non-free labor in New Spain to extract precious metals. On ...
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Were priests in politics in New Spain?
In the the Spanish Empire generally, the royal state and the state church were tightly coupled. One hierarchy supposedly answered to the Viceroy and then the King; the other to the Archbishop and the ...
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What is the brown doll on Nicolás de Ovando's desk?
Nicolás de Ovando (1460-1511) was Spanish governor of the Indies (Hispaniola) before the age of the viceroyalties. In this anonymous portrait from Wikipedia, work materials are artfully arranged ...
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Why didn’t the U.S. annex the entire Spanish East Indies at the end of the Spanish-American War?
The Spanish East Indies were a large territory comprising mainly the Philippines,1 plus a large scattering of Micronesian islands in four main groups (the Marianas, the Carolines, the Marshalls,2 and ...
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When were differing hemispheric seasons first understood?
When did people - scientists or philosophers - first realise/discover/understand that the seasons in the southern hemisphere were the opposite to those in the northern hemisphere?
Additionally, when ...
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Looking for colonial era evidence of Jesuit missions from San Martin Peru up to the Pastaza river
if there are any Peruvian colonial era history experts out there, I'm looking for a citable source of some kind for the following scenario.
In my research I've noticed an interesting discrepancy in ...
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Why was it Spain, not Tlaxcala, that dominated over Mesoamerica despite the Tlaxcaltecs being the major force in the conquest of Tenochtitlan?
It has been a question that makes me wonder, since the very first time I read about the history of the Aztecs. In the fall of Tenochtitlan, as commonly known, the Tlaxcalans (Tlaxcaltecs) was the ...
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What would the Wikipedia page for Spain have said in 1490?
I'm trying to understand the Spanish empire prior to the discovery of America - I'm not looking for a book length answer, just a broad summary like what would have been on a Wikipedia page at that ...
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What is the approximate value of a Spanish ducat in 1557?
In the text of "A narrative of the expedition of Hernando de Soto into Florida published at Evora in 1557" the anonymous author states that de Soto "... gathered a hundred and four score thousand ...
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What's this 1607 Hispania coin?
What's this coin called? i found it on a shipwreck website.
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What's the rationale for shipping coins back to Spain from its colonies?
Since the days of Pirates! the thought of capturing the Spanish treasure fleet on its way back somewhere in the Spanish Main was a primary target because of all the gold and silver it transported to ...
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Did New Mexicans under Spain regard themselves as Mexican?
Mexico, in its original sense, is the homeland of the Mexica (Aztec) people and its principal city. The sense of the name broadened, presumably as people in the metropole spoke broadly about it, and ...
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Mutual support in Latin American wars of independence
Nascent Latin American countries expelled Spain with some mutual aid from each other. Between 1815 and 1822, independent Argentina and Chile sent newly acquired naval forces (under Bouchard, Brown, ...
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How to attack Fort Ross
Imperial Spain was upset when the Russian-American Company founded its Californian outpost Fort Ross. Local Spanish officials always stayed cordial with the Russians, though. Both sides were remote ...
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Responsibilities of a naval chaplain in the Spanish empire
In the beginning of the 19th century Agustín Fernández was chaplain of the naval base at San Blas. Records in the colonial section of the Mexican national archive, summarized in all caps, refer to his ...
user18968
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How was the Order of the Golden Fleece involved in the trial of Egmont and Hoorne?
Egmont and Hoorne, both Knights of the Golden Fleece were arrested by the third Duke of Alba, put on trial, found guilty of high treason, and executed.
As knights of the Golden Fleece, they called ...
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How many Manila Galleons were sacked and by whom?
From the 1500s into the 1800s New Spain operated the "Manila Galleon" trade route across the Pacific. Something over four hundred huge, wealthy ships sailed, and of course they did not all arrive. ...
user18968
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Spanish colonial cattle ranching cultures
Many Iberian colonists in the viceroyalties of New Spain (Mexico) and La Plata (Argentina) practiced cattle ranching. Both sides practiced branding and rode horses to control their herds. Many of the ...
user18968
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Did the Incas think Spanish helmets were cooking pots?
Is it true that the Incas thought that the Spanish people where wearing pots to cook(they confused the helmets with pots). As far as I know that there was in some of their religious rituals the ...
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Was the British Empire bigger than the combined empires of the Iberian Union in terms of claimed land area?
The Iberian Empire (1580-1640 AD), under Phillip II, a Habsburg, was a period when there was only one crown in the Iberian Peninsula. The 16th Century had been an Age of Discovery and Exploration for ...
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Why didn't Portugal found universities in its colonies like Spain?
Imperial Spain and Portugal conquered and developed huge empires. Both monarchies were Catholic and seized huge amounts of land in the 1500s.
Both European motherlands had numerous universities, but ...
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New Latin American navies raiding Spanish interests
The newly formed navies of the Latin American wars of independence sometimes raided or blockaded Spanish interests in other parts of the Americas. Consider the Liberating Expedition of Peru, the ...
user18968
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When did Russia learn about the Philippines and the Japanese and Spanish presences there?
The Japanese and Spanish did business in the Philippines from the 12th and 16th centuries respectively.
In Russia, Vasili III became aware that the Spanish had reached America after his envoys ...
user18968
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Did Japanese castaways land in Spanish California?
George Lensen's "The Russian Push Toward Japan" says on p. 261:
In 1815 the transport Pavel under the command of Navigator's Apprentice Srednii left Okhotsk with six Japanese castaways, three of ...
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