Empire and the colonial Americas

El imperio y la América colonial

1492–1808. From 1492 Castile, and then the Spanish monarchy, built an empire across the Americas and the Pacific.

What happened

From 1492 Castile, and then the Spanish monarchy, built an empire across the Americas and the Pacific. Conquest, epidemics and forced labour devastated Indigenous peoples, while Spanish, Indigenous and African people and cultures mixed in new societies. Silver from the Americas fed world trade, and Spanish writers and painters had their Golden Age. Spanish became the language of a continent, taking in words from Taíno, Nahuatl and Quechua on the way.

Within it

• The Catholic Monarchs (1469–1516)
• The conquest (1492–1575)
• The Habsburg empire (1516–1700)
• The viceroyalties (1535–1808)
• The first Bourbons (1700–1808)

Its events

1. 12 October 1492: Columbus reaches America
2. 7 June 1494: The Treaty of Tordesillas
3. 6 September 1522: Elcano sails round the world
4. 1545: Silver is found at Potosí
5. August 1550–1551: The Valladolid debate
6. 1565–1815: The Manila galleon
7. 1580–1640: Philip II becomes king of Portugal
8. January 1605: Don Quixote is published
9. March 1691: Sor Juana answers Sor Filotea
10. 26 March 1713–1750: The slave asiento goes to Britain
11. 1741–2010: The ñ and the shaping of Spanish spelling
12. 1767: Charles III expels the Jesuits