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 conquest (1492–1575)
• The viceroyalties (1535–1808)
• The first Bourbons (1700–1808)

Its events

1. 16 November 1532: Cajamarca: Pizarro captures Atahualpa
2. 18 January 1535: Lima, the City of the Kings, is founded
3. 20 November 1542: The New Laws of the Indies
4. 1555–1571: Friars write the first grammars of American languages
5. c. 1765–1788: The Bourbon reforms
6. 1767: Charles III expels the Jesuits
7. 4 November 1780–18 May 1781: The rebellion of Túpac Amaru II