HISTORY22 - New Spain Expands to the North
This article covers the expansion of the Spanish Empire from Mesoamerica to the north, both during the conquest of Mesoamerica and the following Colonial Period. The time period begins in the 1530s, with exploration of the northern territories, and extends to 1821, when Mexico gained its independence from Spain.
My previous two blog articles cover the Development of ancient Mesoamerican Civilizations and the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica.
In 1521, after the fall of the
Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, to Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés, Spain
established the Viceroyalty of New Spain, an integral territorial entity of the
worldwide Spanish Empire, with its capital in Mexico City on the obliterated
site of Tenochtitlán. New Spain
continued to grow to the south, as the Spanish conquered the rest of
Mesoamerica and Central America; and also grew to the north, as Spain turned
its attention to new lands.
By 1531, the Spanish had conquered
the Aztec Empire in Central Mexico and the Tarascan State to the west, and
began looking north in the hope of discovering new wealthy civilizations to
conquer, precious metals to mine, indigenous peoples to convert to
Christianity, and later, to forestall incursions by the British and French.
After the conquest of central Mexico, Spain turned its attention to new lands.
Exploration
The first European to visit
northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S. was Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca,
who survived a ship wreck near present day Galveston, Texas in 1528, and for
the next eight years, with a handful of other survivors, explored on foot what
is now Texas, northeastern Mexico, parts of New Mexico and Arizona, then down
the Gulf of California Coast to finally reach Mexico City in 1536.
Also, in 1536, Conquistador
Hernán Cortés explored the northwestern part of Mexico, discovered the Baja
California Peninsula, and explored the Pacific Coast of Mexico.
Based on de Vaca’s description of
riches in the northern lands (the mythical seven cities of gold), Spanish Conquistador
Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, from 1540-1542, led a large expedition from
Mexico, north to present day Kansas, through northern Mexico and parts of the southwestern
U.S. Though Coronado found no gold, his
was the first systematic exploration of the new lands and served as a
springboard for future explorers and colonizers.
Coronado's route on his 1540-1542 exploration of northern Mexico and southwestern U.S.
For reference as we discuss Spanish settlement northward, a map of the current states of Mexico is provided below.
The black line across the map is the approximate division between Mesoamerica (to the south) and the Spanish northern expansion region in Mexico.
Northern Mexico
After conquering the Tarascans in
the Michoacan state of central Mexico in 1531, brutal Spanish Conquistador Nuño
Guzmán proceeded to launch a fierce campaign north into the lands of the
Chichimeca, a nomadic people who invaded central Mexico from the north in the
12th and 13th centuries.
Typically, the conquistadors attacked an Indian village, stole the corn
and other food, razed and burned the dwellings, and tortured the native leaders
to gather information on what riches were in the area. For the most part, these riches did not
exist.
Undeterred, Guzmán continued the
violent suppression of the Chichimecas and in 1531, established the Kingdom of
New Galicia, covering the present-day Mexican states of Aguascalientes,
Guanajuato, Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit, and Zacatecas. San Blas, on Nayarit’s Pacific coast, was
founded in 1530 and would eventually become a jumping off place for military
missions to Sinaloa, Sonora, and California.
The
discovery of silver deposits in Zacatecas and Guanajuato in the mid-1500s, and
later in San Luis Potosí (1592) caused a frenzy of mining activity. (During Colonial times, nearly one-third of
all the silver mined in the world came from the Guanajuato region.)
But, Guzmán’s violent conquest of
New Galicia had left Spanish control unstable.
The Chichimeca War (1550-1590) started with the natives attacking
travelers and merchants along the “silver roads.” This war would become the longest and
costliest conflict between Spanish forces and indigenous peoples in the
Americas. Thousands of Spanish died and
mining settlements in Chichimeca territory were continually under threat. With no military end in sight, in 1590,
Spanish authorities launched an intensive peace offensive by offering the
Chichimecas lands, agricultural supplies, and other goods. This “peace by purchase” finally brought an
end to the war.
Silver
mining stimulated northcentral Mexico’s development to supply the mines with
food and livestock. This was rich,
fertile lowland (called the Bajío) just north of central Mexico. Devoid of settled indigenous populations in
the early sixteenth century, the Bajío did not initially attract Spaniards, who
were much more interested in exploiting labor and collecting tribute whenever
possible. The region did not have indigenous populations that practiced
subsistence agriculture. The Bajío developed in the Colonial Period as a region
of commercial agriculture.
The Bajio developed as a region of commercial agriculture.
Francisco de Ibarra explored and settled much of northwestern Mexico.
Spanish settlement of northeastern Mexico proceeded along the same general timeline as that of Nueva Vizcaya, on lands that would become the Province of Nuevo Santander, the New Kingdom of Leon, and the Province of Nueva Extremadura - the current Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, and northeastern Coahuila. The city of Monterrey was founded in 1596, but wouldn’t become a key economic center until after Mexican independence. The city of Ciudad Juarez was founded in 1659 on the Rio Grande River opposite today’s El Paso, Texas.
There
was widespread resistance to Spanish colonization by indigenous peoples
throughout all of northern Mexico, with uprisings and rebellions lasting until
the late 1700s.
Religious missions were an integral part of the northern
frontier of New Spain and were established over a vast area. From the early
seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, missionaries of the Roman
Catholic Church built missions throughout what is now northern Mexico and the
southwestern United States. The Church,
together with military and secular entities, established European order in the
region. The missionaries were the first to enter these frontier zones in an
attempt to convert native populations to Christianity. The missions also served
as a vanguard for the expansion of Spanish settlements and mining operations.
New
Mexico/Arizona
After
making peace with the indigenous semi-nomadic Chichimeca peoples of northcentral
Mexico in 1590, Spanish attention again turned northward. In 1595, Don Juan de Oñate received official
permission to explore and colonize lands in present-day New Mexico, then very
sparsely populated by indigenous pueblo peoples, mostly in central and northern
New Mexico, along the Rio Grande River.
In 1598, Oñate made his first foray from today’s Mexican state of
Chihuahua into the new lands, traveling up the Rio Grande Valley, with a large
group of soldiers, settlers, and missionaries, reaching northern New Mexico to
establish the first European settlement in New Mexico near today’s Santa Fe. In that same year, the Province of Nueva
Mexico was officially created by the Spanish King with Oñate named as its first
Governor.
The
indigenous pueblo people at Acoma revolted against this Spanish
encroachment and faced severe suppression. In battles with the Acomas, Oñate
lost 11 soldiers and two servants, killed hundreds of Indians, and punished
every man over 25 years of age by the amputation of their left foot.
In 1604-1605, Oñate made an extensive exploration of today’s Arizona, marching
west from New Mexico, past the Zuni and Hopi villages in Arizona, reaching the
Verde Valley and the Prescott area, finally arriving at the Colorado River, and
then heading south to the Gulf of California.
Native Indian pueblos and Spanish towns in early Spanish New Mexico.
Oñate’s missionaries began an 80-year period of mission building at over 20 native pueblos across northern New Mexico, plus three missions as far west as the Hopi pueblos in northeastern Arizona. But both the colonists and the missionaries depended on native labor and competed with each other to control a decreasing population (because of high mortality to European diseases). They exploited native labor for transport, sold native slaves in New Spain, and sold goods produced by the slaves. Moreover, the missionaries tried to totally eliminate native religious practices - efforts that included imprisonment, execution, and destroying religious articles.
In 1606, Oñate was recalled to Mexico City and was tried and convicted
of cruelty to both natives and colonists.
He was banished from New Mexico for life and exiled from Mexico City for
five years. He died in Spain in 1626 and
is sometimes called the “last Conquistador.”
 |
| Don Juan de Onate, the "last Conquistador," settled much of northwestern Mexico. |
In 1609, the Spanish moved their initial settlement from San Juan to
Santa Fe, about 25 miles to the southeast at the foot of the Sange de Cristo
Mountains, because of the constant threat of non-indigenous, nomadic Native
Americans, principally the Apache. In
1610, the Spaniards made the settlement of Santa Fe capital of the New Mexico
territory.
In 1680, the pueblo people accomplished
a well-coordinated revolt (Pueblo Revolt), killing about 800 Spaniards and
driving an additional 2,000 from northeastern Arizona and all but the southern
portion of New Mexico. Most of the
missions were demolished or burned.
The
small village of El Paso was established in 1680 in West Texas, across the Rio
Grande River from Ciudad Juarez, as a temporary base for the Spanish governance
of the territory of New Mexico as a result of the Pueblo Revolt.
It took until 1692 for the Spanish
to reestablish control in New Mexico.
Spanish settlers had first arrived
at the site of Albuquerque in the mid-17th century and established
several Haciendas and farms. After the
Pueblo Revolt, settlers returned to Albuquerque and in 1706 the Spanish colonial town of Albuquerque
was founded.
Meanwhile, to the southwest, in 1687,
missionary Eusebio Kino arrived in today’s Mexican state of Sonora and began to
establish missions in northern Sonora, and by 1691, in today’s southeastern
Arizona. Before his death in 1711, Kino
would establish over 20 missions, including several along the Santa Cruz River
in Arizona, among the generally peaceful indigenous Pima and Tohono O’odham
peoples.
Missions and towns in early Spanish Sonora and Arizona.
Spanish settlement of southeastern
Arizona began in the late 1690s, with a small cattle ranch near today’s
Mexico-U.S. border at the headwaters of the Santa Cruz River. Additional settlers followed, attracted by
the fertile Santa Cruz Valley and silver mining interests.
While Father Kino was establishing his
missions, non-indigenous nomadic Apaches began raiding from Arizona and New
Mexico into Sonora and Chihuahua. As the
Apache continually attacked settlements, ranches, and mining camps - gradually
assimilating local native groups - the Spanish were forced to build a series of
presidios (forts) to contain the threat.
In 1752, the Spanish built a presidio at
Tubac in southern Arizona to protect Spanish interests in the Santa Cruz River
Valley. In 1775 the Spanish moved the
garrison to the new site of Tucson.
During this period of presidio building and relocation, Juan Bautista
de Anza, Spanish Captain of the Tubac Presidio, and later to be the Governor of
New Mexico, made two trips to northern California that established a land route
to the Pacific Coast, brought settlers to California’s Monterey presidio, and explored
San Francisco Bay for future settlement.
The Sonora and Arizona presidios were
largely ineffective in controlling the Apache, so in the late 1780s, the
Spanish changed their approach and offered peace and rations to Apaches who
settled at the presidios (similar to Spanish tactics with the Chichimecas two
hundred years earlier). By 1790, most of
the Apache bands were at peace - that lasted until the 1830s.
To encourage settlement, the Spanish
Colonial Government began issuing land grants in southeastern Arizona. For the last 30 years of New Spain’s control,
most of the growth in southeastern Arizona occurred in the Santa Cruz Valley.
In 1732, the new Province of Nueva
Navarra had been formed and added to New Spain to include lands to the west and
north of the Province of Nueva Vizcaya.
The new province included the western parts of the present-day Mexican
states of Sinaloa and Sonora, and present-day southern Arizona, as far north as
the Gila River.
California
Spanish
exploration of the Pacific Coast of California began in 1542 when Juan Cabrillo
landed at today’s San Diego Bay and then sailed up the coast. Cabrillo’s voyage was largely unnoticed by
Spanish authorities and it wasn’t until 1602 that Sebastián Vizcaino sailed up
the Pacific Coast as far as present-day Oregon, and named California coastal
features from San Diego to as far north as the Bay of Monterey.
Not
until the eighteenth century was California of much interest to the Spanish
crown, since California had no known rich mineral deposits or indigenous
populations sufficiently organized to render tribute and perform labor for
Spaniards. (The discovery of huge deposits of gold in the Sierra Nevada foothills did not
come until after the U.S. had incorporated California following the Mexican-American War [1846–48]).
By
the early 1800s, Spanish missionaries had established over 20 missions on
the lower California peninsula.
Spanish missions on the lower California peninsula.
In
1768, Spain decided to "Occupy and fortify San Diego and Monterey for God
and the King of Spain." The Spanish colonization there, with far fewer known
natural resources and less cultural development than Mexico, was to combine
establishing a presence for defense of the territory with a perceived
responsibility to convert the indigenous people to Christianity.
Between
1769 and 1804, in upper California, the Spanish established 19 missions and five
presidios to protect the missionaries and settlers. The first upper California mission and
presidio were established by Friar Junipero Serra and Gaspar de Portola in San
Diego in 1769. In 1771, Father Serra
directed the building of Mission San Gabriel and ten years later, in 1781,
settlers founded the Los Angeles pueblo there.
Presidios
were also established at Monterey, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Sonoma.
Spanish missions in upper California.
In
1804, the crown created two new provinces of New Spain. The southern peninsula became Baja
California, or Vieja (old) California, and the ill-defined northern mainland
frontier area became Alta (upper) California, or Nueva California. Baja California eventually became the
present-day Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur. The vast Alta California claimed territory
included all the modern U.S. states of California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of
Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Once
missions and protective presidios were established in an area, large land grants encouraged settlement and establishment
of California ranchos. The Spanish system of land grants was not
very successful, however, because the grants were merely royal concessions - not
actual land ownership. Under later Mexican rule, land grants conveyed
ownership, and were more successful at promoting settlement.
Rancho
activities centered on cattle-raising; many grantees emulated the Dons of Spain, with cattle, horses and sheep as the sources
of wealth. The work was usually done by Native Americans, sometimes displaced and/or relocated from
their villages. Native-born descendants
of the resident Spanish-heritage rancho grantees, soldiers, servants,
merchants, craftsmen and others became the Californios.
Many of the less-affluent men took native wives, and many daughters married
later English, French and American settlers.
Spain
never colonized areas beyond the southern and central coastal areas of present-day
California.
Florida
Spanish
Florida was established in 1513 when Juan Ponce de León claimed peninsular
Florida for Spain. Subsequent explorers
landed near Tampa Bay and traveled as far north as the Appalachian Mountains
and as far west as today’s Texas in largely unsuccessful searches for gold.
The
presidio of St. Augustine was founded on Florida’s Atlantic Coast in 1565 and
served as the capital of Spanish Florida for almost 200 years. St. Augustine is the oldest continuously
occupied settlement of European origin in the contiguous United States.
In
the next 22 years, the Spanish established a number of missions and presidios on
the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of peninsular Florida, up the Atlantic Coast in
today’s Georgia and South Carolina, and inland in South Carolina.
The first Spanish missions and presidios in Florida, 1565-1587.
During the 1600s, a series of missions were established across the Florida panhandle. Pensacola was founded on the western Florida panhandle in 1698. These developments strengthened Spanish claims to the territory.
While
its boundaries were never clearly or formally defined, Spanish Florida extended
over all of present-day Florida, plus portions of Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and southeastern Louisiana.
Spanish
control of Florida was much facilitated by the collapse of native cultures,
mostly caused by a drastic decline in population from European diseases.
The
extent of Spanish Florida started to decline when France established a colony
in New Orleans (1718) and Great Britain established the colonies of Carolina
(1639) and Georgia (1732), over Spanish objections.
Great
Britain had established settlements at Jamestown in 1607 and at Plymouth in
1622, and from there expanded along the American Atlantic Coast to 13 colonies,
stretching from today’s Maine to Georgia, by 1775 at the start of the American
Revolution (1775-1783).
France
started exploring in North America along the St. Lawrence River in the early
1600s, explored to the south and claimed land in today’s American mid-west,
easing up against England’s colonies, building many trading posts, and by the
early 1700s, had expanded southward and begun to settle in today’s southern
Louisiana.
Great
Britain temporarily gained control of Florida in 1763 as a result of the
Anglo-Spanish War, but Florida was returned to the Spanish in 1783 as a
condition of the settlement of the American Revolutionary War.
After a brief diplomatic dispute with the fledgling United States, in 1795, the countries set the northern boundary of Florida (that still extended to the Spanish colony of Louisiana) and allowed Americans free navigation of the Mississippi River.
In the
early 1800s, Florida became an economic burden to Spain, which could not afford
to send settlers or garrisons, so in 1819, the Spanish government decided to
cede the territory to the U.S. in exchange for settling a boundary dispute in
Texas.
Texas
Alonso
Álvarez de Pineda claimed Texas for Spain in 1519, but the area was largely
ignored by Spain until the late 17th century.
In
East Texas, in 1690, Spanish authorities, concerned that France posed a
competitive threat in nearby Louisiana, constructed several missions. Facing steady Native American resistance, the
missionaries returned to Mexico, but in 1716, seeing France settling Louisiana,
mostly in the southern part of the state, Spain responded by establishing new
missions in East Texas. Two years later,
in 1718, they established San Antonio as the first Spanish civilian settlement
in the area.
Hostile
natives and the distance to other Spanish colonies discouraged Spanish settlers
from moving to the area. It was one of
Spain’s least populated provinces.
Native resistance in East and Central Texas, particularly from the
Apache, continued into the late 1700s, but with more missions being
established, by the end of 18th century, only a few nomadic tribes
had not been converted to Christianity.
Missions and presidios built in Spanish Texas, 1659-1795.
Meanwhile,
in West Texas, Native American Comanches were causing trouble. The Comanches were the dominant Native
American group in the Southwest from the 1750s to the 1830s. The huge domain
they ruled was an empire known as Comanchería, extending across today’s
U.S. states of northcentral Texas, eastern New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and
southern Kansas. For many years, they
kept the Spanish, and later the Americans, out of their empire.
The
Comanches operated as an autonomous power inside the area claimed by Spain but
not controlled by it. The Comanches used
their military power to obtain supplies and labor from the Spanish, and other Native
Americans through thievery, tribute, and kidnappings, and the Spanish could do
little to stop them because the Comanches controlled most of the horses in the
region and thus had more wealth and mobility.
The
Comanches often raided into northeastern Mexico, in today’s Mexican state of
Coahuila and in response, the Spanish built presidios along the southwestern
Texas frontier.
Native American Comanches operated unchecked within their Comancheria stronghold and raided into bordering country.
In
1819, the boundary between New Spain and the United States, i.e., the boundary
between Spanish Texas and American Louisiana (territory of U.S. since the 1803
Louisiana Purchase) was set at the current border between the U.S. states of
Texas and Louisiana, at the Sabine River.
Eager for new land, many settlers from the U.S., refused to recognize
the agreement and crossed into Spanish Texas to make a new life there.
Spanish
Louisiana
Spanish
Louisiana was a territory of New Spain from 1762-1801 that consisted of vast lands
in the center of North America, encompassing the western basin of the
Mississippi River plus the city of New Orleans.
The area had originally been claimed and controlled by France, but Spain
secretly acquired it from France near the end of the Seven Years War in Europe,
by the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762).
The new territory also included the trading post of Saint Louis.
New
Orleans was the main port of entry for Spanish supplies sent to American forces
during the Revolutionary War, although Spain and the U.S. disputed navigation
rights on the Mississippi River for the duration of Spain’s rule in Louisiana.
The acquisition of Louisiana consolidated the Spanish Empire
in North America at its greatest extent. When Great Britain returned
Florida to Spain in 1783, after the American Revolutionary War, Spanish
territory completely encircled the Gulf of Mexico and stretched from Florida,
west to the Pacific Ocean, and north to Canada west of the Mississippi River -
a condition that lasted for 18 years.
The greatest extent of the Spanish Empire in North America, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, occurred from 1783-1801, with the acquisition of the Louisiana territory.
Spain
ceded Louisiana back to France in 1801 in exchange for territories in Tuscany, Italy,
and in 1803, France, desperate for funds to pursue European interests, sold the
territory to the U.S. for $15 million (Louisiana Purchase) - doubling the size
of the U.S. at a price of less than three cents per acre.
Adams-Onís Treaty
The Adam-Onís Treaty was an
agreement between the United States and Spain in 1819, signed in 1821, that
ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New
Spain.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain, just before Mexican independence, included northern Mexico and a large portion of the future southwestern United States.
Central America also achieved its
independence in 1821, leaving only Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as
part of New Spain.
At the end of the Spanish
American War in 1898, these last remaining parts of New Spain came under the
control of the United States.
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