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The Viceroyalty of New Spain (Spanish: Virreinato de Nueva España), was a centralised territory within the greater Spanish Empire which encompassed a number of provinces primarily in North America with the seat of power being the city of México, while Spanish territory in South America were primarily within the Viceroyalty of Peru.

History[]

Spanish imperial ambitions in the New World began in 1493 with the settlement on Santo Dominigo and the 1510 conquest of Cuba. The first significant expansions into the continent however came in 1521 with the conquest of the Triple Alliance in the Valley of Mexico. New Spain would be founded there with the old Nuhuatl city of Tenochtitlan as its capital. Early Spanish gains in this period would be outside the authority of the Spanish government, and the Council of the Indies was formed to address developments as indigenous peoples were converted to Christianity both with and without force.

In the second half of the 16th century, attention turned towards both the West Indies as a whole as well as the continent north of Cuba. While Papal authority had effectively granted Spain a monopoly of imperial expansion in the New World, this was not accepted by France or England, who made repeated attempts to found their own colonies in territories not yet claimed by Spain. Spanish slaver parties had become well known to indigenous nations along the Gulf of Mexico, with La Florida becoming a strong unified resistance until its eventual conquest in the 1560s. By the 1580s, Spanish influence had spread as far as the modern state of Georgia. Further attention on the Pacific coastline brought forward settlement in what is now California by the 1550s.

Further expansions into North America were slowed down by a combination of costly wars in Europe which bankrupted Spain's economy as well as the emerging influence of France, England, Sweden and the Netherlands on the continent. By the 1750s, North America had been divided into just three European entities - New Spain, New France and British America - with unsettled land serving as native satellite states allied to one of these empires.

Seven Years' War to the Revolution[]

In 1754, Britain and France entered a state of war after escalating violence between militias and their native allies erupted with the Battle of Jumonville Glen. Over the next several years this colonial frontier conflict became a factor in the Diplomatic Revolution as the alliance systems of the Austrian War of Succession were reversed, dragging in Prussia, Russia, Austria, Sweden and Saxony by 1757, as well as the Mughal Empire in India as the British and French East India Companies fought over the subcontinent. Expecting sizable British concessions by coming to France's aid, Spain joined the war in 1762, in doing so provoking war with Portugal. The Viceroyalty of Peru was able to drive out Portuguese interests in Sacramento, but while New Spain was bolstered by the sale of New France in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, the loss of both Cuba and the Philippines to British landing forces. As part of the peace negotiations with Britain, Spain surrendered La Florida and all parts of Louisiana east of the Mississippi River.

Provinces[]

  • La Forida
  • Cuba
  • The Philippines
  • Louisiana (1762–1781)

Sources[]

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