Spanish Rule in Mexico

26.3.2: Spanish Rule in Mexico

New Spain was a colonial territory of the Spanish Empire that included the land of Mexico, Central America, and the Southwestern United States. It was administered based on a hierarchical racial classification system, with Spaniards at the top and indigenous Indians at the bottom.

Learning Objective

Describe Spanish rule in Mexico

Key Points

  • New Spain, a colonial kingdom ruled by Spain, was founded after the Spanish conquest over the Aztec people in the 16th century.
  • Along with the territory of what is now Mexico, it also included Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America as far south as Costa Rica, the southwestern United States as well as Florida, and the Philippines.
  • The monarch of Spain had tremendous power and control over New Spain including property rights, although much of the law was made and administered by local councils, elected positions limited to Spaniards.
  • New Spain had a hierarchical racial classification system, which not only determined social class, but also had an effect on every aspect of life, including economics and taxation.
  • The racial system ranked Spanish-born Spaniards at the top, then American-born Spaniards (Crioles), then Mestizo (mixed Spaniard and Indian), then indigenous Indian and African.
  • The Creoles, Mestizos, and Indians often disagreed, but all resented the small minority of Spaniards who had all the political power, leading eventually to the Mexican independence movement.

Key Terms

Cabildos
A Spanish colonial and early post-colonial administrative council which governed a municipality. They were sometimes appointed, sometimes elected, but always considered representative of all land-owning heads of household (vecinos).
New Spain
A colonial territory of the Spanish Empire, in the New World north of the Isthmus of Panama. It was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, and following additional conquests, it was made a viceroyalty in 1535. The first of four viceroyalties Spain created in the Americas, it comprised Mexico, Central America, much of the Southwestern and Central United States, and Spanish Florida as well as the Philippines, Guam, Mariana, and Caroline Islands.
El Dorado
The term used by the Spanish Empire to describe a mythical tribal chief (zipa) of the Muisca native people of Colombia, who as an initiation rite covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. The legends changed over time, evolving from a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally an empire. In pursuit of the legend, Spanish conquistadors and numerous others searched Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of Guyana and northern Brazil for the city and its fabulous king. In the course of these explorations, much of northern South America, including the Amazon River, was mapped.
Mestizos
A person of mixed race, especially the offspring of a Spaniard and an American Indian.

New Spain

As a colony, Mexico was part of the much larger Viceroyalty of New Spain, which included Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America as far south as Costa Rica, the southwestern United States as well as Florida, and the Philippines. Hernán Cortés conquered the great empire of the Aztecs and established New Spain as the largest and most important Spanish colony. During the 16th century, Spain focused on conquering areas with dense populations that produced Pre-Columbian civilizations, because such populations had a disciplined labor force and people to evangelize with the Christian faith.

Territories populated by nomadic peoples were harder to conquer, and although the Spanish explored much of North America, seeking the fabled “El Dorado,” they made no concerted effort to settle the northern desert regions in what is now the United States until the end of 16th century (Santa Fe, 1598). The northern area of Mexico, a region of nomadic and semi-nomadic indigenous populations, was thus not generally conducive to dense settlements, but the discovery of silver in Zacatecas in the 1540s drew settlement there to exploit the mines. Silver mining not only became the engine of the economy of New Spain, but vastly enriched Spain and transformed the global economy.

Although New Spain was a dependency of Spain, it was a kingdom not a colony, subject to the presiding monarch on the Iberian Peninsula. The monarch had sweeping power in the overseas territories. According to historian Clarence Haring:

The king possessed not only the sovereign right but the property rights; he was the absolute proprietor, the sole political head of his American dominions. Every privilege and position, economic political, or religious came from him. It was on this basis that the conquest, occupation, and government of the [Spanish] New World was achieved.

New Spain lost parts of its territory to other European powers and independence, but the core area remained under Spanish control until 1821, when it achieved independence as the Mexican Empire— when the latter dissolved, it became modern Mexico and Central America. It developed highly regional divisions, which reflect the impact of climate, topography, the presence or absence of dense indigenous populations, and the presence or absence of mineral resources. The areas of central and southern Mexico had dense indigenous populations with complex social, political, and economic organization.

Laws were introduced that created a balance between local jurisdiction (the Cabildos) and the Crown, whereby upper administrative offices were closed to natives, even those of pure Spanish blood.

 

Racial Divides

The population of New Spain was divided into four main groups or classes. The group a person belonged to was determined by racial background and birthplace. Created by Hispanic elites, this hierarchical system of race classification (sistema de castas), was based on the principle that people varied due to their birth, color, race and origin of ethnic types. The system of castas was more than socio-racial classification. It had an effect on every aspect of life, including economics and taxation. Both the Spanish colonial state and the Church required more tax and tribute payments from those of lower socio-racial categories. Related to Spanish ideas about purity of blood (which historically also related to its reconquest of Spain from the Moors), the colonists established a caste system in Latin America by which a person’s socio-economic status generally correlated with race or racial mix in the known family background, or simply on phenotype (physical appearance) if the family background was unknown.

From the colonial period on when the Spanish imposed control, many wealthy persons and high government officials were of peninsular (Iberian) and/or European background, while African or indigenous ancestry, or dark skin, generally was correlated with inferiority and poverty. The “whiter” the heritage a person could claim, the higher in status they could claim; conversely, darker features meant less opportunity.

The most powerful group was the Spaniards, people born in Spain and sent across the Atlantic to rule the colony. Only Spaniards could hold high-level jobs in the colonial government.

The second group, called Creoles, were those of Spanish background born in Mexico. Many Creoles were prosperous landowners and merchants, but even the wealthiest had little say in government.

The third group, the Mestizos, were people who had some Spanish ancestors and some Indian ancestors. The word Mestizo means “mixed.” Mestizos had a much lower position and were looked down upon by both the Spaniards and the Creoles, who held the racist belief that people of pure European background were superior to everyone else.

The poorest, most marginalized group in New Spain was the Indians, descendants of pre-Columbian peoples. They had less power and endured harsher conditions than other groups. Indians were forced to work as laborers on the ranches and farms (called haciendas) of the Spaniards and Creoles.

In addition to the four main groups, there were also black Africans in colonial Mexico. They were imported as laborers and shared the low status of the Indians. They made up about 4% to 5% of the population, and their mixed-race descendants, called mulattoes, eventually grew to represent about 9%.

A painting of a Mestizo man with his Indian wife, along with their children, one of which is riding a donkey.

De Mestizo y d’India; Coyote by Miguel Cabrera, 1763. A painting of a Mestizo man with his Indian wife and their children. The child of a Mestizo and an Indian is called a Coyote. The hierarchical system of race classification created by the Spanish during colonial rule had Spaniards born in Spain at the top and indigenous Indians and Africans at the bottom.

Economy and Culture

From an economic point of view, New Spain was administered principally for the benefit of the Empire and its military and defensive efforts. Mexico provided more than half of the Empire taxes and supported the administration of all North and Central America. Competition with Spain was discouraged; for example, cultivation of grapes and olives, introduced by Cortez himself, was banned out of fear that these crops would compete with Spain’s.

Education was encouraged by the Crown from the very beginning, and Mexico boasts the first primary school (Texcoco, 1523), first university, the University of Mexico (1551) and the first printing press (1524) of the Americas. Indigenous languages were studied mainly by the religious orders during the first centuries, and became official languages in the so-called Republic of Indians, only to be outlawed and ignored after independence by the prevailing Spanish-speaking creoles.

The syncretism between indigenous and Spanish cultures gave rise to many of nowadays Mexican staple and world-famous cultural traits like tequila (since the 16th century), mariachi (18th), jarabe (17th), churros (17th) and the highly prized Mexican cuisine, fruit of the mixture of European and indigenous ingredients and techniques.

The Creoles, Mestizos, and Indians often disagreed, but all resented the small minority of Spaniards who had all the political power. By the early 1800s, many native-born Mexicans believed that Mexico should become independent of Spain, following the example of the United States. The man who finally touched off the revolt against Spain was the Catholic priest Father Miguel Hidalgo Y Costilla. He is remembered today as the Father of Mexican Independence.

Attributions