Portugal was the first major European country to colonize the regions of the Atlantic Ocean. But Spain was not far behind. Both countries were involved during the 15th century in seizing land on the Canary Islands, establishing colonies there to export agricultural products and building ports to service ships that were on excursions to other parts of the world.
During the years immediately following Columbus’s first journey to the Western Atlantic, Spain surpassed Portugal in the exploration and exploitation of the lands in the Western Atlantic. First invading and occupying many Caribbean islands, then eventually all of Central America, and finally the western portion of South America. The Spanish colonizers followed, for the most part, the Papal Bulls of the 15th century and were fervently Christian about their mission, insisting on Indigenous Peoples either accepting the Catholic faith or suffer enslavement and in many instances, torture and execution.
However, equally important goals were finding and extracting precious metals and stones, and subsequently establishing plantations to produce sugar, cotton and tobacco. This Spanish colonization practice was based on the Encomienda System which gave Spanish conquistadors, settlers, priests, or colonial officials a temporary ‘Life-long’ grant of land which also included the Indigenous families who lived on the land. It was, essentially, sanctioned enslavement that allowed the Spaniards to work the Indigenous Peoples literally to death in the fields and mines. And for what the Spanish felt was a ‘fair return’ by being converted and educated about Christianity, the Indigenous Peoples were supposed to provide tributes of gold or silver, crops and foodstuffs, animals and anything else the land produced. In addition to dying in the fields and mines from the horrible working conditions, the Indigenous population was further decimated by the inadvertent introduction of European diseases and illnesses for which they had no immunity.
This Encomienda System produced tremendous amounts of gold, silver and agricultural commodities. The financial success was partially due to the management practice of ‘replacement instead of maintenance’. This meant it was cheaper to avoid taking proper care of the current work force and instead, simply replace those that died, or became disabled, with those slaves freshly captured on a nearby island, or had recently arrived from Africa.
When reports of the abuses caused by the Encomienda System reached the Spanish crown, Charles V issued what became known as the “New Laws” in 1542. These were a series of royal ordinances designed to reinforce earlier decrees that Indigenous Peoples were not to be enslaved but treated as Spanish subjects with certain rights. To the conquistadors and settlers, this was the action of an ungrateful king and they rebelled, fought and died to resist his rules. Charles was forced to suspend some of the more detested portions of the New Laws. But he did not make the Encomienda grants permanent and the lands reverted to the Spanish government when the original grantee died. So the Encomienda System slowly ceased to exist.
To discover more treasure and slaves, Spain began investigating the northern and western edges of the Caribbean. Ponce de Leon was the first to claim land to the north in 1513. In 1517 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba landed on the Yucatán coast in the west. Between the two it was decided that expanding first to the west was the better option.
Following several exploratory journeys over the next couple years, Hernan Cortés established the first permanent Spanish colony, in what is now Mexico, in June of 1519. By the end of that year Cortes had made his way to the Aztec capital, today’s Mexico City. The invaders were attacked almost every day of the five month journey. They retaliated by demolishing property and indiscriminately killing all the inhabitants of the towns they passed through. The battles continued for the next two years in and around the city. While the Aztecs and their allies effectively resisted the invaders, eventually their weapons were no match for the Spanish armament and the Aztecs suffered a final defeat in 1521 and the area became New Spain. One important aspect of the campaign was the significant number of Indigenous Peoples who rebelled against the Aztecs and joined Cortes’s forces.
When Ponce de Leon claimed Florida in 1513, it was believed to be another Caribbean island and there wasn’t any attempt to establish a permanent settlement on it until 1521. During those intervening years, various Spanish ships would anchor off the coast and exploring parties would make short excursions inland. The Indigenous Peoples they encountered treated them with respectful curiosity, until one of the landing parties enticed a large number of them onto the Spanish ships, restrained them and took them away to be enslaved on plantations in the Caribbean. From that point forward, the Spanish were harassed by the local inhabitants whenever and wherever they explored. In fact, when de Leon established the first permanent settlement in 1521, it was constantly under attack and de Leon died in Havana from the wounds he received in one of the battles. That first settlement was abandoned after a few months.
It is not surprising that the Spanish would have had the same expectation of finding gold, silver, and jewels in the land to the north of their Caribbean and New Spain conquests. There were stories that gave them encouragement and hope about the riches to be found in the unexplored lands to the north. They were told by the Indigenous Peoples that the stories were wrong, but the Spanish, rather than accepting that fact, assumed the Indigenous Peoples were hiding the treasures and would subject them to warfare, torture and executions to force them into revealing the riches they were thought to be hiding.
In 1528 Panfilo de Narvaez landed near what is today Tampa Bay with 400 colonists and the intention of establishing a settlement. Due to inaccurate maps and the natives purposely directing Narvaez into uninhabitable sites and also constantly attacking the invaders, the whole enterprise was a disaster. Narvaez decided to abandon the effort and attempted to sail to New Spain (Mexico) after building several makeshift vessels. The rafts were destroyed off the Texas coast in a storm with only 4 survivors who finally did reach a Spanish settlement, on foot, several years later.
There were no further large scale colonizing efforts in the northern region until Hermando de Soto landed in the same general area as Narvaez in 1538 with over 600 men and the supplies necessary for the expedition to be self-sustaining. During several campaigns in Central and South America de Soto had gained a reputation as an efficient military commander and as being especially effective in controlling the Indigenous Peoples using threats, torture, slavery and execution. Bartolome de las Casa, a Dominican Friar wrote about the techniques used by the Spanish invaders to subdue and terrorize the Indigenous Peoples. A particularly gruesome one he described was hanging thirteen men on a gallows that was at a height so the victims’ toes touched the ground to prevent immediate strangulation, and after a while straw was wrapped around their bodies and they were burned alive. There were always thirteen in honor of Christ and the twelve Disciples. While de las Casas didn’t specifically attribute de Soto as ordering this type of torture/killing, it and similar practices were common actions used by the invaders. What is known from a couple of journals written by people on his expedition is that at one point de Soto ordered an attack on an Indigenous town because the chief refused to give him servants, women and supplies. The town was burned to the ground and thousands of the inhabitants killed.
The de Soto invaders traversed not only the Florida peninsula but perhaps as far north as present day Tennessee and westward into the Great Plains. Always following up on stories about treasures they had coerced from Indigenous Peoples. Many of the stories were more than likely misinterpretations. And others were possibly fabrications once the natives learned the Spanish would leave the immediate area if there was gold elsewhere to be discovered.
Hemando de Soto died of a fever on the banks of the Mississippi River in 1542 and was buried in an unknown location. His group had suffered loses due to battles and diseases and numbered only about 100 men. After de Soto’s death, the remnants of the invaders managed to float down river to the Gulf and eventually arrived at a Spanish settlement on the Yucatán Peninsula.
Francisco de Coronado ’s goal in the southwest was similar to Hernando de Soto’s in the southeast – to find the treasure he was sure existed. And as with de Soto, he convinced himself, and others, that the natives were hiding the gold, silver and precious stones. One reason he was sure of the riches was the report of Friar de Niza who Coronado had sent north on a reconnoitering mission in 1539. The Friar returned with information about a large, golden city called Cíbola situated on a high hill. Niza didn’t actually enter the city, he told Coronado, but from his observation it appeared to be wealthy and as large as Mexico City. When Coronado’s superior, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, heard of Niza’s report he sponsored his own reconnaissance to confirm the Cibola report. Mendoza was informed in early 1540 that the Niza report could not be firmly proven and there was no clear evidence of the bountiful land and city that the Friar had described.
That information arrived too late to alter Coronado’s plans and he marched North to the Rio Grande River basin in 1540. His forces included over 300 soldiers, a half dozen Franciscan Friars, numerous horses and assorted livestock. His men were equipped with crossbows using metal tipped arrows, blunderbuss rifles, and several small caliber cannon. The invading force also included perhaps as many as a 1,000 Indigenous servants and slaves. At that time in New Spain, many of the Indigenous Peoples were not slaves, but were definitely second class citizens and regulated to the menial tasks in service to the Spanish ‘rulers’. Sometimes that service required them to capture and control other natives who would become slaves. This may explain, in part, how Coronado could have had so many Indigenous members as part of his invasion force.
Once he had arrived at a large Pueblo in the Rio Grande River area of present day north central New Mexico, Coronado used various forms of intimidation, torture and execution to gain information, food and supplies for his troops. He commandeered all the lodging spaces, forcing the inhabitants out of their homes and confiscating their stored food supplies. Interestingly, his native servants and slaves were directed to set up camp on an exposed plain about a mile away thereby assigning the better lodgings only for the Spanish. Nearby Pueblos were attacked and most of the inhabitants killed. Those that survived were grilled for information before being executed, generally by fire, but occasionally serving as targets for arrows, swords and spears. Coronado also used amputation to control those he wanted to use as slaves, cutting off one foot to restrict their ability to flee.
After receiving some sketchy stories, probably embellished by his own greedy expectations, about a great city in the center of the country, Coronado embarked on a year long journey northeast into present day eastern Kansas. Unsuccessful in his search, he returned through the destroyed Pueblos to New Spain with only about a hundred of the original force. A few remained in the Pueblo area, along with some of the Indigenous servants and slaves and a couple Franciscans who continued to attempt to convert the Indigenous Peoples.
Primary Sources: Colonial Latin America, Burkholder, Mark & Johnson, Lyman L., Fourth Edition, Oxford University Press, NY, 2001; Spain’s American Colonies and the Encomienda System, Minster, Christopher, ThoughtCo – thoughtco.com/spains-american-colonies-encomienda-system-2136545, 2023