The Viceroyalty of New Spain referred to one of the four viceroyalty entities upon which the Spanish Catholic Empire’s American colony was organized. The other three entities included the Viceroyalty of New Granada, the Viceroyalty of Peru, and the later Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata. The Spanish crown’s victory over the Aztec Empire in 1521 was immediately followed by the establishment of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The capital of the viceroyalty was the Tenochtitlan ancient city, present-day Mexico City. Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco was the first Viceroy figure to govern the division. This victory was primarily owed to Hernan Cortes, a Spanish conquistador who was supported by some indigenous forces.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain experienced a vast territorial expansion that covered Central America, Oceania, North America, and Asia. It ended in the 19th century when the first social and definitive movements occurred that gave rise to the War of Independence, which later led to the creation of the First Mexican Empire. Parts of the viceroy’s territorial expansion included areas such as Mexico, parts of the West Indies, Florida, the central and southwestern United States as well as the Philippines (Bolton, 2019). The Philippines was connected to Mexico by the Manila Galleon trade that ensured the supply of such goods as textiles, ceramics, and folding screens to America from the Asian country.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain included Mexico, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Cuba as parts of its colonies. During the 16th century, Spain’s main focus was to conquer regions with dense populations, primarily to benefit from the cheap labor force from them. Targeting areas with vast populations also gave European missionaries ease in spreading the Christian faith. On the other hand, nomadic people who inhabited territories such as North America were not easy to conquer. However, it was only after the discovery of minerals in some of these regions that the Europeans began conquering them.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain was a kingdom presided over by a monarch despite the fact that it depended on Spain. The central monarch wielded sweeping powers and influenced its outside territories. The king possessed both property and sovereign rights, making him an absolute property of property. Over time, the Viceroyalty of New Spain lost some of its territories. This territorial concession continued up to 1821 when the Spaniards completely left. The gap left by the departure of the Spaniards was soon occupied by the Mexican Empire. Today, these areas are represented by Mexico and Central America. The southern and central areas of Mexico comprised dense indigenous populations whose political, economic, and social organizations were so complex.
The conquest of Central America by the Spanish gave rise to sustained uprisings by the indigenous people who revolted against colonial rule. These uprisings and revolts culminated in the Mixton War and the Chichimeca War. In the Mixton War, Don Antonio de Mendoza, the presiding viceroy at the time, led an uprising against the Caxcanes in 1541. Later in the year 1880, another uprising called the Pueblo revolt led to the expulsion of the Spanish from 24 settlements in New Mexico by the Indians. On its part, the Chichimeca War, which lasted for half a century, pitied the Spanish against different indigenous groups, particularly in transportation trunk lines and silver mining areas in northern New Spain.
The Spanish encountered a lot of difficulties in their pursuits to control the non-sedentary Indians after they acquired horses. Ten years after the Chichimeca War, the indigenous people staged another uprising called the Tepehuan revolt against the Spanish conquerors. However, this revolt was quickly repulsed by the rather superior Spanish side in 1606. For several years, the Tarahumara Indians sustained endless revolts against the Europeans from the Chihuahua mountains. The Chichimecas would later invade Durango in 1670 and send its governor fleeing.
The southern areas of New Spain, which were mainly occupied by such indigenous tribes as the Tzeltal Maya, Tzotzil, and the Chol, also staged revolts against the Spanish in 1712. Characteristically, this was primarily a religious revolt that was triggered by different religious issues among the communities involved. Early in 1704, the then viceroy, Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, had successfully countered a revolt by the Pima Indians at the Nueva Vizcaya.
The Mixton War lasted for two years between 1540 and 1542 and pitied the Caxcanes and other indigenous people, specifically the semi-nomads who occupied northwestern Mexico against the Spanish and their invading allies like the Tlaxcala and the Aztecs. Physically, Mixton was a hill in the south of Zacatecas state that acted as a stronghold of the indigenous people. This war was primarily fought by the Caxcanes against the Spanish, even though they occasionally received support from other indigenous groups.
The genesis of the Mixton War could be traced back to 1529 when the then-Spanish viceroy, Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, assembled 400 Spaniards and 8000 Tlaxcalan and Azteca allies from New Mexico. They then matched through Jalisco, Sinaloa, Nayarit, and Zacatecas, torturing, enslaving, and killing thousands of Indians in their wake. As they continued to commit these atrocities, Guzmán and his allies established Spanish sentiments and towns along their paths of destruction. However, upon arriving at the Caxcane’s homeland, they found a more complex community that had solid hierarchical structures. They fought back after the Spaniards captured 18 of their leaders and hanged 9 in 1540. The resistance was so hostile and saw some Indians killed and roasted and ate some captured Spaniards. The conquerors interpreted these as devilish acts, especially after two Catholic priests were slaughtered and eaten by the locals. Attempts by the Spaniards to seek peace from the Indians were met with further brutal force, which culminated in the Caxcanes killing a peace delegation led by a European priest.
Pedro de Alvarado, who was considered an experienced conquistador, was asked by the then Viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, to put out the revolt. However, upon arriving at the Mixton hills with his 400 soldiers, he was met by an army of 15,000 Indians who fiercely repulsed the Spaniards and ended up murdering their leader. This alarmed the Spanish authorities, that reacted by sending an overwhelming force, which eventually defeated the Indians. After the defeat of the Indians, many of them were forcefully recruited to work in the mines; others were brutally executed by order of the viceroy.
Part of the reason for the resistance was the forceful indoctrination of the locals into the Christian faith. European missionaries started arriving in America immediately after the political and military conquests of the Mexica. The missionaries began to spread and indoctrinate their spiritual messages to indigenous people. The spread of Christianity massively led to the building of a religious society across the Spanish Americas (Bolton, 2019). Religious structures like the convent were formed across the conquest area. These were vast complexes that characteristically included friars’ living quarters. They were meant to act as centers for mass religious conversions.
During the early period of the conquest, communication between the people and the clergy was inhibited by the lack of a common language between the missionaries and the indigenous people. To get their messages across to their targeted converts, the missionaries, thus, resorted to using artwork. Images of atrial crosses, prayer books, frescoes, processional sculptures, portable altars, religious instruction books, and catechisms were particularly used. These images were used to teach indigenous Christians about various biblical stories.
With the explosion of such visual materials, there emerged a need for artists to showcase their crafts. Missionary schools were, hence, established to train locals in various lessons on artworks. In addition, the European missionaries used various strategies to dominate the locals. Examples of such strategies include building churches over indigenous shrines and temples. At other times, stones that were used to build these indigenous shrines and temples were re-used for building churches. The Church of Santo Domingo in Cusco is one example of such a church that completely defaced an indigenous religious institution that once stood at the Inka Qorikancha. This practice by the Spanish missionaries was meant to reinforce a concept of power and dominance to their subjects. Although the Viceroyalty of New Spain was technically superior in executing their governing authority, their efforts were regularly hampered by the royal audiences and independence of governors in several subordinate regions.
Reference
Bolton, H. E. (2019). The Spanish borderlands: A chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest. Creative Media Partners, LLC.