of the Araucanians, but from the southern Andes the Spaniards overflowed on to the great plains which now form the interior of the Argentine Republic. The first permanent settlement at the mouth of the river Plate at Buenos Aires dates from 1580. In its main lines the Spanish conquest was complete by 1550. What the Spaniards had then overrun from Mexico to Chile is still Spanish America. Brazil, after a period of exploration which began in 1510, was gradually settled by the Portuguese, though its bounds on the south remained a subject of dispute with the Spaniards till the 18th century.
The vast territories acquired by Spain in this brief period were held to be, by virtue of the pope’s bull, the peculiar property of the sovereign. When the wide and dangerous powers granted to Columbus by his patent were confiscated, Ferdinand first imposed Bishop Fonseca on him as a check. In 1509 the council of the Indies was established, but it did not take its final form till 1524. It consisted of a president, with a board of advisers, who possessed legislative and administrative powers, and who varied in number at different times. There was an appeal to it from all colonial governors and courts. The Casa de Contratacion, another board, regulated the trade. In America the crown was represented by governors. After the preliminary period of conquest the whole of the Spanish possessions were divided into the two “kingdoms” of New Spain,—consisting of Venezuela and the Spanish possessions north of the isthmus—and of New Castile, a title soon changed to Peru, which included the Central American isthmus and all of South America except Venezuela and Brazil. Each was ruled by a viceroy. As the Spanish dominions became more settled, the viceroyalty of Peru was found to be unwieldy. New Granada (which included the present republics of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador) was created a viceroyalty in 1718 (soon abolished, but re-created in 1740). A fourth viceroyalty for the river Plate was formed in 1778. Other governments known as captain-generalships were cut out of the viceroyalties at different periods—Guatemala in 1527, Venezuela in 1773, Cuba in 1777 and Chile in 1778. The captains-general corresponded directly with the council of the Indies, and were independent of the viceroys except in war time. The administrative powers of the viceroys were very great. They were, however, checked by the audiencias, or law courts, of which there were eleven from the reign of Philip IV.—Santo Domingo, Mexico, Panama, Lima, Guatemala, Guadalajara, Bogota, La Plata, Quito, Chile, Buenos Aires. They acted as councils to the governors, and had civil and criminal jurisdiction with an appeal to the council of the Indies at Seville. The towns had municipal franchises, exercised by a governing body comprised of Spaniards, either immigrants from Old Spain, or Creoles, i.e. descendants of Spanish settlers. The places were often sold, and were objects of ambition to the richer merchants. In practice the selling of a seat in the town councils, or cabildos, did not have the bad consequences which might have appeared inevitable. In the earlier stages of Spanish colonial history meetings of delegates (procurators) of the town councils, in imitation of the national cortes of Spain, were not uncommon. The kings of Spain had obtained from the popes Alexander VI. and Julius II. the right of levying the tithe, and of naming the holders of all ecclesiastical benefices. These immense concessions, made when the development of the Spanish settlements could not be foreseen, were regretted by later popes, but the crown adhered firmly to its regalities.
The government of Spain administered its dominions from the beginning in the strictest spirit of the “colonial system.” The Indies were expected to supply precious metals and raw materials, and to take all manufactures from the mother country. In order to facilitate the regulation of the trade by the Casa de Contratacion, it was concentrated first in Seville, and when the Guadalquivir was found to be becoming too shallow for the growing tonnage of ships, at Cadiz. Merchant vessels were required for their protection to sail in convoy. The convoys or flotas sailed in October first to Cartagena in South America, and from thence to Nombre de Dios or, in later times, Porto Bello. The yearly fairs at these places received the imports from Europe and the colonial trade of the Pacific coast, first collected at Panama and then carried over the isthmus. From Nombre de Dios or Porto Bello the convoys went to La Vera Cruz for the trade of New Spain, and returned home in July by the Florida straits. One-fifth of the produce of the mines belonged to the crown. The collection of this bullion was at all times a main object with the Spanish government, and more especially so after the discovery of the great silver deposits of Potosi in Bolivia. Forced labour was required to work them and the natives were driven to the toil. The excesses of the earliest Spanish settlers have become a commonplace, largely through the passionate eloquence of Bartolomé de Las Casas (see Las Casas). The Spanish government made strenuous attempts to regulate forced labour by limiting the rights of the masters. An encomienda was required by anyone who wished to exact labour, i.e. the Indians of a district were given to him “in commendam” with the power to demand a corvée from them and a small yearly payment per head. The laws endeavoured to check abuses, but there can be no doubt that they were often defeated by the greed of the colonists—more especially in the viceroyalty of Peru, which was always less well governed than Mexico. But the bulk of the inhabitants of the Spanish possessions were of pure or mixed Indian blood, and many Indians were prosperous as traders, manufacturers, farmers and artisans.
The Portuguese settlement in Brazil was more purely colonial than the Spanish possessions. Until 1534 little was done to regulate the activity of private adventures. In that year the coast was divided into captaincies, which were united under a single governor-general in 1549. Between 1555 and 1567 the Portuguese had to contend with the French Huguenot invaders who seized Rio, and whom they expelled. Between 1572 and 1576 there were in Brazil the two governments of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, but its history is of little importance till the occupation of Portugal by Philip II. drew the country into the wars of the Spanish monarchy.
The claim of the Peninsula powers to divide the American continent between them, based as it was on an award given in entire ignorance of the facts, would in no case have been respected. In the great upheaval of the Renaissance and the Reformation it was certain to be defied. As England was in general alliance with the sovereigns of Spain during the early 16th century, Englishmen turned their attention at first towards the discovery of a route to the Spice Islands round the north of Asia. But the rivalry of Francis I. and Charles V. gave France a strong motive for assailing the Spaniards in the New World now revealed to the ambition of Europe. King Francis encouraged the ill-recorded and disputed voyages of the Florentine Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524, and the undoubted explorations of Jacques Cartier. Between 1534 and 1542 this seaman, a native of St Malo, explored the Strait of Belle Isle and the Gulf of St Lawrence, and visited the Indian village of Hochelaga, now Montreal. The claims of France to the possession of a great part of the northern half of America were based on the voyages of Verrazano and Cartier. The death of King Francis, and the beginning of the wars of religion, suspended colonial enterprise under royal direction. But the Huguenots, under the inspiration of Coligny, made three attempts to found colonies to the south—at Rio de Janeiro in 1555–1567, near the present Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1562, and in Florida in 1565. These ventures were ruined partly by the hostility of the Spaniards and Portuguese, partly by the dissensions of the colonists. Meanwhile French corsairs from St Malo and Dieppe had been active in infesting the West Indies and the trade route followed by the Spanish convoys. After the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and the beginning of the breach between England and Spain, they were joined by English sea-rovers. The English claimed the right to trade with all Spanish possessions in or out of Europe by virtue of their treaty of trade and amity made in the reign of Charles V. The Spaniards disputed this interpretation of the treaty, and maintained that there was “no peace beyond the line,” i.e. Pope Alexander’s line as finally fixed by the conference at Tordesillas. The English retaliated by armed smuggling voyages.
It was, however, not till late that they attempted to found permanent settlements. In 1578 Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained
