Although the Spaniards believed pure Spanish blood (sangre puro) was most the noble, in practice Spanish-American society became quite mixed as Spanish men and native women had Mestizo children.
This junxtapostion is quite facinating tome, how can you think less of a group of people but also procreate with them?
Because relatively few Spanish women emigrated to the colonies, especially in the early decades, many conquistadors took native women as wives and mistresses.
This is a huge part of why a lot of minorities have spansih blood with out knowing where exactly it came from. It's rare to find blood that wasn't miuxed with theirs in the heavily affected conqured areas.
The Spanish word for gentleman, Hidalgo, literally means “son of something” (hijo de algo), suggesting that common men could become noble by acquiring wealth, lands, and status as a conquistador.
I am Mexican so I find this part extremely interesting! I know many families who are also Mexican and have this last name, I wonder if the procees in obtaing it had to do with the colonization.
The life of shipping rests in the number of able mariners and worthy captains, which cannot be maintained without assurance of reward of honorable means to be employed for their adventures.
This portion is interesting to me because I was always curious if these explorers did what they did only because someone else (monarchs) were just funding their exploration, paying them in some way to put their lives at risk, or just the explorers doing it because of their passion. It very well could be a mix of htese reasons but it just seems like an insane amount of risk especially with the lack levels of advancement they had to face.
Seeing then in nature this cannot be denied and by experience elsewhere is found to be so, I will show how a trade may be disposed more commodiously into the South sea through these temperate and habitable regions than by the frozen Zones in the supposed passages of Northwest or Northeast where, if the very moment be omitted of the time to pass, then are we like to be frozen in the seas or forced to Winter in extreme cold and darkness like unto hell.
This shows that the explorers were not only looking for new land but ways to make it easier for more frequent travel. They clearly weren't just looking to explore but to expand.
Hard by, we espied seven Indians and coming up to them, at first they expressed some fear. But being emboldened by our courteous usage and some trifles which we gave them, they followed us . . . the second day after our coming from the main we espied nine canoes or boats with fifty Indians in them, coming toward us. And being loth they should discover our fortification, we went out on the sea side to meet them.
I am curious as to why both sides were almost still fearful of eachother, even after trading. This could simply be human nature not to trust but still I have to wonder why. This fear was probably why one side decided to take an advatage of the other.
They also ejected Jews and Muslims who had refused to convert to Christianity from the Kingdom and used the Spanish Inquisition to prosecute “conversos” suspected of secretly practicing their original religions after converting.
I find this very interesting, not only did they use their force over other nations but their own people. This use of religion for power is common throughout history, even and especially today.
The Reconquista ended around 1415 for the Portuguese but it took Spain the rest of the 15th century to subdue the Emirate of Granada in what is now southern Spain
I wonder what blocks were occuring to make Spain take until the rest of the 15th century to subdue Emirate of Granada? They had been successful conquistadors in the past.
rofits from sugar fueled the Atlantic slave trade even before European discovery of the Americas, and the Portuguese islands quickly became home to sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans.
This is new information for me, I was not aware that something like sugar was a big source of fueling the slave trade. I also was not aware that as the Portuguese expanded their exploration, it was also growing the slave trade.
The brother of Portugal’s ruler, Prince Henry the Navigator, spearheaded his country’s exploration of Africa and the Atlantic in the 1400s. With his support, Portuguese mariners Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama successfully navigated an eastward route to Asia around the "bottom" of Africa, establishing a foothold there that became a foundation of their nation’s trade empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
I wonder what Portuguese would be like today if Portugal hadn't invested so much risk in their exploration? Not only Portugual but the trade system in itself as their efforts towards exploration changed the trade game a ton!