The consequences of this contact created profound global change. Religious and political conflict consumed medieval Spain. Unification came at the end of the 15th century which was the start of the modern Spanish Empire that controlled, influenced, or claimed nearly half of the world through the 16thth centuries. Regionally, Spanish influence began with the exploration of La Florida by Ponce de Leon in and continued with the settlement of St. Augustine, established by Pedro Menendez in The construction of Castillo de San Marcos began in The flag which flies over Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas is described in heraldry as a red saltire raguly on a white field.
A saltire is an X figure; raguly refers to the jagged edges of the cross. The X-shaped cross is commonly called "St. Andrew's cross," because tradition says that Andrew the Disciple was crucified on a cross of that shape. The story is that the branches were roughly hacked off two small trees, and the trees were tied together to make the cross.
The jagged edges of the cross on the Spanish flag represent these trees with the branched lopped off. Since the flags of Ireland and Scotland and the flag of Great Britain incorporating the cross of Scotland are also St. Andrew's crosses, when speaking of the Spanish flag, this design is best called the Burgundian Cross, or the Cross of Burgundy. They hoped to get rich. Others came to start large farms, called plantations.
By , there were about , Spanish colonists spread across the Americas. To the south of New Spain, Portugal formed the colony of Brazil. Both Spain and Portugal needed many workers to grow crops and to mine gold and silver. They forced the Native Americans they had conquered into slavery. Slavery is the practice of holding people against their will and making them work without pay.
Many thousands of Native Americans died from hunger and the work they did. Thousands more died from diseases that settlers brought with them from Europe. Diseases such as measles, smallpox, and influenza sometimes killed whole tribes.
Some colonists became concerned about how the Native Americans were being treated. Las Casas was a landowner who later became a priest. He freed his enslaved workers and spoke out in favor of better treatment of Native Americans.
As more Native Americans died, the colonists began to capture Africans to be enslaved workers. Most of these Africans were taken to Brazil or the Caribbean Islands. Soon enslaved Africans were also working under terrible conditions. Spain also wanted to protect its lands north of Mexico City.
The borderlands included parts of what are today northern Mexico and the southern United States, from Florida to California. The same year they reached the area that is now St. Augustine , Florida.
There they built the first permanent, or long-lasting, European settlement in what is now the United States.
The Spanish king chose leaders to govern each new settlement. Settlers in the new colonies did not have the right to elect their own leaders. The king also sent missionaries to convert Native Americans to Christianity. The missionaries built religious settlements called missions in many areas of the southern half of North America. In such places, missionaries and Native Americans lived very near each other.
At first, some Native Americans chose to stay at the missions. While the presence of Indigenous cultures can be felt, the people speak Spanish as a dominant language, and the majority have now adopted the European religion of Catholicism. Spanish architecture is also widespread throughout the country.
The first Europeans to come to California after the Indigenous Americans had already been there for thousands of years was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and his crew. In Mexico gained its independence from Spain and Alta California was then no longer a Spanish colony but rather became a Mexican province.
At this time, ranchers and trappers began filling this new territory. In June , conflict arose when American settlers decided to occupy Sonoma Plaza, and raise the bear flag. Within a month, the US occupied the new republic, thus ending the revolt. A couple of years later in gold was discovered in California and Americans rushed to claim it. In , California became a US state. Spain colonized the Philippines in the late s.
This colonization lasted for three hundred years up until when Filipino rebels along with US troops fought off the Spanish, and declared the Philippines to be an independent nation. Unfortunately, this freedom did not last for long and the Americans took over, sneakily annexing the Philippines while devising a peace treaty with Spain.
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