New Spain in Decline

• 16th c. - Spanish Empire stretches across S.

Europe, Netherlands, W. Hemisphere, and

Asia

• Imperial ambitions funded by American loot

• Expansion, religious conflicts = bankruptcy

• New Spain a profit-based colony rather than permanent, self-sustaining settlement

• Catholicism imposed as a means of keeping power

• Colonists utilize native labor to profit

• Several instances of native revolt