Northern Outposts: St. Augustine and New Mexico
St. Augustine (1565)
- The Spanish fort established in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida, became the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States.
- It served as a military outpost, an administrative center for Franciscan missionaries, and a headquarters for unsuccessful campaigns against Native Americans that were ultimately abandoned.
- It did not mark the beginning of a substantial effort at colonization in the region.
Oñate and New Mexico: Expansion from Mexico (1598–1609)
- In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate traveled north from Mexico with a party of 500 men.
- He claimed for Spain some of the lands of the Pueblo Indians that Coronado had passed through over >50 years before.
- The Spanish migrants established a colony in what is now New Mexico, modeled roughly on those the Spanish had created farther south.
- Oñate distributed encomiendas to the Spanish settlers. They were licenses to exact labor and tribute from Native Americans in specific areas (a system first used in dealing with the Moors in Spain).
- The Spanish demanded tribute from the local Native Americans (and at times commandeered them as laborers).
- Spanish colonists founded Santa Fe in 1609.
- Oñate's harsh treatment of the Native Americans (who greatly outnumbered the small Spanish population) threatened the stability of the new colony and led to his removal as governor in 1606.
- Over time, relations between the Spanish and the Pueblos improved. Substantial numbers of Pueblos converted to Christianity under the influence of Spanish missionaries. Others entered into important trading relationships with the Spanish.
- The colony remained precarious nevertheless because of the danger from Apache and Navajo raiders, who threatened the Spanish and Pueblos alike.
- Even so, the New Mexico settlement continued to grow. By 1680, there were over 2000 Spanish colonists living among about 30000 Pueblos.
- The economic heart of the colony was not the gold and precious metals the early Spanish explorers had tried in vain to find. It was cattle and sheep, raised on the ranchos that stretched out around the small towns Spanish settlers established.
Pueblo Revolt of 1680
- In 1680, the colony was nearly destroyed when the Pueblos rose in revolt.
- In the 1660s and 1670s, the Spanish priests and the colonial government, which was closely tied to the missionaries, launched efforts to suppress tribal rituals that Europeans considered incompatible with Christianity.
- The discontent among the Pueblos at this suppression survived for decades.
- The revolt underscores the deep tensions between Spanish colonial religious initiatives, governance, and Indigenous cultural practices, and it illustrates the precariousness of settlement despite some periods of cooperation and trade.
Notes on the transcript
- Some portions of the provided transcript are garbled or incomplete (unreadable fragments appear toward the end). The notes above cover the coherent, readable sections and preserve the major and minor points explicitly stated.
- Key themes across sections: shift from exploration/metallic riches to ranching-based economies; the role of religion in governance and Indigenous relations; the use of the encomienda system; and Indigenous resistance shaping colonial policy.