![]() ![]() Alarmed by the precipitous fall in indigenous populations and reports of settlers' exploitation of their labor, the crown put in place laws to protect their newly converted indigenous vassals. Practices like forced labor and slavery for resource extraction, and forced resettlement in new villages and later missions were common during the first decades of colonization. ![]() īy contrast, the indigenous population plummeted by an estimated 80% in the first century and a half following Columbus's voyages, primarily through the spread of infectious diseases. It is estimated that during the colonial period (1492–1832), a total of 1.86 million Spaniards settled in the Americas, and a further 3.5 million immigrated during the post-colonial era (1850–1950) the estimate is 250,000 in the 16th century and most during the 18th century, as immigration was encouraged by the new Bourbon dynasty. The Spanish Empire would expand across the Caribbean Islands, half of South America, almost all of Central America and most of North America. Spanish colonists settled in greatest numbers where there were dense indigenous populations and the existence of valuable resources for extraction. The crown created civil and religious structures to administer the vast territory. ![]() Religion played an important role in the Spanish conquest and incorporation of indigenous peoples, bringing them into the Catholic Church peacefully or by force. Spaniards saw the dense populations of indigenous peoples as an important economic resource and the territory claimed as potentially producing great wealth for individual Spaniards and the crown. These overseas territories of the Spanish Empire were under the jurisdiction of Crown of Castile until the last territory was lost in 1898. The Spanish colonization of the Americas began in 1493 on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola after the initial 1492 voyage of Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus under license from the Queen Isabella I of Castile. ![]()
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