Spain c. 1450 - c. 1750
(Cecilia)

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Exploration

Role in Columbian Exchange

Government

Religion

Social Structure

Ferdinand Magellan

Christopher Columbus

First to circumnavigate the world

Campaign to conquer the Filipinos (1565)

Manila became a Spanish commercial center

Actually Italian but was sponsored by Spain

Searched for a route to go to India

Found Bahamas instead

Eventually discovered the Americas in 1492

Brought deadly diseases to the Americas (small pox, measles, influenza, malaria)

Profited from silver and pursued cash crop cultivation

Exchanged foods like maize, potatoes, potatoes beans, peppers and cacao

Sugar eventually eclipsed silver in terms of profit

Ferdinand and Isabella

United Spain after the Muslim Golden Age in 1492

Roman Catholicism

Labor Systems

Encomienda System

Mit'a System

Hacienda System

Spanish government granted haciendas (land holdings) to conquistadors who explored

cultivation of sugar cane

leased land to lower class

beneficiary of system was granted responsibility over a number of natives

offered natives protection in exchange for labor

Basically the feudal system

Originally developed by the Incas

provided labor for empire by compelling certain people to work on public projects for a certain number of days per year

Spaniards compelled men to do dangerous silver mining