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There has been no empire based in Europe which extends outside the continent, since the fall of Rome. This situation changed abruptly, when Spain and Portugal, located in Iberian Peninsula, became the pioneers in a new era of colonization. This lack of unity between native population of America was a key element to Spanish expansion. By the way the Europeans knew how to manufacture and use steel weapons, and this knowledge gave them the ultimate military superiority critical to their conquest of the New World. Early settlements by the Spanish were on the islands of the Caribbean. It split the mostly unknown New World into two spheres of influence; however, when it was fully charted almost all the land fell in the Spanish sphere.
Around that time, cultural changes began to give way to a gradual imposition of new social and political guidelines. The Spanish explorers took two Iberian traditions and combined them to facilitate their entrance into the New World. The first tradition was the maritime-commercial "company, " and the second was the military expedition. The leader and main investor of an expedition would have the title of "captain" and was invariably an important encomendero: a member or former member of a colonial municipal council, a senior settler in the area, a wealthy man, or a nobleman (hidalgo).
When the Portuguese did pursue colonisation and settled in an area they used a system known as the datary captaincy. The Spanish used a similar system in the "New World" called the encomienda. Both systems drew upon the medieval precedent of the Iberian lordly domain (senhor) but adapted it to the new imperial goal of capitalistic agricultural development. A nobleman would be granted the hereditary title to the land, economic concessions, and a certain amount of political and judicial autonomy. In exchange he agreed to administer and develop that territory. The Crown worked closely with individuals and companies alike because the factory and the datary captaincy cost the Crown very little at the initial and most risky stage of exploration and development.
Thus all three commercial institutions provided time-tested mechanisms for investing capital, financing the expeditions, and development of new territories that would drive the explorations and colonisation of the "New World. " The original Americans were often forced to pay unfair taxes to the Spanish government and were punished harshly for disobeying their laws. Many native artworks were considered pagan idols and destroyed by Spanish explorers. This included the many gold and silver sculptures found in the Americas, which were melted down before transport to Europe. It should be pointed to the presence of socially and productively significant elements, such as smelting ovens, forge and quarry tools, storage pits, mills and ritual structures. They had served to define the dominant functions of various structures and clarify the internal morphology of the site habitats. Different levels of defences, from elemental inaccessibility of location to authentic fortresses with towers, bastions, ditches and lines of stone were built.
Different patterns were based on settlement type: some sites are well-located for distribution, some for mining exploitation, others for territorial control. Colony were described with special reference to its topography. Narrow parallel streets, rectilinear building plans and salient corners were among its principal features. It was compared in form with the southern Iberian Spanish colonial policy was different from colonial policies being pursued by other nations in Europe. Instead of colonizing their acquisitions with millions of their own people, the Spanish used their colonial possessions purely as economic resources. Spanish men who went to South America, the Caribbean or even North America, did not take families or Spanish women with them.
The result was a massive degree of mixing with the local populations in the Spanish colonies, producing an overwhelmingly mixed race population still prevalent in Central and Southern America. The Spaniards were committed to converting their American subjects to Christianity, and were quick to purge any native cultural practices that hindered this end. Numerous newly founded small sized hill forts, strongly associated with fluvial currents, cattle and mining resources, and the appearance of a hand-made pottery ware with a strong personality in decoration are the principal novelties, along with the diffusion of stamp impressed pottery decoration, black wheel-thrown ceramics and metal pins and weapons of Continental influence.
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Research essay sample on Datary Captaincy Spanish Explorers World
