Chapter 724 (1/2)
Although Columbus, an Italian, discovered the new world, the Spaniards made the most profit. Spain, as one of the first countries to colonize the American continent, has a huge area of colonies in America.
When Columbus discovered the new world and brought the news back to Europe, the whole Europe was boiling. At that time, Spain, as a maritime power, immediately began to set up bases in the Caribbean and along the coast of America and pushed inland.
In 1519, the Spaniards established Havana and took control of Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean Sea. In the same year, they landed in Mexico and established Veracruz, and established Panama City on the South Bank of the isthmus of Panama, which began to invade the Pacific coast of South America. After that, the Spanish colonist Cortes led his troops inland and conquered the Aztec empire in 1521. In 1533, the Inca Empire was conquered by Pizarro. Two years later, the Spanish established Lima in Peru as a base for gradually controlling the rest of South America.
From 1534 to 1535, Spain began to go north and explore the west coast of the new continent of North America, then named it California and began to gradually penetrate into the interior of North America.
In the same year, in order to rule the American continent, Spain began to set up the first viceroy in Mexico City, the new Spanish viceroy.
From 1535 to 1776, the Spanish set up four governor districts in the American continent.
The governor of Spain, the capital of Mexico City, governs new Spain (now Mexico), Central America and the Caribbean islands except Panama. Later, with the influence of the Spaniards going deep into the new continent of North America, later generations of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado also merged into the jurisdiction of the new Spanish governor. Later, even the Philippines in Southeast Asia became the jurisdiction of the new Spanish governor.
Lima, the capital of Peru, governs the whole western South America, including the isthmus of Panama and all the colonies of South America except Venezuela. However, Spain later divided into two boroughs on the basis of Peru's boroughs, and the jurisdiction of Peru's boroughs was correspondingly reduced, including only Peru and Chile.
In 1717, the governor of New Granada was established on the basis of the governor of Peru, with Bogota as its capital. The territory of this Viceroy is equivalent to Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela today.
In 1776, the governor District of La Plata was separated from the former Peruvian governor area and established, with Buenos Aires as its capital. The governor's district covers most of the La Plata plain, including today's Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
In fact, since the Spanish Kingdom began to establish colonies on the American continent in the early 16th century, almost all of the west coast of the American continent has been occupied by Spaniards, and the northernmost even reached Alaska
However, unlike the British colonies, Spain did not develop the processing industry of the colonies, but only plundered it as a raw material producing area. All the special products and resources of Western America would be transported back to the mainland by ship.
During the centuries of Spanish rule, the indigenous people of Western America were constantly driven out and slaughtered by the Spanish colonists. At the same time, the Spanish bacteria from Europe caused many plagues, which greatly reduced the population of the indigenous people. Later, in order to exploit the resources of the new world, such as precious metals, sugar, cotton, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, dyes and so on, the Spanish had to bring in a large number of black slaves from Africa to engage in cultivation and mining, thus contributing to the flourishing slave trade.
It can be said that in the original historical time and space, the Spanish committed the greatest crime against the American Indians. In contrast, the American massacre of North American Indians is nothing at all.