History of South America in 15th century : Spanish America

The Spaniards were not only the first of the Europeans to reach the Americas in early modern times, but they also quickly located and occupied the areas of greatest indigenous population and mineral resources. They immigrated in force and created a far-flung, permanent network of new settlements.

The islands of the Caribbean would soon become a backwater, but during the first years of Spanish occupation they were the arena of the development of many practices and structures that would long be central to Spanish-American life.

When Columbus returned to Spain from his voyage of 1492, having hit upon the island of Hispaniola (now divided between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) as his base, his concept of what should be done thereafter was in the Italian-Portuguese maritime tradition. He wanted to explore further for trading partners, and he considered all who came along with him to be employees of an enterprise headed by himself. The Spaniards, however, immediately started moving in the direction of their own traditions. The expedition that returned to Hispaniola in 1493 was far more elaborate than it needed to have been for Columbus’ purposes, containing a large number and variety of people, animals, and equipment for a large-scale, permanent occupation of the island.

A conflict of purpose between the Spaniards on the one hand and Columbus with his Italian relatives and associates on the other soon ensued. By 1499 the royal government was intervening directly, naming Spaniards to the governorship and sending further large parties of settlers. Spanish ways soon gained the upper hand.

Santo Domingo, founded on the southeastern coast of Hispaniola in 1496, became a real city, with a rash of ephemeral secondary Spanish cities spread over the island. These were oriented to gold-mining sites, which were soon at the base of the Spanish economy. Indigenous demographic loss in this hot, humid area was quick and catastrophic, and placer mines (primarily in streams, where unconsolidated deposits of heavy, valuable minerals settled) also soon began to run out. In the second decade of the 16th century the Spaniards pushed on to the other large islands, where the cycle began to repeat itself, although more quickly;

around the same time, expeditions to the mainland began, partly to seek for new assets and partly to try to replace the lost population on the islands.

Santo Domingo became a type of entity that would reappear in every major area of Spanish occupation. The central city formed a stable headquarters for the Spaniards in the midst of a chaos of population loss and economic shifts in the countryside. The majority of all the Spaniards in the country lived there, at least when they could. Everyone of importance was there, with only underlings doing essential tasks located in the country. Governmental offices, churches, large private dwellings, and shops soon materialized around the city’s central square, together with all the people required for them.

Santo Domingo city. 100destinos.com

The urban core was well laid out and well built up. On the city’s edge everything was different. Here were the ranchos, impermanent structures inhabited mainly by Indians temporarily in town for work purposes. The Spanish-American city remained like this for centuries—Spanish in the centre, Indian on the edges, growing indefinitely without changing at the core, the site of an enormous process of cultural change. Britannica