1492 – 1734 Early Encounters Spanish Colonies

1. Women played critical roles in the Spanish conquest of the Americas.

2. Spanish and Native women in the Spanish colonies found many ways to challenge and subvert the patriarchy of Spanish colonial society.

3. Native women played a proactive role in tribal responses to Spanish colonization.

4. The cruelties of the encomienda and enslavement systems fell particularly hard on women.

Johann Baptist Homann and Homann Erben. Regni Mexicani seu Novæ Hispaniæ, Ludovicianæ, N. Angliæ, Carolinæ, Virginiæ et Pensylvaniæ, necnon insvlarvm archipelagi Mexicani in America Septentrionali, 1759. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C.

Women in the Spanish Colonies, 1492–1715

The popular narrative of the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas is hyper-masculine.

Daring male explorers returned to Spain with tales of vast populations and wealth, and paved the way for brutal male conquistadors to invade and suppress the Native warriors who dared to oppose them. After the early years of invasion, two colonial territories were established: New Spain in North America, and Peru in South America. Spanish elite grew rich off plantations and mines that they staffed with enslaved Native people and Africans, while Franciscan friars forced thousands of Native people to convert to Catholicism through the oppressive mission system.

1. What were the rights and responsibilities of women in colonial Spanish society?

2. How did race, class, and social differences affect the lives of the women in the Spanish colonies?

3. How did women contribute to the establishment of new societies in the New World?

4. What gender specific challenges did women face in the Spanish colonies?