With the advance of Spanish influence in the new lands, the crown established institutions that directly represented the person and power of the king, and were staffed by high-ranking officials chosen from the nobility. To ensure that its command was respected in the lands that conquistadors brought under Spanish sovereignty, the crown created a new system of government that placed a governor in charge of each new province, with administrative, legal, and, at times, military powers. When Ovando arrived in Hispaniola in 1502, he was accompanied by a number of other officials (a comptroller, a treasurer, an inspector, and others), all of whom were responsible to the crown. Its influence was far-reaching, since it also compiled and published the laws for America, laws that were collected in 1681 under the title Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de Indias (Code of Laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies).Įarly in the sixteenth century, the monarchy also began to build structures of royal government on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In 1524 the crown further reinforced its command over the Americas by establishing the Consejo Real y Supremo de las Indias (Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies), which served to oversee colonial affairs, to advise the king on such matters, and to act as the supreme court for legal issues arising in the Indies. It also enforced regulation of all aspects of the transatlantic trade (taxation, security in business and voyages, insurance and contracts, and the maintenance of the state's presence in all operations), and it compiled information on the trade and trade routes of the Indies.įrom 1546 the Casa de Contratación was given certain legal functions. It supervised the movement of passengers and the shipments of goods from Spain to America and received products brought back from America (gold, cotton, sugar, silver, cacao, medicinal plants, etc.). The Casa de Contratación had multiple functions. In 1503 the crown founded the Casa de Contratación (Chamber of Commerce) at Seville to ensure Castille's control of all aspects of trade with America. 1451–1511) as governor of Hispaniola (the island that now comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and began to assert their authority over subjects of Spain who went to the New World and the indigenous peoples whom they found there.Īs the Spanish Crown became aware of the rich potential of the Indies, it soon started to build institutions for government on both shores of the Atlantic. A decade later, the monarchs appointed Nicolás de Ovando (ca. But it was not long before the crown sought to take back control of the discovery and colonization of America, effectively suspending Columbus's authority. In the Capitulations of Santa Fe (1492), the Spanish monarchs named Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) as viceroy of the "discovered lands" and granted him extensive powers to govern in the new lands and to benefit from the wealth they created.
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