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Summary Developing as it did hand in hand with colonization itself, the history of European settlement in America proceeded somewhat unevenly. Much has been written since the sixteenth century about the successive central regions of Spanish settlement. Letters and memoirs, as much as as administrators' reports, described the vicissitudes of this adventure. However, many of the chronicles that were accepted then as being historical and accurate were far from being so, having a manifest political purpose and revealing a need for self-justification — by applying the values of Europeans of the time to judge men and countries in remote parts of the world. In the eyes of the Europeans, the Latin Americans needed not only to undergo an essential religious conversion, but also to learn a new language and the basic concepts of work and social order. Colonization was governed by an evident desire for acculturation: the Latin Americans were expected to behave and think just as Europeans did. The confluence of two societies led to an overlap, in which the initial coexistence of the two societies was imposed but continued thanks to day-to-day readjustment and the building of a climate of consensus. Contrary to what has often been argued, these social dynamics did not generate a permanent conflict. The characteristics of the European expansion in the Americas were very different from those in other continents after the 16th century. A proper understanding of these differences cannot be obtained from a simple description of the distinctive features of colonization by Mediterranean and English-speaking countries. The decade of the 1570s brought with it the definition of the colonial regime throughout the Americas. The great viceroy-ruled colonies of New Spain and Peru concentrated political power and sought to expand into new territories —beyond the oceans and mountains — while controlling subsidiaries from their main courts and fostering a distinct cultural and scientific life. Thus, even before the end of the first century of Spanish domination, the rise of a Creole society thanks to the marked capacity for survival of the continent's native peoples' survival was already evident.
Indice General Abreviaturas Prólogo Introducción
General Obituario del Comité Científico Internacional de la Historia General de América Latina Introducción Capítulo 1.
El mundo ibérico Capítulo 2.
La expansión europea desde los orígenes hasta finales del siglo
XV Capítulo 3.
Formas de la expansión europea en América Capítulo 4.
Propósitos y fines de la expansión Capítulo 5.
El Caribe, Tierra Firme, Darién y Centroamérica Capítulo 6.
Los primeros contactos: la experimentación y la estructuración
de la nueva sociedad mesoamericana de 1517 a mediados del
siglo XVI Capítulo 7.
Los Andes Capítulo
8. Las representaciones
mentales del descubrimiento de Brasil Capítulo 9.
Norteamérica Capítulo 10.
Sudamérica Oriental Capítulo 11.
Los europeos del Norte en las Antillas Menores: el proceso de
asentamiento en los márgenes de las Américas Capítulo 12.
Contactos forzados: África y América Capítulo 13.
Las zonas conflictivas: fronteras iniciales de guerra Capítulo 14.
Epidemias y dinámica geográfica Capítulo 15.
Mestizaje y aculturación Capítulo 16.
La formación de la sociedad hispanoamericana Capítulo 17.
El desarrollo de nuevas actividades económicas: minería, hacienda,
obrajes Capítulo 18.
Intercambio y productos de comercio Capítulo 19.
Las transformaciones agrícolas en América después de la conquista
española Capítulo 20.
Cambios en las pautas alimentarias a consecuencia de la invasión
y el establecimiento de los europeos en América Capítulo 21.
La nueva farmacopea Capítulo 22.
La nueva estructura política Capítulo 23.
La evangelización en América Latina Capítulo 24.
Percepciones e imágenes del mundo americano a través de los primeros
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