Talk:Spanish colonization of the Americas

Sections

Obviously a disconnect as one jumps from the discovery of America to an obscure, if important battle on the Great Plains, but eventually needs to be all filled in. Filled in completely this promises to be a monster of an article and eventually will need to be divided into sections. For example a Caribbean section, A Mexico and North American Section, perhaps including Florida, etc. User:Fredbauder

Since I happen to be working with two books, one on the Rio Grande and one on the Yucatan I'll see if I can put a summary here and detailed info into New Mexico, Texas and Yucatan articles and see how it goes. User:Fredbauder

Removal of paragraph

I removed this paragraph:

Nowadays, the descendants of the native Americans constitute the base of the population of the countries that long ago comprised of the Spanish Empire in America, excepting Argentina, Uruguay and the Caribbean ones. Two of the Amerindian languages, Quechua and the Guarani have reached rank of co-officials in Latin American countries. There was Latin American President from Indian origen, as Benito Júarez, in Mexico or Alejandro Toledo, in Peru.

It doesn't speak to the subject of the article. The first sentence could be usable but it would be better to list the countries where it is true, since the article does not yet mention all the countries which were once part of the Spanish empire. Rmhermen 18:49 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

Further removals

Removed:

They did these things to 'civilize' the Amerindians. The Amerindians used quipu and adored many gods. The Crown felt that without a phonetic writing system, set religion, and steady economy, the Amerindians were mere savages. They imposed Catholic religion on the Amerindians to begin 'civilized living'.

It is redundant and I am not certain it is exact.

Their idols were ruined by inspectors and their goods were traded to Europe, for the Amerindian signature design of geometrical designs were much different from the realistic figurative art of European countries.

I'd remove this as well -- Error 02:17, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Encomiendas

Encomiendas were not tracts of land as the article suggests. They were instead grants of forced native labor, which could be used on different tracts of land and for other purposes in constructing the colonial insfrastructure. Unless I overlooked this, there is no mention of Hispanicized blacks (free and enslaved) who took part in all phases of "Spanish" colonization of the Americas, who were part of the Spanish world well before 1530 (well before the reconquest in fact)---this is not new information among scholars of colonial Latin American history. Finally, the sources listed are sparse and outdated. The article is a good start, but still needs much, much more work. Kemet 28 March 2006

In the opening sentence it states that the expansion was accomplished by the Spanish which simplifies events as the armies rising up against indigenous rulers of the day such as the Aztecs consisted primarily of indigenous allies so much so that in the initial stages it resembled a civil war. In the subsequent years it was mixed raced Westernized mestizos, who always outnumbered those of pure European ancestry and survived in greater numbers compared to the purely indigenous since they were less susceptible to introduced diseases from Europe, Asia and Africa, that over the years gradually by force or voluntarily culturally absorbed the remaining indigenous populations, so in essence the expansion really was collaborative effort not just restricted to one group.

Needs finishing touches, Citations

I cleaned up the page a bit. Broke a line after the Spanish Colonization table, and switched the European Colonization article to a link at the See Also section. It's a lot cleaner now but it seems to be missing something... Maybe another picture, or an into paragraph? -Rich

Unexplained name change

Why the name change? We have European colonization of the Americas, Portuguese colonization of the Americas, German colonization of the Americas, Dutch colonization of the Americas, British colonization of the Americas, Danish colonization of the Americas, Couronian colonization of the Americas, French colonization of the Americas, Russian colonization of the Americas etc. etc., why do the Spanish get a different name? @Amuseclio: Tisquesusa (talk) 22:38, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

This is the standard way to refer to this geographical region and historical period in the historiography. The cognate article is Colonial Brazil. I can understand a desire for uniformity for naming, but for Spanish colonization in early Latin America, colonial Spanish America is the most succinct and well-recognized way of naming it. I taught the history of Spanish America for many years, and the course title was this. @Tisquesusa: Amuseclio (talk) 23:00, 5 August 2020 (UTC)Amuseclio

I recognize your expertise in this, but:

1. the uniformity in naming is for a reason, it describes which nation colonized the Americas, it doesn't make sense the Spanish get an exceptional title
2. the article describes the history of the colonization (as the original title clearly describes), not as much the geographical area ("America")
3. the title of a course in a university has little value for an article on Wikipedia, especially if other articles along the same lines have already an established naming. What if another lecturer comes around who teaches a course "Spanish colonial history of the Americas" and another one who taught a course named "Colonization by the Spanish in the Americas", who gets his/her course title as Wikipedia article name?
4. in the general understanding of international, but mainly United States-based readers, "America" refers to just the United States thereof. The Americas (as the original title and the other articles) refers to both continents and is thus much clearer and more correct.
5. what to do with places like California, Florida, Klein-Venedig, etc.? The first two would fall under "British Colonial America", even though they were colonized first by the Spanish, the latter is part of the German colonization of the Americas, but would fall under "Colonial Spanish America" as it is Venezuela...
6. we also have indigenous peoples of the Americas, not "Indigenous America" as article name
7. in my experience even if you want to name it this way it would be "Spanish colonial", not "Colonial Spanish". See also Spanish colonial architecture (the article name), not Colonial Spanish architecture (the redirect)

It looks awkward, the way the article is named now. But I think others have their ideas about this too Tisquesusa (talk) 00:14, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Against new name I agree with the reasoning laid out by Tisquesusa, the article should revert to its previous name. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 05:24, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Further discussion of article title I understand that there is some uniformity in WP naming, but I again point to Colonial Brazil as the cognate article for Iberian colonization in the Americas. Some historians avoid the word "colonial" using for the "early period" for it -- see James Lockhart and Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Latin America (1982) and Ida Altman et al, The Early History of Greater Mexico (1993). But other historians, including William B. Taylor,Ann Twinam, and many others do use the term colonial Spanish America. Areas of the current U.S. that Spain claimed are called by many historians the "Spanish borderlands". Places contiguous to New Spain can also be subsumed under the term "early Greater Mexico." The WP article Historiography of Colonial Spanish America has many other works that can be consulted for naming. As a US American who has pursued scholarship on Spain and the Americas and lived in English and French Canada for many years, as well as Mexico, I get frustrated by the US appropriation of the terms "America" and "American." When I was teaching, I pushed back against my U.S. history colleagues' use of "America" and "American" in discourse and in course titles. In editing WP, where I encounter the terms I edit them as some form of U.S. where it makes sense. I find the frequently used term in Spanish norteamericano/a is from a Canadian perspective baffling, since it is not referring to Toronto or Montreal, but to the colossus of the south. Estadunidense is a better substitute in my view. As for other naming, I am glad the WP article on indigenous peoples in the Americas does not have "Indian" in the title. As a social historian of Mexico studying the history of indigenous peoples using documentation in their own languages, (what some call an ethnohistorian), I find the term "Indian" problematic. Indio is the term the Spanish government used to lump a multiplicity of indigenous peoples into a single category. Whether the article under discussion is called "Colonial Spanish America" or something else, I really want the substance of the article itself to be improved, since its ranking is far below what it should be. Redirects of titles usually allow the interested reader to find what they are looking for. I am open to reverting to the original title if discussion of the title is distracting us from making the substance of this article better. Con mis mejores deseos. Amuseclio (talk) 17:22, 6 August 2020 (UTC)Amuseclio

Improvement of article

Right now the article has low WP classification in various categories. I would like to see it rise as more and better information is added to it. I moved a big chunk of information ((36,813) in September 2019 on the structure of governance from the article Spanish Empire. I'd like to see sections on economy, society, religion, culture and other topics to be included. I plan to devote time working on this article to improve it. I hope other Wikipedians can too. Amuseclio (talk) 23:09, 5 August 2020 (UTC)Amuseclio

This article is unsourced or poorly sourced xenophobic garbage

Need to work on it seriously because its literally a joke. As a point of comparison, I would point to British colonization of the Americas. Two thirds of this Lead of this article discusses "genocide". Its ludicrous. --95.122.136.229 (talk) 11:28, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Please wait for consensus on the talk page before making large-scale edits to the page. --Hobomok (talk) 17:00, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Hmm... I do agree the article overall is not very well sourced and is heavy on the negative stereotypes. Certainly a detailed discussion on whether genocide was committed or not is probably not warranted in the introductory section. I suggest incorporating material from the Spanish lang version of the article which, as tends to be the case in topics relevant to the hispanosphere, is far more balanced and better referenced. There is an automatic tendency to assume the English language version of an article is the superior one, when this is not always the case. Php2000 (talk) 20:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I would argue that mass-deletion is not the way to go about "fixing" the article, which is the method ip is using, and has a history of using. I'd say, for example, that the previous section read:

"By contrast, the indigenous population plummeted by an estimated 80% in the first century and a half following Columbus's voyages, primarily through the spread of Afro-Eurasian diseases.[2] This has been argued to be the first large-scale act of genocide in the modern era.[3] One can question whether the huge drop in population be considered genocide (a deliberate consciousness effort to erase a group(s) of people from the earth), since no one at the time knew about the unseen agents which caused the death of millions. Unlike English-speaking countries, Racial mixing was a natural process in the Spanish empire."

While I could see why it might make sense to cut the final two sentences as they are overly detailed explanations of the methods of genocide used by Spain during colonization, I see no reason to cut "This has been argued to be the first large-scale act of genocide in the modern era.[3]" Especially when the source used is the fourth volume of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Human Rights, by scholar David P. Forsythe. The original reasoning for this, given by anonymous ip, is that the sources are "garbage," or that they're based in "Anglo-Saxon anti-hispanic bias and prejudice." Forsythe isn't the only scholar to argue this. There are, in fact, many, many, many scholars that argue this.Hobomok (talk) 22:15, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I personally don't think the term "genocide" should be in the lead at all. It is controversial, dubious (imho) and inflammatory. It seems you want to cut the two sentences which cast doubt on the whole notion and leave those which support it? I think mentioning the population drop and that this was primarily due to disease is indeed enough - facts which are not disputed by any known RS as far as I'm aware. Rule of thumb: Focus on non-controversial consensus statements in the lead. The article can have a "genocide debate" section where all these statements and sources can be chucked in. Php2000 (talk) 23:10, 29 October 2020 (UTC)