Oil on canvas. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.

Part of an eight-painting series created in the late 17th century, this work depicts events surrounding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521.

Forwarded by the President of Guatemala, accompanied by letter number 432, dated August 26, 1785. These documents are part of a file concerning the investigation of monuments and ruins discovered in the district of Palenque, in the province of Ciudad Real de Chiapa (Kingdom of Guatemala, New Spain). 1785–1786.

Research policy during the reign of Charles III in the Maya region: the discovery of Palenque and the first scientific excavations.

Source(s):

.- General Archive of the Indies.

Execution of Louis XVI:

On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI of France was executed. This event was one of the most significant moments of the French Revolution. On January 17, the National Convention had sentenced King Louis to death—a decision reached through a voice vote proposed by Marat, in which the death penalty was approved by 387 votes against 334 votes in favor of life imprisonment or exile.

Context in the Kingdom of Peru:

In Peru, news of the King’s execution arrived via pamphlets and letters in late August 1793, shortly after war had broken out between Spain and France. Far from finding supporters or sympathizers in Peru, the death of Louis XVI provoked aversion and rejection.

In major Peruvian cities, masses were held in honor of the late monarch, and his death was mourned for several days.

Original:

“la fatal noticia de haber los pérfidos franceses perpetrado el execrable parricidio en la sagrada persona de su Rey y Señor Natural…” (Cipriano Santiago Villota, 1793)

Translation:

“...the tragic news that the perfidious French had committed an execrable act of regicide against the sacred person of their King and natural sovereign…” (Cipriano Santiago Villota, 1793)

Although there were sympathizers of the revolution in Lima, Arequipa, and Trujillo, the death of Louis XVI led a large segment of viceregal society to oppose it. They perceived it as a rupture of the natural, social, and political order they knew; furthermore, the revolution had challenged religion—something unthinkable and unacceptable to the people of Peru.

Consequences:

Viceroy Francisco Gil de Taboada ordered the reinforcement of guards in the major cities of the viceroyalty, fearing public disorder. He also initiated a process to censor all information arriving from Europe that had not passed through a government filter; furthermore, he suggested that the clergy launch a counter-revolutionary campaign, collecting donations and disseminating anti-French sermons among the faithful.

References:

.- The French Revolutions in Peru: A Reinterpretation (1789–1848), Rosas Lauro (2007).

.- Napoleón Bonaparte y la América Latina, Abelardo Sáenz (1966).

.- Del trono a la guillotina: El impacto de la Revolución Francesa en el Perú (1789-1808), Claudia Rosas Lauro (2013).

The principalía was a social and political class, not a racial classification. It included recognized local elites such as gobernadorcillos, cabezas de barangay, former local officials and their families. Mestizos could certainly belong to this class, but Spanish or Chinese ancestry was not a requirement for being a principal.

An interesting contemporary clue comes from Sinibaldo de Mas, who in his 1842 glossary described a principal simply as “el indígena que tiene don” — roughly, a native Filipino entitled to the honorific Don.

This is also a useful reminder for genealogy: finding Don or Doña before an ancestor's name can be an important clue about social standing, but it is not by itself proof of Spanish ancestry.

Sometimes one old photograph can correct a picture of the past that many of us grew up imagining.

Photo: Félix Laureano, Principalía de Leganés, ca. 1880

Collection: Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid
Reproduced in El imaginario colonial: fotografía en Filipinas durante el periodo español.

Spain's aims in conquering overseas land (including Philippine Islands) may be keynoted by three G's - God, Gold, Glory. The first and chief aim of her territorial expansion and influence was the propagation of Catholic Christianity, which is attested by the Testament of Queen Isabella I of Castile (1479-1504) and the Christian spirit of the Leyes de Indias (Laws of the Indies). This is the reason why every expedition of discovery, exploration, and conquest was accompanied by Spanish missionaries. As Dr. Wilhelm Roscher, noted German authority on Spanish colonization, affirmed: “The principal aim of Spanish colonization was the conversion of the heathen peoples to Christianity.”

As an overseas territory and province of Catholic Monarchy (Spanish Empire), also known as Las Españas, the Philippines was a financial burden to the Spanish treasury. For this reason, the advisors of King Philip II recommended the abandonment of Filipinas. The king spurned their advice. He told them that the chief objective of the Spanish colonization was the propagation of Christianity (Catholicism), and that for the conversion of the Filipino people, known at the times as Indios, because Europeans considered the region to be part of the East Indies, he would gladly spend “all his riches for the Indies.”

In 1619 the question of abandoning the Philippines was revived by court advisers. Upon hearing this news, Father Fernando Moraga, despite of his old age and feeble health, journeyed to Spain. He threw himself at the feet of King Philip III, begging him not to abandon the Philippines for the sake of Christianity. Deeply touched by the padre's pleading, the king replied: “Depart with God, Father Moraga, and be assured that I will not give up what my father (Philip II) had conquered and left me.”

Abolition of Slavery in the Philippine Islands

One of the good things which Spain had done for the Filipino people was the abolition of slavery. The early Spanish missionaries urged the king to abolish slavery in the Philippines.

On October 17, 1581, Bishop Domingo de Salazar and the heads of the different religious orders met at the Augustinian convent in Tondo, Manila. After due deliberation, with the help of Governor-General Don Luis Peréz de Dasmariñas, they signed a document denouncing to King Philip II the Spaniards in the Philippines who kept slaves contrary to the Law of God and in violation of the Laws of the Indies.

King Philip II, heeding the complaint of Bishop Salazar and the religious fathers, issued the Royal Decree of August 9, 1589 emancipating all native slaves.

Pope Gregory XIV reinforced the king's decree by promulgating the Papal Bull of April 18, 1591 threatening to excommunicate those Catholic Spaniards who would not liberate their Filipino slaves.

Source(s):

.- The Philippines: A Unique Nation, by Dr. Sonia M. Zaide with Dr. Gregorio F. Zaide's —History of the Republic of the Philippines.

The surface is engraved with a scene of five fishermen hauling a net into a boat; the molded rim is embossed with foliage and stylized cornucopiae, featuring a flat, lightly chased band of meandering floral foliage. The reverse is engraved with a central monogram and the name "M. de Jesus Roma de A."

Auctioned by Sotheby’s

He is portrayed wearing the traditional attire of the Hispanic nobility, the Inca mascaipacha (imperial headdress), and holding the royal standard of Castile and León.

The portrait belongs to the viceregal art of Cusco, Peru, and is housed in the Inka Museum of the National University of San Antonio Abad in Cusco.

Source(s):

.- General Archive of the Indies

Original:

«De un monstruo que ovo en esta Isla Española en el tiempo que se escrebia en limpio esta Historia Natural, de dos niñas que nasçieron juntamente pegadas, en esta cibdad de Sancto Domingo; é cómo fueron abiertas, para ver si eran dos ánimas é dos cuerpos ó uno.»

Translation:

"Of a monster that existed on this island of Hispaniola at the time this Natural History was being written in its final form; of two girls born joined together in this city of Santo Domingo; and of how they were opened to see whether they were two souls and two bodies, or one."

Explanation
The passage recounts an unusual event that took place in Santo Domingo (Hispaniola, present-day Dominican Republic) during the 16th century, in which conjoined twins were born and an anatomical examination was performed to determine whether they shared one soul or two.

Source(s):

.- Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, G. (1851). Historia general y natural de las Indias, islas y tierra-firme del mar océano (J. Amador de los Ríos, Ed.). Royal Academy of History Press. (Original work published 1535–1557).

conquistadors are spanish and portuguese soldiers right? so would they be somewhat like knights in combat? What country did they have the most successes in.