Building empires: Spanish, Portuguese, British and French colonial government and economies (1500–1800)

Answer

A large Spanish American administrative unit (e.g. New Spain, Peru) ruled by a viceroy — the king's personal representative.

Answer

A Spanish colonial high court of judges that also checked and reported on the viceroy's conduct to the crown.

Answer

To prevent any single colonial official from building independent power far from royal oversight, given the huge distance from Spain.

Answer

"I obey but I do not comply" — a colonial-era practice under Habsburg rule where officials accepted a royal order's authority while quietly not enforcing it.

Answer

Portugal's crown granted huge coastal land strips to private nobles (donatários) to develop at their own expense; most failed, leading to a crown-appointed Governor-General from 1549.

Answer

Corporate = run by a chartered trading company (e.g. Virginia Company); Proprietary = granted to an individual/family (e.g. Pennsylvania, William Penn); Royal = governed directly by the crown through a royal governor.

Answer

The first elected assembly in British North America, established in Virginia, giving colonists a voice in local taxation and law.

Answer

Became a royal province ruled directly by a Governor (military/diplomatic) and an Intendant (justice/finance), with no elected assembly.

Answer

Encomienda = grant of tribute/labour over an Indigenous community; Mita = rotational forced-labour draft (e.g. Potosí mining); Yanaconaje = Indigenous workers permanently attached to one estate.

Answer

A silver-mining site (in modern Bolivia), discovered 1545, whose immense output — worked via the mita system — made it central to Spain's imperial wealth.

Answer

The economic theory that a nation's power depends on accumulating gold/silver and maintaining a favourable trade balance, with colonies existing to enrich the home country.

Answer

Spain's licensed treasure-fleet trade route between Seville/Cádiz and approved American ports, letting the crown tax and monitor virtually all legal colonial trade.