The Americas presented to the European conquerors a vast area for expansion of their riches, military power, and territorial rights. After Columbus traveled the West Indies and opened the unknown area to further exploration by Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors, Portugal and Spain decided to divide their colonial rights between their respective countries along a vertical longitudinal line 970 miles west of the Cape Verde islands with the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494. This agreement between the two greatest exploring powers of the 15th century essentially split the non-Christian world so that Spain obtained rights to the lands west of the line while Portugal claimed all eastern lands including India, the East Indies and Brazil. Portugal’s claim to the Brazilian coast went unexplored for decades due to the unwelcoming natural terrain of the land and the dangerous native people. By 1530, the Portuguese conquerors managed to develop feudal plantation colonies along the coast of Brazil, thus establishing a foothold in that continent. 
The Spaniards meanwhile traveled in force to the West Indies in search of gold and other riches and by 1512 had conquered the larger of the islands of the West Indies. The Spanish quest for gold would remain unquenched however, until they set foot on the mainland of South America where they discovered gold and precious metals, finally achieving the objective of their original quest. With the discovery of gold, the Spanish Conquistadors began to exploit their newly discovered land by establishing colonies and mining operations and the general subjugation of the native populations. In the process the Spaniards decimated the Inca, Aztec, and Maya empires that had been in power and returned to Europe with the treasures of the New World. Spanish colonial rule would last for another 300 years before the growing unrest and desire for self-autonomy among the Spanish colonies resulted in their independence from the Spanish crown. 
The colonial efforts of the British rested in the small islands of the West Indies and later the colonies in North America. The islands inhabited by the native Carib and Arawak people ensured a steady stream of profits, as the English exploited their land with the production of sugar after the introduction of this crop in 1637. With the development of plantation systems in Brazil and the West Indies, the British and Portuguese invested themselves in the slave trade and commenced another chapter in the colonies’ history of labor exploitation. 
In the beginning of the Age of Exploration and Discovery, Christopher Columbus reached the Americas and the islands of the Caribbean at the end of the 1400s and introduced the era of colonization in these territories by European powers. Areas in the Americas under Spanish and Portuguese control included most of South and Central America, and large parts of North America, Mexico, and parts of the Caribbean.
The expeditions initially organized for the exploration and the opening of trade routes were followed by expeditions whose main goal centered on the conquest and subjugation of native peoples for access to their regions’ natural resources. The Spaniards were foremost in this expansionist thrust into South and Central America and established a lasting foothold through a growing religious, military, and commercial presence. In Central America, the kingdom of Guatemala (encompassing present-day Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) was initiated under Spanish governance but largely organized and managed by Spanish entrepreneurs who maintained control of the area through their business activities and strengthened their own positions with the profits and influence they earned. The merchant class had the advantage of Spanish political support behind them and exploited production means in the new territories through political and coercive forces.
Provinces in Central America were ruled by a small quantity of governors, mayors or corregidores (magistrates.) Governorships were also military positions and so these were assigned only in the provinces threatened by outside forces. Eventually the position of mayor and corregidor became interchangeable. Towards the end of the 17th century only four governors, eight mayors, six magistrates and six exchequers, governed all of Guatemala’s eighteen provinces.
The strong economic and entrepreneurial aspect of the Spanish presence in Central America took advantage of the already established traditions of production. Spinning, weaving, cotton and cacao cultivation were indigenous traditions and these, supplemented with the larger-scale production of indigo and gold and silver mining fed naturally into the Spanish economic system without disrupting existing societal structures.
| However, by the 19th century the mercantile aspect of the colonies, guided by private business interests and property-owners, came to be the greatest threat to the monarchy’s representation in Central America. The magistrates that before had been sponsored by the Spanish crown grew in power to the extent that they no longer needed the king’s auspices and were better able to represent their own interests in the New World than that of their European leadership in the Old World. Inevitably the colonies established in Central America, like those in South America, would rebel and claim independence from Spain. |
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