The soldiers returning to the war after their winter leave brought women with them, justifying this custom by saying that without servants to cook, the staff would be lost, as would the horses, without which war could not be waged.

This custom, which inherently implied a more liberal sexual behavior compared to the rigid norms of the Church, had both detractors and defenders at the time. Father Diego de Rosales argued that this custom was unnecessary, that it violated morality and divine order, because those involved used it to satisfy their carnal appetites, and he added that this was cause for God to unleash his wrath upon the army in the field. The Jesuit said that in other places wars were waged without women and servants; He said that if they only served as servants it would be tolerable, but neither they nor the men were content with that; instead, they used them for their disordered appetites. He added that the army marched burdened with sins and offenses against God, compelling His divine justice to punish it with misfortunes. But this common practice was defended by high-ranking military officers. Santiago de Tesillo, Sergeant Major General of the Royal Army in Chile and chronicler of the Arauco War, referring to the problem, stated:

Original: «que no le parecía mal el contingente femenino que acompañaba a los soldados, por ser la mujer bien del hombre y el mayor recreo de la naturaleza».

Translation: "that he did not mind the female contingent that accompanied the soldiers, because woman is man's best friend and nature's greatest delight."

According to the royal decree of November 19, 1609:

Original: «(…) los dichos soldados solo bajan a hacer fuerzas y violencias deshonestando mugeres onradas desta ciudad y causando en ella mucho escandalo y alborotos y asimismo como a vuestra alteza es notorio ningun año se dejan de llevar hurtados mas de quatrocientos yndios e yndias de los naturales desta ciudad y su jurisdizion con las quales ban amançebados y en pecado mortal y asimismo todos los cavallos que pueden hurtar rompiendo para ello las casas de muchos de los vecinos que los tienen a cuya causa estan casi consumidos y acabados los yndios naturales desta ciudad (…)»

Translation: “(…) the said soldiers only come down to use force and violence, dishonoring honorable women of this city and causing much scandal and disturbance in it, and likewise, as Your Highness is well known, not a year fails to take away more than four hundred Indian men and women from the natives of this city and its jurisdiction, with whom they live in concubinage and in mortal sin, and likewise all the horses they can steal, breaking down the houses of many of the neighbors who own them, for which reason the native Indians of this city are almost consumed and finished (…)”

From the governors' perspective, these desertions had to be stopped at the root, which meant denying leave and thus preventing the depopulation of the frontier garrisons, especially the Yumbel and Arauco/Tucapel regiments.

But this was a practically impossible task. While such requests could be rejected, and soldiers threatened with flogging or other harsher punishments, most of those who were absent did so without any leave and showed little fear of eventual punishment, perhaps because they were aware of the (somewhat forced) tolerance that, ultimately, many of the governors showed toward their actions. After all, each soldier who returned to the frontier after leave was one less deserter to hunt down and punish, but more importantly, one less to replace.

Source(s):

.- “Historia de la vida privada en Chile.”Volume I, Taurus, 2013

.- Cuadernos de Historia 50 / Departamento de Ciencias Históricas Universidad de Chile, June 2019

The Spanish field artillery in Cuba in 1898 primarily used 8 cm Plasencia breech-loading cannons and 7.5 cm Krupp mountain guns, although it suffered from a shortage of modern equipment compared to the American army. The predominant weapons were bronze-framed Plasencia system cannons (8 cm caliber, Model 1878 and later adaptations) and 75 mm Krupp mountain howitzers, valued for their mobility in the Cuban wilderness.

The field batteries were dispersed in mobile columns to support the infantry against the Cuban guerrillas and, later, to counter the American intervention. Much of the armament was muzzle-loading or breech-loading with technology from the late 1870s and 1880s, inferior in range and rate of fire to the new American rapid-fire cannons.

On August 28, 1565, the fleet commanded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sighted the coast of Florida. It was the feast day of Augustine of Hippo, and the Spanish named the harbor and the colony they intended to found for him: San Agustín.
The formal landing and founding came 11 days later, on September 8. Still, August 28 is the day Florida's oldest surviving city received its name.

Menéndez had not crossed for exploration alone. King Philip II had commissioned him to establish a permanent Spanish foothold in La Florida, secure the Bahama Channel used by Spain's treasure fleets, and eliminate the French colony of Fort Caroline near the present-day St. Johns River.

Fort Caroline posed a strategic and religious challenge. Its colonists were largely Huguenots, French Protestants, settled in land claimed by Catholic Spain and positioned to raid Spanish shipping.

Menéndez sailed from Cádiz in late June 1565 with more than 1,000 soldiers, sailors, settlers, craftsmen, and clergy in 11 ships. With them came about 50 people of African ancestry, both free and enslaved, making African presence foundational to St. Augustine from its first days, decades before the 1619 narrative associated with English Virginia.

The Spanish did not land on empty shore. They entered a peopled landscape. The site they chose was the Timucua town of Seloy, a community with deep roots on the bay.

On September 8, Menéndez came ashore near Seloy. Father Francisco López de Mendoza Grajales, chaplain of the expedition and St. Augustine's first parish priest, celebrated a Catholic Mass of thanksgiving, the first Mass in what would become the United States. Afterward, the Spanish shared a meal to which Seloy people were invited. The settlers initially occupied the Timucua town itself, adapting its large communal building as their first fortification.

That ceremony is often called America's first Thanksgiving. It preceded Plymouth's 1621 gathering by 56 years, though it was a Catholic Mass of thanksgiving, not the English harvest feast that became the American tradition.

Survival was not assured. When French commander Jean Ribault sailed south to attack the new settlement, a hurricane scattered his fleet. Menéndez marched overland in heavy rain, seized Fort Caroline, and executed most of its male defenders. Later, south of St. Augustine, he captured shipwrecked French survivors. After their surrender, he ordered most killed. The inlet became known as Matanzas, Spanish for "slaughters."

St. Augustine must be remembered in its full complexity: an extraordinary feat of navigation and endurance, and also an act of imperial expansion built inside Indigenous territory and secured through war and religious violence.

Yet it endured, through hunger, disease, fire, hurricanes, piracy, and siege. Florida passed from Spain to Britain in 1763, back to Spain in 1783, and to the United States in 1821. Through every transfer, St. Augustine continued.

It is therefore properly described as the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States. It is not the oldest human community, Indigenous towns existed for millennia, nor the first European attempt; Pensacola (1559) and Fort Caroline (1564) both failed to last.

August 28, 1565 remains significant because on that day the name San Agustín entered the history of Florida, reminding us that American history did not begin at Jamestown in 1607 or Plymouth in 1620. Spanish, French, African, and Indigenous histories were already colliding in Florida.

A truthful account must include them all: the Spanish settlers who founded the colony, the Africans present from the beginning, the French colonists destroyed in the struggle for Florida, and the Seloy and other Timucua people whose homeland became the foundation of the Spanish settlement.

#TodayInFloridaHistory #FloridaHistory #StAugustine #PedroMenendez #SpanishFlorida #ColonialFlorida #Timucua #Seloy #NativeAmericanHistory #AfricanAmericanHistory #FortCaroline #Matanzas #MissionNombreDeDios #OldestCity #FloridaHeritage #AmericanHistory #HistoryMatters

Ive been trying to research Central American history post conquest. I can find a lot of recent history, like 1950s and later but not much from the period post conquest to the early 1900s. Is there any recommended reading for this time period? I know Bartolome de las casas wrote a lot but I don't know a lot about any other sources.

The official narrative states that Cuba rose up united against Spain, but the numbers tell a different story. The Volunteer Corps, organized into 37 infantry battalions, 35 cavalry squadrons, and artillery and engineering units, formed the backbone of the island's urban defense, with over 60,000 men under arms by the end of the war. Their mission was to guard the cities, protect the sugar mills, flank army columns in the bush, and hunt down the Mambises on their own turf. A large proportion of them were Cuban. According to military historian David de Caixal, 40% of the casualties in these corps were Cuban natives, which, extrapolated to the total militia, yields between 24,000 and 30,000 Cubans in Spanish uniforms. Add to that the more than 30,000 Criollo guerrillas actively operating on the rural front against the separatists (revolutionaries who sought the independence of Cuba). The conclusion supported by historical research is inescapable. Between 1895 and 1898, more Cubans fought for the integrity of Spain than for secession.

It is called La Conquistadora because it was the first church founded in Central America in 1524, located in the department of Quetzaltenango in the municipality of Salcajá. The name La Conquistadora originates from the dawn of October 12th; when Don Pedro de Alvarado arrived on Guatemalan soil, he brought as his emblem a triptych (from the Greek "τρίπτυχο," meaning folded in three) depicting the Immaculate Conception, thus calling it La Conquistadora.

The church was built by the Spanish, with a base and structure influenced by the medieval period. It features a Romanesque dome (shaped like an inverted cup) and is heavily fortified with high, thick walls and few windows, strategically placed to prevent attacks and the theft of the Spanish religious imagery.

From the dome to the entrance, the roof is shaped like an inverted boat, similar to Columbus's caravels. Above the facade is a symbol commemorating the first Eucharist celebrated on May 12, 1524.

The church houses the oldest altarpieces in Central America and the first image of the Virgin Mary brought from the Old World by the Spanish.

Dimensions: 1500 x 1390 mm. Donated by the Metropolitan Curia, April 8, 1892. MHN Item No. 1364.

Model created by Rodrigo Galeano

Durante una visita a Guadalajara he encontrado este mural escondido en un rincón. Nunca olvidéis a los valientes guerreros tlaxcaltecas y conquistadores españoles caídos.

The event was immortalized by Diego Velázquez in his famous painting “The Surrender of Breda,” painted between 1634 and 1635, which can be admired at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.

Source:

.- Barcelona Military Library, ​​Spain

In this educational material, we will analyze, from the perspectives of history, political science, and political philosophy, a Royal Decree issued by Philip II on August 20, 1575, concerning an initiative by the residents and natives of the province of Quito to contribute to the needs of the Catholic Monarchy and the defense of its kingdoms and states in Flanders.

Using this primary source, we can understand how an initiative originating in Quito connected with a political and military need located thousands of kilometers away in Europe. The document allows us to observe how the mechanisms operated through which the various territories of the Monarchy participated in addressing their common needs.

The Royal Decree is particularly interesting because it addresses a loan promoted by the residents and natives of the province and establishes how it should be organized. The proposal envisioned distributing the contribution among the chiefdoms, to temporarily provide between five hundred and six hundred Indians to work in the Santa Bárbara mines for a period of three or four months.

However, the document also sets limits. The King orders that the process be carried out “in such a way as not to disrupt their lives and with the least possible harm” and stipulates that they be paid “what seems fair for their work.”

The source does not establish a specific wage and, therefore, it is inappropriate to attribute an amount that the document does not mention. What it does reveal is that the Crown was regulating how this initiative would be implemented and establishing conditions for how it should be carried out.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
00:19 Royal Decree Ordering Regulations for the Deployment of Indians to the Mines of Santa Bárbara
01:13 Residents and Natives of that Province
01:26 Wars of Defense of the Kingdoms and States of Flanders
03:38 That the Least Possible Harm Be Caused
05:08 Lesson 1: Custom and Usage Were Not Above Authority
05:53 Lesson 2: The Town Council Did Not Act Outside of a Higher Structure
06:45 Lesson 3: The Crown's Expressed Purpose Was to Avoid Offenses and Lawsuits
08:06 Lesson 4: The Monarchy Received Information, Deliberated, and Corrected Local Practices.

Exclusive analysis of recovered historical transcripts. Original research content for Hispaniarum

Two days after the defeat of the Moroccan troops before the city of Tetouan, and in view of the retreat of their warriors, the Spanish army advanced to occupy the city through a converging action of several columns. The most prominent were the Catalan-speaking Spanish volunteers, who advanced along the right flank, their red berets making them easily identifiable from a distance.

The first to reach the city gate were the soldiers of the Zaragoza Infantry Regiment, who found it locked. It was later learned that the governor had fled through the gate at the other end of the city, taking the keys to the city gates with him. Therefore, the soldiers began to force the gate with their bayonets until, suddenly, they were surprised to hear loud voices from within shouting: “Let them in quickly! The Moors are entering through the other gate! They are coming to kill us! Open up for the Queen of Spain!”

The Spanish soldiers didn't understand what was happening. How could someone inside Tetouan be speaking Spanish and shouting Long live the Queen? How strange! The truth quickly became clear. The voices were shouting: "We are Jews, we are friends! Sound the bugles so the Moors flee!" But, with the gates locked, it was still a mystery what was happening.

Finally, the lock broken, the Spanish troops entered Tetouan and began to patrol the streets. They were surprised to find the city's Jewish community shouting "Long live Spain!" They had just suffered the looting of their property by Muslim forces who, before abandoning the city, had attacked the Jewish quarter, causing dozens of casualties. "The surprise was immense. The Sephardim welcomed the Spaniards as liberators; they saw in them something like compatriots who could help them escape the misery in which many of them were mired," analyzed Joseph Pérez, a historian specializing in the history of Spanish Jews.

But one thing remained unexplained: How could these Jews speak Spanish? Had they learned it just days before upon hearing that the Spanish army was victoriously approaching Tetouan? No. The reason is much more interesting. They were Sephardim. This term comes from Sepharad, the name the Jews gave to Spain.

This Jewish community of Tetouan was a direct descendant of the one that settled there after the expulsion of their ancestors in 1492, ordered by the Catholic Monarchs. When they arrived in Tetouan, they encountered no other Jews, so they didn't have to adopt any customs or languages ​​other than the one they brought from Castile, which they would retain from that year until 1860 and beyond.

In fact, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (a journalist who accompanied the troops in Morocco) noted that when the Jews poured out of their homes to applaud the Spanish soldiers and shout “Welcome! Long live the Queen of Spain!”, they did so “with a particular accent, entirely different from that of all our provinces.” This way of speaking is called Ladino—that is, “Judeo-Spanish.”

Alarcón also describes how these Sephardic Jews dressed, that the streets of the Jewish quarter were straight and not winding like those of the Moorish quarters, and that the interiors of their houses were decorated in a Hispanic style. Specifically, he recounts seeing a chair in one house whose back was adorned with a depiction of Don Quixote. This Jewish community knew and felt itself to be—despite the expulsion and the fact that it had taken place several centuries earlier—originally from Spain.

This reunion of Spaniards with Spanish Jews ended on May 2, 1862, when the Spanish army withdrew as a consequence of the peace treaty with Morocco and British pressure to maintain the status quo in the Strait of Gibraltar, which forced Spain to evacuate Tetouan. Thus ended a brief period in which these Jews enjoyed the interest and good treatment of the Spanish troops, a stark contrast to the contempt and rejection they had received in 1492 and which they continued to receive from the authorities and inhabitants of Tetouan. These events were widely known on the Iberian Peninsula, thanks to the journalistic work of Alarcón, giving rise among Spaniards to "Philosephardism," a current of opinion that emerged to reclaim and value the Jewish heritage of Spain.

Source(s):

.- Diario de un testigo de la guerra de África (Diary of a Witness to the War in Africa), by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
.- Los judíos en España (The Jews in Spain), by Joseph Pérez