Subject 1: Countries

1. Argentina
2. Bolivia
3. Brazil
4. Chile
5. Columbia
6. Costa Rica
7. Cuba
8. Dominican Republic
9. Ecuador
10. El Salvador
11. Guatemala
12. Haiti
13. Honduras
14. Mexico
15. Nicaragua
16. Panama
17. Paraguay
18. Peru
19. Uruguay
20. Venezuela
Subject 2: Presidents
1. Argentina Kristina Fernandez de Kirchner
2. Bolivia - Evo Morales
3. Brazil Louis Inacio Lula da Silva
4. Chile Sebastian Pinera
5. Columbia Alvaro Uribe
6. Costa Rica laura Chinchilla
7. Cuba Raul Castro
8. Dominican Republic
9. Ecuador Rafael Correa
10. El Salvador Mauricio Funes
11. Guatemala Alvaro Colom
12. Haiti Rene Preval
13. Honduras Porfirio Lobo
14. Mexico Felipe Calderon
15. Nicaragua Daniel Ortega
16. Panama Ricardo Martinelli
17. Paraguay Fernando Lugo
18. Peru Alan Garcia
19. Uruguay Jose Mujica
20. Venezuela Hugo Chavez

Subject 3: Spanish Crown Institutions

1. Council of the Indies
2. Casa de Contractacion - was authorized to control colonial commerce, emigration, and
maritime enterprise; attempted to control all Spanish exploration and colonization
3. Administrative) : Guvernaciones and Cabildo (=municipal Council) which has the
Alcalde (=mayor)
-specific Cabildos for the Indies
4. Viceroyalties
5.
Other institutions:
- dealt with Justice: Audiencia
- Taxes: La Real Hacienda (Treasury)
- Defense: La Guerra
- Piracy:
- La Comienda
The evolving structure of colonial government was not fully formed until the third
quarter of the 16th century; however, their Catholic Majesties designated Juan Rodrguez
de Fonseca to study the problems attendant on the colonization process with Christopher
Columbus.
The Council of the Indies took up its powers on August 1, 1524. The king was
informed weekly sometimes daily of decisions reached by the Council, which came to
exercise supreme authority over the Indies at the local level and over the Casa de
Contratacin founded in 1503 at Seville as a customs storehouse for the Indies. Civil
suits of sufficient importance could be appealed from an audiencia in the New World to
the Consejo, functioning as a court of last resort.
Spain's administration of its colonies in the Americas was divided into the
Viceroyalty of New Spain 1535 (capital, Mxico City), and the Viceroyalty of Peru 1542
(capital, Lima). In the 18th century the additional Viceroyalty of New Granada 1717
(capital, Bogot), and Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata 1776 (capital, Buenos Aires) were
established from portions of the Viceroyalty of Peru. This evolved into an Intendant
system, in an attempt for more revenue and efficiency.
In America, viceroys represented the monarch's person. Supreme courts (real
audiencias) and treasury departments (real haciendas) were also established. Local
representation of the king was entrusted to district governors, or corregidores. Each
Spanish city had a town council (cabildo) that was entrusted with overseeing the urban
population, planning and growth, sanitation, and law and order
Subject 4: Colonial rule
1. Conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of Yucatn is the much longer campaign, from 15511697,
against the Maya peoples of the Maya civilization in the Yucatn Peninsula of present day
Mexico and northern Central America.

2. Conquest of Peru
In 1532 at the Battle of Cajamarca a group of Spanish soldiers under Francisco
Pizarro and their indigenous Andean Indian auxiliaries native allies ambushed and
captured the Emperor Atahualpa of the Inca Empire.
Representatives of the Spanish crown quickly reorganized the indigenous
population to facilitate their rule. To anchor Spaniards in place, colonial authorities
beginning with Hernando Cortez in North America and Francisco Pizarro in South
Americagave to their followers grants of native peoples and the rights to their labor
called encomiendas. Thus imperial fiat created new Spanish elite. The grantees or
encomenderos ruled the native population at will until reports of misuse, exploitation, and
the attendant demographic catastrophe motivated the king to establish a government to
implement his law and will.
Under the Habsburg kings, the colonies provided the mother country with
agricultural commodities, precious metals, and exotic products, and proved a ready and
profitable market for manufactured goods, which were increasingly made elsewhere in
Europe but shipped in Spanish ships in exchange for Spanish civilization and culture
(language, religion, and lifeways), manufactured goods, and law and governance.
Because Habsburg bureaucratic jurisdictions remained blurred and overlapping, this
partnership between church and state resulted in a flexible and long-lasting system of rule
that, because of the distances and difficulties in communication, gave many American
districts a measure of local autonomy.
In 1700, the Bourbons inherited the Spanish kingdoms. They realized that Spain's
global power had waned since the late sixteenth century and that the American kingdoms
were deficient in supplying the mother country with sufficient revenues to justify their
new designation as colonies. Therefore the Bourbons set about reforming the colonial
structure and its personnel (1) to defend the overseas kingdoms from the encroachment of
the Dutch, the French, and the British, who all wanted footholds in the Americas and
access to their raw materials and markets; (2) to rationalize the administration of the New
World kingdoms; and (3) to maximize the revenues flowing into the royal treasury of
Spain. The Bourbons did this in stagesworking on the reforms first at home in the
peninsula, then in the Caribbean, next in New Spain, and finally in Peru. Among the
reforms were (1) the expulsion of the Jesuit order on charges of disloyalty and sedition
(teaching new and prohibited treasonous ideas associated with Enlightenment
philosophers such as Locke and Montesquieu); (2) the creation of the two new
viceroyalties of New Granada (1717, 1739) and La Plata (1776) from the viceroyalty of
Peru, ostensibly to bring justice closer to the settlers; (3) the replacement of the creole
corregidor system of local administration with that of an intendente system of peninsularborn royal officials who enjoyed higher status and broader jurisdiction; (4) the renewal of
the tax system to increase some levies (e.g., the sales tax) and create new ones (e.g., the
tobacco monopoly); (5) the creation of the first true military organization (for defense);
(6) the promotion of new technology (for example, pumps and the Born process to
increase the productivity of the mines); and (7) the passage of legislation opening up
trade.

In the short run, the reforms did improve security, administrative expediency, and
tax revenues. But in the long run, the imposition of the will of the mother country stifled
local autonomy and was interpreted as a threat to the sociopolitical and economic
interests of the creoles, causing enough resentment to heighten the desire for
independence. Independence, which split the Spanish-American colonies into more than
twenty separate countries in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, ended the
formal unequal exchange between Spain and its American colonies.