Spain

About Family Life in the Spanish Colonial Times. Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Colonial Health Care. Because medical doctors were almost nonexistent during the Spanish Colonial period, the health-care providers were members of the community.

Curanderas (female healers) or curanderos (male healers) had a gift for healing. They cared for expectant mothers, the injured and the sick. Often skills were handed down through generations within a family, while others served as apprentices to non-related healers. Many women healers specialized. A very important specialty was being a partera (midwife) in home deliveries. Sobadoras were similar to chiropractors of today. What did curanderas or curanderos use for medication? The impact of European diseases was devastating. Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies. Slavery in the Spanish colonies began with settlers' enslaving the local indigenous peoples in the Antilles.

The Spanish colonists used production quotas to force the local labor to work, in order to generate a return on their expedition and colonization investments. During the first decades of the colonization, the widespread and abusive slavery resulted in the deaths of thousands of indigenous peoples, who died from forced labor in crop fields, mines and searching for gold. After decades of pressure, primarily from priests and friars who argued that slavery was incompatible with Christianity, the Council of the Indies, mandated to protect the native people by the Laws of the Indies, stopped the encomienda system and the enforced slavery of the natives.

Together with high fatalities from infectious diseases brought from Europe, the native population died in great number in a matter of decades, depopulating the West Indies. Treaty of Alcáçovas. The Treaty of Alcáçovas (also known as Treaty or Peace of Alcáçovas-Toledo) was signed on 4 September 1479 between the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon on one side and Afonso V and his son, Prince John of Portugal, on the other side.

It put an end to the War of the Castilian Succession, which ended with a victory of the Catholic Monarchs on land[1] and a Portuguese victory on the sea.[2] [1] The four peace treaties signed at Alcáçovas reflected that outcome: Isabella was recognized as Queen of Castile while Portugal reached hegemony in the Atlantic Ocean. Habsburg Spain. Charles I and Philip II, first kings of the dynasty.

Habsburg Spain refers to the history of Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries (1506–1700), when Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty (also associated to its role in the history of Central Europe). The Habsburg rulers (chiefly Charles I and Philip II) reached the zenith of their influence and power, controlling territory, including the Americas, the East Indies, the Low Countries and territories now in France and Germany in Europe, the Portuguese Empire from 1580 to 1640, and various other territories such as small enclaves like Ceuta and Oran in North Africa.

Altogether, Habsburg Spain was for well over a century, the world's greatest power. Consequently, this period of Spanish history has also been referred to as the "Age of Expansion". The Habsburg years were also a Spanish Golden Age of cultural efflorescence. Chronology[edit] Family tree Beginnings of the empire (1504–1521)[edit] St. Spanish Empire. The Spanish Empire (Spanish: Imperio español), commonly referred to at the time as the Spanish Monarchy,[1] comprised territories and colonies administered by the Spanish Crown in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

It originated during the Age of Exploration as one of the first global empires. Under the Spanish Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its political and economic power[2] when it became the foremost global power. Spain's territorial reach beyond Europe spanned nearly six centuries, starting with the conquest of the Canary Islands in 1402 followed by the first voyages to the Americas in 1492 until the loss of its last African colonies in 1975. Spain experienced its greatest territorial losses during the early 19th century, when its colonies in the Americas began fighting for independence.

By the year 1900 Spain had also lost its colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific, and it was left with only its African possessions. Definition[edit] Origins[edit]