Viceroyalty of New Spain (1535): Spanish Rule from Mexico City

The Viceroyalty of New Spain was the government through which the Spanish Crown ruled its North American, Caribbean and Pacific territories from 1535 until 1821. Created by Emperor Charles V with Antonio de Mendoza as its first viceroy, it was centred on Mexico City, built on the ruins of the Aztec capital. For almost three centuries it was the largest and richest part of the Spanish Empire.

Background: from conquest to royal government

After the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Hernán Cortés governed the conquered lands as captain-general. The Crown, wary of powerful conquerors, soon curbed his authority. In 1528 it set up a high court and governing council, the First Audiencia of Mexico, under Nuño de Guzmán.

The First Audiencia became notorious for corruption and violence against Indigenous people and rival Spaniards. A Second Audiencia, installed in the early 1530s and led by Bishop Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal, restored order. Charles V then decided that a single high-ranking representative was needed to rule in his name.

Creation under Antonio de Mendoza

In 1535 Charles appointed Antonio de Mendoza, a nobleman from a leading Castilian family, as viceroy and governor of New Spain and president of its audiencia. He reached Mexico City in late 1535 and governed for fifteen years, until 1550.

Mendoza’s rule laid many foundations. A mint began striking coins in Mexico City in the mid-1530s, and the first printing press in the Americas was operating there by about 1539. He supported the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, opened in 1536 to educate sons of the Indigenous nobility, and sent Francisco Vázquez de Coronado on his expedition north into present-day Arizona, New Mexico and Kansas in 1540-1542.

He also faced the Mixtón War of 1540-1542, a major revolt of Caxcan and other peoples in the northwest that he crushed in person. In 1550 he handed over to his successor, Luis de Velasco, and left to become viceroy of Peru.

How New Spain was governed

The viceroy was the king’s alter ego, in charge of administration, defence and finance, and patron of the Church. He was answerable to the Council of the Indies in Spain, founded in 1524, and his conduct was reviewed at the end of his term in a formal inquiry called the residencia.

Justice and much daily government lay with the audiencias. Besides Mexico, these sat at Santo Domingo, Guatemala, Guadalajara and, from 1583, Manila. Local districts were run by officials known as corregidores and alcaldes mayores, while Indigenous towns kept their own councils and nobles under a separate legal framework often called the república de indios.

More than 60 viceroys governed New Spain over nearly three centuries. In the 1760s and 1770s the inspector-general José de Gálvez pushed through reforms for the Bourbon kings, and in 1786 the territory was reorganised into intendancies, provinces run by salaried royal officials.

Church and culture

The Church was central to colonial life. Franciscan friars, beginning with a group of twelve who arrived in 1524, were followed by Dominicans, Augustinians and later Jesuits. Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop of Mexico, became its first archbishop in the 1540s. A tribunal of the Inquisition was established in Mexico City in 1571.

The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico was founded by royal decree in 1551. Colonial culture produced a rich mix of European and Indigenous traditions, seen in baroque churches, in manuscripts such as the Florentine Codex compiled under Bernardino de Sahagún, and in the poetry of the nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in the 17th century.

Silver, trade and society

The economy rested above all on silver. Rich deposits were found at Zacatecas in 1546 and Guanajuato in the late 1540s, and in the 18th century New Spain overtook Peru as the world’s largest silver producer. Silver coins left through Veracruz for Spain and through Acapulco for Asia on the Manila galleons.

Haciendas, large rural estates, produced grain, livestock and sugar, and the red dye cochineal became a valuable export. Indigenous labour was organised first through the encomienda system and later through labour drafts and wage work. Enslaved Africans worked in mines, plantations, workshops and households, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Indigenous population of central Mexico fell catastrophically after conquest, mainly through epidemics. Scholars’ estimates for 1519 range from about 5 to 25 million, and most agree that by around 1600 only about 1 to 1.5 million remained. Over time a mixed society emerged, with Spaniards born in Spain (peninsulares), American-born Spaniards (criollos), people of Indigenous, African and mixed ancestry, and a hierarchy of categories known as castas.

End of the viceroyalty

Tension between criollos and peninsular officials grew in the late 18th century. When Napoleon occupied Spain in 1808, the crisis of royal authority opened the way to revolt. On 16 September 1810 the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla called for rebellion at Dolores, beginning the Mexican War of Independence.

After a decade of war, the royalist officer Agustín de Iturbide joined the insurgents. The Treaty of Córdoba, signed on 24 August 1821 with Spain’s last representative, Juan O’Donojú, recognised Mexican independence, which was formally declared on 28 September 1821.

The northern frontier and the Pacific

New Spain’s borders shifted constantly. In the north, the discovery of silver drew Spaniards into the lands of nomadic peoples whom they called Chichimecs, leading to a long and costly conflict, the Chichimeca War, from about 1550 to 1590. It ended largely through negotiation, gifts of food and goods, and the settlement of allied Tlaxcalan families on the frontier.

Further north, Juan de Oñate led colonists into New Mexico in 1598, and Santa Fe became its capital around 1610. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 drove the Spanish out for twelve years. Missions and garrisons, called presidios, were later founded in Texas from the 1690s and in Alta California from 1769, when the Franciscan Junípero Serra founded the mission at San Diego.

Across the Pacific, the Philippines were governed as a dependency of New Spain after Miguel López de Legazpi’s expedition, which sailed from Mexico in 1564. Officials, soldiers, friars and silver travelled from Acapulco to Manila, linking Mexico City to Asia for 250 years.

Key people

• Antonio de Mendoza (c. 1495-1552): first viceroy, from 1535 to 1550, who set up the institutions of colonial government.
• Juan de Zumárraga (c. 1468-1548): Franciscan, first bishop and archbishop of Mexico, and a defender of Indigenous people against the First Audiencia.
• Luis de Velasco (c. 1511-1564): second viceroy, who enforced restrictions on Indigenous slavery and expanded settlement in the north.
• Bernardino de Sahagún (c. 1499-1590): Franciscan scholar whose work with Nahua collaborators preserved knowledge of Aztec society.
• José de Gálvez (1720-1787): royal inspector-general and later minister of the Indies, chief architect of the Bourbon reforms in New Spain.

Timeline

• 1521, 13 August: Tenochtitlan falls to Cortés and his Indigenous allies.
• 1535: Charles V appoints Antonio de Mendoza first viceroy of New Spain.
• 1540-1542: The Mixtón War in the northwest; Coronado’s expedition to the north.
• 1546: Silver is discovered at Zacatecas.
• 1550: Luis de Velasco succeeds Mendoza as viceroy.
• 1551: A royal decree founds the University of Mexico.
• 1571: The Inquisition establishes a tribunal in Mexico City.
• 1786: New Spain is reorganised into intendancies.
• 1810, 16 September: Miguel Hidalgo launches the independence revolt.
• 1821, 28 September: Mexico declares independence.

Why it matters

The Viceroyalty of New Spain shaped the language, religion, law, cities and social structure of Mexico and Central America, and left a deep mark on the US Southwest and the Philippines. Its silver helped create the first global economy.