"An epic history of the Spanish empire in North America from 1493 to 1898 by Robert Goodwin, author of Spain: The Centre of the World. At the conclusion of the American Revolution, half the modern United States was part of the vast Spanish Empire. The year after Columbus's great voyage of discovery, in 1492, he claimed Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for Spain. For the next three hundred years, thousands of proud Spanish conquistadors and their largely forgotten Mexican allies went in search of glory and riches from Florida to California. Many died, few triumphed. Some were cruel, some were curious, some were kind. Missionaries and priests yearned to harvest Indian souls for God through baptism and Christian teaching. Theirs was a frontier world which Spain struggled to control in the face of Indian resistance and competition from France, Britain, and finally the United States. In the 1800s, Spain lost it all. Goodwin tells this history through the lives of the people who made it happen and the literature and art with which they celebrated their successes and mourned their failures. He weaves an epic tapestry from these intimate biographies of explorers and conquerors, like Columbus and Coronado, but also lesser known characters, like the powerful Gálvez family who gave invaluable and largely forgotten support to the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War; the great Pueblo leader Popay; and Esteban, the first documented African American. Like characters in a great play or a novel, Goodwin's protagonists walk the stage of history with heroism and brio and much tragedy"--

"A unique history of the social, political, and economic forces that created the remarkable culture that stretches from the mysterious cave drawings at Altamira to the explosive graffiti on the walls of East Los Angeles."--Publisher's description.

Provides the history of Spanish colonies in America.

Based on the most up-to-date archaeological and historical research, Rio del Norte is a tour de force, highlighting the upper Rio Grande region and its diverse peoples across some twelve thousand years of continuous history. Over eleven millenia ago, Paleoindians tracked mammoth and bison in the Rio Grande Basin. As the Ice Ages ended and arid conditions caught hold, the place of the Paleoindians was taken by bands of hunters and gatherers who long maintained a presence in the valleys, deserts, and mountains. Three thousand years ago the idea of domesticated plants filtered up from Mexico. The Basketmaker-Pueblo, or Anasazi, appeared in the early centuries of the common era and flourished in the San Juan basin and the Four Corners region for several centuries. Anasazi occupation of the San Juan region ended about seven hundred years ago, yet that same period saw a quickening along the Rio Grande and its tributaries. Large towns appeared, some holding several thousand people who practiced irrigation-based agriculture, rich artistry, and maintained complex social and political organizations. Trade with the civilizations of Mexico brought various luxury goods and introduced new and spectacular religious ceremonies. This "golden age" was continuing when Spaniards moving from west Mexico contacted the upper Rio Grande people, then colonized and missionized the region in 1598. Eighty-two years later the Pueblos rose in a powerful revolt and ousted the invaders. In one sense Rio del Norte is about the flexibility of the Pueblo lifeway. During the fifteen hundred years of Basketmaker-Pueblo history, settlers of the Rio Grande and the San Juan River basin faced military threats from hungry nomads and European empire builders, internal pressures caused by the increasing complexity of Pueblo society, and recurring problems from the vagaries of weather. Although the Spanish returned, the Pueblos have maintained important parts of their cultural heritage to the present.