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Spanish Treasure Fleets
From the 16th to 18th centuries, two treasure fleets sailed each year, one to Mexico and the other to Central America, then part of the Spanish Empire. There they collected precious eastern goods and the riches of the Americas, including...
Definition
Cochineal
Cochineal is a brilliant red dye extracted from the crushed bodies of parasitic insects which prey on cacti in the warmer parts of the Americas. The dye was an important part of trade in ancient Mesoamerica and South America and throughout...
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Map of the European Colonization of North America, 1492-1750
The systematic European colonization of North America unfolded between the first voyages of the 1490s and the outbreak of the French and Indian War in the 1750s. Spanish, French, English, and Dutch ambitions carved up the continent, with...
Definition
Tiwanaku
Tiwanaku (or Tiahuanaco) was the capital of the Tiwanaku empire between c. 200 - 1000 CE and is situated in the Titicaca basin. At an altitude of 3,850 metres (12,600 ft) it was the highest city in the ancient world and had a peak population...
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Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain
A portrait of Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy of New Spain (Mexico and many surrounding territories) within the Spanish empire. He served from 1535 to 1550. (Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City)
Definition
The Conquest of New Spain
The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492 to c. 1580) is an account written in 1568 of the early Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica, specifically the conquest of the Aztec civilization in Mexico from 1519 to 1521 when Díaz...
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Guayaquil Conference
The Guayaquil Conference, an 1822 meeting between libertadors José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar in Guayaquil, Ecuador to discuss the future of an independent Peru and an independent South America, painted by J. Collignon, 1843. Archivo...
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Nazca Line Monkey
Aerial photograph taken in 1953 CE by Maria Reiche (1903 - 1998 CE). Maria Reiche was a German-born Peruvian mathematician and archaeologist who is known for her research on the Nazca Lines in Peru. The photo shows a geoglyph of a monkey...
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Tucume Museum Mural
Mural in the Tucume Museum Peru that takes the visitor through the full sweep of northern Peru's history from earliest discoveries to present day. Mural graphics are labelled in Spanish and English. The photo was taken by Hilary Bradt and...
Definition
Inca Civilization
The Inca civilization flourished in ancient Peru between c. 1400 and 1533 CE. The Inca Empire eventually extended across western South America from Quito in the north to Santiago in the south. It was the largest empire ever seen in the Americas...