Indigenous peoples: Did you mean...?

The conquistadors, meaning "conquerors", were Iberian military adventurers who operated as the vanguard of empires in the 15th and 16th centuries by exploring areas of the world unknown to Europeans, defeating indigenous armies, and then...

The Spanish Requirement or Requerimiento was a document intended to be read out to and agreed upon by indigenous peoples during the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Created in 1513, the document outlined the history of Christianity, the...

An audiencia began as a judicial institution in medieval Spain, but in the 16th century, it was applied as the highest form of local government in key cities of the Spanish Empire. An audiencia had a panel of judges made responsible for the...

The European colonization of the Americas was the process by which European settlers populated the regions of North, Central, South America, and the islands of the Caribbean. It is also recognized as the direct cause for the cultures of the...

The repartimiento system was a distribution of rights to Spanish colonialists and municipalities, which allowed them to extract forced but low-paid labour from local communities in conquered territories. Designed to replace the inefficient...

The 1st Rhode Island Regiment, also known as Varnum's Regiment or the Black Regiment, was a regiment of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). It was notable for being the first American military unit to consist...

The Native American concept of land ownership differs significantly from that of the European settlers who colonized the Americas or their descendants in that land could not be owned, only stewarded and lived with. The Earth is understood...

Dogs were an integral aspect of the lives of the people of Mesoamerica regardless of their location or culture and, throughout the region, were recognized as liminal beings belonging not only to the natural world and that of humans but to...

The apparatus of colonial government in the Spanish Empire consisted of multiple levels, starting with the monarchy and Council of the Indies at the top and moving down to the viceroy, audiencias, mayors, and local councils. The system was...

The Girl Who Climbed to the Sky is a folktale from the Arapaho nation about a girl, Sapana, who is tricked by a supernatural sky-being into traveling to his home, where he keeps her, and then must find a way to return to her people, helped...