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| a town council at the lowest administrative level in colonial Spanish America; some cabildos were centers of resistance to royal authority in the independence struggles. |
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| cocoa; a major export product of the colonial period |
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| chief or leader; term applied to a "strong man" or dictator, often a military officer or ex-officer, who dominated local politics, sometimes gaining national prominence. The postindependence period was an era of caudillos throughout Spanish America. |
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| regional administrators who collected taxes and tariffs and enforced royal decrees in Spanish America. Corregidores were replaced by intendants in the reforms of the late eighteenth century. |
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| Spanish for Creole; in colonial Spanish America, a native-born white person as distinguished from one born in Spain. Usually criollos held a status superior to that of nonwhites, but inferior to that of whites born in Spain. In the eighteenth century, criollos became a focus of resistance to royal authority. |
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| from the Portuguese for "engine"; refers to a type of sugar cane plantation with an on-site mill that dominated the economy of northeastern Brazil during the colonial period. The Spanish word engenio refers to these plantations in the Spanish colonies. |
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| the Portuguese term for a large agricultural estate (see hacienda, below). |
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| large agricultural estate in Spanish America. The hacienda system was sometimes semifeudal in nature, with the owner(which could be a family or an institution, such as a church or convent) controlling tracts of land of various sizes, sometimes substantial, along with entire villages of dependent laborers. The growth of haciendas throughout Spanish America led to the development of a native-born elite. |
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| local governors responsible directly to the monarchy; part of a reformed system of colonial administration imposed by the Bourbon king Charles II in the late eighteenth century as a means of reasserting royal control over the colonies. Most intendants were born in Spain and sent to the Americas, rather than being chosen from among the criollos. |
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| system of economic control imposed on the American colonies by Spain and Portugal; relied on exploiting wealth (including gold and silver) from the colonies and monopolizing trade in an attempt to maintain a continuing trade surplus for the mother countries. Trade among the colonies or with other European countries was discouraged, limiting local economic development. |
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| person of mixed European and indigenous ancestry. Although initially a small percentage of society, by 1825 mestizos constituted over one-quarter of Spanish American society and today form the majority in many of the former Spanish colonies. |
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| person of mixed European and African ancestry. In 1825, mulattos in combination with black descendants of Africans constituted over half of the population of Brazil. |
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| white persons born in Spain; from the Spanish word for "peninsula" referring to the Iberian peninsula. The colonial period was characterized by struggles for power and prestige between criollos and peninsulares. |
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| a negotiated agreement between Spain and Portugal in 1494, mediated by Pope Alexander VI, which divided the Americas between Spain and Portugal while guaranteeing a role for the Catholic Church in the new colonies. |
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