ABSTRACT
Although Castile was three times larger in area than its neighbour to the west, and had a population of about 8.5 million, or over five times the size of Portugal’s 1.5 million, during the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both of these kingdoms, moved by similar economic and social forces, and by religious motives and missionary zeal, established settlements in the Americas, and integrated them into imperial systems. Drawing on their own populations, but also on human and capital resources from elsewhere in Europe, Portugal, and Spain (integrating Castile as part of a composite monarchy) used medieval precedents, institutions, and models, but modified them according to geographical and ecological realities and local conditions, especially those created by the nature, size, and density of the indigenous populations that they encountered. The history of Iberian conquest and colonisation in the Americas thus was marked both by strong parallels between the actions and imperial objectives of Spain and Portugal, but also by a significant degree of variation, not only between the two monarchies, but also within the areas under control of each. Those local and regional differences generated primarily by geophysical characteristics, economic potential, and the size and social complexity of the indigenous populations determined to a large extent the pace and spaces of settlement, the stages of colonisation, and the character of society within, and political control over, the vast territories claimed by the two monarchies.
