How the Spanish Empire Was Organised
The encomienda system
- In the encomienda system, Spanish colonial economies marshalled Native American labour to support plantation-based agriculture and extract precious metals and other resources.
- The CED names a system — a legal and administrative arrangement, not an informal practice.
- And it names two purposes: plantation-based agriculture and the extraction of metals and resources.
Select both purposes the encomienda system served.
A system — a legal and administrative arrangement.
The transatlantic slave trade begins here
- European traders partnered with some West African groups who practised slavery to forcibly extract enslaved laborers for the Americas.
- Some West African groups, and forcibly extract — the CED is exact about both the partnership and the coercion.
- The Spanish imported enslaved Africans to labour in plantation agriculture and mining.
The CED says European traders partnered with...
The CED is exact about both the partnership and the coercion.
A caste system defining status
- The Spanish developed a caste system that incorporated, and carefully defined the status of, the diverse population of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans in their empire.
- Carefully defined is the CED's phrase: the hierarchy was written down, not merely practised.
- So social structure in this empire is a legal artefact, which is why it belongs in an answer about structures.
Labour system, forced trade, or legal hierarchy?
Sort each structure of the Spanish Empire.
The caste system incorporated and ____ defined the status of the empire's population.
The hierarchy was written, not merely practised.
"Carefully defined the status of" means the hierarchy was written, not merely practised. The Spanish caste system incorporated, and carefully defined the status of, Europeans, Africans and Native Americans — so social structure here is a legal artefact, which is exactly why it answers a question about structures.
The three structures connect because each supplies...
That connection turns three facts into an explanation.
Three structures, one purpose
- Labour system, trade in enslaved people, and legal hierarchy are three arrangements serving one extractive economy.
- The CED lists them together because each supplies something the others need: workers, more workers, and a justification.
- Saying that connection out loud is what turns three facts into an explanation.
'Over time' licenses describing a sequence of changing labour arrangements.
As populations and demands changed.
Social and economic structures over time
- The objective is how the growth of the Spanish Empire shaped the development of social and economic structures over time.
- Economic: the encomienda system and plantation-and-mining extraction. Social: the caste system and its written status categories.
- Over time licenses describing a sequence — labour arrangements changing as populations and demands changed.
An economy built to extract metal and grow crops needs workers, a way to obtain more of them, and an argument for why some people must do the work and others must not. Three institutions supply exactly those three needs.
In the encomienda system, Spanish colonial economies marshalled Native American labour to support plantation-based agriculture and extract precious metals and other resources. European traders partnered with some West African groups who practised slavery to forcibly extract enslaved laborers for the Americas, and the Spanish imported enslaved Africans to labour in plantation agriculture and mining. The Spanish developed a caste system that incorporated, and carefully defined the status of, Europeans, Africans and Native Americans.