Kingdom of New Spain

The Kingdom of New Spain was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521 as a New World kingdom dependent the crown of Castile, since the initial funds for exploration came from Queen Isabella of Castile.^[1][2] Although New Spain was a dependency of Castile, it was a kingdom itself not a colony, but subject to the monarch of Castile.^[3] The monarch had sweeping power in the overseas territories,

The king possessed not only the sovereign right but the property rights; he was the absolute proprietor, the sole political head of his American dominions. Every privilege and position, economic political, or religious came from him. It was on this basis that the conquest, occupation, and government of the [Spanish] New World was achieved.^[4]

The Viceroyalty of New Spain was established in 1535 in the Kingdom of New Spain, it was the first New World viceroyalty and one of only two in the Spanish empire until the eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms.

References

1. Clarence Haring, The Spanish Empire in America. New York: Oxford University Press 1947, 7, 105.
2. Peggy K. Liss, Mexico Under Spain: Society and the Origins of Nationality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1975, p. 33.
3. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, p. 7
4. Clarence Haring, The Spanish Empire in America. New York: Oxford University Press 1947, p. 7.