Spanish colonial authorities in North America established ''

misiones Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes P ...

'' (churches with attached farms), ''presidios'' (military forts) and ''villas'' or ''pueblos'' (civilian settlements with residences, retail businesses, agricultural markets, etc.). Official pueblo establishments (as opposed to those that developed organically) were granted four square

Spanish leagues There are a number of Spanish units of measurement of length or area that are virtually obsolete due to metrication. They include the vara, the cordel, the league and the labor. The units of area used to express the area of land are still encount ...

of land and were required to be sited at least five Spanish leagues away from any other pueblo. According to one Arizona history, "Each organized pueblo was to have at least thirty inhabitants, each one to have ten breeding cows, four oxen, one brood mare, one sow, twenty Castillian ewes, six hens and one cock. House lots and sowing lands were to be distributed among pueblo settlers." Among the leadership of a pueblo was an ''

alcalde ''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...

'' (preceded in the history of Spanish administration by the title ''

corregidor Corregidor (, , ) is an island located at the entrance of Manila Bay in the southwestern part of Luzon in the Philippines, and is considered part of Cavite City and thus the province of Cavite. It is located west of Manila, the nation's capi ...

''). Spanish colonial pueblos in North America included: * Villa of Santa Cruz de la Cañada, now

Santa Cruz, New Mexico Santa Cruz, historically known as Santa Cruz de la Cañada, is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. It is part of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Metropolitan Statistical Area. The po ...

* La Villa de San Francisco Xavier de Alburquerque, New Mexico - see * La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís, New Mexico - see

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , literal translation, lit. "Holy Faith") is the capital city, capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Santa Fe County. With over 89,000 residents, Santa Fe is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fourt ...

and

Santa Fe de Nuevo México Santa Fe de Nuevo México (; shortened as Nuevo México or Nuevo Méjico, and translated as New Mexico in English) was a province of the Spanish Empire and New Spain, and later a territory of independent Mexico. The first capital was San Juan d ...

* Villa el Paso del Norte at today's

Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua Ciudad () is the Spanish word for "city". Ciudad or La Ciudad may also refer to: * La Ciudad (archaeological site), Hohokam ruins in Phoenix, Arizona * La Ciudad, district of Durango City, Mexico * ''La ciudad'', a novel by Mario Levrero publi ...

and

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

* Villa de Branciforte, in Santa Cruz County, California *

Pueblo de Los Ángeles El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, shortened to the Pueblo de los Ángeles, was the Spanish colonial pueblos and villas in North America, Spanish civilian ''pueblo'' settled in 1781, which became the ...

in Los Angeles County, California, founded in 1781; land patented August 4, 1875, to the City of Los Angeles; containing 17,172.37 acres. *

Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe San Jose, California, is the third largest city in the state, and the largest of all cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, with a population of 1,021,795. Site chosen by Anza For thousands of years before the arrival of ...

in Santa Clara County, California, founded November 27, 1777; patented July 4, 1884, to the City of San Jose; containing 55,891.77 acres * Pueblo at

Yerba Buena, California Yerba Buena was an anchorage spot and later a settlement that grew into the city of San Francisco, California. The settlement, built in an area known earlier as ''El Paraje de Yerba Buena'' and named for an herb that grew abundantly there, was ...

, adjacent to

Mission San Francisco de Asís The Mission San Francisco de Asís (), also known as Mission Dolores, is a historic Catholic Church, Catholic church complex in San Francisco, San Francisco, California. Operated by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the complex was founded in ...

and

Presidio of San Francisco The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part ...

in Alta California * Pueblo de Sonoma in Sonoma County, California, founded in 1835 by the Mexican government; patented March 31, 1880, to the City of Sonoma; containing 6,063.95 acres - see

Sonoma State Historic Park Sonoma State Historic Park is a California Department of Parks and Recreation, California State Park located in the center of Sonoma, California. The park consists of six sites: the Mission San Francisco Solano (California), Mission San Francisc ...

* Villa de Béjar or Villa de Bexar in

Spanish Texas Spanish Texas was one of the interior provinces of the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain from 1519 until 1821. Spain claimed ownership of the region in 1519. Slave raids by Spaniards into what became Texas began in the 16th century and created ...

, see

History of San Antonio The City of San Antonio is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in Texas and was, for decades, its largest city. Before Spanish colonization, the site was occupied for thousands of years by varying cultures of indigenous peoples. The historic ...

Presidio San Antonio de Béxar Presidio de Béxar was a Spanish fort built near the San Antonio River, located in what is now San Antonio, Texas, in the United States. It was designed for protection of the mission San Antonio de Valero and the Villa de Béjar. The Presidio de ...

* Pueblo of Santa Barbara, California

References

{{Reflist

External links

COMPILATION of COLONIAL SPANISH TERMS And DOCUMENT RELATED PHRASES Second edition, 1998 Compiled and edited by: Ophelia Marquez and Lillian Ramos Navarro Wold Copyright, 1998 Published by: SHHAR PRESS, 1998 (Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research) 1-714-894-8161
Colonial United States (Spanish) Colonial Mexico History of New Spain

See also

References

External links