1487: The Aztecs sacrifice 20,000 people to inaugurate their new temple in Tenochtitlan

1492: Cristoforo Colombo (Columbus) lands in the island of Hispaniola

1494: Pope Alexander VI brokers an agreement dividing the Americas between Spain and Portugal
("Treaty of Tordesillas")
1494: Colombo captures 1,500 slaves on Hispaniola
1496: The Spanish found Santo Domingo in the island of Hispaniola, the first Spanish town in the
Americas
1498: Colombo explores the coast of Venezuela
1499: Amerigo Vespucci travels to South America
1499: Colombo authorizes slavery in Santo Domingo
1500: Portuguese explorer Alvares Cabral lands on the coast of Brazil
1500: About 65 million Native Americans live in Central and Latin America, of which 25 million in
Mexico
1501: The Spanish colonists of Hispaniola begin importing African slaves
1502: Spain sends Ovaldo to Santo Domingo to enforce the Spanish language and the Catholic religion
among the natives (birth of the "encomienda" system)
1503: Jews escape the Portuguese Inquisition by emigrating to Brazil
1503: Spain establishes the "Casa de Contratacion" to guarantee a Spanish monopoly of trade with the
Americas
1503: Spain builds the first sugar mill in Hispaniola
1507: Martin Waldseemller draws a world map on which he names the new continent America after
Amerigo Vespucci
1507: Smallpox outbreak in the Caribbeans
1509: The Spanish colonize Jamaica
1503: Hernan Cortez arrives in Hispaniola
1510: Spaniards (Vasco Nunez de Balboa) found Santa Mar¡a la Antigua del Darien (Panam ), the first
permanent European settlement on the mainland of the Americas
1510: Bartolome` de las Casas, a member of the Ovaldo expedition, becomes the first priest to be
ordained in the New World
1511: Spain institutes an "audience" (supreme court) in Santo Domingo to control the work of the
conquerors
1511: Spain institutes an audiencia (high court) in Santo Domingo
1511: Diego Velasquez begins the conquest of Cuba for Spain
1512: Gold rush in Cuba
1512: The first bishop of the Americas arrive from Spain and settles in Puerto Rico
1513: Francisco Pizarro lands in Panama and joins Vasco Nunez de Balboa's expedition across the
Isthmus of Panama, becoming the first European to see the Pacific Ocean
1516: Juan Solis is the first European to see the Rio de la Plata/ River Plate (the confluence of the rivers
Parana and Uruguay)
1516: Bartolome` de las Casas pushes legislation for the protection of the natives
1516: Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba leads the exploration of Mexico
1517: Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba leads a Spanish expedition to Yucatan
Feb 1519: Hernan Cortez sails from Cuba and lands onto the mainland of Mexico and Spaniards found
the city of Panama
Nov 1519: Hernan Cortez reaches the capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan, and captures the
emperor, Montezuma
1520: Ferdinand Magellan sails the Straits of Magellan, the first European to see the Tierra del Fuego
1520: Bartolome` de las Casas creates a utopian farming community in Venezuela but is expelled by the
Spanish encomenderos
1520: Smallpox outbreak in Mexico
Jun 1520: Cortez is defeated by the Aztecs
1521: A colonist plants sugar in Brazil
Aug 1521: Cortez defeats the Aztecs and conquers their capital Tenochtitlan
1522: The Spanish king appoints Cortes governor of Mexico
1522: Pascual de Andagoya explores South America and learns about the Inca gold
1522: Spanish explorer Gil Gonzalez de Avila "discovers" Nicaragua
1522: Ferdinando Magellan's expedition concludes the first circumnavigation of the Earth (Magellan
being already dead) after a journey of three years
1523: The first Franciscan friar, Pedro de Gante, arrives in Ciudad de Mexico
1523: Cortez is appointed governor of Nueva Espana (Mexico)
1524: Pizarro, the priest Hernando de Luque and the soldier Diego de Almagro organize an expedition
in Panama to explore and conquer South America
1524: Smallpox outbreak in Peru
1524: Cortes' lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado founds the city of Guatemala
1524: Spain establishes the "Consejo de las Indias" to govern the American colonies
1524: Franciscan friars begin evangelizing in Nueva Espana
1526: The Spaniards (Rodrigo de Bastidas) establish their second settlement in South America, Santa
Marta (Colombia)
1527: Francisco de Montejo begins the Spanish conquest of the Yucatan
1527: Spain institutes the audiencia of Nueva Espana
1528: Holy Roman emperor and Spanish king Karl V grants Venezuela to the Augsburg banking family
Welser
1528: Spain institutes an "audience" (supreme court) in Mexico City
Dec 1530: Pizarro leaves Panama for South America
1531: The king of Portugal dispatches a convoy to Brazil under the command of Martin Afonso de
Sousa
Sep 1532: Fracisco Pizarro conquers Ecuador and establishes the the first Spanish settlement in Peru
(and third in South America) and begins the conquest of Peru
1532: Martin Afonso de Sousa founds Sao Vicente in Brazil
Nov 1532: Francisco Pizarro defeats the Inca army led by Atahuallpa at Cajamarca after the Inca Empire
has been decimated by smallpox and takes the emperor hostage
Jul 1533: Pizarro executes Inca emperor Atahuallpa
1532: Vasco de Quiroga founds the hospital of Santa Fe in Ciudad de Mexico, a utopian community
Nov 1533: Pizarro takes Cuzco, the Inca capital
1533: Spaniards found Cartagena (Colombia)
1534: Pizarro's lieutenant Sebastian de Belalcazar conquers Quito
1534: The king of Portugal grants the first capitania to a donatario in Brazil (colossal hereditary
landholdings)
1535: Pizarro founds Lima, the Spanish capital of Peru
1535: Vasco de Quiroga denounces the Spanish-American encomienda system in "Informacion en
Derecho"
1535: Spain establishes the viceroyalty of Nueva Espana (Mexico, Arizona, Texas, California) with
governor Antonio de Mendoza (that relieves Cortes of all power) and capital in Tenochtitlan that is
renamed Ciudad de Mexico
1535: The Portuguese colony of Pernambuco of Nova Lusitania (Brazil) is granted to Duarte Coelho
1536: Spaniards (led by Pedro de Mendoza) found Nuestra Senora de Santa Maria del Buen Ayre
(Buenos Aires) on the Rio de la Plata
1536: Pizarro's lieutenant Sebastian de Belalcazar founds Popayan in Nueva Granada (Colombia)
1536: Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada explores Nueva Granada (Colombia)
1536: Diego de Almagro explores Chile
1537: Vasco de Quiroga is appointed the first bishop of Michoacan (Mexico)
1537: Domingo Mart¡nez de Irala becomes governor of Rio de la Plata
1537: Duarte Coelho founds the town of Olinda in Brazil
1537: Pope Paul III issues a Papal Bull to affirm that the Indios of Latin America are equal to Europeans
and therefore entitled to receive Christianity
1537: Spaniards found Asuncion (Paraguay)
1538: Jimenez de Quesada establishes the colony of New Granada (Colombia) and its capital Santa Fe
de Bogota
1538: A civil war erupts between followers of Almagro and followers of Pizarro, won by the latter
1538: Panama gets its own audiencia
1538: The first university in the Americas opens in Santo Domingo
1538: African blacks are shipped as slaves to Brazil
1539: The first printing press opens in Ciudad de Mexico
1540: Pedro de Valdivia explores Chile
1541: Spaniards (Pedro de Valdivia) found Santiago de Chile
1541: Buenos Aires is abandoned and its horses spread in the wild
1541: Spanish explorer Francisco Orellana sails from Ecuador to the Atlantic and names a tribe of
female fighters "Amazons", thus giving the name to the entire region and its vast river
1541: Pizarro is assassinated by an Almagrista
1542: Spain establishes the viceroyalty of Peru with capital in Lima
1542: Bartolome` de las Casas frames new laws that are approved by the Spanish king to protect the
natives from exploitation by the Spanish colonists/encomenderos, but they are largely ignored
1542: Francisco de Montejo the Young (son of the Elder) conquers most of Yucatan for Spain and
founds a new capital, Merida
1543: Lima (Peru) gets its own audiencia
1544: Bartolome` de las Casas is named bishop of Chiapas (Guatemala)
May 1544: Blasco Nunez become the first viceroy of Peru
1545: Silver is discovered in Potosi (Bolivia)
1546: Spain completes the conquest of Yucatan
1546: Bartolome` de las Casas' laws are repealed after strong opposition by the encomiendas
1546: Gonzalo Pizarro leads an insurrection of encomenderos and defeats and kills Nunez, the viceroy
of Peru
1546: Youstol Dispage Fromscaruffi dies
1546: Silver is discovered in Zacatecas (Mexico)
1547: The Spanish king's representative, Pedro de Gasca, defeats the Pizarristas
1548: Spaniards found LaPaz is Bolivia
1548: Gonzalo Pizarro surrenders and is beheaded
1548: The population of Santo Domingo has declined from 100,000 in 1492 to 5,000
1549: The Spanish king's representative, Pedro de Gasca, leaves Peru
1549: The Catholic bishop Diego de Landa begins destroying all Maya manuscripts (only four will
survive)
Mar 1549: Portugal appoints the first governor of Brazil, Thome de Sousa, who founds the capital of
Salvador/Bahia, and arrives with 1,000 colonists and six Jesuits, including Manoel de Nobrega
1550: Portugal ships female orphans and African slaves to the colonists of Brazil
1550: Antonio de Mendoza is succeeded as viceroy of Mexico by Luis de Velasco, who frees thousands
of "Indians"
1551: Spanish colonists from Peru found Santiago del Estero, the first permanent European settlement in
Argentina
1551: The university of San Marcos at Lima is founded in Peru
1551: The university of Ciudad de Mexico is founded
1551: Antonio de Mendoza is appointed viceroy of Peru
1552: Antonio de Mendoza dies and the audience rules Peru
1552: The Portuguese Jesuits found an "aldeia" (shelter) for Indios in Salvador
1552: Bartolome` de las Casas's "Brevisima Relacion de la Destruycion de las Indias" is published in
Europe, accusing Spain of having killed 12 million "Indians" since 1492
1552: Cattle is imported into Paraguay by Portuguese colonists and spread to Argentina
1553: Chile's governor Valdivia is defeated and killed by the Araucanian Indios
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1554: Jesuits led by Jose de Anchieta found the mission and school of Sao Paulo (Brazil)
1555: French colonists build a fort in the bay of Rio de Janeiro (France Antarctique)
1555: Portuguese sailors transmit smallpox to Brazil, that exterminates the Indios of the coast
1556: The Welser are stripped of their rights on Venezuela
1558: Portugal appoints the second governor of Brazil, Mem de Sa
1559: Charcas/La Plata (Bolivia) gets its own audiencia
1561: Colonial trade is restricted to two convoys of privately-owned ships a year, leaving from Sevilla
or Cadiz, landing in Vera Cruz (Mexico) or Portobello (Panama)
1562: The Portuguese annihilate the rebellious Caete in Brazil, while smallpox and plague begin to
spread among Indios of Brazil
1565: The Portuguese expel the French from the bay of Rio de Janeiro
1565: Pedro Menendez founds San Agustin in Florida
1567: Portuguese (Estacio de Sa) founds Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro 20 (Brazil)
1567: Spaniards found Caracas in Venezuela
1569: Francisco de Toledo is appointed viceroy of Peru
1569: Santa Fe de Bogota becomes the capital of the captaincy-general Nueva Granada
1569: Don Francisco de Toledo is appointed viceroy of Peru
1570: A tribunal of the Inquisition is instituted in Lima, Peru
1571: The Inca leader Tupac Amaru rebels in Peru but he is captured and beheaded
1572: British pirate Francis Drake raids Panama
1572: The Jesuits arrive in Ciudad de Mexico
1574: There are 160,000 Spaniards in America
1576: A smallpox epidemics in Mexico kills more than a million people
1577: British pirate Francis Drake raids Valparaiso (Chile)
1578: Juan de Garay is appointed governor of Rio de la Plata
1579: Jesuits found utopian missions in Paraguay and northern Argentina
1580: Juan de Garay refounds Buenos Aires (Argentina)
1580: British pirate Francis Drake concludes the second circumnavigation of the Earth
1580: Spain and Portugal are united and therefore Brazil is Spanish too
1580: Spain forbids the American colonies from conferring any public office to mestizos (mixed-blood
people)
1581: Peru's viceroy Francisco de Toledo is deposed by Spain
1581: Brazil has a population of 57,000, of which 20,000 Portuguese, 18,000 Indios, 14,000 African
slaves, and 5,000 mamelucos/mestizos
1584: Martin Ignacio de Loyola circumnavigates the Earth
1585: Black slaves constitute about 25% of Brazil's population
1586: British pirate Francis Drake raids Santo Domingo and Cartagena (Colombia)
1586: Juan Ramirez de Velasco is appointed governor of northern Argentina with capital in Santiago del
Estero (that has a population of 48 encomenderos and 12,000 Indios)
1589: Martin Ignacio de Loyola is the first man to circumnavigate the Earth twice
1596: Juan Ramirez de Velasco is appointed governor of Rio de la Plata with capital in Buenos Aires,
having greatly improved the infrastructure of Argentina
1595: British explorer Walter Raleigh visits "Guiana" (the land of the confluence between the Amazon
and the Orinoco, believed to hide the "El Dorado")
1597: Juan Ramirez de Velasco dies
1600: The population of Sao Paulo is 2000
1600: Only one million Native Americans survive in Mexico
1600: Pernambuco produces 60% of Brazil's sugar
1605: The population of Mexico has declined from 25 million (1490) to 1 million (1605), mostly due to
diseases
1605: Escaped black slaves of Brazil found the Quilombo dos Palmares, a confederacy ruled according
to Central African customs
1606: In retaliation to their guerrilla warfare, Spain authorizes the slave trade of Araucanian Indios in
Chile
1606: Portugal creates the relacao (high court) of Bahia
1613: Smallpox outbreak in Brazil
1616: Dutch explorer Willem Corneliszoon Schouten finds the route around Cape Horn, a faster way to
reach the Western coast of South America
1617: Paraguay is separated from Argentina
1618: In Europe Spain fights against France, Holland and England in the "Thirty Years' War"
1621: Holland forms the Dutch West India Company to invade the Spanish and Portuguese colonies and
takes control of Guyana (colonies of Demerara, Essequebo, and Berbice)
1621: The state of Maranhao is separated from Brazil with a governor in Sao Luis
1623: The Dutch seize Bahia from Portuguese Brazil with help from the Portuguese Jews and expand in
the Northeast
1624: The Catholic Church foments anti-government riots in Ciudad de Mexico
1624: Dutch colons colonize north-eastern Brazil
1624: England takes St Kitts from Spain
1627: England takes Barbados from Spain
1628: The West India Company seizes 170 thousand kgs of silver from Spanish ships at Cape Matanza
in Cuba
1629: Brazilian paulistas/mamelucos (slave gatherers) attack the Jesuit missions
1629: The Dutch conquers Pernambuco from Portugal
1631: To escape the Brazilian paulistas/mamelucos, the Jesuit missions of Paraguay/Argetina move
inland and found Candelaria
1634: Holland takes Curacao from Spain
1635: France conquers Martinique, Guadeloupe and Dominique from Spain
1639: The Portuguese explorer Pedro Teixeira explore the interior of Brazil and expand its border 2500
kms west of the Tordesillas limit
1640: Portugal regains its independence and Brazil returns Portuguese
1642: British colonists settle in Honduras
1643: Sugar is planted in Barbados
1647: Earthquake in Santiago de Chile
1648: End of the "Thirty Years' War" in Europe
1651: Jews found Curacao
1651: English colonists from Barbados found a colony along the Suriname River
1653: The Jesuit missionary Antonio Vieira arrives in Maranhao to fight against enslaving Brazilian
Indios
1653: A Brazilian-born white is appointed desembargador (high-court judge)
1654: The Brazilians expel the Dutch from Pernambuco
1655: Britain conquers Jamaica from Spain
1658: Buenos Aires has a population of 1,500
1661: Buenos Aires gets its own audiencia
1661: The colonists of Sao Luis revolt against the Jesuits who protect Brazilian Indios from slavery,
causing the expulsion of Vieira
1665: France turns the pirate island of Tortuga into its colony of St Dominique
1667: British pirate Henry Morgan raids Portobello (Panama)
1667: Britain surrenders Surinam to Holland in return for New Amsterdam (in New York)
1671: British pirate Henry Morgan raids Panama
1674: Spain abolishes the slave trade of Araucanian Indios in Chile
1679: There are 22 utopian Jesuit missions in Paraguay and northern Argentina
1680: Portuguese colonist Manuel de Lobo founds the colony of Sacramento inside Spanish territory of
Uruguay, that competes with Buenos Aires via contraband
1683: An international group of pirates raids Vera Cruz (Mexico)
1692: The poor riot in Ciudad de Mexico against state and Church
1693: Gold is discovered in Minas Geraes, Brazil, causing a gold rush in the West, and the center of
power shifts from the Northeast towards Rio de Janeiro
1695: The Portuguese exterminate the Quilombo dos Palmares
1695: Gold is discovered in Minas Gerais, Brazil
1697: Spain cedes the western part of Hispaniola to France, renamed Saint-Dominique (Haiti)
1697: An international group of pirates raids Cartagena (Colombia)
1700: Potosi has 14 dancehalls, 36 gambling houses and a theater
1702: Due to the blockade of Spain by England and Holland during the "War of Succession", Spain
authorizes French ships to trade with its American colonies and therefore removes the ban on all non-
Spanish trade with the American colonies
1703: Spain authorizes the colonies to confer public office to mestizos
1711: War of the Mascates in Brazil, a rebellion by landholdes of Recife
1713: The peace of Utrecht allows Britain to export African slaves to Spanish America (1,200 a year to
Buenos Aires)
1717: Spain establishes the vice-royalty of Nueva Granada (Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela) with capital
in Bogota
1720: Spain abolishes the encomienda
1720: Antonio de Albuquerque is appointed first governor of Minas Gerais, Brazil
1720: Portugal establishes the captaincy of Minas Gerais with capital in Sao Paulo
1721: Jose de Antoquera jails the governor and seizes power in Paraguay
1722: Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovers the Easter Islands
1722: The first newspaper of Spanish America is published in Mexico, the "Gaceta de Mexico"
1729: Montevideo (Uruguay) is founded by Spaniards across from the Portuguese colony of Sacramento
1729: Diamonds are found in Minas Gerais
1731: Jose de Antoquera is arrested and executed in Paraguay
1739: Panama is added to Nueva Granada
1743: The university of Santiago is founded in Chile
1748: Portugal creates the captaincy of Mato Grosso
1750: The treaty of Madrid recognizes Brazil's borders, and hands Sacramento to Spain in return for
Jesuit missions (that have to be evacuated by the combined Spanish and Portuguese armies)
1752: Portugal creates the relacao (high court) of Rio de Janeiro, the second in the colony
1759: The Jesuits are expelled from Brazil
Sep 1759: Portugal expels all Jesuits from its colonies
1763: The seat of the viceroy of Brazil is moved from Bahia to Rio
Feb 1763: France surrenders Canada (except for Saint Pierre and Miquelon), Dominica, Grenada, and
eastern Louisiana to Britain, Spain surrenders western Louisiana to France and Florida to Britain
1764: Cuba is made a seat of governorship, ruling over Louisiana
1765: Cuba begins an export boom of sugar
1767: The Jesuits are expelled from the Spanish empire, ending their 57 missions that counted 113,716
Indios
1767: The Franciscan friar Junipero Serra inherits the missions of Baja California when the Jesuits are
expelled
1768: Gaspar de Portola is appointed governor of Las Californias
1769: Junipero Serra founds the mission of San Diego (California)
1770: Junipero Serra founds the mission of Montery (California)
1770: Buenos Aires has a population of 22,000, including 4,000 African slaves, thousands of free
Africans, and an equal number of mestizos and Indios, which makes Buenos Aires the fourth largest
Spanish city in South America (after Lima, Cuzco, Santiago)
1770: Port-au-Prince is chosen as the new capital of the colony of Saint-Domingue
1772: The state of Maranhao is incorporated into Brazil
1776: Spain creates the new viceroyalty of La Plata (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia) under
Pedro de Cevallos, with capital in Buenos Aires although most of the population lives in Bolivia, one
fourth in Paraguay and only one fourth in Argentina and Uruguay
1776: Spain institutes the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata with capital in Buenos Aires
1777: Cevallos leads a Spanish incursion into Brazil that secures Sacramento (Uruguay) once and for all,
and opens up Argentina to free trade, initiating Buenos Aires' boom
1777: Venezuela becomes a captaincy-general
1778: Chile becomes a captaincy-general
1779: Brazil founds the "Academia Real das Sciencias"
1780: Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui stages a revolt of the Indios in Peru
1783: The Indio rebellion is defeated in Peru
1788: Spain appoints Irish-born Ambrosio O'Higgins as governor of Chile in the viceroyalty of Peru
1789: Joaquim Jose da Silva Xavier "Tiradentes" leads a failed independence movement in Minas
Gerais against Brazil
1791: African slaves led by Toussaint L'Ouverture rebel in the French colony of Saint-Domingue
(Haiti), causing the collapse of the coffee economy
1791: Chile's governor Ambrosio O'Higgins outlaws the forced labor of the encomiendas
1792: The French wars stimulate Brazil's exports
1792: Brazil provides 30% of the cotton to Britain
1792: Cuba as become the third exporter of sugar after Jamaica and Brazil
1793: Cuba opens the first public library of Spanish America
1795: Spain is forced to cede Santo Domingo (half of Hispaniola) to France
1796: Spain appoints Ambrosio O'Higgins viceroy of Peru
1796: Gold only accounts for 17% of Brazil's exports to Portugal compared with 51% of agricultural
exports
1797: Britain defeat Spain at Cape St Vincent, conquers Trinidad from Spain and cut off trade between
Spain and Spanish America
1798: The population of Brazil is three million, of which 50% are black slaves
1799: Brazil has produced about 80% of the world's gold during the 18th century (about 1,000 tons)
1800: Spain surrenders Louisiana to France
1800: The population of Spanish America is 12.6 million of which 5.84 are in Mexico and 1.1 in Peru
1800: The population of Chile is mostly made of mestizos (300,000 out of 500,000 people)
1800: There are 550,000 black slaves in Spanish America, notably 212,000 in Cuba, 88,000 each in Peru
and Venezuela, and 70,000 in Colombia
1800: Peru's population has declined to one million from the five million of Inca Peru
1801: Spain deposes Peru's viceroy Ambrosio O'Higgins for his revolutionary leanings
1801: A constitution is adopted in Haiti, where there are virtually no whites left with Toussaint president
for life
1802: France invades Haiti and deports Toussaint
1803: France tricks and kills Haiti's rebel Toussaint L'Ouverture
1804: Haiti (the former French colony of Saint-Dominique) declares independence from France, the
second colony after the USA to become independent in America, and the first black slave revolt to
triumph against the white masters, and Toussaint L'Ouverture's lieutenant Jean-Jacques Dessalines
becomes its "emperor", but no European or American country recognizes it
1805: The population of Mexico is 5.8 million
1806: Venezuelan hero Francisco Miranda fights against the Spanish government in Nueva Granada