Social Impact

Spain was greatly changed through their overseas exploration. Although they had withdrawn from European affairs, they did not relinquish their control of colonies in the Americas. Controlling areas primarily in South America, Spain controlled much of the sugar and gold trade. The native people were usually forced under a kind of enslavement by the ruling Spanish. However, often times natives and the ruling Spanish would intermarry, producing Mestizo children. Two new social classes were created by the Spanish conquest of the Americas. One was the aformentioned Mestizos and the other was the higher level Creoles, who were people of purely Spanish descent born in America.