Introduction 
19 
Chesapeake Bay. Shortly afterward the Jesuits withdrew to Mexico. 
The Alleghany and Chesapeake regions were explored and in 1573 
Menéndez’s grant was extended west to Pánuco. The grant of Carabajal 
six years later included the southwestern part of Menéndez’s jurisdiction. 
The year 1573 also saw the beginning in Florida of Franciscan activity, 
which continued with uninterrupted success until a serious revolt in 1597. 21 
Governmental Institutions and Colonial Administration. 
The political organization by which Spain administered her vast colonial 
possessions of which New Spain constituted so large a part, was made up 
of various organs of administration, both in Spain and in the colonies. 
In Spain were located the king, the Council of the Indies, and the Casa 
de Contratación, or Board of Trade; in New Spain were the viceroy, 
the captains-general, the audiencias, the provincial governors, and the 
various local officials and governing agencies. Without attempting to 
trace the historical development of these various institutions, a brief 
statement concerning their functions is pertinent. 
When America was discovered it was treated as the private domain of 
the ruler of Castile, as were all of the oversea colonies. Since the king 
stood at the head of the whole Castilian system, and indeed of the national 
system, it was but natural that he should stand in exactly the same position 
with respect to the colonial possessions. Nor did this change when Philip 
II. created of the colonial possessions the Kingdom of the Indies, from 
which time they were administered as a separate kingdom. Since the 
colonies from the outset were ruled in the same detailed fashion as Castile, 
it was but natural that there should have been reproduced for their govern¬ 
ment the same institutions as were in Castile. 
Of these the most highly developed, and the one next in authority under 
the king, was the Council of the Indies. Existing in germ form during the 
first decade of the sixteenth century and functioning informally from 
1509 until 1524, the Council of the Indies was formally established on 
August 4, 1524. Modelled after the Council of Castile its importance for 
the oversea possessions came to be as great as its prototype, and as the 
possessions of Spain grew, so did the power of the Council of the Indies 
increase, until it became the great overshadowing institution of the 
Indies—in practice, though not in theory more powerful than the king 
himself. These powers were of three kinds, legislative, administrative, 
and judicial, and in each of these fields the Council was, under the king, 
supreme. At first the Council proper was composed of nine members, but 
by the middle of the seventeenth century the number had been increased to 
fourteen; these were usually appointed by the king from among high 
officials who had seen service in the Indies. In addition there were many 
21 See, for Florida, W. Lowery, Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of 
the United States, 1513-1561, pp. 411-427; id., Spanish Settlements within the Present 
Limits of the United States : Florida, 1562-1574 (New York and London, 1905) ; Bolton 
and Marshall, op. cit., pp. 61-65. 
