ABSTRACT
As the fifteenth century ended and the sixteenth began, the Spaniards emerged as a major military power, pushing out or subjugating the remaining Moors on the Iberian peninsula, and controlling other kingdoms, such as Austria, the Low Countries, and much of Italy. Spain also expanded overseas into the West Indies, Panama, and Florida, though with mixed success, since the groups they encountered were relatively unsophisticated and could not easily be controlled through their own political structures; nor were many tied to their lands, so that they simply fled in the face of Spanish predation.
