ABSTRACT
Spanish policy in America, formulated during the 800-year reconquista of Spain, required Native Americans to settle under Spanish dominion. Missionaries and miners headed north with equal zeal, but the primary city in North America at that time, Tenochtitlan, would dominate the entire region for several centuries. Spanish–French tensions in the region would change, about a century later, to American–Mexican tensions when the United States, in 1846, invaded Mexico, taking all of its land north of the Rio Grande. French and Spanish territorial disputes in the region reached a climax in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1762, France ceded Louisiana to Spain via the Treaty of San Ildefonso at the conclusion of the French and Indian War. With the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Spaniards moved out over the once mighty Aztec Empire in all directions. During the early eighteenth century, French incursions into Spanish-held territories created tensions, and realigned the pace and pattern of settlement.
