American Conquest and Rule
The first Spanish attempt to control this area failed in 1524, when Pedro de Alvarado was forced to retreat by Pipil warriors. In 1525, he returned and succeeded in bringing the district under control of the Audiencia of Mexico. It was Alvarado who named the district for El Salvador ("The Savior") and was appointed its first governor, a position he held until his death in 1541. The area was under the authority of a short-lived Audiencia of Panama from 1538 to 1543, when most of Central America was placed under a new Audiencia of Guatemala.
In 1609 the territory of the Audiencia of Guatemala was created into a captaincy general to deal with threats to the area from foreign incursions into the Caribbean. In 1786, the Republic of El Salvador, which previously had been broken up into many corregimientos, was transformed into an intendancy, as part of the Bourbon Reforms. This change brought economic and political unity to the area, and aided in the development of a sense of Salvadoran nationalism over the next century.
Read more about this topic: History Of El Salvador
Famous quotes containing the words american, conquest and/or rule:
“It isn’t the oceans which cut us off from the world—it’s the American way of looking at things.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,—the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,—at least apparently,—but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Let the amelioration in our laws of property proceed from the concession of the rich, not from the grasping of the poor. Let us understand that the equitable rule is, that no one should take more than his share, let him be ever so rich.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)