Spanish Americans

The story of immigration from Spain to the United States is a very long one. Immigration from Spain predates that of other European countries. Spanish Americans have had a continuous presence in what is now the United States since 1565. Spain established permanent settlements more than 40 years before the British arrived at Jamestown in 1607. Today, Spanish Americans or Spaniard Americans are one of America's smallest ethnic groups, with almost 636,000 Americans identifying as being of Spanish decent.

Long before the United States gained independence, the Spaniards reached the Appalachians, the Mississippi, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Plains. They sailed along the east coast as far as Maine, and up the Pacific coast to California and as far as Oregon. During the colonial period, there were a number of Spanish populations. As late as 1783, at the end of the American Revolutionary War, Spain held about half of today's continental United States.

St. Augustine, Florida, which was founded in 1565, is the oldest European permanent settlement in the United States. Martin de Arguelles, born in 1565, was the first child of European ancestry born in what became the continental United States. Santa Fe, New Mexico, founded in 1598, also predates the initial permanent English settlement of Jamestown. Santa Fe is the oldest capital city in North America and also the oldest European community west of the Mississippi River. Between 1607 and 1692, Spanish soldiers and officials attempted to conquer and convert the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. The Pueblo Indians revolted against colonial rule and its many abuses in 1680.

In New Mexico, the number of Spanish settlers during the 17th century probably never surpassed 4,000. Between 1692 and 1821 Santa Fe grew and prospered, although the city and surrounding countryside was threatened on several occasions by wars with Comanche, Apache, and Navajo Indian tribes. Between 1821 and 1846, Mexico gained its independence from Spain and Santa Fe became the capital of the province of New Mexico. In addition to St. Augustine and Santa Fe, early settlements also included Albuquerque, New Mexico; San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Jose, Monterey, and Los Angeles, California; El Paso, Texas; and settlements in Arizona and Louisiana.

Although approximately 200,000 Spaniards immigrated to the New World (including Mexico and South America) and founded 200 settlements by 1650, few were drawn to the isolated and backwater provinces of Florida and New Mexico. The earliest settlers also included Sephardic Jews and Iberian Moors who fled conditions in Spain during the Inquisition. Major sources of immigration came from the southern provinces of Spain, which include Almeria, Malaga, Granada, and the Canary Islands. Others came from Galicia and the Basque provinces and from the Balearic Islands. These were among the poorest provinces of Spain.