Besides architecture, what cultural contributions did the early colonists from Spain make?

27 comments

1. They forced people to be catholic so a lot of that stuck around.

2. Everything from the northern Texas border to San Francisco to the southern tip of Argentina.

3. The Spanish Real was widely used for trade, it was legal tender until the Coinage Act of 1857. Its design served as the basis for the first US Dollar.

4. Their colonies to our south probably had a much larger impact than Spain did itself. Tons of food and other cultural elements are present all over the US, especially farther south but really a lot of things have spread nationwide. Lots of Spanish loanwords that are common, even people that don’t speak Spanish in any real capacity will know what words like amigo, hombre, bueno, etc mean. Pretty sure most of the actual cowboys were Latinos from Mexico or the pre-USA southwest.

5. Texas Longhorn cattle and the related Florida Cracker breed are descended from free ranging cattle brought by Spanish colonists.

6. Buckaroo comes from “vaquero.”

7. As a Floridian, the main thing I think of is actually our cattle. What I call “swamp cows” or “Cracker cattle” that are really adept at living in our wet lands and grazing in weird places all were brought by the conquistadors. These are related to Texas longhorns and are also cross bred and variations/hybrids are apparently all over the southern US.

   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Cracker_cattle

   I think they also had a similar impact on the wild horse population in that they led to a large impact to our iconic wild Mustangs.

8. They discovered the fountain of youth.

9. They introduced boars to Florida that remain an invasive species to this day.

10. Most of the Western hemisphere South of the US except Brazil (and a few other minor exceptions) speak Spanish.

11. Wild horses and the use of horses depicted by western Native Americans are contributed to the early Spanish expeditions.

12. As far as language, 50% of the Western Hemisphere speaks Spanish, almost 500 million people. It’s by far the most useful as a second language here. Compare that to Europe, where it would rank below German, French or even Russian in terms of usefulness.

    My family is from Puerto Rico and Spanish is still the primary language there. Most public schools teach in Spanish and have an English language class. Though military and private schools are most often in English. My grandmother has been in the continental US since Hurricane Rita in 2005, and still can’t hold a conversation in English.

13. As far as language, 50% of the Western Hemisphere speaks Spanish, almost 500 million people. It’s by far the most useful as a second language here. Compare that to Europe, where it would rank below German, French or even Russian in terms of usefulness.

    My family is from Puerto Rico and Spanish is still the primary language there. Most public schools teach in Spanish and have an English language class. Though military and private schools are most often in English. My grandmother has been in the continental US since Hurricane Rita in 2005, and still can’t hold a conversation in English.

14. In my neck of the woods (Louisiana), there are many dishes that we think of as “Cajun” that were profoundly influenced by the Spanish as well as the Basque. Jambalaya being one of them. The Canary Islanders also were responsible for bringing in fish and shrimp from the gulf into our otherwise land-centric cuisine of chicken, pork, turtle & alligator.

    You said “other than architecture”, but I want to point out that lots of folks come to the French Quarter and don’t realize the vast majority of the architecture is Spanish and not French – the great fire of New Orleans occurred during Spanish occupation and they got to rebuild.

15. Lot of Spanish influence in Florida.

    They owned both Florida and much of the Caribbean for a while. A lot of people who live in this region have Spanish ancestry.

16. Horses brought by the Spanish(and eventually other people) changed the culture of native Americans before they ever even really had first contact with each other.

17. They created Latinos to make good food, and sweet music. A lot of influence throughout the Southwesrlt and parts of the Southeast. Yay us!(am Latino)

18. You would honestly have to ask an Aztec

19. Half of the Western Hemisphere is a product of Spanish colonization, so not too shabby. From a US perspective:

    The oldest settlement in North America is St. Augustine, FL, a Spanish settlement. Spain colonized much of the southwestern United States before those areas were annexed during the Mexican-American war. Spanish-speaking populations have always been a cornerstone of the southwest US and thanks to migration, have become ubiquitous through the rest of the country. While Spain is not the mother country for America as an institution, they are our brothers in the new world. Even in podunk backwaters in the US you’re likely to find a Mexican restaurant.

20. Central and South America are deeply religious and Christianity is the religion of choice.

21. At least common phrases from Spanish are an interesting contribution to the American dialect of English. We’ve mostly completely integrated them into our language.

    Even if I, as a white guy with no Spanish heritage meet another white guy with no Spanish heritage? He’ll know exactly what I’m saying if I say “Hola amigo! Buenos dias! ¿Que pasa?!”

    I think Spanish has made the American dialect of English much richer.

22. I mean there’s literally an entire continent that almost exclusively speaks Spanish because of it…

23. A huge number of cities have Spanish names.

24. Some California county boundaries match borders between original land grants from the king of Spain.

25. I don’t have specific data on this, but at least half of the cities/places in Southern California have Spanish names and many of them were named after the Spanish Californios themselves

26. I presume their impact was a deciding factor when my family chose to come to California to escape Francoism.

27. In Louisiana, our legal system is at least in part owed to Spain. We have Civil Law rather than the English-derived Common Law (which is employed by the federal government and other 49 states).

    While France’s influence is by far the greatest, many incorrectly believe we were once under the Napoleonic Code. This is false. Louisiana’s legal system was born out of the earlier French-Spanish hybrid that existed prior to Napoleon. Louisiana changed hands quite a few times, so our laws tended to take elements from both.