Spanish Main

During the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Spanish Main was the collective term for the parts of the Spanish Empire that were on the mainland of the Americas and had coastlines on the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico. The term was used to distinguish those regions from the numerous islands Spain controlled in the Caribbean, which were known as the Spanish West Indies.^[1]

This article is about the Caribbean coast and Gulf of Mexico. For the film, see The Spanish Main.

Etymology[edit]

The word "main" in the expression is a contraction of mainland.^[2]

Composition[edit]

The Spanish Main included Spanish Florida and New Spain, the latter extending through modern-day Texas, Mexico, all of Central America, to Colombia and Venezuela on the north coast of South America. Major ports along this stretch of coastline included Veracruz, Porto Bello, Cartagena de Indias and Maracaibo.

The term is sometimes used in a more restricted sense that excludes the territories on the Gulf of Mexico. The Spanish Main then encompassed the Caribbean coastline from the Isthmus of Darien in Panama to the Orinoco delta on the coast of Venezuela.^[2]^[3] In this sense, the Spanish Main roughly coincides with the 16th century Province of Tierra Firme (Spanish for "mainland province").

History of the Caribbean

Piracy in the Caribbean

The Early Spanish Main. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1969.

Sauer, Carl O.

— archived version.

Melfisher.org: Reefs, Wrecks and Rascals