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Acacia Chacon
HIST 320.001
Dr. Diane Margolf
April 23, 2015

Female Migration Patterns to the New World:

From Spain and Portugal to Latin American colonies

Honor Pledge: On my honor as a student at Colorado State University, I pledge that I have not
given, received, or used any unauthorized assistance for this assignment, nor violated the
requirements of the Universitys Academic Integrity Policy.

Name: ___________________ Date: _____________________

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The Spanish and the Portuguese began invading, conquering and settling Central and
South America starting in the fifteenth-century. Throughout the four hundred year period that
Spain and Portugal reigned over Latin America, the migration of Spanish and Portuguese people
to Latin American colonies evolved over time to reflect social factors in Europe. This paper
examines migration patterns through a gendered lens. Womens migration patterns to the New
World shared one similar motive with their male counterparts but when examined closely the
various factors that drove female migration are reflective of larger social themes at play in
Europe. The main motive for both men and womens migration to the colonies was the increased
opportunity for social and economic advancement. In Europe generations of strategic family
planning created staunch class divisions based on family lineage and finances. In the New World
the only prerequisite for elite status was European origin. This opened up the door for social
mobility for anybody who voyaged across the Atlantic Ocean. For women the incentives and
mandates varied. Initially, women were incentivized and men were mandated to have wives
journey alongside their husbands or shortly after their husbands to the colonies to establish
European societies. Single women made the voyage at a higher rate than married woman and
were sent to do so both through economic incentives from the crown along with forcible
migration enforced by the crown. A third subset of women migrated to the colonies to
disseminate the Catholic doctrine in the colonies. All three classifications of women were
supported by the crown to spread European ideas and culture in the newly acquired land.
Women were seen as capable cultural agents and societal intermediaries. This notion was what
sent many women to the colonies as they were seen as essential in Europeanizing Latin
American colonies. Initially, it was married women who were seen as best fit to represent
Spanish and Portuguese values but as the need for more women increased in the colonies soon

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single women were encouraged to migrate and spread European values as well. Non-Secular,
pro-catholic values were of extreme importance which is why Spain was quick to establish
convents in their colonies. In all, female migration was incentivized and mandated by European
officials in order to act as cultural agents and stabilize Latin America from conquered territories
to societal colonies.
During the initial discovery and conquest phases of colonizing Latin America, very few
European women migrated to the New World. The small initial group of women who migrated
to the New World were wives of army officials and conquistadors. Spain and Portugal had two
motives for encouraging these wives to join their husbands in Latin America. First, the crown
was eager to settle their new colonies in order to promote economic prosperity and to encourage
indigenous groups assimilation to European social hierarchies. The crown saw women as social
stabilizers and figures for cultural propagation. The migration of wives to Latin America acted
as a means of social control because it normalized colonial behavior and allowed for these
women to act as cultural agents.1 The second motive for sending the wives of army officials to
the colonies was to curb the increasing number of women being abandoned by their husbands in
Europe who had been left to rely on the Spanish and Portuguese crown for financial support.2 A
growing number of abandoned wives were taking its toll on the financial state of Spain and
Portugal but it also had social effects because these women disrupted the social construct of
being married but under no male authority. The state saw a need to resolve this financial and
social issue and as a remedy Spain enacted a policy which would pay for the voyage for women
to join their husbands in the New World.3 Spain and Portugal released royal edicts as well which
placed economic burdens and threats of deportation on men who did not send for their wives
upon settling in the New World.4 By issuing these mandates and incentives the Spanish and

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Portuguese authorities hoped to decrease the number of wives left in Europe without their
husbands. These two motives were large driving forces for the migration of wives to the New
World during the transitional period between conquering and settling Latin America.
In Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Restoring Women to History Marysa
Navarro argues that married European women were sent to Latin America to act as cultural
agents in order to reinforce the system of social hierarchies required to extract labor from the
indigenous populations.5 She argues that the female population acted as support for maintaining
European mens superior positions on the racial and class hierarchies being built and enforced
through the settlement of these colonial communities which allowed the men to extract labor and
tributes from the lesser groups on the social hierarchy thus benefitting Europe economically
through trade products produced from these colonies.6
Women were expected to act as cultural agents for the proper diffusion of European
cultural values therefore; the women sent to the New World had to be of a certain breed in order
to ensure the diffusion of desirable cultural traits which were deemed to be proper by European
officials. Marysa Navarro claims that The mission of Spanish elite married women was to be
faithful and obedient wives, appearing pious and virtuous, and to bear legitimate children so that
the lineage could be properly perpetuated7
This is why the Spanish and Portuguese crowns encouraged married women to migrate to
the New World initially. In Lucile Mairs book A Historical Study of Women in Jamaica 16551844 Mair describes these initial married female migrants as women of quality.8 These
women were wives of army generals and had their passage across the Atlantic covered by the
state to join their husbands in the new colonies to instill European culture in the otherwise
untamed colonies. One such female who migrated with her husband was Ana Francisca

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Hermenegilda de Borja y Doria, Countess de Lemos. The Countess de Lemos migrated with her
husband, who had been stationed as the viceroy of Peru, in 1667.9 The Countess de Lemos
instantly became a prominent figure in Peruvian politics and cultural activities. She played the
role of obedient and loyal wife to the viceroy which promoted European values. The Countess
de Lemos acted as regent viceroy in her husbands absence which allowed her more room to
promote European political and social values in the colonies of Peru.10 The Countess de Lemos
was extraordinary in her position as regent viceroy of Peru but despite her political involvement
she does represent the women that joined their husbands across the Atlantic to act as cultural
agents because she played the role of obedient wife.
Although the migration of married women alongside their husbands was mandated by
royal edicts there were a growing number of wives being left in Spain and Portugal by their
husbands who were seeking economic and social gains in the New World. Between the years of
1509-1539 only five percent of the 13,262 immigrants to the New World were female.11 This
leaves a considerable amount of men who were leaving Europe for the colonies. The wives of
these men were most often left with surrounding family members to fend for themselves while
the men went abroad in search of economic success.12 The expectation was that either the
husband would send for his wife after establishing himself in the New World or the husband
would return to Europe after finding economic success.13 The reality faced by many of these
wives was long years of waiting for word from their husbands to no avail which led to an
increasing dependency on family and the state for financial support. The growing number of
abandoned wives dependent on state funds was in conflict with the social order in Europe which
relied on male authority as a rigid system of order. Although technically married these women
were under no direct male authority. To curb this economic and social burden, Spain offered

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wives free passage to the New World to unite with their husbands. One such female who
migrated to the New World to reclaim her husband was Mary Rider of England who wrote to the
state claiming desirous of being transported to that island at the expense of the state to join my
husband serving in Jamaica.14 Financial assistance was offered to abandoned wives as an
incentive to increase migration to Latin America in order to rejoin their husbands so that these
abandoned wives would be less of a burden on the state while promoting desirable cultural traits
in the New World.
The motives for migration of married women to Latin America are complex on a case by case
scenario. In order to consider the migration of this group of women from Europe to European
colonies it works to generalize the motives for married womens migration into one of two main
motives. The first motive was the crowns desire to spread European culture to their colonies
along with the belief that women were ideal agents for cultural diffusion. The second motive
was to remove women abandoned by their husbands from the mainland in order to alleviate
financial and social strains that this scenario brought about. Women like Mary Rider and the
Countess de Lemos represent the various women who migrated to Latin America as
representatives for cultural values towards marriage which the Spanish and Portuguese crown
wished to promote in their colonies.
There is a common misconception among those who teach or study Colonial Latin
America which claims that the bulk of female migrants were married. After the conquest period
of colonization, the majority of women who migrated to the colonies were in fact, single women.
The overall incentive for migration to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies were the same for
unmarried women as they was for married women and single or married men. Migrating to the
colonies guaranteed an increased opportunity for social mobility and economic gains. Race was

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the basis in which the social hierarchy rested and being a peninsularan automatically placed a
person at the top of the social hierarchy in the colonies regardless of their previous station in
Europe.15 Promoting this race-based caste system required an elite class to maintain supremacy
over mixed-race and indigenous populations. Initial conquest-era male and married female
migration was not enough to sustain a large enough elite class. Therefore, the Portuguese and
Spanish crown began promoting migration during the settlement stage of colonization to the
New World with incentives which benefitted both men and women. The Spanish Crown released
a Royal Proclamation in 1662 which granted thirty acres to any person, regardless of gender,
willing to migrate and settle in the Spanish colonies.16 This incentive was successful in its intent
to get both men and women to migrate to the colonies. As an example, in Mexico and Santa
Domingo between 1520-1539, 13,262 migrants trekked across the Atlantic Ocean. Of those
13,262 migrants, 945 were women and more significantly only eighty-five of those women were
married. 17 A 1670 Jamaican land survey supported the argument that land grant incentives
increased female migration when the survey cited three of the nine largest landowners as either
unmarried or widowed women.18 Priscilla Wolloughby was one such woman. She had migrated
to Clarendon in 1664 along with her servants and was granted 600 acres of land.19 Without male
guardianship, Priscilla Wolloughby took advantage of land grants and successfully migrated to
the New World. Clearly, there were causes beyond just marriage which attracted Spanish and
Portuguese women to migrate to Latin America along with their male counterparts. Incentives
were not the only way in which women made their way to Latin America. A number of women
were sent against their own authority through state mandates.
Starting in the mid to late sixteenth century, Portugal began sending orphaned girls and
reformed prostitutes to Brazil in order to decrease the growing number of unmarried men in the

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New World and alleviate the societal pressures domestically of having a population of unmarried
girls. Portugal sent these girls to Brazil with a dowry in the form of either a small sum of money
or a small plot of land with the expectation that they would marry the single men in Brazil to
promote a growing European elite class.20 Doing so enforced the same notions that sending
married women across the Atlantic did. Both groups of women were seen as stabilizing
components and cultural agents that worked to increase Latin Americas settlement stage of
colonization.
Incentivized and mandated female migration to Latin America did work in increasing the
female population in the colonies. By 1570 thirty percent of the population in Spanish colonies
was female.21 This shows an exponential growth of female presence in the colonies because
female migration did not become prevalent until at least 1510. 22 The majority of female
migrants were married or unmarried women who crossed the ocean for secular reasons like
economic opportunities or marital expectations but there was a sub-classification of women who
migrated to the New World for religious purposes.
In Spanish colonies, convents were quickly established. In contrast, it took Portugal over
120 years to establish a convent in their Brazilian colonies.23 The motives for instilling or
withholding convents were not based on religious need but rather population equalization. In
Spanish colonies, the incentives and mandates which had encouraged the migration of both
males and females was largely successful and as a result the elite class grew rapidly.24 Because
elite status was granted on purity of Spanish blood alone, the elite class began to outgrow their
economic carrying capacity. Much like the families in Spain, elite families in Spanish colonies
strategized their family connections to maintain status and wealth. Sending one or two daughters
into convents reduced the number of elites and increased inheritance amongst heirs.25 This

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family strategy led to a need for convents in the New World. In 1540, the Nuestra Senora de la
Concepcion convent was the first Spanish convent established in Latin America.26 This convent
along with Perus first convent were initially opened in part to reduce the elite class population
but the main objective was to house the increasing population of unmarried women and children
who were populating the Spanish colonies.27 The opening of convents worked to reduce the
number of elite women in Latin American colonies. By the end of the seventeenth century in
Lima, Peru one fifth of the female population had joined convents.28
Unlike their Spanish counterparts, Portugal was slow to establish convents in their
colonies. By the middle of the seventeenth century the number of Brazilian convents rivaled the
amount of Spanish convents in Latin America. Portugal was slow to open convents in Brazil
because unlike Spanish colonies, Portuguese colonies had a significantly fewer female
inhabitants. Convents would decrease an already small market of marriageable women. As a
result, Portuguese colonies did not establish convents for the first 120 years after initial conquest.
Those who wished to join a convent had to migrate back to Portugal to take their vows. As a
response to growing societal pressures and a stabilizing gender ratio, Portugal finally established
its first convent in Brazil in 1677 in Salvador, Bahia.29 By the end of the seventeenth century
seventy-five percent of Brazils elite daughters had taken vows. 30
There were economic, cultural and familiar pressures which influenced the migration of
Spanish and Portuguese women both in Europe and in European colonies to join convents.
Family strategy used convents as an alternative to a disadvantageous marriage. Having family
members in the church was a respectable component of an elite familys strategic social plan.31
This notion carried over to the colonies at a more intense level due to the unique migratory
patterns that led to an overpopulation of an elite class which was built purely on European

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descent. Women began to outnumber men in the colonies due to constant warfare. This left
many elite women with two options. Either partake in a less than ideal marriage or join a
convent. Joining a convent kept family status and wealth constant which is why so many women
were either pressured into or freely chose to take vows.
Another important component to the rapid inclusion of convents in the colonies was
because of the role that a convent could play in disseminating European religious views. As we
have seen throughout the colonial period in both Europe and Latin America, women were
perceived as cultural agents and societal intermediaries. Establishing convents allowed for the
spread of Spanish and Portuguese religious doctrine. Catholicism was the official religion in
both Spain and Portugal and the state was steadfast in their intent to convert indigenous peoples
to Catholicism as well as use Catholic principles as a check on societal behavior in the colonies.
The Spanish and Portuguese crown came to support the establishment of convents in the colonies
because like supporting the migration of both married and unmarried women, supporting the
migration and creation of convents was a tool that the Crown could use to spread cultural and
religious ideas to the New World.
The motive for migration to the New World transgressed gender and class boundaries
found in Europe. Opportunity for social and economic mobility along with the encouragement
and mandate from the Crown influenced the influx of Spanish and Portuguese migrants to Latin
American colonies. Female migration varied from male migration in regards to numbers and
specific motivations. The three main causes for migration were: marital expectations supported
by Spanish and Portuguese authorities, incentives and edicts from authorities for the migration of
single women and migration for religious purposes. The initial female migrants to the colonies
were the wives of army officials followed by abandoned wives, supported by the Spanish and

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Portuguese crown who sought to reunite with their husbands who had migrated before them.
During the settlement stage of colonization incentives from the crown in the form of dowry
money and land sent unmarried girls across the Atlantic to partake in advantageous marriages
with elite single men in Latin America. Because women were seen as cultural agents, convents
were established in order to support and promote Catholic doctrine in the colonies. Although the
intent varied amongst female migrants the overarching desire to move to a colony in which your
European bloodline instantly put you in the elite class was an enticing motivation for migration
amongst all class and gendered boundaries during the Colonial Latin American and early Modern
European eras.

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1 Silverblatt, Irene. Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton, N.J., New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987.
2 Bergmann, Emilie L. Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America. Berkeley, California: University of California Press,
1990.
3 Socolow, Susan Migden. The Women of Colonial Latin America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
4 Navarro, Marysa, and Virginia Sanchez-Korrol. Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Restoring Women to History.
Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1983.

5 Navarro, Restoring Women to History lxiii

6 Ibid, 21
7 Ibid, 49
8 Mair, Lucille Mathurin, Hilary Beckles, and Barbados Hill. A Historical Study of Women in Jamaica 1655-1844.
Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press :, 2006.

9 Socolow, Women of Colonial Latin America. Chapter six: Elite Women, 85

10 Socolow, Chapter six, 89
11 Navarro, 22
12 Socolow, Chapter one: Why Women, 53
13 Wiesner, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993. 311
14 Mair, Study of Women in Jamaica, 20
15 Jordan, Robert. "Colonial Latin America." Lecture, Fall 2014 from Colorado State University, Fort
Collins, 2014.
16 Ibid, 21
17 Navarro, 23
18 Ibid, 11
19 Ibid
20 Socolow, 312
21 Navarro, 22
22 Ibid
23 Socolow, Chapter seven: The Brides of Christ and Other Religious Women, 91
24 Wiesner, Women and Gender, 313

25 Socolow, Chapter seven, 82

26 Ibid, 91
27 Navarro, 85
28 Socolow, 93
29 Silverblatt, 92
30 Wiesner, 315
31 Margolf, Diane. "Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe: 1450-1789."
Lecture, Spring 2015 from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, April 1,
2015.

Works Cited
Bergmann, Emilie L. Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America. Berkeley, California: University of California
Press, 1990.
Candau, Francisco J. Coded Encounters Writing, Gender, and Ethnicity in Colonial Latin America. Amherst,
Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
Hahner, June Edith. Women in Latin American History, Their Lives and Views. Los Angeles, California: UCLA
Latin American Center Publications, University of California, 1976.
Jordan, Robert. "Colonial Latin America." Lecture, Fall 2014 from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, 2014.
Powers, Karen Vieira. Women in the Crucible of Conquest: The Gendered Genesis of Spanish American Society,
1500-1600. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2005.
Mair, Lucille Mathurin, Hilary Beckles, and Barbados Hill. A Historical Study of Women in Jamaica 1655-1844.
Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press :, 2006.
Margolf, Diane. "Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe: 1450-1789." Lecture, Spring 2015 from Colorado
State University, Fort Collins, April 1, 2015.
Navarro, Marysa, and Virginia Sanchez-Korrol. Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Restoring Women to
History. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1983.
Silverblatt, Irene. Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton, N.J.,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987.
Socolow, Susan Migden. The Women of Colonial Latin America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2000.
Wiesner, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.