NEW SPAIN, VICEROYALTY OF

n.

Former Spanish viceroyalty (1535–1821), principally in North America.

At various times it included what is now the southwestern U.S. (as well as Florida and parts of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico), Mexico, Central America north of Panama, much of the West Indies, and the Philippines. Mexico City was the seat of the government, which also had jurisdiction over Spain's Caribbean possessions. The first viceroy sent Francisco Vázquez de Coronado on his northern expeditions. The viceroyalty succumbed to the coalition forged by Agustín de Iturbide in 1821.