xception of Brazil, under the rule of the Crown of Castile (Encyclopedia of World History n.p.). During this time, however, Spain remained a multiethnic society that was still attempting to centralize and unify its own government under a single crown. The crucial element for such unity was the imposition of Christian beliefs on the entire population (Encyclopedia of World History n.p.).
As the Spanish empire grew, the Habsburg monarchs (who included Ferdinand and Isabella) engaged the strategy of guaranteeing local privileges and fiscal concessions and patronage in return for aristocratic recognition of the Habsburg's multiple crowns (Lachmann 346). This strategy prevented elite conflict within each unit of the empire. However, it also increased the aut
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