Spanish colonial pueblos and villas in North America

Spanish colonial authorities in North America established misiones (churches with attached farms), presidios (military forts) and villas or pueblos (civilian settlements with residences, retail businesses, agricultural markets, etc.).

Official pueblo establishments (as opposed to those that developed organically) were granted four square Spanish leagues of land and were required to be sited at least five Spanish leagues away from any other pueblo.

According to one Arizona history, "Each organized pueblo was to have at least thirty inhabitants, each one to have ten breeding cows, four oxen, one brood mare, one sow, twenty Castillian ewes, six hens and one cock.

House lots and sowing lands were to be distributed among pueblo settlers.

"[1] Among the leadership of a pueblo was an alcalde (preceded in the history of Spanish administration by the title corregidor).