Experiences and Reactions to Communication in the Spanish Atlantic (1492-1560)

The article analyzes the ways and conditions under which different agents reacted to handwritten communication in the Spanish Atlantic during the 16th century. In this context, the transmission of information by letter is understood as a multisensory experience and conceived in different ways by producers of correspondence. The hypothesis is that official and private letters were unique platforms for users to express various perceptions related to the communicative environment. To this end, men and women used various official and private sources (located in Spain and America) to speculate regarding certain postal exchange conditions. From the above we conclude that a universe of reactions to communication (or the lack thereof) existed in the early 16th century, during which time the base of correspondence producers broadened increasingly.