Spanish East Indies exception of a short period at the end of the 18th century). In 1821 the New Spanish Viceroyalty collapsed following the Mexican War of Independence, which resulted in the First Mexican Empire. All control of the Spanish East Indies government was then transferred to Madrid, until the United States annexed most Spanish territories in the Asia-Pacific region after the Spanish–American War of 1898. In 1574 the Captaincy General of the Philippines was created as a dependency of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Real Audiencia of Manila was created on and established in 1584 as the highest tribunal of the
East Indies East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group. Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Hinduism are the most popular religions throughout the region, while Sikhism, Jainism, Chinese folk religion and various other traditional beliefs and practices are also prominent in some areas. The major languages in this area draw from a wide variety of language families, and should not be confused with the term Indic, which refers only to a group of Indo-Iranian languages from South Asia. The extensive East Indies are subdivided into two sections (from