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The Colonial Order in the Americas History 111 – World History since 1500

Spring 2022

Jorge Minella ([email protected])

Recap ~1492-1560

 Disastrous first contact in Hispaniola and other Caribbean Islands.

 Disease, violence, encomienda.

 Conquest of the Inca and Aztec Empires.

 Disease, timing and circumstances, Spanish tactics.

 Silver.

 Portuguese Brazil.

 Coastal colony.

The “Colonial Middle”

 ~1550-1750.

 Economic and political models established.

 Decreased military conflict.

 Native Americans dealing with the new reality.

 Enslaved Africans forming communities and resisting.

Plan of Lima, capital of the Spanish Vice- Royalty of Peru, 1744.

This Lecture

 Case study: Spanish America.

 Colonial Government.

 Economy.

 Aspects of society.

 Slavery and sugar.

 Brazil, Caribbean.

 Resistance.

Spanish America: Colonial Government

Colonial Government

 Goals: wealth and allegiance.

 Europe to America: distance.

 Reliable but slow communication.

 Impact how to govern. Main Spanish and Portuguese Sea Routes.

Spanish Colonial Government

 Council of the Indies.

 Spanish subjects with interests in Spain in key positions in the colonial administration.

 Viceroyalty; Provinces.

 Audiencias: high appeal court.

 Town Councils (Cabildos): controlled by Spanish settlers.

“Two Republics”

 Survival of native communities.  Tribute and labor.

 The “Republic of Indians.”  Indigenous self-government at village level.  Indigenous town councils.

 The “Republic of Spaniards.”  Everything else.

Spanish America: Economy and Society

Two Republics and Stability

 Traditional native elites.  Colonizers – Natives intermediation.

 Relatively negotiated imposition of colonial rule.

 Audiencias.  Some relief to grievances.

The Colonial Economy

 Almost self-sufficient early on.

 Ranching and farming developed quickly.

 Favorable environment; workforce.

 Export-focused; monopolistic trade through Seville.

 Primary activity: silver mining.

 Secondary export products: gold, cacao, dyes, hides, and others.

Port of Seville, Spain. All trade from Spanish America had to go through Seville.

Native Labor

 Rotational labor drafts.

 Communities forced to provide quotas of laborers for a certain amount of time.

 New Spain: repartimiento.

 Peru: mita.

 Similar to native pre-conquest labor drafts, but harsher.

 Facilitated by the “two republics” system.

Spanish America: Society, Race, and Religion

Race and Social Hierarchy

 Race and Ethnicity in the organization of the colonies.

 Natives: tribute and servitude.

 Africans: slavery.

 Mixed-races.

 “castas.”

 Also inferior by law and discriminated in practice.

 But Complicated social hierarchization based on racial boundaries.

Calidad

 Racial boundaries blurred by casta population.

 Calidad (“quality”).

 Physical.

 Cultural.

 And social attributes.

 Position in society.

Casta painting containing complete set of 16 casta combinations. 18th

Century Mexico. Unknown author.

Catholicism

 Provided some common ground.

 Religious conformity expected.

 Catholicism blended with indigenous and African religious practices.

Coricancha (Inca’s Golden Temple) walls with the Spanish Convent of Santo Domingo built on top of it.

Sugar and Slavery

Slavery: Where and Why?

 Slavery developed where...  Compulsory native labor not advantageous to colonists.

 Diminished indigenous populations.

 Highly profitable activities to compensate for capital investment (purchase and maintenance of slaves)

 More often in export agriculture.

 But also in urban settings.

Slavery in the Americas

 Mass slavery, forming slave societies.

 Mostly rural.

 Plantations.

 Some mining and ranching areas.

 Auxiliary slavery, forming societies with slaves.

 Urban centers.

 Service sector.

Sugar Plantations

 High demand in Europe for sugar.

 First in Hispaniola and Mexico.

 Thrived in Pernambuco and Bahia (Brazil), and later in the Caribbean.

 Transitioned from enslavement of natives to massive use of enslaved Africans.

Plantations

 Specialized commercial enterprises.

 Large investment capital required: machinery and slaves.

 Economic driving forces of Brazil and the Caribbean.

 Dependent domestic economy.

 Specialization of the workforce.

 Harsh labor regime.

 Plantation owners and transatlantic sugar merchants profited.

Early 19th century representation of a Brazilian sugar mill.

Gold and Slavery in Brazil

 Gold and diamonds found in the interior.

 Shaped eighteenth-century Brazil.

 Interiorization.

 Slavery in the mining district.

 Gold collected by enslaved Africans in colonial Brazil would help fund the industrial revolution in England.

Meanwhile, in the Caribbean

 17th and 18th centuries.

 Dutch spread the sugar plantation model in the Caribbean after occupying sugar producing areas of Portuguese Brazil (1630-1654)

 Indentured servitude replaced by large scale slavery.

 Harsher than in Brazil.

 Racial distinction and racist hierarchies strongly enforced in colonies controlled by northern Europeans.

Violence

 Public punishment.

 Center of towns and cities.

 Show of power of Masters and colonial authorities.

Public Punishment. Johann Moritz Rugendas. (c. 1820s.)

Resistance

Indigenous Resistance

 Flight to the margins.

 Refusal and rebellion.  Faced Spaniard

violence.

 Legal action.

Page of the Codex Tepetlaoztoc, c. 1550.

Urban Slavery

 Services, workshops, construction, transportation.

 Regional capitals and port cities.

 Increased social tension.

 Public torture and execution.

Urban Blacks and Freedom Strategies

 Some access to money.

 Self-Purchase.

 Still, uncertainty faced freed individuals and urban Black communities.

Jean-Baptiste Debret. Urban Slavery, early 19th century Rio de Janeiro.

Black Lay Brotherhoods

 Support and solidarity networks.

 From the 18th century, common in urban centers and mining districts (Brazil).

 Secured funds to purchase freedom.

 Additionally, sought to provide:

 Health assistance.

 Pay for decent burials.

 Legal advice.

Rural Slaves

 Self-purchase more difficult.

 Harsher labor regimes.

 Less access to monetized transactions.

 Formation of runaway communities.

 Main strategy towards freedom.

 Frequent in plantation zones.

 Quilombos in Portuguese America.

 Palenques in Spanish America.

 Maroon Communities.

Maroon Communities

 Free Black communities.

 Formed by runaway slaves since the beginning of colonization.

 Frequent formation in plantation zones.

 Threat to the established colonial order.

Map of Pernambuco, Brazil, representing the maroon community of Palmares. Frans Post, 1647.

Quilombo of Palmares

 Largest of the Americas.

 Formed during the Dutch invasion of Brazil (1630-1654)

 Sugar-growing area.

 Confederation.

 10,000 to 20,000 people.

 Zumbi of Palmares (Leader)

 Defeated in 1694, after decades of fight and negotiation.

Monument to Zumbi, leader of the Parlmares maroon Community. Downtown Salvador, Brazil.

Native and African Resistance

 Rural zones: free maroon communities.

 Urban centers: self-purchase and lay brotherhoods.

 Indigenous Americans also resisted.

 Shaped colonial societies.

 Today: fight against the legacy of slavery, overexploitation, and displacement.