What was the impact of early European explorations on the New World?

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

CHAPTER 2

Early Globalization: The Atlantic

World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.1 After Christopher Columbus “discovered” the New World, he sent letters

home to Spain describing the

wonders he beheld. These letters were quickly circulated throughout Europe and

translated into Italian, German, and

Latin. This woodcut is from the first Italian verse translation of the letter

Columbus sent to the Spanish court after his

first voyage, Lettera delle isole novamente trovata by Giuliano Dati.

Chapter Outline

2.1 Portuguese Exploration and Spanish Conquest

2.2 Religious Upheavals in the Developing Atlantic World

2.3 Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy

2.4 New Worlds in the Americas: Labor, Commerce, and the Columbian Exchange

Introduction

The story of the Atlantic World is the story of global migration, a migration

driven in large part by the

actions and aspirations of the ruling heads of Europe. Columbus is hardly visible

in this illustration of his

ships making landfall on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (Figure 2.1). Instead,

Ferdinand II of Spain (in

the foreground) sits on his throne and points toward Columbus’s landing. As the

ships arrive, the Arawak

people tower over the Spanish, suggesting the native population density of the

islands.

This historic moment in 1492 sparked new rivalries among European powers as they

scrambled to create

New World colonies, fueled by the quest for wealth and power as well as by

religious passions. Almost

continuous war resulted. Spain achieved early preeminence, creating a far-flung

empire and growing

rich with treasures from the Americas. Native Americans who confronted the

newcomers from Europe

suffered unprecedented losses of life, however, as previously unknown diseases

sliced through their

populations. They also were victims of the arrogance of the Europeans, who viewed

themselves as

uncontested masters of the New World, sent by God to bring Christianity to the

“Indians.”

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

2.1 Portuguese Exploration and Spanish Conquest

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe Portuguese exploration of the Atlantic and Spanish exploration

of the

Americas, and the importance of these voyages to the developing

Atlantic World

• Explain the importance of Spanish exploration of the Americas in the

expansion of

Spain’s empire and the development of Spanish Renaissance culture

Portuguese colonization of Atlantic islands in the 1400s inaugurated an era of

aggressive European

expansion across the Atlantic. In the 1500s, Spain surpassed Portugal as the

dominant European power.

This age of exploration and the subsequent creation of an Atlantic World marked the

earliest phase of

globalization, in which previously isolated groups—Africans, Native Americans, and

Europeans—first

came into contact with each other, sometimes with disastrous results.

PORTUGUESE EXPLORATION

Portugal’s Prince Henry the Navigator spearheaded his country’s exploration of

Africa and the Atlantic

in the 1400s. With his support, Portuguese mariners successfully navigated an

eastward route to Africa,

establishing a foothold there that became a foundation of their nation’s trade

empire in the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries.

Portuguese mariners built an Atlantic empire by colonizing the Canary, Cape Verde,

and Azores Islands,

as well as the island of Madeira. Merchants then used these Atlantic outposts as

debarkation points for

subsequent journeys. From these strategic points, Portugal spread its empire down

the western coast of

Africa to the Congo, along the western coast of India, and eventually to Brazil on

the eastern coast of

South America. It also established trading posts in China and Japan. While the

Portuguese didn’t rule over

Figure 2.2

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

an immense landmass, their strategic holdings of islands and coastal ports gave

them almost unrivaled

control of nautical trade routes and a global empire of trading posts during the

1400s.

The travels of Portuguese traders to western Africa introduced them to the African

slave trade, already

brisk among African states. Seeing the value of this source of labor in growing the

profitable crop of

sugar on their Atlantic islands, the Portuguese soon began exporting African slaves

along with African

ivory and gold. Sugar fueled the Atlantic slave trade, and the Portuguese islands

quickly became home

to sugar plantations. The Portuguese also traded these slaves, introducing much-

needed human capital to

other European nations. In the following years, as European exploration spread,

slavery spread as well. In

time, much of the Atlantic World would become a gargantuan sugar-plantation complex

in which Africans

labored to produce the highly profitable commodity for European consumers.

AMERICANA

Elmina Castle

In 1482, Portuguese traders built Elmina Castle (also called São Jorge

da Mina, or Saint George’s of

the Mine) in present-day Ghana, on the west coast of Africa (Figure

2.3). A fortified trading post, it had

mounted cannons facing out to sea, not inland toward continental

Africa; the Portuguese had greater

fear of a naval attack from other Europeans than of a land attack from

Africans. Portuguese traders soon

began to settle around the fort and established the town of Elmina.

Figure 2.3 Elmina Castle on the west coast of Ghana was used as a

holding pen for slaves before

they were brought across the Atlantic and sold. Originally built by the

Portuguese in the fifteenth

century, it appears in this image as it was in the 1660s, after being

seized by Dutch slave traders in

1637.

Although the Portuguese originally used the fort primarily for trading

gold, by the sixteenth century they

had shifted their focus. The dungeon of the fort now served as a

holding pen for African slaves from the

interior of the continent, while on the upper floors Portuguese traders

ate, slept, and prayed in a chapel.

Slaves lived in the dungeon for weeks or months until ships arrived to

transport them to Europe or the

Americas. For them, the dungeon of Elmina was their last sight of their

home country.

SPANISH EXPLORATION AND CONQUEST

The Spanish established the first European settlements in the Americas, beginning

in the Caribbean

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

and, by 1600, extending throughout Central and South America. Thousands of

Spaniards flocked to the

Americas seeking wealth and status. The most famous of these Spanish adventurers

are Christopher

Columbus (who, though Italian himself, explored on behalf of the Spanish monarchs),

Hernán Cortés, and

Francisco Pizarro.

The history of Spanish exploration begins with the history of Spain itself. During

the fifteenth century,

Spain hoped to gain advantage over its rival, Portugal. The marriage of Ferdinand

of Aragon and Isabella

of Castile in 1469 unified Catholic Spain and began the process of building a

nation that could compete

for worldwide power. Since the 700s, much of Spain had been under Islamic rule, and

King Ferdinand II

and Queen Isabella I, arch-defenders of the Catholic Church against Islam, were

determined to defeat the

Muslims in Granada, the last Islamic stronghold in Spain. In 1492, they completed

the Reconquista: the

centuries-long Christian conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The Reconquista marked

another step forward

in the process of making Spain an imperial power, and Ferdinand and Isabella were

now ready to look

further afield.

Their goals were to expand Catholicism and to gain a commercial advantage over

Portugal. To those

ends, Ferdinand and Isabella sponsored extensive Atlantic exploration. Spain’s most

famous explorer,

Christopher Columbus, was actually from Genoa, Italy. He believed that, using

calculations based on

other mariners’ journeys, he could chart a westward route to India, which could be

used to expand

European trade and spread Christianity. Starting in 1485, he approached Genoese,

Venetian, Portuguese,

English, and Spanish monarchs, asking for ships and funding to explore this

westward route. All those he

petitioned—including Ferdinand and Isabella at first—rebuffed him; their nautical

experts all concurred

that Columbus’s estimates of the width of the Atlantic Ocean were far too low.

However, after three years

of entreaties, and, more important, the completion of the Reconquista, Ferdinand

and Isabella agreed

to finance Columbus’s expedition in 1492, supplying him with three ships: the Nina,

the Pinta, and the

Santa Maria. The Spanish monarchs knew that Portuguese mariners had reached the

southern tip of Africa

and sailed the Indian Ocean. They understood that the Portuguese would soon reach

Asia and, in this

competitive race to reach the Far East, the Spanish rulers decided to act.

Columbus held erroneous views that shaped his thinking about what he would

encounter as he sailed

west. He believed the earth to be much smaller than its actual size and, since he

did not know of the

existence of the Americas, he fully expected to land in Asia. On October 12, 1492,

however, he made

landfall on an island in the Bahamas. He then sailed to an island he named

Hispaniola (present-day

Dominican Republic and Haiti) (Figure 2.4). Believing he had landed in the East

Indies, Columbus called

the native Taínos he found there “Indios,” giving rise to the term “Indian” for any

native people of the

New World. Upon Columbus’s return to Spain, the Spanish crown bestowed on him the

title of Admiral of

the Ocean Sea and named him governor and viceroy of the lands he had discovered. As

a devoted Catholic,

Columbus had agreed with Ferdinand and Isabella prior to sailing west that part of

the expected wealth

from his voyage would be used to continue the fight against Islam.

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.4 This sixteenth-century map shows the island of Hispaniola (present-day

Haiti and Dominican Republic).

Note the various fanciful elements, such as the large-scale ships and sea

creatures, and consider what the creator of

this map hoped to convey. In addition to navigation, what purpose would such a map

have served?

Columbus’s 1493 letter—or probanza de mérito (proof of merit)—describing his

“discovery” of a New

World did much to inspire excitement in Europe. Probanzas de méritos were reports

and letters written

by Spaniards in the New World to the Spanish crown, designed to win royal

patronage. Today they

highlight the difficult task of historical work; while the letters are primary

sources, historians need to

understand the context and the culture in which the conquistadors, as the Spanish

adventurers came to be

called, wrote them and distinguish their bias and subjective nature. While they are

filled with distortions

and fabrications, probanzas de méritos are still useful in illustrating the

expectation of wealth among the

explorers as well as their view that native peoples would not pose a serious

obstacle to colonization.

In 1493, Columbus sent two copies of a probanza de mérito to the Spanish king and

queen and their minister

of finance, Luis de Santángel. Santángel had supported Columbus’s voyage, helping

him to obtain funding

from Ferdinand and Isabella. Copies of the letter were soon circulating all over

Europe, spreading news

of the wondrous new land that Columbus had “discovered.” Columbus would make three

more voyages

over the next decade, establishing Spain’s first settlement in the New World on the

island of Hispaniola.

Many other Europeans followed in Columbus’s footsteps, drawn by dreams of winning

wealth by sailing

west. Another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, sailing for the Portuguese crown, explored

the South American

coastline between 1499 and 1502. Unlike Columbus, he realized that the Americas

were not part of Asia but

lands unknown to Europeans. Vespucci’s widely published accounts of his voyages

fueled speculation and

intense interest in the New World among Europeans. Among those who read Vespucci’s

reports was the

German mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller. Using the explorer’s first name as a label

for the new landmass,

Waldseemuller attached “America” to his map of the New World in 1507, and the name

stuck.

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

DEFINING "AMERICAN"

Columbus’s Probanza de mérito of 1493

The exploits of the most famous Spanish explorers have provided Western

civilization with a narrative of

European supremacy and Indian savagery. However, these stories are

based on the self-aggrandizing

efforts of conquistadors to secure royal favor through the writing of

probanzas de méritos (proofs of

merit). Below are excerpts from Columbus’s 1493 letter to Luis de

Santángel, which illustrates how

fantastic reports from European explorers gave rise to many myths

surrounding the Spanish conquest

and the New World.

This island, like all the others, is most extensive. It has

many ports along the sea-coast

excelling any in Christendom—and many fine, large, flowing

rivers. The land there is elevated,

with many mountains and peaks incomparably higher than in the

centre isle. They are most

beautiful, of a thousand varied forms, accessible, and full of

trees of endless varieties, so

high that they seem to touch the sky, and I have been told that

they never lose their foliage.

. . . There is honey, and there are many kinds of birds, and a

great variety of fruits. Inland

there are numerous mines of metals and innumerable people.

Hispaniola is a marvel. Its

hills and mountains, fine plains and open country, are rich and

fertile for planting and for

pasturage, and for building towns and villages. The seaports

there are incredibly fine, as also

the magnificent rivers, most of which bear gold. The trees,

fruits and grasses differ widely from

those in Juana. There are many spices and vast mines of gold

and other metals in this island.

They have no iron, nor steel, nor weapons, nor are they fit for

them, because although they

are well-made men of commanding stature, they appear

extraordinarily timid. The only arms

they have are sticks of cane, cut when in seed, with a

sharpened stick at the end, and they

are afraid to use these. Often I have sent two or three men

ashore to some town to converse

with them, and the natives came out in great numbers, and as

soon as they saw our men

arrive, fled without a moment’s delay although I protected them

from all injury.

What does this letter show us about Spanish objectives in the New

World? How do you think it might

have influenced Europeans reading about the New World for the first

time?

The 1492 Columbus landfall accelerated the rivalry between Spain and Portugal, and

the two powers vied

for domination through the acquisition of new lands. In the 1480s, Pope Sixtus IV

had granted Portugal

the right to all land south of the Cape Verde islands, leading the Portuguese king

to claim that the lands

discovered by Columbus belonged to Portugal, not Spain. Seeking to ensure that

Columbus’s finds would

remain Spanish, Spain’s monarchs turned to the Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI, who

issued two papal

decrees in 1493 that gave legitimacy to Spain’s Atlantic claims at the expense of

Portugal. Hoping to

salvage Portugal’s Atlantic holdings, King João II began negotiations with Spain.

The resulting Treaty of

Tordesillas in 1494 drew a north-to-south line through South America (Figure 2.5);

Spain gained territory

west of the line, while Portugal retained the lands east of the line, including the

east coast of Brazil.

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.5 This 1502 map, known as the Cantino World Map, depicts the

cartographer’s interpretation of the world

in light of recent discoveries. The map shows areas of Portuguese and Spanish

exploration, the two nations’ claims

under the Treaty of Tordesillas, and a variety of flora, fauna, figures, and

structures. What does it reveal about the

state of geographical knowledge, as well as European perceptions of the New World,

at the beginning of the

sixteenth century?

Columbus’s discovery opened a floodgate of Spanish exploration. Inspired by tales

of rivers of gold and

timid, malleable natives, later Spanish explorers were relentless in their quest

for land and gold. Hernán

Cortés hoped to gain hereditary privilege for his family, tribute payments and

labor from natives, and an

annual pension for his service to the crown. Cortés arrived on Hispaniola in 1504

and took part in the

conquest of that island. In anticipation of winning his own honor and riches,

Cortés later explored the

Yucatán Peninsula. In 1519, he entered Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec

(Mexica) Empire. He and his

men were astonished by the incredibly sophisticated causeways, gardens, and temples

in the city, but they

were horrified by the practice of human sacrifice that was part of the Aztec

religion. Above all else, the

Aztec wealth in gold fascinated the Spanish adventurers.

Hoping to gain power over the city, Cortés took Moctezuma, the Aztec ruler,

hostage. The Spanish then

murdered hundreds of high-ranking Mexica during a festival to celebrate

Huitzilopochtli, the god of war.

This angered the people of Tenochtitlán, who rose up against the interlopers in

their city. Cortés and

his people fled for their lives, running down one of Tenochtitlán’s causeways to

safety on the shore.

Smarting from their defeat at the hands of the Aztec, Cortés slowly created

alliances with native peoples

who resented Aztec rule. It took nearly a year for the Spanish and the tens of

thousands of native allies

who joined them to defeat the Mexica in Tenochtitlán, which they did by laying

siege to the city. Only by

playing upon the disunity among the diverse groups in the Aztec Empire were the

Spanish able to capture

the grand city of Tenochtitlán. In August 1521, having successfully fomented civil

war as well as fended

off rival Spanish explorers, Cortés claimed Tenochtitlán for Spain and renamed it

Mexico City.

The traditional European narrative of exploration presents the victory of the

Spanish over the Aztec as

an example of the superiority of the Europeans over the savage Indians. However,

the reality is far more

complex. When Cortés explored central Mexico, he encountered a region simmering

with native conflict.

Far from being unified and content under Aztec rule, many peoples in Mexico

resented it and were ready

to rebel. One group in particular, the Tlaxcalan, threw their lot in with the

Spanish, providing as many as

200,000 fighters in the siege of Tenochtitlán. The Spanish also brought smallpox

into the valley of Mexico.

The disease took a heavy toll on the people in Tenochtitlán, playing a much greater

role in the city’s demise

than did Spanish force of arms.

Cortés was also aided by a Nahua woman called Malintzin (also known as La Malinche

or Doña Marina,

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

her Spanish name), whom the natives of Tabasco gave him as tribute. Malintzin

translated for Cortés in his

dealings with Moctezuma and, whether willingly or under pressure, entered into a

physical relationship

with him. Their son, Martín, may have been the first mestizo (person of mixed

indigenous American and

European descent). Malintzin remains a controversial figure in the history of the

Atlantic World; some

people view her as a traitor because she helped Cortés conquer the Aztecs, while

others see her as a victim

of European expansion. In either case, she demonstrates one way in which native

peoples responded to

the arrival of the Spanish. Without her, Cortés would not have been able to

communicate, and without the

language bridge, he surely would have been less successful in destabilizing the

Aztec Empire. By this and

other means, native people helped shape the conquest of the Americas.

Spain’s acquisitiveness seemingly knew no bounds as groups of its explorers

searched for the next trove of

instant riches. One such explorer, Francisco Pizarro, made his way to the Spanish

Caribbean in 1509, drawn

by the promise of wealth and titles. He participated in successful expeditions in

Panama before following

rumors of Inca wealth to the south. Although his first efforts against the Inca

Empire in the 1520s failed,

Pizarro captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa in 1532 and executed him one year

later. In 1533, Pizarro

founded Lima, Peru. Like Cortés, Pizarro had to combat not only the natives of the

new worlds he was

conquering, but also competitors from his own country; a Spanish rival assassinated

him in 1541.

Spain’s drive to enlarge its empire led other hopeful conquistadors to push further

into the Americas,

hoping to replicate the success of Cortés and Pizarro. Hernando de Soto had

participated in Pizarro’s

conquest of the Inca, and from 1539 to 1542 he led expeditions to what is today the

southeastern United

States, looking for gold. He and his followers explored what is now Florida,

Georgia, the Carolinas,

Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas.

Everywhere they traveled,

they brought European diseases, which claimed thousands of native lives as well as

the lives of the

explorers. In 1542, de Soto himself died during the expedition. The surviving

Spaniards, numbering a little

over three hundred, returned to Mexico City without finding the much-anticipated

mountains of gold and

silver.

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado was born into a noble family and went to Mexico, then

called New Spain,

in 1535. He presided as governor over the province of Nueva Galicia, where he heard

rumors of wealth

to the north: a golden city called Quivira. Between 1540 and 1542, Coronado led a

large expedition of

Spaniards and native allies to the lands north of Mexico City, and for the next

several years, they explored

the area that is now the southwestern United States (Figure 2.6). During the winter

of 1540–41, the

explorers waged war against the Tiwa in present-day New Mexico. Rather than leading

to the discovery

of gold and silver, however, the expedition simply left Coronado bankrupt.

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.6 This map traces Coronado’s path through the American Southwest and the

Great Plains. The regions

through which he traveled were not empty areas waiting to be “discovered”: rather,

they were populated and

controlled by the groups of native peoples indicated. (credit: modification of work

by National Park Service)

THE SPANISH GOLDEN AGE

The exploits of European explorers had a profound impact both in the Americas and

back in Europe. An

exchange of ideas, fueled and financed in part by New World commodities, began to

connect European

nations and, in turn, to touch the parts of the world that Europeans conquered. In

Spain, gold and

silver from the Americas helped to fuel a golden age, the Siglo de Oro, when

Spanish art and literature

flourished. Riches poured in from the colonies, and new ideas poured in from other

countries and new

lands. The Hapsburg dynasty, which ruled a collection of territories including

Austria, the Netherlands,

Naples, Sicily, and Spain, encouraged and financed the work of painters, sculptors,

musicians, architects,

and writers, resulting in a blooming of Spanish Renaissance culture. One of this

period’s most famous

works is the novel The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, by Miguel de

Cervantes. This two-

volume book (1605 and 1618) told a colorful tale of an hidalgo (gentleman) who

reads so many tales of

chivalry and knighthood that he becomes unable to tell reality from fiction. With

his faithful sidekick

Sancho Panza, Don Quixote leaves reality behind and sets out to revive chivalry by

doing battle with what

he perceives as the enemies of Spain.

Click and Explore

Explore the collection at The Cervantes Project

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/

cervantes) for images, complete texts, and other

resources relating to Cervantes’s

works.

Spain attracted innovative foreign painters such as El Greco, a Greek who had

studied with Italian

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Renaissance masters like Titian and Michelangelo before moving to Toledo. Native

Spaniards created

equally enduring works. Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), painted by Diego

Velázquez in 1656, is one of

the best-known paintings in history. Velázquez painted himself into this imposingly

large royal portrait

(he’s shown holding his brush and easel on the left) and boldly placed the viewer

where the king and

queen would stand in the scene (Figure 2.7).

Figure 2.7 Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), painted by Diego Velázquez in 1656, is

unique for its time because it

places the viewer in the place of King Philip IV and his wife, Queen Mariana.

2.2 Religious Upheavals in the Developing Atlantic World

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the changes brought by the Protestant Reformation and how it

influenced the

development of the Atlantic World

• Describe Spain’s response to the Protestant Reformation

Until the 1500s, the Catholic Church provided a unifying religious structure for

Christian Europe. The

Vatican in Rome exercised great power over the lives of Europeans; it controlled

not only learning and

scholarship but also finances, because it levied taxes on the faithful. Spain, with

its New World wealth,

was the bastion of the Catholic faith. Beginning with the reform efforts of Martin

Luther in 1517 and John

Calvin in the 1530s, however, Catholic dominance came under attack as the

Protestant Reformation, a split

or schism among European Christians, began.

During the sixteenth century, Protestantism spread through northern Europe, and

Catholic countries

responded by attempting to extinguish what was seen as the Protestant menace.

Religious turmoil between

Catholics and Protestants influenced the history of the Atlantic World as well,

since different nation-states

competed not only for control of new territories but also for the preeminence of

their religious beliefs

there. Just as the history of Spain’s rise to power is linked to the Reconquista,

so too is the history of early

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

globalization connected to the history of competing Christian groups in the

Atlantic World.

MARTIN LUTHER

Martin Luther (Figure 2.8) was a German Catholic monk who took issue with the

Catholic Church’s

practice of selling indulgences, documents that absolved sinners of their errant

behavior. He also objected

to the Catholic Church’s taxation of ordinary Germans and the delivery of Mass in

Latin, arguing that it

failed to instruct German Catholics, who did not understand the language.

Figure 2.8 Martin Luther, a German Catholic monk and leader of the Protestant

Reformation, was a close friend of

the German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder. Cranach painted this and several other

portraits of Luther.

Many Europeans had called for reforms of the Catholic Church before Martin Luther

did, but his protest

had the unintended consequence of splitting European Christianity. Luther compiled

a list of what he

viewed as needed Church reforms, a document that came to be known as The Ninety-

Five Theses, and

nailed it to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517. He called for

the publication of the

Bible in everyday language, took issue with the Church’s policy of imposing tithes

(a required payment

to the Church that appeared to enrich the clergy), and denounced the buying and

selling of indulgences.

Although he had hoped to reform the Catholic Church while remaining a part of it,

Luther’s action instead

triggered a movement called the Protestant Reformation that divided the Church in

two. The Catholic

Church condemned him as a heretic, but a doctrine based on his reforms, called

Lutheranism, spread

through northern Germany and Scandinavia.

Click and Explore

Visit Fordham University’s Internet Medieval

Sourcebook

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/fordham) for access

to many primary sources relating

to the Protestant Reformation.

JOHN CALVIN

Like Luther, the French lawyer John Calvin advocated making the Bible accessible to

ordinary people; only

by reading scripture and reflecting daily about their spiritual condition, he

argued, could believers begin

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

to understand the power of God. In 1535, Calvin fled Catholic France and led the

Reformation movement

from Geneva, Switzerland.

Calvinism emphasized human powerlessness before an omniscient God and stressed the

idea of

predestination, the belief that God selected a few chosen people for salvation

while everyone else was

predestined to damnation. Calvinists believed that reading scripture prepared

sinners, if they were among

the elect, to receive God’s grace. In Geneva, Calvin established a Bible

commonwealth, a community of

believers whose sole source of authority was their interpretation of the Bible, not

the authority of any

prince or monarch. Soon Calvin’s ideas spread to the Netherlands and Scotland.

PROTESTANTISM IN ENGLAND

Protestantism spread beyond the German states and Geneva to England, which had been

a Catholic nation

for centuries. Luther’s idea that scripture should be available in the everyday

language of worshippers

inspired English scholar William Tyndale to translate the Bible into English in

1526. The seismic break with

the Catholic Church in England occurred in the 1530s, when Henry VIII established a

new, Protestant state

religion.

A devout Catholic, Henry had initially stood in opposition to the Reformation. Pope

Leo X even awarded

him the title “Defender of the Faith.” The tides turned, however, when Henry

desired a male heir to the

Tudor monarchy. When his Spanish Catholic wife, Catherine (the daughter of

Ferdinand and Isabella), did

not give birth to a boy, the king sought an annulment to their marriage. When the

Pope refused his request,

Henry created a new national Protestant church, the Church of England, with himself

at its head. This left

him free to annul his own marriage and marry Anne Boleyn.

Anne Boleyn also failed to produce a male heir, and when she was accused of

adultery, Henry had her

executed. His third wife, Jane Seymour, at long last delivered a son, Edward, who

ruled for only a short

time before dying in 1553 at the age of fifteen. Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII

and his discarded first wife

Catherine, then came to the throne, committed to restoring Catholicism. She earned

the nickname “Bloody

Mary” for the many executions of Protestants, often by burning alive, that she

ordered during her reign.

Religious turbulence in England was finally quieted when Elizabeth, the Protestant

daughter of Henry VIII

and Anne Boleyn, ascended the throne in 1558. Under Elizabeth, the Church of

England again became the

state church, retaining the hierarchical structure and many of the rituals of the

Catholic Church. However,

by the late 1500s, some English members of the Church began to agitate for more

reform. Known as

Puritans, they worked to erase all vestiges of Catholicism from the Church of

England. At the time, the

term “puritan” was a pejorative one; many people saw Puritans as holier-than-thou

frauds who used

religion to swindle their neighbors. Worse still, many in power saw Puritans as a

security threat because

of their opposition to the national church.

Under Elizabeth, whose long reign lasted from 1558 to 1603, Puritans grew steadily

in number. After James

I died in 1625 and his son Charles I ascended the throne, Puritans became the

target of increasing state

pressure to conform. Many crossed the Atlantic in the 1620s and 1630s instead to

create a New England,

a haven for reformed Protestantism where Puritan was no longer a term of abuse.

Thus, the religious

upheavals that affected England so much had equally momentous consequences for the

Americas.

RELIGIOUS WAR

By the early 1500s, the Protestant Reformation threatened the massive Spanish

Catholic empire. As the

preeminent Catholic power, Spain would not tolerate any challenge to the Holy

Catholic Church. Over

the course of the 1500s, it devoted vast amounts of treasure and labor to leading

an unsuccessful effort to

eradicate Protestantism in Europe.

Spain’s main enemies at this time were the runaway Spanish provinces of the North

Netherlands. By

1581, these seven northern provinces had declared their independence from Spain and

created the Dutch

Republic, also called Holland, where Protestantism was tolerated. Determined to

deal a death blow to

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Protestantism in England and Holland, King Philip of Spain assembled a massive

force of over thirty

thousand men and 130 ships, and in 1588 he sent this navy, the Spanish Armada,

north. But English sea

power combined with a maritime storm destroyed the fleet.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was but one part of a larger but

undeclared war between

Protestant England and Catholic Spain. Between 1585 and 1604, the two rivals

sparred repeatedly. England

launched its own armada in 1589 in an effort to cripple the Spanish fleet and

capture Spanish treasure.

However, the foray ended in disaster for the English, with storms, disease, and the

strength of the Spanish

Armada combining to bring about defeat.

The conflict between Spain and England dragged on into the early seventeenth

century, and the newly

Protestant nations, especially England and the Dutch Republic, posed a significant

challenge to Spain (and

also to Catholic France) as imperial rivalries played out in the Atlantic World.

Spain retained its mighty

American empire, but by the early 1600s, the nation could no longer keep England

and other European

rivals—the French and Dutch—from colonizing smaller islands in the Caribbean

(Figure 2.9).

Figure 2.9 This portrait of Elizabeth I of England, painted by George Gower in

about 1588, shows Elizabeth with her

hand on a globe, signifying her power over the world. The pictures in the

background show the English defeat of the

Spanish Armada.

Religious intolerance characterized the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an age

of powerful state

religions with the authority to impose and enforce belief systems on the

population. In this climate,

religious violence was common. One of the most striking examples is the St.

Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

of 1572, in which French Catholic troops began to kill unarmed French Protestants

(Figure 2.10). The

murders touched off mob violence that ultimately claimed nine thousand lives, a

bloody episode that

highlights the degree of religious turmoil that gripped Europe in the aftermath of

the Protestant

Reformation.

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.10 Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1772-84), by François Dubois, shows

the horrific violence of the

St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. In this scene, French Catholic troops slaughter

French Protestant Calvinists.

2.3 Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify regions where the English, French, and Dutch explored and

established

settlements

• Describe the differences among the early colonies

• Explain the role of the American colonies in European nations’ struggles

for

domination

For Europeans, the discovery of an Atlantic World meant newfound wealth in the form

of gold and silver

as well as valuable furs. The Americas also provided a new arena for intense

imperial rivalry as different

European nations jockeyed for preeminence in the New World. The religious motives

for colonization

spurred European expansion as well, and as the Protestant Reformation gained ground

beginning in the

1520s, rivalries between Catholic and Protestant Christians spilled over into the

Americas.

ENGLISH EXPLORATION

Disruptions during the Tudor monarchy—especially the creation of the Protestant

Church of England

by Henry VIII in the 1530s, the return of the nation to Catholicism under Queen

Mary in the 1550s,

and the restoration of Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth—left England with little

energy for overseas

projects. More important, England lacked the financial resources for such

endeavors. Nonetheless, English

monarchs carefully monitored developments in the new Atlantic World and took steps

to assert England’s

claim to the Americas. As early as 1497, Henry VII of England had commissioned John

Cabot, an Italian

mariner, to explore new lands. Cabot sailed from England that year and made

landfall somewhere along

the North American coastline. For the next century, English fishermen routinely

crossed the Atlantic to

fish the rich waters off the North American coast. However, English colonization

efforts in the 1500s were

closer to home, as England devoted its energy to the colonization of Ireland.

Queen Elizabeth favored England’s advance into the Atlantic World, though her main

concern was

blocking Spain’s effort to eliminate Protestantism. Indeed, England could not

commit to large-scale

colonization in the Americas as long as Spain appeared ready to invade Ireland or

Scotland. Nonetheless,

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Elizabeth approved of English privateers, sea captains to whom the home government

had given

permission to raid the enemy at will. These skilled mariners cruised the Caribbean,

plundering Spanish

ships whenever they could. Each year the English took more than £100,000 from Spain

in this way; English

privateer Francis Drake first made a name for himself when, in 1573, he looted

silver, gold, and pearls

worth £40,000.

Elizabeth did sanction an early attempt at colonization in 1584, when Sir Walter

Raleigh, a favorite of

the queen’s, attempted to establish a colony at Roanoke, an island off the coast of

present-day North

Carolina. The colony was small, consisting of only 117 people, who suffered a poor

relationship with the

local Indians, the Croatans, and struggled to survive in their new land (Figure

2.11). Their governor,

John White, returned to England in late 1587 to secure more people and supplies,

but events conspired

to keep him away from Roanoke for three years. By the time he returned in 1590, the

entire colony had

vanished. The only trace the colonists left behind was the word Croatoan carved

into a fence surrounding

the village. Governor White never knew whether the colonists had decamped for

nearby Croatoan Island

(now Hatteras) or whether some disaster had befallen them all. Roanoke is still

called “the lost colony.”

Figure 2.11 In 1588, a promoter of English colonization named Thomas Hariot

published A Briefe and True Report

of the New Found Land of Virginia, which contained many engravings of the native

peoples who lived on the Carolina

coast in the 1580s. This print, “The brovvyllinge of their fishe ouer the flame”

(1590) by Theodor de Bry, shows the

ingenuity and wisdom of the “savages” of the New World. (credit: UNC Chapel Hill)

English promoters of colonization pushed its commercial advantages and the

religious justification that

English colonies would allow the establishment of Protestantism in the Americas.

Both arguments struck a

chord. In the early 1600s, wealthy English merchants and the landed elite began to

pool their resources to

form joint stock companies. In this novel business arrangement, which was in many

ways the precursor

to the modern corporation, investors provided the capital for and assumed the risk

of a venture in order

to reap significant returns. The companies gained the approval of the English crown

to establish colonies,

and their investors dreamed of reaping great profits from the money they put into

overseas colonization.

The first permanent English settlement was established by a joint stock company,

the Virginia Company.

Named for Elizabeth, the “virgin queen,” the company gained royal approval to

establish a colony on the

east coast of North America, and in 1606, it sent 144 men and boys to the New

World. In early 1607, this

group sailed up Chesapeake Bay. Finding a river they called the James in honor of

their new king, James

I, they established a ramshackle settlement and named it Jamestown. Despite serious

struggles, the colony

survived.

Many of Jamestown’s settlers were desperate men; although they came from elite

families, they were

younger sons who would not inherit their father’s estates. The Jamestown

adventurers believed they

would find instant wealth in the New World and did not actually expect to have to

perform work. Henry

Percy, the eighth son of the Earl of Northumberland, was among them. His account,

excerpted below,

illustrates the hardships the English confronted in Virginia in 1607.

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

MY STORY

George Percy and the First Months at Jamestown

The 144 men and boys who started the Jamestown colony faced many

hardships; by the end of the first

winter, only 38 had survived. Disease, hunger, and poor relationships

with local natives all contributed

to the colony’s high death toll. George Percy, who served twice as

governor of Jamestown, kept records

of the colonists’ first months in the colony. These records were later

published in London in 1608. This

excerpt is from his account of August and September of 1607.

The fourth day of September died Thomas Jacob Sergeant. The

fifth day, there died Benjamin

Beast. Our men were destroyed with cruel diseases, as

Swellings, Fluxes, Burning Fevers,

and by wars, and some departed suddenly, but for the most part

they died of mere famine.

There were never Englishmen left in a foreign Country in such

misery as we were in this new

discovered Virginia. . . . Our food was but a small Can of

Barley sod* in water, to five men a

day, our drink cold water taken out of the River, which was at

a flood very salty, at a low tide

full of slime and filth, which was the destruction of many of

our men. Thus we lived for the

space of five months in this miserable distress, not having

five able men to man our Bulwarks

upon any occasion. If it had not pleased God to have put a

terror in the Savages’ hearts, we

had all perished by those wild and cruel Pagans, being in that

weak estate as we were; our

men night and day groaning in every corner of the Fort most

pitiful to hear. If there were any

conscience in men, it would make their hearts to bleed to hear

the pitiful murmurings and

outcries of our sick men without relief, every night and day,

for the space of six weeks, some

departing out of the World, many times three or four in a

night; in the morning, their bodies

trailed out of their Cabins like Dogs to be buried. In this

sort did I see the mortality of diverse

of our people.

*soaked

According to George Percy’s account, what were the major problems the

Jamestown settlers

encountered? What kept the colony from complete destruction?

By any measure, England came late to the race to colonize. As Jamestown limped

along in the 1610s, the

Spanish Empire extended around the globe and grew rich from its global colonial

project. Yet the English

persisted, and for this reason the Jamestown settlement has a special place in

history as the first permanent

colony in what later became the United States.

After Jamestown’s founding, English colonization of the New World accelerated. In

1609, a ship bound

for Jamestown foundered in a storm and landed on Bermuda. (Some believe this

incident helped inspire

Shakespeare’s 1611 play The Tempest.) The admiral of the ship, George Somers,

claimed the island for the

English crown. The English also began to colonize small islands in the Caribbean,

an incursion into the

Spanish American empire. They established themselves on small islands such as St.

Christopher (1624),

Barbados (1627), Nevis (1628), Montserrat (1632), and Antigua (1632).

From the start, the English West Indies had a commercial orientation, for these

islands produced cash

crops: first tobacco and then sugar. Very quickly, by the mid-1600s, Barbados had

become one of the most

important English colonies because of the sugar produced there. Barbados was the

first English colony

dependent on slaves, and it became a model for other English slave societies on the

American mainland.

These differed radically from England itself, where slavery was not practiced.

English Puritans also began to colonize the Americas in the 1620s and 1630s. These

intensely religious

migrants dreamed of creating communities of reformed Protestantism where the

corruption of England

would be eliminated. One of the first groups of Puritans to remove to North

America, known as Pilgrims

and led by William Bradford, had originally left England to live in the

Netherlands. Fearing their children

were losing their English identity among the Dutch, however, they sailed for North

America in 1620 to

settle at Plymouth, the first English settlement in New England. The Pilgrims

differed from other Puritans

in their insistence on separating from what they saw as the corrupt Church of

England. For this reason,

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Pilgrims are known as Separatists.

Like Jamestown, Plymouth occupies an iconic place in American national memory. The

tale of the 102

migrants who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower and their struggle for

survival is a well-known

narrative of the founding of the country. Their story includes the signing of the

Mayflower Compact, a

written agreement whereby the English voluntarily agreed to help each other. Some

interpret this 1620

document as an expression of democratic spirit because of the cooperative and

inclusive nature of the

agreement to live and work together. In 1630, a much larger contingent of Puritans

left England to escape

conformity to the Church of England and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In

the following years,

thousands more arrived to create a new life in the rocky soils and cold climates of

New England.

In comparison to Catholic Spain, however, Protestant England remained a very weak

imperial player in

the early seventeenth century, with only a few infant colonies in the Americas in

the early 1600s. The

English never found treasure equal to that of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, and

England did not quickly

grow rich from its small American outposts. The English colonies also differed from

each other; Barbados

and Virginia had a decidedly commercial orientation from the start, while the

Puritan colonies of New

England were intensely religious at their inception. All English settlements in

America, however, marked

the increasingly important role of England in the Atlantic World.

FRENCH EXPLORATION

Spanish exploits in the New World whetted the appetite of other would-be imperial

powers, including

France. Like Spain, France was a Catholic nation and committed to expanding

Catholicism around the

globe. In the early sixteenth century, it joined the race to explore the New World

and exploit the resources

of the Western Hemisphere. Navigator Jacques Cartier claimed northern North America

for France,

naming the area New France. From 1534 to 1541, he made three voyages of discovery

on the Gulf of St.

Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River. Like other explorers, Cartier made exaggerated

claims of mineral

wealth in America, but he was unable to send great riches back to France. Due to

resistance from the

native peoples as well as his own lack of planning, he could not establish a

permanent settlement in North

America.

Explorer Samuel de Champlain occupies a special place in the history of the

Atlantic World for his role

in establishing the French presence in the New World. Champlain explored the

Caribbean in 1601 and

then the coast of New England in 1603 before traveling farther north. In 1608 he

founded Quebec, and he

made numerous Atlantic crossings as he worked tirelessly to promote New France.

Unlike other imperial

powers, France—through Champlain’s efforts—fostered especially good relationships

with native

peoples, paving the way for French exploration further into the continent: around

the Great Lakes, around

Hudson Bay, and eventually to the Mississippi. Champlain made an alliance with the

Huron confederacy

and the Algonquins and agreed to fight with them against their enemy, the Iroquois

(Figure 2.12).

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.12 In this engraving, titled Defeat of the Iroquois and based on a drawing

by explorer Samuel de

Champlain, Champlain is shown fighting on the side of the Huron and Algonquins

against the Iroquois. He portrays

himself in the middle of the battle, firing a gun, while the native people around

him shoot arrows at each other. What

does this engraving suggest about the impact of European exploration and settlement

on the Americas?

The French were primarily interested in establishing commercially viable colonial

outposts, and to that

end, they created extensive trading networks in New France. These networks relied

on native hunters to

harvest furs, especially beaver pelts, and to exchange these items for French glass

beads and other trade

goods. (French fashion at the time favored broad-brimmed hats trimmed in beaver

fur, so French traders

had a ready market for their North American goods.) The French also dreamed of

replicating the wealth of

Spain by colonizing the tropical zones. After Spanish control of the Caribbean

began to weaken, the French

turned their attention to small islands in the West Indies, and by 1635 they had

colonized two, Guadeloupe

and Martinique. Though it lagged far behind Spain, France now boasted its own West

Indian colonies.

Both islands became lucrative sugar plantation sites that turned a profit for

French planters by relying on

African slave labor.

Click and Explore

To see how cartographers throughout history

documented the exploration of the

Atlantic World, browse the hundreds of digitized

historical maps that make up the

collection American Shores: Maps of the Middle

Atlantic Region to 1850

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/nypl) at the New

York Public Library.

DUTCH COLONIZATION

Dutch entrance into the Atlantic World is part of the larger story of religious and

imperial conflict in the

early modern era. In the 1500s, Calvinism, one of the major Protestant reform

movements, had found

adherents in the northern provinces of the Spanish Netherlands. During the

sixteenth century, these

provinces began a long struggle to achieve independence from Catholic Spain.

Established in 1581 but

not recognized as independent by Spain until 1648, the Dutch Republic, or Holland,

quickly made itself

a powerful force in the race for Atlantic colonies and wealth. The Dutch

distinguished themselves as

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

commercial leaders in the seventeenth century (Figure 2.13), and their mode of

colonization relied on

powerful corporations: the Dutch East India Company, chartered in 1602 to trade in

Asia, and the Dutch

West India Company, established in 1621 to colonize and trade in the Americas.

Figure 2.13 Amsterdam was the richest city in the world in the 1600s. In Courtyard

of the Exchange in Amsterdam,

a 1653 painting by Emanuel de Witt, merchants involved in the global trade eagerly

attend to news of shipping and

the prices of commodities.

While employed by the Dutch East India Company in 1609, the English sea captain

Henry Hudson

explored New York Harbor and the river that now bears his name. Like many explorers

of the time,

Hudson was actually seeking a northwest passage to Asia and its wealth, but the

ample furs harvested

from the region he explored, especially the coveted beaver pelts, provided a reason

to claim it for the

Netherlands. The Dutch named their colony New Netherlands, and it served as a fur-

trading outpost

for the expanding and powerful Dutch West India Company. With headquarters in New

Amsterdam

on the island of Manhattan, the Dutch set up several regional trading posts,

including one at Fort

Orange—named for the royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau—in present-day Albany. (The

color orange

remains significant to the Dutch, having become particularly associated with

William of Orange,

Protestantism, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.) A brisk trade in furs with

local Algonquian and

Iroquois peoples brought the Dutch and native peoples together in a commercial

network that extended

throughout the Hudson River Valley and beyond.

The Dutch West India Company in turn established colonies on Aruba, Bonaire, and

Curaçao, St. Martin,

St. Eustatius, and Saba. With their outposts in New Netherlands and the Caribbean,

the Dutch had

established themselves in the seventeenth century as a commercially powerful rival

to Spain. Amsterdam

became a trade hub for all the Atlantic World.

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

2.4 New Worlds in the Americas: Labor, Commerce, and the

Columbian Exchange

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe how Europeans solved their labor problems

• Describe the theory of mercantilism and the process of commodification

• Analyze the effects of the Columbian Exchange

European promoters of colonization claimed the Americas overflowed with a wealth of

treasures.

Burnishing national glory and honor became entwined with carving out colonies, and

no nation wanted

to be left behind. However, the realities of life in the Americas—violence,

exploitation, and particularly

the need for workers—were soon driving the practice of slavery and forced labor.

Everywhere in America

a stark contrast existed between freedom and slavery. The Columbian Exchange, in

which Europeans

transported plants, animals, and diseases across the Atlantic in both directions,

also left a lasting

impression on the Americas.

LABOR SYSTEMS

Physical power—to work the fields, build villages, process raw materials—is a

necessity for maintaining a

society. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, humans could derive power

only from the wind,

water, animals, or other humans. Everywhere in the Americas, a crushing demand for

labor bedeviled

Europeans because there were not enough colonists to perform the work necessary to

keep the colonies

going. Spain granted encomiendas—legal rights to native labor—to conquistadors who

could prove their

service to the crown. This system reflected the Spanish view of colonization: the

king rewarded successful

conquistadors who expanded the empire. Some native peoples who had sided with the

conquistadors, like

the Tlaxcalan, also gained encomiendas; Malintzin, the Nahua woman who helped

Cortés defeat the Mexica,

was granted one.

The Spanish believed native peoples would work for them by right of conquest, and,

in return, the

Spanish would bring them Catholicism. In theory the relationship consisted of

reciprocal obligations, but

in practice the Spaniards ruthlessly exploited it, seeing native people as little

more than beasts of burden.

Convinced of their right to the land and its peoples, they sought both to control

native labor and to impose

what they viewed as correct religious beliefs upon the land’s inhabitants. Native

peoples everywhere

resisted both the labor obligations and the effort to change their ancient belief

systems. Indeed, many

retained their religion or incorporated only the parts of Catholicism that made

sense to them.

The system of encomiendas was accompanied by a great deal of violence (Figure

2.14). One Spaniard,

Bartolomé de Las Casas, denounced the brutality of Spanish rule. A Dominican friar,

Las Casas had been

one of the earliest Spanish settlers in the Spanish West Indies. In his early life

in the Americas, he owned

Indian slaves and was the recipient of an encomienda. However, after witnessing the

savagery with which

encomenderos (recipients of encomiendas) treated the native people, he reversed his

views. In 1515, Las Casas

released his native slaves, gave up his encomienda, and began to advocate for

humane treatment of native

peoples. He lobbied for new legislation, eventually known as the New Laws, which

would eliminate

slavery and the encomienda system.

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.14 In this startling image from the Kingsborough Codex (a book written and

drawn by native

Mesoamericans), a well-dressed Spaniard is shown pulling the hair of a bleeding,

severely injured native. The

drawing was part of a complaint about Spanish abuses of their encomiendas.

Las Casas’s writing about the Spaniards’ horrific treatment of Indians helped

inspire the so-called Black

Legend, the idea that the Spanish were bloodthirsty conquerors with no regard for

human life. Perhaps

not surprisingly, those who held this view of the Spanish were Spain’s imperial

rivals. English writers and

others seized on the idea of Spain’s ruthlessness to support their own colonization

projects. By demonizing

the Spanish, they justified their own efforts as more humane. All European

colonizers, however, shared a

disregard for Indians.

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

MY STORY

Bartolomé de Las Casas on the Mistreatment of Indians

Bartolomé de Las Casas’s A Short Account of the Destruction of the

Indies, written in 1542 and published

ten years later, detailed for Prince Philip II of Spain how Spanish

colonists had been mistreating natives.

Into and among these gentle sheep, endowed by their Maker and

Creator with all the qualities

aforesaid, did creep the Spaniards, who no sooner had knowledge

of these people than they

became like fierce wolves and tigers and lions who have gone

many days without food or

nourishment. And no other thing have they done for forty years

until this day, and still today

see fit to do, but dismember, slay, perturb, afflict, torment,

and destroy the Indians by all

manner of cruelty—new and divers and most singular manners such

as never before seen or

read or heard of—some few of which shall be recounted below,

and they do this to such a

degree that on the Island of Hispaniola, of the above three

millions souls that we once saw,

today there be no more than two hundred of those native people

remaining. . . .

Two principal and general customs have been employed by those,

calling themselves

Christians, who have passed this way, in extirpating and

striking from the face of the earth

those suffering nations. The first being unjust, cruel, bloody,

and tyrannical warfare. The

other—after having slain all those who might yearn toward or

suspire after or think of freedom,

or consider escaping from the torments that they are made to

suffer, by which I mean all the

native-born lords and adult males, for it is the Spaniards’

custom in their wars to allow only

young boys and females to live—being to oppress them with the

hardest, harshest, and most

heinous bondage to which men or beasts might ever be bound

into.

How might these writings have been used to promote the “black legend”

against Spain as well as

subsequent English exploration and colonization?

Indians were not the only source of cheap labor in the Americas; by the middle of

the sixteenth century,

Africans formed an important element of the labor landscape, producing the cash

crops of sugar and

tobacco for European markets. Europeans viewed Africans as non-Christians, which

they used as a

justification for enslavement. Denied control over their lives, slaves endured

horrendous conditions.

At every opportunity, they resisted enslavement, and their resistance was met with

violence. Indeed,

physical, mental, and sexual violence formed a key strategy among European

slaveholders in their effort to

assert mastery and impose their will. The Portuguese led the way in the evolving

transport of slaves across

the Atlantic; slave “factories” on the west coast of Africa, like Elmina Castle in

Ghana, served as holding

pens for slaves brought from Africa’s interior. In time, other European imperial

powers would follow in

the footsteps of the Portuguese by constructing similar outposts on the coast of

West Africa.

The Portuguese traded or sold slaves to Spanish, Dutch, and English colonists in

the Americas, particularly

in South America and the Caribbean, where sugar was a primary export. Thousands of

African slaves

found themselves growing, harvesting, and processing sugarcane in an arduous

routine of physical labor.

Slaves had to cut the long cane stalks by hand and then bring them to a mill, where

the cane juice was

extracted. They boiled the extracted cane juice down to a brown, crystalline sugar,

which then had to be

cured in special curing houses to have the molasses drained from it. The result was

refined sugar, while

the leftover molasses could be distilled into rum. Every step was labor-intensive

and often dangerous.

Las Casas estimated that by 1550, there were fifty thousand slaves on Hispaniola.

However, it is a mistake

to assume that during the very early years of European exploration all Africans

came to America as slaves;

some were free men who took part in expeditions, for example, serving as

conquistadors alongside Cortés

in his assault on Tenochtitlán. Nonetheless, African slavery was one of the most

tragic outcomes in the

emerging Atlantic World.

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Click and Explore

Browse the PBS collection Africans in America:

Part 1 (http://openstaxcollege.org/

l/afinam) to see information and primary sources

for the period 1450 through 1750.

COMMERCE IN THE NEW WORLD

The economic philosophy of mercantilism shaped European perceptions of wealth from

the 1500s to

the late 1700s. Mercantilism held that only a limited amount of wealth, as measured

in gold and silver

bullion, existed in the world. In order to gain power, nations had to amass wealth

by mining these

precious raw materials from their colonial possessions. During the age of European

exploration, nations

employed conquest, colonization, and trade as ways to increase their share of the

bounty of the New

World. Mercantilists did not believe in free trade, arguing instead that the nation

should control trade

to create wealth. In this view, colonies existed to strengthen the colonizing

nation. Mercantilists argued

against allowing their nations to trade freely with other nations.

Spain’s mercantilist ideas guided its economic policy. Every year, slaves or native

workers loaded

shipments of gold and silver aboard Spanish treasure fleets that sailed from Cuba

for Spain. These ships

groaned under the sheer weight of bullion, for the Spanish had found huge caches of

silver and gold in the

New World. In South America, for example, Spaniards discovered rich veins of silver

ore in the mountain

called Potosí and founded a settlement of the same name there. Throughout the

sixteenth century, Potosí

was a boom town, attracting settlers from many nations as well as native people

from many different

cultures.

Colonial mercantilism, which was basically a set of protectionist policies designed

to benefit the nation,

relied on several factors: colonies rich in raw materials, cheap labor, colonial

loyalty to the home

government, and control of the shipping trade. Under this system, the colonies sent

their raw materials,

harvested by slaves or native workers, back to their mother country. The mother

country sent back finished

materials of all sorts: textiles, tools, clothing. The colonists could purchase

these goods only from their

mother country; trade with other countries was forbidden.

The 1500s and early 1600s also introduced the process of commodification to the New

World. American

silver, tobacco, and other items, which were used by native peoples for ritual

purposes, became European

commodities with a monetary value that could be bought and sold. Before the arrival

of the Spanish, for

example, the Inca people of the Andes consumed chicha, a corn beer, for ritual

purposes only. When the

Spanish discovered chicha, they bought and traded for it, turning it into a

commodity instead of a ritual

substance. Commodification thus recast native economies and spurred the process of

early commercial

capitalism. New World resources, from plants to animal pelts, held the promise of

wealth for European

imperial powers.

THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE

As Europeans traversed the Atlantic, they brought with them plants, animals, and

diseases that changed

lives and landscapes on both sides of the ocean. These two-way exchanges between

the Americas and

Europe/Africa are known collectively as the Columbian Exchange (Figure 2.15).

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.15 With European exploration and settlement of the New World, goods and

diseases began crossing the

Atlantic Ocean in both directions. This “Columbian Exchange” soon had global

implications.

Of all the commodities in the Atlantic World, sugar proved to be the most

important. Indeed, sugar carried

the same economic importance as oil does today. European rivals raced to create

sugar plantations in the

Americas and fought wars for control of some of the best sugar production areas.

Although refined sugar

was available in the Old World, Europe’s harsher climate made sugarcane difficult

to grow, and it was not

plentiful. Columbus brought sugar to Hispaniola in 1493, and the new crop was

growing there by the end

of the 1490s. By the first decades of the 1500s, the Spanish were building sugar

mills on the island. Over

the next century of colonization, Caribbean islands and most other tropical areas

became centers of sugar

production.

Though of secondary importance to sugar, tobacco achieved great value for Europeans

as a cash crop as

well. Native peoples had been growing it for medicinal and ritual purposes for

centuries before European

contact, smoking it in pipes or powdering it to use as snuff. They believed tobacco

could improve

concentration and enhance wisdom. To some, its use meant achieving an entranced,

altered, or divine

state; entering a spiritual place.

Tobacco was unknown in Europe before 1492, and it carried a negative stigma at

first. The early Spanish

explorers considered natives’ use of tobacco to be proof of their savagery and,

because of the fire and

smoke produced in the consumption of tobacco, evidence of the Devil’s sway in the

New World.

Gradually, however, European colonists became accustomed to and even took up the

habit of smoking,

and they brought it across the Atlantic. As did the Indians, Europeans ascribed

medicinal properties to

tobacco, claiming that it could cure headaches and skin irritations. Even so,

Europeans did not import

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

tobacco in great quantities until the 1590s. At that time, it became the first

truly global commodity; English,

French, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese colonists all grew it for the world market.

Native peoples also introduced Europeans to chocolate, made from cacao seeds and

used by the Aztec in

Mesoamerica as currency. Mesoamerican Indians consumed unsweetened chocolate in a

drink with chili

peppers, vanilla, and a spice called achiote. This chocolate drink—xocolatl—was

part of ritual ceremonies

like marriage and an everyday item for those who could afford it. Chocolate

contains theobromine, a

stimulant, which may be why native people believed it brought them closer to the

sacred world.

Spaniards in the New World considered drinking chocolate a vile practice; one

called chocolate “the

Devil’s vomit.” In time, however, they introduced the beverage to Spain. At first,

chocolate was available

only in the Spanish court, where the elite mixed it with sugar and other spices.

Later, as its availability

spread, chocolate gained a reputation as a love potion.

Click and Explore

Visit Nature Transformed

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/naturetrans) for a collection

of scholarly essays on the environment in

American history.

The crossing of the Atlantic by plants like cacao and tobacco illustrates the ways

in which the discovery

of the New World changed the habits and behaviors of Europeans. Europeans changed

the New World

in turn, not least by bringing Old World animals to the Americas. On his second

voyage, Christopher

Columbus brought pigs, horses, cows, and chickens to the islands of the Caribbean.

Later explorers

followed suit, introducing new animals or reintroducing ones that had died out

(like horses). With less

vulnerability to disease, these animals often fared better than humans in their new

home, thriving both in

the wild and in domestication.

Europeans encountered New World animals as well. Because European Christians

understood the world

as a place of warfare between God and Satan, many believed the Americas, which

lacked Christianity,

were home to the Devil and his minions. The exotic, sometimes bizarre, appearances

and habits of

animals in the Americas that were previously unknown to Europeans, such as

manatees, sloths, and

poisonous snakes, confirmed this association. Over time, however, they began to

rely more on observation

of the natural world than solely on scripture. This shift—from seeing the Bible as

the source of all

received wisdom to trusting observation or empiricism—is one of the major outcomes

of the era of early

globalization.

Travelers between the Americas, Africa, and Europe also included microbes: silent,

invisible life forms that

had profound and devastating consequences. Native peoples had no immunity to

diseases from across

the Atlantic, to which they had never been exposed. European explorers unwittingly

brought with them

chickenpox, measles, mumps, and smallpox, which ravaged native peoples despite

their attempts to treat

the diseases, decimating some populations and wholly destroying others (Figure

2.16).

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Figure 2.16 This sixteenth-century Aztec drawing shows the suffering of a typical

victim of smallpox. Smallpox and

other contagious diseases brought by European explorers decimated Indian

populations in the Americas.

In eastern North America, some native peoples interpreted death from disease as a

hostile act. Some

groups, including the Iroquois, engaged in raids or “mourning wars,” taking enemy

prisoners in order

to assuage their grief and replace the departed. In a special ritual, the prisoners

were

“requickened”—assigned the identity of a dead person—and adopted by the bereaved

family to take the

place of their dead. As the toll from disease rose, mourning wars intensified and

expanded.

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Key Terms

Black Legend Spain’s reputation as bloodthirsty conquistadors

Calvinism a branch of Protestantism started by John Calvin, emphasizing human

powerlessness before

an omniscient God and stressing the idea of predestination

Columbian Exchange the movement of plants, animals, and diseases across the

Atlantic due to

European exploration of the Americas

commodification the transformation of something—for example, an item of ritual

significance—into a

commodity with monetary value

encomienda legal rights to native labor as granted by the Spanish crown

Hispaniola the island in the Caribbean, present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic,

where Columbus

first landed and established a Spanish colony

indulgences documents for purchase that absolved sinners of their errant behavior

joint stock company a business entity in which investors provide the capital and

assume the risk in

order to reap significant returns

mercantilism the protectionist economic principle that nations should control trade

with their colonies to

ensure a favorable balance of trade

mourning wars raids or wars that tribes waged in eastern North America in order to

replace members

lost to smallpox and other diseases

Pilgrims Separatists, led by William Bradford, who established the first English

settlement in New

England

privateers sea captains to whom the British government had given permission to raid

Spanish ships at

will

probanza de mérito proof of merit: a letter written by a Spanish explorer to the

crown to gain royal

patronage

Protestant Reformation the schism in Catholicism that began with Martin Luther and

John Calvin in the

early sixteenth century

Puritans a group of religious reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

who wanted to

“purify” the Church of England by ridding it of practices associated with

the Catholic Church

and advocating greater purity of doctrine and worship

Roanoke the first English colony in Virginia, which mysteriously disappeared

sometime between 1587

and 1590

Separatists a faction of Puritans who advocated complete separation from the Church

of England

smallpox a disease that Europeans accidentally brought to the New World, killing

millions of Indians,

who had no immunity to the disease

sugarcane one of the primary crops of the Americas, which required a tremendous

amount of labor to

cultivate

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Summary

2.1 Portuguese Exploration and Spanish Conquest

Although Portugal opened the door to exploration of the Atlantic World, Spanish

explorers quickly

made inroads into the Americas. Spurred by Christopher Columbus’s glowing reports

of the riches to be

found in the New World, throngs of Spanish conquistadors set off to find and

conquer new lands. They

accomplished this through a combination of military strength and strategic

alliances with native peoples.

Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella promoted the acquisition of these new lands

in order to strengthen

and glorify their own empire. As Spain’s empire expanded and riches flowed in from

the Americas, the

Spanish experienced a golden age of art and literature.

2.2 Religious Upheavals in the Developing Atlantic World

The sixteenth century witnessed a new challenge to the powerful Catholic Church.

The reformist doctrines

of Martin Luther and John Calvin attracted many people dissatisfied with

Catholicism, and Protestantism

spread across northern Europe, spawning many subgroups with conflicting beliefs.

Spain led the charge

against Protestantism, leading to decades of undeclared religious wars between

Spain and England, and

religious intolerance and violence characterized much of the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries. Despite

the efforts of the Catholic Church and Catholic nations, however, Protestantism had

taken hold by 1600.

2.3 Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Spain’s rivals—England, France, and

the Dutch

Republic—had each established an Atlantic presence, with greater or lesser success,

in the race for imperial

power. None of the new colonies, all in the eastern part of North America, could

match the Spanish

possessions for gold and silver resources. Nonetheless, their presence in the New

World helped these

nations establish claims that they hoped could halt the runaway growth of Spain’s

Catholic empire.

English colonists in Virginia suffered greatly, expecting riches to fall into their

hands and finding reality a

harsh blow. However, the colony at Jamestown survived, and the output of England’s

islands in the West

Indies soon grew to be an important source of income for the country. New France

and New Netherlands

were modest colonial holdings in the northeast of the continent, but these

colonies’ thriving fur trade with

native peoples, and their alliances with those peoples, helped to create the

foundation for later shifts in the

global balance of power.

2.4 New Worlds in the Americas: Labor, Commerce, and the Columbian Exchange

In the minds of European rulers, colonies existed to create wealth for imperial

powers. Guided by

mercantilist ideas, European rulers and investors hoped to enrich their own nations

and themselves, in

order to gain the greatest share of what was believed to be a limited amount of

wealth. In their own

individual quest for riches and preeminence, European colonizers who traveled to

the Americas blazed

new and disturbing paths, such as the encomienda system of forced labor and the use

of tens of thousands

of Africans as slaves.

All native inhabitants of the Americas who came into contact with Europeans found

their worlds turned

upside down as the new arrivals introduced their religions and ideas about property

and goods.

Europeans gained new foods, plants, and animals in the Columbian Exchange, turning

whatever they

could into a commodity to be bought and sold, and Indians were introduced to

diseases that nearly

destroyed them. At every turn, however, Indians placed limits on European

colonization and resisted the

newcomers’ ways.

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Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

Review Questions

1. Which country initiated the era of Atlantic 8. Why didn’t

England make stronger attempts to

exploration? colonize the New

World before the late sixteenth

A. France to early

seventeenth century?

B. Spain A. English

attention was turned to internal

C. England struggles

and the encroaching Catholic

D. Portugal menace to

Scotland and Ireland.

B. The English

monarchy did not want to

2. Which country established the first colonies in declare

direct war on Spain by attempting

the Americas? to colonize

the Americas.

A. England C. The English

military was occupied in

B. Portugal battling

for control of New Netherlands.

C. Spain D. The English

crown refused to fund colonial

D. the Netherlands

expeditions.

3. Where did Christopher Columbus first land? 9. What was the

main goal of the French in

A. Hispaniola colonizing the

Americas?

B. the Bahamas A. establishing

a colony with French subjects

C. Jamestown B. trading,

especially for furs

D. Mexico C. gaining

control of shipping lanes

D. spreading

Catholicism among native

4. Why did the authors of probanzas de méritos peoples

choose to write in the way that they did? What

should we consider when we interpret these 10. What were some

of the main differences

documents today? among the non-

Spanish colonies?

5. Where did the Protestant Reformation begin? 11. How could

Spaniards obtain encomiendas?

A. Northern Europe A. by serving

the Spanish crown

B. Spain B. by buying

them from other Spaniards

C. England C. by buying

them from native chiefs

D. the American colonies D. by

inheriting them

6. What was the chief goal of the Puritans? 12. Which of the

following best describes the

A. to achieve a lasting peace with the Catholic Columbian

Exchange?

nations of Spain and France A. the letters

Columbus and other

B. to eliminate any traces of Catholicism from

conquistadors exchanged with the Spanish

the Church of England crown

C. to assist Henry VIII in his quest for an B. an exchange

of plants, animals, and

annulment to his marriage diseases

between Europe and the Americas

D. to create a hierarchy within the Church of C. a form of

trade between the Spanish and

England modeled on that of the Catholic natives

Church D. the way in

which explorers exchanged

information

about new lands to conquer

7. What reforms to the Catholic Church did

Martin Luther and John Calvin call for?

Chapter 2 | Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650

13. Why did diseases like smallpox affect Indians

so badly?

A. Indians were less robust than Europeans.

B. Europeans deliberately infected Indians.

C. Indians had no immunity to European

diseases.

D. Conditions in the Americas were so harsh

that Indians and Europeans alike were

devastated by disease.

Critical Thinking Questions

14. What were the consequences of the religious upheavals of the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries?

15. What types of labor systems were used in the Americas? Did systems of unfree

labor serve more than

an economic function?

16. What is meant by the Columbian Exchange? Who was affected the most by the

exchange?

17. What were the various goals of the colonial European powers in the expansion of

their empires? To

what extent were they able to achieve these goals? Where did they fail?

18. On the whole, what was the impact of early European explorations on the New

World? What was the

impact of the New World on Europeans?

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