Module 4_Week 4_Colonial Exploration and Growth_Atlantic World

Module 4

Colonial Exploration and Growth

A. The voyages of Columbus

In 1451, Cristoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus) was born in the port city of

Genoa in northern Italy into a struggling family with many children. From the beginning,

the young Columbus found himself in an environment which would shape his aspirations

and expectations and mold him into the explorer he became in his later life. The Republic

of Genoa had been an independent state for several centuries during that time and was

known for its seafarers and explorers, many of whom had sailed under the flags of other

Italian cities or for Portugal. Genoa had also involved itself in a number of colonizing

ventures, controlling colonies in northern Italy, the Middle East, North Africa, and

eastern Europe. The Vivaldi brothers who had sailed into the Atlantic in the thirteenth

century were also Genoese. Columbus had much experience in sailing and navigation. He

started his career at sea early, probably before he reached his teens. During this time, he

acquired the navigational expertise that was to stand him in good stead during his famous

expedition. He spent most of his youth and early life traveling around the Mediterranean

and North Africa, including the Portuguese islands, and possibly even reaching Iceland,

while engaging in commercial ventures, often through contacts with merchants from his

home city or through family connections. He showed little allegiance to any state, and

indeed his life exemplified the tradition of commercial travel that had been flourishing

around the Mediterranean since ancient times and which had been expanding since the

twelfth century.

Columbus’ personal experiences also helped shape his behavior and expectations

when he departed on his famous voyage. His private journals show that he was a deeply

religious man, convinced that he had a divine mission to propagate Catholicism.

Columbus was also an avid reader of travel and geographical works like the writings of

the thirteenth-century Italian traveler Marco Polo, who had journeyed on a commercial

expedition across Asia to China and later wrote a narrative about his travels. Columbus’

own travels also helped form the framework for his later behavior. During his time in

Africa, he spent time sailing along the African coast, where he was exposed to commerce

in gold and human slaves. He also spent considerable time working in the Mediterranean

islands; in Lisbon; and on the Portuguese island of Porto Santo off the African coast, part

of the Madeira group, where he was employed as an agent for a Genoese firm involved in

the sugar trade. There he observed African slave labor on the sugar plantations and also

married the daughter of a local nobleman. Columbus’ family connections were also

deeply important to his later career. Columbus’ father-in-law, Bartolomeu Perestrello,

had also been an explorer, one of the first Europeans to land on Porto Santo. Likewise,

Columbus continued to maintain family connections later in life, and his brother and then

his sons joined him on some of his journeys across the Atlantic. These experiences

formed the context for Columbus’ behavior and opinions during his voyages.

Although no one was known to have successfully sailed across the Atlantic Ocean

previously, there was great incentive to do so. Columbus’ main intent was to gain access

to the riches of the Asian spice trade, and he was also interested in the possibility of

converting Asians to Catholicism. However, he had a difficult time finding sponsors for

his enterprise. Columbus, together with his brother Bartholomew, a mapmaker, initially

attempted to obtain funds and a charter from England and Portugal, regions that were

extensively involved in Atlantic ventures; he also sought backing from some of the

Italian city-states and France. He was repeatedly turned down, even though interest in the

spice trade remained high. After these initial rejections, he eventually found a

sympathetic reception with the Spanish monarchs. Columbus initially utilized his

personal contacts among Genoese merchants and financiers to gain access to the Spanish

court.

There were a number of reasons why most European rulers were hesitant to

support or finance Columbus’ voyage. The most important one was that it was too risky.

Scientific advisors to these leaders correctly pointed out that Columbus’ estimate of the

length of a potential trans-Atlantic voyage was far too small. Since they were unaware of

the existence of the American continents, according to the knowledge of the day, they

believed that the Atlantic Ocean was actually three times the size that Columbus had

claimed. No one had ever journeyed so far before. The ships of the period simply could

not carry sufficient provisions or water for such a trip.

Columbus made further geographical mistakes because he was influenced by

geographical errors that he found in the writings of Marco Polo. The latter believed that

Asia was much larger than it actually is so that it took up more surface space on the

globe. This misperception was also verified by Ptolemy’s works. Further, Marco Polo

had believed that Japan (which he had never visited) was over 1,500 miles from Asia,

whereas it is actually about 120 miles from the Korean peninsula. Columbus wrote a

number of marginal notes in his editions of the books of Ptolemy and Marco Polo,

indicating deep interest. Put together, his geographical miscalculations led him to believe

that by sailing westward, he could reach Japan in about 3,000 miles. He actually would

have had to sail something like 10,500 miles. Thus, when Columbus reached the island of

San Salvador in the Caribbean, he was convinced that he was somewhere near Japan.

The Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, like other European leaders, were

interested in obtaining access to the spice trade. Since the Ottoman Turks had conquered

Constantinople in 1453 and made it the seat of their expanding empire, the land route had

become too dangerous. The obvious sea route down the coast of Africa was firmly under

the control of Spain’s rival, Portugal. Yet the Spanish initially hesitated, because what

Columbus proposed seemed so impossible. As in other regions, scientific advisors in

Spain also advised against the voyages. But in Spain, several factors intervened on

Columbus’ behalf.

The year 1492 was a critical year in Spain. The king and queen had just

completed the Reconquista (or reconquest) of Spain, finally defeating the forces of the

Moors (North African Muslims) at the city of Granada. Although the Moors had been

relatively tolerant of other cultures and beliefs, the Spanish monarchs were not and

ordered the remaining Muslims and Jews who had lived in the Muslim territories to

convert or depart. They launched the Spanish Inquisition to apprehend anyone who had

feigned conversion in order to remain in their homeland. These events meshed with

Columbus’ proposals in several ways. The Catholic monarchs saw their conquest as part

of a crusade to establish Christianity in Spain and were interested in Columbus’ aim of

bringing Catholicism to Asia. Furthermore, with the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews,

they had also expelled a number of scholars such as Abraham Zacuto, the preeminent

scholar of astronomy, suggesting that they were less drawn to promoting scientific

knowledge than to religious and national aims. In addition, having completed the

principal task of their reigns, they were at that moment ready to take interest in other

projects, such as the venture proposed by Columbus.

Columbus’ plan was a bold one: to sail westward over the open ocean to reach the

eastern side of Asia. If his estimates of distance were accepted, it might mean an easier

route to Asia. Although a Portuguese voyage had not yet reached Asia, it was clear that

this was only a matter of time. However, the great length of the African coastline meant

that such a voyage would require a journey of at least a year. It had taken Bartolomeu

Dias months merely to sail to the southern tip of Africa. Indeed, when Vasco da Gama

finally sailed for India in 1497, the entire journey took two years. On the other hand,

Columbus’ route promised a much shorter trip. In fact, when Columbus embarked, he

only carried provisions for about a month of sailing – the capacity of his ships’ stores –

believing that he would reach Asia within that time.

Columbus believed that he had reached Asia, a supposition that he never gave up.

He labeled the people he had met “Indios,” assuming that he had reached the islands of

the East Indies, identified Cuba as “Cipangu” (or Japan), and hoped to make contact with

the Great Khan – the Mongol ruler of China. On his return voyage, Columbus was forced

to dock at the Portuguese Azores islands for supplies and then at a harbor in Portugal

before making his way back to Spain. Upon receiving notice of Columbus’ discoveries,

the astute King John II of Portugal immediately surmised that Columbus had encountered

new lands. Columbus’ assertion that he had reached India was not convincing, and the

Portuguese also knew that Columbus’ estimate of the globe’s size was inaccurate.

Columbus and his crew encountered indigenous people immediately upon

landing. The first encounters went peacefully, with the two groups exchanging goods,

and Columbus remarked in his journal that the Taíno people that he had met were

peaceable and good looking. He described them as simple, without clothing or weapons,

and ready to adopt Catholicism. Even in the first days of meeting the “Indians,”

Columbus described them as potential slaves and also expressed interest in their gold

ornaments, repeating a pattern that he had learned in Africa. By his second day, he had

taken a number of captives on board his ships, many of whom were later taken to Spain

along with a few pieces of gold. These actions set the stage for the next few centuries of

European contact with Native Americans.

Columbus’ second voyage in 1493 comprised a much more imposing fleet of

seventeen ships and about 1,000 men. His brother Bartholomew followed in 1494. By

then, relationships with the Indians had soured, with a number of aggressive encounters

caused by the Spaniards’ incessant search for spices, gold, and slaves. Indians were

forced to mine gold and provide gold as tribute and were beaten or maimed if they did

not provide sufficient amounts. The gold tribute imposed by Columbus was so exorbitant

that it resulted in mass suicides. In addition to forced labor and slavery, the Indians were

increasingly subject to violence, murder, and rape. Some Indian slaves were shipped back

to Spain, where most died. The Spanish Crown, hoping to convert the Indians to

Catholicism, showed some hesitation about enslaving them but ultimately acceded to

what had already been done. The Taíno were much more vulnerable than the Africans the

Spaniards had previously encountered, possessing no metal weapons, and were extremely

susceptible to European diseases. They began to die in large numbers, with up to a third

of the population gone before 1500.

American natives were seen in an increasingly hostile light as the initially

amicable relationship slipped into naked exploitation, which then resulted in armed

resistance to the Spaniards. As early as 1493, La Navidad was destroyed and the men

killed, supposedly by Indians hostile to both the Spaniards and Guacanagarí. The first

organized rebellion against Spanish control broke out as early as 1511, led by Hatuey, a

Taíno cacique from Hispaniola who tried to organize resistance to the continuing

conquest from the island of Cuba. He was executed by being burned at the stake in 1512,

an event which was famously described by Friar Bartolomé de las Casas. Hatuey refused

the offer of a last-minute conversion to Christianity because he did not want to associate

with Christian Spaniards in the afterlife.

One question to ask ourselves is whether Columbus was essential to the

“discovery” of the Americas. Columbus was the first fifteenth-century European to

succeed in sailing across the Atlantic because of a combination of boldness,

determination, and luck. His assurance about his own divine destiny and his persistence

in trying to convince Western monarchs to sponsor his voyage finally paid off. His

abilities as a sea captain and navigator enabled him to cross the ocean successfully, and

he was lucky in attracting Spanish support, because it enabled him to embark from the

Spanish Canary Islands directly into the westerly currents. Nonetheless, even though

other European monarchs had turned him down, the venture that he had proposed

remained attractive to many of them, because they hoped to gain access to the lucrative

Asian spice trade. They had mainly been reluctant to invest because of the difficulty of

the voyage. The many legendary and real reports of Atlantic voyages during the previous

century had served to whet the appetites of Europeans interested in exploration, and some

of these voyages, such as the fishing expeditions by English and Basque sailors on the

northern coasts, suggest that such a voyage would have soon been embarked upon.

Likewise, the Portuguese had already reached the Azores islands by the mid-fifteenth

century. The Azores are almost at the midpoint of the Atlantic Ocean, about 900 miles

west of Portugal and 1,200 miles to the southeast of Newfoundland, and could easily

have served as a way station for further exploration. By Columbus’ time, the new

innovations in navigation, shipbuilding, and various other technologies had made long

sea voyages possible for the first time. Together, these points suggest that other voyagers

would also have eventually tried to develop a westward course to the Indies.

Furthermore, because of the circulation of currents in the Atlantic Ocean, there would

likely have been accidental contacts, such as the voyage of Pedro Álvares Cabral.

Similarly, in 1496, the Venetian Zuan Chabotto, known to English speakers as

John Cabot, sailed from Bristol with English sponsorship, aiming to sail westward

through northern latitudes to develop a shorter route to Asia and perhaps also to seek

some of the lands that Columbus had discovered. Cabot, like Columbus, was a stateless

man and had lived and traveled at various times in Italy, Portugal, Spain, and possibly the

Middle East. His first voyage was forced to turn back, but a second voyage in 1497

reached North America, somewhere in the vicinity of Newfoundland. Although

knowledge of Columbus’ prior crossing influenced Cabot’s expedition and perhaps that

of Cabral, their voyages – together with the earlier Bristol voyages, Icelandic contacts,

Portuguese and Spanish exploration of the Atlantic islands, and continuing incentives for

further exploration – suggest that Europeans would soon have arrived across the Atlantic

even without Columbus’ historic 1492 voyage. Nonetheless, Columbus’ voyage shaped

the subsequent history of Atlantic interactions, ensuring the early dominance of Spain in

the Atlantic and establishing many of the ensuing patterns in relations between Europeans

and Native Americans.

Columbus’ explorations also became the source of a controversy that still exists.

While his voyages were evidence of daring and ingenuity, they also enabled a number of

global social changes whose consequences still affect us, including the colonization of

the Americas by Europeans, the annihilation of most Native Americans, and the trans-

Atlantic slave trade. In addition, the wealth that began pouring across the ocean into

Western Europe was crucial to the eventual ability of Europeans to dominate the rest of

the world.

The extent of the new lands revealed by Columbus was not immediately apparent,

and they served as a great incentive for further exploration and discovery. In addition to

the voyages of Cabral and Cabot, there were soon many other ships and fleets crossing

the Atlantic and also continuing to explore the African coastline. The Portuguese,

realizing that Columbus had reached new territories, though not comprehending their full

extent, insisted on validating their own Atlantic gains, consistent with the Treaty of

Alcaçovas. The Spanish pope, not fully to their satisfaction, responded with the 1494

Treaty of Tordesillas, effectively giving Spain most of the new western territories. In the

meantime, the Portuguese continued to consolidate control over the eastward route to

Asia, sending out Vasco da Gama’s expedition in 1497, by which time Columbus had

already returned from his second voyage to the Americas.

Da Gama, using the information provided by Bartolomeu Dias and Pedro da

Covilhã, and guided from East Africa by Ahmad Ibn Majid, one of the foremost

navigators in the Indian Ocean region, sailed to the port of Calicut on the western Indian

coast. Once in India, da Gama aimed to engage in trade for spices. However, the Hindu

ruler of Calicut was unwilling to trade with da Gama at first, because the city had

profitable connections with Arab merchants, and there was little interest in the European

trade goods of brass, raw materials, and crude cloth. Nonetheless, da Gama did manage to

collect some pepper and cinnamon over a long period and returned to Portugal after a

voyage of over two years, during which more than half his men died. He returned a few

years later and supported Pedro Álvares Cabral’s attempts to negotiate with the ruler of

Calicut. In the process, da Gama demonstrated an unparalleled brutality that was striking

even for a very brutal era, attacking and torturing unprotected fishermen, civilians, and

pilgrims. In order to establish a successful European trade, he used his ships’ cannons to

defeat a local fleet in front of the city. He succeeded in subduing most of the smaller

neighboring cities, though it took more time to bring Calicut to submission. Da Gama’s

efforts eventually culminated in a series of permanent fortresses and trading centers along

the west coast of Asia and the Middle East, the beginning of the exploitation of Asia by

European nations.

Columbus’ expeditions were also followed by a number of voyages aiming to

circumnavigate the globe. The first effort was led by the Portuguese captain Ferdinand

Magellan sailing under the Spanish flag from 1519 and completed under the command of

Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522 after losing Magellan, four of five ships, and 182 of 200

sailors. It was followed by a voyage led by the Spanish captain García Jofre de Loaísa

which, like the previous attempt, was completed by another. The remnants of Loaísa’s

fleet limped back under Portuguese custody in 1536 led by Andrés de Urdaneta, eleven

years after leaving Spain. Urdaneta later became a friar in Mexico City. These voyages

illustrate the European drive to explore and expand and the dangers of ocean exploration

in the sixteenth century, while Urdaneta’s life also demonstrates the increasingly strong

Atlantic connections already forming for Europeans in this period. Thereafter, voyages of

circumnavigation were predominantly the purview of the English and the Dutch, with the

next voyage commanded by the English captain Francis Drake from 1577 to 1580.

B. The Columbian Exchange

By the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the Atlantic world was characterized

by continuous motion. In the “Columbian Exchange,” not only people but also animals,

plants, diseases, raw materials, trade goods, and ideas circulated around the Atlantic

basin, leading to profound changes in the societies and ecosystems of both sides of the

Atlantic. Three groups of people came into sustained contact: Europeans, primarily as

conquerors; Native Americans, primarily as colonized peoples; and Africans, primarily as

slaves. In addition, the colonizers brought European livestock and crops to the Americas

and took American animals and products back home with them. Unintentionally, the

colonizers brought diseases and pests. Eventually, both sides of the Atlantic participated

in a vigorous system of trade, which included raw materials and manufactured products,

as well as livestock and human beings.

Many of the plants and animals that came across the ocean were brought

intentionally by the first Europeans to come to the New World. A number of

domesticated animals arrived as early as Columbus’ second voyage. Old World livestock

varieties were much more plentiful than domesticated animals in the Americas, and

several of the former had a major impact on the New World, especially farm animals

such as cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and various fowl, as well as horses which provided

rapid and long-distance transport to many indigenous groups. Horses were particularly

important to Indians of the North American Great Plains, for whom they facilitated

transportation and hunting, as well as changing the balance of power among various

tribes and within groups themselves. In addition, Europeans inadvertently brought rats

and insect pests such as cockroaches and biting insects like fleas and mosquitoes,

including varieties that carried human diseases. The most important animal to make the

journey in the opposite direction was the turkey.

The new crops produced dramatic and unexpected effects. In many cases, they

became a major component of human diets throughout the world, often displacing

indigenous crops. Tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes became dietary staples all over the

world from Italy to India. Maize, sweet potatoes, and peanuts in particular contributed to

massive population growth in Asia, especially China, during the early modern period.

Likewise, cassava, sweet potatoes, and peanuts became dietary staples in parts of Africa,

and European peasant populations began depending on potatoes, which require much less

land than wheat as a subsistence crop. Potatoes, like many of the American crops, are full

of useful nutrients and contributed to significant population growth in Europe. This was

to become a double-edged sword in the nineteenth century. Poor farmers in Ireland,

already pushed onto marginal land, subdivided their farms among their children into

increasingly tinier plots, an inheritance pattern made possible only by the nutritiousness

of potatoes. When a fungal blight struck European potatoes in the 1840s, Irish and

Highland Scottish farmers who subsisted entirely on potatoes were hit with a severe

famine. Other regions were affected, but over a million people in Ireland and many

thousands in the Highlands of Scotland starved. More than 1 million Irish and 1.5 million

Scots immigrated as a result of the famine, coupled with long-standing political

inequality in their homelands. Although there had been similar immigrants earlier, this

was the beginning of a long-term trend of Irish emigration and of an Irish and Scottish

diaspora that contributed to population growth in the United States and Canada

European and African diseases were probably the most pervasive force shaping

the Atlantic encounter. They came in many varieties. The most virulent were smallpox

and measles, but the infectious agents also included influenza, typhus, typhoid, plague,

yellow fever, malaria, leptospirosis, and mumps. The only disease known to have made

the reverse journey is syphilis, which was far more virulent during the sixteenth century

when it struck unacclimated Europeans, leading to rapid death, than it is today. However,

the consequences in the New World were far more destructive. The newly acquired Old

World diseases struck the Native Americans with devastating force. Very few of the

Amerindian population carried genes resistant to these diseases. Adults and children died

alike, until more than 90% of the native population was killed, reducing the initial

Amerindian population of approximately 60 million to 6 million in less than two

centuries.

The viruses and bacterial infections that Europeans brought to the New World

were endemic in the Old World – Europe, Asia, and Africa. More sustained contact with

domestic animals, higher population densities, and a higher overall population

(approximately 550 million people as compared to 60 million in the Americas) had led to

higher rates of evolution and exchange of disease pathogens over millennia. These

diseases had been virulent in the Old World as well. Initially, diseases often struck with

overwhelming force, and then their strength leveled off as the population gradually

evolved resistance. More susceptible individuals died off while survivors passed their

resistance on to their children. By the fifteenth century, some of these illnesses had

become primarily childhood illnesses in the Old World. Typically, the diseases would

reoccur in limited epidemics every generation, usually with a mortality rate of 15% or

less. In the New World, however, the pattern was different. The panoply of epidemics

struck simultaneously, preventing Native American populations from recovering easily.

Despite the tenacious existence of a few survivors, disease rapidly wiped out most

Amerindian populations. Europeans and Africans were also susceptible to the diseases

that they carried, but they sickened in much smaller numbers and were much more likely

to recover. It was to take a period of over 200 years before Amerindian populations could

begin to recover as they developed similar levels of immunity. When Native Americans

were initially struck by Old World diseases, the blow was much stronger than the initial

impact of any particular illness had been on the other side of the ocean, because the

Amerindians were not attacked by a single disease but rather successive or simultaneous

waves of different infections. In the Americas, these coinciding illnesses resulted in death

rates of 50% to 70%, with illness affecting virtually all of the population – much higher

rates of death than anything that Europeans had ever experienced. In addition to high

mortality, a further consequence was social breakdown, with few people left well enough

to cultivate crops, produce food, care for the sick, or govern society, leading to starvation,

fear, demoralization, and social collapse. Although stemming from the initial arrival of

Europeans, the diseases raced ahead of the conquerors, devastating or wiping out

populations before Europeans reached them. Epidemics were the central factors in the

collapse of the Aztec (Mexica) and Inca (Quechua) empires and in the inability of other

Amerindian societies to resist the invaders. For example, an epidemic decimated the

Wampanoag peoples in what would become Massachusetts just prior to their contact with

the Puritan settlers from England, greatly reducing their numbers and increasing their

weakness when confronted with open warfare a generation later.

There was little or nothing that could be done to treat these illnesses by either the

Europeans or the natives, neither of whom possessed adequate knowledge or means of

treatment. Only those who were lucky enough to have good health and possess resistant

genes could survive. The Spaniards were unaware of how diseases spread, since the germ

theory of disease would not be developed until the late nineteenth century. Instead, there

were a number of theories that included direct physical contact, imbalances in the humors

(bodily fluids), miasma (poisonous vapors in the air), and the will of God. Indeed, the

Spanish regretted the population destruction caused by the diseases and made attempts to

mitigate it – for instance, by setting up quarantines, sending doctors to native villages,

and burning the goods of infected people. There were two reasons for Spanish concern.

First, the Spanish had hoped that the natives would serve them as laborers; this was

jeopardized by their wide-scale deaths. Second, there was genuine concern for the loss of

human souls to death before they had a chance to be saved by converting to Christianity.

The Spaniards, as Catholics, believed in spiritual free will – that rather than being

spiritually predestined, as Protestants believed, individuals could influence their own

destination in the afterlife. Many of the Spanish clergy in particular distinguished

Amerindian heathens, unaware of the truth of Christianity, from the infidels of the Old

World, who had rejected it. To them, Native American population collapse meant that

essentially innocent people were dying before they had had the opportunity to accept

Christianity. It is unclear how much such qualms troubled ordinary Spanish settlers, but

they were influential in convincing the Spanish Crown to establish laws mitigating the

treatment of the Indians from the 1540s.

The Amerindian population collapse had a number of significant consequences.

First, it enabled Europeans to colonize the New World, which would have been much

more difficult – perhaps impossible – if they had faced native societies at the full peak of

their strength. European control over the new territories and the resources they included

was to propel them to domination of the world within a few centuries. In the Americas,

the defeat and disappearance of Indian groups led to demoralization and social disruption

among the survivors. This took a variety of forms, including placing Native Americans in

dependent roles while denigrating native culture. Many cultural values of native societies,

including languages, customs, and religious beliefs, were transformed or lost. The deaths

caused by disease convinced many that native religious traditions were false and that the

god of the Europeans had superseded or defeated indigenous gods, paving the way for

wide-scale conversion to Christianity. Further, when plantation agriculture became

established in the Americas, Europeans looking for coerced laborers turned to African

slaves to replace the disappearing Indian population, bringing the continent of Africa into

an Atlantic connection with far-reaching but tremendously unequal effects on the shores

of all four Atlantic continents. Thus, more than any other factor, it was European diseases

that determined the shape of the Atlantic exchange, establishing political, economic, and

social arrangements that are still shaping the world today

C. Earliest encounters

The Spanish conquest wrought an immense transformation in the Americas, truly

creating a New World for all who lived there: Spaniards and other Europeans, Africans,

and Native Americans. The blending of previously separated human societies resulted in

the creation of new societies that included novel forms of culture, politics, economic

dealings, intellectual life, and new kinds of human relationships. After Columbus’ first

voyage, Spaniards poured into the Americas. Most of the original immigrants were

conquistadors and their followers, professional soldiers who hoped to acquire money,

fame, and influence through military success in what they saw as a land of opportunity.

Many of these men were former soldiers who had gained their military experience in

fighting the Muslims in Spain and were at loose ends after the ending of the Reconquista.

They were characterized by unscrupulousness, toughness, and brutality. Typically, they

hoped to return to Spain once they had made their fortunes. Columbus’ writings had

prompted their hopes for wealth by repeatedly mentioning gold and spices, as well as

praising the fertility of the soil and the suitability of the Indians as potential laborers.

These endorsements became entangled with European legends about wealthy kingdoms

like Atlantis located in mysterious, unexplored realms. Soon, explorers and invaders were

roaming the mainland, fruitlessly searching for El Dorado – a fabled golden city, the

Seven Cities of Gold, or the Land of Cinnamon. The eventual victories of Hernán Cortés

and Francisco Pizarro over wealthy urban areas provided additional fodder to these

adventurers, most of whom died during their wanderings. These expeditions were

characterized by confusion, violence, and the failure to discover great wealth, but they

aided the progress of Spanish imperialism by exploring new areas and by “pacifying” the

local natives.

The Spanish had some advantages in their meetings with Native Americans. They

possessed horses; swords, armor, and shields made of steel and iron; and guns, all of

which were superior to native military technologies. Horses needed to be utilized on flat

ground, but they conferred speed and height and devastating force when the rider was

carrying a lance and were intimidating. Likewise, guns and cannons had a

disproportionate impact because they were frightening and lethal. Battle on these terms

meant thousands of Indian casualties with only a few Spaniards felled. On the other hand,

a major disadvantage for the Spaniards was their small numbers relative to the numbers

of natives, at least in urban areas. However, this was offset by epidemics of European

diseases that typically struck before the Indians were defeated, and which devastated

native populations. Even with these benefits, Spanish fighting abilities were typically not

enough to carry the day. The pattern of Spanish conquest was to first establish diplomatic

relations with the Native American leader and then kidnap him. Often they took

advantage of local political and military disputes and established alliances with groups

hostile to the faction they were attacking. As each area was defeated, it became a base for

the next extension of the conquest. Military expeditions were sometimes funded by

prosperous individuals who would either band together or individually employ

mercenaries, but often the hired soldiers also invested in the venture and hoped to receive

a share of the proceeds. The best profits came from gold, which was melted down and

distributed to each soldier according to status, but they also gained silver, food, other

goods, and Indian slaves. The wealth accrued on these expeditions could be used by the

men to increase their status within Spanish society.

By 1520, Europeans, especially Spaniards, were already in control of most of the

islands in the Caribbean and were continuing to arrive to the New World. The Arawak

and Taíno populations had dropped to unrecoverably low levels. The rumors of plentiful

gold in the New World were continuing to attract conquistadors, who were particularly

drawn to the lands of the Mexica (Aztecs) and Quechua (Inca) because of the rumors of

the wealth to be found in those powerful urban societies.

When Velázquez decided to send an expedition of conquest to the mainland in

1519, he appointed Cortés as its leader, perhaps hoping to be rid of him for a time.

Previous contacts had demonstrated that there was potential for gold and conquest among

the wealthy urban populations in the region, including the Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula

and unknown cities further inland. Cortés eagerly grasped the opportunity that he had

been waiting for, rapidly assembling a force of eleven ships and about 600 men.

Although his force was abruptly recalled by the governor, who increasingly doubted his

loyalty, Cortés rapidly departed before he could be replaced. Velázquez’s distrust was

well founded; shortly after arriving, Cortés founded the city of Veracruz on the coast,

placing it under the authority of the monarchy, thus circumventing the authority of

Cuba’s governor. Afterward, he burned his own ships to prevent his men from deserting.

Cortés’ expedition fought along the coast, defeating several Maya towns. Almost

immediately, Cortés demonstrated the resourcefulness and impressive grasp of diplomatic

strategy that would enable his conquest of Mexico, which could never have been defeated

by military tactics alone. A key component of Cortés’ success was his repeated ability to

ally with individuals or groups who assisted Cortés at crucial moments rather than the

superior technology with which he has often been credited. Cortés did bring a number of

military technologies that Native Americans had not yet encountered, including horses,

war dogs trained to kill humans, armor, steel weapons, arquebuses (an early firearm), and

a dozen cannons. However, none of these was numerous or very effective – for example,

many of the horses were dead before they reached Mexico, the arquebuses were relatively

inaccurate, and the cannons were inoperable – certainly not enough weaponry to attack a

fortified city of 200,000 people. Instead, Cortés’ victories were a combination of luck,

strategy, alliances with Indians hostile to the Mexica, and the devastating impact of

European diseases.

In any case, Geronimo de Aguilar became important to Cortés because of another

captive. After his forces defeated the Maya town of Tabasco, Cortés received a tribute of

twenty slave women whom he baptized and then gave to his officers. However, one of

them, Malinche or Malintzin, called Marina by the Spaniards, became one of the most

important members of the Spanish expedition, serving as a translator and liaison between

the Spanish and the Mexica. She was a Nahuatl speaker who had been enslaved by the

Maya and, with Aguilar as an intermediary, served as an interpreter between Cortés and

other Nahua. Marina rapidly learned Spanish, enabling more direct translation, and was

so important that the Spaniards soon referred to her as Doña (Lady) Marina as a token of

respect. Cortés took her as his mistress, and their son Martín Cortés is sometimes looked

upon as the first Mexican. Cortés eventually married a Spanish noblewoman, marrying

Marina to one of his officers, who was made an important encomendero (or landowner).

Martín Cortés was raised in Spain by his father’s family. Even today, the legacy of Doña

Marina is controversial in Mexico, because some have seen her as a collaborator who

enabled the conquest of the Mexica. Mitigating this perspective, however, is the fact that

while ethnically Nahua, she was probably not a member of the Mexica people and likely

saw them as enemies. Additionally, it is difficult to determine the amount of agency she

possessed as a slave and a captive trying to survive in a hostile environment.

In letters he wrote to Charles V, the king of Spain, Cortés described his

astonishment at his first sight of Tenochtitlán, which he described as far larger and more

beautiful than any city in Spain. This accorded with the impressions of other Spaniards

such as the conquistador and chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo. It is also clear from both

Spanish and Mexica accounts, such as in the Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva

España – or The General History of the Things of New Spain (referred to as the

Florentine Codex), a Nahua and Spanish text documenting Nahuatl culture and history –

that, in general, the Spaniards and Mexica understood each other well. Both came from

formalistic and imperialistic urban societies, and the misunderstandings that occurred in

European encounters with other native peoples seem not to have arisen. However, both

societies were also accustomed to making war against geographic, economic, and

political rivals, and this pattern continued once they had encountered each other.

While regrouping in Tlaxcala during the next year, Cortés and the Tlaxcalans

arranged to join forces to attack the Mexica, the Spaniards agreeing to give the

Tlaxcalans future exemption from tribute, semi-autonomy, and a share of the plunder.

The Spanish also established more limited agreements with additional allies. Hatred of

the Mexica impelled a number of Indian groups to join the side of the Spanish. Even so,

the Mexicas’ numerical superiority coupled with the defensibility of Tenochtitlán might

have prevailed. However, during this time, the Mexica capital was struck by a smallpox

epidemic, brought inadvertently by the Spaniards. Cuitláhuac and his son died, as did up

to 50% of the population. When the Spaniards later entered the city, they stepped across

the bodies of multitudes of sick and dying people. The Florentine Codex related that the

survivors of the disease were sickened and weakened, and that after the illness struck,

there was no one to provide food, care for the sick, or tend crops. These events created

paralysis, despair, and institutional collapse.

Even so, the Mexica fought hard, and a terrible siege of several months’ duration

was necessary to finally conquer the city. Cortés arrived with an army of approximately

150,000 native allies and moved to cut off the fresh water supply to the city. He built a

fleet of brigantines – ships that could be sailed or rowed – to avoid depending on the

causeways. Although the city was almost incapacitated by smallpox, the new tlatoani,

Cuauhtémoc, was able to hold off the Spaniards for several weeks. Toward the end, even

non-combatants such as women and the elderly fought the Spaniards. Cuauhtémoc was

captured, tortured, and executed, later becoming a cultural hero for his refusal to show

fear before his captors. Most of the Aztec city was destroyed. Cortés became the new

ruler of what was named Mexico City. He was awarded a number of titles and died a

wealthy man. His conquest of the Mexica established a model for all future conquests and

ensured that the richest part of the Americas fell into Spanish hands, even though the

conquest of the peripheral areas of Mexico was to take several more decades.

The Tlaxcalans remained allied with the Spaniards for several generations and

during that period received special consideration from the conquerors. The city and

territory of Tlaxcala remained relatively intact. However, almost from the beginning,

their initial expectations were disappointed. They assumed that the Spanish conquest

would follow earlier precedents in which a conquering altepetl left its defeated enemies

essentially intact and internally autonomous. Instead, the Spaniards came in ever-greater

numbers to Mexico and saw “Indios” as social inferiors. They required that the

Tlaxcalans and other groups accept their god, which the Mesoamericans would have

anticipated, as that was the usual practice during a conquest, but also that they reject their

own gods, a new notion in Mesoamerica. The Tlaxcalans were also resented by some

altepetl who had also helped the Spaniards but felt that while the former group was

singled out for benefits for aiding the conquest, these benefits were denied to other

groups who had done likewise.

Cortés’ success in defeating the Aztecs had been due in part to his great abilities

as a military strategist but also to his diplomatic skills. His ability to recognize and

exploit useful alliances with Moctezuma, Doña Marina, the Tlaxcalans, and other groups

was crucial to his victory. Later conquistadors were not as skillful but were aided

significantly by European military technologies and the progress of the deadly diseases

sweeping through the Americas. Pedro de Alvarado, who had engineered the massacre of

the Mexica nobles and instigated the uprising that derailed Cortés’ plan to subjugate the

Mexica through diplomacy, led the conquest of the Maya in Guatemala. He was aided by

Tlaxcalan allies and attempted to repeat Cortés’ tactic of allying with one group to defeat

another. However, Alvarado treated his allies so cruelly that he alienated them, sparking a

rebellion that lasted many years. In the end, the invasion of Guatemala was achieved with

great violence and a protracted effort on the part of the Spanish. The defeat of the

independent Maya city-states took more than 100 years to accomplish because they had

to be defeated one by one. On the frontiers of Mexico, non- and semi-sedentary groups

that the Nahua called the Chichimecs prevented Spanish settler encroachment for much

of the sixteenth century.

There were some attempts at rebellion. The first major revolt was led by Manco

Inca Yupanqui, a younger son of Huayna Cápac, who was initially a pawn maintained on

the throne by Pizarro. He led an attempt to restore the Inca Empire from the 1530s until

his death in 1544. Although the Quechua experienced a number of victories against the

Spanish, ultimately their forces were defeated by a combination of disease and a lack of

unity among the Quechua themselves, many of whom had joined factions supporting the

Spanish. Manco Inca did succeed in establishing a last stronghold, a small independent

state centered on the city of Vilcabamba, although it was sometimes subject to Spanish

intrusions. He was succeeded by several of his sons in sequence. The last claimant to the

throne, Túpac Amaru, also initiated a brief rebellion but was captured and executed in

1572, finalizing the Spanish conquest. Vilcabamba was destroyed and forgotten.

D. Spanish colonial institutions in New Spain

After the initial conquests in Mexico and Peru, large numbers of Spaniards began

to cross the ocean to what they saw as a new land of opportunity. After the first wave of

immigrants, there were increasing numbers of family members, including women, and

close economic and familial connections were established across the ocean. The Spanish

conquest created a new society in the New World, which was based on Iberian norms but

which was also strongly influenced by Native American and African customs and values,

as well as the legacy of imperialism. Although one might think of a regional society as

unified, the realities for an individual varied widely depending on class, race, and gender.

A consequence of these intersecting influences was the development of a number of new

institutions and social expectations that accommodated the needs of the new society,

especially for the upper classes. Nonetheless, all Spanish regions also developed shared

social patterns.

The Church was one of the most powerful institutions in Spain, where it was

closely tied to the Crown, and it continued to take that role in the Spanish colonies.

There, the Church was primarily interested in extending its influence over the new

Spanish settlements and in territories mainly inhabited by Indians. Indeed, from the

beginning, the conversion of the natives was a fundamental aim of both the Spanish

Crown and the Church. Nonetheless, a central urge behind all endeavors in the New

World, for the governing bodies and most ordinary Spaniards, was material gain. While

the Church and the Spanish government did possess a genuine desire to (in their view)

save the souls of the Indians, they were also subject to the lure of profit. At times, the two

motivations were inextricably intertwined. Spanish success in finding and subduing the

Indies seemed to justify the idea that the conquest was God’s will. As a result, the Church

played a critical role in both furthering and mitigating the conquest.

The friars worked vigorously to gain souls for the Church. They distanced

themselves from the brutality of the conquistadors and presented themselves as protectors

of the downtrodden. In contrast to most early settlers, the friars often promoted a positive

view of the Indians as being intelligent and capable, though some also criticized them as

being lazy and impious. The friars saw themselves as soldiers for God, wiping out

idolatry and saving the souls of millions of people. Most of them deplored the violence of

the conquistadors but also approved of conversion by force. They presented the god of

Christianity as one who harshly punished sinners but was also forgiving of those who

repented and accepted him.

In Mesoamerica and the Inca regions, the transition to Christianity was less

difficult than might be expected, because the populations were accustomed to both state-

controlled religions and conquests. However, the Spanish takeover was different from

earlier invasions, because while previously the new gods of conquerors had been added to

a preexisting pantheon, the Spanish demanded that the Indians adopt monotheism. In

addition, they insisted that some religious practices, such as the sacrifice of animals and

humans, be prohibited. Yet Catholicism also had a long history of tolerance for divergent

rituals as long as they did not impact the central tenets of doctrine. In the New World,

this went further through a process of syncretism (or the blending of belief systems).

After the conquest, overtly religious practice became Catholic in form, while many of the

more visible indigenous sacred rituals were abandoned. In some cases, the essence of

traditional beliefs continued to be adhered to, sometimes clandestinely or under a cloak of

conforming to Catholicism. Often there were opportunities for convergence between

Catholicism and native religion, as in the replacement of central temples with churches.

Churches in Mexico often evoked aspects of native practices or belief, such as an outdoor

patio with a sacred platform similar to what had prevailed in precolonial times, although

surmounted with a cross to symbolize Christian worship rather than as a stage for

sacrifices. The churches themselves were built on the same location as the preconquest

temples using the same stone blocks. Just as had previously occurred in early medieval

Europe, native deities were identified with Catholic saints based on the similarity of their

attributes or on how well the timing of traditional dates of celebration for the deities

corresponded with Catholic saints’ feast days. Older beliefs gradually faded away during

the colonial period, but traces of them can be seen even today in Latin America,

particularly in more isolated areas.

Outside the urban areas, it took longer for Christianity to take hold. Since the

Indians did not congregate in large populations, they had to be forced to concentrate

themselves into a parish and follow a state-imposed religious system. In the early days,

some among the Christian clergy questioned the degree to which Christianity had

penetrated the native spirit, even in the urban areas, and were skeptical that true

conversion could occur. Sahagún, for example, worried about the destructiveness of the

conquest and doubted the thoroughness of the natives’ spiritual orthodoxy.

Most Spanish colonists did not worry much about the rights of the indigenous

peoples, but from the beginning, some clergymen advocated for native rights. The

Spanish Crown’s justification for taking over the West Indies from the outset had been

that it would promote Catholic Christianity. In part, this had helped get the sanction of

the papacy and international legitimacy, but the Crown also took its religious charge

seriously. During the first decade of conquest, Pope Alexander VI pronounced that the

Spanish monarchs had absolute authority in the Americas, and an advisory council of

Spanish clergymen contended that Spain had the right to subjugate and even enslave the

Indians. All of these assertions were based on the claim that Spain was spreading

Christianity in the colonies and that Native Americans would be treated lawfully. Yet in

the early days of the conquest, and often later as well, these latter provisions were often

ignored. Instead, the conquest of the Americas was characterized by aggression,

rapaciousness, and brutality.

In addition, not all of the clergy agreed that a more humanitarian conquest was

called for. Indeed, the treatment of the Indians continued to be debated among

theologians. There were a number of points of contention, including whether the papacy

had the authority to hand the New World territories to Spain, whether Spain had the right

to seize Indian territories, and whether the Spaniards had the right to enslave the Indians.

Some clergy agonized that the Indians were heathens, or non-Christians, innocent in

comparison to those they considered infidels who had rejected the faith, such as Muslims

and Jews in the Old World. The Indians were being decimated, they argued, before they

had a chance to encounter and accept Christianity. In the meantime, the Spanish Crown’s

primary interest lay in establishing and maintaining justification for its authority over the

land, resources, and peoples of the New World.

Increasingly, clergy on both sides of these questions debated the rights of the

Indians. Those arguing that Indians were inherently inferior – “natural slaves,” some

argued, using a category devised from the works of the ancient Greek thinker Aristotle –

included Juan López de Palacios Rubios, Francisco López de Gómara, and Juan Ginés de

Sepúlveda. On the other hand, proponents for better treatment of the Indians included

Montesinos, Francisco de Vitoria, and Bartolomé de las Casas. This latter group argued

that Indians were fully human children of God, endowed with natural rights and the

facility of reason, and that it was mortal sin to mistreat them. In between these viewpoints

was Toribio de Benavente Motolinia, who protected the Indians from ill treatment but

accepted the encomienda system and believed that conversion was the most important

goal.

Las Casas was a particularly interesting figure, because he had been one of the

earliest Spanish settlers, had initially protested Montesinos’ famous sermon, and had

been awarded an encomienda for his role in the conquest of the West Indies. Yet he had

become more and more disgusted at the cruelties that he observed and eventually became

the most vehement critic of the Spanish presence in the Americas. In his writings, he

argued that the Spanish conquest had been an atrocity and that the natives should be

considered full subjects of the Spanish Crown, able to govern themselves. He briefly

proposed African slavery as an alternative to Indian slavery but soon became one of the

few Europeans to reject slavery of any kind. Ultimately, he argued that the Spaniards,

with the exception of clergy, should leave the Indies. He was influential in developing

and promoting the New Laws of 1542, which further regulated the encomiendas, though

in the end they were not fully effective because of widespread resistance. Las Casas was

a controversial and often reviled figure, and his scathing disclosure of Spanish injustice

and cruelty, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552), created a basis for

the “Black Legend” propagated by other colonial powers who rivaled Spain in the

sixteenth century, enabling them to claim that the Spaniards were unfit to govern in the

New World while disregarding the behavior of their own countrymen. Yet one of his

greatest legacies was to initiate a debate about human rights that was a forerunner of

Enlightenment ideals.

Although the Spanish in the Americas usually aimed to replicate the standards of

Spanish society, life in New Spain and the rest of the Americas was necessarily different.

The society that arose was a blended one, a melting pot in which the cultures of

Spaniards, natives, and soon Africans interacted and created a society of new norms and

practices. For many of the Spaniards, the Americas offered a place to make their fortunes.

Those who came first were typically marginal figures for whom there were few

opportunities in Spain – adventurers, lesser nobles, and veterans from the Reconquista, in

addition to clergy. If immigrants succeeded in making their fortunes in the colonies, they

could rise to much higher social and economic levels than they would have attained in

Spain. This was especially true in the early days of the conquest, when large areas of land

were available to conquistadors. These early migrants were soon followed by others who

either served as lower-ranking soldiers or emigrated in order to take advantage of new

economic opportunities in the new territories. Engaging in trade within the colonies or

across the Atlantic was risky but offered substantial opportunities for economic growth to

entrepreneurs from the middle and lower classes. Yet as the Spaniards became more

established in the Americas, they began to reestablish the class distinctions that had been

common in Spain, although with several differences. Many individuals and families had

risen to a high status that they would not have enjoyed in Spain, and Spaniards were

automatically of higher status than Africans or indigenous people. Peasants in the

countryside were overwhelmingly natives. Distinctions existed among the Spaniards

based upon whether they were peninsulares, born in Spain, or criollos (creoles), born in

the Americas. Although the former group was of higher status in the early days of the

conquest, within a few generations creoles became the dominant social group. As the

creole population increased, women also began to emigrate from Spain, usually to join

family members or to marry previously established men.

Gender relations in Iberian territories also involved a blending of Iberian and

native gender patterns. Men were the dominant sex in both preconquest societies, but in

both, family connections were central shaping forces in society. The importance of

extended families meant that women possessed some economic freedoms, including

retaining ownership of property, so that they could support the interests of their birth

families within the marriage. For example, ties of kinship allowed trans-Atlantic firms to

operate – in some cases, the principal business partner was a woman. This was in contrast

to the more patriarchal expectations of other European nationalities, such as the English,

among whose colonists women had limited or no rights to own property or to act as a

legally independent agent. Nonetheless, men everywhere retained significantly more

social mobility, more political and economic opportunity, and more independence than

women.

Two sustained critiques came from men of Native American descent from the

former Inca territories. In 1615, a Quechua noble, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, a clerk

and translator for the Spanish government who had become discouraged after many

attempts at filing protests against corruption and inequity, completed a 2,000-page

chronicle of Inca history that criticized Spanish authority and pressed for a return to

native rule (although in accordance with Spanish law and Christian morality). Although it

had little effect at the time, it has been useful to historians. Similarly, Garcilaso de la

Vega, the son of an Inca concubine of noble descent and a Spanish conquistador, praised

Inca society and critiqued Spanish rule, in several works describing Inca history and

legends published in the first two decades of the seventeenth century. Like Guaman

Poma, he accepted many Spanish norms but also went further, envisioning a society in

which blended Spanish and Inca elites governed over ordinary Native Americans. In his

own life, he moved freely between Spanish and Quechua society, spending much time in

Spain, but always felt disconnected from both. His sympathetic account of Túpac

Amaru’s death led to his work being banned by the Spanish government.

Another Spanish-American who broke out of the strictures of social norms was

the creole nun and intellectual Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–95), who lived her life in

Mexico. A child prodigy who spoke many languages, read and wrote literature, and

investigated science and philosophy, she entered a nunnery, the only way for a woman of

moderate means to continue her studies. Unusually for her time, she demonstrated

feminist ideals, arguing for women’s education and questioning the status of women in

Spanish society. However, criticism of her writings mounted within the religious

hierarchy, and in later years she gave up her intellectual work. She died in her nunnery

caring for the sick during an epidemic.

The repartimiento system was also wholly suited to mining, because it centered

on groups of people who could be transferred from one district to another rather than

employing a settled community at a specific location. In the early days of colonization,

mining was by far the most profitable enterprise for the Spanish. From Columbus’ first

voyage, the Spaniards had been convinced that the New World contained ample amounts

of precious metals, especially gold. Although they only obtained limited amounts of gold,

they were eventually able to develop very lucrative silver mines in Mexico and at Potosí,

the most famous silver mine, located in Bolivia, which was originally a part of the

Viceroyalty of Peru.

Although immensely profitable, economically the silver mines turned out to be a

double-edged sword. Spain’s reliance on the direct extraction of monetary metal resulted

in economic backwardness just as other Europeans were experiencing greater economic

dynamism and experimenting with early forms of capitalism in the form of banking,

insurance, stock exchanges, long-range investment, and lending. In addition, Spain had

imposed a trade monopoly mandating its colonies to engage in commerce only with the

mother country, thereby hoping to profit by direct and cheaper access to goods and

through taxation. This was an important principle of the economic theory of

mercantilism, then dominant in Europe, which mandated control over all aspects of trade.

However, the unintended effect of this was to incentivize black market trading. Colonial

merchants evaded high Spanish tariffs whenever they could, and eventually clandestine

trade was many times more prevalent and more profitable than legitimate commerce.

This boosted the economies of the colonies and the shipping of other European countries

and colonies at the expense of Spain. Mercantilist monopolies were implemented by

other imperial European states as well, but since non-Spanish traders were heavily

involved in underground trading with Spanish colonies, unlicensed commerce affected

government tax revenues but not the general flow of independent capital within the

economies of other European states. In addition to exacerbating economic inefficiency,

the wealth the mines produced did not last forever. Most of them were tapped out by the

eighteenth century, leading to Spain’s inability to repay its debts in the newly monetized

economy and resulting in bankruptcy. This was aggravated by Spain’s debasing of its

currency and its general inability to cope with inflation. Thus, in the end, a failure to

develop economically, together with a limitation on Spain’s sources of wealth, led to

impoverishment and depopulation.

E. The colonization of Brazil

After its accidental discovery by Pedro Álvares Cabral, Brazil at first remained a

low priority for the Portuguese, and they were initially much slower than the Spaniards in

settling the new lands. At the time, Portugal’s involvement in trade with Asia and Africa

was extremely lucrative, while Brazil was merely an unexplored region that might not

prove to be very productive. A series of forts and small settlements were established

along the coast and settled by marginal individuals or, often, convicts, called degredados,

who were deported to the region. In order to settle the interior, extensive land grants

called donatary captaincies were provided to lesser nobles, who were given almost

unlimited power to rule them.

However, the Portuguese government moved to take more direct control in the

mid-sixteenth century as it became increasingly concerned about Spanish and French

(and eventually Dutch) encroachment and also became more interested in the potential

resources of its new colony. After initially searching for precious metals, the Portuguese

realized the value of brazilwood trees, which produced a valuable red dye and were

already sold in an extensive black market trade by the ships of other countries. In

addition, sugar, already produced on Portugal’s African islands, also became a valuable

crop and eventually became the basis of Brazil’s economy. Sugar was ultimately more

profitable than dye wood because it could be produced on plantations and was much

cheaper to transport. As sugar production grew, European settlement increased, and

capital flowed into the colony. Cities developed in the northeast coastal region, near most

of the engenhos (or combined sugar works and plantations), which both harvested and

processed their crop. The interior of Brazil remained relatively unpopulated.

As in Spanish territories, Catholic clergy tried to mitigate the treatment of Indians.

Jesuits strove to convert the indigenous peoples but also to protect them against the

depredations of slavery. They established a network of missions and converted entire

communities to Catholicism. Yet their efforts did not lead to long-term gains for the

Indians because of the devastation caused by disease. Initially, there were few Europeans,

and Brazilian natives were able to maintain cultural coherency. For example, in the

interior of central and southern Brazil, European men often controlled polygamous

households with several Indian wives and servants. Although such relationships were

unequal and exploitative, a sparse European population typically adapted to indigenous

society, and these households were often heavily influenced by Native American cultural

practices. Once Brazilians turned to the extensive enslavement of Africans, African

cultural norms were woven deeply into Brazilian society, while indigenous peoples and

their customs diminished or perished.

As sugar became the central industry in Brazil, huge numbers of enslaved

Africans began to arrive to work not only in the plantations but also as artisans and in

markets and factories. At first, Africans took intermediary roles as supervisors and skilled

craftspeople, but as the native population diminished, Africans worked in the positions

requiring the hardest labor as well. This large African presence had a significant effect on

Brazilian society and continues to influence it today.

F. Colonial settlements in northern America and the Caribbean

In the northern parts of the North American continent, the settlement patterns of

the French, English, and Dutch took a somewhat different shape than Spanish and

Portuguese continental settlements as a consequence of delayed colonization, awareness

of the previous Spanish experience, and the result of settling in colder climate zones with

diverse native populations. This was in contrast to colonies in the Caribbean islands and

along the Caribbean coast, where the settlement patterns were similar for various

European nations.

With the exception of Chabotto (Cabot)’s explorations under the English flag, the

Spanish were the first to arrive in the northern parts of North America, and for a time

they possessed the greatest span of territory in the Americas. Spain succeeded in ruling

most of South America, with the exception of Brazil and the Guianas, and it also

controlled Central America, though it lost Belize to the British in the nineteenth century.

In addition, it controlled the largest islands in the Caribbean, including Cuba, Hispaniola

until the French gained the western half in the late seventeenth century, Jamaica, and

Puerto Rico. In North America, Spain colonized Mexico, Florida, and the region that

would become the western United States. Spanish explorers were the first to reach most

of these territories, including Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who was the first European to

cross the Isthmus of Panama and see the Pacific Ocean in 1513; Juan Ponce de León,

who explored Florida the same year; and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who traveled

through the future southwestern United States in the 1530s, possibly getting as far west as

Arizona.

Nonetheless, during the late sixteenth century, England, France, and the

Netherlands began to compete for control over the remaining North American territories.

There were a number of incentives for colonization. The perception of tremendous

overseas wealth was a major factor, resulting in national competition to acquire new

territories that would continue to persist in later imperial rivalries. In addition, the

Spanish refused to allow the subjects of other countries to trade directly with Spanish

overseas territories. In reality, they were unable to prevent a very considerable

clandestine trade. However, this also served as an impetus for European countries to

establish their own territories. The new territories also promised other sorts of wealth,

including early plantation products such as tobacco and sugar; natural resources such as

furs or logwood (a Central American tree that yielded red dye); and the most desired

resource: precious metals. In addition, there was readily available land in the Americas,

which was scarce in Europe and made the Americas attractive to a wide variety of settlers

and their sponsors, including farmers; poor laborers; capitalist entrepreneurs; dissident

religious groups; and even governments seeking to expel what they saw as undesirable

populations of indigents, vagrants, criminals, and rebels.

While the French began settling the New World before the English, they

ultimately controlled far less territory. As early as 1524, the French Crown sent Giovanni

da Verrazano, an Italian explorer, to scout the North American coast, and a Frenchman,

Jacques Cartier, to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Soon there was a series of small

settlements primarily concerned with fishing and fur trading along the northern coastline.

In the 1560s, French Huguenots tried to establish a foothold in Florida but were swiftly

ousted by the Spanish. Northern settlements were more fortunate. The explorer Samuel

de Champlain established the colony of New France along the Saint Lawrence River in

1608, including the settlements of Canada, which included the cities of Quebec,

Montreal, Acadia and, very briefly, Newfoundland. In addition, in the 1660s and 1670s,

the explorer Robert de La Salle claimed a wide swath of territory along the Mississippi

River, reaching as far south as Louisiana, for France. The Company of New France

offered free land to immigrants, but the far northern land was uninviting, while much of

the continental interior remained unsettled. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) meant that

France had little attention to spend on its colonies. Meanwhile, the English were taking as

much land in North America as possible. Much territory in what is now Canada changed

hands several times. The colony of New France, though geographically large, was

sparsely settled, and by the mid-seventeenth century there were only about 2,000 French

settlers in New France in comparison with 40,000 in New England at the same time. In

addition to colonizing, the French engaged in black market trade with Spanish settlers in

the Caribbean and South America and in harassing Spanish and Portuguese ships along

the trade routes.

Other French settlements in the north included Port-Royal in Acadia, which was a

colony of small farmers. It was founded in the wake of the French Wars of Religion

(1562–98) and attracted many Huguenots – French Protestants – who hoped to escape

religious persecution of a much more acute level than what the English Puritans were to

suffer in England. Port-Royal was attacked in 1627 by the Scottish settlement of Nova

Scotia, and two years later the English defeated New France, but the resulting treaty

allowed France to control most of eastern Canada. The French also settled some

Caribbean islands, which proved to be more lucrative for them, taking the western part of

Hispaniola from the Spanish in 1664 and founding the colony of Saint-Domingue, which

became one of the wealthiest sugar colonies in the Americas, as well as colonizing much

of the Lesser Antilles, including Guadeloupe and other islands. In the eighteenth century,

the French also established settlements in what would be the southern United States in the

region of Louisiana. In 1624, the French began settling in French Guiana, and they also

began colonizing parts of Asia and small portions of Africa during the seventeenth

century.

In some ways, de Léry’s outlook was representative of French relations with the

Indians as a whole. Because the early economic basis of the northern French colonies

depended on mutually beneficial trade rather than on the extensive settlement of land or

the production of plantation products through the use of forced labor, and also because

Catholicism encouraged the conversion of the “heathen,” French relations with the

Indians were more peaceful than those of the Spanish or English. There were so few

French women in French territories that many French men formed relationships with

Native American women. While this was also the pattern in early Spanish territories and

in the Caribbean, the French government, faced with a small population of subjects in

North America, aimed to incorporate the Indians as subjects within a French polity and

actively encouraged mixed marriages, while the English discouraged them and the

Spanish and Portuguese merely tolerated them.

Although many countries established colonies in the north, it was the English,

who were somewhat insulated from much of the continental warfare of the late sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries, who managed to sweep to the fore. Indeed, English

colonization efforts were increased during the Interregnum period of the 1650s following

the wars of the previous decade. By the mid-seventeenth century, the English government

was willing to invest in colonization because their navigational technology had caught up

to Iberian standards, and the economic advantages of overseas imperialism were more

obvious than they had been during the previous century.

During the late sixteenth century, there were a number of small-scale expeditions

that aimed to explore or claim land, including Martin Frobisher’s explorations of the

Canadian coast in the 1570s, Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe in the same

decade, and attempts to sponsor colonization in the 1580s and 1590s in Guiana and the

Caribbean by Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert. The latter also laid English claim to

Newfoundland based on John Cabot’s initial landing there in the fifteenth century. At the

same time on the other side of the globe, the East India Company was establishing

trading posts on the Indian coast – the beginnings of extensive British colonization in

Asia.

There were significant differences between English and Spanish colonies. The

first Spanish conquistadors had arrived to townships in the Caribbean or densely settled

urban areas in Mexico and Peru. These early Spanish settlers were mainly single men

hoping to make their fortunes and return home, and they initially sought to enslave the

Native Americans and use their labor to cultivate the land, mine for metals, and obtain

other raw materials. The English, however, arrived to less densely settled areas, where

the native populations had already been struck by disease. They knew that extensive

native slavery was not feasible, and thus English settlers consisted not only of single men

but also of families with servants that hoped to acquire their own farmland. Although

these settlers hoped for gold and plentiful crops, most of the territories that they

colonized possessed few precious metals, and much of their land did not possess a

climate suitable for bountiful crop production. Exceptions to the latter included the

southern colonies such as Virginia, the Caribbean, British Guiana (Guyana), and Belize.

In addition, English colonies tended to rigidly separate whites from blacks or natives,

whereas in the Spanish, Portuguese, and French territories, intermarriage was

comparatively disregarded.

The Dutch were relative latecomers to America. In addition to some of the

impediments facing other northern European countries, the Netherlands were still part of

the Holy Roman Empire until they were able to effectively throw off Spanish rule by

1581 during the Dutch Revolt. When they did begin to colonize in the Atlantic, they were

equally focused on founding colonies in other parts of the world. Most of the Dutch

settlements in the Atlantic were relatively small and focused more on trade than on

settlement. Dutch colonization in the Atlantic was backed by the Dutch West India

Company, which found a major source of revenue in engaging in trade with existing

colonies of other nations and also in harassing Spanish shipping. The Dutch were

successful in seizing the entire Spanish silver fleet in 1628, and with their large merchant

fleet, they dominated the Atlantic trade routes through most of the seventeenth century,

especially the lucrative sugar and slave trades, despite the trade monopolies imposed by

the governments of other countries.

One consequence of monopolies and competition was the growth of piracy. It was

very difficult for governments to control colonial trade, resulting in a burgeoning black

market, and the appearance of independent contractors in slaves and colonial products. In

addition, early modern governments regularly licensed privateers, called buccaneers in

the Caribbean, to raid the vessels of other countries, especially during wartime. For

instance, Captain Henry Morgan made his fortune in semi-legitimate attacks against

Spanish colonies, was knighted, and rose to Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. In practice,

however, privateers were indistinguishable from pirates from the point of view of those

they attacked. Privateers were inherently difficult to control, and privateering was only a

small step from plundering ships of all nations indiscriminately. The growth of piracy,

especially by English buccaneers, became a growing problem, and the English

government took increasing measures to curb it, essentially succeeding during the early

eighteenth century as the size of the British naval fleet greatly increased. Nonetheless,

there were resurgences of piracy into the nineteenth century, especially during wartime

while national militaries were preoccupied, and privateering reemerged. The age of

piracy was definitively ended by the invention of steam-powered ships in the mid-

nineteenth century.

In addition to national origin, it is fruitful to look at the economic basis of the

American colonies in North America and the Caribbean, because in many ways this is a

more accurate way to categorize differences between colonies. In most cases, the initial

aim for colonies was not necessarily to establish the livelihoods of individuals but to

provide a profit for investors. In the early days, many held naïve beliefs that the Americas

were a land of plenty that would produce profits without much hardship. Among the most

sought-after commodities were precious metals, but these proved to be scarce, with the

exception of the Spanish silver mines. Thereafter, successful colonies, usually after much

hardship, developed products that they could sell on the Atlantic market. In addition to

direct profits, they produced profits for the state in taxes and also served as markets for

manufactured products from Europe. Some seventeenth-century colonies based their

livelihoods on selling natural raw materials, such as furs; fish, which was a dietary staple

when dried; timber for shipbuilding and barrel staves; and logwood. Others focused on

producing plantation products, including the major products of tobacco and sugar, as well

as coffee, cocoa, rice, indigo and, after 1800, cotton.

Although all Atlantic powers held Caribbean territories at one time, their

Caribbean colonies were strikingly similar in economy and governance because of their

dependence on plantation products, primarily sugar. Initially, most of the Caribbean

islands were under the control of the Spanish, especially the larger ones like Cuba and

Hispaniola. English and French colonizers thus concentrated on the smaller islands, in

particular those initially inhabited by Caribs, who had often successfully driven off the

first wave of Spanish colonization. By then the Spanish had turned to the colonization of

the North and South American mainlands. Some of the islands, like Barbados, were

depopulated when they were finally colonized – in this case, by the English in 1624, a

consequence of Indian populations being kidnapped by or fleeing from Spanish slave-

raiding expeditions and the spread of European diseases.

As sugar became more omnipresent in Europe, it had an increasingly significant

effect on the economies of European countries and on ordinary people’s lives around the

Atlantic world. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz, who has written extensively about the

history of sugar, has named sugar one of the “proletarian hunger-killers,” which also

included coffee, tea, rum, and tobacco – all plantation products produced by slave labor.1

These are all stimulants or drug-like food substitutes which provide empty or no calories

but enabled capitalist expansion during the Industrial Revolution by allowing workers to

work longer with less food. Thus, sugar, like cotton, tied slave labor in the colonies with

capitalist production in industrialized areas in Western Europe, the United States,

Canada, and parts of Latin America. Sugar produced a greater amount of human misery

than any other product in the Atlantic, a combination of the fact that it was the most

important slave-produced crop in the Atlantic and that the sugar plantations featured the

harshest conditions for slaves. Even when slavery was officially ended in the Atlantic,

sugar cultivation continued to take its toll on human lives as the labor force on sugar

plantations shifted to indentured laborers from Asia, whose lives were little different

from those of slaves.

Module 4_Week 4_Colonial Exploration and Growth_Atlantic World

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