Colonial Americas
Overview
Statewide Dual Credit Modern World History: Unit 2, Lesson 3
Discussion of the colonization of the Americas by European powers, focusing on the Spanish, French, and English detailing the interactions between colonists and Native Americans, the economic systems established in the colonies, and the lasting impacts of colonization on the Americas.
Spanish Colonial America
Before the arrival of Europeans, powerful Native American empires and city-states dominated large swathes of Central and South America. For instance, from the 1100s to the 1500s, the Aztecs (who called themselves Mexica) moved into the Central Valley of Mexico, conquered other city-states, and created a tributary empire. The Aztecs created vibrant commercial networks, intricate artwork and a complex religion that featured human sacrifice. The Incan Empire arose in Peru at roughly the same time, tying together large cities through an intricate system of roads that allowed for the rapid deployment of trade and armed forces. Yet for all of their strengths, the Aztecs and Incas fell quickly to Spanish conquistadors equipped with steel armor, lances and swords, firearms, horses and epidemic diseases for which many Native Americans had no resistance.
Beginning in the 1500s, Spanish conquistadors asserted their will over millions of Aztecs, Mayans and Incas. Conquistadors such as Hernan Cortes (1485-1547) and Francisco Pizarro (1478-1541) were not social revolutionaries looking to create new societies in the Americas. They were mercenaries seeking “gold, glory and God.” In particular, they sought to extract wealth from their conquered subjects and return to Spain as rich men. Following waves of colonists, merchants and priests attempted to destroy traditional Native American cultures, or merged them with Iberian Catholic institutions, customs and ideas. Facing continued resistance from Mayans in Central America, Incas in Peru, Mapuche in Patagonia, and Pueblos in New Mexico, Spanish officials created systems of fortified missions such as Santa Fe and San Francisco to convert and train Native Americans to assume positions in Spanish colonial society.
It fell to subsequent generations of colonial administrators and priests to create a colonial social order on the ruins of the Aztec, Mayan and Incan states. They began by creating the encomienda system by which individual conquistadors received land grants buttressed by the unfree labor of Native Americans. Franciscan and Dominican Priests also operated missions throughout Nueva España designed to function as forts and imperial outposts and as community centers where Native Americans could receive conversion and training in industrial skills. In 1542, Dominican Priest and former conquistador Bartolome de las Casas (1484- 1566) published A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, which condemned the harshness of the encomienda system.
Spotlight On | BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS
Born into a family of Spanish merchants in 1484, Bartolome de Las Casas became a secular priest in 1507. He participated in the Spanish conquest of Cuba but became horrified by the brutal ways in which Spaniards treated the conquered Taino Indians. Following the publication of his A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542), de Las Casas at argued in Valladolid, Spain, from 1550-1551, that Native Americans had souls capable of salvation and thus could not be treated as enslaved people. The Spanish government reformed the encomienda system and created the Juzgado General de Indios (General Indian Court) to protect Native Americans from the worst abuse of the colonial rule. Full-blooded Native Americans and African Americans remained at the margins of Spanish colonial society.
Although some Catholic Priests became champions of Indian rights, many others viewed Native Americans as heathens who could only be saved through conversion to Spanish culture and Roman Catholicism. They began by destroying thousands of Native American codices, such as the Mayan Popul Vuh, which recorded the creation myth, deities and customs of K’iche Mayans. They raised Native American temples and built Christian cathedrals on their ruins. Well-versed in the techniques used by the Spanish Inquisition, Catholic priests used physical torture and psychological intimidation to forcibly convert millions of Aztecs, Mayans and Incas to Christianity.
Spotlight On | TONATZIN CHURUBUSCO
Employing brutal methods against Native Americans, Spanish priests proved much more successful in gaining converts than Protestant ministers in the English North American colonies. Many Mayans and Incans accepted conversion because they felt baptism might protect them from the European-borne diseases ravaging their communities. Others saw the adoption of Spanish culture and transformation as stepping stones for entry into Spanish trading networks and colonial society. Many Native Americans empathized with the image of a savior figure whose suffering resembled their own. Many Native Americans selectively combine aspects of their Native American religions with Catholicism to create a hybrid faith. For instance, Aztecs combined traditions associated with the Corn Goddess Tonantzin with the cult of the Virgin Mary to create a blended religious figure.
Within a generation of conquest, many conquistadors married into Native American families who had lost members due to disease and warfare. For example, Hernan Cortes and his native translator Malinche (c. 1500-c. 1529) gave birth to a son, Martín Cortés el Mestizo (1522-1595), who later became a Spanish nobleman. Latin American society thus developed castas (or caste system). Peninsulares, Spanish-born whites, represented the large landholders, government officials and church leaders. Beneath them were the creoles, white Spaniards born in the colonies. Creoles were usually small-time ranchers, low-level government functionaries and friars who worked with Native Americans. Mestizos, those of European and Native American descent, traditionally performed as craftsmen, merchants and intermediaries. Full-blooded Native Americans (Indios), African Americans (Negros), and their children (Zambos) served as itinerant laborers, peasants, miners and enslaved people. By the mid-1500s, the wealth of Central and South America had made Spain the wealthiest nation in Europe. Spanish officials generally taxed wealth imported to Spain at a rate of 20%, which became known as the Quintano Real (literally “the king’s fifth”). In addition to gold, silver and gems looted from Native American temples and palaces, the silver mines of San Luis Potosi in Bolivia provided a steady stream of precious metals to Madrid. However, the cost of such mineral wealth came at the expense of millions of lives of enslaved Native Americans and Africans who died in the brutal extraction process common in the Potosi mines. Sugar, coffee and tobacco plantations in the Caribbean likewise provided incredible profits for landholders and Spanish officials but did so at the cost of millions of Taino and West African lives.
Beginning in 1503, a governmental committee known as the Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) controlled Spanish migration to the Americas. The Spanish Crown appointed Captain-Generals to invade, hold and administer new provinces, which would then be added to the empire. Beginning in the 1520s, the newly created Council of the Indies began to regulate colonial trade with the mother country and define the legal role of other colonies within the empire.
As Spanish conquistadors expanded into new territories, the Spanish crown converted such land into provinces and dispatched governors to run each region. By the 1600s, the provinces of Viceroyalty of Peru and Río de la Plata and the governates of Cuba, New Castile, New Toledo and New Andalusia had been created. Within these provinces, some leading Aztec and Incan families were granted the title and rights of nobles in return for their compliance with the colonial hierarchy. Viceroys and royally appointed governors strictly controlled provinces from the top down, limited only by Audencias, committees of leading colonists and imperial officials, who oversaw the administration of the colonial judicial systems. Viceroys, in turn, appointed corregidores to collect taxes and settle disputes at the local level. Corregidores often worked with local alcaldias (mayors) and cabildos (town councils) to keep the peace on the provincial frontiers.
Portuguese Colonial America
While the Spanish conquered large swathes of North and South America, Portuguese explorers concentrated on the area of Brazil. With less manpower and resources to devote to colonization, Portuguese settlers quickly intermarried with Native Americans. Their descendants became known as mamelucos in Brazil and mestizos in Spanish-speaking regions. Both Portuguese and Spanish colonies profited from large plantation systems, especially those that focused on sugarcane. The big agricultural estates were initially run by an encomienda system that later gave way to the hacienda system. Some areas were also rich in gold and silver mines.
The hacienda system focused on cultivating a portion of the estate for a limited market. In this way, they were often self-sufficient. Beyond economic profit, haciendas conferred social status and political influence upon their owners. The labor force on haciendas primarily consisted of Indigenous peoples, theoretically employed as wage earners. However, in practice, many laborers were trapped in a cycle of debt, reliant on loans or advances from their employers. This system effectively bound them to the land.
French Colonial America adapted from Statewide Dual Credit World History | CC By-SA
In North America the French established two huge colonies, each along a major North American river. The first of the two was New France founded along the St. Lawrence River. The second was Louisiana with the Mississippi River as its axis. The French, like the English, established their first lasting settlements in the early seventeenth century. Division over the Reformation in the sixteenth century hindered both English and French efforts to explore and settle North America. During the last third of the sixteenth century, religious divisions between Catholics and Huguenots, embodied in a succession of religious wars, nearly tore apart France; this prevented the government from committing resources to the construction of a colonial empire in the Americas. With the conclusion of religious hostilities in France in 1598, the French government under Henry IV could devote more resources to the establishment of a permanent, if small, French presence in present-day eastern Canada.
During that period, the latter half of the sixteenth century, fishermen dominated the French presence in the St Lawrence River valley and coast of eastern Canada. The growth of French fishing in the northwestern Atlantic led to the establishment of winter settlements, the development of a fur trade, and more contacts with indigenous peoples, these activities did not require an extensive colonial presence.
New France
The single most important individual in the early development of New France was Samuel de Champlain, a partially enigmatic figure who dedicated his energies to seeing that New France thrived as a colony and not just a collection of outposts. Founded in 1608, Quebec was the first settlement of New France, and it has lasted to the present day. Over the next forty years French colonists founded Trois Rivieres in 1634 and Montreal in 1642. Those two settlements, along with Quebec, would become the three small urban centers of a slowly growing New France. The original focus of New France and Louisiana was the fur trade. The French government also made modest efforts to encourage migrants to settle for the purpose of farming, in order to establish self-sufficiency.
The original political, religious, and social structures of New France were taken from those of early modern and medieval France, partly rooted in that nation’s feudal institutions, practices, and structures. The original seigneurial system for land distribution was taken from the feudal system of land tenure in France. As part of this system seigneurs held title to landed estates. The lands of these estates were distributed to settlers, known as habitants, for the purpose of farming. Remnants of this system survived into the nineteenth century.
The fur trade required the French colonists to interact with indigenous peoples of the region, both through diplomacy and warfare. The fur traders, settlers, missionaries, and government officials of New France developed a complex set of relationships with these people that were shaped by assorted and antagonistic interests. Their first interactions were with the Huron and the Iroquois. By the mid-seventeenth century the withdrawal of the Huron and Iroquois from the St. Lawrence River valley opened new opportunities for French immigrants in fur trade and farming. Regardless, the colonial population continued to grow slowly because of the distance of the colony from France, the climate, and the perception of limited economic opportunities.
English Colonial America adapted from Statewide Dual Credit World History | CC By-SA
The English model of colonization brought key elements of the Spanish, French, and Dutch colonies together in one approach. One of the critical components of the English colonization models is the lack of cohesion among the colonies. This lack of cohesion would lead to challenges and future rebellions between the English and their colonial worlds. The English seemed to be the most interested in both gaining territory and gaining money. The English approach to the North American colonies is one that is centered around hedonistic capitalism and religious freedoms.
The English were the last European country to begin to colonize during the first wave of colonization. Partly due to the lack of resources and technology that other Europeans had, the English had a very difficult time in establishing a colonial presence. The Treaty of Tordesillas posed a significant challenge for the English colonists. This treaty divided the world between Spain and Portugal, excluding other European nations. Since the treaty was endorsed by the Pope, the English were reluctant to defy the Catholic Church to establish their own colonies.
One of the critical differences between the English and other European powers was the English use of the joint-stock companies. Joint-stock companies were formed to fund and manage colonies in the New World. Investors pooled their resources to share the risks and profits of colonial ventures, one notable example of a joint-stock company was the Virginia Company, which established Jamestown in 1607.
Traveling to the Americas was difficult, expensive, and extremely dangerous. By using joint-stock companies, this risk was spread out among many shareholders which made the risk to any individual much lower. This approach today would be called a stock, and many modern U.S. companies are financed through buying and selling stocks. The use of joint-stock companies not only spread the risks and profits of voyages but also made investors increasingly wealthy by sharing the rewards from successful ventures.
Based on reports from the Spanish explorers, English settlers in the Virginia expected to find large indigenous groups. Probably because the diseases introduced during the Spanish colonial period had decimated the indigenous population, this was not the case. Early English settlers remarked that the American landscape was very empty and devoid of life. The groups that they did find were local bands of Powhatans that were a part of the Algonquin indigenous groups. The Powhatans were friendly to the English and showed the settlers how to farm and grow local foods. The English, who were more interested in gold and expansion, thinking that the local Powhatans would be the basis of their new English empire, wanted the indigenous populations to do the work to grow the food. Realizing this, the Powhatans quickly left the English after demonstrations of how to grow their own food.
The majority of the first English settlers were males, like the Spanish colonization model; however, unlike the Spanish, the English were not interested in starting families with the indigenous populations. The English maintained a very distinct separation between themselves and the indigenous populations. The English were only interested in expansion which meant that the Powhatans had to defend their homes and ways of life if they were to survive against the English settlement.
The English system of race was heavily influenced by their historic relationships in England and would have a significant influence on future colonization. The English had a very different historic relationship with race than other European colonizers. For example, the Spanish invasion in 711 CE of the Berbers from Northern Africa had a profound impact on the Spanish integration of diverse populations into their society. The English, on the other hand, were invaded by other Europeans throughout their history. This has a profound impact on the English understanding of race and ethnicity. As the English were expanding throughout the world in the Early Modern period, they had a difficult time integrating others, such as African and indigenous populations, into the English society. For example, the English did not integrate the indigenous into their colonial society in Jamestown. Instead, the indigenous populations were pushed to the outside of the English system. The English would take lands and break treaties with the indigenous populations. The mistreatment of the indigenous population would only intensify as the English traveled throughout the world and continued this separatist approach. Throughout this period worldwide, the relationship of power between the English and other populations they come in contact with was an either/or situation; the individual is either English, or they do not have any political or economic power. The treatment of the Afro-English populations was also demonstrated in the 17th century of exclusion. The English would carry these ideas far beyond the North American shores, into Africa and the Indian subcontinent during subsequent colonization.