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CHAPTER 19 – EARLY LATIN AMERICA
I.
II.
Iberian Society
a. The Iberian Peninsula consisted of three kingdoms from the removal of the Muslims up until the
mid-15th century.
i. Portugal was established on the coast
ii. The Kingdom of Aragon was in Eastern Spain
iii. The Kingdom of Castile was in the center of the Peninsula
b. Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile began to unify the continent after the last Muslim
kingdom, Granada, fell in 1492.
i. With the Muslims gone, Isabella ordered all of the Jews out of the country as well.
ii. In addition, the rulers now had the ability to fund exploration.
c. Iberian Traditions transferred
i. Living in cities
ii. Patriarchal family
iii. Slavery
iv. Professional bureaucracy
v. Catholic Religion – and close link between church and state
Conquest
a. Three periods
i. First – conquest: 1492-1570
1. administration and economy established
2. human destruction and creation
3. immigration, commerce, and exploitation of native populations
ii. Second – consolidation and maturity: 1570-1700
1. colonial institutions took their form
iii. Third – reform and reorganization: 1800s
1. seeds of dissatisfaction and revolt
b. Two-pronged attack
i. Mexico
1. The Aztecs
a. Led by Hernan Cortez in 1519 who heard of a great inland empire.
b. Attacked towns on the outskirts of the Aztec Empire until he reached
Tenochtitlan, where he captured and killed Moctezuma II.
c. In 1521, after having to retreat to the coast and fight back again, Tenochtitlan
was defeated and replaced by Mexico City.
2. Central Mexico became New Spain – and then they moved south towards central
America and north towards north central Mexico.
ii. South America
1. The Incas
a. Led by Francisco Pizarro with 200 Spaniards and some Indian allies.
b. Defeated Cuzco in 1533, but instead established their major city in Lima,
more on the coast.
2. Chile
a. Pedro de Valdivia conquered central Chile and set up Santiago in 1541.
3. Buenos Aires was abandoned due to resistance and set up again in 1580.
c. North America
i. Francisco Vazquez de Coronado explored the southwestern United States as far as Kansas in
1540-1542.
d. The Caribbean
i. Spain’s first colony was on the island of Santo Domingo (Hispaniola, 1493).
III.
IV.
ii. Soon after, they established Puerto Rico (1508), Cuba (1511), and by 1513 they controlled
Panama and had explored the northern coast of South America.
iii. The Taino people (native populations of the Caribbean) were reduced to serfs on
encomiendas (plantations).
1. Disease rapidly wiped out these populations, though, until sugar and slaves began a
resurgence.
2. Abuses of Native American populations led to some people attempting to end those
abuses.
a. Bartolome de Las Casas
iv. Cities were styled after Roman models – grid systems with city government and religion at
the center.
1. Administrative institutions were established modeled after Spanish legalism and
modified by American experience.
2. The Church was also introduced – a Cathedral being built on Hispaniola by 1530.
v. Spanish women soon immigrated as well – changing the climate to settlement rather than
conquest
The Conquerors
a. Most conquerors were men who both hoped to better themselves and convert the “heathens” at the
same time.
b. Many would join a group of men to explore and receive a share of what was found.
i. Some would grant more to their friends and relatives – leaving some people unhappy and
able to go on their own expeditions.
c. Some women would explore, but that was rare (Ines Suarez helped to conquer Chile).
d. Ability to conquer
i. Horses, firearms, steel weapons were able to overtake the stone weapons of the Natives.
ii. Leadership – effective and brutal
iii. Disease
iv. Internal rivalship among the Native Americans divided them when faced with the Europeans
e. Some conquerors believed that the conquest was necessary and that the Native Americans were less
than human and deserved to be used like slaves (Juan Gines de Sepulveda).
f. Others believed that the Native Americans had done nothing wrong to the Spaniards like the
Muslims, and therefore, they should not be treated badly and should only convert by peaceful means
(Bartolome de Las Casas).
The Destruction and Transformation of American Indian Societies
a. Population
i. Population loss was one of the greatest effects of European contact in the Americas.
1. Population decreased as a result of war, destruction, slaving, mistreatment, and above
all, disease.
a. Central Mexico decreased in population from 25 million to 2 million in 61
years.
b. Peru decreased in population from 10 million to 1.5 million in 60 years.
b. Exploitation
i. Traditional religion was banned, but nobility was not because it did not interfere with
Spanish goals.
1. These nobles became middlemen between the rulers and the main population.
ii. Enslaving Native Americans was banned by the mid-16th century, so they used two other
ways to extract labor from Native Americans.
1. Encomiendas – Native Americans given to individuals as laborers – a type of serfdom
without the protections: practice eliminated by the 1620s (rulers didn’t want a
challenge to their power, colonists wanted land instead of labor to show wealth).
2. Mitas – Native Americans were used by the state to work on state projects – churches,
roads, mines, etc.
V.
VI.
a. Natives are paid a wage, but abuses are common.
Colonial Economies and Governments
a. Economy is highly agricultural – 90% live and work on the land.
b. But for Spain – the mining economy is the most important.
i. Gold important from the Caribbean, Colombia, and Chile, but silver is far more important
than gold.
c. Silver
i. Potosi in what is now Bolivia was the largest mine of all – 80% of Peruvian silver.
ii. Zacatecas in Mexico was also very large.
iii. Mines use slaves when possible, but wage laborers soon worked in large numbers.
iv. Mining was primitive until a new technique using mercury was discovered in the 1580s.
1. Huancavelica was a huge mercury discovery in Peru – allowed for Peru to become
one of the premier silver producers in South America.
v. Taxes on the silver production were 20%.
vi. Other areas were also stimulated since mine workers had to be fed and the mines supplied.
1. Farms developed to raise cattle, sheep, and wheat.
d. Haciendas and Villages
i. Since Spanish America is predominantly an agrarian society, land was attractive (and more
available with the declining Native American population.
ii. Haciendas, with primarily Native American or mixed ethnicity workers, developed which
produced goods primarily for domestic use.
1. Sugar and Cacao were exported, but silver was still the most important.
e. Industry and Commerce
i. The Americas were basically self-sufficient – depending on Europe only for luxury items.
ii. Only Spaniards were allowed to trade with the Americas, and all trade went through two
cities – Seville and, later, Cadiz.
iii. A Board of Trade was established that regulated all trade.
iv. A merchant guild, known as the consulado controlled goods shipped to America and the
silver that was brought home in return.
1. They also worked to keep prices high in the colonies.
v. Goods were kept safe from pirates and foreign rivals by sailing in a convoy protected by
galleons – or armed ships.
1. Heavily fortified ports such as Havana and Cartagena (Colombia) kept treasure ships
safe until they headed out to sea.
2. Individual ships were sometimes lost to storms or other natural disasters, but only one
fleet was lost (to the Dutch in 1627).
Ruling an Empire
a. The Line of Demarcation was set by the Pope in 1493, separating the lands of Portugal and Spain.
b. However, Portugal protested enough to get the line moved 800 miles to the West with the Treaty of
Tordesillas in 1494, which clarified the spheres of influence by giving Brazil and everything East of
the line to Portugal and everything to the West to Spain.
c. Spanish law was used in the colonies, the Recopiliacion in 1681 was a codification of the law.
d. The king ruled through the Council of the Indies.
i. Two viceroyalties were formed, one in Mexico and one in Lima, Peru.
ii. These were subdivided into 10 judicial divisions controlled by superior courts called
audiencias.
e. The clergy were also very important in society.
i. Catholic orders such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits carried out conversion and
established missions to help the converted.
ii. Some priests believed that Native American culture should be preserved, and tried to write
Native American histories.
1. Oppositely, some believed that all Native American culture needed to be suppressed
to help with conversion.
iii. The Church also helped the economy by building churches and employing architects and
artists.
iv. The addition of the printing press allowed for religious material to be reproduced which
stimulated intellectual life.
v. The Inquisition was established to make sure that the Catholic religion was practiced
correctly, or that it was orthodox.
1. The Church prosecuted and sometimes executed Jews, Protestants, and any other
religious dissenters.
VII.
VIII.
Brazil
a. Pedro Alvares Cabral landed on the coast of Brazil and found that Brazil was rich in dyewood trees.
i. Dyewood trees have a red dye that was difficult to find.
ii. Brazil, for 30 years, was left just to mine dyewood by using Native American laborers, until
the French began to put pressure on the Portuguese colony.
iii. In 1532, Portugal began to settle on the coast of Brazil, creating captaincies that resembled a
feudal system.
b. In 1549, the capital of Salvador was created, and Jesuit missionaries arrived.
c. Sugar
i. Sugar is extremely land and labor intensive, needing to be grown and cut down in the fields,
then taken to the mill and heated until crystals form.
ii. Brazil was the first plantation colony, where sugar was the main export.
d. Society
i. Although whites were at the top, a growing “middle class” began to develop of mixed blood
mestizos and mulattos.
e. Brazil became dependent on Portugal because it had no printing presses or universities.
i. In addition, it was economically dependent as well, considering its’ main production is sugar
which cannot sustain life.
f. Gold
i. The Dutch took northeastern Brazil while at war with Spain, and controlled its sugar
production. This severely hurt the Portuguese economy.
ii. In addition, the British, French, and Dutch had established colonies in the Caribbean, and had
begun producing sugar, making the price of sugar fall and hurting the Portuguese economy
further.
iii. Because of these hard times, Paulistas (hardy backwoodsmen) began to search the interior for
wealth, which they found in 1695 in an area that came to be called Minas Gerais (General
Mines).
1. People rushed to the mountains to find gold, and many brought slaves to work in the
mines, as they had on the plantations.
2. Rio de Janeiro became the capital of Brazil in 1763 because it was the closest port.
3. Portugal began to be able to buy more manufactured goods for itself and its colonies
because of the newfound gold.
Multiracial Societies
a. Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans had all been brought together under different conditions:
Europeans as conquerors, Native Americans as conquered, and Africans as slaves.
b. Some mixing of the nationalities occurred, creating mestizos – Native American and European mix,
and mulattos – African and European mix.
i. This transformed into the Sociedad d castas, where Europeans were at the top, slaves were at
the bottom, and all the mixed nationalities were in the middle.
ii. The mixed people tended to be small shopkeepers or farmers, and their population increased
as time went on.
IX.
iii. Soon, there was a distinction between those Europeans born in Europe and those born in the
New World.
1. Those born in Europe were called Peninsulares, and those born in the New World
were called Creoles.
a. Since bloodlines were always suspect if you were born in the Americas,
Creoles were always a step behind the Peninsulares.
b. Discrimination of the Creoles one of the factors that led to independence.
c. Other social aspects
i. Fathers had authority over children until they were 25.
ii. Women were subordinate to their husbands.
iii. Lower-class women could sometimes own a small business, or work in the fields or factories.
iv. Marriages were arranged, but women held her dowry and were able to inherit.
th
18 Century Reforms
a. Amigos del pais, or friends of the country, began to meet in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies to
discuss material reforms – not political.
b. Spain
i. England, France, and Holland became increasingly powerful in the 17th century, and began to
raid Spanish territory for treasure, and also began to settle in Spanish territory.
1. Jamaica was taken by the English in 1654.
2. Hispaniola (Haiti) was taken by the French in 1697.
3. These countries began to produce sugar, which hurt the Spanish economy.
ii. Spain began to lose control of its colonies.
1. Silver ships became irregular and silver payments declined.
2. As the government became weak, aristocrats began to take control, yet were very
corrupt.
iii. Charles II of Spain died without an heir, and a Bourbon (relative of the King of France) was
named successor.
1. This began the War of Spanish Succession, which ended in allowing the Bourbon
control of Spain.
2. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) allowed France commercial access to the Spanish port
of Seville, and allowed England to trade slaves in Spanish America.
iv. Bourbon Reforms
1. The Bourbons, and especially Charles III, urged for strong central government to
encourage economic, administrative, and military reforms.
a. Any challenges to government were squashed.
i. The Jesuits were removed from Spain because of their close ties with
the Church.
b. French bureaucracy was introduced, taxation was tightened, and a new navy
was built.
v. France and Spain were allies, and when France and England went to war during the Seven
Years War (1756-1763), Spain’s colonies were obvious targets for the English.
1. Florida and Havana were both taken.
2. Spain began to fortify weak areas, such as California.
vi. Spain began to take state control of certain industries, such as tobacco and gunpowder.
c. Portugal
i. The Marquis of Pombal controlled Portugal at this time.
ii. Similar to Spain, Portugal began to crush any opposition.
1. The Jesuits were expelled from Portugal in 1759.
iii. Reforms were aimed at the following.
1. Eliminating contraband, gold smuggling, and tax evasion.
2. Stimulate agriculture – new crops, more labor.
3. Slavery was abolished in Portugal to allow more slaves to be brought to the New
World.
d. Reforms, Reactions, and Revolts
i. New ways of governing as the European powers took more control was unappreciated by the
colonies.
1. In present day Colombia, a revolt against government control of tobacco and liquor
consumption gave way to the Comunero Revolt in 1781.
a. Ended after concessions were given.
2. In Peru, Tupac Amaru revolted against the viceroyalty for almost 3 years before he
was captured and killed.