Post Conquest
And Early Colonial Period
Pre-hispanic Economies
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Food production
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Immediate consumption
Short-term storage
Barter/exchange economies
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Shells, feathers, obsidian, metal, coca, cacao,
cotton
Sometimes elaborate (Incas)
Taxes as tribute (labor)
 No capital accumulation
 Use of natural world for “technological
innovation” and manufacturing
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Representations of Early colonial
geopolitical order
1.
2.
3.
4.
Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494
Encomienda and mita systems
Forced Christianity
Colonial Governance:
Viceroyalties, audiencias
Capitanías
5. Mining and Agriculture
6. Networks of trade and transportation
1. Treaty of Tordesillas 1494,
Pope Alexander VI
2. Repartimiento/ encomienda / mita

Social/economic institution
 Indians granted to encomenderos
(Spaniards)
 Granted to Spanish lords
 Forced to learn Spanish, convert to
Catholicism
 Encomendero demanded tribute
(labor)

Resulted in cultural destruction

Eventually abolished because it turned into
virtual slavery

This institution
served to create
class divide

Lower class:
majority

Upper class:
wealthy few
3. Forced Catholicism
Pope gave Spanish monarchs great power (reward for driving Moors
out, acquiring land and wealth for Church)
1. Royal Patronage: Crown could approve or
disapprove of all Clergy appointments to new
conquered lands
2. Crown could collect and disperse tithe
Spanish Catholic Church in LA was a political institution
 Clergy were religious and civil authorities
•
Clergy were part of aristocracy; had to be white
• Reversed in 18th Century
the “religious conquest”
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•
•
•
Indoctrinate & baptize indigenous population
Teach Spanish
Destroy native shrines; replace with Virgin Mary and crosses
Language barrier assisted conquest
•However, there was a degree of tolerance of
old ways as long as people were outwardly
converted; allowed folk traditions to flourish in
private
Strategy of building churches on top of Indian sites:
symbolic significance
Church on pyramid of
Tepanapa in Cholula, Puebla,
Mexico
Church of Santo Domingo on top of Incan
Temple of Sun in Cuzco, sacred city
4. Colonial Governance
Council of the Indies (1524 – 1834)
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appointed by the Crown
6-10 members
Produced legislation
Acted as a Court
Political entities imposing control over new
territories
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Viceroys: ruling powers in Spain and Portugal
Viceroyalties: their territories
New Spain (Mexico City)
Peru (Lima)
La Plata (Asunción, later
Buenos Aires)
New Granada (Bogotá)
Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)
Audiencias

Courts

Within the
viceroyalties
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Governed
smaller areas
capitanías
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Portuguese claims: based on exploration
and treaty rights
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King divided Brazilian territory into 12
large land grants (capitanías)
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Each controlled by a noble proprietor
(responsible for development)
Failed system
Most were transferred to Crown in 1549
Some success in sugar cane production
5. Mining and Agriculture
Gold and Silver

Columbus returned to Spain with GOLD

To prove lands were worth exploration
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Gold and silver mines in central Andes

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Native American labor
1500 – 1800:Colonial Era economy

Spanish colonies produced 90,000 tons silver
 80% total world production
 Mexico (Zacatecas, Guanajuato)
 Bolivia (Potosí)
Heavy human toll
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Very hard labor
Not acclimatized to
high altitudes
Mercury poisoning

After 1550 in patio
process (silver
extraction process)
Representations of Early colonial
geopolitical order
1.
2.
3.
4.
Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494
Encomienda and mita systems
Forced Christianity
Colonial Governance:
Viceroyalties, audiencias
Capitanías
5. Mining and Agriculture
6. Networks of trade and transportation
Gold,Silver Wealth
did not reach mass of
population
“the Spaniards owned the cow but others
drank the milk”: Crown was deeply in debt
and it owed its silver to German, Genoese,
Flemish and Spanish bankers.

Visible in churches,
palaces, monasteries
in Spain and Portugal,
and the Americas
Mid-17th Century, silver was more than
99% of mineral wealth exported from
Spanish Americas
Gold

Brazil
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(Minas Gerais) gold-production center early
1700s
Produced 65% of gold from Latin America
Also raised cattle
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Provided meat for Portuguese ships on way to East
Indies
Colombia

Important gold producer
Agriculture

Indians and Mestizos practiced subsistence
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Indigenous crops & methods
Commercial agriculture (selling commodities
for markets)
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Stimulated by ports, towns, mines
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Directed by Spain
Used many introduced Old World plants and animals
Little went to Spain
 Except sugar, hides, dyes
Mining and Agriculture linked
economically, geographically
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Main market for commercial farming and
livestock was mines

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Tallow (candles), wine and brandy, meat,
mules, hides
As mines developed in Mexico…

Bajío of Guanajuato and Valley of Guadalajara
became wheat and cattle areas
Sugar Cane
An Old World plant
 introduced into
Americas by Spanish and
Portuguese
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Initially, Portuguese colonial
economy based on sugar

Monocultures on large coastal
tracts or lowlands
 Needed water
 Needed forest for fuel
 Large labor force of slaves
Atlantic Slave trade through time

80% of slaves
went to sugargrowing areas
Haciendas / Estancias
Large estates used in production of materials (ag, livestock,
rope, sugar, lumber)
 Plantations
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Connected rural economies to
urban centers
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Compact group of buildings
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Produced for local market, not overseas trade
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House
Worker huts
Chapel
Corrals
granaries
Henequen in northern Yucatán
By late 1700s, dominant form of rural settlement
Hacienda in Yucatan still in operation
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Estancia
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Similar system but term is usually used in
South America to refer to ranches
Latifundios

Large landholdings owned by elite Latin
families
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Prestige
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Private land could be acquired by a
merced (royal grant)
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Large (5000 acres) or small
6. Network of Urban Centers
based on mining
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Cheapest way to move goods:
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Ocean, coasts, rivers
Overland travel very expensive, slow
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Sugar: low value
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40 mile overland journey across Panama : 4 days
Sugar plantation within 15 miles of coast in
order to be profitable
Silver:

High value of goods outweighed high cost of
overland transport

Potosí to Lima: 4 months by mule

Principal colonial
routes and ports
(late 18th Century)
Colonial transportation in Middle
America
Mercantile System
Iberian royalty in charge of trade with Latin
America
Quinto Real (Royal Fifth): 1/5 (20%) tax on
all metals mined in colonies
Colonies could not trade directly with one another or
with other countries; had to ship everything to Spain
so Spanish could then charge taxes
Flotas
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Vessels loaded with gold and silver
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Heavily guarded
Traveled in groups (flotas)
Coastal cities built huge fortresses
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Campeche City, Mexico
Havanna, Cuba
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Veracruz, Mexico
Trade Routes

In part dependent on
ocean and atmospheric
circulation

North Atlantic trade
 Flotas leaving Spain,
Portugal sailed SW to
Canary Islands, west to
Caribbean
 Returning flotas: Gulf
Stream to western
Europe
Colonialism

Began Latin America’s dependence on a
world economy with Northern powers
(North Atlantic)
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Seeds of many future problems:
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Regional economies based on supplying Spain
and Portugal’s demands
Slavery fostered social injustice
Local skills not developed

Did not have resources to build economies and states
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Map of colonization