Political
Quick Review
Why the Iberians?

Both Spain and Portugal had strong military
traditions
Their countries were heavily urban
Many of the people who came wanted to succeed
and become noble. So they were driven
Families were patriarchal, but women had an
active role
Already had a tradition as slave holding societies
Conquest

“God, Gold, and Glory.”
Why were the Spanish successful?
 Horses, firearms, steel weapons, leadership,
disease, internal divisions and rivalries among
the Indian tribes
Three Periods in the development
of Early Latin America

1. 1492-1570-conquest
2. 1570-1700-consolidation and maturity
3. 18th century-reform and
reorganization
The Moral Question

Take a minute and discuss:
Can you justify Conquest
Spread the holy word
Control the Indian labor
Free from unjust lords and bring salvation
They were not fully human
Background

 Agrarian Society
 Large Scale Farming
 Mining
 Silver and Gold
 Encomiendas and Haciendas
 Castas
The Spanish Bureaucracy

1. The King ruled through the Council
of the Indies: Located in Spain
Viceroy: High ranking noble who directly
represents the king in Latin America
2 viceroyalties in the West Indies
Mexico City
Lima
The Spanish Bureaucracy

2. Viceroyalties subdivided into 10
judicial divisions
Controlled by audiencias: judicial courts
Staffed by official royal magistrates
The Spanish Bureaucracy

3. Royally appointed magistrates carried
out laws on the local level
The Clergy were along branch of the
state
Conversion
Catholic church held great influence on the
colonists
Brazil is Different

Portuguese
The Portuguese and Spanish claims had been
decided by the Treaty of Tordesillas
Little in the region originally interested the
Portuguese until the French showed interest in
woods from the region
Where the towns were established, and the
Indians were peaceful, they began to establish
sugar plantations with Indian, and then African
slaves
Shifting

What was happening in Europe at this
time with intellectual thought?
Spain more or less monopoly of the West
Indies
Unable to hold onto their mercantile interests
Other countries wanted to trade
Colonies were very self sufficient
Loosing territories
England, France and Holland
Crisis, The beginning of the
end

Charles II dies (Spain)
 NO HEIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 Was of the Spanish Succession
 Treaty of Utrecht
 Puts a French Family (Bourbon) on the thrown
 Allows England to trade
 Spanish Monopoly is broken
Bourbon Reforms
The Beginning

 Factories:
 Established trading forts allowing trade from the
interior
 Much is established with the consent of the African
people.
 El Mina
 Missionary efforts
 Europeans saw the Africans as pagan savages (just
like the saw everyone else)
 Few permanent settlements
 This was for goods and slaves not for living
Patterns of Conquest

What the Portuguese did in Africa is
seen throughout the history of the slave
trade:
Fortified trading stations
Combo of force and diplomacy
Alliances with local rulers
Predominance of commercial relations
Who

The Portuguese were the main suppliers
 The Dutch got involved later on capturing El
Mina
 The English wanted control for the plantations
African states on the coast benefitted from
the slave trade
 More inland states with firearms became
suppliers
On the West Coast

Two important states that developed out of
the slave trade
 Asante:
 Dealt with the Dutch
 dominated the gold coast until the 1820s
 Dahomey:
 With the use of guns, created its own autocratic
society based on trading slaves
On the East Coast

Continued to trade luxury items with the Muslim
world
 Some slaves got to Europe/America
Islamization will connect the northern savanna
with the western external slave routes
 This new phase with be more violent
 Linked Islam and the slave trade
 Movement to purify the Sufi
 Major impact of the pastoral people (Fulani)
South Africa

 1652: The Dutch East India Company
 Colony Cape of Good Hope
 Provision post
 Dutch = Boers
 1795: English take Cape Colony
 1815 formal British Control
 Limited Boers landholding
 1834: Britain outlaws slavery
 Great Trek: Boers leave top be free of government
control in the North
 Moving into someone else's land