Chapter 17
The Diversity of American colonial
societies,1530-1770
The Colombian Exchange
• Colombian Exchange- The transfer of peoples, animals, plants, and
diseases between the new and old worlds.
• New world lacked the immunity of old world diseases
– Smallpox
– Measles
– Influenza
• There was a spread of plants and animals into the Americas
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Wheat
Olives
Grapes
Garden vegetables
Cattle
Pigs
Horses
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Biggest effect
Spanish America & Brazil
• Built colonies based on homelands
• Council of Indies- (Spain) supervised all government, ecclesiastical, and
commercial activity in the Spanish colonies
– Wasn’t very effective
• Catholic church spread to Amerindians
• Bartolomé de las Casas- Best defender of the Amerindians in early colonial
period
• Silver mines in Peru, Latin American gold and other mines were the main
economic base of the new world
Spanish colonies and slaves
• Encomienda- forced labor of Amerindians to provide textiles, food and
other goods
• The natives were forced into slavery
• People started to find that Africans were better than Amerindians but cost
more
• Both Spain and Portugal attempted to control the trade of their American
colonies
• Creoles-whites born in America to European parents
• Quilombos- communities of runaways in Brazil
• Manumission-the granting of freedom to individual slaves
• Mestizos- mixed offspring of creole fathers
• Mulattos-Individuals of mixed European and African descent
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English Colonies in North America
Both hoped to find easily extracted forms of wealth in North America
Individual proprietors played a much larger role in the development
More fails than successes in making N.A. colonies
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Hoped that the colonies would be a very good source of silk, citrus and wine
Virginia company( London investors) tried to colonize Virginia
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Roanoke
Jamestown-144 settlers
Virginia company was abandoned because of mismanagement of Jamestown
Indentured servants-compulsory labor to the American landscape
If someone couldn’t pay for something the
indentured and worked for the
person the owed it to
House of Burgesses- a crown-appointed
governor, his council, and representatives
of towns meeting together
Iroquois confederacy- alliance of Mohawk,
Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca
peoples
Indentured servants
Pilgrims and Puritans
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The two main types of people to colonize New England
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Pilgrims
Puritans
Pilgrims came first wanted to completely break free from
the church of England settled at Plymouth
Puritans came after and just wanted to purify
the church of England settled Massachusetts
Bay Colony- was financed by the
Joint-Stock company
Jamestown
French colonies In North America
• Focused on extracting resources
– Furs rather than minerals
• Jacques Cartier- first to stir interest in North America
• Samuel de Champlain founded New France at Quebec
• Coureurs de bois- runners of the woods
• Iroquois confederacy made a series of humiliating defeats on
the French
• French colonies discovered Louisiana
French and Indian War
• French fought England in the French and
Indian War
• France lost
the war
Colonial Expansion and conflict
• European colonies in the Americas
began to
experience a
long
period of economic
and demographic
expansion