Latin America = Meso and
South America. Areas in the
Americas that speak mostly
Latin-based languages like
Spanish and Portuguese.

European Explorations
Glory, God, & Gold

Cycle of Conquest &
Colonization
Explorers
Official
European
Colony!

• Differences resulting from economic basis
• Slave plantation economies –
Caribbean, Brazil, some in southern North
America
• Settler agricultural economies –
Northern North America
• Ranching/mining economies – former
Aztec and Inca lands

The Colonial Class System
Peninsulares
Creoles
Mestizos Mulattos
Native Indians Black Slaves

Spanish America Brazil
European
Mixed-race
African
Native American
18.2%
28.3%
11.9%
41.7%
23.4%
17.8%
49.8%
9.1%

British North America 6% (348,000)
Spanish America 10% (578,600)
Caribbean
Brazil
53% (3, 233,700)
31% (1,891,400)

• Spanish born = most elite
• Wealthy colonials = powerful
• Large, intrusive gov’t bureaucracy
= Council of the Indies
• Influences of Africans,
Amerindians, and Europe blended to form new cultures = syncretism!
• Little female immigration = more fluid social classes! (b/c European men marry & have children with
Amerindian women)

The Influence of the Colonial
Catholic Church
Guadalajara
Cathedral
Spanish Mission
Our Lady of
Guadalupe

• Catholic influence = extremely strong
• Richest institution in Latin Am.
• Undercurrents of native religions remained

Father Bartolome de Las
Casas
New Laws --> 1542
Attempted to stop the exploitation of Indians

• Encomienda/Mita labor systems used to force extraction
• Silver shipped through
Spanish Philippines to purchase Asian luxury goods —Spanish Monarchy tried to stop that practice…why?
• Silver results in inflation in
Spain & economic decline in Ming China, which collected all taxes in silver

Standard World currency

Treasures from the Americas!

• In many areas, Amerindians secretly kept up their own religious practices
– Maya areas were persecuted by the Catholic viceroy after a cave of their gods was found
– Incas attempted to preserve the mummies of their emperors. These also were destroyed
• Armed rebellions
- Palmares, a small independent state of escaped-slaves