Early Latin America
Early Latin America

European impact on the
Americas was much more
significant than that in
Africa…the Europeans created a
new civilization in Latin America
and extended Western
civilization to the “New World.”
Early Latin America


African independence was very
different from the growing
European colonization of the
Americas.
It was this colonization that
brought the Americas into the
mainstream of world history and
forever linked the two continents
into the emerging world economy.
Early Latin America

The Columbian Exchange refers to a
period of cultural and biological
exchanges between the New and Old
Worlds. Exchanges of plants, animals,
diseases and technology transformed
European and Native American ways of
life.
Early Latin America


Beginning after Columbus' discovery in
1492 the exchange lasted throughout
the years of expansion and discovery.
Advancements in agricultural
production, evolution of warfare,
increased mortality rates and education
are a few examples of the effect of the
Columbian Exchange on both Europeans
and Native Americans.
Early Latin America



The natives only had a few animal
servants.
They had the dog, two kinds of
South American camels, the guinea
pig, and several kinds of fowls.
Before the Columbian Exchange the
natives had no beast of burden and
did their hard labor entirely on their
own.
Early Latin America


On Columbus’ second voyage in 1493 he
brought horses, dogs, pigs, cattle,
chickens, sheep, and goats.
When the explorers brought the new
animals across the ocean it introduced a
whole new means of transportation, a
new labor form, and a new food
source. The animals were rarely troubled
by the diseases the humans were. So
while the humans died off, the animals
were thriving on the rich wildlife.
Early Latin America


Despite the fact that Spain and
Portugal sent explorations in
different directions, they began
to argue shortly after Columbus’
first voyage about who controlled
the newly discovered lands.
Both looked to the Catholic
Church for guidance.
Early Latin America

First in 1493, the
Spanish-born Pope
Alexander VI
endorsed an
imaginary line drawn
through the Atlantic
from the North to the
South Pole as the
boundary for Spanish
land claims, allowing
Spain all the lands
west of the line.
Early Latin America



Portuguese King John II protested the line
that ran 100 leagues west of the Cape
Verde Islands and the Azores, so both
countries agreed to the Treaty of
Tordesillas (1494).
The original line of Pope Alexander VI was
moved another 370 leagues west of the
islands.
Length of a league=distance a person or
horse can walk in an hour (usually 3
miles).
Early Latin America


Spain could claim all lands west
of the line and Portugal could
claim all lands east of the line.
This reserved for Portugal the
West African coast and the route
to India while Spain could claim
all lands/oceans to the west
(which were unknown at the
time).
Early Latin America


Moving the line allowed the
Portuguese to claim Brazil when they
“discovered” it in 1500.
As Portugal pushed to India and
beyond, and the Spanish eventually
“discovered” and explored the Pacific,
they eventually began to argue about
lands on the opposite sides of the
earth.
Early Latin America


The Treaty of Tordesillas was a fateful
agreement for both Spain and
Portugal because it oriented Spain
towards the Americas (except for
Brazil) and Portugal towards Africa
and the Indian Ocean.
As the Portuguese entered the Indian
Ocean, they encountered wellestablished trade routes and ports
frequently shared, or controlled by
many different people.
Early Latin America


When Portuguese ships first rounded
the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of
Africa, they first turned their attention
to the Swahili city-states, many of
which they burned to the ground.
Since many ports in the Indian Ocean
were pieces of a loosely connected
merchant community, the “enemy”
couldn’t be quickly defeated through a
blow to a non-existent head of state.
Early Latin America

Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists had
little interest in converting to
Christianity that the Portuguese tried
to impose, and despite the violence
the Portuguese dealt, in many ways
life along the Indian Ocean trade
circuit went on as it had for
centuries.
Early Latin America


As the Portuguese made more trips
to India (about once a year), they
substituted violence for their lack of
attractive goods to trade.
Da Gama used guns and cannons to
intimidate, and his sailors killed or
tortured many Indian merchants to
set an example.
Early Latin America



By 1514, the Portuguese had
reached the Spice Islands
(Indonesia) and China.
By 1517, Portugal had forts
throughout eastern Africa and India.
By 1542, they had reached Japan.
Early Latin America


The Spanish turned toward the New
World, a place they discovered that
after the conquest of two clear
enemies—the Aztecs and the Inca—
all would be theirs.
Thus began the transformation of the
Americas.
Early Latin America


The conquest of the New World was
not a unified movement…but rather a
series of individual initiatives that
usually operated with government
(Spanish or Portuguese) approval.
The conquest of the Americas was
two pronged: one directed towards
Mexico and the other one aimed at
South America.
Early Latin America



The chief goals of the Spanish were gold
(Greed) and God.
The Spanish believed there was vast
wealth in the new lands—their appetites
whetted by the rich ornaments of those
they encountered among groups like the
Aztecs.
And as the most powerful Catholic state,
soon heavily influenced by the active
Jesuit order, Spain planned to win new
converts to Christianity.
Early Latin America


The Spanish (conquistador means
conqueror) set about their conquest in
much the same way they drove the
Muslims out of the Iberian Peninsula.
Expeditions dominated islands of the
Caribbean, including Cuba, Puerto Rico,
and Hispaniola.
Early Latin America

In 1521 Cortes
and 600 men
took Mexico
from the Aztecs.
Early Latin America


Even though pockets of American
Indian resistance remained in parts
of Central America until the later 17th
century, Spanish control was
essentially complete by 1550.
By this time, Spain had extended
into parts of the southern and
southwestern United States.
Early Latin America


The second wave of conquest led the
Spaniards to Panama (Balboa) and
northern South America.
The Spaniards took over the
northern part of the continent easily,
conquering loosely organized native
cultures.
Early Latin America

In 1532-3,
Francisco Pizarro
led his men to
the conquest of
the Inca Empire,
which was
already
weakened by a
long civil war.
Early Latin America



From their new base in Peru, the Spanish
moved along the Andes mountains,
finding the Amazon River and silver
mines in Bolivia.
Spanish expeditions moved into
Argentina, settling Buenos Aires in 1536.
Only at the end of the 16th century did
they really begin to colonize Argentina,
introducing cattle ranching and
agriculture once their lust for quick riches
diminished.
Early Latin America


Conquest involved violence,
domination, and theft. The Spanish
conquest of the Americas created a
series of important philosophical and
moral questions for the Europeans.
Theologians and lawyers asked “Who
were the Indians? Were they fully
human? Was it proper to convert
them to Christianity? Could
conversion by force or the conquest
of their lands be justified?”
Early Latin America

Spanish missionaries and church
authorities were often quite critical of
how these settlers treated the
natives…”By what right do you keep these
Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude? Why
do you keep those who survive so oppressed and
weary, not giving them enough to eat, not caring
(from a Dominican
priest speaking to a Spanish audience
in Santo Domingo in 1511).
for them in their illness?”
Early Latin America


Driven by greed, the conquistadors
argued that conquest was necessary
to spread the gospel and that control
of Indian labor was essential to
Spanish rule.
In 1548, Juan de Sepulveda, a noted
Spanish scholar, published a book
claiming the conquests were fully
justified.
Early Latin America


The Spaniards had come to free the
Indians from their unjust overlords and
to bring them “the light of salvation.”
Most importantly, he argued, the
Indians were not fully human, and
some peoples “were born to serve.”
Early Latin America

In 1550, Bishop Bartolome de Las
Casas presented the king an opposing
view.
Early Latin America



Before the king (Charles V), Bishop de
Las Casas said that the Indians were a
rational people, who, unlike the
Muslims, had never done harm to
Christians.
Therefore the conquest of their lands
was unjustified.
The court was horrified as de Las Casas
related his A Short Account of the
Destruction of the Indies (written
1542).
Early Latin America


He argued that
“the Indians are
our brothers and
Christ has given his
life for them.”
Spanish rule to
spread Christianity
was justified, but
conversion should
take place only by
Early Latin America



In the end, the Spanish crown ruled
that the Indians must be treated
better.
Unfortunately, it was too little too
late and since the New World was far
from Spain, change came very
slowly.
The great conquests were essentially
over by the 1570’s.
Early Latin America


In barely more than a century, the
Spanish had leveled the leading
native civilizations, destroying their
political structures and obliterating
their formal cultures.
Even so, many native villages were
untouched by a Spanish or
Portuguese presence for decades.
Early Latin America

The keys to this
success were
diseases, superior
technology (gun
powder weapons,
metal swords,
horses), and
internal native
weakness from
civil wars and
dissent.
Early Latin America

But beyond this shared belief in
mercantilism, the various colonial
societies that developed in the
Americas differed greatly from each
other, reflecting the differences of the
cultures and policies of the colonizing
power.
Early Latin America


These colonial societies were also
shaped by the density and
urbanization of the native population
(Mesoamerican/Andean vs. sparse
North American).
A third factor was whether these
societies became based on settlerdominated agriculture, slave-based
plantations, ranching, or mining.
Early Latin America

Within a century (and well before the British
established colonizing in North America) the
Spanish in Mexico and Peru had established
nearly a dozen major cities; several impressive
universities; hundreds of cathedrals, churches,
and missions, an elaborate bureaucracy, and a
network of regulated commerce.
Early Latin America


Most of the economic
base for this colonial
society was in
commercial agriculture
(large rural estates)
and in silver/gold
mining.
In both cases, natives
rather than African
slaves provided the
labor (it was
forced/coerced labor).
Early Latin America



On this economic base a distinctive
social order developed which
replicated the Spanish class hierarchy.
At the top were the Spanish settlers,
who were politically and economically
dominant and looking to become
landed aristocracy.
A Spanish official said (1619) “The
Spaniards, from the able and rich to the
humble and poor, all hold themselves to be
lords and will not serve (do manual labor).”
Early Latin America


Politically they saw themselves, not
as colonials, but as residents of a
Spanish kingdom, subject to the
Spanish king, yet separate and
distinct from Spain itself and
deserving of a large measure of selfgovernment.
They hated many of the bureaucratic
restrictions of the Crown…”I obey but
I do not enforce” was a common
slogan of local resistance.
Early Latin America


But the Spanish minority (never more
than 20% of the population) was itself a
divided community.
Descendants of the original
conquistadores tried to protect their
privileges from immigrant newcomers;
Spaniards born in the Americas
(Creoles) resented the pretensions to
superiority of those born in Spain
(Peninsulares).
Early Latin America

Creoles:

Peninsulares
Early Latin America

Below both the Peninsulares and Creoles
on the social scale and creating the most
distinctive feature of the new colonial
societies in Mexico and Peru was the
emergence of a mestizo, or mixed-race,
population, the product of unions
between Spanish men and native
(Indian) women.
Early Latin America

Rooted in the sexual imbalance
among Spanish immigrants (7 men to
1 woman in early colonial Peru), the
emergence of a mestizo population
was facilitated by the desire of many
surviving Indian women for the
security of a Spanish household,
where their children wouldn’t be
subjected to the abuse and harsh
demands made on the native peoples.
Early Latin America


The Spanish Crown encouraged
settlers to marry into elite Indian
families (Cortes fathered children with
two of Moctezuma’s daughters).
Over the 300 years of the colonial
era, mestizo numbers grew
substantially, becoming the majority
of the Mexican population sometime
during the 19th century.
Early Latin America


Mestizos were largely Hispanic in
culture, but Spaniards looked down on
them during most of the colonial era,
regarding them as illegitimate, for
many were not born of “proper”
marriages.
Despite this attitude, they eventually
were recognized as a distinct social
group and have become a major
element in the identity of modern
Mexico.
Early Latin America


At the bottom of Mexican and Peruvian
societies were the indigenous peoples,
known to the Europeans as the
“Indians.”
Traumatized by “the great dying,” they
were subjected to abuse and exploitation
as the primary labor force.
Early Latin America

Many learned Spanish; converted to
Christianity; moved to cities to work
for wages; ate the meat of cows,
chickens, and pigs; and used plows
instead of digging sticks.
Early Latin America


But much that was native survived.
Maize, corn, and beans remained
staples of their diets.
Christian saints blended with
indigenous gods, while beliefs in
magic, folk medicine, and
communion with the dead remained
strong.
Early Latin America


Colonial Spanish America became a
laboratory of ethnic mixing and
cultural change.
It was dominated by the Europeans
to be sure, but with a more fluid and
culturally blended society than the
racially rigid colonies of North
America.
Early Latin America


Colonies of Sugar: A very different
kind of colonial society developed in
the lowland areas of Brazil, ruled by
Portugal, and in the Spanish, British,
French, and Dutch colonies in the
Caribbean.
These areas lacked the great
civilizations of Mexico and Peru.
Early Latin America

Early in the 17th century the
Portuguese began to move inward
from small coastal settlements in
Brazil quickly taking control of the
vast interior territory and created
hundreds of plantations.
Early Latin America
They also didn’t have the mineral
wealth (until gold was discovered in
Brazil in the 1690’s and diamonds a
little later).
But the Europeans found a very
profitable substitute in sugar which
was in high demand throughout
Europe.
Early Latin America

The Europeans used sugar as a
sweetener, a medicine, a spice, a
preservative, and in sculptured forms
as a decoration that indicated highstatus
Early Latin America


Commercial agriculture in Spanish
held areas was mostly for domestic
and mining camp consumption.
Sugar-based colonies, on the other
hand, produced almost exclusively
for export while importing their food
and other necessities.
Early Latin America


For a century (1570-1670) the northeast
coast of Brazil dominated the world market.
Then the British, French, and Dutch turned
their Caribbean colonies to sugar production,
breaking the Portuguese/Brazilian monopoly.
Early Latin America


Sugar transformed Brazil
and the Caribbean.
Its production, which
involved both the
growing of sugarcane
and processing it into
usable sugar, was very
labor intensive and
occurred in large-scale,
industrial type
plantations.
Early Latin America


Sugar was the first
global commodity
produced for an
international mass
market, using capital
and expertise from
Europe, with production
facilities in the
Americas.
Its most characteristic
feature was slave labor.
Early Latin America


Over 90% of African slaves ended up
in Brazil or the Caribbean (only
about 5% ended up coming to North
America).
The slaves worked in horrendous
conditions. The heat and fire from
the cauldrons (turning sugarcane
into crystallized sugar) reminded
many visitors of scenes from Hell.
Early Latin America


Over worked, under rested ,
malnourished, slaves died at a rate
of between 5-10% a year…plantation
owners had to constantly import new
slaves.
The use of African slave labor gave
the sugar colonies a very different
ethnic and racial makeup than that
of the Spanish colonies.
Early Latin America



After three centuries of colonial rule, the
a substantial majority of racial makeup
of Brazil and the Caribbean was at least
partially of African descent.
In Haiti, by 1790, that number was
93%.
The term Mulatto was used to refer to
someone of mixed African/European
heritage.
Early Latin America


Cross-racial unions accounted for only
about 10% of all marriages, but the use of
mistresses and informal relationships
between Indians, Africans, and the
Europeans created substantial racial
mixing.
In Brazil, there emerged over 40 separate
and racially mixed groups, named by the
amount of racial mixing.
Early Latin America


Was there the kind of racism in Brazil
that developed in North America?
Not exactly, but racism did exist.
White characteristics were more
highly prized than black
characteristics, and people regarded
as white enjoyed greater privileges
and opportunities.
Early Latin America


By the end of the 17th century,
competition from the British, French,
and Dutch in the Caribbean undercut
Brazilian sugar exports.
Around the same time, adventurers
from Sao Paulo (called Paulistas)
pushed into the interior, claiming
more territory for Portugal.
Early Latin America



In 1695, the Paulistas found gold in the
mountainous interior. Almost
immediately, a gold rush ensued and
thousands of colonists left the coastal
towns and plantations in search of gold.
Each year, over 5,000 immigrants from
Portugal came to region hoping to find
their fortune.
More slaves (eventually numbering over
150,000) were used in the mines.
Early Latin America


By the middle of the 18th century,
this region produced over 3 tons of
gold a year, making Brazil the largest
gold producer in the Western
hemisphere.
This helped open the region to
ranching and farming, and caused Rio
de Janeiro to grow to the point of
becoming the colony’s capital in
1763.
Early Latin America

Despite opening the interior to
settlement, gold caused the
expansion of the slave trade, the
continued displacement of the native
population, and it caused Portugal to
lag far behind Western Europe in
terms of industrial capabilities
(because it could just purchase goods
rather than make them).
Early Latin America


In one respect, the colonial empires
of the Spanish and Portuguese (and
later the English and French) had one
thing in common: each subscribed to
the economic theory of mercantilism.
The theory was based on a
government serving its country’s best
economic interests by encouraging
exports and accumulating bullion
(precious metals like silver and gold).
Early Latin America


Precious metals were
believed to be the
source of national
prosperity.
Colonies provided
“closed” markets for the
manufactured goods of
the mother country, and
if they were lucky,
supplied great quantities
of bullion too.
Early Latin America

Even more than the spice trade of
Eurasia, it was the silver trade that gave
birth to a global network of exchange.
Early Latin America


The mid-16th century discovery of
silver deposits in Bolivia (Potosi) and
Japan suddenly provided a vastly
increased supply of the precious
metal.
Spanish America alone produced
about 85% of the world’s silver
during the early modern era.
Early Latin America



In the 1570’s, China consolidated a
variety of taxes into one tax that her
people had to pay in silver.
This sudden new demand caused the
value of silver to skyrocket.
It also meant that foreigners with
silver could buy more of China’s silks
and porcelains than ever before.
Early Latin America


The bulk of the world’s silver supply
ended up in China or elsewhere in Asia
as Europeans coveted Asian luxury
items.
The standard Spanish silver coin was
known as a piece of eight, and it was
used by merchants in North/South
America, Europe, India, Russia, and
West Africa.
Early Latin America


Potosi arose from a barren landscape
high in the Andes. It was a 10 week
mule trip away from Lima (Peru).
At its height of production, the
surrounding city had 160,000 people
and was the largest city in the
Americas (equal in size to London,
Amsterdam, and Seville).
Early Latin America

Its wealthy European elite lived in
opulent luxury while the native
miners worked in such horrendous
conditions, some families held
funeral services when their men
were “drafted” to work in the mines.
Early Latin America




Western penetration of the Americas
from 1492-1800 had two main results:
1. It created a distinct version of
Western civilization in North America;
2. It created an essentially new
civilization in South/Central America.
Because of its size and economic role,
the Latin American civilization was by
far more important in world history
during the early modern period.
Early Latin America


Why was there a difference between
these two outcomes?
Part of the answer lies in the
differences between Spain and
Portugal, on the one hand, and
Britain and northern Europe, on the
other.
Early Latin America



Spain and Portugal were intensely
Catholic countries, with a evangelical
missionary movement.
They also, after 1600, were somewhat
removed from the mainstream of
European intellectual life.
Spain didn’t develop a large merchant
class (which was why Latin America
emphasized landed estates instead of
developing a large scale merchant
economy).
Early Latin America


Spain and Portugal’s centralized
control discouraged political life in
the colonies.
So Latin America developed with a
political tradition, an economy, and a
social structure very different from
its northern neighbor.
Early Latin America


Latin America also developed a
different racial balance from that of
the northern English colonies.
North American Indians were less
organized than those of
South/Central America, so their role
in shaping the culture or social
structure wasn’t great.
Early Latin America


In Latin America, especially in
Central America and in the Andes
region, the culture and values of the
native Indians played (and continues
to play) an important role in the
region’s culture.
The rise of a large mestizo
population, virtually unknown in the
more racially conscious English
colonies, was another difference.
Early Latin America


The Latin American civilization
resulted from, in part, a fusion of
Western and Indian peoples and
social constructs; it also had a much
larger African slave contingent.
North America saw a more
straightforward extension of Western
values over small, mostly poorly
treated and segregated Indian and
African minorities.
Early Latin America


From these early differences, Latin
America followed a dissimilar
historical path than North America.
Even though both struggled for
independence from their colonizers
at about the same time (Latin
America was inspired by what
happened here), the resulting
political features and economic bases
of both regions was different.
Early Latin America


The new United States quickly joined
Western Europe in industrialization,
while Latin America remained much
more dependent in the world
economy.
Latin America continues to be largely
a producer of unprocessed goods
that depends on cheap labor (so
large middle classes haven’t
developed in most places).