Transcript Early European Colonization of the New World Theme: Various techniques for handling governance, economic, and labor situations Lesson 26

Early European Colonization of
the New World
Theme: Various techniques for handling
governance, economic, and labor
situations
Lesson 26
ID & SIG
• audiencias, engenho, fur trade, hacienda,
indentured servant, Jamestown, mestizo,
Portuguese colonial administration, Potosi,
repartimiento, slavery in the New World,
Spanish colonial administration, Treaty of
Tordesillas, viceroys
Spanish Colonial Administration
• The conquests of Mexico
and Peru we studied last
lesson we’re not the results
of Spanish royal policy, but
rather individual efforts of
freelance adventurers
• Gradually, however, the
Spanish monarchy extended
its control over the growing
American empire, and by
about 1570, the semiprivate
regime of the conquistadors
had given way to formal rule
under the Spanish crown
Philip II, King of Spain
Spanish Colonial Administration
• The Spanish administrators established
two centers of authority in the Americas
– Mexico (New Spain) with a capital of Mexico
City, built on top of Tenochtitlan
– Peru (New Castile) with a capital of Lima after
rejecting the old Inca capital of Cuzco as too
inaccessible
• Each was governed by a viceroy who was
responsible to the king of Spain
Spanish Colonial Administration
• To ensure the viceroys didn’t become too
independent and personally powerful, the kings
of Spain subjected them to the review of courts
known as audiencias
– Audiencias were staffed by university-educated
lawyers
– They heard appeals against the viceroys’ decisions
and policies and had the right to address their
concerns directly to the Spanish king
– Audiencias reviewed the viceroys’ performance at the
end of their terms, and negative reviews could lead to
severe punishment
Spanish Colonial Administration
• Nonetheless, the viceroys
wielded considerable
power, partly because of
the difficulties in
communicating with the
central government in
Spain
– It often took two years to
receive a reply to a query
sent from Mexico or Peru
and viceroys could
procrastinate by offering
additional information
instead of compliance
Saint Augustine
• Saint Augustine,
Florida is the oldest
city in the United
States
– Founded in 1565
• Spanish mariners
would take
advantage of the
Gulf Stream currents
to return to Spain
– Saint Augustine
was a stop along
the return route
Treaty of Tordesillas
• Signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494
• Divided the world along an imaginary north-south line 370
leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands
• Spain could claim any land west of that line and Portugal
anything to the east, so long as the land wasn’t already
under Christian rule
Portuguese Brazil
• The Portuguese first landed at Brazil in
1500 but their interest wasn’t sparked until
French and Dutch mariners began visiting
there
• Then the Portuguese king decided to
consolidate his claim and began granting
large coastal territories to Portuguese
nobles with the expectation they develop
and colonize their holdings
Portuguese Brazil
• The entrepreneurs
established profitable
sugar plantations, the
king dispatched a
governor to oversee
affairs, and
Portuguese interest in
Brazil rose
dramatically
• The Treaty of
Tordesillas line was
fairly ambiguous so
the Portuguese
expanded past it to
claim all of Brazil
Today some 170 million people speak
Portuguese even though only about 11
million people live in Portugal
Spanish Mining and Agriculture
• After quickly
looting through the
Aztec and Inca
treasures, the
Spanish turned to
mining
• Silver mining
centered around
the Mexican north
around Zacatecas
and the central
Andes at Potosi
Spanish Mining and Agriculture
• At Potosi, Spanish
administrators recruited
laborers by adapting the
Inca system of draft labor
– Requisitioned laborers from
local officials who
dispatched individuals from
villages to work for several
months in the mines
– The discovery of a vein in
1545 created a boom that
brought Potosi’s population
to 150,000 by 1600
Miners still work in grueling
conditions in Potosi, known as
“The mountain that eats men”
Spanish Mining and Agriculture
• The mining industries of
Mexico and Peru produced
great wealth for Spain
• The Spanish government
reserved one-fifth of the silver
production for itself (the quinto)
and used it to finance a
powerful army and
bureaucracy
• Silver from America quickly
became a commodity in the
global trade network
– Remember the Manila
galleons from Lsn 25
Privateers such as Sir Francis
Drake forced the Spanish
treasure fleet to adopt a convoy
system for safety
Spanish Mining and Agriculture
• The agricultural
and craft products
that resourced the
mining towns were
produced on an
estate or hacienda
• Workers on the
hacienda were
mostly native
people and a small
number of
imported slaves
The 17th Century Hacienda de
Nogueras housed a sugar mill
that produced cane alcohol
Spanish Mining and Agriculture
• The repartimiento system compelled native
communities to supply laborers and offered
some protections for the workers
• Still compulsory labor drafts fostered callous
treatment by employers and also promoted low
worker productivity
• Gradually the economic incentive of paying
higher wages and better conditions in order to
get more motivated workers caused the
repartimiento to be replaced by a market labor
system
Portuguese Sugar and Slavery
• While the Spanish
concentrated on
mining and
established an
effective
administration
system to compel
subjugated
indigenous people to
provide the labor,
the Portuguese
concentrated on
sugar plantations
worked by imported
African slaves
Portuguese Sugar and Slavery
• Colonial life in Brazil revolved around the sugar
mill or engenho
• Engenhos always combined agricultural and
industrial enterprises
– This requirement for heavy labor and specialized
knowledge of the sugar-making process made the
engenhos complex business operations
– Planters acted like landed nobility, but also had to
keep track of business affairs and often operated on
very tight profit margins
Portuguese Sugar and Slavery
• The native Brazilians
resisted Portuguese
efforts to force them into
servitude and small pox
had killed much of the
native population anyway
• Instead the Portuguese
turned to African slaves
• Slavery on the Brazilian
sugar plantations was
especially arduous
because of the working
conditions, climate, and
mistreatment
Portuguese Sugar and Slavery
• Owners were particularly
brutal
– The philosophy was
that it was more
economical to work a
slave to death and buy
a new one rather than
work him less but have
him live longer
– Slave children would
require a financial
outlay of about 12
years making them
economically
undesirable
Public whippings were common
disciplinary tools
Colonies in North America
• French, English, and Dutch
mariners sailed the North
Atlantic in search of fish and a
“northwest passage” to Asia
• The quest for a northwest
passage proved fruitless, but
they did find immense
quantities of cod off Labrador,
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia,
and New England
• By the early 17th Century, they
had dislodged the Spanish
colonists north of Florida
“Sack ships” such as the Real
Friendship carried dried cod
from Newfoundland to
European markets
Permanent Colonies
• These fishing stations gave way
to permanent colonies
– Port Royal (Nova Scotia)
settled by the French in 1604
– Quebec settled by the French
in 1608
– Jamestown founded by the
British in 1607
– Massachusetts Bay colony
settled by the British in 1630
– New Amsterdam settled by the
Dutch in 1623, only to be
seized by the British in 1664
and rechristened New York
Captain John Smith
helped found
Jamestown
Settlement Life
• Settlement life was extremely difficult
• Most settlers did not expect to cultivate food
crops; instead hoping to sustain their
communities through valuable commodities such
as fur, pitch, tar, lumber, and, more
disappointingly, silver and gold
• Relied heavily on provisions shipped from
England, and when those didn’t arrive they
sometimes avoided starvation only because
Indians provided them food
Settlement Life
• In Jamestown, food
shortages and disease
were so severe that
only 60 of the colony’s
500 inhabitants
survived the winter of
1609-1610
– Some settlers went
so far as to disinter
corpses and
consume the flesh of
the dead
– One man reportedly
even slaughtered
and ate his wife
In 1587, 117 settlers established the
first English colony in the New World
on Roanoke Island and later vanished
without a trace
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• As fisherman bartered
with local people they
discovered that the fur
trade was much more
lucrative than fishing
• Explorers found a
convenient entrance
to the rich furproducing regions
through the Hudson
Strait and Hudson Bay
and began the
systematic
exploitation of the
northern lands
The Hudson Bay Company controlled
the fur trade from its headquarters at
York Factory
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• Royal agents,
adventurers,
businessmen, and
settlers built a chain of
forts and trading posts
stretching into the
North American
interior
• Indigenous people
trapped animals and
exchanged the pelts
for European
manufactured goods
such as wool
blankets, iron pots,
firearms, and alcohol
Frederic Remington painting of rival fur
traders racing to an Indian camp,
National Archives of Canada
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• Beaver hats became a
staple of European fashion
• During the peak of the trade,
the Hudson Bay Company
supplied enough beaver
pelts from Canadian trade to
manufacture 600,000
beaver hats in England –
and they still fell short of
demand
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• As trappers pushed
inland looking for
untapped beaver
grounds, fighting often
broke out
– Iroquois Indians, allied
with Dutch fur traders and
provided firearms by
them, attacked the
Hurons living north of the
Great Lakes
– The Hurons were greatly
diminished and the
Iroquois increased their
power
The North American beaver
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• The Hudson Bay
Company established
Fort Severn at the
mouth of the Severn
River on Hudson Bay
in 1689
• Pierre Le Moyne
d’Iberville captured it
for the French in 1690
• d’Iberville conducted a
campaign against
British interests in
Newfoundland from
1695 to 1697
Fort Severn
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• In 1697, d’Iberville returned
to France and was selected
to lead an expedition to
rediscover the mouth of the
Mississippi River and
colonize Louisiana
• In 1699, d’Iberville worked
his way westward from
Pensacola to Mobile Bay to
Ship Island
• On Feb 14 he landed at
Biloxi, claimed the area for
France, and then built Fort
Maurepas in Ocean Springs
Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville
Landing at Biloxi painting by
William Steele
Eight Flags over Biloxi
France, Spain, England, U.S., Confederacy, Republic of West
Florida, Magnolia State, State of Mississippi
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• Settler-cultivators were even
more disruptive to native ways
of life than fur traders because
they displaced indigenous
people and turned hunting
grounds into plantations
• Tobacco proved to be an
especially lucrative cash crop
– In 1638 three million pounds of
tobacco were exported to Europe
• In the 18th and 19th Centuries,
rice, indigo, and cotton were
added as prominent plantation
crops
John Rolfe is credited with
introducing tobacco
cultivation to Virginia
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• Colonists displaced Indians but could not
subjugate them as a labor force
• Initial demands for labor were met by
indentured servants from Europe
– People with little future in Europe who agreed
to sell a portion of their working lives in
exchange for passage across the Atlantic and
a new start in life
North American Fur Traders and
Settlers
• The first slaves arrived in Virginia from Africa in
about 1610, but numbers remained small until
the late 17th Century
• Between 1670 and 1720, slaves increasingly
replaced indentured servants
• The northern climate and soil was not favorable
for cash crops so slavery was not prominent
there
– Still New England profited from the slave trade
“Molasses to rum to
slaves
Who sail the ships
back to Boston
Ladened with gold,
see it gleam
Whose fortunes are
made in the triangle
trade
Hail slavery, the New
England dream!”
Song from the
play 1776
Contrasting Administrations
• Spanish
– Royal backing
– Stronger royal control
through viceroys and
audiencias
• In HIS 102 we’ll see
how this autocratic
colonial style did not
well-prepare the Latin
American countries for
governing themselves
after independence
– Waged military campaigns
of conquest against the
indigenous centralized
states like the Aztecs and
Incas
• British and French
– Private investors played a
greater role
– No viceroys or audiencias;
maintained their own
assemblies and influenced
the choice of governors
– Tried to negotiate with and
justify their claims to the
varied indigenous peoples
and societies; eventually
dominated by a
combination of disease,
numbers, and violent
conflict
Contrasting Societies
• Spanish
– About 85% of the
Spanish immigrants
were male
– Much interaction with
native women
• Soon gave rise to
an increasing
mestizo (or mixed)
society
• British
– Women were more
numerous among
British settlers
– Mostly married within
their own groups
• Mingling between
people of different
ancestries was
especially uncommon in
the British colonies
Seven Years’ War
Review from Lesson 25
• Commercial competition
ultimately generated
violence that culminated
in the Seven Years’ War
(1756-1763)
– In North America, the
Seven Years’ War
merged with the ongoing French and
Indian War which
pitted the British and
French against each
other
George Washington fought for the
British and was defeated in the
opening battle of the French and
Indian War at Fort Necessity in the
Ohio Country
British Victory
• The British emerged victorious
and as result they gained
control of North America from
the French
• The war helped create
conditions that led to the
American Revolutionary War
because the British colonists no
longer needed British protection
from the French and would
come to resent the taxes
imposed by Britain to pay for its
military commitments
– More about that in HIS 102
Next
• Final Exam Review