1. New Worlds: The Americas and Oceania
Chapter 24
New Worlds: The Americas and Oceania

2. The Spanish Caribbean Spanish mariners meet indigenous Taíno
Originally from Orinoco River valley in South America; settled in Northern Caribbean in late centuries B.C.E. through 900 C.E.
What’s in a name? The native peoples of the Caribbean
Taíno: People who had migrated up the Antilles to the Greater Antilles in the northern part of the chain; spoke a language of the Arawakan family.
Carib: People of the Lesser Antilles in the Southern Caribbean; language is not in the Arawakan family, but the Cariban family. They had come from the mainland later than the Taíno. Early Europeans thought they were cannibals, but the archeological evidence is unclear. Some Carib women spoke Taíno since they had been captured in war.
Guanajatabey: Earliest settlers who were only in western Cuba at the time of contact; they became extinct before their language could be studied. It was not understood by Taíno speakers.
Garifuna: Also called “Black Caribs,” this people of the Lesser Antilles are descendents of Taíno, Caribs, and African slaves and speak an Arawakan language with many words borrowed from other languages.

3. The Spanish Caribbean

4. The Spanish Caribbean
Columbus uses Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic) as his main base for trading with Taíno
Disappointed that Taíno had no spices and silks as he expected East Asians would
Recruit locals to mine gold instead, although ultimately this endeavor produces meager results
Encomienda: forced labor by right of conquest that had its origins in the reconquista

5. From Mining to Plantation Agriculture
Taíno occasionally rebel, but outgunned by Spanish military technology
Smallpox epidemics begin 1518
Spaniards launch raids to kidnap and replace workers, spread disease further
Taíno society disappears by middle of sixteenth century
Only words remain: barbecue, cannibal, canoe, hammock, potato, etc.
Limited gold production causes new interest in exploiting Caribbean for sugarcane production
Requires massive importation of slaves

6. Conquest of Mexico and Peru
Spanish conquerors (conquistadores) explore other territories with the support and encouragement of the crown.
Hernán Cortés used roughly 1,400 Spanish soldiers and at least 80,000 indigenous allied troops to capture the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan ( ), fighting 200,000 Aztecs.
Spanish horrified by Aztec practice of human sacrifice, which was a part of the society’s war rituals
Initial advances over the causeways are turned back
Cortés builds fleet of small ships to support the effort
Smallpox greatly weakens besieged Tenochtitlan, as does the cutting off of fresh water and food, leading to surrender

7. Conquest of Mexico and Peru
Contemporary artists’ recreations of Tenochtitlan
Image of Aztec human sacrifice from the Aztec
Codex Magliabechiano
(mid-1500s)

8. Conquest of Mexico and Peru
Francisco Pizarro triggers the collapse of the Incan empire in Peru through cunning and intimidation.
In 1528, the Incan emperor Huayna Capac dies from smallpox acquired from initial European contact, setting off a civil war between his two sons, Huáscar and Atahualpa.
In 1528 and 1529, Pizarro, having scouted Peru, returns to Spain to obtain royal permission top conquer it.
Pizarro and 170 men arrive in the midst of the civil war, at a point when Atahualpa’s forces had captured Huáscar.
Pizarro meets Atahualpa, who soon thereafter orders the execution of Huáscar for fear of him gaining the Spanish as allies; Pizarro captures Atahualpa for a ransom of gold, but eventually executes him by garrott out of paranoia that he was plotting against the Spanish.
Atahualpa’s death triggers rebellions throughout the Incan Empire and eventual Spanish conquest that took roughly forty years to complete.

9. Spanish Colonial Administration
Spanish administration based in New Spain (Mexico) and New Castile (Peru), extended to Florida and Buenos Aires
Mexico city built atop Tenochtitlan, founded Lima in Peru
Viceroys rule, but supervised by local courts called audiencias designed to prevent buildup of too much localized power
Considerable dispute with Spanish homeland
Treatment of indigenous people a point of conflict; local rulers often used brutality to assert their authority

10. Spanish Colonial Administration
Oñate’s Foot
Northern Expansion: Colobial government wanted to expand into what is now the U.S. Southwest; Mexican-born Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate colonizes northern region of “New Spain” in 1598 and comes into conflict with Pueblo Indians.
Acoma Massacre: In retaliation for natives killing his nephew, Oñate kills 800 Acoma men, women, and children; enslaves surviving females; and amputates one foot from surviving men over 25.
Symbolism: In 1998, vandals cut off a foot from an equestrian statue of Oñate (pictured with foot restored).

11. Portuguese Brazil
1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divides entire (non-Christian) world between Spain and Portugal
Portugal formalizes its claim on Brazil when a fleet bound for India led by Alvares Cabral lands there in 1500.
Little interest at first, but increases as other imperial powers take notice
Portugal begins to exploit Brazil for sugarcane production in the 1600s, fighting off French and Dutch claims.

12. Settler Colonies in North America
Spanish towns, forts, missions on east coast of North America, like St. Augustine, founded 1565
Dislodged in seventeenth century by French, English, Dutch colonizers
First English attempt to colonize in Virginia on Roanoake Island in 1585 fails mysteriously: the “Lost Colony”
Permanent colonies in North America
France: Nova Scotia (1604), Quebec (1608) (earlier attempt at Quebec in 1541 failed)
England: Jamestown (1607), Plymouth (1620), Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630), Maryland 1634
Netherlands: New Amsterdam (1623)
English take it in 1664, rename it New York

13. Colonial Government Exceptionally difficult conditions
Starvation rampant, cannibalism occasionally practiced as in Jamestown: two-thirds of Jamestown’s settlers died in the first year
French and English private merchants invest heavily in the expansion of colonies
Greater levels of self-government in English colonies than in Spanish and Portuguese colonies

14. European Empires and Colonies in the Americas, about 1700

15. Relations with Indigenous Peoples
North American peoples loosely organized, and semi-nomadic or fully migratory
Unlike settled Aztec and Inca peoples who practiced “sedentary agriculture”
European colonists stake out forested land and clear it for agriculture
Increasing number of Europeans arrive seeking ample land: 150,000 from England in seventeenth century

16. Conflict with Indigenous Peoples
Colonists displace indigenous peoples, trespass on hunting grounds, put strains on indigenous trading networks, and bring firearms and alcohol
English settlers negotiate treaties that make no sense to Indians who do not share the same concept of land ownership
Military conflict frequent, in part due to indigenous people not sharing European concepts of property
Natives also devastated by epidemic disease, with disease sometimes showing up before the Europeans do in some places

17. North American Populations

18. The Formation of Multicultural Societies
European and African migrants to Latin America and the Caribbean are primarily men
Relationships with native women formed
Mestizo (mixed) societies formed
People of Spanish and native parentage
Descendants of Spaniards and African slaves (“mulattoes”)
Descendants of African slaves and natives (“zambos”)
Less pronounced in Peru, to where more Spanish women migrated

19. The Social Hierarchy Race-based hierarchy
Top: peninsulares, i.e. migrants from Iberian peninsula
Criollos (creoles), i.e. children of migrants born in the New World
Mestizos, mulattoes, zambos, other combinations of parentage
Bottom: slaves, conquered peoples
Defining factor in social standing: sexual hierarchy

20. North American Societies
Higher ratio of French and English female migrants than in South America
Higher social stigma for Europeans attached to relationships with natives and African slaves
Fur traders have relationships with North American native women
Métis: People of mixed indigenous and French ancestry, especially in Western Canada

21. Mining in the Spanish Empire
Hunt for gold and silver
Conquistadores loot Aztec, Inca treasures and melt them down for their value as raw precious metals
Gold not extensive in Spanish holdings, but silver plentiful
Extensive employment of natives
Spaniards co-opt the Incan mita system of conscripted labor
Dangerous working conditions in mines
Fifth of mined silver and gold is reserved for crown (quinto)

22. Global Significance of Silver
Major resource of income for Spanish crown
Rich mines found in Potosí (now in Bolivia) in the Andes in 1545, and in Zacatecas in Mexico in 1546
Manila galleons take it to the Pacific rim for trading, especially for Chinese luxury goods like silk, spices, and porcelain
Spanish ships carrying silver become targets of Dutch and English privateers and pirates
“Spanish Dollar” silver coin was valid currency in the U.S. until 1857

23. The Hacienda
Started as feudal land grants to conquistadors from the crown
Encomienda system of utilizing forced native labor, but rampant abuses lead to its abolishment by 1720.
Gradually replaced by debt peonage that evolves into the hacienda system throughout the Spanish New World colonies
Peasants own no land and repay rent and loans with labor
The hacienda was a large estate that aims for economic self-sufficiency; owned by a patrón
Often was farm that produced crops of European origin like wheat and grapes; could also grow New World crops like bananas or cocoa
Could also be a sugar plantation with African slaves, could involve mining operations, or could involve cattle-ranching especially in South America

24. A Hacienda in Chile

25. Resistance to Spanish Rule
Rebellions
1680 Pueblo Revolt – Also known as Popé’s Revolt, it took place in what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pueblo Indians rebelled against Spanish authorities, killing 400 Spaniards and drove away 2,000. Probably sparked by Spanish attempts to destroy Indian religious practices, like dances and making of dolls to worship kachina (spirits). Took twelve years for the Spanish to restore their authority.
1780 Túpac Amaru Rebellion: Indigenous Peruvian leader Tupac Amaru II captures and executes a local Spanish governor and starts an uprising; he is eventually defeated and executed in the cruelest fashion: drawn-and-quartered after having his tongue cut out and witnessing the execution of his wife and eldest son. Becomes a Peruvian folk hero and inspiration for the independence fight.

26. Resistance to Spanish Rule
Half-hearted work and sabotage
Retreat into mountains and forests outside of the control of Spanish authorities
Appeal to Spanish crown
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (ca – 1616): The most interesting appeal was a 1,200-page illustrated letter written by this indigenous nobleman and sent in It catalogued the abuses of the colonial authorities and proposed a better system of government. But it never received by its intended recipient, King Philip III of Spain (reigned ).
Rediscovery: The manuscript had been kept in the Royal Danish Library since the 1660s, returning to public attention when a German scholar found it in 1908.

27. Resistance to Spanish Rule
Illustrations from Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s letter, including one depicting the execution of the last royal Incan ruler, Tupac Amaru I ( ), and the maltreatment of blacks by Spaniards.

28. Sugar and Slavery in Portuguese Brazil
Sugar mill: engenho, refers to complex of land, labor, etc. all related to production of sugar
Sugarcane to molasses, or refined to sugar for export
Low profit margins
Unlike Spanish system of forced native labor, Portuguese rely on imported African slaves
Natives continually evaded Portuguese forces, slipping into the Amazon
Large-scale importation of slaves into Brazil begins 1580s
Working conditions poor: 5-10% die annually
Approximately one human life per ton of sugar

29. Sugar and Slavery in Portuguese Brazil
Idealized painting of a Brazilian engenho

30. Fur Trading in North America
Indigenous peoples trade pelts for wool blankets, iron pots, firearms, alcohol
Beaver hunts cause frequent incursions into neighboring territories, conflicts
Beaver Wars, Iroquois against Hurons
European settler-cultivators also displacing natives from traditional lands
Initially dependent on native assistance, as European grains did not grow well in many areas

31. Development of Cash Crops
Products developed for European markets
Tobacco – cultivation adopted from indigenous example
Rice – knowledge of planting comes fro West African slaves; can only be grown in warm coastal regions as in South Carolina
Indigo – first cultivated by Spanish in Central America in the 1560s
Cotton – Cultivated by Spanish as early as the mid-1550s, but huge global demand does not come about until the industrial revolution
Increases demand for imported slaves and other unfree laborers (often confusion in status)
In the 1600s in North America, European indentured servants with four- to seven-year terms were widely used; shifts to African slaves by 1690s
Governments also shipped over the chronically unemployed (“paupers”), political prisoners, and convicted criminals to help populate new colonies

32. Export of Tobacco from Virginia

33. Slavery in North America
African slaves brought to Virginia beginning in 1619
Increasingly replace European indentured laborers, late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries
Less prominent in north due to weak nature of cash-crop industry, although urban slavery practiced widely
Slave trading and products derived from slave labor are important part of northern colonial economy
Rum, based on sugar from plantations, began to be refined in Northeastern colonies and New England especially in the late 1600s and became an important commodity in the slave trade
Salted cod caught in New England fishing grounds would be sold to feed Caribbean slaves

34. Missionary Activity in the Americas
Franciscan, Dominican, Jesuit missionaries came to the Spanish colonies in the 1500s and French in the 1600s
Taught Christian doctrine and literacy
Often accumulated indigenous cultural knowledge to better communicate their message
Bernardino de Sahagún ( ): Franciscan friar who studied Aztec culture and translated parts of the Bible into the Aztec language of Nahuatl.
Due to conquest and plague, many natives in Spanish America concluded gods had abandoned them; converted to Catholicism
But often retained elements of their indigenous religion in Christian worship

35. The Virgin of Guadalupe
Indigenous peasant Juan Diego is reported to have seen a vision of Mary in 1531; she appeared at a site outside of Mexico City associated with the Aztec female deities who share the collective title of “Tonantzin.” She has since become a symbol of the Mexican nation. Some historians question Juan Diego’s existence since the first sources written about him date from the mid-1600s.

36. French Missions and English Contact
French missions were less effective than Spanish
Spaniards ruled native populations more directly
Migration patterns of North American natives made it more difficult for sustained contact needed for meaningful conversion
English colonists had little interest in converting natives, with only a few exceptions, like Massachusetts Puritan John Eliot (ca ). He translated and published the Bible into the local Algonquian Massachusett language in 1663.

37. Australia and the Larger World
Portuguese mariners long in the region, but Dutch sailors make first recorded sighting of Australia in 1606
VOC surveys territory, conclude it is of little value
Limited contact with indigenous peoples
Nomadic, fishing and foraging societies
British Captain James Cook lands at Botany Bay in 1770.
Roughly 1,000 British settlers arrive in 1788 at Botany Bay
“First fleet” has 500 male convicts and almost 200 female ones, military personnel and family, and assorted free people.
Convicts shipped to Australia outnumber free settlers until 1830

38. Australian Aborigine
Pre-1788 Australia: Anywhere between 315,000 and 750,000 indigenous people may have lived on the continent.
Epidemic diseases like such as chickenpox, smallpox, influenza and measles sweep through population weeks after 1788 settlement.
Conflict persists through the nineteenth century
By the 1920s, indigenous population had dropped to between 50,000 and 90,000.

39. Pacific Islands and the Larger World
Manila galleons interested in quick trade routes, little exploration of Pacific
Islands of Guam and the Marianas in the Western Pacific are strategically significant, laying on Manila galleon route
1670s-1680s: Spain took colonized the Marianas in 1667 and Guam in 1668; smallpox nearly wipes out the local population

40. Manila Galleon Route and the Lands of Oceania, 1500-1800

41. Pacific Islands and the Larger World
James Cook visits Hawai`i in 1778
British explorer Cook maps out much of the Pacific beyond the Manila galleon route in three voyages in the 1760s and 1770s
“Discovers” Hawai`i on the third voyage, but after sailing to find the Northwest Passage, is forced to return to Hawai`i due to damage.
Cook was initially welcomed in 1778 and again in his 1779 return, but was killed in dispute with locals over the theft of one of his ship’s boats.