Naomi Pullinnaomi.wood@warwick.ac.uk

The European World, 1500-1700

European Overseas Expansion in the Age of

the Renaissance

Porcelain coffee pot, London, 1760-1765

Porcelain sugar bowl, France, 1761

Spice-standSpain, 1540

Ivory tankard, Ausburg, Germany, 1662-1696

Tobacco pipe case, Holland, 1680-1700

Focus of this lecture

1. Origins and history of European empire - from C14th in Asia and Africa

2. The discovery of America and rise of Spanish and British empires

3. Rival versions of empire and decline of Spain in C17th

1. Origins and history of European Empire

Origins of European empires

• Empire not early modern innovation – part of long-term process beginning in C14th

Major cause = commercial expansion

• Driven by merchants searching for new markets in Middle East

• Linked to rise of Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa in late-C14th and early-C15th and to Portugal

Challenge of Ottoman Empire

• Threatens Mediterranean overseas expansion

• Trade routes disrupted by Corsairs (Turkish pirates).

Drives Portuguese to search for new markets:

1487 – Bartholomeu Dias sailed round Cape of Good Hope (opens sea route to African subcontinent)

1498 – Vasco da Gama reached Malabar Coast (centre of Indian spice markets)

BUT not lone ventures - merchants claimed to represent their nations.

Trade and empire: Portugal

• 1505: soldier Francisco de Almeida promised title of Viceroy of India by Manuel I of Portugal

• 1510: Portuguese forge permanent settlement in Goa

C16th Joint stock companies

• Formed by merchant shareholders

• Granted monopoly powers to represent nation in certain parts of the world – exclusive right to trade

1600 – 215 merchants form East India Company in England; 1630 – 1,318 members

John Evelyn, Navigation and Commerce (1674)

‘whosoever commands the ocean commands the trade of the world,

whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world,

and whosoever is master of that commands the world itself ’

Commercial expansion in East fragile

• Tend to occupy outposts and small pockets of land

• Migration limited

Rebellions against Europeans:

1602 – Portuguese driven out of Bahrain

1640 – Portuguese lose Mangalore, India

1684 – English driven out of Tangier by Moroccans

1686 – English lose Indian possessions following war with Moghul Empire

2. The discovery of America and rise of Spanish and British empires

The rise of Spain1469 – Aragon and Castile united through marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella1492 - Fall of Granada leads to fulfilment of Reconquista (Reconquest of Spain)• Christianises Spain > expulsion of Jews and

Muslims – creates ‘Crusader’ ideology

1493 – Bulls of Donation• Issued by Pope Alexander VI to Ferdinand and

Isabella• Ideology of a ‘Christian Empire’ - enables them to

take foreign lands in the name of the Church. To bring gospel to native populations.

• Spanish control 25 million new subjects by 1550• 1559 - 802 priests in Spain and 160 religious houses

1521 – Fall of Aztec empire1535 – Fall of Incan Empire

Mexican codex map (1571)

From BBC Radio 4 ‘History of the World in 100 Objects’

Spanish bullion

• Gold and silver bullion from South American mines sustains Spanish empire

• Potosi (Bolivia) – becomes largest mining town in the world. By 1600 has population of 120,000 (akin to London and Paris)

• Spanish annual revenue increase: 1504 – 847,000 ducats 1600 – 13 million ducats

Robert Johnson (1609)

‘How strange a thing it is that all the States of Europe have been asleep so long that for a hundred years and more, the ... riches of the East and West should run ... but into one coffer’

Walter Raleigh (1600): ‘It is his Indian Gold that endangereth and disturbeth all the Nations of Europe’.

English / British EmpireAnti-Spanish ideology: • Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1583)

– accused Spain of ‘scorching slavery’ and ‘contracting blood and guilt’ by taking natives’ lands and forcing them into mines.

• Criticise Bulls of Donation – Pope does not have authority to give away kingdoms

Protestant ideology: • English Protestants see America as part of God’s

plan. Discovered on eve of Reformation. • Aimed to save Indians from horrors of Spanish

conquest.

Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Company, 1629

‘Come over and help us’.

aEnglish overseas expansion

•Begins with private initiative

•English monarchs have little capital to invest in overseas expansion

Royal Exchange founded 1568: hub of trade and ideas

English expansion in America

1580s – voyages led by Humphrey Gilbert to settle on Newfoundland Coast (Roanoke)

1607 – Royal Charter granted to London Company (Virginia Company) > settlement at Jamestown, Virginia

1620 – Mayflower leaves Plymouth to found colony in New England. Led by Puritan preacher John Winthrop.

1624 – Barbados falls to English rule.

• 400,000 Englishmen settle in America in C17th• 1685 - commodities worth £900,000 shipped from

English colonies

3. Rival versions of empire and decline of Spain in C17th

Spanish model of empire

Close political centralisation:

• Divided into kingdoms (viceroyalties) governed by viceroys in name of king. Court of Madrid oversaw governance.

• Council of Indies established at Spanish Court.

Deep religious ideology

• Bulls of Donation > strong ethos of voluntary conversion of Natives to Catholicism.

English model of empire

Highly decentralised:

• Proprietary grants – give rights to specific individuals and companies to run the colonies

• E.g. 1632 - Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore) of Maryland – can grant titles and lands; oversee construction; raise revenue and license religious worship

• John Elliott: British Empire = ‘a patchwork quilt of creeds and cults’ .

Cecil Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore (1605-1675)

English model of empire

• Crown aims to control commerce, rather than governance of colonies

• Navigation Acts (from 1651) – restrict use of foreign ships for trade between colonies and Britain.

• English Empire governed by Board of Trade; Spanish by Council of the Indies.

Empire - ideological questions

1. Religion: • Spanish claim religious basis for imperial

authority > 1493 ‘Bulls of Donation’ • English don’t use Protestantism as an official

ideology – religion reflected in political and economic goals.

• Protestantism a religion of the ‘word’ – to convert Indians = huge cultural and linguistic undertaking

• Most colonies focus on claim to land, rather than peoples.

Empire – Ideological questions2. Integration of the NativesSpanish empire:• rests on incorporation of native peoples in politics

and religion > slavery and intermarriage. English empire:• focus within its own communities & exclude

Native populations• John Winthrop: ‘if we leave them sufficient for

their use we may lawfully take the rest, there being more than enough for them and us’.

The decline of Spain

• Influx of bullion leads to inflation and debasement of Spanish coinage

• Bullion = 80% of Spanish export from Americas.> no wider colonial infrastructure> no domestic industry within those colonies dedicated to mining silver and gold

• Bullion used to buy imported goods. Not absorbed into domestic Spanish industry.

William Paterson: ‘the Indies have rather conquered Spain than Spain had conquered the Indies’.

Conclusions?• Age of Empire part of long process beginning

in C15th. • Often initiated by private commercial

interest, not by kings. • No single homogenous idea of empire – e.g.

Spain and England• Expansion of European power linked to

expressions of national identity. > how were ‘ordinary Europeans’ affected by overseas expansion?