The Americas in the early colonial

period:

• Hernan Cortez conquered Aztec Empire (1519), founded the colony of New Spain.

• Destroyed Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City on its ruins.

• Francisco Pizarro conquered Inca empire (1533).

• Created colony of New Castile, capital Lima Peru.

• The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) divided the Americas between Spain in Portugal.

• Spain got all lands west of the Meridian and Portugal the lands east of it.

• Pedro Menendez de Aviles established a fort in St. Augustine, Florida (1565).

• Oldest continuous settlement in the United States.

Colonial Administration: • Viceroys were administrators and

representatives of the Spanish crown.

• Audiencias, royal courts, kept viceroys from acting independently of the crown.

• Spanish settlers used to appeal viceroy’s decisions or policies.

• Slow transportation and communication between Europe and the Americas made it difficult for the Spanish crown to exercise direct control over New Spain.

• By 1750, those born in America of Spanish origins dominated colonial politics.

• Began to call for independence from Spain.

• Columbian Exchange; a period of cultural and biological exchanges between the New and Old Worlds.

• Dramatic decrease in indigenous populations, due to disease.

• Smallpox, measles and influenza were major killers.

• Over 50 percent of native populations died.

• Before the exchange Mesoamericans consumed very little meat.

• Pigs, and cows were introduced.

• Along with wheat and grapes, became staples of the American diet.

• The horse transformed plains Indian cultures.

• Europeans also brought mosquitoes and rats.

• Europe received maize, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peppers, and cacao.

• Caused big population growth in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

• Triangular Trade; trade route between the Americas, Europe, and Africa, during the Atlantic slave trade.

• The number of Africans shipped across the Atlantic peaked in the 1700s.

• Enslaved Africans to the Americas brought biological and demographic changes.

• They brought Okra and rice.

• The map shows that the most common destinations in the Americas for West African slaves was Brazil and the

Caribbean.

• Once consequence of the slave trade was the African diaspora, as whole villages were left depopulated.

• While some became dependent on the revenue slave trade.

• But some African rulers condemned the slave trade. • In his letters to King Jao of Portugal, King Affonso I of

Kongo objected to the capture and enslavement of free men.

• Spanish and Portuguese transplanted their languages and religions into the Americas.

• Catholic missionaries successfully converted most of Latin America to Christianity, Catholicism.

• Church orders sent to convert; Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans.

• Catholic saints’ days were linked with indigenous holidays.

• In Mexico, a cult developed around the dark-complexioned Virgin of Guadalupe.

• Revered for ability to perform miracles.

• New religions developed that combined indigenous and Christian practices.

• Vodun, West African animist, is practiced in Haiti and includes some elements of Catholicism.

• Called Voodoo.

• Spanish established a coercive labor system called the encomienda.

• Encomenderos, or landowners, compelled indigenous people to work for them in return for food and shelter.

• Led to brutality and harsh living conditions.

• Mercury was used to separate silver from its ore. • Led to environmental damage.• Cities of Zacatecas, in Mexico, and Potosi in the Andes

Mountains, became thriving centers of silver mining.

• Spanish transformed the Inca mit’a system of labor obligation.

• Villages forced to send their male population to the mines.

• Mercantilism; system of government control of the economy. A nation power is determined by the amount of gold and silver in its treasury.

• The silver trade enabled Spanish rulers to pursue military and political ambitions in Europe and the Americas.

• China was a major consumer of American silver. • Silver became China’s currency.

• Spanish galleons, heavily-armed ships, sailed from Mexico to the Philippines.

• In Manila, Spanish exchanged silver for luxury goods such as silk, spices, and china.

• Silver became the dominant force in the global economic system.

• Slave labor was necessary in order to make sugar production possible in Brazil and the Caribbean.

• So many African in Brazil that their descendants became the majority population.

• Plantations lost from 5 to 10 percent of their labor force per year.

• Cash crop cultivation, crops grown for sale rather than subsistence, were common in the colonies.

• By 1700s, sugar, not silver, became the main moneymaker in the Americas.

• The Spanish and Portuguese erased the social structure and cultural traditions of the indigenous peoples within a century of conquest.

• In Mexico, native books were burned.• Thought to be unholy. • Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec, barely exist today. • Information about the Aztec comes from documents written by Spanish priest. • Bias to the Spanish point of view.

• The combination of European settlers, Africans, and indigenous peoples led to the development of a new social hierarchy based on race and ancestry.

• Peninsulares, born in Europe. • Creoles, European ancestry, born in the New World. • Castas, people of mixed-race ancestry.

• Mestizos, mixed European and indigenous ancestry. • Mulattoes, mixed European and African ancestry. • Zambos, mixed indigenous and African ancestry.

Indigenous peoples and African slaves, bottom ranks.

Skin color was a signifier of power and status in the Americas.

That concludes the early colonial period.