Compare European colonial rule in
Americas of British & Spanish
WHAP - Mr. Duez - Atascocita High School
Unit 4 "The Early Modern World" 1450-1750
Ch 14 Empires & Encounters
Sir Walter Raleigh:
English (Tobacco)
Francisco Pizarro:
Spanish
(Conqueror of Inca)
Created, 1664, Holland. Map reflects knowledge developed by explorers in the 1500's & early 1600's.
Mythical figures are shown, as well as natives of the New World. A number of angelic beings are portrayed at the top, a well as wise old navigators & sailors.
Why didn’t China or India develop colonies & explore?
No Need: Chinese & Indians had rich markets in the Indian Ocean that there wasn’t much incentive to go beyond
Mughal India
Central Asian warriors (Muslims in religion & Turkic in culture) their brutal conquests in the 16th cent. provided India with a rare period of relative political unity (1526–1707).
Mughals exercised fragile control over a diverse & fragmented subcontinent, which had long been divided.
Qing Empire of China (1644–1912)
Qing dynasty was itself of foreign & nomadic origin, hailing from Manchuria, north of the Great Wall. Having conquered China, the Qing rulers sought to maintain their ethnic distinctiveness by forbidding intermarriage between themselves & Chinese.
Nonetheless, their ruling elites also mastered the Chinese language & Confucian teachings & used Chinese bureaucratic techniques to govern the empire. To secure their hold on China, they sought out Central Asia & added much to their territory through expansion. Today, modern China has similar borders.
Marginality: Europeans were aware of their marginal position in Eurasian commerce & wanted to change it
What advantages did Europe have in an era of Exploration & Discovery?
What advantages did Europe have in an era of Exploration & Discovery?
Geography: European Atlantic states were well positioned for involvement in the Americas & wealth & status: colonies were an opportunity to enrich impoverished nobles & commoners
What advantages did Europe have in an era of Exploration & Discovery?
Rivalry: Interstate rivalry drove rulers to compete
Western European nations never join forces & fight together. They are separate, competitive, highly ambitious sovereign nations that were engaged in open competition to explore & find wealth.
What advantages did Europe have in an era of Exploration & Discovery?
Merchants: Growing merchant class wanted direct access to Asian wealth
What advantages did Europe have in an era of Exploration & Discovery?
Religion: Crusading zeal & persecuted minorities looking for more freedom (ex- Protestants in Europe flee to Amer)
An Early Modern World?
Period covered by Chapters 14–16 is usually labeled “the early modern era.”
Signs of Modernity:
Globalization: European exploration, conquest, & settlement in the Americas
1. Atlantic slave trade linked Africa to Western Hemisphere
2. New World silver let Europeans buy their way into Asian markets
3. Columbian exchange created new networks of interaction
4. Christianity became a truly world religion
5. Russian, Chinese, & Ottoman expansion an emerging global web
An Early Modern World?
Period covered by Chapters 14–16 is usually labeled “the early modern era.”
Signs of modernity:
Globalization, modern societies, & rising European presence in world affairs
Signs of modernity appeared in several regions:
1. Modern population growth, thanks to foods from the Americas
2. More highly commercialized economies developed (parts of Eurasia & Americas, centered in large cities)
3. Emergence of stronger & more cohesive states in various places promoted trade, manufacturing, & a common culture
European Colonial Empires in the Americas
Wars & rivalries led to an expansion of Spanish & English claims, at the expense of the French.
European rulers were driven by enduring rivalries of competing states.
Growing & relatively independent merchant class in a rapidly commercializing Europe sought direct access to Asian wealth in order to avoid the reliance on Muslim intermediaries that they found so distasteful.
More on the fur trade in the next section of notes when we will compare fur trade in Americas w/ Russia/Siberian fur trade.
Which European empire had the most territory in the
New World?
For Spain
For Portugal
1494 Treaty of Tordesillas: Line of demarcation was about 1/2 way between Cape Verde Islands (already Portuguese) & islands entered by Christopher Columbus on his 1st voyage (claimed for Spain), named in the treaty as Cipangu & Antilia (Cuba & Hispaniola).
English & Spanish Colonies
European colonial rule in the Americas varied
English were late to the game of exploration
Ironically, many felt the lands they had left to take (NY, New England, PA, & Virginia) were left-over & worthless in comparison to the treasures of Central & SA (gold).
English & Spanish Colonies
Settlers of British North America cared a great deal about racial distinctions & notions of race
Settlers went to great lengths to categorize people by race.
By the American Revolution:
90%+ of these colonies’ populations were Europeans.
Devastating diseases & a highly aggressive military policy had largely cleared the colonies of Native Americans, & their numbers did not rebound in subsequent centuries as they did in the lands of the Aztecs/Incas.
English & Spanish Colonies
In North America:
Slaves were not needed in an agricultural economy.
Dominated by numerous small-scale independent farmers working their own land, although elite families, especially in urban areas, sometimes employed household slaves.
These were almost pure settler colonies, without the racial mixing that was so prominent in Spanish & Portuguese territories.
Created a more distinct & separate racial makeup in N. America as compared to the Spanish Americas.
Storming of the Teocalli by Cortez & His Troops
Comedic Break: YouTube: Horrible History - Pizarro
Spanish class hierarchy & accommodation of racially & culturally different Native Americans & Africans.
English & Spanish Colonies
Lands of the Aztecs & the Incas:
Spanish empire ruled over the most densely settled indigenous populations in the Americas & developed an economic system based on commercial agriculture & mining.
Colonial rule replicated something of the Spanish class hierarchy while also accommodating the racially & culturally different Native Americans & Africans.
Native peoples, rather than African slaves or European workers, provided labor, despite their much-diminished numbers.
Almost everywhere it was forced labor, often directly required by colonial authorities.
Racial Mixing in Colonial Mexico
18th cent. painting by famous Zapotec artist Miguel Cabrera shows Spanish man, mestiza woman, & their child, who was labeled as castiza.
By 20th cent., such mixed-race people represented majority of population of Mexico, & cultural blending had become a central feature of the country’s identity.
Casta Paintings by Cabrera
Encomienda (en-koh-mee-en-duh)
Some Native Americans decided to aid the Spanish in their initial invasion of the New World, mostly due to old tribal rivalries.
Encomienda: system employed mainly by Spanish during colonization of Americas to regulate Native American labor, mostly farming & mining.
Spanish crown granted Spaniards specified # of natives for whom they were to take responsibility.
Theory: Receiver of the grant was to protect natives from warring tribes & to instruct them in Spanish language and in Catholic faith. In return they could extract tribute from the natives in the form of labor, gold, or other products.
Encomienda (en-koh-mee-en-duh)
In practice, the difference between encomienda & slavery could be minimal.
Natives were forced to do hard labor & subjected to extreme punishment & death if they resisted.
In the former Inca Empire, for example, the system continued the Incaic (and even pre-Incaic) Mita traditions of extracting tribute under the form of labor.
One Spanish official commented in 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].”
“By what right… do you keep these Indians in such a cruel and horrible servitude?” demanded a Dominican priest in 1511 to a Spanish audience in Santo Domingo that included the son of Columbus himself. “Why do you keep those who survive so oppressed and weary, not giving them enough to eat, not caring for them in their illness?”
Compare English & Spanish Colonies.
Brazil & Caribbean: No earlier civilization existed & production of sugar for export defined economy.
Spanish colonists rarely included women & families. Large # of Africans were imported as slave labor.
Considerable amount of racial mixing took place. Mixed-race population: Much of the urban skilled workforce & supervisors in sugar industry, as well as some prominent members of community.
More slaves were voluntarily set free by their owners in Brazil than in N. America.
Compare English & Spanish Colonies.
Sugar Cane Plantations: Hell on Earth in Caribbean.
The worst place to work as a slave in the Americas.
What is a one major reason for higher literacy rates in British North American colonies than in Spanish/Portuguese colonies?
Protestantism: Encouraged reading of the Bible, was dominant form of Christianity in British colonies.
Women & families accompanied men & cultural expectation was reading & interpretation of the Bible.
Compare English & Spanish Colonies.
3rd distinctive type of colonial society:
Northern British colonies of New England, New York, & Pennsylvania.
Upon the arrival of British settlers, these regions were not heavily settled with Native Americans, in part because of the ravages of European borne epidemic diseases.
Compare English & Spanish Colonies.
British North America:
“Race" in N. America: Any amount of African or “black” ancestry would make someone African or “black”
This idea was sadly, long=lasting.
Compare English & Spanish Colonies
Availability of land, climate, & geography of N. America & the “outsider” status of many British settlers, led to:
Economic & social system of small independent farmers w/o sharp class hierarchy, large rural estates, or dependent laborers.
Weak British rule, largely literate population, developed traditions of local self-government, elected colonial assemblies, & vigorously contested the prerogatives of royal governors sent to administer their affairs.
Why So Literate?
Compare English & Spanish Colonies
British colonists sought to escape European traditions, while Spanish/Portuguese colonists sought to recreate them in the Americas.
Which makes sense when one considers the resulting American Revolutionary War for Independence. More on that in Unit 5.