Chapter 19
Early Latin America

I. Introduction
A. Cortes conquers Aztecs
1. Amazed at beauty of Tenochtitlan - uncomparable
B. Pattern of conquest, continuity and rebuilding
1. Spanish tried to utilized Native resources similarly
a. Used materials from ruins to build own houses
b. Used similar forced labor system
c. Allowed to follow ancient customs
C. Impact of invasions
1. Huge Spanish/Portuguese empires
2. Latin America pulled into new world economy
3. Hierarchy of world economic relationships – Europe on top
4. New societies created – some incorporated, some destroyed
a. Distinct civilization combining Iberian Peninsula w/ Native
5. Created large landed estates
6. Europeans came to Americas for economic gain and social mobility
7. Exploited precious metals

II. Spaniards and Portuguese: From Reconquest to Conquest
A. Introduction
1. Iberian Peninsula on the Eve of Exploration
a. Tradition of military conquest and rule over other peoples
b. Ferdinand and Isabella – unified and destroyed religious diversity
a. Jews expelled
b. Religious contributed to acceptance of Columbus’s idea
B. Iberian Society and Tradition
1. Recreating Iberian life
a. Urban cities surrounded by American Indians
b. Conquerors as nobles with Indians as serfs
c. Precedent of controlling African slaves
2. Political rule
a. Professional bureaucracy
b. Theocracy – religion and Church influenced politics – vice versa
3. Role of merchants
a. Trading posts in Africa, but estates in Atlantic islands
b. Trade factories turned into plantations - Brazil
C. The Chronology of Conquest
1. Era of Conquest – 1492>1570 – administration and economy set-up
2. Consolidation and Maturity – 1570>1700 – colonial institutions
3. Reform and Reorganization – 1700>1800 – Reform and reorganization
a. Seeds of dissatisfaction and revolt
D. The Caribbean Crucible
1. Early island conquests – Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Cuba
2. Treatment of natives – Taino natives distributed to encomendero
3. City precedents – gridlike around central plaza – church, town hall, governor’s
4. Methods of rule – governors, treasury officials, notaries, Spanish laws brought
5. Early immigration
a. Import African slaves
b. Women came also – conquest goal turned to settlement
c. Gold hunting phase initial then replaced by sugar plantations
6. Treatment of Natives – enslavement, disease, murder
7. Attempts at reform
a. Clerics and priests tried to end abuses
b. Bartolome d Las Casas – wrote of complaints
E. The Paths of Conquest
1. Taking over Central Mexico – between 1519 and 1535
a. Not a movement, but series of individual initiatives
b. Cortez defeats Aztecs in Tenochtitlan
2. Taking over South America
a. Pizarro and Incas – Peru by 1540
3. Further exploration
a. Densely populated areas first, then went after semisedentary/nomadic
b. Coronado searches for gold goes into US
c. 1570 192 Spanish cities and towns
F. The Conquerors
1. Motivation
a. 1/5 of all treasure to crown
b. Money then divided among men signed up, priority to friends/relatives
2. Types of people that were conquerors
a. Hoping to improve selves
b. Serve God by conquering heathen
c. soldiers, gentlemen, some women
d. saw selves as new nobility
3. Reasons for Spanish success
a. Weapons – firearms/steel weapons
b. Effective/ruthless leadership
c. Epidemic diseases – smallpox, influenza, measles
d. Internal divisions rivalries between Indians
e. Mobile, nomadic tribes stiffer resistance than centralized states
4. Who replaced conquerors?
a. bureaucrats, merchants, colonists
b. sometimes conflict over transfer of power
G. Conquest and Morality
1. Reasons why treatment of Natives justified
a. Aristotle argument – freeing Indians from unjust lord
b. Indians not fully human
c. Born to serve
2. Reasons why treatment of Natives not justified
a. Rational people
b. Never done harm like the Muslims
c. Admirable customs and accomplishments
d. Conversion should take place peacefully – Indians our brothers
3. Spanish crown tried to make changes, but too late
III. The Destruction and Transformation of Indian Societies
A. Introduction
1. Decline of population
a. Caribbean population almost disappears – slavery, mistreatment, disease
b. Mexico – 25 million > 2 million, Peru – 10 million > 1.5 million
2. Reasons for loss of population
a. Disease
b. Disruption of economic social structures – those left in chaos
c. Cattle replaced Indian population on Spanish farms/unclaimed land
B. Exploitation of the Indians
1. Native American life preserved
a. Nobility kept in place to facilitate tax collection, labor demands
2. New methods of labor and taxation
a. Encomienda system – use Indians as workers/servants/tax them
b. Often arbitrary, excessive
c. Without reciprocal obligation/protection – what have you done for me lately?
d. Encomiendas ended because Spain didn’t want to compete with new nobility
e. Thousands of Indians mobilized for state projects
f. Some left towns and worked for Spanish – start of wage labor system
3. Resiliency to exploitation
a. Some adapted and learned to use language, legal system, law courts
b. Selective in their adaptation of European foods, technology, culture
IV. Colonial Economies and Governments
A. Introduction
1. Agrarian society – 80% worked on farms
2. Precious metals – mining efforts/booty of conquest essential activity
B. The Silver Heart of Empire
1. Mining labor and methods
a. Potosi in Peru – 160,000 people lived/worked in town/mine
b. Laborers
a. American Indian slaves – early encomienda system
b. Changed to large # of wage laborers eventually
c. Used European method of amalgamation w/ mercury (ahhhh…of course)
2. Relation of mining to economy
a. Gov’t profited 1/5 of profit + controlled mercury
b. Service industries develop around mining towns
C. Haciendas and Villages
1.Rural estates – basis of wealth and power for local aristocracy
a. Some plantation crops sent overseas
D. Industry and Commerce
1. Types of trade
a. Sheep raising and textile manufacturing
b. Mercantilism – only Spaniards allowed to trade w/ America
1. consulado in Seville controlled all goods – kept prices high
2. Fleet system
a. Convoy system sent two fleets annually
1. Came from Philippines as well twice annually
b. Galleons protected
c. ports created to guard treasure
3. European reaction to supply of American silver
a. ½ of silver remained in Spain
1. Paid for Spanish wars
2. Bought manufactured goods from elsewhere and then shipped
b. Sharp rise in inflation
c. Wealth of Spain still depended on taxation
d. Bankers lended more money than they should have
E. Ruling an Empire: State and Church
1. Determining sovereignty
a. North/South line – Treaty of Tordesillas – Brazil vs. everything else
2. Method of control of Spanish kingdoms
a. University trained bureaucrats – letrados
b. Codified laws – Recopilacion
c. Two viceroyalties – one in Mexico City and one in Lima
1. Viceroys controlled military, legislative, judicial powers
d. Under viceroys – audiencias – professional magistrates at local level
3. Role of the Church
a. Established churches in towns/villages
b. Set up missions in frontier areas
c. Recording and analysis of Indian culture – for conversion purposes
d. Later, state appointed archbishops – subsequently, allegiance
4. Impact of the Church
a. Stimulated architects with church/cathedral building
b. printing presses high percentage of religious books
c. Schools run by clergy, universities – law and theology
d. Tribunal of Inquisition to judge heretics
V. Brazil: The First Plantation Colony
A. Introduction
1. Early settlements
a. At first, relations with Native Americans peaceful
b. Sugar plantations established
c. By 1600, 100,000 residents – 30,000 Europeans, 15,000 black slaves
B. Sugar and Slavery
1. Labor intensive
a. Sugar had to be processed on site
b. Required large amounts of capital for machinery – plantation only viable
2. First great plantation economy
a. Single crop produced by slave labor
b. Social hierarchy reflected plantation/slave origins
1. White planter family as aristocracy
c. Slaves at bottom of social hierarchy
d. Mixed origin – became artisans, small farmers, herders, free laborers
3. Government structure
a. Royal officials trained in law ruled by governor
b. Jesuits – religious group supported by cattle ranches/sugar mills
c. Didn’t have independent printing presses, intellectual life
1. Closer connection to Portugal than New Spain to Spain
C. Brazil’s Age of Gold
1. Competition with Europe
a. Affected by change in ruling monarchies
b. French entrance into Caribbean lowered price of sugar, increased slave price
2. Gold rush begins
a. 1695 gold discovered in interior regions
b. 5000 immigrants a year, went to interior
c. Used slaves for mining labor
d. Wild towns initially turned into network of towns
e. 1735>1760 Brazil greatest producer of gold in the world
3. Impact of gold discovery
a. Opened interior to settlement
1. Hurt indigenous population
b. Mining stimulated opening of new areas to ranching and farming
c. Rio de Janeiro – closest port to mines – grew
d. Hierarchy of color in new areas
e. Portugal continued negative economic policies
1. Buy manufactured goods from abroad, not make
a. Gold went from Portugal to England
b. Trade imbalance
c. Became economically dependent on England
VI. Multiracial Societies
A. Introduction
1. Relation of different ethnic groups
a. Europeans, Indians, slaves
1. All came for different reasons
2. Hierarchy based on
i. master vs. servant
ii. Christian vs. pagan
B. The Society of Castas
1. Miscegenation
a. Few European women available
b. Sexual exploitation of women or marriage = mestizos
c. Mestizos
1. Intermediary – higher than Indians, but not as respected as Spanish
2. Sociedad de castas
a. Occupation important, but race at birth more instrumental
b. Castas – people of mixed origin
1. Mulattoes – half African/half European
2. Mestizos – half Spanish/half Indian
c. With marriage, hard to tell – someone lower could pass off as someone higher
3. Class privileges
a. Peninsulares – whites born in Spain
b. Creoles – whites born in New World
1. Dominated local economies
2. Sensitive to any suggestion of inferiority
3. Would be the leaders of future protest movements
4. Patriarchal society
a. Father has control of children to 25
b. Women – motherhood and household
c. Widow could assume direction of family
d. Lower-class could be involved in commerce
e. Marriages often arranged, came with dowry
f. Women full rights of inheritance
g. After a certain age, unmarried upper class women moved to convents
VII. The 18th Century Reforms
A. Introduction
1. Changing ideas
a. Amigos del pais – friends of the country – clubs that discussed reforms
i. Goal – economic benefits
b. Brief period of growth followed by decline
i. expansion of European population
ii. increased demand for American products
B. The Shifting Balance of Politics and Trade
1. Competition with Europe
a. Problems in Spain
i. foreign wars
ii. increasing debt
iii. declining population
iv. internal revolts
b. Pressure from France, England, Dutch
i. Buccaneers raided Caribbean ports
ii. General process of colonization in Americas
2. Failure of Spanish mercantile and political system
a. Annual fleets became irregular
b. Silver payments became fewer
c. Goods shipped to colonies not Spanish
d. Colonies became self-sufficient
i. Mfg needed products
ii. Local gov’ts became more powerful
e. Graft/corruption common
3. Legal division of Spanish properties
a. Spanish king dies without heir – War of the Spanish Succession
b. Treaty of Utrecht – 1713 – French merchants gain more control
i. Bourbon (French) king, but can’t unite France/Spain
C. The Bourbon Reforms
1. Causes of reform
a. Age of enlightened despotism
b. Strong central government
c. economic nationalism
d. Kicked out anyone who didn’t want to change – Jesuits tied to Rome
e. Improvements
i. French bureaucratic models
ii. Tightened system of taxation
iii. New navy
iv. Fleet system abolished, new ports opened
v. Try to get rid of graft
vi. New methods of tax collection
2. Reform in the West Indies
3. Reforms in America
a. Defense and military reforms
b. Missions and outposts in frontier areas – California
c. Resisted foreign competitors militarily
4. Changing trading regulations
a. State monopolies established over tobacco, gunpowder
b. Influx of cheap Spanish/English goods
i. Conflict over free trade vs. locally made/more expensive goods
5. Impact of changes
a. Spain - Revived Spanish Empire
b. America – social tension
i. removal of Creoles from gov’t
ii. creation of Creole militia
iii. dissatisfaction among elite
D. Pombal and Brazil
1. Pombal’s reforms
a. Fiscal reforms to eliminate – contraband, gold smuggling, tax evasion
b. Creation of monopoly companies
i. Sent to develop Amazon region
c. Encouraged whites to marry Indians – don’t need to be military controlled
2. Impact of Pombal’s reforms
a. Reduced Portugal’s trade imbalance
b. Demand for Brazilian products low
c. Hard to compete in European market
d. Set stage for independence at end of 18th century
E. Reforms, Reactions and Revolts
1. 18th century American boom
a. Population increase
i. lower mortality
ii. increasing fertility
iii. increasing immigration
iv. rising slave trade
2. Changes in power
a. Greater control from Spain/Portugal annoyed old power elite
b. Urban uprisings, tax revolts, Indian uprisings
3. Tupac – not the rapper
a. Tupac Amaru – mestizo in Peru
b. Led 70,000 Indians, Mestizos and Creoles – eventually executed
4. What led to complaints and frustration
a. Activism by mother country government
b. Dissatisfaction of American colonies
c. But…sharp ethnic divisions made it difficult to unify locals
VIII. Global Connections
A. Colonial Empires
1. Iberian nations transferred their culture, gov’t – recreated society
B. Diverse societies
1. Some indigenous cultures survived – Peru, Mexico
2. Culture dependent on demographic breakdown – more slaves, Europeans, or Natives
3. Racial hierarchies
C. Relation to Russian Empires
1. Development of coerced labor
2. Impact of gunpowder
3. Western forms imposed on populations, with resistance – Russia more selective
D. Demand for Latin American products
1. World economic position as dependant and based on coerced labor