Lesson 4

1. Early European Colonization of the New WorldTheme: Various techniques for handling governance, economic, and labor situations Lesson 4

2. Spanish Colonial Administration • The conquests of Mexico and Peru we studied last lesson we’re not the results of Spanish royal policy, but rather individual efforts of freelance adventurers • Gradually, however, the Spanish monarchy extended its control over the growing American empire, and by about 1570, the semiprivate regime of the conquistadors had given way to formal rule under the Spanish crown Philip II, King of Spain

3. Spanish Colonial Administration • The Spanish administrators established two centers of authority in the Americas • Mexico (New Spain) with a capital of Mexico City, built on top of Tenochtitlan • Peru (New Castile) with a capital of Lima after rejecting the old Inca capital of Cuzco as too inaccessible • Each was governed by a viceroy who was responsible to the king of Spain

4. Spanish Colonial Administration • To ensure the viceroys didn’t become too independent and personally powerful, the kings of Spain subjected them to the review of courts known as audiencias • Audiencias were staffed by university-educated lawyers • They heard appeals against the viceroys’ decisions and policies and had the right to address their concerns directly to the Spanish king • Audiencias reviewed the viceroys’ performance at the end of their terms, and negative reviews could lead to severe punishment

6. Spanish Colonial Administration • Nonetheless, the viceroys wielded considerable power, partly because of the difficulties in communicating with the central government in Spain • It often took two years to receive a reply to a query sent from Mexico or Peru and viceroys could procrastinate by offering additional information instead of compliance

7. Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the United States • Founded in 1565 • Spanish mariners would take advantage of the Gulf Stream currents to return to Spain • Saint Augustine was a stop along the return route

8. Treaty of Tordesillas • Signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494 • Divided the world along an imaginary north-south line 370 leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands • Spain could claim any land west of that line and Portugal anything to the east, so long as the land wasn’t already under Christian rule

9. Portuguese Brazil • The Portuguese first landed at Brazil in 1500 but their interest wasn’t sparked until French and Dutch mariners began visiting there • Then the Portuguese king decided to consolidate his claim and began granting large coastal territories to Portuguese nobles with the expectation they develop and colonize their holdings

10. Portuguese Brazil • The entrepreneurs established profitable sugar plantations, the king dispatched a governor to oversee affairs, and Portuguese interest in Brazil rose dramatically • The Treaty of Tordesillas line was fairly ambiguous so the Portuguese expanded past it to claim all of Brazil Today some 170 million people speak Portuguese even though only about 11 million people live in Portugal

11. Spanish Mining and Agriculture • After quickly looting through the Aztec and Inca treasures, the Spanish turned to mining • Silver mining centered around the Mexican north around Zacatecas and the central Andes at Potosi

12. Spanish Mining and Agriculture • At Potosi, Spanish administrators recruited laborers by adapting the Inca system of draft labor • Requisitioned laborers from local officials who dispatched individuals from villages to work for several months in the mines • The discovery of a vein in 1545 created a boom that brought Potosi’s population to 150,000 by 1600 Miners still work in grueling conditions in Potosi, known as “The mountain that eats men”

13. Spanish Mining and Agriculture • The mining industries of Mexico and Peru produced great wealth for Spain • The Spanish government reserved one-fifth of the silver production for itself (the quinto) and used it to finance a powerful army and bureaucracy • Silver from America quickly became a commodity in the global trade network • Remember the Manila galleons from Lsn 3 Privateers such as Sir Francis Drake forced the Spanish treasure fleet to adopt a convoy system for safety

14. Spanish Mining and Agriculture • The agricultural and craft products that resourced the mining towns were produced on an estate or hacienda • Workers on the hacienda were mostly native people and a small number of imported slaves The 17th Century Hacienda de Nogueras housed a sugar mill that produced cane alcohol

15. Spanish Mining and Agriculture • The repartimiento system compelled native communities to supply laborers and offered some protections for the workers • Still compulsory labor drafts fostered callous treatment by employers and also promoted low worker productivity • Gradually the economic incentive of paying higher wages and better conditions in order to get more motivated workers caused the repartimiento to be replaced by a market labor system

16. Portuguese Sugar and Slavery • While the Spanish concentrated on mining and established an effective administration system to compel subjugated indigenous people to provide the labor, the Portuguese concentrated on sugar plantations worked by imported African slaves

17. Portuguese Sugar and Slavery • Colonial life in Brazil revolved around the sugar mill or engenho • Engenhos always combined agricultural and industrial enterprises • This requirement for heavy labor and specialized knowledge of the sugar-making process made the engenhos complex business operations • Planters acted like landed nobility, but also had to keep track of business affairs and often operated on very tight profit margins

18. Portuguese Sugar and Slavery • The native Brazilians resisted Portuguese efforts to force them into servitude and small pox had killed much of the native population anyway • Instead the Portuguese turned to African slaves • Slavery on the Brazilian sugar plantations was especially arduous because of the working conditions, climate, and mistreatment

19. Portuguese Sugar and Slavery • Owners were particularly brutal • The philosophy was that it was more economical to work a slave to death and buy a new one rather than work him less but have him live longer • Slave children would require a financial outlay of about 12 years making them economically undesirable Public whippings were common disciplinary tools

21. Colonies in North America • French, English, and Dutch mariners sailed the North Atlantic in search of fish and a “northwest passage” to Asia • The quest for a northwest passage proved fruitless, but they did find immense quantities of cod off Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New England • By the early 17th Century, they had dislodged the Spanish colonists north of Florida “Sack ships” such as the Real Friendship carried dried cod from Newfoundland to European markets

22. Permanent Colonies • These fishing stations gave way to permanent colonies • Port Royal (Nova Scotia) settled by the French in 1604 • Quebec settled by the French in 1608 • Jamestown founded by the British in 1607 • Massachusetts Bay colony settled by the British in 1630 • New Amsterdam settled by the Dutch in 1623, only to be seized by the British in 1664 and rechristened New York Captain John Smith helped found Jamestown

23. Settlement Life • Settlement life was extremely difficult • Most settlers did not expect to cultivate food crops; instead hoping to sustain their communities through valuable commodities such as fur, pitch, tar, lumber, and, more disappointingly, silver and gold • Relied heavily on provisions shipped from England, and when those didn’t arrive they sometimes avoided starvation only because Indians provided them food

24. Settlement Life • In Jamestown, food shortages and disease were so severe that only 60 of the colony’s 500 inhabitants survived the winter of 1609-1610 • Some settlers went so far as to disinter corpses and consume the flesh of the dead • One man reportedly even slaughtered and ate his wife In 1587, 117 settlers established the first English colony in the New World on Roanoke Island and later vanished without a trace

25. North American Fur Traders and Settlers • As fisherman bartered with local people they discovered that the fur trade was much more lucrative than fishing • Explorers found a convenient entrance to the rich fur-producing regions through the Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay and began the systematic exploitation of the northern lands The Hudson Bay Company controlled the fur trade from its headquarters at York Factory

26. North American Fur Traders and Settlers • Royal agents, adventurers, businessmen, and settlers built a chain of forts and trading posts stretching into the North American interior • Indigenous people trapped animals and exchanged the pelts for European manufactured goods such as wool blankets, iron pots, firearms, and alcohol Frederic Remington painting of rival fur traders racing to an Indian camp, National Archives of Canada

27. North American Fur Traders and Settlers • Beaver hats became a staple of European fashion • During the peak of the trade, the Hudson Bay Company supplied enough beaver pelts from Canadian trade to manufacture 600,000 beaver hats in England – and they still fell short of demand

28. North American Fur Traders and Settlers • As trappers pushed inland looking for untapped beaver grounds, fighting often broke out • Iroquois Indians, allied with Dutch fur traders and provided firearms by them, attacked the Hurons living north of the Great Lakes • The Hurons were greatly diminished and the Iroquois increased their power Indians and Europeans Trading

29. Fort Severn North American Fur Traders and Settlers • The Hudson Bay Company established Fort Severn at the mouth of the Severn River on Hudson Bay in 1689 • Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville captured it for the French in 1690 • d’Iberville conducted a campaign against British interests in Newfoundland from 1695 to 1697

30. North American Fur Traders and Settlers • In 1697, d’Iberville returned to France and was selected to lead an expedition to rediscover the mouth of the Mississippi River and colonize Louisiana • In 1699, d’Iberville worked his way westward from Pensacola to Mobile Bay to Ship Island • On Feb 14 he landed at Biloxi, claimed the area for France, and then built Fort Maurepas in Ocean Springs Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville Landing at Biloxi painting by William Steele

31. Eight Flags over Biloxi France, Spain, England, U.S., Confederacy, Republic of West Florida, Magnolia State, State of Mississippi

32. North American Fur Traders and Settlers • Settler-cultivators were even more disruptive to native ways of life than fur traders because they displaced indigenous people and turned hunting grounds into plantations • Tobacco proved to be an especially lucrative cash crop • In 1638 three million pounds of tobacco were exported to Europe • In the 18th and 19th Centuries, rice, indigo, and cotton were added as prominent plantation crops John Rolfe is credited with introducing tobacco cultivation to Virginia

33. North American Fur Traders and Settlers • Colonists displaced Indians but could not subjugate them as a labor force • Initial demands for labor were met by indentured servants from Europe • People with little future in Europe who agreed to sell a portion of their working lives in exchange for passage across the Atlantic and a new start in life

34. North American Fur Traders and Settlers • The first slaves arrived in Virginia from Africa in about 1610, but numbers remained small until the late 17th Century • Between 1670 and 1720, slaves increasingly replaced indentured servants • The northern climate and soil was not favorable for cash crops so slavery was not prominent there • Still New England profited from the slave trade

35. “Molasses to rum to slaves • Who sail the ships back to Boston • Ladened with gold, see it gleam • Whose fortunes are made in the triangle trade • Hail slavery, the New England dream!” • Song from the play 1776

36. Spanish Royal backing Stronger royal control through viceroys and audiencias Later we’ll see how this autocratic colonial style did not well-prepare the Latin American countries for governing themselves after independence Waged military campaigns of conquest against the indigenous centralized states like the Aztecs and Incas British and French Private investors played a greater role No viceroys or audiencias; maintained their own assemblies and influenced the choice of governors Tried to negotiate with and justify their claims to the varied indigenous peoples and societies; eventually dominated by a combination of disease, numbers, and violent conflict Contrasting Administrations

37. Spanish About 85% of the Spanish immigrants were male Much interaction with native women Soon gave rise to an increasing mestizo (or mixed) society British Women were more numerous among British settlers Mostly married within their own groups Mingling between people of different ancestries was especially uncommon in the British colonies Contrasting Societies

38. Seven Years’ WarReview from Lesson 3 • Commercial competition ultimately generated violence that culminated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) • In North America, the Seven Years’ War merged with the on-going French and Indian War which pitted the British and French against each other George Washington fought for the British and was defeated in the opening battle of the French and Indian War at Fort Necessity in the Ohio Country

39. British Victory • The British emerged victorious and as result they gained control of North America from the French • The war helped create conditions that led to the American Revolutionary War because the British colonists no longer needed British protection from the French and would come to resent the taxes imposed by Britain to pay for its military commitments • More about that in Lsn 14

40. Next • Science and Enlightenment