Exploring the Atlantic World: Latin America's Colonial History

1. Unit 4: Latin America, Africa, and the Development of the Atlantic World Chapters 24, 25 Carib Indians Tupac Amaru Taino Indians

2. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel • Episode 2: Conquest • As you watch the documentary, record/explain the reasons why the Spanish were able to defeat the Inca. In other words, when the “old world” met the “new world,” why were new world civilizations easily conquered and subjugated by the Europeans? (Explain 6 reasons.) • According to JD, what is the estimated percentage of the American continent’s indigenous population that died as a result of European diseases? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E5oph7Ueio&list=PLGgxLVLnB7w_nKY2mG2jiaC3T7oOk9bUR

3. The Atlantic World

4. Early Colonial Latin America • From 1500-1800, both Spain and Portugal created large colonial empires in the Americas. • Iberian language, laws, forms of government, religion, and culturewere transplanted to the colonies. • Large numbers of immigrants came to the colonies, but the cultures of Native Americans persisted and blended with both Iberian and African cultures. • As African slaves were brought to the Americas, a multi-ethnic, multi-racial society emerged. Miguel Cabrera (1695-1728), Indios Gentiles (‘pagan Indians’),

5. In Brazil, the Portuguese created the first plantation colony of the Americas, growing sugar with the use of first Indian then African slave labor. • The discovery of gold in the 1700’s led to a push into Brazil’s interior, and the expansion of slavery. Brazil received the largest number of imported Africans in the Americas. • Major silver discoveries were made in Mexico and Peru in the mid 1500’s, leading to the creation of mining towns such as Potosi (in modern day Bolivia.) • Harsh treatment and exploitation of Native peoples led to some criticism and calls for reform, and eventually some uprisings.

6. What Drove the Sugar Trade? Document Study Today we are going to think about the factors that led to the development of the sugar trade in the early modern era, and the effects of this business in the Atlantic world.

9. Missionary settlements were founded and Catholic influence spread. Conquistadors conquered native groups. A strict social order developed; the ordered hierarchy helped the Spanish maintain control over native and African groups. • Peninsulares • Creoles • Mestizos • Various inter-racial groups • Native americans and slaves Start here and go clockwise Royal officials (viceroys) tightly ruled provinces. “New Spain” and The Spanish Empire in the Americas Strict control of trade was maintained; trade within the colonies or with other European powers was forbidden. Labor intensive crops such as sugar cane were cultivated; this along with mining increased the need for slave labor.

10. “Las Castas” This painting shows 16 casta combinations. In the 18th century a socio-racial classification system developed in the Spanish American colonies. The European conquest of Latin America beginning in the late 15th century was initially executed by male soldiers and sailors from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). These new soldier-settlers fathered children with Amerindian women and later with African slaves. These mixed-race children were generally identified by the Spanish and Portuguese colonists as “Castas”. Casta is an Iberian word (existing in Spanish, Portuguese and other Iberian languages since the Middle Ages), meaning “lineage”, “breed” or “race.” It is derived from the older Latin word castus, “chaste,” implying that the lineage has been kept pure.Castagave rise to the English word caste during the Early Modern Period. http://nativeheritageproject.com/2013/06/15/las-castas-spanish-racial-classifications/

11. Fur traders and explorers were often aided by Native Americans in the harsh conditions of northern North America. Quebec was the first French settlement in the Americas, launched by Louis XIV New France Fur trapping and fishing were main economic activities. About 55,000 settlers lived in and around Quebec colony by 1755 Fur traders and explorers claimed Canada for France, as well as a vast piece of territory stretching from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

12. Earliest settlements: Jamestown, VA (1607) and Plymouth, MASS (1620) Geographic conditions shaped the development of the colonies: New England Colonies – farming, fishing; Puritan influence Middle Colonies – rich farmland; commercial centers; religious havens for persecuted groups Southern Colonies – plantation agriculture developed - this type of agriculture is labor intensive. The Thirteen English Colonies European population was greater than in the Spanish or French colonies; English colonists also had a greater degree of self-government than other colonists. They also had more independent economic activities than the highly controlled Spanish colonies.

17. The Atlantic System, sometimes called “triangular trade,” resulted in one of world history’s massive migrations, though it was a forced migration. Millions of Africans were brought to the Americas in the infamous “Middle Passage.” http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/books/applications/imaps/maps/g5s_u3/index.html

20. The diaspora of African peoples as a result of the slave trade

21. Royal African Company (1672) King Charles II of England encouraged the expansion of the slave trade. He granted a charter (1664) to a group of men, the Royal Adventurers, who later became the Royal African Company (1672). The king and the Duke of York backed this enterprise by investing private funds. The charter stated that the Company 'had the whole, entire and only trade for buying and selling bartering and exchanging of for or with any Negroes, slaves, goods, wares, merchandise whatsoever'. The king therefore gave full support to this system of trading. The first Royal African Company ships sailed from Liverpool and Bristol, in England, to develop their commercial activity along the West African coast.

22. The slave trade had a major impact on the British economy, creating great wealth for some. Ships loaded with goods left Britain for the West African coast. There, commodities were bartered for all manner of tropical products, including humans. Military supplies were regularly shipped to forts in West Africa. Royal African Company schedules reveal a methodical record-keeping system for exchanging brass rods, cutlery and guns manufactured in Birmingham. The historian F. W. Hackwood argues that the West African slave trade was the chief supporter of the gun industry in Wednesbury and Darlaston, and gunsmiths in the Midlands produced most of the 150,000 guns which British ships exchanged annually for enslaved African peoples.

23. Slaves for Guns • West African rulers were instrumental in the slave trade. They exchanged their prisoners of war (rarely their own people) for firearms manufactured in Birmingham and elsewhere in Britain. • With their newly acquired weapons, kings and chiefs were able to expand their territories. • The slave trade had a profound effect on the economy and politics of West Africa, leading, in many cases, to an increase in tension and violence. European Forts in Africa The 'factories' appearing on this map were European forts or trading posts. Note that the equator is referred to as the 'Aquinoctiall' (equinoctial line).

24. “State and Condition of Cape Coast Castle April 1771.List of the Company's Slaves contin[ue]d.” • The slave trade was responsible for major disruption to the people of Africa. • Women and men were taken young, in their most productive years, thus damaging African economies for the long-term. • The physical experience of slavery was painful, traumatic and long-lasting. We know this from the written evidence of several freed slaves. • Captivity marked the beginning of a dehumanizing process that affected Western attitudes towards African peoples.

25. The Slave Trade in Context – Supplemental Reading • Compare slavery before 1500 with slavery in the early modern era. (Make a chart or Venn.) Also consider continuities in your analysis. • What are the different “forms” of slavery? • How was slavery in the Islamic world different from slavery in the Atlantic world? What made slavery in the Americas distinctive? • What implications would Atlantic slavery have over the long-term? • Why did Africa become the main source for slaves in the early modern era? • According to the excerpt, the relationship between slavery and racism has been much-debated; what are the two views presented regarding the origins of racism?