The New World 4 1

source 32 Lost civilization

Colonization

Once the Spaniards discovered and conquered large parts of the New World, they founded colonies there. The most successful conquistadors and army officers, who settled in Hispanic America, received a fief from the Spanish king. This was known as an encomienda It consisted of a large expanse of land, along with the indigenous people who lived there. The Spanish liegeman, the encomendero, was allowed to raise taxes and make the indigenous people work for him a few days a week. In return, the Spanish ruler protected them and instructed them in the Catholic faith. The Spanish government shared in the profits. The indigenous peoples were put to work on the large estates owned by the Spaniards, the haciendas. They had to work on farms and in the mining industry, especially in the Cerro de Potosí silver mine, which was discovered in 1545. This mine was almost a mountain of silver ore. It was easy to obtain vast amounts of silver, not only because the silver ore was close to the surface, but also because labour costs were low. The indigenous peoples paid their taxes by working in the mines; they were paid nothing for their labour.

When the Spaniards came, the Indians were subjected to so much violence and destruction that they are not even a shadow of what they once were. They are seen as barbarians and the lowest of the low, when in fact they were more civilized than many other nations, if we disregard certain forms of tyranny that characterized their way of government.

Paraphrased from: Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Affairs of New Spain, 1540-1569.

The treatment of the indigenous peoples

Rules were put in place to prevent the exploitation of the indigenous population, but those rules were not properly enforced. As a result, indigenous people were often treated badly and tried to flee. Sometimes they succeeded, but more often than not they were tracked down and horribly punished. Mistreatment caused many fatalities among the indigenous population. In addition, they fell victim to the diseases that the Europeans brought with them: smallpox, plague, typhoid, influenza and measles. These diseases were unknown in the New World. When indigenous people became infected, they died by the thousands because they had no immunity against the disease.

Criticism of the encomienda system and the treatment of the indigenous population, voiced by the Spanish priest Bartolomé de Las Casas and others, led in 1542 to the New Laws. The indigenous Americans became subjects of the king and as such were not to be abused. They had the right to take their complaints to court.

The indigenous people were eventually unable to cope with the hard labour imposed on them and they were replaced by slaves. Europeans shipped black slaves from Africa who were often captured during the European wars fought there. In America, the slave ships were unloaded and then filled with the products from the plantations (tobacco, cotton, cane sugar and rum) before sailing for Europe. From there, the ships transported weapons, ammunition, alcohol and textiles to Africa, where new slaves were bought. This system is called the transatlantic slave trade or triangular slave trade

NORTH AMERICA sugar, cotton, tobacco silver

New Spain SOUTH AMERICA

Great Britain EUROPE p o t

West Indies slaves 4,000 km 2,000 1 : 210,000,000 0

Social changes

Spanish treasure fleet Atlantic triangle viceroyalty of New Spain viceroyalty of Peru Portuguese Brazil source 33 The routes to the Spanish colonial empires; the route of the Spanish treasure fleet and the triangular slave-trade route.

New government

To secure the supply of goods and money, and to control developments in America, Spain put in place a government structure for its new territories. Around 1550, Spain founded two viceroyalties (the viceroyalty of New Spain, consisting of territories in Mexico, North America, the Caribbean and the Philippines, and the viceroyalty of Peru, which covered the rest of South America). In Spain, the Council of the Indies drew up rules for the viceroyalties. The viceroys, who came from the high Spanish nobility, were appointed for terms of six years. They lived in palaces with a rich court life, and though they were directly under the command of the Spanish king, in fact their power was unlimited. They led the government and the judiciary and controlled the church and the army. Spaniards occupied the key government positions. Leading members of the indigenous population were given positions at the lower levels of the state apparatus. They took care of tax collection.

The Spaniards spread the Catholic faith among the indigenous population and the African slaves. As a result, many old customs were lost. Sometimes indigenous religious traditions blended with Catholicism. Shortly after the conquest of the Aztecs in 1519-1521, the Spaniards destroyed a temple dedicated to the Aztec mother goddess Tonantzin and erected a chapel in its place. The new chapel was dedicated to Mary. While the newly converted Aztec Christians now came to the chapel to pray to Mary, they still invoked her as Tonantzin, much to the disapproval of the priests who had converted them. Another change was the racial mixing between the indigenous peoples, the Spaniards and the Africans. Relationships between men and women led to a mixed culture, a process known as miscegenation. The children of a European-indigenous couple were called mestizo, those of an African-European couple were called mulatto and those of an indigenous-African couple were called zambo. It was a society in which your ancestry and skin colour determined your position. The Europeans were at the top of the social ladder while the indigenous peoples and Africans were at the bottom.

Continuity and discontinuity

When we study history, we look at what has happened in the past. Events come together to form a development. When we study developments, we look at what changes and what stays the same. What stays the same is called continuity. What changes is called discontinuity. Continuity and discontinuity can occur simultaneously in one place. After a war, for example, national boundaries often change and new leaders come to power in some countries. However, the position of poor people in the region may remain as bad as ever.

The arrival of the Spaniards changed many things for the indigenous population. The Europeans occupied their territory and exploited them by making them do hard labour. The indigenous peoples came into contact with another civilization and tried –unsuccessfully – to preserve their culture. Many of them died from the diseases brought over by the Europeans. For the indigenous peoples, these changes were very rapid and represented a major deterioration in their living conditions.