The Colonization of America

Two examples of Spanish Colonization: Mexico and Peru

Throughout the 1500´s, Spain was the most powerful nation in Europe, with the largest overseas empire. Beginning with Columbus, Spaniards explored the West Indies, Central America, and parts of North and South America. At first, they believed these lands were in the East Indies. However, the natural resources fond on the Americas provided riches other than spices and jewels.

The Conquest of the Aztecs.

The first settlers stayed primarily on the Caribbean islands. Soon, however, the Spaniards desire for gold led them to the mainland, where they encountered the rich Aztec and Inca states. Many of the Spanish Conquistadors – conquerors – were sons of aristocratic families. They came to the Caribbean seeking fame, gold, land and adventure. Some were motivated by religious reasons as well. Many were very brave and daring, they were also willing to use any means to achieve their ends.
Hernando Cortés was a typical conquistador – courageous, charming, ruthless. With 11 ships, he sailed from Cuba to the Gulf Coast of Mexico in 1519. Cortés had an army of 508 soldiers, 2 priests, 16 horses and several small cannons.

Hernan Cortés

News of these white- skinned, bearded strangers, who rode unfamiliar beasts and had thundering weapons, astonished the Aztecs. Their ruler, Montezuma, believed that European might be gods or messengers from the god Quetzalcóatl (Aztecs priests had predicted that Quetzalcóatl would return every year).
Although his warriors could easily have overcome Cortés’s small army, Montezuma sent ambassadors with gifts of gold and featherwork. Unsure of the Spaniard’s aims, Montezuma hoped the intruders would take the gifts and leave. The gold, however, only made the Spaniards eager to find its source.

Cortés decided to march inland. To prevent his outnumbered soldiers from turning back, Cortés ordered the ships sunk behind them. Malinche, an Aztec noblewoman who had been sold into slavery, aided Cortés in dealing with local rulers. Quick to learn Spanish, she acted as both interpreter and informer. Her knowledge and influence helped Cortés make alliances with other tribes and keep track of Aztec spies.

Cortés’s army and allies crossed the mountains to Technotitlán. There they spent several months as Montezuma’s guests. Some of the Aztec nobles, however, suspected the Spaniards of wanting to take over the empire. In a fierce battle, they drove the Spaniards out of the Aztec city, killing or wounding more than half of Cortés’s small army.
Undiscouraged, Cortés began a siege of Technotitlán. The Aztecs resisted until most of their warriors had been killed or captured or had come down with smallpox. Meanwhile, Montzuma had died, probably from being stoned by an angry crowd of Aztecs. The Aztec resistance was now led by Cuahtémoc, nephew of Montezuma. Cuahtémoc valiantly defended the Aztec city against a three- month Spanish siege, but Technotitlán finally fell to Cortés. The Spanish conqueror captured Cuahtémoc and had him executed. Cortés would later take control of the rest of Mexico.

The conquests of the Incas.

The Great Inca empire lay south of the Aztec lands, in what is now Peru. The Spaniards´ conquest of the Incas was quicker than the defeat of the Aztecs, but equally dramatic. Francisco Pizarro gained permission from Spain’s ruler, emperor Charles V, to attempt the Conquest of the South American Coast. When Pizarro arrived in 1532, the Inca ruler Atahualpa met him cordially but was immediately taken prisoner. In the fighting that followed, the Inca warriors, armed with spears, war clubs and bows and arrows, were no match for Spanish cannons, steel swords and mounted soldiers. Not one Spaniard died in the fighting that killed hundreds of the Inca people. Pizarro promised to get Atahualpa free on the payment of a great ransom – a room full of gold. After the gold had been collected from throughout the empire, though, Pizarro ordered Atahualpa strangled. One fifth of the ransom was sent to the king of Spain, the rest was divided among all Spaniards, who soon began to fight among themselves. Pizarro himself was assassinated. Unrest continued until 1555 when the Spanish king’s representative, called a viceroy, established order in Peru.

Francisco Pizarro and Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor, in 1532, drawing by Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, c. 1600.

Spain’s empire in the Americas

Centralized government. The Spaniards moved quickly to set up a strong centralized government in the Americas. They divided their lands into provinces, and the king appointed a viceroy to carry out his policies in each province.
The Spanish government believed that the colonies existed only for the economic benefit of Spain. The king claimed one fifth (1/5) of all the gold and silver mined in the Americas. Spain also controlled trade of the colonies, encouraging the export of raw materials and discouraging the development of manufacturing. In this way, the colonists were to buy finished goods from Spain.

Indian laborers. The Spanish government gave huge pieces of land in the colonies to conquistadors and other royal favorites. These settlers believed it was below their dignity to work their lands.
From the Spanish government, therefore, settlers received “Encomiendas” – land grants that entitled them to demand labor and taxes from the Indians who lived on their lands.

Picture of an Encomienda

Although the Spanish government passed laws to make sure that Indian workers would not be mistreated, local officers did not enforce the laws. The Encomienda system was, in practice, a brutal system of slavery. Thousands of Indians died during the 1500´s of harsh working conditions.

Spanish missionaries. In the late 1500´s, as part of the missionary effort o the Counter Reformation, the Catholic Church sent many missionaries to the Americas to convert the Indians. In order to preach, the friars learned Indian languages. They wrote accounts of the Indian customs and set up schools to teach them new skills.
One of the most important missionaries was Bartolomé de las Casas. He is remembered as one of the people who began a lifelong campaign to protect Indians from colonists who were interested only in the profits to be made from their labor. His appeals to the king resulted in new laws passed in 1542 forbidding the further enslavement of Indians.

Missionaries in America

Question 1. What factors helped Cortés conquer the Aztecs? What helped Pizarro conquer the Incas?
Question 2. According to the Spanish government, what purpose were their colonies supposed to serve? How did they tried to establish a strong, centralized government?
Question 3. What is an Encomienda? Why was it considered a brutal system of slavery?
Question 4. What was the purpose of the Spanish missionaries in America?

PORTUGUESE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA

Missionary efforts also played an important role in the settlement of Brazil by the Portuguese. In 1500, following the same route as Da Gama, the fleet of Pedro Alvares Cabral made a wide arc into the western Atlantic and landed on the coast of Brazil. Cabral immediately claimed this territory for Portugal. Eventually, the Portuguese claimed the east coast of South America as far south as present- day Uruguay.

Pedro Alvares Cabral

Most of the settlements in Brazil were started by wealthy nobles who received large grants of land from the Portuguese king. Unlike the Spanish kings, however, the Portuguese colonies attracted settlers from all classes of society. By the mid- 1500´s there were about 15 fortified towns on the Brazilian coast. Jesuit missionaries pioneered the exploration of the interior, where they started schools and mission churches for the Indians. Portuguese settlers followed the missionaries inland. Some were farmers looking for good grazing land. Others were adventurers looking for gold or slaves.Like Spain, Portugal gained power and prestige from its American colonies. Other European monarchs were slow to take advantage of the opportunities for colonization. In the late 1500´s and early 1600´s, however, they began to enter the competition.

DUTCH, ENGLISH AND FRENCH COLONIESThe Netherlands, England and France played only a small part in the early voyages of exploration, for religious conflicts and civil wars focused their interests at home. By the late 1500´s these countries were ready to join the search for new lands. Both Spain and Portugal had already claimed (under the Treaty of Tordesillas) all undiscovered territories. Ignoring this treaty, the Netherlands, England and France began their own explorations.

Dutch and English trading empires. By the mid- 1500´s, the Netherlands had come under Spanish control. When the people of Netherlands revolted against their Spanish rulers in 1568, their ships could no longer enter either Spanish or Portuguese ports. Undiscouraged, the Dutch decided to take over the Portuguese trade routes and set up their own trade ports in India and the East Indies.By the early seventeenth century, the Dutch East India Company had gained control of nearly all the Portuguese ports in Asia. The Netherlands also became the only European country allowed to trade with Japan. By the mid- 1600´s the Dutch had a near monopoly on the Asian trade.
Similarly, the Dutch West India Company, founded in 1621, soon controlled much of the slave trade and other shipping in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Unlike the Spanish and Portuguese, the Dutch (who were Protestants) sent no missionaries to their American colonies. Their main interest was profitable trade.
Map describing the Triangular trade made between European countries and

 its colonies

Like the Netherlands, England concentrated on developing its trade and its strength at sea. To trade in Africa, India, or the Americas, however, the English had to fight both rival traders and pirates from other countries. Traders of the English East India Company, fought the French to gain trading posts in India. Privateers – private ships authorized by the government to attack enemy ships- were used by England to capture Spanish treasure ships and bombard ports in South America.

England’s American colonies

Reasons for settlement. Many English settlers came to the Americas to escape religious conflicts in their home country. They wanted to live in a place where they could freely practice their religion.
The founders of Connecticut and Massachusetts, for example, were Puritans. Puritans were Protestants who were persecuted because they believed that the Church of England had not gone far enough in reforming or purifying its doctrines and ceremonies. Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers, another Protestant group that faced discrimination in England. Maryland began as a refuge for Roman Catholics fleeing England.
Other colonies were settled by people who came to the Americas mostly for economic reasons. In 1607 a group of aristocratic Englishmen made a settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, expecting to find a fortune in gold. Their hopes fell flat, and many starved to death their first winter because they had not bothered to store food.
Later colonists had more realistic ideas about the kind of wealth to be found in the colonies. For the most part, that wealth was lands, which was free for the taking.

The colonial economies.
Throughout the English colonies, most people lived on small farms. In the south, however, plantations dominated the economy. To supply the labor needed on their tobacco and rice plantations, thousands of slaves were bought and imported from Africa.
As the colonial population grew and soil became less fertile from overuse, settlers moved to the frontier, where they could carve out new farms. Because this expansion often forced the Indians out of their traditional lands, many wars were fought between Indians and settlers.
A land of opportunity. The abundance of land in America gave English colonists a great deal of economic opportunity and political freedom. First, by owning and working their own farms, settlers could earn an independent living much more easily than in Europe. Even colonists who had little money could prosper.
Second, owning land carried with it the right to vote. In Europe small groups of nobles held most of the political power because they held most of the land. In England’s American colonies, however, a large number of men owned property and thus had a voice in government.

The French in North AmericaFur trading was the primary source of wealth for French settlers. At scattered outposts around the Great Lakes and the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, French traders bought the valuable furs collected in the wilderness by French and Indian trappers.
Attempts at farming were less successful. The king granted large territories in the valley of St. Lawrence River to French lords. Yet there was shortage of farm labor. The French government had refused to let Protestants settle in New France for fear that they would spread Protestantism. Only Catholic peasants could emigrate, and those who did had the opportunity to start farms on their own.
Many French people preferred to settle in French- owned islands in the West Indies. The large sugar plantations on these islands were extremely profitable. France’s colony of St. Domingue, today Haiti, was at one time regarded as the richest colonial possession in the world.

Conflict over Colonies

Since both England and France wanted to expand their possessions in North America, they soon came into conflict. The struggle for overseas colonies became mixed up with other disputes among European nations. Between 1689 and 1763, while various conflicts were going on in Europe, English and French colonists in North America fought four different wars for the control of the continent.The final showdown between England and France came in the “French and Indian War”, which began in 1754. The two sides, each with Indian allies, clashed over lands around the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence river. English victories at Quebec in 1759 and Montreal in 1760 meant the end for New France, and Britain’s superiority at sea was a decisive factor in the outcome of the war. In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, France was forced to surrender.

The treaty cost France all of its North American colonial possessions. French lands in Canada went to Britain, while French territory west of the Mississippi went to Spain. The treaty did allow France to keep its sugar rich colonies in the Caribbean, but French power in the continent had been broken.

Question 5. How did Netherlands become an important commercial power?
Question 6. For what reasons did English settlers come to America?
Question 7. Why was America considered a “land of opportunity”?
Question 8. What were the main economical activities of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, British and French colonists?
Question 9. What were the causes and effects of the French and Indian War?

~ by HistoryRocks.com on December 20, 2007.