TOPIC: Americas; “New Spain”

Key Concepts: 4.1, 4.2, 4.3

Crash Course ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=rjhIzemLdos

Basic Timeline

1492- Columbus Voyages

1494 Treaty of Tordesillas (Divides Americas Between Spain and Portugal)
1500s ​The Spanish Empire claimed the entire Caribbean and most of Latin America. Hispanola, Puerto
Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, and Trinidad were settled.
1519-21 Spanish Conquer the Aztec (N. America)
1530s First Portuguese plantations
1532-40 Spanish Conquer the Inca (S. America)
1607 Jamestown, VA= first permanent settlement in Americas (North)

❖ CH 12: Civilizations of the Fifteenth Century: The Americas

➢ The number and size of key states such as the grew dramatically as rulers imposed political unity on
areas where previously there had been competing states, for example the Inca and Aztec.
➢ Imperial cities such as Teotihuacan served as centers of trade, public performance of religious rituals,
and political administration for states and empires.
➢ Imperial societies relied on a range of methods (e.g. the mita system in the Incan Empire) to maintain
the production of food and provide rewards for the loyalty of elites.

❖ Chapter 13 European Empires in the Americas

➢ Remarkable new transoceanic reconnaissance occurred during this period, including the Spanish sponsorship of
the first Columbian and subsequent voyages across the Atlantic and Pacific, dramatically increasing European
interest in transoceanic travel and trade.
➢ The new connections between the Eastern and Western hemispheres resulted in the Columbian Exchange,
including the spread of diseases, transfer of vermin, staple crops, and cash crops which were grown on plantations,
and domesticated animals.
➢ Imperial expansion relied on the increased use of gunpowder, cannons, and armed trade to establish large empires
in both hemispheres including trading post, land, and maritime empires.
➢ Rulers used a variety of methods to legitimize and consolidate their power, including treating different ethnic and
religious groups in ways that utilized their economic contributions while limiting their ability to challenge the
authority of the state such as the Spanish and Portuguese creation of new racial classifications including mestizo,
mulatto, and creole.

❖ What enabled Europeans to carve out huge empires an ocean away from their homelands?

➢ Geographically closer than Asian competitors

 ➢ Powerful motives (push and pull factors) by monarchs, merchants, weakened nobles, commoners, Christian
Missionaries & persecuted minorities.
➢ European States effectively utilized (and motivated) human and material resources.
➢ New Technology (advantage): Seafaring technology that built upon previous innovations, ironworking, gunpowder,
horses
➢ Internal Conflict and divisions weakened American empires (Aztec, Inca)
➢ DISEASE

❖ What large scale transformations (changes) did European empires generate as they connected/conquered the “New
World”?

➢ Empire building led to demographic collapse, and new ethnic groups as natives, Europeans, and Africans created
new societies in the Americas
➢ “Columbian Exchange” connected 4 continents creating an interacting Atlantic World= crops & animals, Silver,
humans, profits, disease
➢ Migrations of Europeans led to extension of European influence, shifted the world balance of powers giving the
Western Europeans a new central role on the word stage.

❖ Economic Foundation of Colonial Rule was agriculture and silver based on forced (coerced) labor and wage labor by native
populations. Resulting in a clear social hierarchy of racially mixed ethnic groups. North America differs why?
❖ Slavery in Brazil and the CAribbean vs, North AMerica- major differences was the harshness of work and the extent to which
the system was self-sustaining or producing.
❖ Settler Colonies of North America- majority, literacy, self governing, less interested in spreading Christianity, less blending

❖ Glossary:

➢ Columbian Exchange​: The exchange of plants, animals, microparasites, and human genes resulting from the
connection of Afro-Eurasia (the “Old World”) and the Americas (the “New World”) in the 1450-1750 period.
➢ Smallpox​: Epidemic disease characterized by pox (red sores) to which Europeans had limited resistance where
Native Americans had none. Cause of largest die-off in human history in the Americas circa 1450-1750 (the “Great
Dying”).
➢ Encomienda​: Unfree labor system set up by the Spanish crown in which Spanish settlers were granted the labor of
native peoples in return for their protection and conversion to Christianity. Essentially a version of the ​serfdom​ of
Europe without the same level of human rights.
➢ Encomenderos​: ​The holder of a grant of Indians who were required to pay a tribute or provide labor. The
encomendero was responsible for their integration into the church.
➢ Haciendas​: Rural estates in Spanish colonies in New World; produced agricultural products for consumers in
Americas; basis of wealth and power for local aristocracy, no connection to the King of Spain
➢ sociedad de las castas​: System of racial classification set up in Latin America wherein full-blooded, European born
whites were at the top of the social hierarchy and all other “mixed” races were at lower levels. The further an
individual was from “pure” European, the less social and economic status.
➢ Viceroyalties​: Provinces ruled by viceroys, direct representatives of the monarch.
➢ Treaty of Tordesillas​: Set the Line of Demarcation which was a boundary established in 1493 to define
Spanish and Portuguese possessions in the Americas.