What aspects of Iberian society were transferred to the New World?
The distinctive features of Iberian societies became part of their American culture. They were heavily urban; many peasants lived in small centers. Commoners coming to America sought to become nobles holding Indian-worked estates. Strong patriarchal ideas were reflected in the family life, which was based on encomiendas, large estates worked by Indians. The Iberian tradition of slavery came to the New World. Political centralization in Portugal and Castile depended on a professional bureaucracy of trained lawyers and judges. Religion and the Catholic Church were closely linked to the state. The merchants of Portugal and Spain had extensive experience with the slave trade and plantation agriculture on the earlier colonized Atlantic islands.
What model for American colonization was established in the Caribbean?
The Caribbean "crucible" was a model for Spanish actions in Latin America. Columbus and his successors established colonies. The Indians of the islands were distributed among Spaniards as laborers to form encomiendas. European pressures and diseases quickly destroyed native populations and turned the islands into colonial backwaters. The Spaniards had established Iberian-style cities but had to adapt them to New World conditions. They were laid out in a grid plan with a central plaza for state and church buildings. Royal administration followed the removal of Columbus and his family from control. Professional magistrates staffed the administrative structure; laws incorporated Spanish and American experience. The church joined in the process, building cathedrals and universities. During the early sixteenth century, Spanish women and African slaves joined the earlier arrivals, marking the shift from conquest to settlement. Ranches and sugar plantations replaced gold searching. By this time, most of the Indians had died or been killed. Some clerics and administrators attempted to end abuses; Bartolomé de las Casas began the struggle for justice for Indians. By the 1520s and 1530s, the elements of the Latin American colonial system were in place.
What was the nature of the exploitation of Indians in the Americas?
The Spanish maintained Indian institutions that served their goals. In Mexico and Peru, the traditional nobility, under Spanish authority, presided over taxation and labor demands. Enslavement of Indians, except in warfare, was prohibited by the middle of the sixteenth century. In place of slavery, the government awarded encomiendas (land grants) to conquerors who used their Indians as a source of labor and taxes. The harshness of encomiendas contributed to Indian population decline. From the 1540s, the crown, not wanting a new American nobility to develop, began to modify the system. Most encomiendas disappeared by the 1620s. Colonists henceforth sought grants of land, not labor. The state continued to extract labor and taxes from Indians, who worked in mines and other state projects. Many Indians, to escape forced labor, fled their villages to work for wages from landowners or urban employers. Despite the disruptions, Indian culture remained resilient and modified Spanish forms to Indian ways.
Discuss the nature of the Spanish system of government in the American colonies.
Sovereignty over the Spanish empire was from the king, based on a papal grant awarding the Indies to Castile in return for its bringing the lands into the Christian community. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) between Spain and Portugal regularized their conflicting claims by drawing a north-south line around the earth; the eastern regions belonged to Portugal, the western to Spain. All of the Americas, except Brazil, went to Spain. Indians and many Europeans did not accept the decisions. The Spanish empire became a bureaucratic system built on a juridical core of lawyers who had both legislative and administrative authority. The king ruled from Spain through the Council of Indies; in the Americas there were viceroyalties based in Mexico City and Lima. The viceroys, high-ranking nobles, represented the king and had extensive legislative, military, and judicial powers. The viceroyalties were divided into ten divisions run by royal magistrates. At the local level, other magistrates, often accused of corruption, managed tax and labor service regulations. The clergy performed both secular and religious functions. They converted Indians and established Christian villages. Some defended Indian rights and studied their culture. In core areas, the formal institutional structure of the church eventually prevailed; since the state nominated church officials, they tended to support state policies. The church profoundly influenced colonial cultural and intellectual life through architecture, printing, schools, and universities. The Inquisition controlled morality and orthodoxy.
How did the discovery of gold and diamonds change the economic organization of Brazil?
Between 1580 and 1640, Portugal and Brazil shared the same monarch, the Habsburg ruler of Spain. During the seventeenth-century struggles between Spain and Holland, the Dutch occupied part of Brazil until expelled in 1654. Meanwhile, the Dutch, English, and French had established sugar plantation colonies in the Caribbean. The resulting competition lowered sugar prices and raised the cost of slaves. Brazil lost its position as predominant sugar producer, but exploring backwoodsmen (Paulistas) discovered gold in the Minas Gerais region in 1695. People rushed to the mines and formed new settlements. Mines were worked by slaves. Government controls followed to tightly manage a production that peaked between 1735 and 1760. Brazil then was the greatest source of gold in the Western world. The gold, and later diamond, discoveries opened the interior to settlement, devastated Indian populations, and weakened coastal agriculture. The government managed to reinvigorate coastal agriculture and control the slave trade, while the mines stimulated new ventures in farming and ranching. Rio de Janeiro, nearer to the mines, became a major port and the capital in 1763. A societal hierarchy based on color remained in force. The gold and diamonds did not contribute much to Portuguese economic development. The resources gained allowed Portugal to import manufactured goods instead of creating its own industries.
Describe the social hierarchy of the American colonies
The key to societal development was miscegenation, basically intermarrying. Indian women suffered sexual exploitation from Europeans, and the crown sponsored marriages in a society where there were few European women. The result was mestizo population possessing higher status than Indians. A similar process occurred in colonies with large African slave populations. American realities had created new social distinctions based on race and place of birth. Europeans were always at the top; African slaves and Indians occupied the bottom. Mestizos filled the intermediate categories. Restrictions were placed on mixed-origin people, but social mobility was not halted. Over time, distinctions grew between Spaniards born in Spain (peninsulares) and the New World (Creoles). The latter dominated local economies and developed a strong sense of identity that later contributed to independence movements. Society as a whole remained subject to Iberian patriarchal forms. Women were under male authority; upper-class women were confined to household occupations, but many from the lower class participated in the economy.
What was the nature of the eighteenth century reforms in Portuguese and Spanish colonies?
The large colonies of Portugal and Spain provided an important place in the expanding world economy. By the eighteenth century, weakened internal situations allowed European rivals to benefit directly from Iberian colonial trade. Portugal and Spain had transferred their cultures to the Americas, recreating there a version of Iberian life modified by local influence. Surviving Indian populations adapted to the colonial situation and a distinctive multiethnic and multiracial society emerged that mixed the cultures of all participants. Where slavery prevailed, African cultures played a major role. Latin American civilization was distinct from the West, but related to it. In world markets, Latin American products remained in demand, maintaining a society with its economic life dependent on outside factors.
