Chapter 24: New Worlds: The Americas and Oceania

Chapter Outline
I. Colliding worlds A. The Spanish Caribbean 1. Indigenous peoples were the Taino a. Lived in small villages under authority of chiefs b. Showed little resistance to European visitors 2. Columbus built the fort of Santo Domingo, capital of the Spanish Caribbean a. Taino conscripted to mine gold b. Encomiendas: land grants to Spanish settlers with total control over local people c. Brutal abuses plus smallpox brought decline of Taino populations B. The conquest of Mexico and Peru 1. Hernan Corts a. Aztec and Inca societies wealthier, more complex than Caribbean societies b. With 450 men, Corts conquered the Aztec empire, 1519-1521 c. Tribal resentment against the Mexica helped Corts d. Epidemic disease (smallpox) also aided Spanish efforts 2. Francisco Pizarro a. Led a small band of men and toppled the Inca empire, 1532-1533 b. Internal problems and smallpox aided Pizarro's efforts c. By 1540 Spanish forces controlled all the former Inca empire C. Iberian empires in the Americas 1. Spanish colonial administration formalized by 1570 a. Administrative centers in Mexico and Peru governed by viceroys b. Viceroys reviewed by audiencias, courts appointed by the king c. Viceroys had sweeping powers within jurisdictions 2. Portuguese Brazil: given to Portugal by Treaty of Tordesillas a. Portuguese king granted Brazil to nobles, with a governor to oversee b. Sugar plantations by mid-sixteenth century 3. Colonial American society a. European-style society in cities, indigenous culture persisted in rural areas b. More exploitation of New World than settlement c. Still, many Iberian migrants settled in the Americas, 1500-1800 D. Settler colonies in North America 1. Foundation of colonies on east coast, exploration of west coast a. France and England came seeking fur, fish, trade routes in the early seventeenth century b. Settlements suffered isolation, food shortages 2. Colonial government different from Iberian colonies a. North American colonies controlled by private investors with little royal backing b. Royal authority and royal governors, but also institutions of selfgovernment

3.

Relations with indigenous peoples a. Settlers' farms interrupted the migrations of indigenous peoples b. Settlers seized lands, then justified with treaties c. Natives retaliated with raids on farms and villages d. Attacks on European communities brought reprisals from settlers e. Between 1500 and 1800, native population of North America dropped 90 percent

II.

Colonial society in the Americas A. The formation of multicultural societies 1. In Spanish and Portuguese settlements,mestizo societies emerged a. Peoples of varied ancestry lived together under European rule b. Mestizo: the children of Spanish and Portuguese men and native women c. Society of Brazil more thoroughly mixed:mestizos, mulattoes, zambos 2. Typically the social (and racial) hierarchy in Iberian colonies was as follows: a. Whites (peninsulares and criollos)owned the land and held the power b. Mixed races (mestizos and zambos)performed much of the manual labor c. Africans and natives were at the bottom 3. North American societies a. Greater gender balance among settlers allowed marriage within their own groups b. Relationships of French traders and native women generated some mtis c. English disdainful of interracial marriages d. Cultural borrowing: plants, crops, deerskin clothes B. Mining and agriculture in the Spanish empire 1. Silver more plentiful than gold, the basis of Spanish New World wealth a. Conquistadores melted Aztec and Inca gold artifacts into ingots b. Two major sites of silver mining: Zacatecas (Mexico) and Potosi (Peru) 2. The global significance of silver a. One-fifth of all silver mined went to royal Spanish treasury (the quinto) b. Paid for Spanish military and bureaucracy c. Passed on to European and then to Asian markets for luxury trade goods 3. Large private estates, or haciendas, were the basis of Spanish American production a. Produced foodstuffs for local production b. Abusive encomienda system replaced by the repartimiento system c. Repartimiento system replaced by free laborers by the midseventeenth century 4. Resistance to Spanish rule by indigenous people a. Various forms of resistance: rebellion, indolence, retreat

C.

D.

E.

Difficult for natives to register complaints: Poma de Ayala's attempt Sugar and slavery in Portuguese Brazil 1. The Portuguese empire in Brazil dependent on sugar production a. Colonial Brazilian life revolved around the sugar mill, or engenho b. Engenho combined agricultural and industrial enterprises c. Sugar planters became the landed nobility 2. Growth of slavery in Brazil a. Native peoples of Brazil were not cultivators; they resisted farm labor b. Smallpox and measles reduced indigenous population c. Imported African slaves for cane and sugar production after 1530 d. High death rate and low birth rate fed constant demand for more slaves e. Roughly, every ton of sugar cost one human life Fur traders and settlers in North America 1. The fur trade was very profitable 2. Native peoples trapped for and traded with Europeans 3. Impact of the fur trade a. Environmental impact b. Conflicts among natives competing for resources 4. European settler-cultivators posed more serious threat to native societies a. Cultivation of cash crops--tobacco, rice, indigo, and later, cotton b. Indentured labor flocked to North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 5. African slaves replaced indentured servants in the late seventeenth century a. Slave labor not yet prominent in North America (lack of laborintensive crops) b. New England merchants participated in slave trade, distillation of rum Christianity and native religions in the Americas 1. Spanish missionaries introduced Catholicism a. Mission schools and churches established b. Some missionaries recorded the languages and traditions of native peoples c. Native religions survived but the Catholic Church attracted many converts 2. In 1531, the Virgin of Guadalupe became a national symbol 3. French and English missions less successful a. North American populations not settled or captive b. English colonists had little interest in converting indigenous peoples c. French missionaries worked actively, but met only modest success

b.

III.

Europeans in the Pacific A. Australia and the larger world 1. Dutch mariners explored west Australia in the seventeenth century

B.

a. No spices, no farmland b. Australia held little interest until the eighteenth century 2. British captain James Cook explored east Australia in 1770 a. In 1788, England established first settlement in Australia as a penal colony b. Free settlers outnumbered convicted criminal migrants after 1830s The Pacific Islands and the larger world 1. Spanish voyages in the Pacific after Magellan a. Regular voyages from Acapulco to Manila on the trade winds b. Spanish mariners visited Pacific Islands; some interest in Guam and the Marianas c. Indigenous Chamorro population resisted but decimated by smallpox 2. Impact on Pacific islanders of regular visitors and trade a. Occasional misunderstandings and skirmishes b. Whalers were regular visitors after the eighteenth century c. Missionaries, merchants, and planters followed

Chapter 25: Africa and the Atlantic World

Chapter Outline
I. African politics and societies in early modern times A. The states of west Africa and east Africa 1. The Songhay empire was the dominant power of west Africa, replacing Mali a. Expansion under Songhay emperor Sunni Ali after 1464 b. Elaborate administrative apparatus, powerful army, and imperial navy c. Muslim emperors ruled prosperous land, engaged in transSaharan trade 2. Fall of Songhay to Moroccan army in 1591 a. Revolts of subject peoples brought the empire down b. A series of small, regional kingdoms and city-states emerged 3. Decline of Swahili city-states in east Africa a. Vasco da Gama forced the ruler of Kilwa to pay tribute, 1502 b. Massive Portuguese naval fleet subdued all the Swahili cities, 1505 c. Trade disrupted; Swahili declined B. The kingdoms of central Africa and south Africa 1. Kongo, powerful kingdom of central Africa after fourteenth century a. Established diplomatic and commercial relations with Portugal, 1482 b. Kings of Kongo converted to Christianity sixteenth century; King Afonso 2. Slave raiding in Kongo a. Portuguese traded textiles, weapons, and advisors for Kongolese gold, silver, ivory, and slaves b. Slave trade undermined authority of kings of Kongo

C.

D.

c. Deteriorated relations led to war in 1665; Kongo king decapitated Kingdom of Ndongo (modern Angola) attracted Portuguese slave traders a. Queen Nzinga led spirited resistance to Portuguese, 1623-1663 b. Nzinga able to block Portuguese advances but not expel them entirely c. By end of the seventeenth century, Ndondo was the Portuguese colony of Angola 4. Southern Africa dominated by regional kingdoms, for example, Great Zimbabwe 5. Europeans in south Africa after the fifteenth century a. First Portuguese, then Dutch mariners landed at Cape of Good Hope b. Dutch mariners built a trading post at Cape Town, 1652 c. Increasing Dutch colonists by 1700, drove away native Khoikhoi d. South Africa became a prosperous European colony in later centuries Islam and Christianity in early modern Africa 1. Islam popular in west Africa states and Swahili city-states of east Africa a. Islamic university and 180 religious schools in Timbuktu in Mali b. Blended Islam with indigenous beliefs and customs, a syncretic Islam c. The Fulani, west African tribe, observed strict form of Islam, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 2. Christianity reached sub-Saharan Africa through Portuguese merchants a. Also blended with traditional beliefs b. Antonian movement of Kongo, a syncretic cult, addressed to St. Anthony c. Charismatic Antonian leader, Dona Beatriz, executed for heresy, 1706 Social change in early modern Africa 1. Kinship and clans remained unchanged at the local level 2. American food crops, for example, manioc, maize, peanuts, introduced after the sixteenth century 3. Population growth in sub-Sahara: 35 million in 1500 to 60 million in 1800 3.

II.

The Atlantic slave trade A. Foundations of the slave trade 1. Slavery common in traditional Africa a. Slaves typically war captives, criminals, or outcasts b. Most slaves worked as cultivators, some as administrators or soldiers c. With all land held in common, slaves were a measure of power and wealth d. Slaves often assimilated into their masters' kinship groups, even earned freedom 2. The Islamic slave trade well established throughout Africa a. Ten million slaves may have been shipped out of Africa by Islamic slave trade between eighth and the eighteenth centuries

B.

C.

Europeans used these existing networks and expanded the slave trade Human cargoes 1. The early slave trade on the Atlantic started by Portuguese in 1441 a. By 1460 about five hundred slaves a year shipped to Portugal and Spain b. By fifteenth century African slaves shipped to sugar plantations on Atlantic islands c. Portuguese planters imported slaves to Brazil, 1530s d. Spanish settlers shipped African slaves to the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru, and Central America, 1510s and 1520s e. English colonists brought slaves to North America early seventeenth century 2. Triangular trade: all three legs of voyage profitable a. European goods traded for African slaves b. Slaves traded in the Caribbean for sugar or molasses c. American produce traded in Europe 3. At every stage the slave trade was brutal a. Individuals captured in violent raids b. Forced marched to the coast for transport c. The dreaded middle passage, where between 25 percent and 50 percent died The impact of the slave trade in Africa 1. Volume of the Atlantic slave trade increased dramatically after 1600 a. At height--end of the eighteenth century--about one hundred thousand shipped per year b. Altogether about twelve million brought to Americas, another four million died en route 2. Profound impact on African societies a. Impact uneven: some societies spared, some societies profited b. Distorted African sex ratios, since two-thirds of exported slaves were males c. Encouraged polygamy and forced women to take on men's duties 3. Politically disruptive a. Introduced firearms; fostered conflict and violence between peoples b. Dahomey, on the "slave coast," grew powerful as a slave-raiding state

b.

III.

The African diaspora A. Plantation societies 1. Cash crops introduced to fertile lands of Caribbean early fifteenth century a. First Hispaniola, then Brazil and Mexico b. Important cash crops: sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, cotton, coffee c. Plantations dependent on slave labor 2. Plantations racially divided: one hundred or more slaves with a few white supervisors a. High death rates in the Caribbean and Brazil; continued importation of slaves

B.

C.

Only about 5 percent of slaves to North America, where slave families more common 3. Resistance to slavery widespread, though dangerous a. Slow work, sabotage, and escape b. Slave revolts were rare and were brutally suppressed by plantation owners c. 1793: slaves in French colony of Saint-Domingue revolted, abolished slavery, and established the free state of Haiti The making of African-American cultural traditions 1. African and Creole languages a. Slaves from many tribes; lacked a common language b. Developed creole languages, blending several African languages with the language of the slaveholder 2. African-American religions also combined elements from different cultures a. African-American Christianity was a distinctive syncretic practice b. African rituals and beliefs: ritual drumming, animal sacrifice, magic, and sorcery 3. Other African-American cultural traditions: hybrid cuisine, weaving, pottery The end of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery 1. New voices and ideas against slavery a. American and French revolutions encouraged ideals of freedom and equality b. Olaudah Equiano was a freed slave whose autobiography became a best-seller 2. Slavery became increasingly costly a. Slave revolts made slavery expensive and dangerous b. Decline of sugar price and rising costs of slaves in the late eighteenth century c. Manufacturing industries were more profitable; Africa became a market 3. End of the slave trade a. Most European states abolished the slave trade in the early nineteenth century b. British naval squadrons helped to stop the trade c. The abolition of slavery followed slowly: 1833 in British colonies, 1848 in French colonies, 1865 in the United States, 1888 in Brazil

b.