SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Economic oppression techniques Economic Foundations Dominated by agriculture production and silver mining in Peru, Mexico, and Bolivia Both require a large labor force to extract a final product Used Amerindians to perform the labor

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Economic oppression techniques (cont.) Encomienda System A grant of authority over the Amerindians in Spanish colonies Grant holder was supplied with a supply of cheap labor AND payments by the Amerindians! Amerindians had to be Christianized…

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Economic oppression techniques (cont.) Mita System (Peru) One-seventh of adult male Amerindians were drafted for forced labor at less than subsistence wages for two to four months of the year.

Silver refinery at Potosi, Bolivia The silver refineries of Spanish America were among the largest industrial establishments in the Western Hemisphere during the colonial period. By the middle of the seventeenth century the mines of Potosi, Bolivia, had attracted a population of more than 120,000. This illustration shows a typical refinery (ingenio). Aqueducts carried water to the refineries. The water wheel shown on the right drove two sets of vertical stamps that crushed ore. Crushed ore was sorted, dried, and mixed with mercury and other catalysts to extract the silver. The amalgam was then separated by a combination of washing and heating. The end result was a nearly pure ingot of silver. (From Alan K. Craig and Robert C. West (eds), In Quest of Mineral Wealth: Aboriginal and Colonial Mining and Metallurgy in Spanish America, vol. 33 of Geoscience and Man, 1994. Courtesy, Geoscience Publications)

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Economic oppression techniques (cont.) Mita System (Peru) Results: Undermined the traditional agricultural economy Weakened Amerindian village life Promoted the assimilation of Amerindians into Spanish colonial society.

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Portuguese economic Pursuits Based primarily on sugar plantations in Caribbean and Brazil Developed the African slave-labor system First used Amerindian slaves; then the more expensive but more productive (and more disease-resistant) African slaves.

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Social classes used in Spanish Colonies The elite of Spanish America consisted of a relatively small number of Spanish immigrants and a larger number of their American-born descendants (Creoles).

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Social classes (cont.) The Spanish-born dominated the highest levels of government, church, and business The Creoles controlled agriculture and mining.

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Social classes (cont.) Under colonial rule, the cultural diversity of Amerindian peoples and the class differentiation within the Amerindian ethnic groups both were eroded.

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Ethnic distinctions used in Spanish Colonies The direct slave trade with Africa led both to an increase in the number of blacks and to a decline in the legal status of blacks in the Spanish colonies. *In Brazil, Africans and their American-born descendants—both slave and free—became the largest ethnic group.

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Ethnic distinctions (cont.) With time African traditions blended and mixed with European and Amerindian languages and beliefs to form distinctive local cultures. *The overwhelming prevalence of males made it impossible for slaves to preserve traditional African family and marriage patterns or to adopt those of Europe.

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE COLONIES Ethnic distinctions (cont.) The growing population of individuals of mixed European and Amerindian descent (Mestizos), European and African descent (Mulattos), and mixed African and Amerindian descent were known collectively as castas.