1. Chapter XVII The Diversity of American Colonial Societies 1530 – 1770
(Region 7)

2. chapter XVII Quote “What is this you call property
chapter XVII Quote “What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth. For the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish, and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs to him only?” Massasoit (Wampanoag Chief)

3. But it did RADICALLY change the entire Planet!”
Mr. Whitaker Quote
“Gold, God, and Glory (& Guns)? So the story of American discovery, and colonization goes. Don’t buy it! Europeans started looking for Asia, for Spices! What they found was unexpected – a land with unbelievable resources (no spice) that could be conquered! Gold: yes, the Spaniards found that. God: only an afterthought when the Pope saw hordes of potential converts – during the Protestant Reformation. Glory: few found that. Guns: pfft! An Amerindian could put 10 arrows in your chest while you were re-loading! The Americas were conquered in stealth mode – DISEASES! Invisibly wiping out 90% (?) of the population…
But it did RADICALLY change the entire Planet!”

4. Chapter Objectives
What are examples of the ways in which the exchange of peoples, plants, animals, & diseases led to Environmental, Cultural, & Economic changes in the Old World (Europe, Asia, & Africa) & particularly in the New World?
Make a comparative analysis of the economies & labor systems of the Portuguese, Spanish, French, & English colonies
What were the causes & long-term implications of the different social structures and political institutions of the Spanish & the English colonies?
How did the 18th Century economic growth & political reform in the Spanish, Portuguese, & English colonies undermine relations between the colonial powers & their American colonists?

5. The Columbian Exchange
Z T E C
P I C T U R E
W R I T I N G
D E A T H B Y S M A L L P O X

6. Demographic Change
The peoples of the New World lacked immunity to diseases from the Old World. Smallpox, measles, diphtheria, typhus, influenza, malaria, yellow fever, & maybe pulmonary plague caused severe declines in the population of native peoples in the Spanish & Portuguese colonies
Similar patterns of contagion & mortality may be observed in the English & French colonies in North America. Europeans did not use disease as a tool of empire, but the spread of Old World diseases clearly undermined the ability of native peoples to resist settlement & accelerated cultural change

7. Transfer of Plants and Animals
European, Asian, & African food crops were introduced to the Americas (mostly unsuccessful), while American crops, including maize, beans, potatoes, manioc, & tobacco, were brought to the Eastern Hemisphere (successful)
Introduction of New World food crops is thought to be one factor contributing to the rapid growth in world population after 1700
The introduction of European livestock such as cattle, pigs, horses, & sheep had a dramatic influence on the environment & on the cultures of the native people of the Americas
Old World livestock (like pigs) destroyed the crops of many Amerindian farmers. Other Amerindians benefited from the introduction of cattle, sheep, & horses

8. Spanish America & Portuguese Brazil
State and Church
The Spanish crown tried to exert direct control over its American colonies but the difficulty of communication between Spain & the New World led to a situation in which the Viceroys of New Spain & Peru & their subordinate officials enjoyed a substantial degree of power
After some years of neglect & mismanagement, the Portuguese in appointed a Viceroy to administer Brazil
The governmental institutions established by Spain & Portugal were highly developed, costly bureaucracies that thwarted local economic initiative & political experimentation

10. State and Church
Catholic Church played important role in transferring European language, culture, & Christian beliefs to the New World. Catholic clergy converted large numbers of Amerindians, although some of them secretly held on to some of their native beliefs & practices
Catholic clergy acted to protect Amerindians from the exploitation & abuse of Spanish settlers. Example: Bartolome de Las Casas, former settler turned priest, denounced Spanish policies toward the Amerindians & worked to improve their status through legal reforms such as the New Laws of 1542
Missionaries were frustrated as converts blended Christian beliefs with elements of their cosmology & ritual, including female deities. In response, the Church redirected its energies toward the colonial cities & towns, where the Church founded universities & secondary schools & played a significant role in the intellectual & economic life of the colonies

11. Colonial Economies
Latin America was dominated by the silver mines of Peru & Mexico & by the sugar plantations of Brazil. This led to a lasting dependence (still today) on mineral & agricultural exports
Economy of Spanish colonies dominated by silver mines of Potosi (Bolivia) & Peru until 1680, then silver mines of Mexico. Silver mining & processing required large labor force & led to environmental effects that included deforestation & mercury (quicksilver) poisoning.
The agricultural economy that dominated Spanish America up to the 1540s, Spanish settlers used forced-labor system of encomienda to exploit Amerindian labor. With the development of silver-mining economies, new systems of labor exploitation were devised: in Mexico, free-wage labor, & in Peru: the mita

12. Under the mita system, one-seventh of adult male Amerindians drafted for forced labor at less than subsistence wages for 2 to 4 months of the year. It undermined traditional agricultural economy, weakened Amerindian villages, & promoted assimilation of Amerindians into Spanish colonial society
Portuguese developed African slave-labor sugar plantation system in Atlantic islands & set up similar plantations in Brazil using Amerindian slaves & then more expensive, but more productive (more disease-resistant) African slaves
Sugar & silver played important roles in integrating the American colonial economies into the system of world trade

13. Society in Colonial Latin America
The elite of Spanish America consisted of a relatively small number of Spanish immigrants & a larger number of their American-born descendants (creoles). Spanish-born dominated the highest levels of government, church, & business, while the creoles controlled agriculture & mining
Under colonial rule, cultural diversity of Amerindian peoples & the class differentiation within Amerindian ethnic groups were eroded
Africans played various roles in the history of the Spanish colonies. Slaves & free blacks from Iberian Peninsula participated in conquest & settlement of Spanish America. Later, the direct slave trade with Africa led to an increase in the number of blacks & to a decline in the legal status of blacks in the Spanish colonies

14. At first, people from various parts of Africa retained different cultural identities; but with time, various traditions blended & mixed with European & Amerindian languages & beliefs to form distinctive local cultures. Slave resistance, including rebellions, were brought under control, but runaway slaves occasionally formed groups that defended themselves for years (maroons)
Most slaves engaged in agricultural labor & submitted to harsh discipline & brutal punishment. Majority of males made it impossible for slaves to preserve traditional African family & marriage patterns or to adopt those of Europe
In Brazil, Portuguese immigrants controlled politics & the economy, but by the early 17th century, Africans & their American-born descendants - both slave & free -
were the largest ethnic group
The growing population of individuals of mixed European & Amerindian descent (mestizos), European & African descent (mulattos), & mixed African & Amerindian descent were known collectively as castas (Castes)

15. English & French Colonies in North America

16. Early English Experiments
Attempts to establish permanent (fishing villages) colonies in the Americas in the late 16th century ended in failure
In the 17th century, hope that colonies would prove to be profitable investments, combined with the successful colonization of Ireland, (Plantation Practice) led to a new wave of interest in establishing colonies in the New World

18. The South
The Virginia Company established colony of Jamestown on an unhealthy island in the James River in After the English Crown took over management of the colony in 1624, Virginia (Chesapeake Bay area) developed a tobacco plantation economy with a dispersed population & with no city of any significant size
Plantations of the Chesapeake Bay area initially relied on English indentured servants for labor. As life expectancy increased, planters came to prefer to invest in slaves; the slave population of Virginia increased from 950 in 1660 to 120,000 in 1756
Virginia was administered by a Crown-appointed governor & by representatives of towns meeting together as the House of Burgesses. They developed into a form of democratic representation at the same time as slavery was growing

19. The Carolinas prospered in the fur trade (deer skins: 250,000 per year) with Amerindian deer-hunters. The consequences included environmental damage brought on by overhunting, Amerindian dependency on European goods, ethnic conflicts among Amerindians fighting over hunting grounds, & a series of unsuccessful Amerindian attacks on the English colonists in the early 1700s
The southern part of the Carolinas was settled by planters from Barbados & developed a slave-labor plantation economy, producing rice & indigo. Enslaved Africans & their descendants formed the majority population & developed their own culture; a slave uprising (the Stono Rebellion) in 1739 led to more repressive policies toward slaves throughout the southern colonies
Colonial South Carolina was the most hierarchical society in British North America. A wealthy planter class dominated a population of small farmers, merchants, cattle ranchers, artisans, & fur-traders who, in turn, stood above the people of mixed English-Amerindian or English-African background & slaves

20. New England
The Pilgrims, who wanted to break completely with the Church of England, established the small Plymouth Colony in Puritans, who wanted only to reform the Church of England, formed a chartered joint-stock company (the Massachusetts Bay Company) & established Massachusetts Bay colony in 1630
The colony had a normal gender balance, saw a rapid increase in population, & was more homogenous & less hierarchical than the southern colonies. The political institutions of the colony were derived from the terms of its charter & included an elected governor &, in 1650, a lower legislative house
Without the soil or climate to produce cash crops, the Massachusetts economy evolved from dependence on fur, forest products, & fish to dependence on commerce & shipping. Massachusetts’s merchants engaged in a diversified trade across the Atlantic, which made Boston the largest city in British North America in 1740

21. The Middle Atlantic Region
Manhattan Island was first colonized by the Dutch (New Amsterdam) and then taken by the English & renamed New York. It became a commercial & shipping center, deriving particular benefit from its position as an outlet for the export of grain to the Caribbean & southern Europe
Pennsylvania was first developed as a proprietary colony for Quakers but soon developed into a wealthy grain-exporting (Oat) colony with Philadelphia as its major commercial city. In contrast to rice-exporting South Carolina’s slave agriculture, Pennsylvania’s grain was produced by free family farmers, including a substantial number of Germans (Pennsylvania Dutch?)

22. French America
French colonies closely resembled those of Spain & Portugal: committed to missionary work & emphasized the extraction of natural resources - furs. Expansion was driven by the fur trade & resulted in depletion of beaver & deer populations & made Amerindians dependent upon European goods
The fur trade provided Amerindians with firearms, which increased the violence of the wars that they fought over control of hunting grounds (against each other)
Catholic missionaries, including the Jesuits, attempted to convert the Amerindian population of French America, but were met with resistance, they turned their attention to work in the French settlements, dependent on the fur trade. They were small & grew slowly. This pattern of settlement allowed Amerindians in French America to preserve a greater degree of independence than they could in the Spanish, Portuguese, or British colonies
French expanded aggressively to the west & south, establishing a 2nd fur-trading colony in Louisiana in Expansion led to war with England. The French, defeated in 1759, were forced to yield Canada to the English & to cede Louisiana to Spain

23. Colonial Expansion and Conflict

24. Imperial Reform in Spanish America & Brazil
After 1713, Spain’s new Bourbon dynasty undertook a series of administrative reforms, including expanded intercolonial trade, new commercial monopolies on certain goods, a stronger navy, & better policing of the trade in contraband goods to the Spanish colonies
Threatened by the independence & power of Jesuit influence, both Portuguese & Spanish monarchies expelled them from their American colonies
The Bourbon policies were detrimental to the interests of the grazing & agricultural export economies, which were increasingly linked to illegitimate trade with the English, French, & Dutch. The new monopolies aroused opposition from creole elites whose only gain from the reforms was their role as leaders of militias that were intended to counter the threat of war with England

25. The Bourbon policies were also a factor in the Amerindian uprisings, including the uprising led by the Peruvian Amerindian leader José Gabriel Condorcanqui (Tupac Amaru II). The rebellion was suppressed after more than two years & cost the Spanish colonies over 100,000 lives & enormous amounts of property damage
Brazil also underwent a period of economic expansion & administrative reform in the 1700s. Economic expansion fueled by gold, diamonds, coffee, & cotton underwrote the Pombal reforms, paid for the importation of nearly 2 million African slaves, & underwrote a new wave of British imports

26. Reform & Reorganization in British America
In the latter half of the 17th century, the British Crown tried to control colonial trading (smuggling) & manufacture by passing a series of Navigation Acts & by suspending the elected assemblies of the New England colonies. Colonists resisted by overthrowing the governors of New York & Massachusetts & by removing the Catholic proprietor of Maryland, thus setting the stage for future confrontational politics
During the 18th century, economic growth & new immigration into the British colonies was accompanied by increased urbanization & a more stratified social structure

27. Appalachian Ridge

28. Conclusion Political & Economic Comparisons
Amerindians in the colonies of Spain, Portugal, France, & England all experienced European subjugation
Of the Catholic powers of Spain, Portugal, & France, Spain gained the most wealth & developed the most centralized control
British colonial governments were more likely to develop according to local interests than the French, Spanish, & Portuguese colonial governments

29. Environmental & Cultural Comparisons
The environments in all colonies underwent change from the introduction of European technology, animals, & plants
All lost natural resources to European markets
The Catholic nations forced more cultural uniformity on their colonies than Britain did in the more religiously & ethnically diverse British colonies
The British colonies welcomed a much larger influx of European migrants than did the other New World colonies

30. Latin America
North America
Labor System
Encomienda, Mit’a, and slave labor
slaves & indentured servitude
Demographics
Single men (soldiers) who married native women
Mostly European families, intermarriage was less common
Governments
Authoritarian viceroyalties with no assemblies
More independence from kings, assemblies and less bureaucratic than Latin America
Relations with Amerindians
Forced into labor
Pushed west as colonists expanded, causing Amerindian wars
Social Structure
Hierarchical with several classes based on ethnicity
Hierarchical in the south, less so in the north