Spanish and Portuguese Explorers in the Americas in the 1500s

Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean (aka West Indies)• Native Population: Arawak, Taino• Commodities: Gold briefly, then Sugar

Hernan Cortez to Central Mexico • Native Population: Aztec• Commodity: Silver (Zacatecas mine)

Francisco Pizarro to West Coast of South America• Native Population: Inca, Quechua• Commodity: Gold and Silver (Potosi mine)

Pedro Alvarez Cabral to Brazil • Native Population: Tupi, Tupua• Commodity: Sugar

The European Advantage

• Advances in war technology (firearms, cannon, steel weapons)

• Horsesand

• Devastating diseases such as small pox allowed the Europeans to quickly dominate the Americas and exploit their resources and peoples.

Spain and Portugal Divide the World

Spanish Encomienda System• The “encomienda” was the name of the social system

that the Spanish transplanted to their holdings in the New World. The land holders were called “encomenderos.”

• Spanish conquistadors, settlers, priests or colonial officials were given a grant of land, which included all native cities, towns, communities or families that lived there.

• The natives provided tribute in the form of gold or silver, crops and foodstuffs, animals such as pigs or llamas or anything else the land produced.

The Encomienda System

• The natives could also be made to work for a certain amount of time, say on a sugarcane plantation or in a mine.

• In return, the owner, or encomendero, was responsible for the well-being of his subjects and was to see to it that they were converted and educated about Christianity.

Spanish Mines• When the Spanish discovered silver in the New

World, they opened mines and forced the native people to work in them.

• Two infamous mines were– Zacatecas, in Mexico– Potosi, in Bolivia

• When they ran out of native workers, they brought African slaves to work in the mines.

• Conditions in the mines were horrendous; tens of thousands died.

1500-1800 CE

• 80 – 95 % of the indigenous (“native”) population of the Americas dies from disease and forced servitude

• 10 million enslaved Africans shipped to Americas to work on plantations and in mines

• Spain, and then other European countries become rich, and European culture begins to dominate

The Great Dying

• Consequence

Or

• Genocide