Colonial Empires and Revolution in the Western Hemisphere

• Focus Question:– How did Spain and Portugal administer their

American colonies, and what were the main characteristics of Latin American society in the 18th C?

– What characterized revolution? How “free” were the free states?

The Society of Latin America

• 16th Century Latin America– Portugal: Brazil– Spain: Central America, most of South America

• Multiracial society/Racial Caste System– Mestizos: Intermarriage between Spanish and

indigenous peoples– Mulattoes: Intermarriage between Europeans and

Africans– Zambos: indigenous and African descent

The Society of Latin America

• The Economic Foundations– Gold and Silver– Agriculture

• Estates & Peons

– Trade• Colonies a source of

raw materials for exports

– Gold, silver, diamonds, sugar, animal hides

Aboriginal Slavery

Mines of Potosi, Peru, 1590

Pack train of llamas

African Slavery

• Middle Passage• or System of Asiento• 16th C 75,000 Africans

– 18th C 9.5 million enslaved

Palenques & Quilombos• La Republica de Zambos, 1599• 16th C portrait of Don Francisco de Arobe,

black ruler of an Ecuadorian province

Commerce, Smuggling, Piracy• Casa de Contratacion (house of trade)

• est. 1503 in Seville

• Wealthier merchants of Seville and Cadiz– Maintained trade monopoly

• Seville Merchant oligarchy or guilds– kept the colonial markets under stocked – forced colonists to pay exorbitant prices for all

European goods acquired through legal channels. • generated colonial discontent and stimulated the

growth of contraband trade.

England’s Challenge to Spain

• England’s Challenge to Spain: Piracy:• Queen Elizabeth

– Sir Francis Drake,1577 • “singe the King of Spain’s beard”

– seized treasure ships – ravaged colonial towns

• Treaty of Madrid in 1670 between England and Spain.

1573 Spanish Inquisition

• Persuasion• Coercion• Natives that

practiced tradition were charged with heresy

• punished– Hanged or

burned at the stake

Legacy of Inquisition? • Methods of repression continued by Totalitarian Regimes &

Police States– Creation of racial & religious Ghettos– Forcible wearing of badges of shame– Formal state & religious propaganda– Spying– Seizure of property– Intimidation & torture– Sexual humiliation– Good cop/bad cop routine– Physical restraint– Separation of families

• No recognition of natural or civil rights• Threat and repression of Humanity

New Laws of the Indies (1542)

• Dominican bishop Antonio de Valdivieso of Nicaragua– tried to enforce the abolition of indigenous slavery

by the New Laws (assassinated 1550) • Franciscan Toribio de Benavente or Motolinia

(Realist or moderate)– Believed the encomienda was necessary for the

prosperity and security of the indies

Institutions of Conquest

• Mission, Presidio, Pueblo, Rancho• Encomienda• Repartimiento or mita• Slavery

– New political climate marked by a growing belief in the constitutional inferiority of indigos peoples

The Mission

• The Mission– The Franciscans and Other

Mendicant Orders– Salvation in return for

labor

The Mission (1986)

–The Jesuit missionary Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) with the Guaraní´ Indians of Paraguay before their slaughter by Portuguese troops.

© Warner Brothers/Courtesy Everett Collection

Wards of the Friars

• Francis Guest– As is commonly known, Spanish law made the

missionaries the legal guardians of their Indian converts.

– In virtue of their conversion and baptism the neophytes became the wards of the friar

• Lands confiscated• Neophytes became property of the friars

Components of the Mission System: the Pueblo

• The Pueblo– Agricultural Towns– Indian Labor– Hope to Decrease

Reliance on Mexico and Missions

Components of the Mission System: the Presidio

The Presidio• Forts to Protect the

Mission• Garrisons Return

Fugitives• Garrisons Capture New

Neophytes• Four Built• Weak Militarily

Components of the Mission System: the Rancho

The Rancho– Mission Herds– Use Indian Labor– Major Source of

Wealth in Mission System

– Give Missions Power over Spanish Government

Forced System of Labor

• Excessive confining work– Brick Manufacture

• Men made adobe bricks • Women aided in transporting bricks & tiles

– Weaving lucrative for the mission• Women & Children employed in processing wool and

weaving– Evidence of piece rate system, paid “in kind”

18th C Perspectives

• French Explorer Jean Francois Galaup Comte de La Perouse– Likened the Indians of Mission San Carlos in 1786

to the Slaves of Santo Domingo• Descriptions lf serious charges of cruelty

– George Vancouver Expeditions– Naturalist Archibald Menzies, 1792– Documents & letters authored by military

authorities in 1785 & cited by George Bancroft

Native Resistance

“Cooperation”Passive ResistanceFugitivismActive ResistanceRevoltHomicideRaids on livestock Revitalization

Resistance• Indigenous Women

– They enjoyed economic importance as producers and traders of goods

– countered male abuse– played leading roles in

the organization o resistance

Theodor de Bry (1528 – 1598)

Impact of the Mission System and Spanish Settlement

Land

Population

Culture

Mission Santa Barbara

Latin America: 19th & early 20th C

• Q: What role did liberalism and nationalism play in Latin America Between 1800 and 1870?

• Q: What were the major economic, social and political trends in Latin American in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Challenge to Spanish & Portuguese Colonialism

• Influence of Enlightenment ideals & upheavals in the Napoleonic era– The Wars for Independence

• Creole Elites: descendants of Europeans• Simon Bolivar of Venezuela• Jose de San Martin of Argentina

– Principle of Equality of all people under law– Free trade– Free press

» Did not apply to everyone

Toussaint L’Ouverture,Haiti, 1804© North Wind Picture Archives

Nationalistic Revolts

• Mexican Independence, 1810– Miguel Hidalgo Y Costilla– Represented a peoples revolution

• September 16, 1910 crushed

• Creoles & Peninsulars united to defeat the popular revolution– Augustin de Iturbide, first emperor of Mexico,

1821• No political or economic changes

“Liberator” of South America

• Venezuela (1819)•Colombia•Ecuador•Perus•Simon Bolivar leading his troops across the Andes in 1823 to fight in Peru

© SuperStock

“Liberators” of South America

•San Jose Martyn is shown leading his troops at the Battle of Chacabuco, Chile, 1817.

• Latin America in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

By1824:“Free States”: Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia Chile

Nation Building

• The Difficulties of Nation Building (1830-187)– Consequences of Wars for independence

• Loss of population, property and livestock• Boundary disputes• Poor transportation and communication challenged

unity and fostered regionalism

• European & American intervention• Monroe Doctrine, 1823

Political Obstacles

• Different types of leadership• Caudillos (leaders) of New Republics

– National Caudillos• Autocrats: Supported elites and controlled state

revenues, favored centralized power and unity of states

– worked against the majority’s interests– Sometimes were modernizers in that they build

infrastructure, canal, ports, schools,

Economic Patterns

• Great Britain & America dominated Latin American economy – Raw materials & new Markets

• Incredible disparity of wealth– Landed elite

• Land basis of wealth, social prestige, political power• Controlled government, courts• Maintained system of debt peonage

Foreign Investments

• 1870 – 1913 foreign investments boomed– British investment:

• Growth from 85 to 757 million pound, 2/3 of all foreign investments

– Railroads– Mining– Public utilities

• Slavery technically abolished in 1888• Most people remained subservient and

dependent on elite and foreigners

Catholic Church

• Enormous land holdings-Exercised great power

• Clerics took position in new governments following independence– Considerable influence

• Conflict of church & state– Liberals wanted to curtail powers of church– Conservatives hoped to maintain privileges and

power of church

Working Class

• Growth of labor unions– Radical unions advocated use of the general strike

as an instrument for change• Lack of suffrage• Political Change after 1870

– Landed Elite• Controlled government• produced constitutions similar to those of the US and

Europe• limited suffrage maintained concentration of power

Dictators

• Some landowners made use of dictators to maintain the interests of the ruling elite.– Porfirio Diaz , Mexico, Ruled 1876 – 1910,

• established a conservative, centralized government

– support of the army, foreign capitalists, large landowners, and the catholic church.

• Consequences of Dictatorship:– real wages of working class declined,– 95% of rural population owned no land, – 1000 families owned the land.

Economy after 1870

• Growth of economy– Modernization & wealth a veneer– Enjoyed by the wealthy minority

• Rural elites dominated workers– Indians impoverished– Debt servitude– Dependent on foreigners

Emiliano Zapata

•Liberal landowner Francisco Madero, forced Diaz from power•Madera’s ineffectiveness to carry out sufficient reform triggered a demand for agrarian reform led by Zapata

© Snark/Art Resource, NY

Mexican Revolution, 1910

• He aroused the revolutionary impulse of landless– Seized the haciendas (plantations) of the wealthy

• Impact of revolution– destroyed the economy– new constitution in 1917

United States Intervention• United States emergence as a world power

– interfered into the economies of Latin America• The Spanish American War 1898

– Platt Amendment (1901) Cuba– Foraker Act (1900) Puerto Rico

• Between 1898 – 1934 – sent military forces to Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala,

Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Columbia, Haiti, and the Dominica Republic

• Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child..."

• Rudyard Kipling - McClure's Magazine 12 (Feb. 1899).

Imperialists

Zionsim

Palestine in 1900