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| Non-fiction and essays |
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| University essays |
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| History First Year |
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| Early Modern Europe 103 |
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| What impact did the West have on South America? (HIST 103, Spring 2002) After the discovery of the New World in 1492, many European expeditions followed the route to the shores of South America. The majority of those expeditions reaching the new continent were Spaniards, though other nations did play a role, albeit a less significant one. These newcomers would have a tremendous impact on both the land itself and the native inhabitants. It will therefore be necessary to investigate the actions of the Spanish in detail, but attention must be paid to differences in the conduct of other nationalities. Some impacts would be felt immediately, as in the establishment of encomiendas, agricultural lands where the Indians ‘were enslaved or reduced to the status of feudal serfs’.# This exploitation of native labour would quickly spread to the mining operations where silver was extracted for return to Spain. Following a brief period of quite peaceful relations, the conquistadores brought the great Indian empires of the Incas and Aztecs to their knees. The actions of these men not only shifted the balance of power considerably within the continent, but also brought with them possibly the most devastating impact, diseases: Plagues of smallpox, measles, typhus and other as yet unidentified diseases…It has been estimated that over the century following the Conquest the population in Central Mexico fell by about 90 per cent. The decline of Peru was slower and less drastic, but was still roughly 40 per cent.# Clearly these significant population decreases had a profound impact on South America. However, it may be argued that other influences, whilst slower to take effect, may have been more important in the long-term development of the area. Together with their diseases, weapons and their desire for power and wealth, the Europeans, notably the Spanish brought with them men of faith and a desire to convert the natives to Christianity. Indeed, in his History of the Indies, Oviedo writes that Columbus ‘is still more worthy of fame and glory for having brought the Catholic faith to these parts.’# Slow to take hold, but increasing in power and influence over time, this is definitely one of the defining impacts of the Europeans’ arrival in South America. Between their first arrival with Columbus and the height of the Spanish Conquest, the most significant impacts the Europeans had were the ways in which they imposed an entirely new social structure on the native peoples. The newcomers had an area of some three million square kilometres and required ways of working the land. The Spanish transposed their version of pasture farming, resulting in an increase in the number of beef cattle from about 15,000 in 1536 to a million by 1620. The Spanish living alongside the Indians were charged with the responsibility of protecting them, but there soon appeared a distinct division between the Spanish city and the Indian countryside. Spanish farmers gave no respect to their Indian counterparts, allowing their animals to graze on Indian lands. Primarily used for arable farming, this situation brought famine to the natives. This condescending attitude towards the Indians would expand over time: A new social and economic unit, the consolidated state (hacienda), had emerged in South America by the seventeenth century, with a rich territorial aristocracy at the top of the social pyramid and debt-ridden Indian share-croppers at the bottom.# Therefore, the arrival of the Spanish heralded the establishment of a new social structure in South America, reminiscent of that of feudal Europe. In Brazil, controlled by the Portuguese, the colonies were given more permanence by the women who travelled there to settle. However, they also were engaged in the subjection of their surroundings. In order to accomplish this, they relied on the exploitation of the local land, local resources and more importantly, the local people. In describing the conduct of the Spanish towards the Indian population, Bartolomé De Las Casas, a contemporary critic, in 1542 wrote that: The Spanish have shown not the slightest consideration for these people, treating them…not as brute animals…so much as piles of dung in the middle of the road.# The Spanish seemed to have viewed the natives as nothing more than subjects, to be ruled by their European superiors, an attitude that dated back to the first arrival of Columbus. It was often a case of a short time spent in the New World in order to provide the conquistadors with riches: Labour for the encomenderos must often, though not always, have been harsh and exploitative, since many Spanish were not interested in settling down but simply wanted to extract as much wealth as possible from the Indies before returning to Spain.# The Spanish were reliant on the natives for food and labour, and not only did they put them to work in the fields of the haciendas, but into the far harsher silver mining operations. This was not the extent of the exploitation, for the Europeans also demanded tribute from the Indians, a ‘one-way transfer of goods to the new lords’ which served to breed resentment and violence among the indigenous populations.# Eventually, the Spanish government sanctioned the use of Indian slavery, auspiciously for those deemed ‘exceptionally warlike’, but the Spaniards gradually expanded it to all native people. The native peoples were not the only slaves present in South America, for from the beginning of the sixteenth century, Negroes were shipped in to work on the Spanish, Portuguese and later on, the Dutch settlements. The effect of their impact was to cheapen production costs considerably, but also resulted in the spread of diseases, notably leprosy. They also ‘mingled everywhere with the white and red races in marriage or in clandestine union’.# While these exploitations were present from the initial settlement of South America, those of the Indians would be more prominent in the years following the Spanish Conquest. When Hernan Cortés captured Tenochtitlan, less than thirty years after Columbus’ discovery, he brought to an end the Aztec dominance of Mexico. A decade later, the Inca Empire was subdued, removing the major power in Peru and the silver-rich areas in the top of South America. In his History of the Incas, Betanzos writes of the conquistadors that ‘they were not so much concerned with finding things out as with subjecting and acquiring the land.’# This opinion of the conquistadors can be illustrated most graphically in the sharp population decline following their exploits. Between 1500 and 1600 the native population of Mexico is thought to have fallen from 27 million to just one million, and in a similar time frame, the population of Peru fell from 7 million to 500,000.# It is in these actions of the Spanish that the major difference between the endeavours of the Europeans can be seen. While it is clear that all the major powers, to a greater or lesser extent, came into conflict with native people in South America, it is the Spanish who: Unlike the English or the French, had from the first been engaged upon a self-styled war of conquest. Furthermore, they had pursued this conquest on the highly questionable authority of a papal grant.# It was not the actual military conflict that constituted the most significant impact of the conquest, but rather the introduction of numerous diseases, against which the Indians had little or no immunity. Indeed, according to historian Stephen Greenblatt: The disastrous epidemic diseases that afflicted the Indians may ultimately have proven a more decisive historical factor than the Spanish atrocities.# There is little doubt that the Spanish actions only served to worsen these effects. One possible reason given by sixteenth century historians for the impact of disease on the natives is that it was some sort of punishment wrought on the heathen by a vengeful God. The task of Christianising the natives was one taken up almost immediately by the Europeans. The issue of religion is again brought up with the first arrivals from Europe, with Columbus laying down a distinction between ‘innocent, potentially Christian Indians and idolatrous Indians, practising cannibalism’.# While Cortés was intent on bringing back riches from the Aztec Empire, according to Bernal Díaz, he insisted that: Ever since we entered this country we have preached the holy doctrine to the best of our ability in every town we have passed, and have induced the natives to destroy their idols.# This idea combines the two basic activities of the Europeans with regards to religion: the removal of the native religious practices and the replacement of those beliefs with Christianity. Not only did the newcomers themselves attempt the conversion of native peoples, but they also sought the influence of indigenous warriors, who would receive protection in return for ensuring those under them would become converts. An interesting dichotomy arises in the treatment of Indians deemed cannibals: The Christians are disgusted by cases of cannibalism. The introduction of Christianity involves their suppression. But, in order to achieve this suppression, men are burned alive!# There were also more formal attempts to promote the conversion of the indigenous peoples, such as the Jesuit colleges in Brazil. The education system in Brazil would remain largely a Jesuit one for the next three centuries.# Despite the success of the Christianising attempts, it must be noted that existing native religious and social practices survived. Other aspects of European life, such as tools and clothes, were adapted by the natives to life in South America. It is evident that the impact of the Europeans in South America can be seen to the present day, but the initial impact in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a devastating one. Although the figures can only really be estimated, it is clear that the native population was decimated by the influx of gun-wielding, disease- carrying foreigners. The Indians had no defence against either of these deadly killers, and millions would die in a relatively short period of time. As De Las Casas laments on the plight of the Incas: A substantial proportion of the human race has been wiped out by these ruthless adventurers who fear neither God nor the king.# Yet clearly the men perpetrating these acts felt they were acting in the name of God. They sought the conversion to Christianity of those natives who would be receptive, and even those who appeared as little more than savages. For those who resisted, they were often reduced to slavery, toiling on the sprawling haciendas and in the silver mines. Their Spanish lords grew ever richer, while the Indians saw little if anything in return, save the opportunity to be worked to an early death. The native practices were forced to adapt or risk being lost in the massive social upheavals. The fates of native peoples, however, were not uniform. For as we are reminded by Williamson: It would be mistaken to think that political or cultural unity existed in the Indian world…some [Indian societies] were utterly destroyed, some chose to ally themselves with the conquerors, some found the ‘conquest’ a welcome liberation from Aztec or Inca oppression. In most cases, traditional ways survived unchanged well into the period of Spanish domination.# Despite the benefits to some natives, the upheaval created by the Europeans in South America led to the creation of a world barely recognisable as it had existed before their arrival. Bibliography Bonney, Richard. The European Dynastic States 1794-1660, (Oxford, 1991). Cameron, Euan (ed.). Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History, (Oxford, 2001). Canny, Nicholas (ed.). The Origins of Empire Volume One: British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth Century, (Oxford, 1998). De Las Casas, B. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542), translated by Nigel Griffin, (London, 1992). Elliott, JH. The Old World and the New 1492-1650, (Cambridge, 1992). Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvellous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World, (Oxford, 1991). Greenblatt, Stephen (ed.). New World Encounters, (Berkeley, 1993). Lockhart, James & Schwartz, Stuart B. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil, (Cambridge, 1983). Mackenney, Richard. Sixteenth Century Europe: Expansion and Conflict, (Hong Kong, 1993). Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, translated from the French by Richard Howard, (New York, 1984). Wilcus, A. Curtis & D’Eça, Raul. Latin American History, Fifth Edition, (New York, 1963). Williamson, Edwin. The Penguin History of Latin America, (London, 1992). |
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| Non-fiction |
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