A History of Colonial Latin America from First Encounters to Independence

Susan Elizabeth Ramírez

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367408152
• eBook ISBN: 9781000453331
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

A History of Colonial Latin America from First Encounters to Independence is a concise and accessible volume that presents the history of the Iberian presence in the Americas, from the era of exploration and conquest to the disruption and instability following independence.

This history of the Iberian presence in the Americas contains stories of curiosity, vision, courage, missed communication, miscalculation, insatiability, prejudice, and native collaboration and resistance. Beginning in 1492, Ramirez establishes the context for the era of exploration and conquest that follows. The book then surveys the activities of Cortes and Pizarro and the impact on native peoples, Portuguese activity on the eastern coast of South America, the demographic collapse of the native population, the role of the Catholic Church, and new policy initiatives of the Bourbons who inherited the throne in 1700. The narrative involves Spaniards, Native Americans of innumerable ethnic groups, Moorish, native, and black slaves, and a whole new category of people of mixed blood, collectively known as the castas, acting in the steamy tropics of the lowlands, marching across parched deserts, trekking to oxygen-low mountain summits, and settling all the ecological niches in between.

The book includes important primary documents and maps to provide students with even more context to this important part of Latin American history. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Latin American history and culture.

Part I

The encounter

1 1492

The enterprise of the Indies

DOI: 10.4324/9780367853143-2

Columbus’ voyages in and around the Caribbean

In 1492, Europeans depended on others for some of their luxury imports. As early as the thirteenth century, Javanese and Chinese traders brought spices such as cloves, nutmegs, and mace west from the Molucca Islands to trade. Arab merchants sailed in the same direction with these same products from the Moluccas; pepper corns from India and Java; and cinnamon and ginger from China, Ceylon, and Malabar. After leaving Asia, the spices passed through many hands before reaching the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. With each exchange, the cost of these rare and welcome commodities increased. The merchants and bankers of the Italian city states, most notably Venice, controlled the spice trade in the Mediterranean, paying for the aromatic cargoes with gold and silver bullion.

Understanding the opportunity for great profits, the sea-faring Portuguese, having consolidated the state and monarchy in 1249–50 by re-conquering Algarve from the Moors, began a long-sighted attempt to break the Italian monopoly on spices by exploring the coasts of Africa. The Portuguese were well suited for this task, being located at the outer, western tip of continental Europe and having the technical sailing innovation of the caravel, a ship that used sails and could tack, allowing it to sail against the prevailing winds. Stimulus also came from a naval academy, encouraged by the efforts of Prince Henry (1394–1460) “the Navigator”, where pilots and ship captains, map makers, and scholars collected information that explorers kept of the latest information. The Portuguese captured the North African Muslim enclave of Ceuta, a terminal port of the trans-Saharan gold and slave trade, in 1415. They reached the Madeira Islands by 1419; the Azores in 1427; and Cape Bojador by 1434. The Cape Verde islands were discovered in 1456 and settled six years later. By 1460, Portuguese sailors reached the Gulf of Guinea, some 3,000 miles down the west African coast. The Equator was crossed in 1473, and the Portuguese reached the Congo River in 1482. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias became the first to round the Cape of Good Hope. Ten years later, Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in southwestern India. Thus, within a century, proprietary trade in pepper and cinnamon became a reality.

Motivations for the Portuguese quest included the economics of the spice trade. But, they had religious motives as well. They wanted to defeat the enemies of their Catholic faith in Africa and to carry the word of God to that continent. They proposed to do so by contacting a potential ally, the oft-mentioned Prester John, sovereign of a Christian kingdom somewhere in the interior of Africa and with his aid attacking the Islam-practicing Moors from the rear. Finally, the Portuguese crown thought that with the acquisition of economic power through this expansion, it would strengthen their political leverage and status in the European arena.

Nearly 250 years after the Portuguese consolidated their kingdom, the Spanish finally marked the end of the “Reconquista” of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims or Moors, with the surrender of the commander of Granada, the last Muslim foothold on the Peninsula, January 2, 1492. That victory freed up resources (the “peace dividend”) for the Crown to support the Genoese (Italian) visionary Christopher Columbus’ proposal to sail west toward the setting sun and Chipangu (Japan).

Barred by the Portuguese monopoly of the south and eastern routes around Africa to Asia, Christopher Columbus dreamed of another sort of a voyage to exploit the luxury trade with the Spice Islands off of Asia. Columbus, of uncertain schooling, had traveled the Eastern Mediterranean, northwestern Europe, the Guinea coast and lived in Madeira and Lisbon. He had seen enough to convince him of the feasibility of reaching the source of spices by sailing west. He had already presented his vague proposal at the Spanish court with its under-estimate of the distance to be crossed; and had left, when he was called back after Granada’s capitulation. The re-opened negotiations to form a trading company with the Spanish monarchs resulted in partnership agreements that were signed in April 1492. They established a joint venture between the Catholic Kings (Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand) and Columbus, stipulating that the latter was to sail on three ships that the Crown helped procure, in search of the islands and mainland of Asia. In return, the key provisions of these accords granted Columbus the titles of Admiral of the islands and mainland that he gained and the right to be the Crown’s Viceroy and Governor of them. Thereafter, he could use the title of Don, indicating nobility and giving him tax exempt status. These titles and rights would pass from his successor to successor forever and always. Furthermore, the provisions stipulated that he was to receive a tenth of the net proceeds of all products, pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, and spices or whatever he bought, traded, discovered, or obtained there. Finally, he would have an eighth of the profits of the company’s commerce by investing a similar share. It is noteworthy that Columbus took no present of value to present to the monarch of the Islands he expected to find; no priests bent on converting Asians to Christianity; and no valuable goods with which to trade, just a store of cheap beads and trinkets. Columbus did not set out to discover another world, as he described the misnamed continent of America later; nor did he intend to settle.

With this agreement to found a trading company that stipulated the expectations of all parties, Columbus sailed on August 3, 1492, and 33 days later (on October 12), he landed on an island in the Bahamas. On this first and his subsequent three trips, he explored the shores of the Greater Antilles islands of Cuba, Española, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica and the mainland (called Tierra Firme (Firm Land)). So convinced was he that he had reached the Orient that he equated Cuba with Chipangu (Japan). On these trips, he interacted with the Arawak and Caribe natives who he called Indians after his destination, the East Indies.

Relations with the Arawak natives were cordial at first, despite having to communicate by signs. They celebrated him, holding a festival in his honor. They traded their hammered gold nose and ear ornaments and showed him the riverine sources of their nuggets. He reported that the natives were governed by hereditary rulers or kings, called caciques, who were reverenced and carried on litters. Their stratified society was composed of chiefs, nobles, commoners, and unfree workers, called naborías. His diary and letters recorded that the natives were kind, gentle, amiable, and open and that the islands were green and fertile with a benign climate. He wrote that he expected that the natives would make good servants. They hunted the rodent-like hutia (or jutía), iguanas, deer, peccaries, and tapirs. Colored plumage from tropical birds made a coveted prize. Others fished or planted yuca, sweet potato, maize, and cotton. The second, smaller group, lived on the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela and on the islands of the Lesser Antilles. These gained a fearful reputation as cannibals, after resisting Columbus who noticed what he identified as human body parts hanging from the rafters of a native building, but may have been, in fact, the remains of ancestors used in worship.

While exploring on his first trip, one of his ships, the Santa María, was lost on a reef on Christmas eve. Consequently, he left 39 men behind in a town he founded on Española, called Navidad (Christmas). He charged them with finding more gold and the coveted spices until he returned.

Columbus sailed back to the Peninsula, arriving in Lisbon on March 4, 1493, after the other ship, captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón, arrived in Spain. Pinzón spread the tales of their explorations before Columbus landed at Palos on March 15, 1493. News of their return and adventures spread rapidly. He had promised the Catholic Kings, his sponsors, gold and spices. He arrived with some gold, capsicum, and native slaves.

In the next few months, Spaniards hastened to prepare for a return voyage, expecting to contact the main Spice Islands. Diplomacy settled the Spanish-Portuguese rivalry, when Pope Alexander VI issued a bull (Inter Caetera) to acknowledge the Spanish finds and possession, setting a line of demarcation between Portuguese and Spanish claims at 100 leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. A year later, a new treaty (the Treaty of Tordesillas) established a second line 270 leagues further west. Columbus and his sponsors gathered 17 ships and 1,500 men, supplies, livestock, seeds, and plants for a return trip that left in the fall of 1493. Upon arrival, the Spaniards skirmished with Caribs, reputed to be cannibals, in the Lesser Antilles, before disembarking at Navidad on November 28. The town laid in ruins, and the men who had stayed behind were dead.

Columbus mapped out another town on this voyage with store houses, a church, and a hospital and named it Isabella, after the Queen. He built a fortress in gold country where the Europeans with him traded for nuggets. He also introduced the idea of native tribute, believing that they were timid and would follow orders, that there was gold aplenty, and that a small number of Spaniards could control collection. This project failed, because the native hierarchy had been decimated, killed, and/or delegitimized and the natives fled.

Still believing that he was in Asia, Columbus sailed off to explore further. He reconnoitered the shores of Jamaica and Cuba, which at that point he equated with the mainland. In his absence, relations with the natives on Española deteriorated and complaints from his men of maladministration reached the Crown. Food was scarce as gardens planted with European crops withered and died in the tropical heat. The natives provided fish, but food was rationed. The situation grew worse, until the natives rose in revolt in late 1494. This prompted a roundup of insurgents and their enslavement. Five hundred natives were shipped to Spain. Proceeds paid for food and supplies.

In the next several years, Columbus made two more voyages. The third voyage in 1498 took salaried employees to this “other world” (otro mundo). Profit sharing became a motivation for their service to the enterprise. His exploration of Trinidad yielded strings of pearls, so favored by Queen Isabela, but little else of value. Columbus began to entrust natives to favored individuals, an institution called “encomienda” (Document 1 provides an example of an encomienda grant from 1536 Peru.). The grantee (or encomendero) could require the natives to plant fields, the harvest of which would be delivered to his compound; to work for him constructing his house and other buildings that he rented to late-arriving merchants, artisans, and settlers; or to serve as domestic servants. Most grantees employed one or more administrators to oversee and organize the work. In return, the encomendero promised to protect and convert the natives to Catholicism. Columbus’ penchant for exploring, left administrative leadership lacking. Eventually, certain Spaniards who accompanied him rose in revolt. The crown soon thereafter sent a Spanish judge to take charge. Columbus and his brothers were sent back to Spain in chains, a disappointing end to seven years of high hopes.

His fourth and last voyage (1502–04) allowed him to continue exploring and trading. But he was barred from governing. His expedition off the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama gave Spain title to more parts of the mainland. While he was away, Queen Isabela, distressed by reports of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables, maps, and illustrations
• Colonial Latin American mosaic
• Chronology
• Who's who
• Part I The encounter
• Part II The Hapsburg centuries
• Part III The consequences of top-down change
• Part IV Portuguese America
• Part V Documents
• Glossary
• Further reading
• Index