Episode 3: Spanish Colonization for Control 1492-1607

primogeniture

European practice of landed families passing inheritance to first born son

encomienda

Labor system where royal grants were given to individuals to have legal control over land and Native workers; in return owners had to try to Christianize indigenous (Reconquista)

caste system

result of encomienda was a racially mixed population of Africans, Native Americans, Mestizos, Creoles and Spanish

Father Bartolome de Las Casas

He wrote extensively of the cruel treatment of natives by the Spanish conquistadores

The New Laws

prompted the Spanish crown to reform their practices of enslaving and poor treatment of the Indians and instead at Las Casas urging the use of African slave labor

Valladolid debate

Debate between de las Casas and Juan de Sepulveda over enslavement of native populations

presidios

Spanish forts to protect their territories in the Americas St Augustine and San Antonio

Don Juan de Onate

led 500 settlers north from Mexico to establish a colony New Mexico 1598 using encomienda in Pueblo territory

Battle of Acoma

Oñate launched an attack against Pueblo Indians leading to warfare was intense ending in a draw

Pope’ Revolt

Spanish launched a crackdown on native religious rituals (practices driven underground); victory by Pueblo natives

sugar revolution

European phenomenon that lead to rise in African slavery and commerce

Commercial Revolution

European phenomenon that funded joint stock companies to extract wealth from New World

Columbian Exchange

Exchange of agriculture, finished products, disease, religion, languages, cultural practices between the Old and New World

Northwest Passage

French motivation for exploration to find access to Asia

coureurs de bois

French fur traders who adopted the cultural practices of natives to forge trade alliances

Beaver Wars

Conflict between natives groups (Iroquois vs Huron and Algonquin with French) in northern North America

Chickasaw Wars

French with Choctaw vs. Brits with Chickasaws in southern North America

Jesuits

French Catholic missionaries

West India Company

Dutch trading company temporarily set up in New Amsterdam (on Manhattan island)

Peter Stuyvesant

Dutch governor of New Amsterdam who turned the colony over to British Duke of York