Christopher Columbus & Discovery of the Americas

Definitions

Timeline

Introduction

• between 1500 and 1800, European technology improved and they began to explore the Atlantic and Indian Oceans → huge impact on Americas, Africa, and Asia

  • Americas: Spanish and Portuguese conquered locals and established big empires, British and French established colonies in Caribbean and North America

    • brought slaves from Africa to work in colonies, this had a very bad impact on African societies

  • Africa and Asia: Portuguese, Dutch, British and French put trading posts around Indian Ocean

    • Attacked locals and disrupted indigenous trading systems

    • They didn’t conquer huge territories like in America, but still left a lasting impact

Reasons for European expansion

• they had been given special powers by God to spread Christianity worldwide

• curiosity about the world; the same spirit that sparked the Renaissance

  • some disagree and suggest that Europeans weren’t more curious about knowledge than other people in the world at that time

• economic reasons: Spanish and Portuguese merchants started exploring Atlantic then Indian oceans

  • some were searching for gold that they believed was in Africa

  • others were looking for ways to obtain valuable spices and trading goods like silk and porcelain from Asia → previously brought to Mediterranean from Asia, but routes were blocked by the Ottomans

  • Europeans thought to enter Indian ocean round southern Africa or sailing westwards across Atlantic to find a route to the East

• weakness and desperation which led to the maritime exploration

Development of military technology and naval advances

• some developments in technology gave European advantage over other places

• Carlo Cipolla (historian) argues that maritime expansion was made possible by developments in “guns and sails”

  • efficient guns and cannons developed by German, Flemish, Spanish, and English craftsmen to use in wars against each other

  • cast iron used to make weapons sturdier and more accurate

• influenced expansions when Europeans made ships that could carry cannons and artillery, 1500: ships were made with square-rigged masts which made them more mobile than rowing galleys

  • portholes cut in sides so cannon can fire through, 1500: galleon developed → mobile fighting ship that’s hard to challenge

• Asian powers had access to gunpowder for longer, but weren’t prepared for heavily armed European galleons (e.g. treasure ships weren’t made for fighting)

• These developments only gave them advantage in the sea, African and Asian expansion was mainly maritime and coastal, different in the Americas

How the Spanish conquered the Americas

• before the Spanish discovered, the Americas had no connections or trade routes to other continents

  • North America: separate indigenous groups who never united

  • Central & South America: large and powerful empires; Aztecs and Inca

• Spanish conquest of Central and South America began when Spain was searching for an alternative route to Asia by sailing west

• Christopher Columbus, Italian merchant employed by Spain, landed in America, mistook the indigenous people for Indians

  • Old World: Europe, Africa, and Asia

  • New World: North America, South America, and the Caribbean

  • Discover: find unexpectedly or during a search, in this context it refers to finding an already inhabited territory, implying domination and exploitation by the discoverer/s

The process of conquest

• Spanish first landed on Caribbean islands, locals (Arawaks and Caribs) were fishers and farmers who grew maize, sweet potatoes, and beans

• Spanish were upset that they didn’t find the wealth they were looking for but stayed, started settlements on islands, introduced crops and livestock from Europe

  • sugarcane grew well, luxury and high in demand in Europe

• they took over the islands, forced the locals to work for them, learn their customs, accept their religion

• Positives of exploration: Introduction of new crops and livestock; some aspects of culture were shared

  Negatives of exploration: Enslavement, exploitation, and a devastating decline in population due to disease and violence

The defeat of the Aztecs

• Spanish hoped to find minerals on mainland in America, Aztecs were strongest state in Central America

• emperor Moctezuma had enormous power, a large army and controlled 10 mil+ people

• Aztec capital Tenochtitlan had 300k people, big temples, palaces, market places, and housing; built on island in a lake in Valley of New Mexico

• 1519: conquistadors were led by Hernan Cortes, landed on coast and attacked Aztec empire

  • Moctezuma killed within 3 years, empire plundered, and Tenochtitlan destroyed

  • many people dying or dead, Aztec power broken, books burned, monuments destroyed

• Spanish later built Mexico City on Tenochtitlan ruins

*comment on conditions of natives

• outnumbered Spain believed to have conquered due to superior weapons e.g. steel swords, guns, horses that were unknown to Aztecs

• Aztecs also had many enemies; they fought on Spanish side to be free from the Aztecs

• Aztecs welcomed Cortes as a god; gave him gifts and accommodation, series of phenomena and disasters made Aztecs nervous before the Spaniards arrived

• Smallpox epidemic from Europeans killed Aztecs as they had no immunity against the new disease

The defeat of the Inca

• Inca empire was largest and most successful empire in Americas at the time

• From Cuzco (now in Peru) they conquered a large area; 10 years after Aztec defeat, another conquistador group led by Francisco Pizarro attacked and conquered them

• Reasons are similar to those of the Aztecs + civil war between emperor and his brother, which lead to division amongst people

• After successes of Cortes and Pizzaro, other conquistadors took over almost all of Central and South America (except Brazil; colonised by Portuguese)

  • the people were under Spanish rule, and the settlers came to live there

The impact of conquest on people of Americas

• drastic decline in indigenous population

  • island on Hispaniola went from 100k to 300 in 80 years after Columbus

  • central Mexico went from 25 million to 1 million in 70 years after Cortes

  • Inca population dropped to 4% of original population in some coastal areas

• some of decline was caused by violence of conquest and warfare

  • encomienda = Spanish settlers given right to collect “tribute” (produce/labour) from locals

  • Spaniards weren’t allowed to enslave locals, this system was a legalised form of slavery

  • locals lost land and independence to Spanish; Spaniards became wealthy from gold and silver in mines

    • locals worked under terrible conditions; they were paid a token wage but still treated like slaves

  • Bartolome de las Casas was a Spaniard against this system

    • fought hard for rights of people; efforts resulted in restriction of collecting tribute but protests made it hard to enforce the changes

  main cause of death = smallpox and measles from Europe and Asia

  • other diseases like yellow fever and malaria came from Africa, transported in slave ships

The links between colonialism and slavery in the Americas

• When Spaniards and other European countries established colonies in the Americas, they saw that these areas were fertile for crops such as sugarcane, tobacco and cotton

• set up large plantations, but needed many workers to harvest the crops 

  • attempted to make use of the local people, but failed due to the diseases that killed many of them

  • attempted to employ ‘contract workers’ from Europe, but this proved unsuccessful as time went on

  • best and cheapest option for the plantation owners was to get slaves from Africa, traders also realised that supplying slaves was a huge money-maker 

• Soon after the Spanish, the Portuguese, English, Dutch, Danish, and French were involved in what is now known as the Atlantic slave trade, recognised as the largest forced migration of people in history 

  Impact of slave trading

• Bound by Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, the Spanish gave up the right to partake in the purchasing of African slaves

  • in exchange Portugal gave them the right to conquer most of South America

• Spain bought African slaves from the Portuguese, which first came from Senegambia, then later Congo and Angola

• Sugar production by slave labour after sugar plantation on the French Haiti island destroyed during slave revolution in 1790s

• Slavery in Cuba only abolished in 1886 (last place to remove slavery)

• Slaves worked on American inland, on farms and cattle ranches of northern Mexico, and silver mines in Mexico and Peru, and sugar plantations in Panama

• people classified according to race:

  • negros = African slaves, bottom of scale, inferior

  • zambos = African and Indian mix and mestizos = white and Indian mix treated better

• some had better conditions, some were freed, many gained basic education and became Christians, some were skilled workers and became government officials

• some ran away, seized a Spanish ship, landed on Ecuador coast, started community called Esmeraldes

  • took land, goods, and women from Indian villages, raided Spanish farms and passing travellers

  • survived for a century before descendants were captured, strongly integrated with Indian peoples by then