New Spain: Claiming Lands and Controlling Native Populations
Argument: Spain used the mission system to claim lands and control native populations in North America, leading to violent native uprisings.
Spain's Early Dominance
Spain was the first European nation to benefit from the discovery of the New World.
They extracted silver and gold, becoming the most powerful nation for a time.
The Mission System
The mission system was a religious, political, and military structure used by the Spanish to claim and control lands.
Native American Responses
Native Americans responded to Spanish control with hard decisions and often violent uprisings.
New Spain
New Spain refers to the northern part of the Spanish empire in the Americas, based out of Mexico City.
The focus was on mining gold and silver.
The Encomienda System
The Spanish extracted labor from Native Americans through the encomienda system.
A Spaniard was granted a group of Native Americans by the Spanish crown.
The Spaniard was supposed to protect and Christianize the Native Americans.
In return, Native Americans had to pay tribute in the form of food or labor.
This system was effectively quasi-slavery, as Native Americans had no choice.
African slaves were also imported to do labor in New Spain.
Social Order in New Spain
A distinctive social order grew in New Spain due to the economic base of the encomienda.
Spaniards, Native Americans, and Africans intermixed, leading to a complicated social hierarchy.
Interracial sex and marriage led to biracial and triracial children.
Social Hierarchy
Peninsulares: Pure blooded Spaniards born in Spain (highest status).
Creoles: Pure blooded Spaniards born in the Americas.
Mestizos: Mixed Spanish and Native American class (usually Spanish father and native mother).
Native Americans and Africans (bottom of the hierarchy).
The Caste System
The racial classification system was extremely complicated.
Sistema de castas paintings mapped out every possible racial classification between parents.
Example:
Spaniard + Mestizo = Castizo
Spaniard + African = Mulatto
Colonial Latin America was a "vast laboratory of ethnic mixing and cultural change."
Spanish Expansion into Present-Day United States
In the later 1500s, the Spanish pushed into present-day United States (Florida and New Mexico).
Initially, they sought gold and mapped the territory.
They also aimed to hold off other European powers (Spanish vs. French and British colonial competition).
Catholicism motivated them, believing theirs was the one true religion.
Colonization of Florida
Began in 1565.
The mission system was used to control lands in Florida, New Mexico, Texas, and California.
The Mission Structure
Missions were sets of buildings constructed by native labor.
Native Americans were gathered, converted to Christianity, and theoretically brought into the Spanish system.
Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries established missions.
Spanish soldiers enforced the rules.
The "sword and the cross" advanced together.
Native American Interactions with Missions
Initially, Native Americans were curious about the missionaries and missions.
They were interested in learning about the newcomers, their technology, and animals.
They were used to trading and were curious about new trade goods.
Native Americans are mostly polytheistic, so they were interested in learning more about Jesus, Mary and God.
They didn't think that Europeans were gods as they were foolish, didn't know the geography, plants and weren't wise.
They were ugly, had beards, and were smelly.
Challenges and Conflicts within Missions
Native Americans found that they couldn't leave the missions.
They were forced to adopt Christianity, banning traditional dances and religious practices.
Sacred structures were torn down, and idols were destroyed.
Native medicine men/shamans were punished or executed.
Sexual practices had to change.
Christian marriage was required.
No premarital sex or polygamy was allowed.
They were expected to wear more clothing.
New gender roles were encouraged.
Men were expected to farm, and women were expected to do domestic work.
Native American men didn't want to farm as it was considered woman's work.
Soldiers enforced discipline and prevented Native Americans from leaving.
Cultural Clash
Europeans negatively viewed native religions.
Europeans viewed Native Americans as practicing devil worship, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.
This view was influenced by the reconquista and experiences with Muslims in Spain.
The encomienda was used against Muslims in Spain before it was applied to Native Americans.
Violent Uprisings
Violent uprisings occurred across Florida because Native Americans were not allowed to leave the missions, were forced to pay tribute and give labor, and had their religious ways suppressed.
Disease also played a huge role.
Native Americans died from disease.
Initial interest in Christianity was motivated by a desire to survive disease.
Native Americans blamed Europeans for the disease, leading to more violence and uprisings.
New Mexico
The Spanish established missions among the Pueblo Indians in 1598.
Liebman's article discusses the causes of resentment that the Pueblos had against the Spanish, leading to the Pueblo Revolt in 1680.
New Mexico was the farthest north reach of the Spanish colonial empire.
Only the bravest and most dedicated priests were sent to New Mexico.
The cross and the sword went to New Mexico.
Effects on the Pueblos
Life wasn't necessarily wonderful before the Spanish arrival (periodic droughts, population decline, malnutrition, conflict, warfare).
The Spanish intrusion exacerbated existing issues and brought new ones.
The Spanish required payment of clothing and maze in tribute, which increased over time.
The Spanish used violence, torture, and threats to extract food and labor.
Initially, the Spanish needed the Pueblo's help to survive, but it reversed where now the Pueblos are dependent on the Spanish for food.
The Spanish used missions to distribute food, bringing the Pueblo into the missions and under the control of the priests.
Religious Oppression
The Pueblos had kachina dolls and kachina dancing.
The Pueblos had shamans or religious leaders and kivas.
The Spanish destroyed kivas, arrested or executed shamans, and destroyed kachina dolls.
Kachina dances were outlawed.
The missionaries believed they were saving Native American souls.
They had racist ideas about Native Americans being like children and needing to be disciplined.
They cut Pueblo men's hair as punishment.
There were reports of sexual abuse.
Disease and Conflict
Sixty to eighty percent of the Pueblo died from disease during the 1500s and 1600s.
The Spanish intrusion affected the Pueblo's relationship with other native groups, leading to more hostility with groups like the Apache.
Coalescence of Factors Leading to Revolt
Taxation, tribute, forced labor, evangelization, religious oppression, disease, and increased conflict and raiding from other groups.
Famines, drought, poor crops, low water levels in the Rio Grande, locusts, disease, and Apache raids.
Praying to the Catholic god did not bring rain or stop the disease.
The Pueblo returned to the Kachina and the Quivas.
This led to even more brutal repression by the Spanish.
The Pueblo world was out of balance by 1680.
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680
In 1680, the Pueblo united in a rebellion and drove out the Spanish.
It was organized by a medicine man/religious leader named Pope.
Pope went from village to village and spoke Spanish to them.
Pope gave them a string with a series of knots to count down the days until the rebellion.
On the morning of the rebellion in 1680, they rose up and drove out the Spanish.
They killed the priests.
They smashed the mission bells.
They shattered the Christian statues.
They put chalices from the Catholic churches in buckets of manure.
They spread excrement over statues and burned the churches down.
They drove the Spanish out of New Mexico.
Problems After the Revolt
Problems started to happen almost as soon as the war had been won.
Pope encouraged the Pueblo to restore their native names, give off the Christianized names they've been given, and reverse their baptisms by plunging into the Rio Grande.
He declared Christian marriages dissolved and polygamy restored.
He replaced the Catholic churches with the kivas, but he went too far when he said, you need to give up not just Christianity, but all the Spanish goods and all the new crops and all the domesticated livestock that you'd gained from the Spanish.
There were divisions between those who followed Pope's vision and those who wanted to take the best of what the Spanish had brought.
It wasn't a utopia. It wasn't heaven on earth.
The drought continued.
Apaches continued raiding the Pueblos.
Pope started to lose people's trust in him because he couldn't stop this from happening.
The peace of prosperity that he promised failed to materialize.
Spanish Reconquest
In 1692, Diego de Vargas led Spanish soldiers back to New Mexico and retook Santa Fe.
There was another skirmish in 1696, but after 1692, the Spanish would control New Mexico for good.
Changes After the Revolt
The insurrections and violence forced the Spanish to become more accommodating.
The Spanish practiced more restraint.
They reduced the amount of Indian labor they extracted.
They guaranteed each village their own lands.
They appointed a public defender to protect Pueblo rights in disputes with the Spanish colonists.
The Franciscan priests lowered their expectations and became more accommodating to native dances and festivals.
They reclassified those kinds of things as customs and said, well, they're not religious, and we're gonna allow it.
The Pueblo had to accept the presence of the Spanish.
They quietly conducted their own traditional ceremonies on the side.
This brought compromise and accommodation from both sides.
A hybrid world was created in New Mexico.
This process of accommodation, resistance, violence, and compromise would happen throughout North America during the colonial period.