A History of Colonial Latin America from First Encounters to Independence (Seminar Studies) [1 ed.] 0367425076, 9780367425074

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
1 1492: The enterprise of the Indies
2 Encounters of a new kind: Cortes’ triumphs over the Mexica or Aztecs
3 Pizarro and the Inca Atahualpa in Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572
PART II: The Hapsburg centuries
4 The construction of power
5 The economic bases of colonialism
6 The contours of colonial society
PART III: The consequences of top-down change
7 The Bourbon reforms
8 Independence
PART IV: Portuguese America
9 Brazil
PART V: Documents
Glossary
Further reading
Index

Citation preview

A History of Colonial Latin America from First Encounters to Independence

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, Ramírez 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. Susan Elizabeth Ramírez holds the Neville G. Penrose Endowed Chair of History and Latin American Studies at Texas Christian University, USA. Her research focuses on land tenure and Indigenous peoples during the colonial era.

Introduction to the Series

Series Editors: Clive Emsley and Gordon Martel

History is the narrative constructed by historians from traces left by the past. Historical enquiry is often driven by contemporary issues and, in consequence, historical narratives are constantly reconsidered, reconstructed and reshaped. The fact that different historians have different perspectives on issues means that there is often controversy and no universally agreed version of past events. Seminar Studies was designed to bridge the gap between current research and debate, and the broad, popular general surveys that often date rapidly. The volumes in the series are written by historians who are not only familiar with the latest research and current debates concerning their topic, but who have themselves contributed to our understanding of the subject. The books are intended to provide the reader with a clear introduction to a major topic in history. They provide both a narrative of events and a critical analysis of contemporary interpretations. They include the kinds of tools generally omitted from specialist monographs: a chronology of events, a glossary of terms and brief biographies of ‘who’s who’. They also include bibliographical essays in order to guide students to the literature on various aspects of the subject. Students and teachers alike will find that the selection of documents will stimulate the discussion and offer insight into the raw materials used by historians in their attempt to understand the past.

A History of Colonial Latin America from First Encounters to Independence Susan Elizabeth Ramírez

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Susan Elizabeth Ramírez The right of Susan Elizabeth Ramírez to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ramírez, Susan E., 1946– author. Title: A history of colonial Latin America from first encounters to independence / Susan Elizabeth Ramírez. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. | Series: Seminar studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021015769 (print) | LCCN 2021015770 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367425074 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367408152 (paperback) | ISBN 9780367853143 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Indians—First contact with Europeans. | Indians, Treatment of—Latin America. | Latin America— History—To 1830. | Spain—Colonies—America. | Portugal—Colonies—America. Classification: LCC F1411 .R36 2022 (print) | LCC F1411 (ebook) | DDC 980/.01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015769 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015770 ISBN: 978-0-367-42507-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-40815-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-85314-3 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780367853143 Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

To My Mother, Helen Elizabeth McCartney de Ramírez, whose support has never lagged and Fernando Arturo Siles Quesada, my partner, assistant, and friend

Contents

List of tables, maps, and illustrations Colonial Latin American mosaic Chronology Who’s who

ix x xi xiii

PART I

The encounter

1

1

1492: The enterprise of the Indies

3

2

Encounters of a new kind: Cortes’ triumphs over the Mexica or Aztecs

10

Pizarro and the Inca Atahualpa in Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572

14

3

PART II

The Hapsburg centuries

27

4

The construction of power

29

5

The economic bases of colonialism

48

6

The contours of colonial society

62

PART III

The consequences of top-down change

75

7

The Bourbon reforms

77

8

Independence

95

viii

Contents

PART IV

Portuguese America

105

9

107

Brazil

PART V

Documents Glossary Further reading Index

119 135 139 141

Tables, maps, and illustrations

Tables 3.1 4.1 6.1 7.1 8.1

Other Explorations to 1550 Audiencias of Mainland Spanish America Racial Mixture in Spanish America The Bourbon Reforms and Groups Most Affected Main Protagonists of the Independence Movements of Spanish America

23 35 67 92 101

Maps 4.1 4.2 8.1 9.1

Viceroyalty of New Spain, c. 1650 Viceroyalty of New Castile (Peru), c. 1650 Countries of Latin America Brazil, c. 1650

33 34 102 110

Illustrations 3.1 Natives Planting Maize 3.2 The Colonial City of Cuzco, circa 1615

15 18

Colonial Latin American mosaic

This history of the Iberian presence in the Americas that begins in 1492 contains stories of curiosity, vision, courage, missed communication, miscalculation, insatiability, prejudice, and native collaboration and resistance. 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. New and evolving Hapsburg governmental and Catholic religious institutions structured interactions within a changing colonial system in a rapidly globalizing world. After 1700, the increasing centralization and taxation of the Bourbon kings alienated various sections of society, which, each for its own and sundry reasons, eventually chose to revolt and opt for independence.

Chronology

1249–50 1492 1415 1419 1427 1434 1456 1460 1482 1488 1493

1493 1494 1498 1500 1503 1503 1511 1512 1512 1513 1519 1520 1521

Portuguese expel the Moors from the Algarve and consolidate their state Granada surrenders; End of the Spanish Reconquista; Columbus leaves for the Indies (America) The Portuguese arrive in Ceuta The Portuguese enter the Madeira Islands The Portuguese find the Azores Portuguese ships sail into Cape Bojador The Portuguese enter the Cape Verde Islands The Portuguese sail into the Gulf of Guinea The Portuguese reach the Congo River Bartolomeu Dias rounds the African Cape of Good Hope Pope Alexander VI issues a Bull (Inter Caetera), establishing a line of demarcation between Portuguese and Spanish domains 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores Navidad founded on the Island of Española as the first European city in America Treaty of Tordesillas establishes a second line of demarcation 270 leagues further west Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut Official discovery of Brazil Queen Isabella outlaws native slavery, except for the Caribe Indians Casa de Contratación established An Audiencia is established on Española Laws of Burgos issued Requerimiento issued Balboa and his followers sight and name the Pacific Ocean Hernán Cortes begins his invasion of the Mexican mainland La Noche Triste (the sad night) from the Spanish point of view, when they are forced out of Tenochtitlán Tenochtitlán falls to the Spanish forces

xii Chronology 1524 1535 1542 1700 1700–13 1776 1789 1806 1810 1810 1811 1813 1813 1816 1818 1821 1822 1825

Consejo de Indias formally established First Viceroy of Mexico named First Viceroy of Peru named Bourbons inherit the Spanish crown and its possessions War of the Spanish Succession Independence of Thirteen Colonies in North America The French Revolution Francisco de Miranda lands in Venezuela with ideas of Independence Father Miguel Hidalgo’s “Grito de Dolores” Independence of Colombia Independence of Venezuela Congress of Chilpancingo and Declaration of Mexican Independence Independence of Paraguay Independence of Argentina Independence of Chile Independence of Peru and Mexico Independence of Ecuador and Brazil Independence of Bolivia

Who’s who

Diego de Almagro – b. 1475, Almagro, Spain – d. 1538, Cuzco, Peru. A Spanish man of arms, Almagro played a leading role in the conquest of the Inca Empire of what is now Peru. Following his Royal assignment to assist in the conquest of what is now Chile, Almagro returned to Peru where, having lost a battle to his former ally Francisco Pizarro, was put to death in the first of internal squabbles amongst the Spanish captains in the early years of the colony. Atahualpa – b. 1502, Inca Empire – d. 1533 Cajamarca, Peru. One of the last of the Inca sovereigns, Atahualpa, who had defeated his half-brother, Huascar, for control of the empire, ruled briefly his vast holdings until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in 1532. Captured by the Spanish, the Inca lord was held for ransom, and later executed under orders of Francisco Pizarro. Francisco de Bobadilla – b. 1448, Kingdom of Aragon – d. 1502, Mona Passage. An official under the Crown of Castile, and a knight of the Order of the Calatrava, a religious-military order of crusaders. In 1500, Bobadilla was appointed by the Spanish Crown as Royal Commissioner and Chief Justice to colonial Santo Domingo where he arrested Christopher Columbus who was promptly sent back to Spain. Ordered himself back to Spain having failed his assignments, Bobadilla lost his life when a hurricane destroyed his fleet off the coast of Hispaniola in 1502. Simón Bolívar – b. 1783, Caracas, Venezuela – d. 1830, Santa Marta, Colombia. A Venezuelan military leader, instrumental in the independence movements and military campaigns that resulted in the independence from Spain of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, the consolidation of Peru’s independence, and the creation of Bolivia. Simón Bolívar is also known as El Libertador (The Liberator). Of grandiose ideas that bordered on absolutist rule,

xiv  Who’s who Bolívar was not successful in achieving his greatest dream: the foundation of the Gran Colombia (Great Colombia), a single country comprised of the newly liberated territories from Spain. Bolívar died on December 17, 1830 in Santa Marta, Colombia, victim to tuberculosis. Pedro Álvares Cabral – b. 1467, Belmonte, Portugal – d. 1520, Santarém, Portugal. A Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator, and explorer, Álvares Cabral is regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. In 1500, Álvares Cabral conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. Bartolomé de las Casas – b. 1484, Seville, Spain – d. 1566, Madrid, Spain. An early Spanish historian and missionary, de Las Casas was amongst the first peninsular men to expose the oppression of the native peoples by Europeans in the Americas, and called for the abolition of native slavery in the conquered territories. A prolific writer, and in his later years an influential figure in the Spanish court, de Las Casas failed nonetheless to stop the enslavement of the native population in early Spanish America. Catholic Monarchs – Ferdinand II of Aragon – b. 1452, Sos, Aragon (Spain) – d. 1516, Madrigalejo, Spain – and Isabella I of Castile – b. 1451, Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Castile (Spain) – d. 1504, Medina del Campo, Spain. Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, whose marriage led to the unification of Spain, of which they were the first monarchs, received the appellation Católicos formally conferred on them by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, in recognition of their reconquest of Granada from the Moors (1481–92), their sponsorship of the discovery of the New World (1492), and their strengthening of the church. Christopher Columbus – b. 1451, Genoa, Italy – d. 1506, Valladolid, Spain. A master navigator and admiral whose four transatlantic voyages (1492– 93, 1493–96, 1498–1500, and 1502–04) opened the way for European exploration, and colonization of the Americas, Columbus made his first voyage under the sponsorship of the Catholic monarchs of Aragon, Castile and Leon of Spain, Ferdinand II and Isabella I. Diego Columbus – b. 1479, Porto Santo Island, Portugal – d. 1526 La Puebla de Montalbán, Spain. The eldest son of Christopher Columbus, Diego was a navigator and explorer who served as the second Admiral of the Indies, second Viceroy of the Indies, and fourth Governor of the Indies as a liegeman to the Kings of Castile, Aragon and Leon of Spain for 15 years.

Who’s who  xv Hernán Cortes – b. 1484, Extemadura, Spain – d. 1547, Castilleja de la Cuesta, Spain. A Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire, Cortes first served as a soldier in an expedition of Cuba led by Diego Velasquez in 1511. Following a stint as mayor of Santiago in Cuba, Cortes was appointed to head an expedition to what is now Mexico in 1518. In March 1519, Hernan Cortes landed at Tabasco with 11 ships, 508 soldiers, about 100 sailors, and 16 horses, animals not native to the Americas. Cortes entered Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire, on November 8, 1519 where its Emperor, Moctezuma II, received him with great honors. However, Cortes soon seized ­Moctezuma, who was later to die, and not only achieved the political conquest of what is now Mexico, but began its religious conversion as well. Juana Inés de la Cruz – b. 1648, San Miguel Nepantla, Mexico – d. 1695, Mexico City, Mexico. A seventeenth-century nun, self-taught scholar, and acclaimed writer of the Latin American colonial period and the Hispanic Baroque, and a staunch advocate for women’s rights. Bartolomeu Dias – b. 1450, Algarve, Kingdom of Portugal – d. 1500, Cape of Good Hope. A nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, Dias was a Portuguese explorer who sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, setting up the route from Europe to Asia later on. Juan de Esquivel – b. 1470, Seville, Spain – d. 1513, Jamaica, West Indies. A Spanish soldier and colonial administrator, Esquivel was instrumental in the conquest and governance of the island of Jamaica in the West Indies. He is credited with the foundation of one of the earliest settlements in the Americas: the town of Nueva Sevilla, on the north coast of Jamaica in 1509. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla – b. 1753, Corralejo de Hidalgo, Mexico – d. 1811, Chihuahua, Mexico. A Mexican Roman Catholic priest, Hidalgo was a key figure in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–21). Best remembered for his speech, the “Grito de Dolores” (“Cry of Dolores”), which called for the end of Spanish colonial rule in Mexico, Hidalgo is recognized as the Father of the Nation (Mexico). Hidalgo was executed in Chihuahua following his capture in 1811. Huascar – b. 1490, Cuzco, Perú – d. 1533, Cajamarca, Perú. As the ruler of the southern half of the Inca Empire from Cuzco, Huascar, contended with his half-brother, Atahualpa, who ruled the northern

xvi  Who’s who half from Quito, now Ecuador, for control of the entire kingdom. In the lengthy civil war that ensued, Huascar was defeated and later executed on orders of Atahualpa. Agustín de Iturbide – b. 1783, New Spain (Mexico) – d. 1824, Padilla, Mexico. Also known as Agustín I of Mexico, Iturbide was a Mexican army general and politician who, during the Mexican War of Independence, built a successful political and military coalition that took control of Mexico City on September 27, 1821, decisively gaining independence for Mexico. After securing the secession of Mexico from Spain, Iturbide was proclaimed president of the Regency in 1821; a year later, he was proclaimed as the constitutional Emperor of Mexico, reigning from May 19, 1822 to March 19, 1823. Following a year in exile in Europe (1823–24), Iturbide was arrested on his return to Mexico and executed. João VI of Portugal – b. 1767, Queluz, Portugal – d. 1826, Benposta Palace, Lisbon, Portugal. Nicknamed “the Clement”, João VI was King of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarves from 1816 to 1825. Although the United Kingdom of Portugal, over which he reigned, ceased to exist de facto beginning in 1822, he remained its monarch de jure between 1822 and 1825. After the recognition of the independence of Brazil under the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro of 1825, he continued as King of Portugal until his death in 1826. Under the same treaty, João VI became titular Emperor of Brazil for life, while his son, Pedro I of Brazil, was both de facto and de jure monarch of the newly independent country. John Locke – b. 1632, Wrington, United Kingdom – d. 1704, High Laver, United Kingdom. An English philosopher and physician, Locke is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and is commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism”. Locke’s works lie at the foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political liberalism. He was an inspirer of both the European Enlightenment and the Constitution of the United States. Malintzin – b. around 1500 – d. 1529. Also known as Doña Marina or more popularly as La Malinche, the Nahua woman played a key role in the conquest of the Aztec Empire by Hernan Cortes and his men in 1519. Acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador, she was instrumental in bringing about the defeat of the Aztecs. Taken by Cortes as a lover, Malintzin bore him a son: Martín Cortes.

Who’s who  xvii Antonio de Mendoza – b. 1490 Alcalá la Real, Spain – d. 1552 Lima, Perú. Selected to become the first Viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza inaugurated in 1535 the system of viceregal administration which lasted nearly three centuries. Mendoza, who served from 1535 to 1550, was later appointed the third Viceroy of Peru, a position he held from 1551 until his death in 1552. Francisco de Miranda – b. 1750, Caracas, Venezuela – d. 1816, Cádiz, Spain. A Venezuelan revolutionary leader who helped pave the way for independence in Latin America, Miranda’s own plan for the liberation of Spain’s American colonies with the help of the European powers failed, but he remains known as El Precursor (“the forerunner”) of Bolívar, San Martín, O’Higgins, and other more effective revolutionaries. Moctezuma II – b. 1466 Tenochtitlán (México) – d. 1520 Tenochtitlán. As the ninth ruler of the Aztec Empire, Moctezuma’s reign extended from 1502 to 1520, and covered not only what is now Mexico, but a vast area of land deep into what is now Central America. Imprisoned by Cortes in his own palace, Moctezuma is believed to have been stoned to death by his own people when trying to justify the Spanish’s presence. Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu – b. 1689, La Brede, France – d. 1755, Paris, France. Generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, he was a French judge, man of letters, and political philosopher, the principal source of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. Montesquieu was one of the great political philosophers of the Enlightenment. He constructed a naturalistic account of the various forms of government, and of the causes that made them what they were and that advanced or constrained their development. His theory of the separation of powers had a tremendous impact on liberal political theory, and on the framers of the constitution of the United States of America. José María Morelos – b. 1765, Valladolid, Mexico – d. 1815, San Cristobal, Mexico. A Roman Catholic priest, Morelos, who assumed leadership of the Mexican independence movement after Miguel Hidalgo’s death in 1811, controlled between 1812 and 1815 most of Mexico southwest of Mexico City. Lacking manpower to consolidate control over all of the region after his successes, he recurred to guerrilla tactics. While trying to protect the revolutionary government that had been elected following the declaration of independence, Morelos was captured by royalist forces, and, after being defrocked, was shot as a traitor.

xviii  Who’s who Toribio de Benavente Motolinía – b. 1482, Benavente, Spain – d. 1569, Mexico City, Mexico. One of the famous 12 Franciscan missionaries who arrived in Mexico in 1524 to lay the foundations for the systematic evangelization of the native population, Benavente was the author of the first known historical treatises on pre-Hispanic Mexico and on the origins of the Hispanic era. Vasco Núñez de Balboa – b. 1475, Jerez de los Caballeros, Badajoz, Spain – d. 1519, Acla, Panamá. As a Spanish conquistador and explorer, Balboa became the head of the first stable settlement of the South American continent in 1511, and the first European to see the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Accused of rebellion, high treason, and mistreatment of Indians, Balboa and four his accomplices were beheaded in 1519. Blasco Núñez Vela – b. 1490, Avila, Spain – d. 1546, Quito, Ecuador. As the first Spanish viceroy of Peru, Núñez Vela, who served from May 5, 1544 to January 18, 1546, was charged by King Charles V of Spain to enforce the controversial New Laws of Bartolome de las Casas, which suppressed the encomienda. The laws provoked the ire of the encomenderos who defeated him in the battle of the plain of Iñaquito, near Quito, Ecuador, on January 18, 1546, which lead to his beheading. Bernardo O’Higgins – b. 1778, Chillan, Chile – d. 1842, Lima, Peru. South American revolutionary leader and first Chilean Head of State (“Director Supremo”), 1817–23. O’Higgins, the son of a wealthy Spanish officer of Irish origin, who became governor of Chile and later viceroy of Peru, was schooled in Lima, Spain, and England. In London, he became imbued with a deep nationalist pride in Chile, largely fostered by his contact with several political activists of whom Francisco de Miranda, the Venezuelan independentist, exerted the greatest influence on him. Juan de Oñate – b. 1550, Zacatecas, Mexico – d. 1626, Guadalcanal, Spain. Married to a granddaughter of Hernan Cortes, Oñate was a conquistador born in New Spain who conquered and governed New Mexico in the name of Spain with despotic tactics. Having resigned from his post in 1607, he stood trial for his crimes while governor. Found guilty, Oñate was exiled from the colony, fined, and deprived of his titles. Frey Nicolas de Ovando – b. 1460, Brozas, Spain – d. 1511, Seville, Spain. Sent by the Spanish crown to investigate the administration of Francisco de Bobadilla, the Royal Commissioner and Chief Justice to colonial Santo Domingo, and re-establish order in the colony, he was appointed the

Who’s who  xix second governor of the West Indies, and was the first to apply the encomienda system, which quickly became a means for outright exploitation of the native population. Pedro I of Brazil – b. 1798, Queluz, Portugal – d. 1834, Queluz, Portugal. Nicknamed “the Liberator”, Dom Pedro I was the founder and first ruler of the Empire of Brazil. As King Pedro IV, he reigned briefly over Portugal. Pedro I was the fourth child of King João VI of Portugal and Queen Carlota Joaquina, and thus a member of the House of Braganza. When Portugal was invaded by French troops in 1807, the Braganza clan fled to Brazil, the largest and wealthiest Portuguese colony. When João VI returned to Portugal in April 1821, Pedro was appointed to rule Brazil as regent. It was in that position that Pedro had to deal with challenges from revolutionaries and disaffected Portuguese troops, all of which he successfully overcame. Pedro became Pedro I of Brazil after the colony declared its independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822. However, unable to deal with problems in both Brazil and Portugal simultaneously, Pedro I abdicated in favor of his son Dom Pedro II on April 7, 1831 and sailed for Europe. Francisco Pizarro – b. 1478, Trujillo, Spain – d. 1541, Lima, Perú. A soldier of fortune, a lower echelon participant of several expeditions in the West Indies and Panama, Pizarro’s date with fame came in 1523 when, in partnership with a fellow Spaniard, Diego de Almagro, and a priest, Hernando de Luque, made the preparations for a voyage of discovery and conquest down the west coast of South America. It was not until 1532, however, that he claimed his biggest conquest: the Inca Empire, its leader Atahualpa – executed in 1533 – and the royal capital, Cuzco. Pizarro went on to establish the city of Lima in 1535. Francisco Pizarro died a protracted death on June 26, 1541 when the followers of his former ally, Diego de Almagro – whom Pizarro had executed – attacked his palace in Lima. Jean-Jacques Rousseau – b. 1712, Geneva, Switzerland – d. 1778, Emenonville, France. A Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer, Rousseau’s political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as important aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought. Bernardino de Sahagún – b. 1499, Sahagún, Spain – d. 1590, Tlatelolco, Mexico City, Mexico. The author in Nahuatl and Spanish of Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (“General History of the Matters of New Spain”), a record of the Aztec culture as recounted by some of the native population

xx  Who’s who of south-central Mexico, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun was a Franciscan missionary who arrived in New Spain in 1529 and was to remain in Mexico until his death in 1590. José de San Martin – b. 1778, Yapeyu, Argentina – d. 1850, Boulogne-sur­­ Mer, France. Argentine soldier, statesman, and national hero, José de San Martín helped lead the revolutions against Spanish rule in Argentina (1812), Chile (1818), and Peru (1821). Born to Spanish parents, San Martín was from 1785 to 1789 educated at the Seminary of Nobles in Madrid, and later trained for a military career as a cadet in the Murcia infantry regiment. For over 20 years, San Martín served as a loyal officer of the Spanish monarch, before joining the independence movements in South America. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda – b. 1494, Pozoblanco, Spain – d. 1573, Pozoblanco, Spain. A Spanish philosopher and theologian, Ginés de Sepulveda was a Renaissance humanist and a strong proponent of colonial slavery. A prominent figure in the court of Charles V, the Spanish king, he served as the Emperor’s chaplain and his official historian. Martim Afonso de Sousa – b. 1500, Vila Vicosa, Portugal – d. 1564, Lisboa, Portugal. A Portuguese admiral who commanded the first colonizing expedition to Brazil (1530–33), Sousa founded the first two permanent Portuguese settlements in Brazil in 1532, Sâo Vicente, and Piratininga (now Sâo Paolo). Sousa set up a municipal government and legal and economic systems, thereby laying the basis for future colonial social organization. Tomé de Sousa – b. 1503, Rates, Povoa de Varzim, Portugal – d. 1579, Kingdom of Portugal. The first governor-general of the Portuguese colony of Brazil from 1549 until 1553, Sousa was a nobleman and soldier, and the first knight commander of the medieval Monastery of Rates, re-established in 1100 AD and dissolved in the sixteenth century. After military service in Africa and India, Sousa led a 1,000-man expedition to Brazil where he built the fortified capital of Salvador. Sousa returned to Portugal in 1533 and spent the remaining years of his life as the king’s adviser on Brazilian affairs. Antonio José de Sucre – b. 1795, Cumana, New Granada (Venezuela) – d. 1830, Berruecos, Colombia. The liberator of Ecuador and Peru, and one of the most respected leaders of the Latin American wars for independence from Spain, Sucre, who served as Simón Bolívar’s chief lieutenant, went on to become the

Who’s who

xxi

first constitutionally elected leader of Bolivia. A very capable military strategist, Sucre was victorious in the three most important battles that determined the independence of Ecuador (Battle of Pichincha – 1822) and of Peru (Battles of Junín and Ayacucho, both in 1824). Elected as the Constitutional President of Bolivia in 1825, Sucre tried to rebuild the economy of war-torn Bolivia and embarked on progressive social and economic reforms for which he soon became the target of opposition from Bolivia’s entrenched elites. As a result, he resigned the presidency of Bolivia and retired to Ecuador. Sucre was ambushed and assassinated in Colombia, on his return home to Ecuador, after having presided over the “Admirable Congress”, a lastditch unsuccessful effort to maintain the unity of Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Tupac Amaru I – b. 1545, Peru – d. 1572, Cusco, Peru. The last monarch of the Neo-Inca State, the remnants of the Inca Empire in Vilcabamba, Peru, Tupac Amaru I ruled during the time of the Spanish occupation of Peru. In 1571, Tupac Amaru assumed the throne and took a more adversarial stance against the Spanish rule, thus provoking the reaction of the then viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, who authorized a full-scale military campaign. While Vilcabamba itself fell in June of 1572, Tupac Amaru, who had evaded capture, was imprisoned, and executed on September 24, 1572. Tupac Amaru II – b. 1738, Surinama, Peru – d. 1781, Cusco, Peru. Born José Gabriel Condorcanqui, he adopted the name of Tupac Amaru II in honor of his ancestor Tupac Amaru I, the last of the Inca emperors. In rebellion against Spanish rule and oppression, Amaru led an insurrection that began with the arrest and execution of the Spanish corregidor, Antonio Arriaga, on charges of cruelty. This act, the last general native rebellion against Spanish rule, at first with the support of some creoles (Spaniards born in America), spread throughout southern Peru and into now Bolivia and Argentina. Tupac Amaru II and his family were captured in March 1781 and taken to Cusco. After being forced to witness the execution of his wife and sons, Tupac Amaru II was mutilated, drawn and quartered, and beheaded. Inca Garcilaso de la Vega – b. 1539, Cusco, Peru – d. 1616, Córdoba, Spain. The illegitimate son of a Spanish conquistador, and an Inca princess, Garcilaso de la Vega, also called El Inca, was one of the most important Spanish chroniclers of the sixteenth century. Fluent in Quechua, Spanish, and Latin, Garcilaso is best known for La Florida del Ynca, and his history of Peru, describing the civil wars fought amongst the Spanish conquerors of Peru.

xxii  Who’s who Diego Velázquez de Cuellar – b. 1465, Cuellar, Spain – d. 1524, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. A conquistador and the first Spanish governor of Cuba, Velázquez de Cuellar sailed to the New World in 1493 accompanying Christopher Columbus on his second voyage. It was Columbus’ second son, Diego Columbus, who entrusted Velázquez with the conquest of Cuba in 1511. In the four years that followed, Velázquez de Cuellar founded several settlements that included Baracoa, Bayamo, Santiago de Cuba, and Havana. He was appointed governor of Cuba in 1514. Francois-Marie Arouet – Voltaire – b. 1694, Paris, France – d. 1778, Paris, France. Known by his nom de plume, Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity – especially de Roman Catholic Church – as well as his advocacy for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state. Although only a few of his works are currently read, he is held in high worldwide repute for his crusade against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty. Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica, Biography.com, and general knowledge.

Part I

The encounter

1

1492 The enterprise of the Indies

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

DOI: 10.4324/9780367853143-2

4  The encounter 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.

1492: the enterprise of the Indies  5 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

6  The encounter (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

1492: the enterprise of the Indies  7 more parts of the mainland. While he was away, Queen Isabela, distressed by reports of abuses and deaths, declared the natives free in 1503, but later allowed the Caribs to be enslaved in order to civilize them and teach them Catholicism to save their souls. By the time of Columbus’ death, he acknowledged that approximately 3 million Indians had died on Española between 1498 and 1508. In sum, this “other world”, as Columbus conceptualized the lands he explored, fell short of his dreams of spices and gold, but yielded other exportable items like brasilwood, prized by European textile producers as a red dye. Towns and cities appeared. Agriculture thrived. The Caribbean became the gateway to further explorations and the first encounters with other mainland native civilizations. Over time, the motivations for these continued efforts continued to be the potential for economic success, but eventually, for some, became linked to the promise of converting the natives and saving their souls. Furthermore, the treasure that eventually flowed into Spanish coffers helped to establish the might and power of the crown in Europe and the world.

The Caribbean as a base for further Caribbean explorations Even as Columbus was still exploring the islands and main land, the Caribbean was evolving as a supply hub and rendezvous for persons seeking a chance to better their fortunes and serve the monarchy. Under Governor Francisco Fernández de Bobadilla (1499–1502), a knight of the Order of Calatrava, who the Crown had sent to investigate charges of Columbus’ malfeasance, Española became a base for further expeditions and a lab for overseas governance. Frey Nicolas de Ovando y Cáceres (1502–09), a soldier from a noble family and a Knight of the Order of Alcantara, replaced Bobadilla as governor arriving with 2,500 royal officials, religious, and settlers (including Bartolome de las Casas, who later became a vocal advocate for humane treatment of the natives) to bolster the surviving resident Hispanic population of 300. Many died, so that at the end of the year only 1500 remained. The Crown had charged Ovando with treating the natives well. But to establish “order” he ravaged the western part of the island, killing the native Queen and many of the nobility. By breaking the ruling hierarchy of native society, Ovando put an end to native troubles and took the opportunity to reward encomiendas to deserving and well-connected settlers. In theory, natives were to be paid for their labor and, as subjects of the crown, receive proper care, but, in practice, the conditions of these grants were not honored. Natives were obliged to work six to eight months, often panning for gold. Furthermore, the economic gains from the encomienda, in time, made the trustees powerful advocates before the governor and his successors to the extreme that they did not always follow the royal mandates and decrees issued to maintain order on the islands.

8  The encounter Ovando, following the example set by Spain during the Reconquista, also founded villas and established cabildos or town councils for governance during 1504–05. In the process, Santo Domingo, blessed with a good harbor, became the capital and a major trading hub. But not all was rosy under Ovando’s leadership as the native population continued to decline from disease and flight. As mentioned above, in Spain, Queen Isabela in 1503 prohibited the native slavery and trade, asserting that natives were free vassals of the Crown, with one exception. She agreed that cannibals could be captured to convert them and end their alleged feasting on human flesh. This allowed entrepreneurs such as Juan de la Cosa to cruise to other islands and the mainland to capture natives alleged to be cannibals to sell in the markets of Española and elsewhere, along with brasilwood. Española also served as a hub for the further exploration of the Caribbean – seeking yet a passage to the Spice Islands, reiterated as an objective in the Juntas of Toro (1505) and of Burgos three years later; gold and other valuable products; and suitable areas for permanent settlement. Under Ovando and his successor, Diego Columbus, the son of the Admiral, second Viceroy of the Indies, and fourth governor of the Indies, the Spanish expanded to other areas. Juan de Esquivel, who had arrived with Columbus on his second voyage, for instance, took possession (later disallowed) of Jamaica in 1509. Although he found no gold, the natives produced cassava, maize, and cotton, which the women made into cloth, shirts, and hammocks, for export to Tierra Firme and Cuba. Eventually, too, European livestock thrived on the island that stocked ships with various itineraries. Cuba became the object of much attention when gold was discovered there in 1512. Diego de Velázquez de Cuéllar became captain and lieutenant governor of the island who moved Havana from the coast of western Cuba to the north coast, where it became an important Spanish port of call. He enjoyed the right to grant encomiendas, seen as an incentive to settlement. One of the individuals who was so honored was Bartolome de las Casas who experienced enough and saw enough abuses of the native population to renounce the grant in 1515. He had taken to heart the sermons of certain Dominican friars who had arrived in September 1510 that condemned the bad treatment of the natives. Las Casas became outspoken in this regard. He sailed to Spain in 1515 to campaign for the protection of the natives, eventually joining the Dominican order in 1522. By then Velázquez and his men had already begun raiding other places to capture natives to replace the decimated Cuban population. Back in Española, the governing of Diego Columbus proved to be weak. To remedy this and bring the Caribbean more firmly under Crown control, three judges were sent to Santo Domingo to establish an Audiencia (Supreme Court, discussed in more detail below) in 1511. Shortly, thereafter, the crown issued the Laws of Burgos, a code designed to regulate Spanish-Indian relations. The 1512 preamble states that the natives were

1492: the enterprise of the Indies  9 lazy and viceful and needed direction, a justification for specific directives. It allowed encomiendas, reminding the encomenderos not to mistreat their charges and the need to Christianize them. The problem, common to all law codes, was one of enforcement. The governors had no real power. They were at the mercy, at times, of the encomenderos. Meanwhile, the native population continued to plummet as a result of a smallpox epidemic in 1519, made worse by the concentration of the originally dispersed-living natives into settlements, called reducciones or congregaciones, the year before. Queen Isabela’s 1504 insistence on good treatment and conversion to Catholicism died with her. King Ferdinand was not like-minded. He considered his treasury’s income more important than saving anonymous natives’ lives. One estimate states that the population shrank from a high of over 1.1 million counted circa 1496 to 60,000 adults in 1509 and 40,000 in 1510. By mid-century, the number was approximately 500. Simultaneously, the Spanish population increased as settlers replaced the enterprise employees and fortune hunters who arrived with Columbus. Tierra Firme became the object of more systematic exploration, also. These “minor voyages” of exploration were still charged with finding a passage east. Captains, such as Rodrigo de Bastidas, Juan de la Cosa, Alonso de Hojeda, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, Diego de Lepe, Peralonso Niño, Juan Díaz de Solís, and Diego de Nicuesa, explored, traded, and eventually pillaged and raided the northern coasts of the southern continent, north up the coast of what is now Mexico to beyond Tampico, and the islands of Margarita and Curação. After attempts to explore to the east and west of the Gulf of Urubá, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and his men, which included Francisco Pizarro, who years later was the Spaniard who first contacted the Inca Emperor, and Hernando de Soto, who explored the west coast of South America some years afterward, settled at the newly laid-out town of Santa Maria la Antigua de Darien, across the Gulf from San Sebastian de Urubá. Balboa found gold and heard of another sea, which he saw and named the Pacific for its placid waters on September 27, 1513. Increasing, too, were the numbers of black slaves from Africa living in Española. A few had been imported to work in the mines under Governor Ovando, as early as 1505. By 1517, there was an increasing clamor for more that begot their ever-larger scale of importation. Later, they would be used in the sugar and cotton fields to feed a growing export market.

2

Encounters of a new kind Cortes’ triumphs over the Mexica or Aztecs

First contacts In 1517, authorities in the Caribbean heard accounts of a rich native civilization from survivors of an earlier expedition that had reached the Yucatan peninsula. These rumors, it was later learned, referred to the A ztec or Mexica empire, which centered on a lacustrine capital built in the middle of Lake Texcoco. The seemingly-mighty Aztecs or Mexicas ruled over a loosely-organized confederation of city states. The Aztecs, so called because their collective memories recalled their origins in a place called Aztlan, had migrated from the northwest encountering one city state after another. As they moved into the Valley of Mexico, they became subservient to the city state of Azcapotzalco in the fourteenth century. After serving Azcapotzalco well, they settled in the middle of Lake Texcoco, where they saw an eagle with a serpent in its mouth, a legendary sign that it was the site where they were to build a capital, called Tenochtitlán. Eventually, they allied with the city states of Texcoco and Tlacopán to form a triple Alliance. These three challenged Azcapotzalco for preeminence. Thereafter, this imperialistic triple alliance allowed them to continue their empire-building expansion. Tenochtitlán, with its great temples, comfortable palaces, large marketplace, and causeways that linked it to the mainland, assumed more and more power until Texcoco and Tlacopán fell in status to mere satellites. Aztec jurisdiction eventually extended from the northern plateau, home of the hunting and gathering Chichimecs, to the Isthmus of Tahuantepec and from the Gulf coast to the Pacific. The exceptions were autonomous city states, such as Tlaxcala, that remained independent so that the Aztecs would have a nearby foe for training their young warriors to fight and capture their first slaves and sacrificial victims. These armed contests were called “flower(y) wars”. Tenochtitlan became the home of a stratified society. Education was the key to membership in the elite. The telpochcalli or house of youth prepared a child for his religious and military duties and indoctrinated him to the ideals of the ethnic group. A higher level of instruction at the calmecac or priests’ house was reserved for students destined to be priests, tax collectors, DOI: 10.4324/9780367853143-3

Encounters of a new kind  11 judges, and military commanders. Priests not only mediated with the supernatural, but also learned and conserved their society’s oral histories and kept the calendar, so important in determining when to plant. The basic unit of society were the clans or kinship groups called the calpulli (Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs) for “big house”). Each occupied a neighborhood in the cities and paid tribute as a collective. One especially powerful calpull was that of the merchants, the pochteca, who traveled long distances – as far south as Guatemala, to procure its green jade and the long, silky and colorful quetzal feathers. In their contacts with other cultures, the pochteca served as ambassadors and spies, always on the lookout for peoples producing precious commodities that might justify a war to subjugate them and incorporate them into the Aztec tribute-delivering empire. Other calpulli served as artisans, like potters, stonemasons, silver smiths, and feather workers. But, the vast majority of the population were peasants tasked with tending the soil. Because the Mexica lacked good farmland, some sowed on floating gardens, called chinampas, in places like Xochimilco (now in the southern part of Mexico City). Warfare, however, is what built the Aztec reputation. Their wars to get prisoners to use as slaves and sacrificial victims made the growing warrior class an elite. Huitzilopochtli, the war god, became ever-more powerful and dominant among their pantheon of deities – even rivaling Tlaloc, the rain god. Tribute from the conquered city states supplied Tenochtitlan’s populace with food, textiles, and weapons. Small garrisons enforced deliveries of these goods. The priests rewrote history to associate what had been their group’s relatively rudimentary cultural beginnings to the mighty and sophisticated society of Tula, the Toltec capital that had dominated central Mexico from the seventh to the tenth centuries. Thus, by the late fifteenth century, the Aztecs had forged a tributary empire from a loose confederation of city states. Each city state had its own pantheon of deities and remained relatively autonomous, except at tax time. Resistance to these exactions meant that the Aztecs had to deal with occasional uprisings and, as Cortes and his men marched inland, some of the mounting resentment at a history of tributary exactions and flowery wars forged city states into Spanish allies, helping him to liberate them, they hoped, from Aztec domination. This rebellion of different groups of subjects under Aztec hegemony contributed to Tenochtitlán’s defeat in 1521.

Cortes Such news motivated Velázquez de Cuéllar, as governor of Cuba, to sponsor a search for this native group. He sent his cousin, Juan de Grijalva, in charge of four ships and 200 men, to explore the gulf coast to Tabasco, trading for gold along the way. An Aztec subject made contact with the fleet and alerted the rulers of Tenochtitlán, where the emperor and elite studied drawings of the boats and men and recalled their ancestral stories

12  The encounter of the long-departed deity called Quetzalcoatl who had left central Mexico, according to one version of the orally-transmitted tale, sailing to the east and promising to return. The gold that Grijalva had collected disappointed the governor who then decided to sponsor another expedition to seek the rumored inland civilization under a more energetic individual, his former secretary Hernán Cortes. Cortes, a hidalgo from Extremadura, was studying law in Spain when he decided to try his luck in America after a cuckolded husband threatened. He disembarked in Española in 1504 and with help from some contacts received an encomienda. He came to the attention of Velázquez and served as his secretary during his attempt to take possession of Cuba. There, his patron rewarded him with a second encomienda which allowed him to dedicate himself to trade. Velázquez decided to name Cortes as leader of this next undertaking. Just before the fleet was ready to sail, Velázquez had second thoughts about Cortes, judging him to be more ambitious than loyal. He rescinded Cortes’ authority, but a forewarned and audacious Cortes set sail before he was formally informed in late 1518 or early 1519 with over 500 men on 11 ships with over a hundred sailors, 16 horses, and some artillery. As Cortes sailed along the coast of Yucatan, he encountered a shipwrecked Spaniard, Jerónimo Aguilar, who after years living among the Maya spoke the local language well. Other natives gave Cortes an Indian woman, named Malintzin, who spoke Maya and Nahuatl. She, later renamed Doña Marina, then formed a translating chain from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, to Maya (the language of Yucatan) and Spanish, which proved an invaluable, though sometimes flawed, aid to Cortes in the months to come. When he reached a point on the coast which he considered close to the sought-after civilization, he remedied his lack of a license for the expedition by founding a town, named Vera Cruz, and establishing a functioning cabildo or town council. This council then granted Cortes the legal authority to make contact with the natives of the hinterland. As he marched toward the Valley of Mexico, Cortes negotiated with the leaders of several city states, such as Cempoala and Tlaxcala, that, by using trickery, force, and diplomacy, he turned eventually into allies. Messengers from Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor in his capital of Tenochtitlán, tried to convince Cortes of Tlaxcalan inconsistency and unreliability, but Cortes insisted on meeting Moctezuma in his capital. En route, he received notice that another Aztec ally was preparing a surprise attack. Cortes did not wait, responding with his native allies and eventually massacring 6,000 residents. This victory opened the way for Cortes to cross the causeways leading into the capital with its magnificent towering temples and statues that was built amid lakes and canals. After meeting Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor, and exchanging gifts, Cortes and his men moved into a palace that had once housed Moctezuma’s father and the former emperor, Azayacatl.

Encounters of a new kind  13 But news reached Cortes from Gonzalo Sandoval, the captain that he left in Veracruz, that Governor Velázquez had sent another fleet under Pánfilo de Narváez, a veteran of the Cuba campaign, to arrest him. He left a garrison under Pedro de Alvarado in Tenochtitlán while he returned to the coast. There he convinced some of Velázquez men to join him, no doubt with shares of Aztec gold; and clashed with Narváez, who was defeated and lost an eye. One of Narváez’ men carried the smallpox virus that ravaged the native population who had no immunity, killing many. Before Cortes arrived back in Tenochtitlán, Alvarado and his men assaulted people during a religious celebration. This provoked an uprising which confronted Cortes and his followers as they reentered the capital. Determining that he could not beat the Aztec forces, Cortes and his followers planned to flee under cover of darkness, each carrying as much gold and silver as they could. But the Aztecs followed them as they escaped. In their flight, many Spaniards, weighted down with the bullion that they so coveted, dropped their booty or drowned. All told, some 400 Spanish and some horses perished on what the Spanish historians call the “sad night” (la noche triste) of June 30–July 1, 1520, which, in contrast, was a victorious night from the native point of view. Not one to accept defeat, Cortes retreated and had his men and allies build small vessels which were launched in Lake Texcoco, where the Spanish forces defeated Aztec warriors in their canoes. Cortes and his forces also moved overland, often destroying buildings as they went. Finally, on August 21, 1521 the Spanish defeated the Aztecs and retook the capital. The victory was a pyrrhic one, because the city was largely destroyed; bones were scattered on the roads and brains were splattered on the walls. In the process, the inhabitants had fled or been killed from warfare or smallpox. Much of the treasure had been lost.

3

Pizarro and the Inca Atahualpa in Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572

Pizarro’s invasions A second atypical exploratory effort on Tierra Firme was the one led by Francisco Pizarro into the western regions of the southern hemisphere. There the Europeans encountered a highly centralized state with subjects spread out from what is today southern Colombia, through the Andes of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, and into northwestern reaches of Argentina and northern Chile. The peoples who lived in the Andes were dominated by an ethnic group called the Incas or Cuzcos. They united over 80 ethnic groups into an empire in which ideally all spoke one language (Quechua) and worshipped one supreme god, among many, the Sun, the purported father of the emperor and his line. Archaeologists find remains of the Incas as early as the twelfth century. Oral histories recorded by Spanish chroniclers relate that the Incas began to expand from their southern Andean homeland after a war with a neighboring ethnic group, called the Chancas, for the title of “children of the Sun”. After their hard-fought victory over these rivals, the Incas continued to expand the empire, typically sending messengers bearing rich gifts to invite other ethnic groups to join their alliance. They promised to help fight the newcomers’ foes and provide sustenance in times of blight and other hardships. They would also build and maintain roads and bridges, construct storehouses, and expand irrigation networks. The emperor confirmed the native chiefs who agreed to cooperate in their positions; those who refused Inca diplomatic advances faced formidable armies, destruction of infrastructure, and death or exile of themselves and significant portions of their followers. Either way, newly incorporated peoples had to promise to learn Quechua, if they did not already speak it, and raise the sun to a paramount position over all their own ancestral deities. They were also asked to work for or fight when the Inca asked. An ethnicity’s loyalty was strengthened by the exchange of women. The Inca offered favored chiefs his sisters and daughters as wives and the chiefs sent their sisters and daughters to the Inca as secondary spouses. Thus, the Incas tried to unify their empire through kinship relations to a greater extent than the Mexican Aztecs. DOI: 10.4324/9780367853143-4

Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572  15

Illustration 3.1 Natives Planting Maize.

Prosperity under Inca rule was based on verticality, reciprocity, and redistribution. The first term refers to where production of agricultural and other goods took place, i.e., the dispersed settlement pattern and access to a variety of ecological niches at different altitudes (above sea level) in the Andes. Thus, populations residing along the desert coast of the southern hemisphere fished, collected seaweed, made salt, and cut reeds to make mats and fishing boats. They also raised turkeys and ducks. Farmers in the irrigated valleys sowed tropical fruits (like mango, papaya, and tomato), colored cottons, fragrant tobacco, and vegetables, such as pumpkins, squash, beans, peanuts, chiles, and especially maize (Illustration 3.1).

16  The encounter Higher up in the foothills of the Andes, people gathered medicinal herbs. On the mountain slopes, they grew over 600 species of potatoes and a variety of colored, protein-rich quinoas. The wild ichu grass provided fodder for their domesticated llamas and alpacas and the wild vicuñas, whose wool remains among the finest (and most expensive) in the world. On the eastern flanks of the Andean mountains, coca leaf, honey, and tropical birds with their prized colored feathers could be had. A chief endeavored to have subjects living at a variety of altitudes to provide his population with all these products and be self-sufficient. Reciprocity or exchange among equals meant that there were no markets, merchants, or money in the Andes. It represented the communal ideal of cooperating – be it in the sowing of fields for the neighbors, the chief, the emperor, or the gods or the raising of a house for a newly-formed family. Redistribution referred to exchange among unequals, such as when a native authority awarded a deserving follower with a rich tunic of vicuña wool or the chief-organized sumptuous feasts held in the plazas of their ceremonial centers where all ate and drank together from the communal stores. The person who would quickly wrest hegemony from native kings was Francisco Pizarro who led the invasion into the heart of the Andes. He was an illegitimate son of an Extremaduran noble who never learned to sign his name, but who had a steeled determination that fueled his successful efforts to subdue the Inca Empire and amass an undreamed-of fortune measured in pounds of gold and silver and jurisdiction over thousands. He became notorious on the expedition of Balboa that explored the Gulf of Urabá and first viewed the Pacific Ocean. Unsatisfied with his encomienda and his status as a founder of the city of Panama, he joined more than one exploratory expedition to seek gold and a passage to the east. In 1522 he joined a group under captain Pascual de Andagoya to explore the Pacific coast. On this trip, he heard of a rich kingdom to the south. Subsequently, Governor Pedro Arías Dávila (also commonly known as Pedrarias) agreed to let Pizarro and his associates, Diego de Almagro and the priest Hernando de Luque, form a company to explore the region. Luque organized the finances for an initial trip in 1524 during which time Pizarro and his men experienced unimagined hardships and native attacks. Not one to give up, he embarked on a second trip. Conditions proved so arduous that Pizarro and 13 men remained on Gallo Island while Almagro returned to get reinforcements and supplies. At this juncture, one of the ships encountered a large ocean-going raft full of native luxury goods, such as gold and silver jewelry, fine textiles, and precious stones, undeniable evidence of highly-productive and skilled peoples to the south. They pushed forward to Tumbes, an Inca ceremonial center near the present-day southern border of Ecuador and Peru. Monumental architecture strengthened the Spanish confidence that a prosperous kingdom lay to the south. Despite this intelligence and material assurances of a strong, well-organized state ahead, they returned to Panama where they tried to interest Pedrarias Dávila

Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572  17 in sponsoring further exploration. When this failed, Pizarro returned to Spain to negotiate a contract with the crown for his endeavors. His capitulación (contract) named him governor of Peru; ennobled the 13 men who remained with Pizarro during the difficult time on Gallo Island; and named his partner Almagro governor of Tumbes. On his return to A merica, Pizarro stopped in his home region of Trujillo to recruit his brothers, a cousin, other kinsmen, and neighbors for his next voyage south. Pizarro left with fewer than 200 men on December 1530. Almagro was to follow with more recruits and supplies. When Pizarro reached Tumbes, he found it in ruins – the result of a civil war over succession to the kingdom after a disease, most commonly identified as smallpox, killed Guayna Capac, the divine emperor of peoples residing from southern Colombia to the middle of Chile and inland through Peru and Bolivia, and northwestern Argentina, his heir, and as many as half the Andean population. Two half-brothers, Atahualpa and Huascar, took up arms against each other over the succession to the emperorship and title of “the Cuzco”. Further south, now in uncharted territory, Pizarro founded the city of San Miguel [de Piura] in a valley under the control of a cacique named Lachira. He named citizens (vecinos), constituted a cabildo, and awarded encomiendas. Sebastián de Benalcázar, Pizarro’s lieutenant, was left in command. Proceeding south and then inland, Pizarro and his troops finally met one of the brothers in the highland ceremonial center of Cajamarca. On the afternoon on November 16, 1532, the ruler Atahualpa entered the plaza, carried on a litter and surrounded by thousands of his attendees who were playing instruments and singing. The Spanish Dominican priest, Vicente de Valverde y Álvarez de Toledo, O. P., advanced into the plaza to explain to the Inca through an interpreter that the book he held contained the “the word of god”. Atahualpa put the book to his ear expecting it to talk to him as did the famous native oracles at Apurimac and Pachacamac. He heard nothing and threw the book on the ground. That act insulted the Spanish who initiated an attack with a volley from the canon and harquebuses that panicked the natives surrounding the Inca’s person. Most turned and ran, breaking down the plaza’s surrounding wall. Standard chronicles, many written after the fact by Spaniards, indicate that Pizarro’s men massacred the Inca’s attendees in the plaza. One, however, an eyewitness to the events himself, emphasizes the fact that the cannon shot and gunfire caused a stampede; some of the thousands who accompanied the emperor trampled their peers as they ran for the one opening in the surrounding wall. More than half of those who died that day were killed in this way. Pizarro took the Inca prisoner as his horsemen pursued and killed those who fled outside the walled plaza. Over the next weeks, Atahualpa agreed to pay a ransom for his freedom: a room filled with gold and two filled with silver. He sent emissaries to his followers to carry the bullion to Cajamarca, eventually releasing between 6 and 7 tons of gold and 13 tons of silver. After the royal fifth (quinto real),

18  The encounter the 20 percent tax due to the crown, was deducted from the total, this treasure yielded a foot soldier over 90 pounds of gold and more than double that amount in silver. Mounted troops received twice that to account for their horse’s efforts. Captains too received more. Pizarro received 630 pounds of gold and 1,260 pounds of silver. Shortly after this division of spoils, Pizarro’s partner Almagro arrived with 150 recruits. His small share originated a growing envy and rift that would eventually cost both Pizarro and Almagro their lives. Still dissatisfied with their shares, parties of Spaniards left camp to reconnoiter the countryside looking for more treasure in the next months. Hernando Pizarro, one of Pizarro’s half-brothers, came back

Illustration 3.2 The Colonial City of Cuzco, circa 1615.

Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572  19 from the sacred center and oracle of Pachacamac on the central coast with a sizeable load of gold and silver. Others fanned out from Cajamarca with the same objective. Despite fulfilling his promise, Atahualpa was blamed for his half-brother Huascar’s death while in the custody of one of his generals and sentenced to die by garroting. In the fall of 1533, the combined forces of Pizarro and Almagro left Cajamarca with a Pizarro-selected replacement as emperor and journeyed to the city of the Cuzco in the southern Andes. Atahualpa’s replacement died en route, so Pizarro named another. In this southern ceremonial center, the Spaniards stripped temples and royal palaces of more precious metals. Outings into the countryside found more wealth. On one trip, expedition members came back with 150 slabs of solid silver, each between 15 and 20 feet long and 8 inches wide. Upon arrival, Pizarro re-organized the ceremonial center into a Spanish-style city and named his brothers and relatives to municipal offices (Illustration 3.2). Almagro’s growing resentment was to be allayed by being given the chance to be the first to advance into Chile, where he hoped to find more valuables. After unimagined hardship, the expedition reached the Maule River, without finding gold or anything else of great value. While he was gone, Manco Inca, one of Atahualpa’s successors, revolted against Pizarro and his followers. He held the city of Cuzco under siege for about a year. Pizarro could do little to help. Almagro’s return from Chile turned the tide. After suffering continued insults and tired of the constant demands of the invaders, this native emperor abandoned the city to establish a new headquarters in Vilcabamba from where he and his descendants continued to harass the Spanish. This amounted to a guerrilla war of resistance. Finally, in 1572, the Spanish captured his successor, Tupac Amaru. He was eventually executed, putting an end to the Inca Empire and its continued organized resistance.

The victories explained These Spanish successes whereby a few hundred men with a few horses defeated once mighty empires that could muster thousands can be explained by a combination of factors. First, the Spanish were militarily superior. Native forces fought with bows and arrows, blow guns, wooden lances, slings and stones, wooden clubs (macanas) edged with sharp obsidian blades, and canoes against European canon, harquebuses, cross bows, metal swords, large ships, hunting dogs, and horses. A horse and rider wearing armor could effectively break through native infantry ranks and from their higher perch the rider could wound or kill foot soldiers with their pikes and swords. The Spanish style of warfare had a psychological impact on the natives. Natives had never seen or heard a gun or a cannon. Initially, the natives equated the user with a god who controlled lightning and thunder. The natives had never seen horses and had no word for these beasts, equating

20  The encounter them with deer. The largest and only beast of burden in Peru was the llama that carried about 50 pounds. Furthermore, the natives also briefly believed that horse and rider were one. Cortes took advantage of these fears. On his march toward Tenochtitlán, he buried his dead followers and horses secretly to prolong the natives’ belief that they were immortals. The Spanish weapons made of white metal gleamed in the sun and were much harder than the gold, silver, and copper commonly worked by the natives. To these must be added the political factors. The Aztecs ruled over a tributary empire, a loose confederation of city states and ethnic groups that often resented the imposed tax exactions. City states, like Tlaxcala, though semi-independent, were constantly at war with the Mexica and undoubtedly resented the prisoners that the Aztecs took for slaves and sacrificial victims. Cortes fought and defeated Tlaxcala and then allied with them against the Aztecs. As mentioned above, tributary ethnic groups such as the Tlaxcalans accepted this arrangement to be rid of the Aztec burdens. They and other allied native groups provided infantry, built and manned the ships, carried supplies, provided communication, and policed pacified peoples. In that sense, the victory against Tenochtitlán was less a successful European campaign than a revolt of subjugated peoples. Related to this were the internal divisions among the native leadership both in the ranks of the Aztecs and the Incas. Moctezuma considered the Spanish as forces of Quetzalcoatl, a legendary god-king who had left, promising to return. He sent gifts to Cortes who was advancing inland with the hope that such propitiation would satisfy the invaders and turn them back. Part of his gifts were gold and silver ornaments that only whetted the appetite of Cortes and his followers for a face-to-face audience with the emperor. Moctezuma hesitated to resist them until it was too late. Andean forces were split between two warring brothers: Huascar and Atahualpa and their generals, armies, and allies. Atahualpa’s capture played into native traditions: that any peoples defeated in a “good war” had to thereafter serve the victor and his successors. Resistance, therefore, was temporarily thwarted. Some Andeans briefly accepted the invaders’ directions and served them, at least until Manco Inca abandoned the city of Cuzco to set up a rump government at Vilcabamba. Another factor was the fact that fighting tactics differed. The Aztecs announced their attacks, deeming surprise strikes and unannounced war as unworthy of taking ceremonial victims. Consequently, they had no concept of an ambush. They soon learned differently and used that strategy to advantage. Cortes, in contrast, planned his battles, using the horsemen to break through massed formations of infantry to avoid hand-to-hand combat. He also used fire power to scare the natives. When the cavalry and artillery failed or could not be feasibly used, Cortes and his allies built ships to do battle against archers perched on canoes. Furthermore, following their homeland’s gentlemanly ideal concept of war as a means for upward social mobility, the Spaniards believed in

Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572  21 “total war” or “victory or death”. In contrast, the Aztec religious concept of war was to gain captives to sacrifice to their gods and especially their patron of war, Huitzilopochtli. Even during the “noche triste” (the sad or melancholy night, which from the native point of view would have been a most triumphant night), the Aztecs took some Spaniards captives for later sacrifice, instead of killing them outright. Some Spaniards were allowed to escape to fight and capture later. Disease, as mentioned above, also played a part, killing or weakening resistance. One early observer guessed that in some regions of Mexico one-half of the population died of smallpox; in other regions less. Likewise, smallpox may have killed half of the pre-contact native population of South America. Other diseases such as influenza and measles continued to decimate native American populations. Tribute records indicate that in one small irrigated valley on the Peruvian desert coast, the population of 3,000 households circa 1532 was reduced to circa 200 by the end of the sixteenth century. After the final fall of Tenochtitlán into Spanish hands, the natives interpreted strange or unusual occurrences as bad omens, predicting their defeat. These omens included a comet streaking across the sky, the temple of Huitzilopochtli that burst into flames without a recognized cause, and the temple of the fire god damaged by lightning among others. These sure signs of doom allowed them to argue that their destiny was fated and nothing they could have done would have changed the outcome.

Spanish motivations The rationales of the explorers, conquerors, adventurers, and settlers paralleled those of their governments. Individuals wanted personal enrichment. Columbus returned from his first voyage with “Indians” and gold. Gold resulted in migration, a virtual gold rush to the Caribbean and beyond. By 1520, over 14,118 kilograms had been shipped from Española to Seville, not counting contraband and the undeclared and hidden. That equates to over a half metric ton of gold per year. Gold, of course, was not the only item of value that was exported. Pearls and brasilwood and slaves also brought profit. These riches excited people and motivated more exploration. Men were willing, therefore, to risk tropical illnesses, poisonous plants and animals, humid heat and hurricanes, starvation, and death in battle for gold dust and silver bars. Linked to the economic motivation was the desire for personal liberty, achieved only when one could say “a mi no me manda nadie” (no one can boss or order me around) and when one had the resources not to need to beg any favors from anyone else. Wealth brought glory: honor, status, and prestige. Religious motivations were important for some. Converting the natives was an idea that developed in the wars against the infidel Muslims during the Reconquista. This higher purpose shrouded the conflicts and their excesses and served as a justification for exploitation embedded in the colonial structure.

22  The encounter

Further explorations and their consequences Thus, the outcome of the wars between the states or the so-called Spanish conquest became possible due to a conjuncture of factors and circumstances that affected mostly the ruling elites and peoples in the path of the Spanish invasions. Those who lived remote from the action were only gradually contacted and incorporated into the Spanish trans-Atlantic dominated world. The discussion of Columbus’ “enterprise of the Indies” and his four voyages; Cortes’ hold on central Mexico; and Atahualpa’s ransom that made Pizarro and his men masters of the Andean populations overshadow the continuing exploration of what Américo Vespucci in 1502 called the “Mundos Novus” (the New Worlds). As Table 3.1 shows, Spaniards and Portuguese explorers ventured in all directions seeking a passage east, other native civilizations, and fortune. Especially notable among these expeditions are Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s march which allowed him to first name the Pacific Ocean; Luis Ponce de Leon’s 1513 incursion into Florida; Fernando de Magellan’s ocean voyage that rounded the South American cape that still bears his name; the Narváez treks into what is now the southeastern United States, Mexico, and Central America; Pedro de Alvarado’s several expeditions that reconnoitered Central America, Ecuador and Peru; and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his captains’ traversal of the southern United States from Florida to the Californias. The significance of these many explorations was that they established Spain’s claim to much of the territory of the southern United States, Mexico, Central America, and Western South America to the line of demarcation established by the Treaty of Tordesillas in the late fifteenth century. Related and important consequences of this early spreading and in many regions gradual contact with the Spanish were the degradation of the environment and transculturation. In an excellent study on the effects of introducing sheep into the rich pasture lands of Mexico’s El Mezquital Valley, the author details how over-grazing caused the desertification of a previously lush landscape in the lapse of a few decades. Sheep uprooted the grasses on which they grazed. The micro-climates changed and the cover vegetation evolved. In densely populated native areas, the European animals invaded their unfenced fields. Because the natives never before had horses, beef cattle, sheep, goats, or pigs, they had no need to build fences to keep animals out of their planted fields. Thus, such importations had negative impacts on the native populations throughout the Americas. Transculturation refers to the cultural borrowing between different ethnicities. Cuisine is one example of the exchange of foods and their adaptation across the Atlantic. To the native foodstuffs, such as amaranth, paparika, quinoa, maize, potatoes, yuca, pumpkins, squash, cacao, tomatoes, jicama, hutia, carie (a type of hare), iguana (still prized today for its oil), dogs, cuye (guinea pig), bizcachas (another type of hare), llamas, vicuñas, and pacos were added European foods like wheat, rice, barley,

1522 1522

1509 1509 1511–13 1513 1513 1515 1517 1518 1518–19, 1521, 1524 1519 1521 1522

1500 1501 1508

Pascual de Andogoya Pedro Alonso Nino and Gil Gonzalez Davila

Fernando de Magellan Gonzalo Sandoval Gil Gonzalez Davila

Pedro Alvarez Cabral Americo Vespucci Vivente Yanez de Pinzon and Juan Diaz de Solis Alonso de Ojeda Diego de Nicuesa Vasco Nunez de Balboa Luis Ponce de Leon Pedro de Alvarado Juan Diaz de Solis Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba Juan de Grijalva Hernan Cortes

Alonso de Ojeda and Americo Vespucci Rodrigo de Bastidas

1499

1500–1502, 1525

Leader of Expedition

Year Initiated

Table 3.1 Other Explorations to 1550

Coastal Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina Southern Mexico Southern Mexico and Northern Central America Panama Central American coast north of Panama

Colombia, Panama Panama Tierra Firme (Panama) Florida Southern Mexico Guatemala, El Salvador Coastal Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina Mexico, Florida, southern coast of Cuba Coast of Yucatan Peninsula Mexico, Honduras

Coastal Brazil Coastal Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina Coastal Central America, Mexico

Venezuela, Colombia, Panama

coastal Brazil to Venezuela

Lands Explored

(Continued)

Led the defeat of the Aztec Empire

Named the Pacific Ocean, 1513

In 1525, he founded the colony of Santa Marta, Colombia’s oldest city.

Notable Achievement

Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572  23

Leader of Expedition

Cristobal de Olid Pedro de Alvarado

Cristobal de Olid

Alonso de Alvarado Hernan Cortes Pedro de Gomez

Diego Garcia Hernan Cortes Sebastian Cabot Alejo Garcia Panfiilo de Narvaez

Narvaez and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

Nuño de Guzman Hernan Cortes Sebastian de Benalcazar Pedro de Mendoza

Year Initiated

1522, 1524 1523–24, 1527, 1534

1523

1524 1524 1524

1524 1524 1526 1526 1527

1527

1529 1532 1533 1533

Notable Achievement

Southern Mexico Southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, With Cortes in Mexico. Honduras Governor of Guatemala in the 1520s. Pacific Coast of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras Southern Mexico Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras Atlantic Coast from the Carolinas to Florida Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia Southern Mexico, Guatemala Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia Gulf Coast of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi Coastal Mississippi, Texas, Mexico, Cabeza de Vaca is the primary source for Pre-Columbian Guatemala, Honduras Natives in Texas. He was the first to see the Mississippi River. He was the first explorer of Texas, albeit accidental. Western Mexico West Mexico, Lower California Colombia, Ecuador, Peru River Plate or Silver

Lands Explored

24  The encounter

Antonio de Herrera Pedro de Mendoza and Juan de Ayolas Diego de Almagro Pedro de Mendoza Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada Juan Ayolas and Domingo Martinez de Irala Nickolaus Federmann Gonzalo Pizarro Hernando de Soto

Francisco de Ulloa Pedro de Valdivia Francisco Vasquez de Coronado

Coronado and Hernando de Alarcon Coronado and Diaz

Coronado and Cardenas Francisco de Orellana de Soto and Luis de Moscoso Alvarado Juan Rodrigez Cabrillo

1534

1539 1539 1539–42

1539–40 1540 1540–41

1540–41 1540–41

1540–41 1541

1542–43 1542

1535 1535 1536 1536

Pedro de Alvarado

1533

Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico Ecuador, Brazil, Atlantic Coast to Venezuela Mississippi and Texas Pacific Coast to Mexico north to the Californias

Mexico, Lower California Peru, Chile Florida, Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas. Californias Mexico, Lower California

Venezuela Ecuador Florida, Inland Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi

Peru, Chile Coastal Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina Interior of Colombia Argentina, Paraguay

Coastal Central America, Ecuador, Peru, Orinico River Valley through Venezuela, and Colombia Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay

Diaz died during the expedition. Cardenas was the first to see the Grand Canyon.

First to see the Great Plains and the Palo Duro Canyon.

First to sail the Mississippi River. Discovered that Baja California was a peninsula and not an island.

Founded Bogota in 1538.

Cajamarca and its aftermath to 1572  25

26  The encounter olives, radishes, asparagus, brussels sprouts, beets, spinach, oranges, limes, peaches, pears, apricots, figs, quinces, melons, cherries, grapes, sugar cane, coffee, bananas, and plantains. Besides sheep, they also brought beef cattle, goats, pigs, and chickens. These were added to the native foods that customarily formed part of the pre-Hispanic diet. Soups and stews featuring pork, freeze-dried potatoes, white corn, and chiles, called fricazé, are examples of this gastronomical fusion. Another example of transculturation is the addition of words to a language. Thus, from the Taino have come words adopted by the Spanish like cacique and hammock and Quechua speakers began to use the Spanish word for horse (caballo) and cow (vaca). On the bright side native diets improved. According to one study, natives consumed 1,400–1,800 calories per day prior to contact. After 1521, the natives of central Mexico increased their daily intake to 1,700–2,200 calories per day. These compare with the 1930 daily calories consumed by sixteenth-century workers in the eastern Mediterranean, 4,315 consumed by agricultural workers in Sweden, 4,276–6,092 consumed by Polish aristocrats, and 2,000 consumed by European peasants. Eighteenth-century peasants in France consumed 1,800 calories and Mexican farm workers a century later consumed 2,000 calories, mostly from maize. Rations of meat were one pound per day for slaves and natives in the sixteenth century. Within a decade of the fall of Tenochtitlán, prices for pork plunged to four pounds per 1 real (one-eighth of a peso (the standard unit of currency during colonial times)). Other meats were similarly inexpensive. One reason was because of the immense expansion of the herds. Another was the need for hides, which made meat a bi-product of slaughtering. Prices fell for wheat as the supply increased. This was made possible because in temperate areas, workers collected two or more harvests a year. Crop yields were also high. Maize produced 1,000 units to one unit of seed; wheat 400 to one. The range however could be great. In Abancay (a mountainous area of the Andes) with relatively poor soils and a frigid climate, one fanega (bushel) of seed produced 8–9 fanegas of crops. In Piura (a coastal region of northern Peru already mentioned above) with adequate irrigation, soils produced 40–50 units for each unit of seed sowed. In contrast, in Europe, grain yields were three for every one unit of seed planted. Furthermore, the Andes alone yielded over 600 types of potatoes that ripened throughout the year. Bananas and plantains also produced throughout the year with relatively little labor input. When scarcities occurred, they were generally the result of the decreasing native agricultural population or a defect in the distribution system. Cities had officials, called fiel ejecutores, who inspected weights and measures, oversaw stores, tested food, constructed markets, oversaw urban sanitation, and negotiated with producers and distributors to guarantee adequate supplies. Such officials tried to make sure that city populations had access to food at good prices. In some major cities, the government established public granaries to better regulate supply and contracted with producers to supply meat for years at a time.

Part II

The Hapsburg centuries

4

The construction of power

Governing institutions As the explorers were still seeking cinnamon and nutmeg and gradually establishing the physical outlines of the “new worlds” that Columbus had found, and even while Pizarro and Almagro were sailing into uncharted waters along the coast of the southern hemisphere, the Spanish crown was establishing, reevaluating, and reforming policy to secure its rights in what came to be called the “New World” and America and building a bureaucracy to execute its dictates, guarantee its rights, and collect its due. The monarchy and its advisors realized that it needed effective governing institutions to control the peoples that the Europeans were encountering, break the threat of the strong encomendero elite, and prevent the encroachment of their rivals, the Portuguese, Dutch, and English. The direct administration of the Indies began when the crown-appointed royal representatives, Governors Francisco de Bobadilla (1499–1502) and Nicolas de Ovando (1502–09) (mentioned above) to extend the institutions that would order life on Española in the wake of Columbus’ predilection for exploring and his consequent disregard for the quotidian administration of the island. In this first phase of governance, these administrators continued to found cities and establish fortresses, especially near the gold fields. During Ovando’s tenure, Española had a total of 15 towns located for easy access to native labor. The most important town was Santo Domingo, founded by Bartolomeu Columbus (Christobal’s younger brother) in August 1496 near a good harbor, eight to ten leagues from the inland gold region, and on the road to Bonao (now the town of Monseñor Noel). It served as his headquarters and later became the seat of government and trade for subsequent governors. Ovando moved the city and rebuilt it after a devastating hurricane. It grew to include port facilities, administrative and military offices, and the residences of citizens with their native servants. Both of these crown-appointed governors had been ordered to treat the natives well. In fact, a royal cedula (decree), dated June 20, 1500, declared the natives free vassals of the crown. Ovando, too, was instructed to respect the natives, but he nonetheless suppressed revolts and took measures to DOI: 10.4324/9780367853143-6

30  The Hapsburg centuries prevent others. Subsequently, the crown reiterated these charges by issuing the Laws of Burgos (1512) that commanded that the natives be well treated. At the same time, the Requerimiento (the Requirement) was written by a distinguished jurist, Dr. Juan López de Palacios Rubios. It briefly summarized the history of Spain, its rights in the Indies, and its duty to Christianize the native inhabitants. It also warned the natives that if they resisted conversion, the Spanish would make war against them, enslaving them and confiscating their possessions. Of course, in practice, the Requirement, so called because it had to be read to the natives before certain confrontations, was in the Spanish language and was not understood by the natives, if indeed they could even hear what was being recited across the distance of a field or more. The ineffectiveness of these early policy initiatives to safeguard the native population is evidenced by their numbers which continued their precipitous decline – to 29,000 within 20 years of Spanish occupation. After the fall of Tenochtitlán in Mexico and the capture of Atahualpa in the Andes, the encomenderos had authority over the native population and its production, subject only to the will and whim of Cortes and Pizarro, respectively. Cortes alone awarded himself an encomienda of some 23,000 households, atypical, but an indication of the extent of one man’s potential hold on the native population. Another, Melchior Verdugo, in Peru held an encomienda of 10,000 households. Tribute went unregulated until the middle of the sixteenth century, allowing the encomendero and his employees to ask for as many workdays and any amount of goods they desired. In cases when a native chief was recalcitrant and reluctant to help amass his followers for a work detail, the encomendero schemed to influence the choice of a successor, sometimes leading to deadly rivalries between lineages and outright insubordination. Another problem beset native society. Because neither Cortes nor Pizarro understood the religio-political structure of native authority, they sometimes inadvertently divided the subjects of one ethnic lord between various Spaniards, leading to sometimes deadly rivalries and long court cases over jurisdiction. For example, the division of an ethnic group called Jayanca on the north coast of Peru between two Spaniards led them both to claim a group of fishermen who lived on the coast. To whom did the fisherfolk owe allegiance and work? Essentially, they had supported the entire leadership structure of the ethnic group. But Pizarro awarded the paramount chief to one Spaniard and his second-in-command to another Spaniard. The fisherfolk had heretofore followed the directions of their lineage leader, who followed the orders of the second-in-command, who followed the demands of the paramount lord. The case was appealed all the way to Spain in the 1560s and 1570s. The fisherfolk could work for one, but not both, if they wished to subsist. Whereas native lords and their people had been largely self-governing as long as they periodically did the bidding of the Inca emperor, after the Spanish arrived they saw their world turned upside down, where they were subject to the demands and whims of the Spanish. Over

The construction of power  31 time, the number of tribute-responsible natives decreased as the number of Spanish settlers increased, multiplying their burden. By the 1590s, many ethnic groups were hopelessly in arrears and subject to abuses that nevertheless rarely allowed them to become current. The growing wealth, power, and independence of this group worried the crown. Furthermore, the unrelenting abuses of the Spaniards – encomenderos and others – and the continued effects of European pathogens continued to take their toll of the devastated mainland population as they had done in the Caribbean. Royal legislation was rarely faithfully executed. This scenario incentivized the Spanish monarchy to establish more elaborate institutions that eventually affected nearly every aspect of existence for peninsular immigrants, their American-born offspring (the creoles), native peoples, blacks and mixed-blood persons (mestizos (offspring of a Spaniard and a native), mulattoes (offspring of a black and a Spaniard), and the castas (a generic term for any person of mixed blood)) born after 1492 and legislate further safeguards for those most at risk. In Spain, the House of Trade (Casa de Contratación), established in 1503, supervised commerce, issued licenses to travel to America, controlled shipping and exports and imports and collected the taxes on these, and received consignments of goods and money. Its power as a royal treasury and revenue office increased as the empire expanded. A special judicial department studied and decided civil and criminal cases relating to trade and navigation. Officials of the Casa also trained pilots for the Atlantic crossing; regulated their activities; recorded the progress of geographical discovery; and maintained the master map. The second institution of import was an advisory board to the king, called the Council of the Indies, which formally appeared in 1524. It functioned as a clearinghouse for information coming from the Indies. On the basis of this information, it drafted and issued American decrees and edicts that the king signed, as “Yo el Rey” (I, the king). It also served as a supreme court, hearing appeals from Americans on important civil issues. To administer the affairs of America on site and counter, in part, the rising power of the encomenderos – the early conquerors who were rewarded for their service to the Crown with the labor and tribute of groups of native peoples (encomiendas) with the stipulation that they protect and instruct them in the Catholic religion – the Spanish king appointed alter egos called viceroys (virreyes or vice-kings) to represent his person and interests. The power of these high-ranking royal servants extended to all inhabitants subject to the king, be they Spanish, native, black, or some combination of the three (castas). A viceroy ruled at the pleasure of the Crown from Mexico City (formerly the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán) and Lima (or Los Reyes, as it was known in the sixteenth century). A viceroy was a king’s man, his deputy in America. All but four viceroys were Spaniards who came from the established and named nobility, but the office was not hereditary. The usual term of a viceroy was five or six years, a term deemed not long enough to

32  The Hapsburg centuries establish an independent basis of power. They were enjoined from marrying a woman under their purview and were not supposed to own property in the area they administered. In some cases, viceroys served in Mexico (the kingdom of New Spain) before being sent to serve in Peru (officially, the kingdom of New Castile), which was seen as the culmination of a successful career. In the sixteenth century, viceroys tended to serve as bureaucrats; in the seventeenth, they were more likely to be military men. The first viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza (1495–1552), was appointed in 1535 for New Spain. He ruled for 15 years, an unusually long term. In 1542, King Charles I (or Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire) appointed Blasco Núñez Vela (circa 1490–1546), a scion of a noble family from Ávila who had for centuries served the crown, the viceroy of Peru. The latter was charged with implementing the latest in a series of decrees and laws, the New Laws of 1542, designed to – among other things – protect the natives and strengthen the royal hold on power by abolishing the encomienda after the death of the present holder. The New Laws were sent to Mexico, where encomenderos protested this threat to their wealth and power; but in Peru, the intransigence of the just-arriving Núñez Vela about implementing the New Laws at the death of the present holder incensed a group of encomenderos who declared war against him. He was eventually placed on a ship for a return to Spain, but he escaped at Tumbes and met his foes under Gonzalo Pizarro (1502?–48), a half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, at the battle of Iñaquito. His defeat cost him his head and this unprecedented and heretofore unthinkable act against the king’s surrogate scandalized the court on the peninsula. A civil war followed, preventing the establishment of a stable viceregal administration in Peru for almost a decade. (Excerpts from the New Laws are reprinted as Document 2.) With time and weakening influence of the encomenderos, however, the viceroy proved a reasonably effective institution to uphold the Crown’s power. As the embodiment of the monarch, surrounded by ritual and a numerous retinue and court, he represented the pinnacle of prestige and authority. He was first and foremost an executive ordered to implement the will of the king. But he could issue edicts and thus had some legislative power. He also was charged with maintaining civil order and, therefore, had some military responsibilities, although these tended to be more illusory than real in early colonial times. He was also vice-patron of the Church with influence in the nomination and appointment of high ecclesiastical officials. The great distance from the metropolis tended to increase the viceroy’s authority, but there was a limit to what one man could do in the vast expanse of American viceroyalties (Maps 4.1 and 4.2). The jurisdiction of the viceroys was divided into presidencies and captaincies. The viceroys enjoyed political authority over the inhabitants of the presidencies, like Panama, Quito, Chile, and Charcas (Upper Peru). People living in the remotest areas fell under the attention of a captain general who had civil jurisdiction over them. Like the viceroys, only 14 of the 602

110o

100o

100o

Mexico

Guanajuato

Oaxaca

90o

80o

70o

60o

90o

Granada

Guatemala

Campeche

Mérida

Havana

80o

St. Augustine

Maracaibo

Santiago

70o

Mérida

Caracas

to Domingo

Coro

S an

Audiencia of Nueva Galicia, 1549

Audiencia of Guatemala, 1544

Audiencia of Mexico, 1529

Audiencia of Santo Domingo, 1511

Cumaná

The Viceroyalty of New Spain, ca 1650

Veracruz

San Luis Potosí Tampico

Monterrey Saltillo

Guadalajara

Durango

110o

Boundaries of the Viceroyalty of New Spain Audiencia capitals Major provincial cities

120o

60o

10o

20o

30o

40o

M ap 4.1 Viceroyalt y of New Spain. Originally published in Latin A merican H istor y, Cathr yn L . L ombard and John V. Lombard © 1983 by the Board of Regents of the Universit y of Wisconsin System. Reprinted by permission of the Universit y of Wisconsin Press. A ll rights reser ved.

10o

20o

30o

40o

130o

The construction of power  33

34  The Hapsburg centuries

10o

Panamá

Santa Marta Cartagena

Antioquia

Caracas

40o

50o

10o

Cumaná

Guyana became a province of the Audiencia of Santa Fé in 1591 Trinidad was under its Jurisdiction until 1735

Bogota

Cali Popayán 0

60o

70o

80o

Unexplored Spanish territory Pasto

0o

Quito

o

Guayaquil Tumbes Piura Cajamarca

Moyobamba

Trujillo

Unexplored Spanish territory

10o

The Viceroyalty of Peru, ca 1650

Lima Cuzco Arequipa

La Paz

Arica

La Plata

20o

Potosi

20o

Salta Tucumán

10o

Asunción Corrientes 30o

30o

Córdoba Valparaiso

Mendoza Santiago

Buenos Aires

Audiencia of Panamá, 1538 and 1567 Audiencia of Lima, 1542

Concepción

Audiencia of Santa Fé, 1549 Audiencia of Charcas, 1559 Audiencia of Quito, 1563 Audiencia of Chile, 1565 and 1609 Boundaries of the Viceroyalty of peru Audiencia capitals Major provincial cities

40o

50o

90o

80o

70o

60o

50o

40o

40o

50o

30o

Map 4.2 Viceroyalty of New Castile (Peru). Originally published in Latin American History, Cathryn L. Lombard and John V. Lombard © 1983 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. All rights reserved.

captains general were not peninsular-born. Although the captain general did not have the rank and prestige of a viceroy, his governance was important because of the remoteness from the capital and continuing problems with unacculturated natives on the frontiers of settlement.

The construction of power  35 Another important institution was the audiencia or supreme tribunal. The main role of the judges (oidores – literally listeners) who sat on the various high courts that were gradually established in Spanish America was to settle disputes between residents under their jurisdictions. Most oidores were Spaniards, but toward the end of the Hapsburg rule and into the first years of the Bourbon administration, the number of creoles increased. Like judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, their colonial Spanish American rulings established precedent and had the force of law. In addition to their judicial and legislative roles, the audiencias could under certain circumstances assume an executive role. If both the viceroy and the archbishop (who succeeded him) died in office, the chief judge (president) of the audiencia served as interim viceroy until another vice-king could be named and sent from Spain (Table 4.1). Supporting these institutions were the officials of the Real Hacienda (Treasury) who controlled fiscal and monetary affairs. They received the tax revenues and paid the cost of government. The Casa de la Moneda, the mint, struck the coinage, including the world-famous Spanish pieces of eight (peso de ocho reales), from the silver and gold bullion from the mines and other sources. At the local level, the crown representative was akin to a local governor called a corregidor or alcalde mayor. He lived in the area and took over the task of organizing tribute labor and collecting tribute goods from the encomendero. Theoretically, there were two types. The first was a corregidor of Indians, with jurisdiction over groups of native peoples. He protected the natives, administered justice, and collected tribute. The second was the corregidor of Spaniards, who enjoyed executive power as governor, and judicial and legislative power as judge in the first instance in Spanish towns (villas, ciudades). This official was charged with maintaining order and Table 4.1 Audiencias of Mainland Spanish America Kingdom

Audiencias

Date of Creation

New Spain (Mexico)

Santo Domingo Mexico Los Confines (Guatemala) New Galicia (Guadalajara) Panama Peru (Lima) Santa Fé de Bogotá Charcas (Upper Peru) Quito Chile Buenos Airesa

1526 1527 1543 1548 1535 1542 1549 1559 1563 1609 1661

New Castile (Peru)

a

Later suppressed.

36  The Hapsburg centuries morality and managing the city. In practice, one man often filled the duties of both the corregidor of Indians and Spaniards. (Document 5 provides an educated native’s opinion of the interaction between the corregidor and natives.) Peninsular regulation established checks on the corregidor’s power. The corregidor was not supposed to be a local person, although there were exceptions. Even when a non-local man assumed control, he often became involved and beholden with the local elite, through marriage or god parentage ties, both of which made him less effective as a crown agent. The Crown also required him to submit an inventory of his property and post bond because he controlled the collection of certain tax and tribute revenues. A substantial bond also assured the central government that he would be available for a judicial review (residencia, discussed below) after his term expired to answer to any charges of corruption and abuses of power. But, because a corregidor had to pay for the position and his salary was low, only rich men could qualify. This had the consequence of encouraging the corregidor to benefit illegally and exploit the office for personal gain. One way this was done was by engaging in a distribution of goods to the Indians, a repartimiento de bienes (forced distribution and sale of goods). Corregidores required natives to buy goods that they did not always need or want. Examples include mules, stockings, mirrors, and other non- essentials that were forced on natives at high markups. Some corregidores also sold wine to the natives, although this was officially prohibited. In one case, the corregidor bought a cask wholesale for 3 pesos (the standard unit of currency equal to 8 reales each) each and sold it at 12. A second way is reminiscent of the putting-out system of Europe. The corregidor would provide the natives with cotton or wool and require them to spin and weave it into a garment, which he then sold for up to ten times what he paid the natives. A second locus of local power rested in the town council or cabildo, made up of citizens chosen as aldermen or councilmen (regidores) and magistrates (alcaldes) with jurisdiction over the urban-dwelling settlers (vecinos). Most Spanish municipalities had a dozen or fewer regidores who sat together to elect two of their number as alcaldes each year. Town councils passed laws for the municipality; decided issues like who got what building site (solar); and screened applicants for vecino status. Alcaldes also served as judges of minor crimes. Aldermen administered the water supply and public lands around the town, maintained the sanitation system, and guaranteed public order. In addition, they set prices for basic foodstuffs and regulated certain artisanal production. Councilors were appointed at first, but later the positions were sold. Over time, seats on the council became regarded as private possessions that could be renounced and sold or inherited by a male family member.

The construction of power  37

Theory and practice Built into these governing institutions was a latent centralization of power. Jurisdictions, which were huge given the communications of the day, were designed to be overlapping, so that conflicts between institutions and persons that could not be resolved on a local level were appealed up. The king, as the embodiment of natural and divine law, was the ultimate authority. He had the right, as the best leader, to interpret god’s law or master design on earth. Viewed over the long run, the system was a brilliant mechanism for asserting royal power. This system of nebulous and loosely-defined jurisdictions built centralization into a system in which the king was the ultimate judge and arbiter of issues deemed important enough to require his attention. An example of how the Hapsburg system of vague job descriptions and overlapping authorities resulted in ambiguity and conflict comes from northern Mexico in the 1560s. The audiencia of New Galicia was a presidency at the time under the authority of Viceroy Luis de Velasco (1550– 64). There was no governor, only an Audiencia in Guadalajara. When the viceroy ordered the Audiencia to send someone to protect the scattered Spanish settlements in the north against the intermittent warfare of native Chichimecs, Guachichiles, and Zacatecos, the judges of the Audiencia came into conflict with prominent personages of the region and then with the viceroy himself. The viceroy deemed security essential to provide the conditions to encourage mining, ranching, and other productive activities. When the first commissioner, Pedro de Ahumada, proved ineffective, the viceroy became convinced that other measures were necessary to maintain order. Therefore, in 1562, Velasco appointed Francisco de Ibarra to be governor of New Vizcaya, a new jurisdiction farther north. Ibarra was a nephew of one of the first conquerors, Diego de Ibarra, who had powerful connections at court. Diego had used his influence with the viceroy to get Francisco accepted as a page in the viceroy’s service in 1550, and in 1554 Francisco got a commission to explore the north. He became the leader of a group that founded the settlements of San Martín, Fresnillo, Sombrerete, and Nieves. It was unsurprising then that in 1562, he was chosen as governor in return for promising to assume the expenses of pacification and settlement. Conflict erupted because the Audiencia of New Galicia already claimed jurisdiction and had chosen men to head some towns in the area. One was Diego García de Colio, who was a tough old conquistador, who had been at the taking of Mexico (Tenochtitlán)] and had served subsequently in Guatemala, and under Francisco Cortés in Chimalhuacán. He was a vecino of Guadalajara, a person of considerable social influence in New Galicia.

38  The Hapsburg centuries When Francisco de Ibarra appeared in the town of San Martín and asserted his authority as governor of New Vizcaya, García de Colio resisted. An angry scene ensued during which García de Colio was injured. Ibarra then expelled him and other municipal officials, refounded the town, and left. After his departure, García de Colio re-established the jurisdiction of the Audiencia and sent an angry letter of complaint and protest to the king. Meanwhile, Ibarra set up his headquarters in Durango and from there started to extend his jurisdiction toward the Pacific Ocean. The Audiencia of Guadalajara objected. In 1564, Viceroy Velasco died, leaving the viceregal throne empty. The Audiencia of New Galicia appealed to King Philip II, because no favorable decision could be expected from the Audiencia of New Spain in Mexico City. The Audiencia of New Galicia claimed that some towns had been founded before Ibarra arrived and therefore were under its jurisdiction; that it had authority over the population of what was becoming New Vizcaya; and that appeals should be heard by its judges. Ibarra replied that he recognized only the viceregal and audiencia authority in Mexico City. He also stated in his defense that the whole dispute resulted from jealousy because the oidores could not do what he was doing. He saw his actions as service to the crown. The new viceroy, Gastón de Peralta, the Marqués de Falces (1566–67), supported Ibarra, because by granting him jurisdiction he recognized his own authority over the northern settlers. The Audiencia of New Galicia protested again. A 1567 compromise halted the dispute and potential violence temporarily by giving the Audiencia of New Galicia appellate jurisdiction. The judges, however, were still not totally satisfied. They decided to bide their time, hoping that the next viceroy would reverse the order. In 1569, Ibarra asserted his legal victories and marched into the town of Nombre de Dios, where he deposed the officials appointed by the audiencia. An armed clash was avoided only because the Viceroy Martín Enríquez de Almansa y Ulloa (1568–80) took complete control of the town. In 1576, Philip II ruled (on appeal) that the town was part of New Vizcaya. Thus, the ultimate authority, the Crown, vindicated the viceregal decisions and authority. But this occurred only after the struggle between Ibarra and the Audiencia of New Galicia was redefined by the Viceroy and the Audiencia of Mexico City; situations shifted with changing viceroys, and central authorities compromised to prevent major clashes and violence. Long delays were common. During these, each side bargained, and petitioned the king. Appeals were made to multiple authorities over the years, but the king had the last say. Contradictions within the system of governance also made practice different than what was expected in principle. For example, the restrictions on local corregidores, who over time became overwhelmingly creoles, were numerous. A man could not be a corregidor in his native region. He was not supposed to hold significant property in the area in which he held office. He was not supposed to be a relative of another office holder. He could not

The construction of power  39 marry a woman under his jurisdiction. The term of office of five years was supposed to prevent him from establishing an entrenched local base of support. Before taking office he had to submit an inventory of his property and personal effects. And he had to secure a bond to guarantee his honesty in handling tribute and taxes and the administration of justice. But because a candidate usually turned to the local elite, be it made up of encomenderos, landowners, miners, merchants, or some combination of these, to put up his bond, he became obliged to them. This made complete impartiality in settling court cases sometimes impossible. When he left town to visit the people under his jurisdiction, for example, he left a lieutenant in his place, occasionally one of his guarantors, who used the delegated power to settle court cases in his own or his kinsmen’s or client’s interests. In the seventeenth century, the corregidor also had to buy his office. Because the state salary was low, the corregidor had to find other ways to recoup the expenditure and otherwise benefit from his office. Thus, his interests were financial, as well as administrative. As mentioned above, corregidores of Indians forced natives to buy sometimes non-essential goods, like mules, mirrors, and wine at high and inflated prices. In some areas, too, the corregidor distributed to natives such raw materials as cotton or wool, to spin and weave into cloth, in a rudimentary system reminiscent of the putting-out system of Europe. The corregidor then sold the resulting cloth at a profit. At the end of the corregidor’s term, he was required to stand for a review (residencia) of his administration, designed to investigate and determine if he had misappropriated funds or abused his power. These proceedings proved moderately effective in the sixteenth century, but over the course of the seventeenth century most became increasingly procedural and ineffective. This was due to the fact that local members of the elite put up the bond to guarantee that the incoming royal official would remain for the official inquiry into his tenure. When the time came, however, these same guarantors had no incentive for denouncing abuses, because they were ultimately responsible for paying any fines incurred for infractions. Secondly, the announcements of the proceedings were made in Spanish by the town crier, thereby leaving natives who did not know the language uninformed of the proceedings. Finally, in these residencias the judge might be – and often was – the incoming royal official, who knew that he too would be subject to the same kind of hearing at the end of his term. This made him sympathetic to his predecessor and may have led to the whitewashing of misdeeds. Only if the abuse was egregious would fines be levied. These contradictions in the system allowed laws to be inconsistently obeyed or implemented, especially at the provincial level. These same regulations and the poor pay of most positions, in a social atmosphere that pressured officials to live ostentatiously, motivated most to ease their monetary worries by finding ways to get around them and out of embarrassing predicaments in the spirit of “hecho la ley, hecho la trampa”

40  The Hapsburg centuries (a law passed begets a trick to bypass it). For instance, the same types of financial pressures experienced by the corregidor also subverted his supervisors and the entire hierarchy of royal officials. Thus, the first viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza (1535–50): in his person and as the monarch’s surrogate presented a far more resplendent and impressive symbol of royal, indeed imperial, authority. He belonged to one of the five or six most powerful and prestigious families in Castile. He came of a functioning aristocracy, active in military leadership, civil administration, and the church hierarchy, wealth in lands and livestock, and responsible in royal service. He was a younger son of Don Iñigo López de Mendoza, Count of Tendilla and Marquis of Mondéjar, the first Christian governor of Granada. In the years of Ferdinand’s regency in Castile, when nobles and towns once again tended to autonomy, Tendilla had remained loyal to the principle of centralized authority and by his example and influence kept Andalucia at peace. In New Spain, Mendoza maintained a court, a bodyguard of thirty to forty gentlemen, and a staff of sixty Indians, and employed many more. As viceroy he was also president of the Audiencia of Mexico, vice-patron of the church, and prime dispenser of patronage. He could and did frame laws, subject to review by the Council of the Indies. He ruled as father to the Indians, governor and mediator among Spaniards, and lesser version of the king. Although he himself may have obeyed the rules, they did not prevent other members of his immediate family from breaking them with his help. From his arrival in New Spain Mendoza had complained of inadequate salary. Apparently, however, he soon found extra official means to sustain himself and his family. His brother Francisco had accompanied him to Mexico and became one of its principal wealthy vecinos, marrying the widow of Juan Jaramillo, whose first wife had been Marina, Hernán Cortés’ native translator, confidante, and the mother of his bastard son, Martín. In 1556 Velasco’s son Luis, later to be viceroy also, married María de Ircio y Mendoza, the Mexican-born daughter of Mendoza’s sister Leonor and Martín de Ircio, and his daughter Ana de Castillo wed the mine-rich conqueror of Nueva Vizcaya, Diego de Ibarra. The second viceroy and his family, too, despite royal orders to the contrary, became actively involved in the economy and society of Mexico. Such networks connecting royal officials with rich Americans operated also in colonial Venezuela and Bolivia. Other royal officials were subject to many of the same prohibitions as the corregidor, like not marrying, holding property, or profiting locally. But

The construction of power  41 colonial manuscripts document how such legislation remained often a dead letter. In the 1540s, the oidor Lorenzo de Tejada was denounced for trading with the natives. He exchanged bad land for twice as much good land and bought property which he improved and built upon for very profitable resale. And, in 1554, some oidores in New Galicia were known to be active in slaving, in mining in Zacatecas, and in related commerce. Luckily, the natives produced enough to satisfy the graft and exigencies of officials all the way up to the vice-king. Like royal officials, colonists at all levels developed mechanisms to thwart effective central control. One of these was a studied non-observance of royal decrees. Early in the history of Spanish America, local authorities used the phrase “obedezco pero no cumplo” (I obey but will not comply) to delay or forego the implementation of certain royal proclamations that conflicted with local interests or did not fit local circumstances. In the classical case, an alcalde would read the decree aloud, at a cabildo meeting, for example; hold it over his head; kiss the document and pronounce the words “obedezco pero no cumplo” indicating that he recognized the Crown’s authority to issue the decree, but would not enforce it because it did not fit provincial conditions. While he then penned a reply to the Crown explaining his actions, the decree’s implementation was held in abeyance. Often, years passed before a reply came from Spain. Meanwhile, the decree was ignored and often largely forgotten. An example of such resistance and effective local autonomy comes from the municipal level where the town council represented the power and authority of the local elite. In a climate of serious financial exigencies after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the Crown tried to impose a special tax to sponsor and arm an American fleet. Town councils became a lobbying force against the tax. The cabildo of the highland city of Quito invoked the “obedezco pero no cumplo” tradition and asked for a suspension, arguing that they were already paying a subsidy to fortify the seaport of Guayaquil. Behind some of the resistance was the thought that the fleet was a mechanism shutting them off from a freer international trade that might have lowered the costs of imported goods. So why, some asked, should citizens living far from the ocean pay for a measure to secure the port of Guayaquil or a fleet to patrol the coast? The cabildo of Quito tried to influence other cabildos, like that of Cuenca, to ally with them on this issue, but they refused, so the Quito council proceeded alone. Eventually, the president of the audiencia, Dr. Manuel Barros de San Millán, jailed a member of the cabildo. When the vecinos let him out of jail, Barros de San Millán requested military backup from Lima. A few days after Christmas of 1592, fighting broke out. The viceroy of Lima, García Hurtado de Mendoza (1589–96), had dispatched troops and, in response, the vecinos had called up a voluntary militia and begun to talk about independence with the support of England. In the insurrection that followed, a sniper shot a leading citizen and a priest mediated to stop a mob of citizens from attacking the audiencia

42  The Hapsburg centuries president. Eventually, in 1593, the Crown sent an independent royal agent to mediate, investigate, and review the situation. He imposed the tax, but dismissed Barros de San Millán because he had not sought a compromise. In the end, the Crown won. Thereafter, the cabildo as an institution lost power to the corregidor and viceroy. The Crown began to sell cabildo office to men who had a stake in the system and therefore would not challenge and change it. The signs of decline of the cabildo are seen in the infrequency of meetings and the refusal to serve, especially in smaller towns. In the seventeenth century, municipalities sold off public lands, depriving them of a source of income. They became dependent on the viceroy for money. The scope of their activities declined, and they often let crown-appointed corregidores take over some of their functions. When a legal way could not be invented around a law or regulation, people resorted to corruption. The trade monopoly, heavy taxation, and mercantilistic trade and production restrictions encouraged contraband. To escape paying the royal fifth on the silver and gold ores, Potosí miners sent part of their silver down the river system to the south Atlantic coast to exchange for imports of English manufactured goods and French luxury items. In mid-seventeenth-century Peru, the sale of fiscal offices to inefficient and dishonest officials “with strong local connections” institutionalized “venality and corruption”, negatively affecting royal tax collection efforts. Twenty or twenty-five years later a crown investigator described the Supreme court judge Bartolomé Salazar as a “dangerous and greedy man, who used his position to build a personal fortune of over 10,000,000 pesos”. The same investigator fingered another “major offender”, Diego León Pinelo, the crown attorney to the Audiencia and official “protector of the Indians”. His large family and numerous debts made him subject to bribes and other forms of graft. However, the most consistent form of corruption concerned the corregidor of Indians. One investigation found that tribute debts from these officials reached nearly 2.5 million pesos in 1664, confirming that the residencia system was in most cases a moot exercise. Another notorious example was the case of Dr. Antonio Morga, who became the president of the Audiencia of Quito. In the second decade of the seventeenth century, en route from Mexico to Quito he took with him 40,000 pesos worth of contraband Chinese silks. After the contraband’s discovery, it was placed under armed guard, but within days, it had disappeared. Later it was offered for sale at a retail shop in Quito. One of the owners of the store was Dr. Morga’s son and namesake. The son’s interest in the retail store was “a flagrant violation of royal edicts, several of which prohibited any commercial activity on the part of the unmarried children of magistrates or their servants”. Thus, these flesh and blood accounts of how these institutions operated in practice help us understand colonial administration. The centralized, hierarchical system looked and sounded good and rational in theory. But

The construction of power  43 institutions functioned variably in practice, affecting every social sector to one degree or another. A viceroy, although theoretically nearly omnipotent, was only one man in figurative control over thousands of people scattered over vast territories which at first had no fixed and recognized boundaries, and across which transportation and communication were difficult and very time consuming. Even corregidores sometimes had trouble administering the populations of their much more reduced and specific jurisdictions because of scattered settlement patterns. In addition, the concept of “obedezco pero no cumplo”; the compromising ties between peninsular-born royal officials and the local elites; the fact that more native sons were finding places in the bureaucracy; overlapping jurisdictions; and inherent contradictions in the institutions designed to impose Hapsburg authority effectively meant that royal mandates were only sporadically and imperfectly enforced. A focus on crown officials and the people they governed shows that the state remained relatively weak during the Hapsburg era. Although such a system was less effective from an official’s point of view, it was ultimately efficacious from Madrid’s perspective. Legal ambiguities and a tolerance for less than the letter of the law gave the system enduring flexibility that allowed Hapsburg Spain to incorporate vast regions and large native populations into a colonial structure and govern Spanish America for more than two centuries.

The church The Hapsburg bureaucracy was small and weak, despite its claims and the elaborate rituals that surrounded it. A viceroy held moral sway and some real executive power in the capital, but in the provinces, in the small towns, and among the native population that often lived scattered over the countryside near their fields and herds they tended, his person held little influence. The audiencia judges occasionally went on inspection trips (visitas) to inquire or bring justice to the distant areas, but these were extraordinary. Implementation of the law still was incomplete. Corregidores, though living in the provinces and nearer the population, also found power difficult to wield unless they had the backing of an important segment of the population. From the early years in the Caribbean, governors and other royal officials were aided in their endeavors by the church, which quickly became an indispensable arm of the state. The “church” was theoretically under the monarchy and viceroy. But “church” is a generic term that covered both the secular branch of archbishops, bishops, and parish priests and the missionaries who followed a rule, such as the Franciscans, Augustinians, Mercedarians, Dominicans, and the Jesuits. Pope Alexander VI and the Catholic kings (Queen Isabella and King Fernando) agreed in the Patronato Real (royal patronage) that the crown would underwrite the spread of the gospel in the Americas. Church

44  The Hapsburg centuries expenses would be paid from the tithe (or diezmo), ideally 10 percent of a believer’s income. Importantly, too, the pope granted the monarchy veto power over high ecclesiastical appointments, such as the archbishops and bishops. This veto and the power over revenue support of the church gave the viceroy an important say in church affairs that diminished through time as the church accumulated wealth through donations, legacies, and investments in lands and other enterprises. The qualifications of candidates for high ecclesiastical positions included being consecrated, having ability, and being well-born and educated. By the early nineteenth century, mostly peninsulares, born and bred in Spain, served in the 10 archbishoprics and 38 bishoprics in America. The church, furthermore, maintained certain privileges, such as the right to hold its own courts in which religious doctrine and clergy peccadilloes could be aired and adjudicated privately. In addition, the power to excommunicate any person who threatened the doctrine or ecclesiastical establishment provided extra leverage in its favor. Thus, the viceroy governed civil matters, but did not interpret doctrine. Yet, veto power gave the state the right to guarantee that only loyal clergy had charge of the religious apparatus that extended from the capital to the provincial cities and towns and into many of the native communities and their annexes. The roles of these religious institutions included teaching and maintaining moral standards and administering to the spiritual needs of the populace. The church defined, for example, legitimacy and illegitimacy. It established and ran society’s charitable institutions, such as the hospitals, orphanages, women’s shelters (recogimientos), and poor houses. Clergy kept registers: books where baptisms, marriages, and deaths were noted. The clergy also ran seminaries and the universities in Mexico City and Lima. Convents and secular clergy taught catechism to the younger children. Donations and gifts of the faithful gave the church surplus funds that it loaned to owners of rural land and urban properties at 3–7 percent interest. Thus, the religious establishment was also a bank. Missionaries shared in these responsibilities, but when founded in areas with sizeable native populations they concentrated on conversion and assimilating the natives into the dominant Spanish society and culture. Hispanization, as these activities were sometimes called, involved not only translating and preaching the gospel and instilling the acceptance of the Christian god, baptism, and rules for marriage, but also teaching the natives the Castilian language, Spanish ritual and ceremony, and sometimes changing native names, clothing, and hairstyles. There was another institution that was designed to keep the religious practice pure. This was the Inquisition. It was founded in Spain in 1478 to root out and punish heresy. Heretics were defined as anyone who was not practicing Catholicism correctly and non-believers, such as Jews and native Americans. Philip II ordered the Inquisition established in Lima and Mexico City and later it was introduced in the Philippines and the port of

The construction of power  45 Cartagena, an active market for black slaves. The task of maintaining the orthodox practice of Catholicism entailed protecting people from evil doctrines (such as Lutheranism) and the censorship of books. To oversee these tasks, the Supreme Council of the Inquisition (the Suprema) named officials in the cities and others (called familiares) in the provinces. Church and state usually worked together. The corregidor used parish records as a list for tribute collection. The priests were known to take out the host to quiet riots and quell manifestations. But, at other times, church and state could be at odds. The missionaries of Ocopa, for example, wasted time journeying to Lima to request the overdue allowances allotted to the missionaries by the crown. Sometimes, these payments were years in arrears, hampering the conversion process. Two omnipresent problems marred the church’s record. One was the abuse by secular priests of the native populations. One particularly egregious example comes from the highland province of Andahuaylas in Peru, where Juan Bautista de Albadán served as parish priest of Pampachiri from 1601 to 1611. The population was generous to this priest. They supported him with food, their tithes, and fees for his services. This was in addition to his ecclesiastical salary. He made so much money that he was able to send his mother almost 3,000 pesos; and 1,000 ducados (1375 pesos of 8 reales each) to his brother Francisco. He also sent money to an uncle. By the time of his unexplained death in 1611, he had amassed an estate of over 10,000 pesos (about $1.85 million dollars circa 2015) to make him one of the wealthiest men in the area. Some of his wealth is explained by his sales of indulgences (for example, Bulls of the Holy Crusade to finance wars against the infidel Moors) at double their nominal price to his parishioners. During each campaign, the population was forced to buy another, because the first was suspended. He also confiscated native possessions during his tenure. In addition to monetary gain, the priest was guilty of manipulating the political structure of the native community and of the crimes of sexual assaults on women, torture, and murder. When the local chief (curaca) Don León Apu Guasco tried to stop Albadán’s abuses, Albadán accused him of hiding natives to lessen the community’s tribute obligations (most notably in the mercury mines of Huancavelica) in the 1604 census. The curaca was found guilty, deposed in 1607 and exiled. He is said to have died of grief. But this intervention in native affairs began an era of instability that touched the natives for the next 123 years. He also assaulted unmarried women. He called a few of them to his house each morning, where he physically abused them. When one man complained of the girls’ treatment, he was tied to a cross upside down in the square and burned with tallow candles that in ten minutes of exposure to the flame would have caused third degree burns. This instance of torture along with others, such as when a man refused to hand over his livestock to the priest, caused terror in the eyes of the witnesses.

46  The Hapsburg centuries Other priests were not so brazen. Many were accused by their parishioners of forcing them to tend fields for them or to spin cotton or wool to be woven into cloth. Others complained of being compelled to distribute coca leaves at high prices in their communities. The latter abuse was defended by some observers because priests did not always receive a salary high enough to pay their living expenses, so they had to resort to commerce. The other major problem was the continuing observance of their preHispanic religion, typically out of sight of the Spanish. A 1570 manuscript notes that one reason for concentrating the dispersed-living natives into a Spanish-style town far distant from their original homes was to prevent them from returning to their ceremonial centers where they continued to worship their ancestral gods. Parishioners routinely explained illnesses, infertility, and natural disasters, be they blights to their potato crops, earthquakes, or floods to the wrath of their forefathers for not observing the periodic rituals and sacrifices of textiles, seashells, colored feathers, coca leaves, food, and animals that were due them. Related to this belief system were the specialized practitioners who employed herbs, special powders, idols, amulets, chants, and prayers to cure people from their ailments. The difficulties of wiping out such beliefs and practices have various causes. One was the technicalities of translating. Priests ministering to native parishioners were required to learn the indigenous language. But in some districts, natives spoke more than one. In northern Peru, for example, Mochica, Quechua, Colle, Sec, and a couple of others were spoken. In highland Bolivia, Quecha and Aymará were common. Then, how does one explain the concepts of “devil” or “soul” to a people who had no words to convey such ideas. Second, there was a shortage of priests in some areas in some eras. Finally, priests were sometimes afraid of their parishioners. One frustrated sixteenth century priest who had already served ten years in Upper Peru wrote that he was powerless to stop natives from having more than one wife, from lying, from hiding, from being absent from mass, from interpreting dreams as omens, from divining, and from worshiping their ancestors. The natives – both lords and commoners – covered for each other’s sins to help them escape penance. He recognized that the commoners, to paraphrase his words, suffered disproportionately all, because they did not know if it was alright to ask for relief, nor to whom to ask for it, and because they were afraid that they might be trading one abuse for another. He could not take a strong stand against continued idolatry because he depended on them for this sustenance. He was afraid of being falsely accused, or worse, of being poisoned. He and his assistant survived on eggs for weeks when they thought they might be murdered by eating tainted food. A “good priest”, he reported, from the native point of view, was really a “bad priest”, from the Spanish point of view. He preferred to be a live priest and therefore did not meddle much in the private lives of his parishioners.

The construction of power  47 Testimony to the difficulties faced by the church and the persistence of native belief systems is one conversation in the 1780s between a priest and his native sacristan of a church in a relatively small community less than a day’s walk from a regional capital. The priest asked him how many gods the Christians worshipped. The native replied: “three” – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Such depositions document the imperfect “spiritual conquest” of the Spanish in the kingdoms of America almost to the years of the Independence era.

5

The economic bases of colonialism

Mining A pillar of the evolving colonial structure was the extraction of mineral ores. The encomenderos and later settlers knew that the natives used gold and silver as ornaments and ritual paraphernalia, and they wanted to find their sources. Pre-Hispanic production was low. Natives valued gold, silver and copper for their shine and durability, not as a common unit of exchange or as productive assets. Instead, natives carried cacao beans in Meso-America as a measure of value. In the Andes, gold and silver had ceremonial uses and when Pizarro captured Atahualpa, he offered to ransom himself by filling rooms with gold and silver. The ransom spurred the Spanish toward seeking the origin of this booty. And an important Spanish American industry took shape. One historian noted that the Spanish mined more precious metals during the first 50 years after contact than the natives had mined in the previous millennium. The late fifteen and early sixteenth century era of trading beads and trinkets for gold ornaments and of placer mining in Española, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Tierra Firme did not last long. The boom was over by 1515. Estimates put Caribbean production between 1501 and 1519 at circa 8 million gold pesos. New Granada miners exported 4 million ounces of gold by 1600. By the eighteenth century, these mines produced more than threefold the yield of the sixteenth century. Elsewhere, the sixteenth century brought some quick and even spectacular wealth as explorers and prospectors learned that Andean lords were buried with women servants, clay jars containing food and drink, rich textiles, a litter (if a lord had one), a spotted dog to lead them across a hair bridge to the next world and all their finery, including jewels, headdresses, face masks, and other regalia. Spaniards plundered these graves, finding, besides human and animal remains, gold, silver, and emeralds, the latter from mines in what is today Colombia. Plundering of such sites with their valuable contents continued into the eighteenth century. Silver mining in the traditional sense began within 20 years of the first contact. Mexican silver ore was found in Taxco (1534), Zacatecas (1546),

The economic bases of colonialism  49 Guanajuato (1550), Pachuca (1552), and San Luis Potosi (1592). These mines yielded about 35 million pesos in the sixteenth century. In the Andes, the most noteworthy early source of silver was the veins revealed by a native to the Spanish in what became known as the rich mountain called Potosí, at some 13,000 feet above sea level. In 50 years after its “discovery” in 1545, Potosí yielded 400 million pesos of silver. Between 1579 and 1635, the years of greatest production, Potosí yielded 7 million pesos per year. Expressed in another way, Potosí produced more silver than all Mexican mines before 1650. In its first 100 years of exploitation, it produced half of all the world’s silver. By 1820, the veins had yielded 60 million troy pounds of silver, that gained Potosí the sobriquet as “the mountain of silver”. Official crown policy encouraged mining. The king, by law, owned the subsoil wealth and taxed it, starting at 50 percent, then 33 percent, and finally at 20 percent (the quinto real). At certain times and under certain circumstances, the tax was lowered to a tenth to spur production. Miners were also granted privileges, like exempting their tools (hammers, chisels, and crowbars), slaves, and supplies from legal attachment or foreclosure. Miners were also favored in the courts. The crown additionally sent some of the latest European technology in an effort to increase production. Early processing of ores relied on smelting, heating the ore in an oven until it reached a molten state. The use of smelting in the long run faced several challenges. One problem was that smelting could only be used with high grade ores. This became more problematic as the veins of rich ores disappeared. The second problem with smelting was that it required large amounts of fuel. This was no trouble in Central America, but the northern Mexican mines were in areas far from abundant supplies of wood. So, too, was Potosí that stood above the tree line in Upper Peru (now Bolivia). Heavy loads of wood had to be carried from afar – either on the backs of men or on animals. Furthermore, as veins were followed deeper and deeper into the earth, flooding became a challenge. Finally, because of the altitude, European bellows could not raise the temperatures of conventional ovens to the degree needed for extraction. Therefore, at Potosí, smelting was turned over to the natives who used an indigenous-designed, wind-blown smelter or oven (a wayra, guayra, huayra, or huayrachina) to capture the up-drafts on the sides of the mountain to raise the temperature sufficiently to extract the ore. By the middle of the sixteenth century, another process was introduced, dubbed the “patio process” or amalgamation. It was utilized at Real del Monte mines in Pachuca (Mexico). This process involved mixing ores with mercury and salt to extract the silver. This process could remove silver from lower grade ores, but it depended on the available supply of mercury. At first, mercury had to be transported from Almadén in Spain – a costly, unreliable, and slow-arriving source. In 1563, the Spanish realized that liquid mercury had been used occasionally by the Andean natives as face paint. They traced the source of this would-be cosmetic to a mercury mine high

50  The Hapsburg centuries in the Andes mountains at Huancavelica (Peru) that soon yielded enough to supply the mines of the Andes and Mexico. Huancavelica reduced the cost of acquisition and transport and allowed the miners to procure a more dependable and abundant supply of this needed ingredient. At certain times of its history, the crown made Huancavelica mercury mines a royal monopoly. It oversaw the extraction or bought mercury from leases to sell to the miners at a profit. Labor was a crucial need for bullion production. In the Caribbean, first, and later in Meso-America and Colombia, placer mining was in the hands of natives. It quickly ended, in part, because the streams and rivers yielded scant nuggets and dust; and were soon exhausted; and, in part, due to native mortality. In Central America, gold mining started with capturing, enslaving, and branding the faces of natives who resisted servicing the Spanish. Despite crown prohibitions against taking more slaves in 1530, the crown vacillated and ultimately revoked such policy initiatives, when faced with strong opposition from miners who reminded the king of their ample contributions to the royal treasury. Relatively small gangs of 15–20 slaves worked the rich ores of Honduras. Intimidation and abuses forced continued extraction. In larger operations with sometimes 1,500 or more branded natives working, the yield could rise to 28,000 pesos every four to five months. The New Laws, issued in 1542, to lessen abuses of the natives, prohibited them from mining gold. But miners countered arguing that washing sand and gravel was not really mining and, therefore, not illegal. Such arguments helped them evade the law. Elsewhere, in Colombia, for example, panning for gold continued using enslaved natives and then imported black slaves. Production in Colombia grew in each century, unlike other areas. By the eighteenth century, some 30 million ounces of gold had been shipped to Spain. As gold prospecting and mining declined or remained steady, silver became the far more important mineral. In Meso-America, early mining was centered in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. There native slaves were taken in “just wars” (really unjust wars) as they responded dubiously to the reading of the Requerimiento. Vacillating crown policy did not help as in 1530 the crown forbade taking more native slaves, but between 1533 and 1537, it revoked that decree when faced with strong opposition from conquerors. A loose interpretation of the New Laws of 1542, which had been meant to decrease the abuse of native workers, and uneven implementation, allowed miners to evade these strictures. The most spectacular silver mining operation was at Potosí, where when first worked by the Spanish in 1545 yields were above almost anywhere else. Potosí operations produced 326 million silver pesos between 1545 and 1628. Some scholars estimate that about an equal amount leaked out and went unrecorded and untaxed as contraband in the form of jewelry, chalices, crosses, and lamps in churches. Silver laden galleons sailed from Arica, Nombre de Dios, and Acapulco to Manila. Other ships left Caribbean ports

The economic bases of colonialism  51 for Seville. Spanish coins, called pieces of eight (or pesos de ocho reales), became a global currency. Imports of tools, clothing, Spanish wine, olive oil, iron, Rouen textiles, Dutch linens, spices and gems, and Venetian glassware are only a few items that the silver bought. To encourage production in Peru, the crown organized a native labor levy, called the mit’a (a Quechua word for turn), where over 10,000 natives traveled with their families from communities as near as Lake Titicaca to almost as far north as Cajamarca to work for one year out of seven at the mines on a rotating basis. After their turn, some of these mitayos, as they were called, stayed on in Potosí to work as mingados or voluntary wage laborers. Skilled laborers could earn 1.5–3 pesos a day as compared to the mitayos who usually earned a half peso a day. A fraction of the workers slipped into debt and never returned to their original communities at the end of their turn. Decline set in toward the middle of the seventeenth century as a result of a labor shortage (because of the continuing decline of the native population due, in part, to silicosis (a lung disease) and mercury and lead poisoning), exacerbated by a periodic shortages of mercury and the flooding of mining tunnels. The city that grew up at the foot of the mountain had a population of 120,000 in 1570, 150,000 in 1640, and 160,000 in 1650. It was by then the largest city in South America. Its society is legendary as “wealthy and disorderly” where vice, crime, and celebrations (for the accession of Philip II to the throne, for example) that lasted weeks and cost millions of pesos. The opportunities in the city and its hinterland attracted Basques, Extremadurans, and Portuguese, Flemish, and Italian immigrants. Polite society (gente decente) in this cosmopolitan city of mining magnates, financiers and their families dominated. They imposed their will on policy and its implementation by making generous “gifts” or loans to the kings and using pressure on the cabildo and royal officials to voice concerns over labor issues, to lobby for obtaining mercury at a lower price, to guarantee freedom from bureaucratic interference, to insist on no debt imprisonment, to advocate for exception from the sales tax (alcabala), to insist that merchants deliver sufficient merchandize, and to urge a reduction of the quinto real. Their pleas met with some success. There were in this city at the foot of a mountain of silver ample opportunities for distraction. Twenty churches and chapels held masses, processions, and special commemorations. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, the city had over a dozen dance halls, three dozen gambling houses, and a theater that charged 40–50 pesos for a ticket. By the early seventeenth century, 700–800 professional gamblers and over a hundred prostitutes made a living there. Besides panning or excavating for gold or following veins of silver into the earth, there was a third important mining initiative in Spanish America. Emerald mining began in the northern most reaches of the viceroyalty of Peru (later the viceroyalty of New Granada). Colombian emeralds are

52  The Hapsburg centuries mentioned in the earliest records of Spanish exploration of Tierra Firme. Pizarro listed them as part of the booty that he amassed while exploring the west coast of South America. The emeralds were again spotted on a balsa wood raft just south of the equator, along with a cargo of shells, fine textiles, and gold and silver drinking vessels. Further south, Pizarro and his men reached a river they called the River of Emeralds. More were encountered even further south at a town called Coaque. Some of the stones were shipped to Spain, where they excited the court. To natives emeralds held religious significance. In Manta, a particularly large emerald, as big as an ostrich’s egg, was worshipped. It was exhibited to the public at great festivals. Pilgrims traveled to marvel, worshipping and sacrificing to it. They brought gifts of smaller emeralds to give to the stone, their goddess. The smaller emeralds became the daughters of the larger centerpiece. When the Spanish invaded the emerald goddess was hidden, never to be seen by European eyes again, though they searched for it and threatened natives so they would reveal its hiding place. The history of emerald mining by the Spanish in the traditional sense (i.e., not counting grave robbing and those acquired as ransom for captured caciques) began in the 1560s in Muzo. Since all subsoil wealth belonged to the king, emeralds paid a tax. Mining the green stones also took a heavy toll of the laborers, without which the mines would have been useless. Mining was afflicted by flooding, earthquakes, and other calamities. The industry experienced highs and lows. In the late 1680s, for example, emerald mining revived, but by 1702, the mines were closed. Nevertheless, by the middle of the seventeenth century, the stones were being moved east, often as contraband, through Sephardic Jewish and New Christian family networks. The trajectory was from the mines to Cartagena, through Havana and the Azores to Seville. From Seville, the stones went to Lisbon, Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London. Another network involved Ashkenazi families who moved the stones from Hamburg to Morocco and beyond. An alternative route was from Colombia to Acapulco to the Philippines, Japan, China, southeast Asia, and India. Along this trajectory, emeralds changed in value and meaning. In India, emeralds became “useless gifts”, symbols of power, magnanimity, and profligate philanthropy. To Muslims, emeralds represented charity and responded to a cult of royal selflessness, redistribution, and extravagant gifting. They also underscored status differences.

The formation of the great estate or latifundio Before the arrival of the Spanish, land was common to all. The rule in the Andes was that a person could use as much land as he and his family could use for as long as it was fertile and productive. That meant that a man who had six children could cultivate much more land than a man who had one child. What they planted with their own seed and labor belonged to

The economic bases of colonialism  53 them, but not the land. They could continue to use the land until it proved unproductive. When the land declined in fertility, the family abandoned it. It subsequently laid fallow and eventually reverted to its wild state, when anyone else could claim it for use. Pasture lands were common too. Various factors in conjunction served as the context for the formation of the great estate. The political context is one of these. In the sixteenth century, from the days of the settlement of the islands of Española and Cuba, encomienda grants made encomenderos some of the most powerful men in society. They could command their subjects to provide them with large quantities of foodstuffs and woven cloth, build their homes, construct the church, and even erect additional buildings in the cities that the encomenderos could then rent to merchants and newly-arriving settlers. They held a monopoly on the supply of labor. Proceeds from these activities and their participation on the cabildo made them so powerful locally that they did not always obey royal decrees and cooperate with royal officials. The encomendero responses to the New Laws of 1542 is a case in point. Mexican encomenderos protested against the New Laws that mandated the end of the encomienda grants at the death of its present holder. Their Peruvian counterparts reacted more strongly. Because of his insistence of implementing the New Laws, a faction of encomenderos rebelled against the first viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela, dispatched, in part, to introduce the ordinances. They eventually captured and beheaded Núñez Vela, a shock to the monarchy, sitting safely across the Atlantic. The rebellion changed policy and quickly brought the age of the encomendero to an end. Thereafter an heir could petition the crown to grant him the encomienda for his lifetime. Each request was considered individually on its own merits, taking into account the service of his predecessor and his lineage. But, gradually, the renewals became exceptional, sometimes replaced with a pension to the would-be heir. Encomiendas gradually disappeared, except on the frontiers of Spanish America. Even these, decreased in importance as native populations declined. To further curtail the encomenderos’ power, the Crown decided to foster the creation of another social group as a counterweight to the encomenderos who would be dependent on royal favor and therefore loyal in similar situations. This new group was rewarded for their services with grants of land (mercedes) and would be independent of the encomenderos who were prohibited from residing in the new towns that were to be founded in agricultural areas. More land was opened to the Spanish when the Spanish government decided to concentrate the native population in Spanish-style towns, called congregaciones and reducciones, laid out on a grid pattern. Native fields were scattered all over the landscape. In the Andes, the ideal was to have fields in different ecological niches to guarantee that a wide variety of crops would grow and to prevent a blight, pest, or frost from destroying all the foodstuffs for the season. Thus, a native family might plant fields of corn

54  The Hapsburg centuries on the irrigated coast, form salt pans near the ocean, harvest any one of over 600 varieties of potatoes and several types of quinoa in the highlands, harvest the coca leaf on the upper eastern flanks of the Andes mountains, and seek wild honey and tropical birds (for their brightly-colored feathers) in the jungle. Land was available as the native populations plunged from disease and overwork. Each town or reducción was assigned lands if their original fields proved too far for a convenient commute. Government propaganda claimed that the reducciones were for the natives’ own good. The natives would have land and have access to the church for easier conversion. Furthermore, the corregidor would find it more efficient to collect tribute if all the taxable population lived close together. What was left unsaid was that the reducciones would open up good land, sometimes the best land, for future mercedes. In documented cases, the natives’ good land was replaced with land that was inferior and less healthful. Land would be a tangible reward for those who had served the crown. There were many eligible candidates, as Spanish immigrants continued to arrive in America seeking opportunities to better their positions. Many settled in the cities. Some became retainers of the encomenderos, serving as their mayordomos and overseers. Some, not finding any work, became vagabonds (vagamundos, wonderers of the world in the parlance of the sixteenth century) who could live off the hospitality still operative among the native communities or highway men who robbed travelers along the roads. Land grants settled these immigrants down and turned many into productive citizens. Agricultural production was a real necessity as the native demographic decline took its toll on the supplies of urban foodstuffs. And, Spaniards hankered for the traditional meals of their homeland – heavy on meat, wheat bread, wine, and olives. Many peninsular immigrants considered corn, potatoes, squash, and chili peppers “Indian food”. In the early encounter era, beef and mutton, wheat, wine, and olives had to be imported from across the Atlantic that made them extraordinarily expensive. Local production of these items increased the supply and lowered prices. In Mexico, land was assigned to individuals according to their rank or social status. Members of the elite were given caballerias (a varying unit of land measurement equal to 64 manzanas, each 10,000 varas (33.3 inches) square), and persons with less status got peonias (of about 100 acres each). In Peru, the first agricultural land grants outside the cities were made in the 1550s and 1560s as a varying number of fanegadas, a variable measure of land defined by the amount of land that could be planted with one fanega (a Spanish bushel equal to about 55.5 liters in Castile) of seed, usually 40 or 50. In some areas, new towns were founded as agricultural centers. Saña and Santa were some of these. So, the skilled artisans, barbers, and others, all with some capital to invest, who received the first mercedes, became the

The economic bases of colonialism  55 prestigious original citizens of these towns with not only land for potential economic viability but also the political power of the cabildo to run their own local affairs. The original mercedes developed into one of three types of large estate. The first, called a “hacienda”, which is also a generic term for any estate, in general, was a farm that had fields planted in foodstuffs, such as wheat and chickpeas, and tobacco, and engaged in some livestock raising. Many required a moderate amount of capital to establish and produce for a local market. Labor was provided by natives who worked for some combination of subsistence and wages that were often in arrears or never paid. Some peons became indebted to the owner or hacendado. Many debtors and their heirs could never re-pay the debt. These debt peons were obliged to remain on the property until the obligation was reimbursed. The second type of estate was the estancia, a word that comes from the Spanish verb “estar” (to be). Hence, the word referred to a place to be. This was an enterprise dedicated to animal raising, be it beef cattle, sheep, goats, horses, llamas, or alpacas. The estancia originally was a place that might have a collection of corrals, and a hut or house for the shepherds, mayordomo, and owner. Thus, the amount of capital needed to establish one amounted to the cash or credit needed to buy at least one male and one female animal and metal for a branding iron. The original merced for this type of estate was relatively small, often being less than 20 fanegadas in the sixteenth century. The reason for this is that, as in Spain, grass lands were common. Labor costs were low also. One shepherd could care for 600–1,000 head of livestock, depending on the type of animals under his care. The animals multiplied rapidly in central Mexico and in coastal and highland Peru, because they had few natural enemies, except for the occasional small mountain lions that roamed the interior. The cattle walked to market, where some were slaughtered for meat. Two rudimentary operations became accessory to these estates. The first was the “tina y teneria”, a complex that made soap from the tallow and tanned the animals’ hides. The second was the obraje or textile mill, where native peoples washed, combed, and dyed wool or cotton before spinning it and weaving the thread into cloth. The third type of estate developed a few years later often from the hacienda. It was a specialized farm, dedicated to monoculture. The product was often marketed to cities far away. Sugar and rice were the main products. The population referred to them by the type of mill that was used to grind the sugar cane and husk the rice. Molinos and trapiches referred to animal-powered mills. Ingenios usually referred to sugar mills, powered by animals or water. These specialized farms required large sums of capital due to the cost of the mill and any African slaves that replaced the natives who had labored there.

56  The Hapsburg centuries All three of these estates grew over time by donation, purchase, usurpation, and its subsequent composición (discussed below). Motivations for acquiring more land included the potential for growing more foodstuffs and other products, which ideally, when sold, yielded a profit. By the seventeenth century, some areas that depended on irrigation experienced scarcity. Therefore, some hacendados (estate owners) bought additional land and its water rights to reroute irrigation canals to supply another part of their estate. Another motivation was as a means to acquire more labor. If the natives lost land, they often had no option but to migrate away or go to work for the person who owned the land. Some unprincipled persons usurped native land for this reason alone. The crown, often in need of further funding, offered periodic “composición”, a process of title review by which for a fee the crown would excuse and rectify any deficiencies in land titles, including the acknowledgment that the owner controlled more territory than was initially granted or otherwise acquired. Over time, the size of one’s holdings became an informal index of a person’s status, prestige and power. Their hold on local society rested on several factors. Landowners often claimed descent from the town founders. They furthermore regularly sat on the cabildo, designing and implementing policy. As magistrates and councilmen, they controlled who could settle in their town as citizens or inhabitants; who received the contract to provide meat and fish to the population; and, to a certain extent, the prices of basic foodstuffs. These agriculturalists became the biggest employers for skilled artisans and unskilled labor, sometimes owning the preponderant share of African slaves in the locality. Their patronage provided work for many sectors of society: from notaries and scribes, to priests, and laborers who worked for them – either permanently or seasonally. Blacksmiths forged the tools needed to work the land and the copper caldrons in which cane syrup turned into sugar. Tailors cut and sewed the suits that they wore to mass and cabildo meetings. Persons of mixed blood served as overseers on the estates. Wealthy hacendados educated their sons, sometimes sending them to the Peninsula for advanced study. They also donated to the church and encouraged their children to join the priesthood or profess as a nun. Furthermore, children of hacendados often married the offspring of their peers, linking families across generations. Godparent ties reinforced group solidarity. In short, hacendados had ties among themselves and to the church, the royal officials who collected taxes, artisans, and laborers. This group, though dominant as a whole, was unstable. Competition for land, water, labor, and markets, amongst themselves or with native communities over time, decreased their number. Some sons sent to study away from home lost interest in returning and spent money on unproductive items. Natural disasters took their toll on facilities, especially on the estates heavily encumbered with mortgages. Few families survived for more than three generations.

The economic bases of colonialism  57

Trans-Atlantic commerce: trade monopolies, fairs, and contraband As mentioned above, the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, sponsored Columbus’ ambitions to find a way to the Spice Islands by sailing west. They did so because they thought that it might be a profitable venture. After the initial voyages, the trips to America to trade and/or explore were privately sponsored. The state issued licenses to embark and explore and collected taxes on the commerce. The guiding policy was mercantilism that equated national power with naval and military might. By 1585, the Spanish merchant marine rivaled, if not outranked, the Dutch; was double the size of the German and three times as large as the English and French fleets. The crown also sought self-sufficiency and protection for its own industries. It fostered certain activities, even to the detriment of others. Thus, it subsidized the construction and operation of ships meeting royal specifications and protected its silk, wool, leather, and cutlery industries. Allied to these principles was the idea that wealth could be measured in gold and silver bullion. Together, people thought that the well-being of Spain rested on export commerce and a favorable balance of trade. The colonies proved to be a source of wealth: providing markets, raw materials, agricultural commodities, and precious metals. The ideal was to establish a monopoly of trade and shipping. Implementation of these ideas rested on several factors. Spain’s monopoly was regulated by the Casa de Contratación, established in 1503, in Seville that had several functions, in addition to the supervision of overseas commerce. Furthermore, the crown limited the numbers of ports that were open to trans-Atlantic commerce to Santo Domingo, Veracruz, Panama, Cartagena, and Lima (Callao). Additionally, trade was restricted between American ports during certain eras. For example, it was against the law for silks and brocades that were coming from the Philippines to be sold in Lima. This prohibition was deemed necessary to protect the silk industry in the metropolis. Moreover, licenses were required to trade certain items. The most famous was the asiento or license to trade in African slaves. Finally, a fleet system was established to protect vessels and enforce the monopoly. It took form over time. Starting in 1526 no single ships could cross the Atlantic alone. In 1537, the crown armed the fleets (armadas). By the mid-1560s, the fleets sailed twice a year. From 1580 to 1650, the sailings became irregular. There were two main trade routes. A fleet, called the flota, sailed from Seville to Santo Domingo and then on the Veracruz. Cargo was transported across Mexico and then shipped out from Huatulco or Acapulco to Manila. The second, called the galeones, left Seville for Santo Domingo and from there went on to Panama, where cargo was transported across the isthmus and then re-loaded onto ships that docked in Lima. These sea lanes linked up with overland routes served by teamsters (trajinantes). Trunk lines

58  The Hapsburg centuries connected Atlantic and Pacific ports to silver mines (usually located in inhospitable locations) that passed through the capital cities of Mexico and Lima, en route to the port. For example, goods downloaded in Veracruz passed through Puebla and Mexico City before going north to the mines in Zacatecas. Goods arriving in Lima were loaded onto the backs of mules and llamas for the trip to Chuquisaca (Sucre) and Potosí. Some of the goods could also be shipped by sea to the south, where they would pass through Arequipa before arriving in the mines of Upper Peru, like Potosí and Porco. Feeder lines connected these trunk lines with Cuzco and Huancavelica. This discussion of the trans-Atlantic trade with its emphasis on out-going ships carrying bullion, overlooks the navigation and trade between Mexico and Peru. Spain’s merchant marine averaged 50 ships, but only four or five were employed as treasure-laden vessels. Unlike the trans-Atlantic trade that was west to east, the American trade was mostly north and south along the western Pacific shores of America. The Manila galleons brought Chinese damasks, satins, silks, chinaware, porcelain, perfumes, and jewelry to America in return for the silver of the Andes and northern Mexico. To stop the flow of silver to Asia, the crown forbade this luxury trade periodically after 1590. Regional exchange saw merchants exporting wheat and copper from Chilean ports. Peruvian ports loaded ships with cotton, wine, leather, sugar, soap, silver, textiles, and mercury. West coast ports received lumber and cacao from Guayaquil. By the 1590s, inter-colonial trade was valued at 2–3 million pesos a year. In 1593, the crown forbade the re-export of Chinese goods from Mexico to Peru; though it continued illegally to 1602, at which time, it was valued at 3–5 million pesos per year. By this time about a tenth of this value, some 300,000–500,000 pesos, corresponded to Mexican items being taken to Peru. From 1600 to 1630, the crown continued to try to restrict the flow of such trade by limiting the number of sailings per year, restricting the size of vessels, prohibiting the exchange of gold and silver between Mexico and Peru, and increasing fines for breaking the law. In 1634, all trade between the colonies was forbidden. This resulted in contraband, neatly summed up by a contemporary saying “hecho la ley, hecho la trampa” (each law calls forth a trick or way around it). Scores of ships were involved and tonnage doubled in the later seventeenth century. Wheat was carried north; wine went north to Central America; sugar traded both north and south; cacao was shipped to Central America; and lumber from Guayaquil was carried to Peru. Thus, in practice, smuggling was big business. American settlers welcomed foreign goods smuggled in because they were offered at lower prices than those coming in legally. Even Spain had its contrabandists. Metedores (those who could bring in things) were professional smugglers of bullion operating through Cadiz. They charged 1.5 percent of the value of gold or silver bars and 1 percent of coins. Meanwhile, the crown’s share of this trade was measured by taxes. As already mentioned, the crown received 20 percent (quinto real) of the gold

The economic bases of colonialism  59 acquired from placer mining in the Caribbean or accumulated treasure of generations of natives remitted to Spain before 1520. In the 1520s and 1530s, booty from Tenochtitlán and Cajamarca was subject to the tax. After that date, the mines provided most of the bullion that was taxed for the crown. By the middle of the sixteenth century, 85 percent of the bullion sent to Spain was silver. That percentage rose rapidly to 97 percent in the 1560s and 99 percent in 1600. From 1600 to 1630, tax income from this source remained about stable. After 1630, it dropped, causing the crown to reduce the rate of the mining tax to a tenth or a twentieth to stimulate production. Another tax was the almojarifazgo, an import and export tax or duty. It was established in law as early as 1573, but not actually collected systematically until after 1591 in Peru. Then it amounted to 5 percent (ad valorem) on all commercial goods coming into Peru and 2 percent on the value of exported items. In the seventeenth century the rates fluctuated from 2.5 to 7.5 percent and some foodstuffs were exempted. These taxes were originally collected by royal officials. After 1640, the Consulado (Chamber of Commerce) paid the crown a given sum for the right to collect the duties – calculating that the amount paid to the crown would be less than what it could actually collect. The crown preferred this method of collecting the duties, called tax farming, even if the revenue would be less than if the crown collected it directly, because it alleviated the need for a larger corpus of royal officials and guaranteed the income. A third tax was called the avería, specifically collected to support the Armada del Mar del Sur (the armed fleet of the southern sea). It was first instituted in the 1580s by Viceroy don Martín Enríquez after Francis Drake’s devastating raid along the Peruvian coast in 1579. The rate was 0.5 percent of the value of all merchandise. In 1592, it increased to 1 percent after Thomas Cavendish’s raid of 1587. In the 1630s, it increased to 2 percent. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Consulado was collecting this tax, too. The consequences of this mercantilist system were detrimental. First, because the influx of so much bullion far outpaced the ability of Spain’s industries to increase production. During the initial years of exploration and settlement, the gold and silver did stimulate an increase in output; but in the long run, the huge volume of gold and silver made prices rise faster than output, causing inflation. Consequently, Spain’s industry could not compete and it became cheaper to import goods from the rest of Europe than produce them on the peninsula. Spain became a middleman. Manufactured goods were re-exported on Spanish ships to America and the American bullion from Spain to pay for these goods financed the rise of modern capitalism in the rest of Europe. The goods going to America cost dearly. To the original cost of the goods charged by European producers had to be added the Spanish middleman’s fees and commissions, export taxes, transportation charges, import duties, the receiving wholesale merchant’s mark up, and retailer’s profit. By the

60  The Hapsburg centuries time a product was purchased by the retail buyer it was very expensive. Supplies were also limited and irregular. Furthermore, over the years the terms of trade deteriorated. For example, profit from the work of ten natives in 1550 for one month paid for one pound of imported copper or a jug of Spanish or German wine. By 1600, the work of 50 natives for one month produced enough to buy the same goods. In sum, the gold and silver that was supposed to make Spain powerful, self-sufficient, and wealthy had the unforeseen consequence of making Spain dependent on the rest of Europe and robbed the government of the resources to develop economically. American consumers were doubly dependent: first on Spain and then indirectly on the rest of Europe. Merchants made the system move. The word “merchant” was a term applied to a vast number of individuals who bought and sold items either on a full- or part-time basis. In the sixteenth century, before there was a recognizable group of merchants operating in the Americas, individuals engaged in trade, sometimes surreptitiously. One notable example was the encomendero Juan de Barbarán who was in the company of Pizarro when he invaded South America. His testament, dated July 10, 1539, just seven years after the first contact, specifies his assets, including 130 marks (one mark was equal to 67 reales) of silver and a cup and pitcher of gold. He listed his livestock as 180 pigs, 500 sheep, 2 horses and a mule – which he ordered sold in a codicil. He would have disliked the label “merchant”, because engaging in commerce was still an occupation associated with a low social status and a certain disdain. By the seventeenth century, the term “merchant” was applied to an array of exchange specialists with various amounts of capital and specialties. “Hombres de negocios”, literally businessmen and wholesalers, residing in Mexico City and Lima formed a mercantile elite, tied to trans-Atlantic shipping and merchant houses in Europe. Shopkeepers or “mercaderes” and sometimes “dueños de tiendas” were retailers, selling a variety of goods in general stores. “Mercachifles” were petty retailers, often running small grocery stores or taverns. “Regatadores” or “mesilleros” sold a variety of items in the streets. “Tratantes” were the itinerant peddlers ubiquitous in both large and small cityscapes. More specifically, a study of over 600 businessmen in Mexico City in the late seventeenth century noted that there they all considered themselves to be Spaniards, whether by birth or by culture. Thirty of the largest wholesalers served as officials of the Consulado, the merchant guild that legally represented the wider group. Not all fit the stereotype of the wealthy merchant. Some doubled as royal officials or landowners who contributed capital to and sometimes managed commercial enterprises but were not identified publicly as merchants. The minimum requirement for membership was 2,000 pesos worth of stock, not a sum high enough to limit participation to the very wealthy.

The economic bases of colonialism  61 Although these individuals were ambitious, they did not often serve on the cabildo before the 1690s. No law forbade their membership on the town council, but by the early seventeenth century, the cabildo constituted a tightly knit group of families who had acquired their seat through purchase or as a bequest from a family member. Between 1621 and 1645, only four councilmen could be identified as sons or relatives of merchants in business in the 1590s. And, second-generation merchants tended to shed their official merchant status upon taking their seat. Merchants were more likely to be identified as such if they held a high-ranking fiscal office, such as royal treasurer, official of the tribunal of accounts or the mint. These offices had advantages. A holder of these positions had the opportunity to “borrow” funds from the royal treasury as a short-term interest free loan for his own transactions or for lending to others. Such loans to corregidores and cabildo members often bought official favors, through which they exercised informal political power. High fiscal office in the treasury or mint in the viceregal capitals also gave them a “voice and vote” on the cabildo, equating to more formal political power. They successfully exerted power on local issues, but could not change the major thrust of royal commercial policy, such as reopening trade between the ports of Mexico and Peru that was closed in 1631, increasing the allowed value of Manila goods or changing the rate of the alcabala or almojarifazgo. The social status of the merchants remained dubious because of societal prejudice. Their status was not at all commensurate with their wealth. Therefore, most wanted to shed their label as merchants. Consequently, few families remained associated with commerce for more than two generations. Instead, they changed their associations by acquiring large estates, either through purchase or marriage. They were willing to sacrifice large sums to make such acquisitions, even though land ownership often was less profitable than trade. Yet, it promised more reliable and stable returns and helped them rise in status. Merchant families also disappeared from view because they dissipated their capital, by making grants to the church; providing dowries to their daughters to marry well or profess at a prestigious convent; and establishing chantries so that their sons could study and join a religious order, or consuming conspicuously. A last reason was the partible inheritance laws that provided that the wealth of a person be divided at death between a spouse and the children. In the case of the Mexican merchants, a wife typically received her dowry and 50 percent of her husband’s estate, while the children shared the rest. The average number of children in this sample was seven, meaning that each received less than 10 percent of a father’s estate. This kept merchant families from entrenching themselves as a local oligarchy. Sons of a merchant, if they continued as such, were downwardly mobile. Each generation was thus forced to start anew to amass a fortune.

6

The contours of colonial society

A multi-racial society The society that developed in Spanish America after 1492 reflected the evolving political establishment and economic activities. Gone were the years when native kings and emperors ruled their subjects. Atahualpa and Moctezuma died during the early days of contact with the Spanish, leaving the surviving ethnic lords or chiefs that had once been subject to their authority to more autonomously direct their people. But, smallpox, influenza, measles, and other diseases prompted some followers to conclude that their ancestors, their supernatural protectors, were mad, that they had sent these hardships, and/or that the Spanish god was more powerful than their own lionized deities. The inability of the traditional lords to solicit supernatural relief from the ancestors, no matter how many rituals and sacrifices were made, de-legitimated the rulers, the priesthood, and the warriors at the top of the native hierarchy and encouraged some partisans to flee to inaccessible areas or join the subjects of other lords, judged to be more effective. Native society began to unravel and contract. One of the first acts that Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro did was to found cities, following the practice established during the Iberian Reconquista from the Moors. Recall that Columbus founded Navidad on the island of Española, Cortes founded Veracruz on the coast of Mexico before venturing inland, and Pizarro founded San Miguel de Piura on the lands tilled by the people under chief Lachira before climbing the Andes for his historic meeting with Atahualpa. Cities were run by a cabildo of councilmen (regidores) and magistrates (alcaldes). The first cabildos were appointed from among a city’s citizens or vecinos. Thereafter, the vecinos elected them, usually on January 1 of each year. But, crown exigencies resulted in a change. The crown began to sell the council seats after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Thereafter, the acquisition gave holders the options to allow relatives to inherit the seat or to donate it to others. In that way, in the seventeenth century the cabildo became akin to a closed club that governed in the interests of its members and their partisans, as suggested in the above discussion of miners and hacendados.

The contours of colonial society  63 The cabildo had the responsibility to accept applications from new settlers that aspired to citizen status. The acceptance of the applicant came with a grant of a house site and a relatively small plot of suburban land for a garden. Councilmen’s other responsibilities included supervising municipal sanitation, setting prices for basic commodities, regulating weights and measures, and contracting for the regular supply of meat and fish that supplied the urban markets. Magistrates also served as judges in certain circumstances. Another responsibility of the council and the corregidor was to supervise relations between Spaniards and natives. Encountering previously unknown peoples challenged the Spanish invaders and their European counterparts with profound questions. Who were the natives? Were they human? Why weren’t they mentioned in the Bible? The crown became involved as the ultimate protector of the native population, dictating laws in the sixteenth century to ameliorate their conditions. The Laws of Burgos (1512); the prohibitions of native slavery in 1526, 1530, and again in 1548; and the New Laws (1542) were some of these initiatives. Pope Paul III declared that natives must be treated as rational men, that they could not be deprived of property, and that they could not be enslaved, under threat of excommunication. But all these measures remained mostly dead letters as effective enforcement was difficult because they went against the encomenderos and their allies, the very persons who were sometimes tasked with implementation. Simultaneously, individuals began to lobby against native mistreatment. Franciscans in Mexico argued that native lives and customs should be respected and that their history and knowledge should be gathered and preserved. Bernardino de Sahagun, a pioneering ethnographer who compiled the Florentine Codex, wrote about the Aztec organization and child-care practices, concluding that they were superior to those in Spain. Another Franciscan, Toribio of Benavente, O. F. M., also known as Motolinia and the “defender of the conquered”, denounced Spanish tribute, torture, and forced labor – calling them the “many plagues affecting indigenous peoples”. The best known religious champion of the natives was Bartolomé de las Casas, a university-educated gentleman who arrived in the Caribbean in 1502. As an encomendero he experienced first-hand the brutality of the treatment of the natives by his peers. In 1514, he heard the sermons of a Dominican against such atrocities. A year later he joined the order and began preaching against “greed”. Las Casas wrote tracts condemning the cruelty of the initial invasions and subsequent expeditions, overwork, and abuse. He dismissed the conversion as a justification for ongoing subjugation, arguing that the Moslems attacked the Christians in their homeland, but that the American natives had no previous knowledge of Christianity before the arrival of Columbus. He asserted, therefore, that the Spanish invasion and settlement were “contrary to justice and

64  The Hapsburg centuries to law”. In regard to the Requerimiento, Las Casas wrote that he did not know whether to laugh or weep. During his travels through the Caribbean and Central America, he wrote about the abuses and defended the natives. In 1537, he influenced Pope Paul III to declare that natives were humans. He encouraged the king to decree the New Laws, ending the encomienda. His campaign culminated when the crown hosted debates to resolve the native questions. The two main protagonists of this debate were Las Casas and the learned Spaniard Juan Ginés de Sepulveda, a philosopher and theologian. In 1550, they confronted each other in Valladolid. Las Casas argued that the natives were human, should be segregated from the Spanish, and was openly anti-encomienda. Sepulveda contended that natives were slaves by nature and that contact was a good thing that would eventually civilize and Christianize them. He, therefore, was pro-encomienda. Las Casas’ notes were subsequently published as a book, entitled A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. The campaign of Las Casas and his peers had several consequences. One was the ‘Black Legend’ – a Protestant condemnation of Spain, painting the Spanish as ruthless exploiters. A second was reform. The Crown circulated additional regulations designed to control interactions, protecting the natives. For example, the monarchy issued licenses for expeditions only to persons of “good conscience”, persons who were “zealous for the honor of God” and “lovers of peace”. The Royal Ordinances of Pacification of 1573 mandated that the words “pacification” and “settlement” replace the word “conquest” in many documents. (Excerpts from the Royal Ordinances of Pacification appear in Document 3.) Third was segregation. Separation became the policy imperative. Theoretically, American society was supposed to be divided between the república de Españoles (Republic of Spaniards) and the república de indios (Republic of Indians). Rural natives were to live as they had been, close to their fields, scattered across the landscape in small compounds. Later, they were concentrated into reducciones or congregaciones to facilitate conversion and tribute collection. Spaniards were to live in small Spanish towns, called villas, or the cities that would become some of the grandiose capitals of the future. In cities like Lima, natives spent the night while serving in the capital in a suburb (there, named El Cercado) across the river. In provincial centers, the Spanish elite lived close to the main plaza and natives lived further from the center. Even at the outset of contact, however, separation was not practicable; it was never more than a theoretical construct. Both Cortes and Pizarro and the leaders of later expeditions or entradas and their men relied on natives as food suppliers, as allies, as bearers, as scouts, and as labor, in general. Such interaction and the absence of European women during the first years after contact and the native custom of gifting their women to political leaders to solidify alliances resulted in unions between Spanish men and native women that produced the first mestizos. These children were brought up as

The contours of colonial society  65 natives if they stayed with their mothers, speaking a native language and dressing in the ethnic garb of their lineage. A few lived with their fathers, were recognized, educated, and treated as Spaniards, such as the famous writer and historian Garcilaso de la Vega. Finally, the protection of the natives resulted in an increased importation of African slaves, Columbus’ solution for the deplorable conditions under which the natives labored, a stance that he repudiated shortly before his death at age 89. The royal authorities reasoned that if slaves replaced the natives, the encomenderos would be weakened. It was, in short, a way to assert royal authority over the conquerors and encomenderos, while saving the monarch’s soul. Slavery existed in both Africa and Spain before being introduced into the Western Hemisphere. Slaves were brought to Spain as a result of the Reconquista, the peninsular wars against the Moors. In other words, the Spanish were familiar with the institution; slaves were part of everyday life. Therefore, there was not much consciousness-searching about whether slavery was good or bad. The first slaves imported into the hemisphere came from the peninsula. In America, there were two additional types of slaves. The first were natives. The early conquerors were ambivalent toward the natives. As suggested above, they did not readily understand who they were and how they fit into the world scheme of things. Natives were enslaved when captured in “just wars” – those captured in battle against the Spanish who, it was argued, were only trying to subdue natives to convert and civilize them. Before a skirmish or battle began, the Spanish were obliged to read their native foes the “Requerimiento”, which included a summary of Christian history and was to be read to the natives, by interpreters – if possible – before each encounter. It required native listeners to recognize the authority of the church and monarch and it further detailed the consequences if natives refused proper allegiance. The consequences were coercive subjugation, alienation, or confiscation of property and punishments appropriate to traitors. The reading of the requerimiento had to be notarized and signed by witnesses to be valid, but the whole procedure was actually ludicrous, because often the document was read in Spanish – which few natives could understand and too far away even to be heard. The significance of the requerimiento was that it was a justification for Spanish subjugation; it cleared the Spanish from the responsibility of mistreating and killing natives. The requerimiento reads, in part, “The resultant deaths and damages are your fault and not the monarch’s or mine or the soldiers”. In short, natives were to blame for Spanish domination. But either way – resisting or not – natives became vassals – subject to overwork, ill treatment, and worse. The requerimiento only made their slavery legitimate. The Spanish continued to enslave natives in seventeenth-century Chile when the Spanish were battling the Maupuche for control; and, in the 1613 census of Lima, many are found in domestic service to Spanish masters.

66  The Hapsburg centuries The second type was African slavery. African imports became increasingly numerous as the number of natives plummeted. They served in both town and countryside settings, supplementing or replacing native workers who had died or fled. Slaves in Spanish America labored under the theoretical protection of the laws called the “Siete Partidas” (Seven-Part Code) that dated from the time of Alfonso, el Sabio (Alfonse the Wise) (reigned 1252–84). The code described slavery as “contra razón de natura” (against natural reason). Religious thinking maintained that everyone has a direct relationship with God. Slavery placed one person above another. It was a necessary evil. The state had to guarantee a person’s rights. Therefore, the slave had an absolute right to security, property, and religious protection. Thus, unlike certain states in North America (like Virginia), a slave in Spanish America could not be killed by a master without punishment. Manumission was encouraged. It was relatively easy to purchase one’s freedom, especially in urban areas. The church also played a role. The church did not oppose slavery but imposed itself between masters and slaves. Thus, slaves were not neglected. They heard mass and did not work on religious holidays whether or not they were living in urban or rural settings. In some rural areas, priests traveled a circuit, stopping at estates to say mass, baptize, marry, and bury. Often the owners paid the fees. Meanwhile, many priests preached humanitarianism and manumission. Blacks adopted Catholicism, often infusing their practice with customs brought from their homelands. These features sometimes were seen in processions and other celebrations. The church also organized religious brotherhoods that had the functions of celebrating a religious icon and serving as a mutual benefit society. Slaves participated in a diversified economy throughout colonial times, including in mining, growing staples and cash crops, or transporting goods. In cities, some slaves could work as skilled artisans. They and others could give part of their earnings to their masters, while husbanding the remainder to buy freedom and independence. In rural areas, slaves sometimes had permission to grow vegetables and tobacco on estate land for their own use or for sale. Such activities gave them a healthier diet and allowed the frugal to save to purchase freedom. Although natives were often considered superior to slaves in the social hierarchy, in practice slaves were often treated better than natives. Black slaves were expensive investments. Therefore, they found leniency from many masters. They enjoyed Sundays and religious holidays off. Natives, out of the sight of the priest, often had to work on those same days. Some skilled blacks had native helpers. On sugar estates, slaves supervised the boiling of the syrup to the point of crystallization, a highly exacting job, and were sometimes given bonuses for a job well done. Plowing, leveling land, and cutting cane were often done by natives. On tanning and soap-making facilities, blacks were master tanners and soap makers. Natives skinned the

The contours of colonial society  67 Table 6.1 Racial Mixture in Spanish America Spaniard + Indio Spaniard + Black Black + Indian Mestizo + Indian Spaniard + Mestizo Spaniard + Mulato Spaniard + Morisco Spaniard + Alvino Mestizo + Indian Mestiza + Mulato Mulato + Caribujo Caribujo + Indian Mulato + Zambaigo Indian + Lovo Indian + coyote Calpamulato + cambuja Tente en el aire + Mulato Indio + Noteentiendo Black + Albarasado

mestizo mulato lovo/lobo or sambo lovo castizo morisco alvino negro torna atrás mestindio or coyote campa mulato albarasado zambaigo calpamulata chino caribujo or sambaloo chamizo tente en el aire noteenentiendo tornatrás caribujo

animals, carried items, cut wood, built corrals, and did the slaughtering. Natives were not treated as well as blacks, because if a native got sick or died, he could be replaced at little or no cost by the master. The opposite was true for the slaves. Close encounters led to miscegenation and a complex multi-racial society. The Spanish elite lived with natives and blacks in their homes, where they served as domestics – cooking, cleaning, and sewing. When the mistress went to the market she interacted with native market women, selling their produce. The close interaction of Spaniards, blacks, and natives in homes and places of worship and labor brought forth babies of mixed heritage. Table 6.1 provides a sampling of the categories applied to individuals of mixed bloodlines, disregarding regional variations in some terms. These individuals comprised a large and growing sector of society, called the castas. A series of eighteenth-century paintings show visual representations of interracial couples and their offspring in interesting socio-economic contexts. Mestizos, mulattos, and sambos or lovos (also lobos) were some of the most common terms.

The status of women Peninsular social values transferred to America dictated that women should be spared interactions with persons outside the controlled context of family and household. The ideal woman should be sheltered, if not cloistered; virginity was equated to honor along with purity of blood (limpieza de sangre – the absence of Jewish or Moorish or black descent). But, only elite women could approximate the norm.

68  The Hapsburg centuries Indeed, Spanish thinkers stereotyped women as less intelligent, rational, and wise than men. They were also identified as foolish, inconsistent, gossipy, overly-emotional, irrational, vacillating, weak, and deceitful. Males feared that they could be morally fragile and easily tempted by the devil. Ladies were taught to be silent and were often undereducated, if at all. They needed males to protect and guide them. Yet, the law dictated that men and women could share equally in inheritance; that women could own property, and sell, buy, exchange, and donate it with a husband’s permission, if married; and that her dowry remained her own even as it was managed by her spouse. In marriage, the bride was to honor and obey her husband; the groom was to honor, love, protect, and provide for his wife. In America, the Spanish encountered strong native women who headed city states and ethnic groups in Mexico and Peru. If not prominently in power, elite women played important roles in establishing lineages or rulership and dynastic alliances through marriage. Contarhuacho, one of Huayna Capac’s many wives, oversaw as many as 6,000 households and 300 serving women who cooked, spun, wove, and helped plant. She advised her husband and sons on state affairs. In addition, Spaniards found monumental edifices that housed acllas, chosen women who brewed beer to serve at important feasts, wove the fine textiles given as rewards to faithful followers and sometimes married elite men chosen for them by the emperor. Female gods were also prominent in both Mexico and the Andes. Women proved indispensable allies to Cortes and Pizarro. Cortes received Malintzin, a Tabascan woman during his campaign against the Aztecs. She became his translator, advisor, and mother to his son Martín. Pizarro took Ynes Yupanqui, a daughter of Guayna Capac, as a partner. These women embodied prestige, social ties, and were treated as honorable ladies. Spanish women arrived slowly. Thirty traveled with Columbus on his third voyage in 1498. Between 1509 and 1519, 308 arrived in the Caribbean as domestics or in family groups. By 1560, 16 percent of the Spanish immigrants were female, a percent that grew to as high as 40 percent, circa 1600. Because of these low numbers, many Spaniards took native partners. Spanish women in the American kingdoms were the most likely to live up to the sheltered, obedient, closeted, and chaste ideal. Women had two choices. They could marry, usually at a young age. Most females in the eighteenth century married between the ages of 17 and 27. Marriage was a family affair; arranged marriage the standard and norm. Romantic love was not as important a consideration as wealth and standing. First-cousin marriage to consolidate wealth within the family was not uncommon. A married women could look forward to a large family and perhaps an active life behind the scenes, tracking family expenditures or helping a charity. The second choice was to marry God and profess as a nun, an act that conferred honor to a family. Requirements to enter most convents included a vocation, legitimacy, and purity of blood, although one or more of these

The contours of colonial society  69 requirements could be waived. In many convents, each nun had to pay a dowry of 2,000–3,300 pesos. Convents had their own hierarchies: nuns of the black veil held higher status then nuns of the white veil. Discalced orders were the exceptions. In these, nuns took vows of poverty and accepted women with smaller dowries. Many convents owned property, which paid them rents and brought them other benefits. The sisters also loaned out surplus funds to engage in business. Or, some engaged in a business of their own. One notable example is a convent which ran a bakery, staffed by a dozen slaves. Life in a convent offered an alternative lifestyle to women, in which they could assume leadership roles, write poems, plays, autobiographies and music, or engage in such activities as teaching, sewing and embroidery. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (b. 1648) joined the Mexico City convent of San Gerónimo and wrote steadily until silenced by the bishop in 1690. Among her most memorable poems is one that begins: “Misguided men, who will chastise a woman when no blame is due, oblivious that it is you who prompted what you criticize”. (See Document 4 for the complete text of this poem.) Most women, however, could not aspire to the ideal. They were visible outside the home, working as artisans in the cloth trade, in food production, as shop keepers, street vendors, or domestics. They produced and sold candles, soap, bread, tortillas, and alcoholic beverages. They took in laundry, ran errands, delivered messages, and accompanied the more comfortable as chaperones. A few both free and slave became entrepreneurs, owning land, renting out rooms, lending money, or running stores and taverns. Every settlement also had herbalists and curers and midwives, who often were women.

Change and resistance But social labels are sometimes deceptive. One regional study of over 900 Peruvian landowners from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries showed that landowners were businessmen, occupying multiple roles in society. Landowners directed the planting of wheat and sugar, for example, and also ran the mills that processed these products. Ranchers who were lumped into the landowning class, but who did not necessarily own the land on which their animals pastured (as pastures were declared common by the crown), oversaw the husbandry that increased the head of cattle, sheep, and goats, and also the tanning facilities and soap-making complexes that processed the animal products. They also had interests in commercial activities, urban real estate, shipping enterprises, and mines. Some held positions as royal officials and their donations made them the major patrons of the church. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many of these individuals were linked through kinship ties and professional or business links. In short, their actual numbers were often much smaller than the multiple roles they held would indicate.

70  The Hapsburg centuries But, society was not stable. There was competition between these businessmen, especially when times were hard. By the end of the sixteenth century, the original 40 vecinos named at one villa’s founding had diminished by half. Some had moved on to the capital, died, or simply disappeared from the official records. Those who were still active competed for land, irrigation water, and labor. By the end of the seventeenth century, the heirs of the successful entrepreneurs were ensconced at the peak of society. Sons studied in Lima or Europe. Some of the sons and daughters cost their families large sums for dowries to profess and enter convents and monasteries. Some offspring lost interest in the family business and were content to live off of their capital. Some of the generated revenue was not invested as in the days of their fathers and grandfathers, but spent on economically unproductive items, such as lavish furnishings for their houses or oil for the lamps in the church dedicated to a favorite saint or religious image. Though justified by status and reputational demands of local society, such a spending profile proved a precarious backdrop for the natural disasters and re-building requirements that the eighteenth century brought in. The demise of the old families opened opportunities for the new in a continuing, generational shakeup of the prestige and power hierarchy. But the lower reaches of society were not as satisfied and sanguine. Change in these sectors might become a matter of life or death. The castas, blacks, and natives worked together in many scenarios, but it was the natives who seemed to receive a disproportionate share of ill treatment. As cruelty, overwork, forced conversion, tribute, and the removal of recalcitrant caciques mounted, the subjugated died, took flight, or resisted. Native defiance took several forms. Some fought, as in the defense of Tenochtitlán. Recollect that the Mexica and their allies kept the Spanish at bay for about two years, despite the technological and psychological advantages of the invaders. They learned the tactics of the Spanish, noting that the Spanish could not swim, which aided them as the Spanish fled over the causeways connecting the city to the mainland. Furthermore, they realized that their cannon and harquebus’ had straight trajectories, so rounding a corner served as protection. The Andeans also learned that the Spanish did not announce their battles as the natives did. The ambush then was adopted and deployed to good advantage. The most obvious were their revolts and rebellions, some local and some more widespread. Examples are numerous. The original inhabitants of Hispañola destroyed the first Spanish town of Navidad in 1493. All the Spanish died. After the siege of Cuzco in 1536–37, the emperor Manco Inca, soured on his European acquaintances for their insults, left with his adherents to build and occupy a site in the jungle northwest of Cuzco in 1536. From this hidden jungle sanctuary, Manco Inca organized raids that disrupted European commercial routes and harassed native societies allied with the Europeans. This resistance, dubbed the “neo-Inca state”, centered at Vilcabamba lasted until the 1570s when troops sent by Viceroy Francisco

The contours of colonial society  71 Álvarez de Toledo y Figueroa, the viceroy from 1569 to 1581, captured the last Inca and executed him, putting an end to this rump government. Judged the most important potential threat to the Spanish of the sixteenth century was the Taki Onqoy, literally, the ‘dancing sickness’, revealed to the Spanish priest Luis de Olivera in 1564. He heard about a subversive heresy which gripped the natives of his parish (Parinacochas), a region in the modern-day Peruvian province of Ayacucho with a dense Quechuaspeaking population. The natives believed that the neglect of their ancestral deities had weakened them. They determined that they had to resume their pre-Hispanic rituals to strengthen them. Then a pan-Andean alliance of deities would defeat the Christian God and kill the invaders with disease and other calamities. To escape a similar fate, the natives had to reject all forms of cooperation with the Europeans and continue worshiping their ancestors. In return, they would enter a purified state of health and abundance. This millenarian movement represented the radical dreams of a new post-Incaic era, purged of Hispanic elements. A generalized sense of misgiving and disillusionment and evident destruction would transition into a new era of regeneration. The re-vindicated ancestors would create a “new world” free of colonizers, materially abundant and unplagued by disease. The movement leaders predicted a “paradise” for those loyal to the “ancestral” gods. In summary, they wanted to re-assert communal or ethnic autonomy, economic self-sufficiency, and re-establish a balance between the living and the dead. In other words, they wanted to re-assert a solidarity within the Andean world with the Spanish clearly identified as the enemy. In practice, the priest alerted authorities. They found caches of arms, but the revolt never took place. Shortly thereafter, high-level Spanish authorities visited native communities and prohibited lords from riding horses with saddle and bridle, from traveling, and from owning firearms. Subsequent investigations revealed thousands of active adherents in the Lucanas, Soras, Chocorvos, and Río Pampas regions of Huánuco, Lima, and Jauja. Only after Cristobal de Albornoz’ thorough anti-idolatry campaign, which consumed two to three years and condemned over 8,000 natives, did messianic sympathies lose their vigor. Scholars have speculated that such a movement would have been difficult to organize, given that each ethnic group retained its own traditions and identity. Natives, in fact, did not begin to identify as “Indians” until the middle of the seventeenth century and then such identifications began as a political strategy to give native leaders more clout when approaching the colonial authorities. Native religious traditions were then driven underground. Today non-Christian propitiation ceremonies by most citizens of Bolivia, for example, to Mother Earth continue every time the foundations of a new house or building are laid. A second example of resistance centered on the native communities of northern Mexico (now the state of New Mexico) and succeeded in ridding the region of Spanish influence in 1680. This area was a distant frontier region, which had first been explored by Europeans in the sixteenth century.

72  The Hapsburg centuries It was 1500 miles north of the Mexican capital. In 1536, four survivors of the Pánfilo de Narváez disastrous 1528 attempt to colonize Florida arrived in Mexico City with tales of their trek across what is today Texas and the southwest of the United States. Three years later, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza sent Fray Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan, with the slave Esteban, north, eventually finding the Zuni pueblos. Other expeditions followed in 1540, 1581, 1590, and 1593. On these trips, the Spanish depended on natives for food and lodging. In some instances, the Spanish took clothing off the backs of natives, feeding growing native resentment and even harsher Spanish retaliation. Governor Don Juan de Oñate finally succeeded in founding a settlement in December 1598. Relations between the settlers and the natives remained strained. The burden of supporting the Spanish and providing tribute proved burdensome, especially during harsh winters. Franciscan efforts to convert the natives forced them to practice their rites in secret. The Spanish presence also disrupted native trade in turquoise, McCaw feathers, hides, dried meat, blankets, and corn. Slowly, some natives accepted Christianity and the Spanish presence. Some accepted baptism for food and military protection against the Apache and Navajo. The Tewas worked for food. Other natives fled rather than acquiesce. But abuses continued. The Spanish fought the natives over control of land, labor, and tribute (of a blanket, tanned buckskins or a buffalo hide per household). Some natives were enslaved; others were forced to work in agriculture and livestock raising for low wages that sometimes went unpaid. Settlers also suffered from the harsh climate and native attacks. Commerce with the outside and the arrival of new settlers were uncommon. So, Hispanic population figures remained low. By 1609, only 60 of the original 150 settlers remained. Thirty of these were adult males. Eight years later there were 48 adults. The number rose to 50 with an additional 16 friars in 1620. In 1634, 250 Hispanics lived in the region. Five years later, the population included 30 Hispanic families and 200 Spanish and mestizo adults. In 1661, the settlement numbered 100 citizens, including mestizos and mulattos. Meanwhile, the native population declined. The Narváez expedition introduced smallpox, which, it is estimated, killed 50 percent of the population. By 1598, only 60,000 or so natives remained. By the mid-seventeenth century, their number had fallen to 17,000, down from 40,000 in 1638. The causes of what has been christened the Pueblo Revolt by historians included the harsh treatment, a heavy tribute burden (calculated as one hand-woven manta (or carrying cloth) and one fanega of corn per quarter per individual). Slave raiding continued. In 1675, the native kivas (ceremonial centers) were destroyed. And, the Spanish mounted a renewed attack on medicine men.

The contours of colonial society  73 These then preached that the native gods had not died. Like the beliefs of the Andeans involved in the Taki Onqoy movement, the Pueblo peoples believed that their gods were increasing again in strength. The revolt was to wash away Christian baptism. No Spanish was to be spoken. They sent knotted deerskins to the pueblos with instructions to untie one knot per day. The last knot indicated the day the revolt should start. The revolt pitted 17,000 or so natives against a few hundred settlers and resulted in hundreds of casualties. A thousand to 1,500 settlers became refugees out of a total of twice that many Hispanic settlers. A total of 401 persons were listed as dead or missing, including native servants. Twenty-one of the friars died. The Spanish returned in 1692 – 12 years later, when the native populace was divided and therefore relatively weak. Santa Fe was re-founded in October of 1693. The population – both Spanish and natives – were forced to cooperate because of continuing attacks by the Camanches. Besides rebellion and revolt, native lords used other ploys to resist Spanish impositions. Caciques found themselves in compromised positions. On the one hand, as “dueños de indios” or possessors of native subjects, they were obliged to protect and favor their followers. But, the Spanish rapidly restructured this role to be one where the cacique was in charge of organizing communal work details and assigning individuals and families with producing goods that he then collected for delivery as tribute to the encomendero and later the corregidor. The plummeting native population soon fell behind in producing tribute, leaving the cacique to make up the deficit from his own holdings or, increasingly, to become a debt collector using threats and harsh treatment to fulfill his obligations to the state. But, a few caciques found a way to lessen the burden, at least in the sixteenth century. The astute cacique who understood the system would hide a portion of his subjects away so that they would not be censused. If they went uncounted, they were not obligated to fulfill work assignments or produce tribute. This tactic became harder as the Spanish population increased, but in the meantime, the caciques had an extra labor force and fewer obligations to the Spanish government. Beginning about the middle of the sixteenth century the natives started to use the Spanish legal system. Natives with the help of interpreters, paralegals, lawyers, and priests petitioned central authorities on a wide range of issues. They asked for justice in cases where Spanish-owned cattle wandered into their unfenced fields and ate their crops (since pre-Hispanic natives had no horses, mules, beef cattle, sheep, or goats, fences were unnecessary). They asked for adjudication when there were disputes over irrigation water and land. They sent petitions against the forced resettlement into reducciones ordered by Viceroy Toledo, a man of boundless energy and an organizational genius. They sent representatives to Mexico City, Lima, and even the court in Spain, despite the fact that court cases took years as

74  The Hapsburg centuries they were appealed up the judicial hierarchy. This was an expensive process that was shared by all community members. Another strategy was to write directly to the king. The most notorious example of this type of resistance was the more than thousand-page, illustrated letter to the king written by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, in the early seventeenth century. He narrated the history of the Incas, accommodating it to fit Christian teachings, probably so as not to appear “pagan” and receive more serious attention at court. He also chronicled all the abuses of the Spanish against the natives and argued for a separate native kingdom – under a loyal and Christian prince, like himself. This long exposé, written in both Spanish and Quechua with over 400 line drawings, paints a detailed picture of the first 80 years or so of colonial life in the Andes. Flight was another significant act of defiance. Whole families moved themselves to other communities where they would become personal retainers or yanaconas of a chief or a Spaniard, also called forasteros or strangers, outsiders. In leaving their communities, cutting kinship ties, giving up their right to use communal resources and relocating, they no longer were subject to producing tribute and forced labor. Finally, other everyday forms of resistance were to slow-down the pace of work, to pretend to not understand, and among many peoples, to continue to worship of their ancestral gods underground. In short, colonial society was born of a continuing re-balancing of the different groups that inhabited America. Spaniards dominated, but natives were not passive. Their under-reported resistance was early and strong. Many natives retreated into their own society and had as little to do with the Spanish as possible. Their subservience can be interpreted as a survival tactic, designed to lessen confrontations to avoid ire.

Part III

The consequences of top-down change

7

The Bourbon reforms

The changing balance of power But, history is never static. During the late fifteenth century, and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, generally speaking, the Spanish crown was in the process of organizing and institutionalizing its power against the autonomy-loving and sometimes rebellious encomenderos and their mostly creole successors. In turn, the crown gave power to landowners, initially, as a societal counterweight to the encomendero elite. Creole miners and merchants also established themselves as key interest groups when wealth could be used to buy land or a seat on the cabildo, both of which recognized their prestige and prominence. Thus, in the seventeenth century, a new creole aristocratic elite had formed. But its position vis-à-vis the power of the crown changed over the years. A group’s position and the tone and shape of American colonialism reflected in some regards the changing balance of power in Europe. The political standing of different countries varied drastically between the late fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. America became a pawn or prize which European powers fought over, like they did in Africa and Asia. To briefly recap, Spain in the sixteenth century was Europe’s greatest power. It had become a leader with the victory of the re-conquest of the peninsula from the Moors. Spain headed a great empire. The Hapsburg holdings included Naples, Sicily, Austria, and the Low Countries (Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands). But Spain’s reach caused problems. Charles I (Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire) (1516–56) used American gold and silver to finance almost constant wars. The reformation sparked conflict in the Low Countries, which ended with Charles’ defeat in 1555 with the Peace of Augsberg, which established the principle that each state leader could dictate the nature of religious observance under his jurisdiction. As a result, Charles retired. His two sons divided the empire. Ferdinand I ruled Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, while Philip II of Spain ruled Spain and the Americas. Therefore, Spain lost control over the heart of Europe. Philip was fervent and pious. His ambition sought national glory and a strong Catholicism. These

78  The consequences of top-down change objectives were supported by Peruvian silver, which increased at the time due to the discovery of the Huancavelica mercury mine and the technological innovations of the amalgamation process that facilitated the processing of lower grade ores. Philip II took over Portugal in 1580, after the House of Aviz that had ruled Portugal died out. Spain then ruled all of the Iberian Peninsula and claimed control of Portugal’s American holdings. From 1580 to 1640, all of Portugal’s American claims were under one crown with the exception of a few foreign intrusions, mostly in the Caribbean and the colony of Jamestown, founded in 1607. Scholars regard this era as the peak of Spain’s power. But Philip was challenged in the Low Countries when the populace rebelled against the Inquisition that had been established to monitor Protestantism. New taxes, the confiscation of noble estates, and the death penalty for thousands provoked more repression and a strong reaction against Spanish rule. When England helped the Low Countries (Netherlands), Philip began to fight the English that was reflected in the New World raids by the English, such as Sir Francis Drake. England emerged as Spain’s main rival. In 1588, Philip II tried to invade England, but its armada was defeated. Philip died in 1598. Peace was re-established in 1609. The Netherlands was divided: Holland in the north was free; the south became part of Belgium and was retained by Spain. Simultaneously, the reformation resulted in a loss of papal legitimacy. This called into question the title of the Indies as established by the Treaty of Tordesillas. This development encouraged other European powers to seek footholds in the Americas. As noted above, English citizens settled Jamestown in the early seventeenth century. French nationals explored what is now Canada. These two nations and the Dutch invaded the Caribbean islands not settled by the Spanish. In 1630, the Dutch, furthermore, seized northeastern Brazil and held the region until 1654. Their objectives were first to trade, but quickly advanced to staking out their own jurisdictions. The Spanish state considered these areas peripheral to their main thrusts in areas rich in native populations who could extract precious minerals and tend the fields of cash crops, like sugar cane. Furthermore, Spain was troubled with internal decay and corruption. After the defeat of the armada in 1588, the treasury often ran out of funds. The monarchy began selling offices and titles of nobility. Philip III (1598–1621) expelled the Moriscos, the descendants of Muslims who had converted to Christianity to escape being forced to leave Spain in the sixteenth century, which hurt and weakened the economy. The quality of leadership declined. Nobles grew relatively stronger, enjoying the extravagant court life in Madrid. Pressing matters were neglected or relegated to a growing bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the crown alienated some interest groups in its American realms. Two examples will illustrate this point. The first is the operation of

The Bourbon reforms  79 the mercury mine at Huancavelica. Mercury, as already established, was an essential ingredient in the amalgamation process which enabled miners to extract silver from lower grade ores. The mine was brought to the attention of the Spanish authorities in 1563 who then issued a license to exploit it. Native women had long used it, combined with sulfide (cinnabar), to color their faces. Viceroy Francisco de Toledo made the mine a government monopoly in 1570, which lasted to 1813. The mine was leased out to a group of six families, which formed a gremio (guild or trade group), for its operation at the pleasure of the crown. Native laborers extracted the mercury. A government official supervised and the yield rose from a value of 10,000 to 400,000 pesos per year. But as time passed, yields and incomes declined. Flooding became a problem. Miner dissatisfaction with the terms of the contracts offered by the crown led to smuggling and the bribery of officials. The labor supply declined as mercury poisoning, pneumonia, and accidents took a toll on the native workers. Over time, Huancavelica came to symbolize decay, corruption, and inefficient administration. The Bourbons, who inherited the throne at the death of Charles II in 1700, began to reform Huancavelica. They proposed that the government should run the mines directly in 1730, but no action was taken. In the 1760s, the gremio was abolished and the contract was awarded to one person. Production did not rise substantially. Still dissatisfied, the crown took over the administration in the 1780s and sent new technology and experts from Europe. Corruption continued until the mine collapsed in 1786. As a result, the crown decided to open the mine to exploitation on a free enterprise basis, which proved effective in increasing production and tax revenue. These changes in royal policy resulted in a shift in control of economic resources. The crown lost direct control of such mineral resources as Huancavelica. Low production meant low tax revenues for the duration. The slowness of changing the gremio system left the creoles in charge, but discredited the royal decision-makers for the slowness of royal action. The newly-implemented free enterprise model of exploitation represented a loosening of government policy. The second example is the trading company set up in 1728 by the Vasques: the Real Compañía Guipuzcoana de Caracas, known as the Caracas Company, for short. This joint stock company was designed to control, read monopolize, trade in the middle of the eighteenth century in a region that was considered relatively unimportant and had been neglected. The crown had employed its limited resources elsewhere, allowing contraband to flourish relatively unimpeded. The idea was to let the company supply European goods and buy and export cacao for chocolate. The theory behind its establishment was that a more regular supply of European goods would decrease contraband, which robbed the crown of income. The creole, American-born inhabitants of what was to become the modern

80  The consequences of top-down change country of Venezuela, resented the company precisely because it prevented contraband, especially with the Dutch. Contraband had long supplied the creoles with cheap, untaxed goods. In 1741, the Crown granted the company exclusive rights to buy and export an additional product: tobacco. The company’s monopsonistic position as sole buyer of cacao and tobacco meant that local prices to farmers of these commodities fell. Under company control, legal trade increased along with tax duties. Foreigners, like the Dutch, were distanced. Both of these outcomes favored Spain. Yet, creoles found that the company could not supply needed goods while cutting off their cheap supplies. Since the company and its crown backer were not keeping their part of the bargain, finally, aggrieved creoles rioted in 1749. Only after years of applying their economic power and social prestige to pressure the state did the crown in 1780 declare free trade. Creole success meant that the Spanish lost power over trade in the region. The creoles had successfully campaigned against the company and crown. Their next step was to acquire political power.

The reforms By the end of the seventeenth century, the viceroys and the Audiencias ruled over a multi-racial society. The well-entrenched Spanish bureaucracy was fully formed; it functioned from the cities, slowly adjudicating the issues pending before it. The creoles who had long before replaced the encomenderos in the upper class controlled large tracts of land, thousands of grazing animals, textile workshops (obrajes), tanning facilities, and mines, generating sometimes great wealth. Political power was purchased. The wealthy bought seats on the cabildos that generated prestige, but little power outside the locality, and positions as corregidores. They also bought the rights to tax farm, collecting taxes, such as the alcabala and the ecclesiastical tithes. The creoles furthermore monopolized the top positions in the local militias that participated in ceremonials, but never in a war. Distance gave the local elites autonomy by using such institutions as “obedezco, pero no cumplo”. The creoles had the advantages of education, travel, networks, and understanding that they used to manipulate the system for their benefit. But when the Bourbons with foreigner eyes looked at the panorama, they saw large amounts of corruption and inefficiencies. They determined that the American kingdoms were unwieldly and unprofitable. The last Hapsburg king succumbed to his infirmities without an heir in 1700. In his will, he left the Spanish crown to the French Bourbons. After a war to settle succession (War of the Spanish Succession, 1700–13), Philip V took office and ruled without contestation until 1746. King Felipe V had been raised outside the peninsula, so upon arrival he viewed Spain with a newcomer’s eyes. He kept in mind that the European context had changed. While in the sixteenth century, Spain outranked France and Britain in power, by the eighteenth century, Britain, France, and Holland topped Spain. The situation

The Bourbon reforms  81 in America had also changed. In the sixteenth century, the social hierarchy was headed by royal officials, followed by conquerors and encomenderos, clerics, and money makers: miners and merchants. Artisans, and laborers: natives and black slaves occupied the bottom rungs of society. By the late eighteenth century, peninsulares occupied a growing number of royal posts on the audiencias and peninsular-born military men served as intendentes. The opportunities for creole pretenders had shrunk. The intellectual climate had also changed with the spreading tenets of the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on observation and experiment. Political policy and bureaucratic adjustments increased intra-system tensions. Eventually the legitimacy of the ruling status quo was also challenged. The Bourbon reforms sponsored by Philip V, and his successors (Ferdinand VI (1746–59), Charles III (1759–88), and Charles IV (1789–1808)) were a series of changes dictated from the top down in the middle of the eighteenth century. They were the product of the ideal eighteenth-century enlightened despot – a king who used his power to reform or change society for the common good. Gone were the days when the king’s right to rule was based on divine right or revealed truth. Now the king’s rule was justified by the king’s achievements or expertise, the ability to accomplish things better than anyone else. The king’s legitimacy was based on the results of his rule rather than tradition. He had become the first servant of the state. The reforms were first attempted to reorder Spain and subsequently exported to America: to Cuba, Mexico, and Peru. The innovations were designed to make the system more rational and orderly. The reforms reflected the belief introduced by the philosophes that if one transformed the environment, humanity would be better off. It was believed that one could use knowledge to perfect humans and society, a flawless expression of divine and natural law. The underlying motivations for the reforms were to centralize power and increase the revenues flowing into Spanish coffers. To the first end, the Bourbons wanted to improve the efficiency of administration by simplifying and streamlining the bureaucracy and decision-making state apparatus. Unlike the Hapsburgs who purposefully designed jurisdictions to overlap, so that the king would always have the final say on important matters, the Bourbon state set about to clarify jurisdictions. Officials’ duties were defined more specifically, so that the overall system lost the flexibility of the Hapsburg design that had lasted over 300 years. To effect the second aim, the reforms strengthened the defense of Spain’s American colonies against the encroachment of European powers. Spain needed to strengthen the defensive system as a result of the realignment of European political power. Countries like England and France were seeking trade opportunities and colonies. Spain had tried to maintain a monopolistic trade system, but militarily and administratively it was unable to do so. Spain’s failure to supply the colonies with ample goods at reasonable prices, invited French, English, and Dutch traders to engage in contraband,

82  The consequences of top-down change like that described for Venezuela. Spanish merchant houses and the crown lost money. Therefore, the crown wanted to tighten up the system to stop smuggling. A crackdown on illegal trade it was projected would raise royal revenues. The Bourbons wanted to make the American kingdoms, in the eighteenth century referred to as colonies for the first time, profitable from the state’s point of view. Increased revenues promised to strengthen Spain visà-vis other European powers by giving the state more money to support European actions and reassert its power. The most important of the Bourbon reforms as extended to the Americas included, first, the extension of the viceregal system. Before 1700, there were only two viceroyalties: New Spain or Mexico and New Castile or Peru. These were very large jurisdictions, so large that one man (the viceroy) could not effectively govern the entire area. Distances were great. Roads and trails were often in ill repair and utterly impassable during the rainy season. Therefore, transportation and communication were slow. Even when communication was possible, there was no real way to enforce orders. The creoles had local power. The viceroy and his officials depended on them for execution. The creoles had several devices to stall and prevent implementation of royal orders and get their own way and protect other creoles. One was to have the local official kiss a royal decree and then hold it over his head, saying “obedezco pero no cumplo”, meaning I recognize the right of the state to send me this order, but I will not comply. Implicit in the words was the understanding that the decree or order did not fit local conditions and was therefore unenforceable. Years sometimes passed, while local officials wrote back to the issuing office, stating their reasons for non-compliance. Responses might take years, all the while the order remained unenforced, a dead letter. Therefore, the crown established new viceroyalties. The express message was that this action would bring justice nearer the population, while in reality it was a manifestation of the desire to centralize power. The viceroyalty of New Granada was created from the northern part of the original viceroyalty of Peru. Problems that could not be solved led to its suppression in 1717 and its successful re-establishment in 1739. Years later, in 1776, the Viceroyalty of the River of La Plata was created from the southern part of the Peruvian viceroyalty. The northern part of the region had historically been tied to supplying foodstuffs, livestock, and textiles to Upper Peru (Bolivia) and the Potosí mines. The town of Buenos Aires, which had been established in the 1530s, had been and remained a small town before 1776 that was known as a contraband center. Silver, smuggled out down the river system from Upper Peru, was exchanged there for goods coming in illegally by sea directly from Europe. Spain decided to establish the capital of a viceroyalty there to hinder the contraband trade and protect the southern coast from European invasion. Tax collection consequently increased. The effect was to alienate the creoles who were used to self-rule and disrupt the

The Bourbon reforms  83 riverine and overland trade patterns. Creoles found that provisioning was more expensive and miners lost the chance to avoid paying the royal fifth in taxes on their silver production. A complementary reform was the establishment of the Intendente system, which represented the reorganization of the administrative system at a regional level. It was a reform of French inspiration that was designed to introduce uniformity and discipline in government while extending royal power by increasing centralization. It was introduced gradually, first in Spain in 1718. It was brought to Cuba in 1764 and extended to La Plata in 1782 and Peru and the Philippines in 1784. Its introduction meant that corregimientos and corregidores disappeared. The small number of intendencies, the administrative units that displaced the scores of corregimientos, were larger in size, sometimes two, three, or more times the sizes of the earlier corregimientos. With the replacement of the corregimientos, the lucrative opportunities for creoles to serve as local officials disappeared. The Crown instituted a new way of recruiting intendentes. It ended the sale of political office to the highest bidder, regardless of qualifications. The Bourbons appointed, instead, men of merit and ability who were dependent on the crown for their position and, therefore, tended to be more loyal than those who had purchased office. They were paid an adequate salary to decrease the possibility of bribery and corruption. In theory, higher remuneration would halt the practice of bureaucrats using positions for personal gain. This had been a real weakness of the pay-for-positions practice of the Hapsburgs. Most of the intendentes, at first, were military men, technocrats, some with law degrees, who were far different than the sometimes frivolous and parasitic nobles of bygone days. They had gained their positions by earning a reputation as good administrators who also may have been helped along by influence at court or in the military establishment. This made them dependent on the monarchy for their place and more likely to uphold the monarchy’s interests. Intendentes had a higher status and more jurisdiction than the corregidor had had. A jurisdiction over justice, administration, finance, and war gave the intendente wider scope of action than his predecessors. What is more, they were given general responsibilities for bettering the roads and bridges, introducing new crops, teaching new technologies, and spreading useful knowledge, in general. The success of the system depended on the quality and initiative of the intendentes themselves. (For a contemporary idea of what could be viewed or learned on a road trip between Buenos Aires and Lima, see Document 5.) But they did not act alone. They were assisted by subdelegados (subdelegates, subordinates) in charge of partidos or subdistricts. They assisted in the collection of revenue and the administration of power. They were heads of the local military units. They also executed orders of the intendentes in administration, treasury affairs, and war. When the intendentes made their rounds of the various towns, the subdelegado prepared court cases for his

84  The consequences of top-down change review. Finally, the subdelegates were asked to amass economic and social information that could be used to encourage industry and agriculture or promote public building. In practice, the system was not without its problems. The intendentes’ power over the provincial treasuries and militias checked the viceroy’s power and made some almost independent of their reach. The contradictions between division of labor and the concentration of power led to clashes. One result was that at times the viceroy did not have the money to carry out effective administration or demonstrate the luxury of the court surrounding his person. Such deficiencies reduced the prestige of the office. Peninsular authorities, therefore, reconsidered the structure and interdependence of intendente and viceroy and remedied the situation in 1788 by giving the viceroys renewed control over finances. The unintended consequences of such disputes over finances were that creoles saw two high royal officials fighting over resources, which subverted the image of both and broke the unity of colonial government. A second example of the intendent system in practice comes from a consideration of the responsibilities of intendentes and subdelegados to introduce useful knowledge to stimulate production and consumption; and rationalize the system of taxation by establishing a more equitable, efficient collection system. The Bourbons, therefore, rearranged finances. The previous tax collection system followed a tax-farming paradigm, where the right to collect taxes from a given population was sold to the highest bidder. The highest bidder tended to be a local or someone who was well acquainted with the area economy. They would bid less than they expected to collect, after expenses. The Crown was willing to accept these bids because it eliminated the need for a greater functionary staff in the provinces. Under the Bourbons, officials began to collect taxes directly and at official rates. Taxes, like the sales tax, increased. For example, the sales tax (alcabala) had been imposed in the 1590s at 2 percent and increased in the seventeenth century to 4 percent. In many places, it was never effectively collected at those rates; actual collection was as low as 2–3 percent. So, when the Bourbons ordered royal officials to collect the alcabala, instead of tax farmers, the tax doubled, offending the local populace. In some cases, the rate of taxation not only increased, but new taxes were also legislated. The crown established a new tax of 12 percent on the wholesale price of liquor paid by its producers. They instituted the cabezon, a tax on fallow land charged to hacendados. The Bourbons also expanded the products the government monopolized. Tobacco was one of those products. Tobacco was first controlled in Spain in the late seventeenth century, where it accounted for about 25 percent of crown revenue at the time. Its control was introduced in Cuba in 1717, Peru in 1752, Chile and La Plata in 1753, New Spain in 1764, Costa Rica in 1766, and New Granada, Paraguay, and Venezuela in the 1770s. It became the second most important source of revenue after silver.

The Bourbon reforms  85 Only the farmers producing the best quality leaf were permitted to grow the leaf, thus eliminating a cash crop for many small producers with which they purchased items that they could not make themselves and paid their obligations to the church and state. Only farmers in Saña and Chachapoyas in Peru, for example, were given official production quotas. Clandestine fields were burned upon discovery. All legally grown tobacco was to be sold to the state at a fixed price set by the royal bureaucrats and shipped by mule train to state-run processing centers in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla, Orizaba, and Lima. The “factoria” in Mexico City employed 13,000 workers. The crown licensed retailers to sell the resulting products (cigarettes, cigars, and snuff). Monopolizing production ran into problems. Contraband remained an issue. Small farmers continued to grow the leaf behind the backs of inspectors. Most was destined for personal or local use, but some was sold to others who produced unlicensed products to sell in cities. Farming the leaf was hard to police. Furthermore, the supply of paper was limited and sometimes hard to get. Third, the supply of tobacco was unreliable, especially around the Gulf of Mexico because of hostilities with foreign interlopers. Finally, people objected, to the point that protests broke out in Puebla (Mexico). In Peru, complaints led state officials to commission a report that found that the product was of poor quality and administrative costs high. Occasionally, the supply of leaf was so great that it deteriorated in warehouses before it could be processed. And, finally, producers and transporters cheated on the weight of tobacco supplies. Therefore, the monopoly in Lima was closed in May of 1791 and relaxed in 1792 with a corresponding decline of revenues. Despite the problems, the profitability of the tobacco monopoly was high. In New Granada, the tobacco monopoly became the most important source of revenue in the 30 years before Independence. In Peru, the revenue from the tobacco monopoly was the second or third highest single source from the 1760s to 1809. In Mexico, it was even more important, reaching the first place in the decades from 1780 to the end of the century. In Venezuela, it yielded almost 2 million pesos in 1798, dropping to a little over a million a year later. The regressive tax ploy on a commodity that was enjoyed by rich and poor alike caused resentment, especially among the popular classes. Sales of playing cards and alcohol, also considered luxuries and non-essentials by the crown, but considered necessities by the populous, were also controlled – furthering anger among the general population. But, the Bourbons did not uniformly increase taxes. In some sectors, as already mentioned, the quinto real was lowered to 10 percent to bolster production in the mines. In connection with their motivations, too, the Bourbons reformed the militia into a more traditional army. Before 1700, Spanish America was not a militarized society. In the sixteenth century, the encomenderos promised to keep a horse, armor, sword, and a retinue of men to fight for the king,

86  The consequences of top-down change if needed. In the seventeenth century, local militias took form with creole participation even though joining could be expensive. They joined to gain social prestige and the power that came with it, to don authoritative uniforms and participate in colorful parades and ceremonies, and to use a title. Over the years, the sons of rich landowners who called themselves hacendados or estancieros (ranch owners) and miners became captains, lieutenants, and field marshals. Their offspring then started using the honorific titles of “don” and “doña”. These were sometimes used in conjunction with other titles, such as Bachiller (a title given to a person who has finished high school and is preparing for university studies) and Licenciado (a university degree equivalent to a bachelor’s degree), referring to their educational achievement. A further enticement was the right to enjoy trial in a military court, a privilege called the fuero, where the accused could expect more lenient treatment than in a regular trial before the corregidor or another court. Until the 1760s, the militias’ obligations were largely theoretical. But after Spain’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War in the 1760s, a secret panel of advisors began meeting once a week to devise a plan to defend the New World kingdoms. They noted that in 1758, New Spain had only slightly more than 3,000 regular troops mostly on the northern frontier or in the ports. By 1764, they had a plan to fortify American seaports. But, they realized that this was not enough. Havana had been fortified, but the English had taken it in 1762. Therefore, they also needed additional manpower. They decided to rethink colonial militias to be organized around “fijo” (in place) units made up of regiments and battalions which were raised and stationed permanently in America and peninsular units which would rotate in overseas service. The cost of the second made it impossible to maintain them. Therefore, most of the colonial army would require a redesign of the colonial militias. Change started in 1764 with the arrival of Lieutenant General Juan de Villalba y Angulo. His first priorities were to strengthen Spain’s defenses against the English threat. Also, Russians were exploring the Pacific coast of North America and Spain feared encroachment. Problems characterized the formation of a disciplined military organization. The program could only succeed with public support and military service was not popular in New Spain as a result of the means used to recruit emergency forces before 1762: forcible recruitment or drafting. Men suffered from apathy. Officials did not support the idea of an army. Spanish regulars ordered creoles around, which bred resentment and jealousy. Recruitment, therefore, appealed to the creoles’ desire for honors and titles. They wanted to become high officers for the social status that came with the positions. An added attraction was the fuero and the right to trial by one’s military peers. Furthermore, it became a means for upward social mobility and confirmation of one’s social standing. But the numbers of creoles attracted to service were insufficient, so the military forces were opened up to the entire free male population. A large

The Bourbon reforms  87 number of castas or mixed bloods joined to earn a salary and get access to the military courts. Some creoles resented this change. When even this was not sufficient to fill the ranks, men were drafted regardless of age, marital status, physical condition and occupation. Confusion reigned when officers did not know whether to form separate or mixed-race companies. Companies were identified by race and socio-economic status. Selection of officers remained hap-hazard. The Bourbons sent peninsular military men to America to train the troops. The creoles resented this fact. They judged some of the peninsulares (those born in the peninsula) as beneath them in wealth, education, and culture and shied away from participation. They could not gracefully accept the peninsulares’ orders and beratements. The peninsulares treated them as lesser citizens just because of the place that they were born when creoles had long called themselves loyal Spaniards and identified as such. These affronts and others in the long run helped shape the creoles’ selfconsciousness as Americans. The establishment of this reformed military organization disrupted colonial society. It caused unrest. In Patzcuaro, a mob forcibly liberated a body of draftees from a recruiting detail of regular troops and stoned the party as it left town. Puebla experienced riots in connection with the enlistment efforts. The cabildo voted to dispose of 15,000 pesos in the municipal treasury so that the money could not be used to buy uniforms. In the capital, mobs stoned and jeered detachments of regular troops. This reform also caused jurisdictional disputes. The military had to struggle to define its power. A soldier, for example, who had theoretical access to the military courts also was a vassal of the crown and subject to ordinary courts. As a communicant of the church, he could appear before ordinary and extraordinary ecclesiastical tribunals. If he were engaged in some occupation which enjoyed a special fuero, and his suit arose from that occupation, he could appear before that special tribunal. The military court had competence in all legal affairs, civil and criminal for all militia members and their families. What court had jurisdiction if the soldier was off duty? The laws were unclear. Such questions were settled gradually by compromise. In this instance, the military had jurisdiction only when the soldier was in uniform and on active duty. But the other courts remained upset because they lost jurisdiction over large segments of the populace and therefore lost fees. Another problem was that the pardo (brown-skinned) soldiers were given exemption from paying tribute, which put a serious strain on the treasury and upset the responsible royal personnel. In 1781, the viceroy revoked this privilege, but it was unevenly applied around the kingdom. Until that happened, other sectors of society had to pay more tribute to make up for that which was lost. Furthermore, soldiers took advantage of their special status and committed crimes and excesses against civilians. Offences were not properly

88  The consequences of top-down change punished because of the military fuero. In fact, the fuero became a screen behind which all types of wrongdoing could be hidden. These results made the general populace hostile. People could see what was happening as the army’s autonomy increased. The populace stopped cooperating; officers were not given the deference due their positions. Some officers feared that the insubordination of the militiamen would serve as an example to the natives. Officials recognized the danger of a popular uprising. Such fears diminished once the crown sent a royal inspector in 1784 to recommend reforms to the reform. The results were a decrease in the size of the militia. By 1784, the size had increased to over 39,000 men. The inspector reduced the size to 29,000 to make the army more efficient and cheaper to maintain. Furthermore, its fuero was reduced temporarily, only to be again expanded when invasion threatened. But, in practice, the attempt to redefine the military fuero was unsuccessful, as the military remained largely exempt from civilian authority more often than not. The crown had established a military machine over which it had only limited control. The upshot of this reform was that the military represented to the creoles an encroachment on their traditional rights. Staunch supporters of the crown were alienated. In the process, respect for the crown and its officials was lost. A praetorian tradition was born, with the military increasingly meddling in society. In the years to come, the crown would lose control of this institution. These military reforms were part of the king’s wider plan to strengthen his royal institutions by weakening its long-time partner in governing, the church. The Jesuit order became the crown’s most visible target. The order had built a good reputation and become very important and powerful over the years. The Jesuits ran the most prestigious private schools, the ones that educated the creole elite’s sons. They also had amassed numerous and valuable rural and urban real estate and haciendas either from donations of the faithful or outright purchase. Their emphasis on useful knowledge enabled them to turn these properties into productive and profitable possessions. Their cash surpluses allowed them to become financiers to the local elites. In Paraguay, the Jesuits ran missions, called reducciones, that developed into power and production centers. Yet, in 1767, the entire order was ordered to leave their schools, libraries, real estate, and haciendas behind as they were summarily escorted to ships and expelled from Spanish America under secret orders from the Crown. This act was revolutionary as no other corporate group had heretofore been expelled in such a brusque manner. It left other orders wondering which order would be next. The reasons that the Crown chose to expel the Jesuits are debated. Among the reasons were the facts that as early as the 1760s the Jesuits were allegedly spreading seditious ideas. The Jesuits ran the acknowledged best schools. They read prohibited, banned, books, such as those by Locke, Rousseau and other philosophes of the enlightenment, and presented their ideas to their pupils. They discussed such ideas as the social contract, separation

The Bourbon reforms  89 of powers, and that power was alienated to the state by the people, what for some were subversive opinions. This became a pretext for their expulsion. Furthermore, the Jesuits took an additional vow to obey the pope and passed their ultra-montane beliefs on faith and disciple onto their students. These notions threatened a jealous king’s desire to centralize power. Once the Jesuits were gone, the state took control of their properties, which were sold eventually to pay the pensions of the exiled Jesuits. A fourth Bourbon reform was the establishment of a limited free trade system. The old flota system of several ships sailing together from Seville or Cadiz under armed escorts, hence the references to armadas (armed), and under the supervision of the Casa de Contratación, was eventually abandoned circa 1740, when the crown allowed instead single registered ships to sail, only to reestablish the armadas later. Finally, in 1778, Charles III issued the “Decree of Free Trade”, which allowed the Spanish American ports to trade directly with one another and most ports in Spain. Therefore, commerce would no longer be restricted to four colonial ports (Veracruz, Cartagena, Lima/Callao, and Panama). The volumen of trade rose. The purpose of the liberalization of trade was again the desire to undercut contraband trade, to legalize commerce, and to systematically collect import and export taxes. Such resolutions turned some ports, like Buenos Aires, into boom towns. But not everyone was happy with the changes. Creoles could not export products which competed with products produced in Spain. Furthermore, free trade hurt local industries. The wine industry of Cordova was hurt by European imports. The textile industry of Charcas could not compete with cheap imports from Britain. Moreover, overland trade networks suffered as towns along the way declined in importance. Some of the large merchant houses in Lima declared bankruptcy. Eventually, nearly everyone was touched by the reforming zeal of the Bourbons. They even proposed ideas to inculcate a modern morality and work ethic among the plebeians. In Peru, such notions were embraced by a reforming Bishop Baltazar Jaime Martínez Compañón who worked for years to establish public schools (escuelas de primeras letras) in the small communities in the countryside for both native boys and girls to instill ideas of cleanliness, industry, virtue, and timeliness to students. He intended to have older students taught skills appropriate to their gender in boarding schools in selected cities. Questions of permanently funding these schools prevented some of his proposed 54 schools from opening; those who did open filled with the children of castas as well as natives for which they were established. His direct involvement in these efforts ended with his appointment to the Archbishopric of Santa Fe de Bogota and his lamented departure from Peru in 1791. In the capitals of New Spain and Peru, authorities reorganized urban space, creating delineated districts, and hired two policing units – the Alcaldes de Barrio (magistrates of neighborhoods) and the Guardafaroleros (a force to guard the new streetlamps) to monitor behavior and expurgate

90  The consequences of top-down change what they considered the vices of the working class. Their aim was, like the educational designs in the rural areas, to transform the lazy and slouthful into productive, tax-paying citizens. In Mexico City, to improve hygiene and eliminate the filth of the city, officials created garbage collection units. Markets were moved and reorganized. Street vendors were licensed. Dogs, cows, and pigs were removed from the Central Plaza and palace courtyard. A new sewer system and public toilets were built. The alcaldes mandated that citizens sweep their porches every morning. To end drunkenness and end absenteeism at work, they regulated the 1600 taverns, including 45 legal pulperías (pulque-dispensing bars). They outlawed all seats and benches from the pulquerías; demanded that curtains be removed from the windows and the side walls of drinking establishments be torn down. All bars were to be well-lighted after 9 pm. Such directives, they reasoned, would also undermine gambling that caused so much misery and poverty. Finally, to stem criminality, they paved streets and plazas, straightened meandering lanes and alley ways, demolished abandoned buildings and installed street lighting. Each house was given a number for identification purposes. Unfortunately, not all complied. Corrupt alcaldes thwarted tavern reforms. Only 7 of 42 legal bars conformed completely to government stipulations. Neighborhood residents complained about supporting the Alcaldes de Barrio. They did not always understand the need to have numbers affixed to their houses. In Lima, the same was true. Lights were installed, numbering the houses proceeded apace, and chicherias (corn-beer dispensing bars) were regulated. But citizens resisted these changes. Some broke the new lights. These lights promised to decrease drinking and vagrancy; in fact, night life flourished. Neighbors asked why they needed numbers as addressing and either broke the numbering tiles or painted over them. They did not use the addressing system, instead they referred to buildings as the “casa pequeña” (the little house) or by the name of the owner. Furthermore, 25 percent of the neighbors, even those who could well afford it, refused to pay the “contribution” to support the Alcaldes de Barrio. By the first decade of the nineteenth century, men refused to serve as Alcaldes de Barrio, their prestige was so low.

The effects of the Bourbon reforms The overall effects of the Bourbon efforts were mixed and are hard to summarize given the variety of situations in the two hemispheres. But, in general, revenues increased at first and royal officials were reasonably honest. But, the hierarchy of crown officials ultimately expanded, given the increased accounting necessary to follow the revenue flow. The cost of administration rose. Over time, also, provincial officials’ interests became compromised as they intermarried with the daughters of the creole elite; and purchased property and became part of the comfortable class. Such

The Bourbon reforms  91 situations compromised their interests, adding to examples of conflict of interests which worked against the crown. Other problems affected the performance of the intendentes. New technology did not increase metal extraction as much as projected. In one situation, the crown sent technicians to Upper Peru to introduce the German Börn system of extraction. In Germany, labor was expensive and fuel (wood) was abundant and cheap. The new system promised higher yields from lower grade ores. The Börn process required adding heat to the ore and took very little labor. The first experiments showed that the crown was ignorant of the circumstances of the Potosí mines. Potosí, at 13,000 feet above sea level and above the tree line, lacked wood for fuel. It had to be hauled over unequal terrain from far away. Furthermore, labor was relatively abundant and cheap compared to Germany. Therefore, the new process did not fit Potosi’s conditions and the creoles realized that the crown did not understand their needs. The arrival of pumps to solve the flooding problem, previously tackled by digging expensive adits, did help, but miners soon realized that this technology had existed since the fifteenth century. They asked themselves and others why it took so long for pumps to arrive in the American realms, further discrediting crown technological initiatives. The intendente system also had an impact on the municipal councils, which had become mostly moribund in the seventeenth century. The cabildos had lost most of their real, functional powers. The cabildos had become less active in the seventeenth century because most of the important issues of setting up the municipalities had been resolved. The water supply had been secured; prices were controlled; and new citizens were accepted, but more slowly than in the sixteenth century. Furthermore, the wealthy purchased seats of councilmen with the right to pass them on to successors. So, often offices became the patrimony of a family. There were few new opportunities to join. Third, the cabildos had sold off their public lands, so they had no independent sources of revenue with which to tackle road maintenance and repair or build bridges. They had no financial autonomy. Finally, the corregidor had taken over many of the cabildo’s duties. By 1700, cabildos were inert, social clubs that did not perform functions systematically. Price regulation was not enforced. Communications were difficult and in need of remediation. The intendente system gave the cabildos the task of improving the economy and gave them revenues with which to work. Increased production and a more efficient tax collection, augmented the cabildo’s revenues. The intendentes also forced the cabildos to meet and take up new tasks. The cabildo and intendente shared a responsibility for stimulating the economy and repairing and maintaining the communication infrastructure. Cabildo members met more frequently than the previous norm to elect magistrates to discuss new technologies and the news of the day. New crops were introduced. Cabildo members took an interest in useful knowledge. Reform

Introduction of new technology Urban reforms

Increase taxes (e.g., sales taxes, duties) Limited free trade Jesult expulsion

Military reform

Cabildo reinvigorization

Better control urban population

Increase production and tax revenues

Increase crown revenue and eliminate contraband Control seditious/new ideas

Increase crown revenue

Decrease cost of justice; increase the centralization of power; replace creoles with Peninsular justices; cut contraband; eliminate smuggling Increase centralization; staff Peninsular military men; increase defense; stimulate economy Increase production; improve roads and communications; introduce useful knowledge (agricultural and mining) Increase defense

Create new viceroyalties

Intendente system

Crown’s Aim

Reform

Table 7.1 The Bourbon Reforms and Groups Most Affected

Monopoly merchants (asiento holders); hurt teamsters; some overland trading centers Creole school-aged boys; other orders

Colonial population paid more; hurt consumers (especially, the poor)

Creoles lost control of militias

Hereditary holders of previously purchased or inherited council seats

Creoles lost corregidorships and investment opportunities; creoles lost autonomy

Loss of autonomy of creoles; creoles frozen out of judgeships; smugglers

Group Who Suffered or Resented

Spaniards; crown; purchasers of estates; other educators Spaniards; Creoles upset because introductions exposed crown; miners; that crown did not understand local hacendados conditions Citizens, if crime Citizens who had to pay for innovations better controlled

Spaniards; crown

Peninsulares; castas Spaniards; crown

Creoles

Peninsulares

Peninsulares; litigants

Group Who Benefited

92  The consequences of top-down change

The Bourbon reforms  93 also mandated that magistrates (alcaldes) serve only two-year terms, giving more men opportunities to rotate in and lead. Over time, the dynamic re-invigorization of the cabildos taught creoles to organize themselves and to assert better their influence. The cabildo became a forum for creole decisionmaking, which directed discontent during the Independence era. But, these reforms were disruptive. They changed the structure of government and changed the colonial balance of power. Creoles lost power at the same time that there was a change in the political culture. The king had become the servant of the state. He was judged on his accomplishments and ability to provide for the common good. The paradox was that these reforms, designed to increase the centralization of the monarchy’s power and improve Spain’s overall position vis-à-vis other European nations, so disrupted society that they contributed to the campaign for independence. They alienated creoles over the loss of corregidorships, increased taxes, the expulsion of the Jesuits (considered an attack on the church); the opening of the militias to castas, making them less exclusive and prestigious, and hurt or ruined some merchants, especially in Mexico, Panama, and Lima. Administrative costs declined; the bureaucracy was more responsive. Free trade decreased the contraband. The expulsion of the Jesuits curbed, but did not eliminate the debates on “subversive” ideas (Table 7.1). In retrospect, the reforms and their consequences taught the crown that innovations must be introduced in an acceptable way; that innovations will be adopted if proven useful; and that innovations should be modified in a new context to fit new conditions. These lessons were learned too late, as the Bourbon reforms proved a short-term success, but a long-term failure, as we will learn in the next chapter.

Resulting upheavals Before we discuss the long-term effects of the Bourbon reforms, a look at local reactions is advisable. Various sectors of the colonial population vocally expressed their displeasure with the Bourbon mandates and showed their anger in the streets and countryside. The eighteenth century has aptly been called the era of rebellions. In the 50 years from 1730 to 1780, 128 rebellions have been documented by historians, including 5 uprisings in the 1740; 11 in the 1750s; and 20 each in the decades of the 1760s and 1770s. In 1778, a particularly fearful mass protest in Chayanta (Upper Peru) was led by Tomás Katari, after he had taken the grievances of his people to the Spanish courts and viceroy to no effect. A more serious and far larger uprising followed, led by a curaca (Quechua term for cacique or native paramount lord) named José Gabriel Condorcanqui, later changed to Tupac Amaru II (after the last sixteenth century Inca who left Vilcabamba and was later executed by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo). He was a well- educated mestizo, descended from the Incas, who used legal channels to voice a long list of abuses. Without redress, he started a mass rebellion that spread

94  The consequences of top-down change widely in the area near the city of Cuzco in the southern Andes. He had complained about the forced distribution and sale of sometimes unneeded items by the corregidor to his Quechua-speaking followers; he demanded that the offending corregidor be removed. He wanted better working conditions in the mines and obrajes; reduced taxes; the appointment of native governors in the provinces; and a new Audiencia to be installed in Cuzco to be able to pursue complaints more easily and closer to home. In November of 1780, the hated Corregidor Antonio de Arriaga of Tinta was convicted after a short informal trial and executed. The revolt spread. News traveled fast and fearful elites worried about that other uprisings – Tupac Amaru inspired – would break out as far north as Otuzco (as in fact it did) and Lambayeque. The viceregal officials in Lima hastened to send troops from Lima. Tupac Amaru was apprehended along with his wife, other family members, and allies. They were executed shortly thereafter: he by being drawn and quartered, his wife garroted, and others hung. Tupac Amaru II’s revolt, however, spread to Upper Peru, led by Julian Apassa and Tupac Amaru II’s surviving kinsmen. Apassa took the name Tupac Katari to indicate the continuation of the struggles of Tupac Amaru II and Tomás Karari. His massive army besieged La Paz. By late 1781 he, too, had been defeated, captured, and executed. Peace was restored in 1783, after costing 100,000 lives. These armed reactions did, however, bring an end to the hated distribution and sale of goods by corregidores and established an Audiencia in Cuzco. Meanwhile, other revolts were breaking out all over Spanish America. One important uprising took place in 1780–81 in the newly-created Viceroyalty of New Granada. It was a popular uprising of peasants and artisans, with the addition of a few reluctant creoles, who demanded a lowering of taxes, especially those associated with tobacco and its monopoly, protection of native lands, and the appointment of more creoles to royal administrative positions. This mixed group of protesters marched to Bogotá to present their list of grievances. The authorities agreed to these, but as the marchers dispersed, the Viceroy changed his mind, reneged on his acceptance, and dispatched troops to bring the rebels to justice. Prisoners were taken and the leaders of the movement were executed. A mestizo peasant leader tried to organize another march on Bogotá, but he was captured and hanged in January 1782. None of these rebels sought Independence. During their protests and marches, they shouted “Long Live the King and Death to Bad Government” (Viva el Rey y muera el mal gobierno), emphasizing that they blamed royal officials, not the king, on their many woes.

8

Independence

Causes The causes of the struggles for Independence are difficult to discuss because they varied by viceroyalty, by year, by class, and by group, i.e., the Spanish perspective was different from the creole viewpoint; and, within the creole group, opinions might differ depending on occupation (merchant, miner, or landowner). Segments of all these groups had to have enough reasons so that enough people were discontented enough to take what amounted to treasonous acts against the king and his administration. The Bourbon reforms are often pointed out as a long-term cause for the rebellions. The administrative reforms divided some. The delineation of new viceroyalties alienated top royal officials in Lima who lost jurisdiction but opened numbered positions for others in New Granada and La Plata. Well-educated creoles chafed as peninsular Spaniards replaced them on the Audiencias. Generally speaking, however, the numbers involved were few. The introduction of the Indendente system affected more men. Moneyed creoles who had enjoyed the perquisites of purchasing the position of corregidor lost those opportunities when they were replaced by a few peninsular-born Spaniards who were named Indendentes. Thus, creoles lost one source of political power and profit. But, many of these same individuals participated in the meetings of the reinvigorated cabildos, where, besides learning of new technologies and crops, they used the sessions as forums to discuss, complain, and exchange views. Independence, in short, was a long-term consequence of the top-down reforms from an increasingly interventionist state. Another source of discontent was the enhancement of the militias into army units. Again, peninsulares were sent to reorganize. They opened the ranks to the castas and extended the fuero. The creoles, long the local leaders of the institution, were upset as the units lost exclusivity. Furthering general dissatisfaction and extending it down into the ranks of the castas were the tax increases. The tobacco, liquor, and playing cards monopolies hurt producers and the general public. Small producers who sowed a patch of tobacco leaf as a cash crop lost this income-producing

96  The consequences of top-down change option unless given a quota. Suspended auctions to engage in tax-farming troubled the individuals who had used such bi-annual events to increase their net worth. Other factors included free trade that hurt the monopolists and the towns on the trunk and feeder roads of the hinterland that teamsters no longer passed through as they carried goods to markets. The expulsion of the Jesuits dismayed the elite whose sons had been educated by them. Other corporate groups felt attacked and uncertain as they contemplated the question of who would be expelled next. And, imported technology, like the Börn process, exposed the lack of knowledge of the crown about basic local circumstances. The availability of the pump left miners wondering why such innovations, long available in Europe, took so long to reach America. The result was alienation and resentment. Thus, in a sense, the reforms backfired. From the crown’s point of view the changes were an attempt to increase the efficiency of administration, bolster production, and increase tax collection, clearly benefiting its position in the world. From the creole and casta points of view, however, many of these changes threatened local autonomy and led to unprecedented levels of discontent. Thus, the reforms had unintended consequences and became a contributing factor and longterm cause for the struggles for Independence. A second cause were the ideas of the enlightenment, associated with the reforms and some would say the inspiration and guide of the reforms, in that the idea of rationality, useful knowledge, and experimentation helped to conceptualize the innovations. Complementary to these were the new ideas about the basis of rule, which some regard as a more immediate cause. Political legitimacy is the basis and justification for the right to rule. Until the era of reforms, the king’s right to rule was based on “divine right”, the theory that God chose certain families or dynasties to rule over others. People believed that the king would do no wrong. Bad kings were answerable to God and punished in heaven. A king was heavenly-ordained to be just and good. The common people believed this as evidenced by the common cry, “Viva el Rey, y muera el mal gobierno” (Long live the king and death to bad government), for example in Tunja in the Comunero Revolt of the 1780s. They equated bad government with corrupt officials and believed that if the king became aware, he would remedy the situation and rule wisely. The king had everything, therefore he was above the temptations of bribery and corruption. But, in practice, some kings were degenerate, inept, and uninterested in government. Some allowed others to rule behind the scenes; some were short-sighted due to religious fanaticism. The political ideas of the philosophes challenged the long-held ideas of “divine right” and absolutism. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) wrote of the social contract, where the people alienate power and can take it back. Put succinctly, the people control the government. The Englishman John Locke (1632–1704) put forth the idea of a constitutional monarchy, implying that the government should exist by the consent of the governed. The

Independence  97 Frenchman Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu (1689–1755), but generally simply referred to as Montesquieu, wrote The Spirit of the Laws that advocated for a powerful aristocracy to balance a king’s power and explained the theory of separation of powers. The entertaining writer François Voltaire judged that the educated and propertied classes should form the ideal government. Another factor was the demonstration effect of the French and American revolutions with the former’s slogans demanding liberté (liberty), équalité (equality), and fraternité (fraternity). News that the French had guillotined Louis XVI and his Queen Marie Antoinette proved an example of the people seizing power. The 13 colonies also wrote a constitution and formed their own government. Both instances generated hard conversations among the elites all over Spanish America. Spain’s own weakness and corruption contributed to changing circumstances, also. The discontent and extended malaise in Spanish America was noted by the British, under Rear Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham (1762–1820), who stormed Buenos Aires in 1806–07. Popham acted because he believed that the restlessness of the Spanish colonial populace was so widespread that it would be easy to promote an uprising in Buenos Aires. The viceroy, Rafael de Sobremonte, fled inland to Cordoba with the royal treasury, leaving the creoles to defend the city. Once in the city, the British pondered commercial opportunities. The question became should the British liberate Argentina from Spain or set up direct control. William Carr Beresford, the commander of British landing forces, proclaimed a regime of free trade, with preference for British merchandise, but open to all nations. Santiago de Liniers, a Frenchman by birth, organized the resistance and forced the British out. Such incidents discredited Spain, exposing the mother country as incapable of supplying the colony’s needs and defending them. The creole actions against the British gave them a sense of accomplishment while the opening of the ports showed them the advantages of free and unhindered trade. A new viceroy, Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, arrived and again began to restrict commerce. By 1809, trade was legally limited to Spanish merchants only. Foreigners could not own property or engage in trade. Gold and silver exports were prohibited. Payments for imports were to be made in hides and tallow. In December 1809, all Britons were ordered to withdraw from Buenos Aires. The creoles called a junta in May of 1810 and deposed Cisneros, yet declared in favor of Ferdinand VII. Three days later, trade restrictions were relaxed. Within two weeks, export duties on hides and tallow were reduced from 50 percent to 7.5 percent. Producers benefited: the export of hides and tallow increased; cheap manufactured goods from abroad flooded the market. Within six weeks, the export of bullion became free. In this way, the creoles brought about significant changes that British arms had been unable to accomplish. The exercise of political power to set policies was not lost on them. And, in 1816, at a meeting in Tucuman, they declared independence.

98  The consequences of top-down change The immediate cause of Independence was a crisis of political legitimacy, the basis or justification of the right to rule, in Spain itself. Colonial society was disquieted by news of war in Europe. Napoleon was at odds with England. Part of his strategy was to institute a “continental policy”, which would have cut English trade with the continent. He asked the monarchs of Portugal and Spain to cooperate. They hesitated. So, Napoleon sent troops into the peninsula in 1807. The Portuguese monarchy – the Queen María and her regent John – fled on English ships with 15,000 members of the court (including servants) to Brazil. In Spain, Charles IV abdicated and Ferdinand VII, his son, followed suit. Napoleon thereupon named his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain. But the Spanish aristocracy rejected him as an illegitimate ruler. They formed a cortes or junta (revolutionary committee) to rule in Ferdinand’s name. This was not a seditious or treasonous act. It was the loyal thing to do. The cortes sent word to the American kingdoms and invited them to send delegates to attend the first constitutional convention. Consequently, American creoles, especially those sitting on the cabildos in provincial settings, like Trujillo (Peru), held cabildos abiertos, open town council meetings, to form boards to rule, also in Ferdinand’s name. They also nominated representatives, some of whom, made their way to Spain. At the conventions, radicals from Cadiz dominated. They passed a “liberal” constitution, which limited the power of the monarchy in 1812. The formerly absolute power of the king would thereon be restricted by a contract with the “people”. At the convention, the American delegates were snubbed by the Spanish and made to feel as second-class citizens, while the creoles thought that they were as loyal as ever. When Joseph was deposed, Ferdinand VII assumed power (1814). He agreed to the Constitution of 1812, but, in practice, he ruled autocratically. Therefore, the cortes of Spain made him swear allegiance to the Constitution again in 1820. The upshot was that he would have to rule more in line with the ruled.

The patriots Meanwhile in America, several incidents announced serious reactions to European events, which in hindsight were the beginning of the end of colonial rule. A precursor to the breaks with Spain arrived on the shores of Venezuela in 1806, the same year the British invaded the Viceroyalty of La Plata. Francisco de Miranda was a globe-trotting soldier from a Venezuelan family who dreamed of liberating Latin American colonies from Spanish domination. When he landed, he expected to garner the support of many. But, the persons on the beach where he landed did not understand his dream. They did not rally to his cause as he had predicted they would. So, he eventually disbanded his followers and retired abroad only to return years later after serious revolt had broken out.

Independence  99 Further north, from 1808 to 1810, legal-minded elites in the Spanish kingdoms rejected the authority of Joseph Bonaparte and the Junta of Seville, seeking home rule until King Ferdinand could be reinstated. One such group in northern Mexico who supported Ferdinand’s claim to the throne, but had issues with peninsular Spaniards included the Corregidor, Miguel Domínguez, his wife, two army officers, and a priest named Father Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla (1753–1811). Hidalgo was a well-educated creole, having studied theology and philosophy, who held radical ideas inspired by banned books and doctrines popularized by the French Revolution. He wanted to improve the lot of his humble parishioners and advocated racial equality and the redistribution of native lands. In 1810, he served as parish priest of a town named Dolores, having left his position as rector of the Colegio of San Nicolas – partly because of his unorthodox ideas. Rumors surfaced that the conspirators wanted to oust Spaniards from positions of power and seize their property. Tipped off that he was about to be arrested, Father Hidalgo started an insurrection by ringing the church bells of the town and voicing his famous “Grito de Dolores” (cry or shout of Dolores). Following a symbolic image on his standard of the famous dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe, his movement of mostly natives and castas sacked Guanajuato, killing 600 citizens, and withdrew just before arriving in Mexico City. After hesitating to take Mexico City, he was captured trying to make his escape to Texas, defrocked, and executed. Hidalgo’s movement was carried on by Father José María Morelos y Pavón, a mestizo and former Hidalgo student at the Colegio de San Nicolas. He had been born into poverty and worked as a muleteer and cowhand before studying for the priesthood at age 25. He held several curacies, ministering to natives and mestizos. He joined Father Hidalgo’s movement and took command of it after Hidalgo’s execution. He held sway south of Mexico City and controlled Acapulco, Oaxaca, Tehuacán, and Cuautla. Because he led relatively few adherents, he relied on guerrilla tactics. It was he who called a conference together at Chilpancingo and declared Independence in early November 1813. His egalitarian constitution was promulgated in October 1814. Like his predecessor, he was captured and executed. Independence was achieved under a conservative creole named Agustín de Iturbide. He was the son of a peninsular landowner and a creole woman of noble ancestry. He left school at 14 to join the military and fought against Father Hidalgo. This unprincipled, charismatic, and conservative military man rose up the military ranks. At the start of the 1820s, he popularized his Plan de Iguala or Three Guarantees: independence (under a constitutional monarchy), primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, and the equality between Europeans gachupines (a somewhat derogatory name for peninsular Spaniards), Americans, and Africans. On that basis, he gained a following, negotiated Independence with a newly-arrived Viceroy (in 1821), and established an empire in 1822 with the support of his men. He ruled as

100  The consequences of top-down change Agustín I from 1822 to 1823. A year later this conservative, turned patriot, was shot by republicans as a traitor. The dominant personality in New Granada’s struggles for liberation was Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), a Venezuelan-born creole from a wealthy landed family. His father died when he was very young, leaving him the heir to large agricultural estates and many slaves. His mother died when he reached age 15. At 17, he persuaded his guardian to allow him to continue his studies in Spain. While there, he also visited France. He formulated his ideas regarding independence at the side of his tutor, Simón Rodríguez, who taught him about the North American revolution and introduced him to the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau. After touring and studying in Europe, he married and returned with his bride (María Teresa, the niece of the Marqués de Toro) to Caracas in 1803. He left again for London and Paris the next year after his wife’s untimely death. It was in Italy that he decided to dedicate his life to liberating his homeland. His initiatives resulted in the liberation of Colombia (1810), Venezuela (1811) (with the help of Miranda), Peru (1821), Ecuador (1822), and Bolivia (1825). José Antonio de Sucre (1795–1830), Bolívar’s trusted lieutenant, defeated Spanish royalist forces in the highlands of what is today Ecuador at the Battle of Pichincha on May 24, 1822. He was with Bolívar at the Battle of Junín (August 6, 1524) and continued to confront royalist forces until victory and the liberation of Peru was assured at the Battle of Ayacucho (December 9, 1824). After that he helped liberate Bolivia (Upper Peru) and became the country’s first constitutionally elected leader. Bernardo O’Higgins (1778–1842), the son of an Irishman who became Viceroy of Peru and was fond of liberal, democratic, and revolutionary literature, and José de San Martin (1778–1850) (an Argentine who by 1811 had determined to help liberate Argentina) cooperated to free Chile. O’Higgins, like several other leaders of the Independence movements, received part of his education in Europe, starting in 1798. While there he met Miranda, mastered English and French, and read liberal, democratic, and revolutionary literature. San Martín was born on a former Jesuit mission (named Yapeyú) on the Uruguay River where his father was stationed as administrator. He later lived in Buenos Aires and Spain. He became a soldier in a royal army and saw action in Africa and Portugal. Being stationed in Cadiz with his regiment, allowed him to meet Bernardo O’Higgins and others. He joined the Masonic Lodge where he met other revolutionary-bent men. In 1811 he left for London but returned to Buenos Aires in January 1812 to participate in Argentine Independence. He then led troops over the Andes to help liberate Chile at the Battles of Chacabuco (1817) and Maipu (1818). In contrast, independence was peaceful in Paraguay (1813) and Argentina (1816) (Table 8.1 and Map 8.1). These leaders were not atypical. A collective biography of these and a few others for a total of 16 leaders of the Independence movements across Spanish America reveals their general characteristics. As is evident in the

Independence  101 Table 8.1 Main Protagonists of the Independence Movements of Spanish America Region

Date(s)

Major Players

Mexico

1810

Father Miguel Hidalgo Father José María Morelos General Agustin de Iturbide

1813 1821

La Plata

New Granada

Peru

1813 1816 1811–28 1810

Dr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia José de San Martín José Gervasio Artigas Francisco de Miranda

1811 1820

Simon Bolivar Antonio José de Sucre

1821

Bolivar and Sucre

1817

José de San Martin and Bernardo O’Higgins

1825

Bolivar and Sucre

Defining Battles

Resulting Countries

Mexico, Central America, parts of the US Paraguay

Carabobo, 1811 Boyacá, 1819 Pichincha, 1822 Junin, Ayacucho, 1824 Maipu, 1818 and Chacabuco, 1817

Argentina Uruguay Venezuela Colombia Ecuador Peru Chile

Bolivia

short biographical sketches presented above, all were creoles who resented to one extent or another the royal officials who were or had encroached on their power. They were from urban areas, the seats of political office and administration. Ten were from the socio-economic elite. Two were from a lower class who rose to prominence as military chieftains. Military service gave them social mobility, but they remained fighters, and were not administrators or planners. Their level of education was high. Eight had university educations; only one was illiterate. Some like Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar had lived and studied in Europe where they soaked up enlightenment ideas. Their motivations are hard to determine, but the higher taxes of the Bourbons were mentioned by some of them. Their average age was 29, middle age by the standards of the time. These ambitious men were looking for a career; they wanted political office and found that their careers were blocked. Eleven of the sixteen achieved high office after Independence.

102  The consequences of top-down change

110o

100o

90o

80o

70o

60o

50o

40o

30o

30o 30o

IC

MEXICO

Havana

BL PU RE O AN RIC IC ITI IN TO HA OM UERn Juan D P a

CUBA

20o

n

S Port-au-Prince BELIZE AS o Sa GUATEMALA B e l m DUR JAM K in nto N D o m i n go AIC g s t o n HOgucigalpa A Guatemala Te LESSER ANTILLES San Salvad o r NICARAGUA Port of Spa in EL SALVADOR u sé pa

Mexico City

a

M an ag

10o

COSTA RICA

n Jo Sa

namá Pa

20o

etown org ribo Ge ama Par Cayenne

AM SURIN NA GUYA

VENEZUELA

PANAMA

Bogotá

COLOMBIA

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS 0o

ECUADOR

Quito

FRENCH GUIANA 0o

BRAZIL

PERU 10o

10o

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

Caracas

10o

Lima

BOLIVIA

Brasília

La Paz

R PA

20o

Y UA

AG

CHILE

The Countries of Latin America

20o

Asunción

ARGENTINA

30o

URUGUAY

Santiago Buenos Aires

M

ont

30o

e video

40o 40o

FALKLAND ISLANDS (Islas Malvinas)

50o 120o

110o

100o

90o

80o

70o

60o

50o

40o

30o

20o

Map 8.1 Countries of Latin America. Originally published in Latin American History, Cathryn L. Lombard and John V. Lombard © 1983 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. All rights reserved.

But these leaders did not act alone. Recent studies highlight the roles of the rank and file fighters in the struggles. In Mexico, the records of rebel foot soldiers from 1824 who were apprehended by royalist troops show that most did not have a clear idea of what they were fighting for. They were

Independence  103 ordinary individuals “swept up” in events and often impressed into service. The typical insurgent was a married native villager and farmer about 30 years old (when the average life expectancy was 36–40), captured near his home. Others were craftsmen, muleteers or laborers. Some were drafted; others joined due to hard times, family problems and peer pressure. In other words, they were ordinary persons, not ideologues. They were accused of insurrection and treated as criminals. Another pioneering study focusing on Buenos Aires found that the working class, both slave and free, were involved in politics from the time that the city took its first steps toward independence in May 1810. Even before then, since the time of the British invasion of 1806, their physical presence, demands, anger, and sympathies largely determined the fate of the British aspirations and Spanish colonial institutions. Plebeians played a role in defeating the British. Thousands of humble residents joined militia units or organized gangs of peers and neighbors into informal fighting forces, many armed with homemade lances, knives, and shop tools. Plebeians forced themselves into a Junta General meeting to voice their views. They were instrumental in choosing their leaders, like Santiago de Liniers (1753–1810), a Frenchman by birth who served in the Spanish Army during the Moroccan campaigns in the 1770s and then headed a naval squadron charged with protecting Montevideo. Plebeians shouted for the removal of Viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte in 1807. Their opinions and grievances further affected the events of May 18–25, 1810 that resulted in the removal of Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros and the establishment of a local government, called the Primera Junta (First Junta). It is considered the first successful revolution in the Independence struggles in South America, although no formal declaration of Independence was made until 1816 as noted above. Also of note is the fact that in the outlying areas, creoles, long accustomed to semi-autonomous or self-rule, were resentful at losing political power to peninsular Intendentes. They disliked forfeiting some measure of economic and military power. They were usually the first to declare Independence. Note that Paraguay declared independence in 1813 with little or no resistance; Argentina joined them in 1816. In contrast, in bastions of royal power, the old viceregal seats, declarations were simultaneous with or later: in Mexico and Peru in 1821 usually after some fighting – as a means to restore the old order and allow the American-born to grab power for themselves and maintain their positions. In that sense, the struggles for Independence were not revolutionary, they looked backwards to the good old days, not forward into a republican future.

The results of independence The results of the struggles were several. Economic disaster characterized many regions. Places in Mexico were destroyed, whereas Argentina was little affected. In some places the struggles mobilized the lower classes, armed

104  The consequences of top-down change them, blurred color and class lines, and increased upward mobility. Bolívar offered black slaves their freedom if they would join his liberation forces. The political consequences of the movements were, first, the mobilization of the army and its institutionalization. It became a means of upward social mobility that carried into modern times. A second political consequence was the localization of power. The army was organized around individuals, which brought with it a heritage of regionalism and the cult of personality, which was the origin of nineteenth century caudillismo (cult and leadership of the strong man). Finally, the rules of the political system had changed. The old basis of legitimacy had been undermined, without leaving an ideological consensus on a new basis of authority and power. This led to political instability and economic dislocation that affected many of the newly-independent states well into the nineteenth century.

Part IV

Portuguese America

9

Brazil

This last section recaps the Portuguese activity on the eastern coast of South America and the government’s first privately-sponsored colonization attempts. The brasilwood trade, the African slave trade, the origins of the important export sugar industry, the bandeirantes (explorers and traders in native slaves), and the gold and precious gem rush to Minas Gerais (General Mines) are highlighted.

Background To understand the process of settlement in Brazil and its differences with the Spanish American experience, one must recall what was going on in Europe and more specifically, Portugal. Portuguese, like the Spanish, had to fight the Moslems on the peninsula to consolidate power and then counter Castilian claims to achieve autonomy. In 1139, Alfonso Henriques of the house of Burgundy used for the first time “king of Portugal”, a title officially recognized in 1179 by the pope, the official arbiter of such matters. The struggle against the Moors lasted until 1250 when the last Moslems were driven from the Algarve region in the south of what became the nation of Portugal. Neighboring Castile then conceded recognition of Portugal’s claim to the Algarve and national boundaries, which remain much the same today. National consolidation was achieved by King Denis (1279–1325) who tried to create a secular state and challenged the Roman Catholic Church by curtailing its land holdings. The result was a powerful state and a relatively weak church. He substituted Portuguese for Latin as the national language; favored agriculture; founded the University of Coimbra; patronized the arts; established a navy; and signed a commercial treaty with the English. In 1383, the last heir of the house of Burgundy died. Amidst the crisis, the king of Castile made a bid, but the people of Portugal crowned João of the house of Aviz and defeated the Castilian king in battle in 1385 with the help of the English. The long-standing Anglo-Portuguese alliance starts here. Under the house of Aviz, Portugal, blessed with a good location that faces the sea and very close to Africa, developed into a mighty sea power.

108  Portuguese America Thus, in the fourteenth century, Portugal was at peace, having ended internal struggles and consolidated the state. Without imminent foreign threats, it quickly became an enviable sea power and began expansion. The motives for overseas expansion included a religious motive: to further defeat the Moors in northern Africa by finding and allying with Prester John, a Christian king said to live in the interior of the continent, and attack them from the rear. Commercial hopes were probably more compelling. The Portuguese wanted to contact the fabled Orient to have direct access to pepper, cinnamon, ginger, nutmegs, cloves, tapestries, silks, and porcelains. The expansion was furthered by Prince Henry “the Navigator” (1394–1460) who aided exploration by sponsoring systematic voyages down the coast of Africa. He set up a headquarters on the Sagres peninsula where he gathered together the best mariners and scientists to work on charts; study the heavens; and teach the use of the astrolabe, quadrant and compass. They also launched the first caravel which allowed sailing ships to sail (tack) against the wind. The Portuguese thus entered Ceuta in 1415. They reached the Madeira Islands between 1418 and 1420; the Azores between 1427 and 1432; Cape Bojador in 1434; and the Gulf of Guinea in the 1460s. Bartolemeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Details of this exploration were a state secret. The Portuguese guarded their sea lanes. After Columbus set foot on land in the Caribbean, the rivalry between Portugal and Spain almost led to war. But diplomacy triumphed. The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, established an imaginary line pole to pole, 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. West of the line was to be governed by Spain; everything east of the line was under the domain of Portugal. Unlike the kings of the house of Burgundy, the Aviz kings were more interested in commerce than agriculture. Alfonso d’Alburquerque, the governor of India (1509–1515), oversaw the export of spices that were so important as preservatives at the time. They encouraged trade, not settlement. By the sixteenth century, trading posts or entrepots had been established in Goa, Macao, Timor, Cape Verde, Guinea, Angola, and Mozambique. But, the sixteenth century also saw Portugal reach its peak of power and begin to fall from a combination of factors. The house of Aviz declined. They expelled the Jews who had been important as financiers and entrepreneurs. Manufacturing and production decreased. Manpower was in short supply as many citizens left for overseas adventures. Furthermore, an over-dependence on the slave trade resulted in an overall economic weakening. Finally, the teenage king Don Sebastian was killed in battle in Africa in 1578, leaving Portugal without an heir to the throne. That scenario provided the opportunity for Phillip II of Spain to take over, garnering support through bribery, threats, and extortion. Portugal lost its independence and from 1580 to 1640 the crowns of Portugal and Spain were united and the populace of the entire peninsula was under one authority.

Brazil  109

The taking of Brazil The eastern seacoast of South America fell under the authority of the Portuguese as per the Treaty of Tordesillas. No one knows precisely how or why Pedro Alvares Cabral veered off course on his way to India to land on the far side of the Atlantic. Some have speculated that the Portuguese had landed there before, but lacking manpower kept the discovery secret until it could be defended. It was first called Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross) or Terra or Provincia de Santa Cruz (Land or Province of the Saintly Cross). It became valuable as a source of the brasilwood tree, highly prized for its use as a red dye. Thus, over time, the land became known as Terra do Brasil (land of the brasilwood tree). Brazil was different than Spanish America in two ways. First, there were no great native empires and civilizations. Two native groups dominated: the Tupi-Guarani and the Tapuya. The Tupi-Guaranis represented tropical forest cultures, dependent primarily on agriculture and fishing. They were the first to have contact with the Portuguese. They lived in small tribes of inter-related kin and shared related languages. They usually settled in small villages of thatched huts, often situated on a riverbank. Their slashburn agriculture quickly depleted the soil; consequently, they moved often. The Tapuyas represented inhabitants of the plains and arid plateaus who depended on hunting, fishing, and gathering for subsistence. Because there was no centralized power structure, only councils, of warriors or elders and a nominal chief (especially in times of war), spoke for the groups. Thus, among the native peoples, there was no single “conquest” of Brazil. Exploration was gradual. Therefore, scholars write of “taking” Brazil, rather than conquering it. The second difference was that there was no source of quick or easy wealth. No mines were discovered early in the settlement efforts. The item of value was brasilwood. The crown established a monopoly over its exploitation and eagerly sold its rights to merchants. Fernao de Noronha was the first to buy a contract. He sent ships in 1503 to bring back the valuable dyewood. Ship captains bartered with the natives for profit. Foreign interlopers, especially the French, soon followed. Portugal established a coast guard detachment from 1516 to 1519, but soon realized that they could not police a coastline thousands of miles long. The result is that the Portuguese decided to settle Brazil. The crown sent Martim Afonso de Sousa with five ships and 400 crewmen and colonists to found São Vicente (near Santos) in 1532. He gave out land; appointed municipal officers; and ordered the colonists to plant wheat, grape vines, and sugar cane. The first sugar mill was in operation in 1533. Cattle were also introduced. At Piratininga (now São Paulo), a second settlement and mission were established. Land was distributed as individual holdings in units called sesmarias that were so large that they were measured in leagues. The result is the early start of latifundia. So, the emphasis shifted from

110  Portuguese America exchanging at trading posts to agriculture as the basis of the economy and wealth. Mining began later. The social structure of Brazil was also different than that of Spanish America. It was harder for ordinary Portuguese citizens to gain social

Map 9.1 Brazil, circa 1650. Originally published in Latin American History, Cathryn L. Lombard and John V. Lombard © 1983 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. All rights reserved.

Brazil  111 status than it was for Cortes or Pizarro, where military feats and the wealth it brought gave those involved prestige. In Brazil, the natives were not used to working for a central state. Therefore, there was not the same attraction for Europeans to immigrate as there had been in Spanish America where those who had served the crown were rewarded with hegemony over native groups in encomienda. Therefore, the king of Portugal had to attract and persuade the Portuguese to go. Since the crown lacked resources, the crown allowed individuals to colonize by implementing the captaincy or donatory system. João III divided Brazil into 15 captaincies or donatorios – private settlement enterprises – in the mid-1530s. (See Map 9.1.) They were about 50 miles wide and extended inland to the line of the Treaty of Tordesillas. The donees were granted the power to tax, administer law and justice, make appointments, and distribute lands. They were expected to use their own money and defend the land for the king. These jurisdictions could be inherited by the eldest son. The donees expected a return on their investment, but few rose to the challenges of colonizing Brazil. Most were representatives of the minor nobility and middle class whose incomes from Asian ventures, governmental salaries, or landholdings proved inadequate for the expenses involved. Thus, some did little to develop their grant, while others invested fortunes to attract settlers and encourage production. Other difficulties were the lack of discipline amount the colonists, sporadic native attacks, and French harassment. Therefore, the majority of the private captaincies failed. Two prospered: Pernambuco and São Vicente. The first was close to Portugal, had lots of brasilwood, and good soil for sugar cane. The donee, Duarte de Coelho, introduced commercial crops, such as cotton and tobacco, in addition to cane. By mid-century, it had become a thriving agricultural colony. Fifty mills produced enough sugar to fill 40–50 ships. São Vicente, in the hands of Martim Afonso de Sousa, also produced sugar to great advantage. The rest of the captaincies did not prosper and found it hard to keep the French out. Bahia, in contrast, under Francisco Pereira Coutinho; Espíritu Santo, the grant of Vasco Fernandes Coutinho; and Porto Seguro under Pedro do Campo Tourinho did not thrive, despite the donees’ investments and incentives.

Direct Portuguese rule The difficulties in most captaincies and continued foreign encroachment let João III to reconsider the situation and decide to impose centralized administration to coordinate further settlement, to provide effective protection, to unify the execution of justice, to properly collect taxes, and to prohibit effectively the French contraband trade. He also wanted to reduce the autonomy of the donees. Therefore, in 1548, the Crown bought back the captaincy of Bahía and made it the seat of government. He then appointed

112  Portuguese America Tomé de Sousa as governor-general in charge of civil and military administration. This official had two assistants: the provedor-mor or chief treasurer and the ouvidor-geral, the chief justice. They arrived the next year and set up the central government. They also stimulated economic activities by distributing sesmarias and imported cattle, and by encouraging the construction of more sugar mills. The natives reluctantly provided the labor force. This is an example of “defensive colonization”. Thus, as compared to Asia and Africa, Brazil remained relatively neglected for almost the half century that it took Portugal to establish a centralized system of government. Settlement was a defensive measure to keep the French out. Central power was meant to drive out the European intruders and control the autonomy of the donees. Furthermore, as compared to Spanish America, the church remained relatively weak. In Brazil, secular clergy were few. In contrast, the regular orders were important, especially the Jesuit order. The six Jesuits who traveled with Tomé de Sousa were, at first, more interested in the morality (or lack thereof) of the Portuguese colonists. Only later did they turn their attentions to Christianizing the natives. The generalized problem with developing Brazil was the perennial shortage of labor. Pernambuco and São Vicente needed a work force and each year more natives either died or fled to the interior. There was at midsixteenth century not yet a large African slave trade. Therefore, enterprising individuals organized expeditions into the interior to engage natives in “just wars”, to capture them and bring them back to the coast to sell as slaves. Expeditions leaving from São Vicente were called bandeiras (flags) and the men bandeirantes (followers of the flag), after the banner that symbolized and identified them. While seeking natives, they also explored the interior and expanded Brasilian territory far past the line of the Treaty of Tordesillas. This de facto expansion was recognized in the Treaty of Madrid of 1750. To protect the natives, the Jesuits gathered them together into aldeias or villages (equivalent to the reducciones of Spanish America). There they could be easily instructed in the faith and protected. Ideally, each aldeia had a church, a school, living quarters, and warehouses. Residents started the day with mass before going to work cultivating fields. Each aldeia, later simply called a mission, had a high degree of self-sufficiency. The missions produced a surplus that was invested for the benefit of the missions and the order. Settlements were scattered along the coast. Many catered to traders. There were no major indigenous urban centers equivalent to Tenochtitlan or Cuzco. Many families lived on their farms or sugar plantations. A few of these also kept a town house. Thus, the degree of urbanization was less than in Spanish America. But each urban center had a senado da câmara or town council akin to the cabildos of Spanish America. Its members gained power early and never lost it, using it as an effective tool against crown

Brazil  113 officials. Spain tried to gain power while it held the Portuguese throne, but its efforts were largely unsuccessful. The economy of Brazil was diverse and is best thought of as a series of regional cycles of boom and bust. The first economic cycle was that of the exploitation of brasilwood that was collected and shipped out of coastal trading posts. Early on, relations between the natives and the Europeans were cooperative and cordial. This led to cultural borrowing: the Portuguese adopted some native food and the hammock. The natives became involved with the commercial economy. Portugal sentenced degredados (criminals) to Brazil to serve their sentences. Many lived with the natives and learned their languages. Deserters and ship-wrecked men joined them. Some became legendary figures. They sired an army of mestizo offspring, exerted powerful influence over the natives and helped the Portuguese establish the first settlements. The Portuguese crown also allowed unrestricted foreign immigration, unlike the Spaniards who restricted immigrants to Spaniards alone, though such prohibitions were hard to enforce in practice. Since there were no mines, there was less demand for labor, numerically speaking, than in Spanish America. Because the natives tended to not be sedentary, but semi-nomadic and less densely settled than in Spanish America, the institution of the encomienda was not used. The Portuguese crown had no policy toward the natives and the natives were never separated and segregated as an unequal group. The one institution that both Spaniards and Portuguese used was the “just war” to rationalize enslaving natives who they needed to work. Interestingly, the Portuguese also formed tropas de resgate (rescuing troops) to liberate native slaves from their native masters. These, ostensibly, were liberating efforts to release natives from unjust slavery, but once freed from native owners, the Portuguese made them into slaves themselves. But, by the seventeenth century, most natives had died or fled. Therefore, they were less of a problem and a cultural force amongst the settlers. The next product of import was sugar cane, especially in Pernambuco and São Vicente. In a few years, cane became the dominant commercial crop in the northeast. A landed elite arose from those colonists who had been given sesmarias and who had planted cane. Their early success resulted from Portuguese knowledge of sugar planting and technology gained in the Atlantic islands. Another factor was a ready market and a distribution network. Brazilian sugar was sold to merchants in the Low Countries and these retailed the sugar throughout Europe. Furthermore, investors from the Low Countries had capital available to help build the cane processing mills in the northeast. Finally, because native labor was scarce, the Portuguese turned to Africa for labor as early as 1550, which did not end (at least on paper) until 1888. They established the so-called “triangular trade” where European manufactured goods were shipped to Africa to be exchanged for slaves. These were shipped across the Atlantic to be sold to

114  Portuguese America sugar producers (as well as others). The cash was then shipped to Europe to begin another round. The result of the large-scale importation of African slaves gave the northeast sugar producing region a unique profile, one of latifundio, monoculture and bondage. The sesmaria land grants made sugar plantations large, large enough for ample land for crop rotation and for leasing to others. Excess land, allowed the senhor de engenho (mill or plantation owner) to lease land to concessionaries, called lavradores (tenant farmers). Lavradores worked land with their own slaves and tools. But because they had no mills, they took the cane to the senhor de engenho for crushing and processing. The sugar was divided between the mill owner and the tenant. Transportation was a problem so many mills were built on rivers so that the sugar could be floated down the tributaries to the coast. Merchants in the provincial towns became middlemen, charged with exporting the product. Sugar was so profitable that other European countries were attracted to the industry. In the search for land to sow cane, the Dutch took over a section of the northeast that it held from 1630 to 1654. After they were expelled, the Dutch started the industry on Caribbean islands. Their technology was the latest, so they became more efficient producers than their Brazilian counterparts. Therefore, they eventually were able to capture the North American market. This competition brought about a decline of the Brazilian sugar industry and a decline of the economic power of the planting class by the late seventeenth century. Another economic sector was the cattle industry that developed in the interior of the northeast and around São Vicente. Cattle ranches were called fazendas. Their animals supplied meat and draft animals to the plantations and later ranchers exported hides to Europe that were needed for the expansion of industry. The rural society that appeared in cattle-producing areas was not as hierarchical as in the sugar cane growing regions. Ranches were less profitable than cane fields and needed fewer laborers. So in lieu of scores of expensive slaves, labor was done by mixed-blood caboclos (either an Indian who became Europeanized or a Brazilian of Caucasian and native parentage). The mining industry began as a result of the explorations of the interior by the bandeirantes, who often left from the São Vicente area, seeking natives to enslave. They raided Jesuit missions to capture natives to sell. As noted above, by exploring and claiming land, these men greatly increased the territory claimed by Brazil. Especially during the years from 1580 to 1640 when all of South America was under the control of the Spanish crown, Spain was not defensive of such activities. While in the interior in 1695 these expeditionary forces discovered gold in an area now called Minas Gerais (general mines). The gold rush that followed, depopulated the sugar producing areas of the northeast that already were in decline as men moved south to try their luck. The slave trade shifted following the gold prospectors who worked placer deposits at first. Such

Brazil  115 workings did not require much capital or advanced technology. The result was a frontier society and atmosphere, where slaves and freemen worked very small claims. As gold played out of superficial veins and rivers, men left to look elsewhere for ore. Portuguese immigrants followed. The population increased from practically zero in 1695 to 30,000 in 1709 and a half million by the end of the century. But mining begot conflicts. Brazilians resented the Portuguese nationals and in 1708 the two factions started a war. The Brazilians were defeated, but trouble simmered until l720, when a popular rebellion broke out over the payment of the royal fifth and other taxes, collected by the Portuguese. This unrest was barely past when diamonds were discovered in 1729. Such lucrative finds motivated the crown to closely regulate production. The consequences of gold and diamond mining included the settlement of the interior and the advent of mixed agriculture to supply the activities. Since mining required little capital, the society that evolved proved one that offered ample opportunities for social mobility. Thus, in Brazil settlement shifted over time. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the northeast deteriorated, while the south and interior saw more socio-economic action. The population was scattered in small units. The Portuguese presence was not strong, especially in the interior. Society developed patriarchal characteristics. Individuals were often more important than institutions. The senhor de engenhios were economic, social, and political heavy weights (through the câmaras) in the northeast; bandeirantes and their heirs became consequential in the south and hinterland.

Dom Pedro I The machinations of Napoleon on the peninsula also affected Brazil. The invasion of Spain and the assumption of the crown by Joseph, Napoleon’s brother, caused a crisis of legitimacy in Portugal, also. Rather than submit, the Portuguese court – all 15,000 of them if you include the nobility and servants – boarded 40 British merchantmen and eight ships of war – and sailed off to Brazil. Upon landing, the regent Dom João recognized that Brazil had been neglected. He found Bahia, a city of 130,000 people, dirty, with rubbish littering the streets. Over the next years, he transferred the seat of his government from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro. He also opened Brazil to foreign trade, abrogated the royal monopolies, opened certain industries to Brazilians, and reduced tariff duties on imported goods. He further founded military and naval schools; and schools of law and medicine. The hospitals he had set up vaccinated the population against smallpox for the first time. In 1815, Brazil became a kingdom, equal in theory to Portugal. A year later, Dom João became King João VI of Portugal and Brazil. But trouble brewed. The residents of Rio de Janeiro were proud that their city had become the capital of the Portuguese empire. They were happy that Dom João added parks and boulevards to the city. But they resented

116  Portuguese America the Portuguese newcomers who treated them as lesser subjects of the crown and took over some of their finest homes. A revolt broke out in Pernambuco in 1817. Rebels proclaimed independence. They were joined by sympathizers in three neighboring provinces. But an Atlantic fleet and 5,000 troops put down the poorly-armed rebellion before the end of the year. Almost simultaneously, the Portuguese on the peninsula began complaining and there were rumblings of revolt. So, in 1821, Dom João reluctantly returned to the mother country, leaving his son Dom Pedro as regent and counseling him to take the lead of any potential independence movement to keep Brazil under the sway of the house of Braganza. Don Pedro was young, strong, an excellent horseman, and handsome. Brazilians liked him. As Grand Master of the Masonic Order he could communicate easily with the liberal and revolutionary-minded citizens. Events in Portugal contributed to heightened demands for a change. A constituent assembly, Cortes, began to write a constitution. Brazilians were invited to attend the deliberations. But, before they could arrive in Lisbon, the Cortes had already dissolved newly formed juntas and replaced them with governing bodies responsible to itself. Besides this, the Brazilians, like the creoles of Spanish America, were treated with contempt and their proposals were not considered seriously. Such news angered the people back home. Finally, the resulting constitution demoted Brazil and in many ways returned it to the status it had before becoming a kingdom. Brazil was to be governed by a junta responsible to the Cortes; the old colonial capitanias were to be revived and some reserved for the benefit of the mother country; laws and treaties had to be approved by Portugal before they could take effect; freedom of trade was curtailed; and the old monopolies were reconstituted. Brazilians were incensed. The last proverbial straw was when the Cortes demanded that Dom Pedro return. With the advice of José Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva, a one-time professor at the University of Coimbra and distinguished intellectual, Dom Pedro resisted the entreaties from abroad and declared he would stay in Brazil. He then assumed the title of “Perpetual Defender and Protector of Brazil” and convoked an assembly to work on a constitution. He sent delegates to Lisbon with proposals for continued cooperation and alliance that were summarily rejected. Renewed demands that he return were sent back to Brazil. This information reached him in September 1822 while he rode along the banks of a stream called the Ypiranga in the state of São Paulo. There he gave the “Grito de Ipiranga” (“Independence or Death”). Four years later, Portugal recognized the independent status of Brazil. A month later in Rio de Janeiro, Dom Pedro was recognized as the constitutional emperor of Brazil. Portuguese troops in Bahia mounted some resistance, but Dom Pedro’s land forces, aided by Lord Thomas Cochrane and his fleet, forced the surrender of the Portuguese troops. Commanders in Maranhão and Pará also gave up.

Brazil  117 Dom Pedro resisted overtures by his father and the latter recognized Brazil’s independence in 1826. The fact that a son of the ruler declared Independence prevented Brazil from fragmenting along regional lines like the Spanish American viceroyalties. The crown provided a common identity. There was, then, no problem of legitimacy. There was continuity and there was no massive physical destruction as a result of wars.

Part V

Documents

Document 1: The encomienda grant of the Tucumes to Juan Roldan, 1536 This grant of natives under the native lords of the Tucumes to Juan Roldan made him a leading personality in the nearest city of Trujillo [Peru] and served as the basis of a fortune and political power. Because you Juan Roldan, citizen of this town of Trujillo [Peru], have served his majesty in these kingdoms, are one of the first settlers of them, have married with the intention of remaining in them and have your wife and house like an honorable person; I, Don Francisco Pizarro, precursor, captain general and governor for His Majesty in these·kingdoms of the Nueva [New] Castilla [Castile], etc., by this present act in the name of His Majesty and until the general re-distribution [repartimiento] is made and I another thing order deposit in you the people of Tucume with the person of the cacique principal [curaca] Conoceque, that now is, and with whomever in the future [might be], and with the cacique principal named Ponopo with all their Indians and principal persons, with the condition that you let the cacique, his wife and children, retain the Indians for their service like His Majesty orders and that when there are churchmen in the town you bring them [the natives] before them so that they can be instructed in the things and doctrines of our Christian religion. Said Indians can serve you in your homes and fields and in extracting gold from the mines, with the condition that you are obliged to teach them the things of our Catholic Faith and treat them well. If you should fail to do these things, they should count against your conscience, and not against that of His Majesty or my own. I order all officials of this town to give and support you in your possession of said cacique and principal Indians. Dated in said town on three of February of the year 1536. Francisco Pizarro. By order of His Lordship. Antonio Picado. Source: Archivo General de las Indias/ Justicia 418, 1573, folio 132 vuelta.

DOI: 10.4324/9780367853143-14

120  Documents

Document 2: Excerpts from the New Laws (1542) After years of wavering policy toward the treatment of the American natives, King Charles I of Spain, with the counsel and advice of crusaders like Bartolome de las Casas, finally issued a law code designed to protect better the natives, while weakening the power of the encomenderos. Charles by the divine clemency Emperor ever august, King of Germany, Doña Joanna his mother and the same Charles by the grace of God Sovereigns of Castile, of Leon, of Aragon, of the two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, of Navarre, of Granada, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Galicia, of the Mallorcas, of Seville, of Cerdena, of Cordova, of Corsica, of Murcia, of Jaen, of the Algarves, of Algezira, of Gibraltar, of the Canary Islands, of the Indies, Islands and Terra-firme of the Ocean Sea; Counts of Barcelona, Lords of Biscay and of Molina, Dukes of Athens and of Neopatria, Counts of Ruysellon and of Cerdania, Marquises of Oristan and of Gociano, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Burgundy and of Brabant, Counts of Flanders and of Tyrol, etc. To the Most Illustrious Prince Don Philip our very dear and very beloved grandson and son, and to the Infantes our grandsons and sons, and to the President, and those of our Council of the Indies, and to our Viceroys, Presidents and Auditors of our Audiencias and royal Chanceries of our said Indies, Islands and Continent of the Ocean Sea; to our Governors, Alcaldes mayores and our other Authorities thereof, and to all the Councils, magistrates, regidores, knights, esquires, officers, and commoners of all the cities, towns, and villages of our said Indies, Islands, and Tierra-firme of the Ocean Sea, discovered and to be discovered; and to any other persons, captains, discoverers, settlers, and inhabitants dwelling in and being natives thereof, of whatever state, quality, condition and preeminence they may be, as well to those who now are as to those who shall be from hence forward, and to every one and any of you, in your places and jurisdictions, to whom this our Letter or its copy signed by a public notary shall be shown, or who may otherwise know of its contents, and to whom any thing or part of it may touch and relate, and can pertain in any manner, Health and grace; Know ye, That having for many years had will and intention as leisure to occupy ourselves with the affairs of the Indies, on account of their great importance, as well in that touching the service of God our Lord and increase of his holy Catholic faith, as in the preservation of the natives of those parts, and the good government and preservation of their persons; and although we have endeavoured to disengage ourselves to this effect, it has not been possible through the many and continual affairs that have occurred from which we were not able to excuse ourselves, and through the absences from these kingdoms which I the King have made for most necessary causes, as is known to all: and although this incessant occupation has not ceased this present year, nevertheless we commanded persons to assemble of all ranks, both prelates and knights and the clergy with some of our Council to discuss and treat of the things of most importance,

Documents  121 of which we had information that they ought to be provided for: the which having been maturely debated and consulted upon, and in presence of me the King divers times argued and discussed: and finally having taken the opinion of all, we resolved on commanding to enact and ordain the things contained below: which besides the other Ordinances and Provisions that at different times we have commanded to be made, as by them shall appear, we command to be from henceforwards kept inviolably as laws. . . Whereas one of the most important things in which the Audiencias are to serve us is in taking very especial care of the good treatment of the Indians and preservation of them, We command that the said Audiencias enquire continually into the excesses or ill treatment which are or shall be done to them by governors or private persons; and how the ordinances and instructions which have been given to them, and are made for the good treatment of the said Indians have been observed. And if there had been any excesses, on the part of the said Governors, or should any be committed hereafter, to take care that such excesses are properly corrected, chastizing the guilty parties with all rigour conformably to justice. The Audiencias must not allow that in the suits between Indians, or with them, there be ordinary proceedings at law, nor dilatory expedients, as is wont to happen through the malice of some advocates and solicitors, but that they be determined summarily, observing their usages and customs, unless they be manifestly unjust; and that the said Audiencias take care that this be so observed by the other, inferior judges. Item, We ordain and command that from henceforward for no cause of war nor any other whatsoever, though it be under title of rebellion, nor by ransom nor in other manner can an Indian be made a slave, and we will that they be treated as our vassals of the Crown of Castile since such they are. No person can make use of the Indians by way of Naboria or Tapia or in any other manner against their will. As We have ordered provision to be made that from henceforward the Indians in no way be made slaves, including those who until now have been enslaved against all reason and right and contrary to the provisions and instructions thereupon, We ordain and command that the Audiencias having first summoned the parties to their presence, without any further judicial form, but in a summary way, so that the truth may be ascertained, speedily set the said Indians at liberty unless the persons who hold them for slaves show title why they should hold and possess them legitimately. And in order that in default of persons to solicit the aforesaid, the Indians may not remain in slavery unjustly, We command that the Audiencias appoint persons who may pursue this cause for the Indians and be paid out of the Exchequer fines, provided they be men of trust and diligence. Also, We command that with regard to the lading of the said Indians the Audiencias take especial care that they be not laden, or in case that in some parts this cannot be avoided that it be in such a manner that no risk of life,

122  Documents health and preservation of the said Indians may ensue from an immoderate burden; and that against their own will and without their being paid, in no case be it permitted that they be laden, punishing very severely him who shall act contrary to this. In this there is to be no remission out of respect to any person. Because report has been made to us that owing to the pearl fisheries not having been conducted in a proper manner deaths of many Indians and Negroes have ensued. We command that no free Indian be taken to the said fishery under pain of death, and that the bishop and the judge who shall be at Veneçuela direct what shall seem to them most fit for the preservation of the slaves working in the said fishery, both Indians and Negroes, and that the deaths may cease. If, however, it should appear to them that the risk of death cannot be avoided by the said Indians and Negroes, let the fishery of the said pearls cease, since we value much more highly (as is right) the preservation of their lives than the gain which may come to us from the said pearls. Whereas in consequence of the allotments of Indians made to the Viceroys, Governors, and their lieutenants, to our officials, and prelates, monasteries, hospitals, houses of religion and mints, offices of our Hazienda and treasury thereof, and other persons favoured by reason of their offices, disorders have occurred in the treatment of the said Indians, it is our will, and. we command that forthwith there be placed under our Royal Crown all the Indians whom they hold and possess by any title and cause whatever, whoever the said parties are, or may be, whether Viceroys, Governors, or their lieutenants, or any of our officers, as well of Justice as of our Hazienda, prelates, houses of religion, or of our Hazienda, hospitals, confraternities, or other similar institutions, although the Indians may not have been allotted to them by reason of the said offices; and although such functionaries or governors may say that they wish to resign the offices or governments and keep the Indians, let this not avail them nor be an excuse for them not to fulfill what we command. Moreover, We command that from all those persons who hold Indians without proper title, having entered into possession of them by their own authority, such Indians be taken away and be placed under our Royal Crown. And because we are informed that other persons, although possessing a sufficient title, have had an excessive number of Indians allotted to them, We order that the Audiencias, each in its jurisdiction diligently inform themselves of this, and with all speed, and reduce the allotments made to the said persons to a fair and moderate quantity, and then place the rest under our Royal Crown notwithstanding any appeal or application which may be interposed by such persons: and send us a report with all speed of what the said Audiencias have thus done, that we may know how our command is fulfilled. And in New Spain let it be especially provided as to the Indians held by Joan Infante, Diego de Ordas, the Maestro Roa, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Francisco Maldonado, Bernardino Vazquez de Tapia, Joan Xaramillo, Martin Vazquez, Gil Gonçales de Venavides, and many other persons who are said to hold Indians in very excessive quantity, according

Documents  123 to the report made to us. And, whereas we are informed that there are some persons in the said New Spain who are of the original Conquistadores and have no repartimiento of Indians, We ordain that the President and Auditors of the said New Spain do inform themselves if there be any persons of this kind, and if any, to give them out of the tribute which the Indians thus taken away have to pay, what to them may seem fit for the moderate support and honourable maintenance of the said original Conquistadores who had no Indians allotted to them. So also, The said Audiencias are to inform themselves how the Indians have been treated by the persons who have held them in encomienda, and if it be clear that in justice they ought to be deprived of the said Indians for their excesses and the ill-usage to which they have subjected them, We ordain that they take away and place such Indians under our Royal Crown. And in Peru, besides the aforesaid, let the Viceroy and Audiencia inform themselves of the excesses committed during the occurrences between Governors Pizarro and Almagro in order to report to us thereon, and from the principal persons whom they find notoriously blameable in those feuds they then take away the Indians they have, and place them under our Royal Crown. Moreover, We ordain and command that from henceforward no Viceroy, Governor, Audiencia, discoverer, or any other person have power to allot Indians in encomienda by new provision, or by means of resignation, donation, sale, or any other form or manner, neither by vacancy nor inheritance, but that the person dying who held the said Indians, they revert to our Royal Crown. And let the Audiencias take care to inform themselves then particularly of the person who died, of his quality, his merits and services, of how he treated the said Indians whom he held, if he left wife and children or what other heirs, and send us a report thereof with the condition of the Indians and of the land, in order that we may give directions to provide what may be best for our service, and may do such favour as may seem suitable to the wife and children of the defunct. If in the meantime it should appear to the Audiencia that there is a necessity to provide some support for such wife and children, they can do it out of the tribute which the said Indians will have to pay, or allowing them a moderate pension, if the said Indians are under our Crown, as aforesaid. Item, We ordain and command that our said Presidents and Auditors take great care that the Indians who in any of the ways above mentioned are taken away, and those who may become vacant be very well treated and instructed in the matters of our holy Catholic faith, and as our free vassals. This is to be their chief care, that on which we principally desire them to report, and in which they can best serve us. They are also to provide that they be governed with justice in the way and manner that the Indians who are under our Royal Crown are at present governed in New Spain. . . . Source: Henry Stevens, ed., The New Laws of the Indies (London: The Chiswick Press, 1893), pp. iii-xvii, passim.

124  Documents

Document 3: Excerpts from the Royal Ordinances of Pacification, 1573 The Royal Ordinances of Pacification, issued by Philip II, were designed to counter some of the bitter publicity that was tarnishing Spain’s transAtlantic image. The word “conquest” was struck from the official courtly vocabulary, while humane treatment and conversión was emphasized. . . . Discoveries are not to be called conquests. Since we wish them to be carried out peacefully and charitably, we do not want the use of the term “conquest” to offer any excuse for the employment of force or the causing of injury to the Indians. . . . After a town has been laid out and its buildings constructed, but not before, the government and settlers are to attempt peacefully to win all the natives of the region over to the Holy Church and obedience to our rule. In this they are to show great diligence and holy zeal and to use the best means at their disposal, including the following: They are to gather information about the various tribes, languages, and divisions of the Indians in the province and about the lords whom they obey. They are to seek friendship with them through trade and barter, showing them great love and tenderness and giving them objects to which they will take a liking. Without displaying any greed for the possessions of the Indians, they are to establish friendship and cooperation with the lords and nobles who seem most likely to be of assistance in the pacification of the land. Once peace and amity with the Indians have been assured, the Spaniards will try to bring them together in one spot. Then the preachers, with as much solemnity as possible, will start to teach our Holy Faith to those who wish to be instructed in it, using prudence and discretion and the gentlest methods possible. Accordingly, they are not to begin by rebuking the Indians for their vices and idolatry, nor by taking away their women and idols, so that they will not be shocked and form an aversion to Christian doctrine. Instead, it should be taught to them first, and after they have been instructed in it, they should be persuaded to give up of their own free Will those things that are contrary to our Holy Catholic Faith and evangelical doctrine. The Indians should be brought to an understanding of the position and authority which God has given us and of our zeal in serving Him by bringing to His Holy Catholic Faith all the natives of the Western Indies. They should also learn of the fleets and armies that we have sent and still send for this purpose, as well as of the many provinces and nations that have rendered us obedience and of the many benefits which they have received and are receiving as a result, especially that we have sent ecclesiastics who have taught them the Christian doctrine and faith by which they could be saved. Moreover, we have established justice in such a way that no one may aggravate another. We have maintained the peace so that there are no killings, or sacrifices, as was the custom in some parts. We have made it possible for the

Documents  125 Indians to go safely by all roads and to peacefully carry on their civil pursuits. We have taught them good habits and the custom of wearing clothes and shoes. We have freed them from burdens and servitude; we have made known to them the use of bread, wine, oil, and many other foods, woollen cloth, silk, linen, horses, cows, tools, arms, and many other things from Spain; we have instructed them in crafts by which they live excellently. All these advantages will those Indians enjoy who embrace our Holy Faith and render obedience to us. Even if the Indians were willing to receive the faith and the preachers in peace, the latter are to approach their villages with prudence and with precautions for their own safety. In this manner if the Indians should prove unruly, they will not be inclined to show disrespect to the preachers; otherwise, the guilty person would have to be punished, causing great damage to the work of pacification and conversión. Although the preachers should keep this in mind when they visit the Indian settlements, it should be concealed from the natives so that they will not feel any anxiety. Difficulties may be avoided if the children of the caciques and nobels are brought to the Spanish settlements and are kept there as hostages under the pretext of entertaining them and teaching them to wear clothes. By means such as these is conversión to be undertaken in all the Indian communities which wish to receive the preachers in peace. In areas where the Indians refuse to accept Christian doctrine peacefully, the following procedure may be used. An arrangement should be made with the principal lord who is a proponent of peace so that he will invite the belligerent Indians to his territory on one pretext or another. On this occasion the preachers, together with some Spaniards and friendly Indians, should be hidden nearby. At the opportune moment they should disclose themselves and begin teaching the faith with the aid of interpreters. In order that the Indians may hear the faith with greater awe and reverence, the preachers should carry the Cross in their hands and should be wearing at least albs or stoles; the Christians are also to be told to listen to the preaching with great respect and veneration, so that by their example the non-believers will be induced to accept instruction. If it seems advisable, the preachers may attract the attention of the non-believers by using music and singers, thereby encouraging them to join in. If the Indians seem inclined to be peaceful and request the preachers to go to their territory, the latter should do so, taking the precautions previously described. They should ask for their children under the pretext of teaching them and keep them as hostages; they should also persuade them to build churches where they can teach so that they may be safer. By these and other means are the Indians to be pacified and indoctrinated, but in no way are they to be harmed, for all we seek is their welfare and their conversion. Once the region has been pacified and the Indian lords and subjects have tendered us their fealty, the Governor, with their consent, is to distribute the land among the settlers who are to take charge of the natives in their parcels, defending and protecting them and providing them with clerics

126  Documents to teach them Christian doctrine and administer the sacraments. They should also teach them to live in an orderly fashion and fulfill all the obligations of encomenderos as set forth in the clauses dealing with this subject. The Indians who offer us obedience and are distributed among Spaniards are to be persuaded to acknowledge our sovereignty over the Indies. They are to give us tributes of local produce in moderate amounts, which are to be turned over to their Spanish encomenderos so that the latter may fulfill their obligations, reserving to us the tributes of the principal villages and the seaports, as well as an amount adequate to pay the salaries of our officials. If it appears that the pacification of the natives will be accomplished more easily by temporarily exempting them from tribute payments or by granting them other privileges, this should be done; and whatever is promised should be carried out. . . . Source: “Ordenanzas de Su Magestad para los nuevos descubrimientos, conquistas y pacificaciones. – Julio de 1573”, Coleccion de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de América y Oceania, sacados de los archivos del reino y muy especialmente del de Indias (Madrid, 1864–1884), XVI, pp. 142–187, passim.

Document 4: Poems by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Second Half of the Seventeenth Century) CAPRICE Who thankless flees me, I with love pursue, Who loving follows me, I thankless flee; To him who spurns my love I bend the knee, His love who seeks me, cold I bid him rue; I find as diamond him I yearning woo, Myself a diamond when he yearns for me; Who slays my love I would victorious see, While slaying him who wills me blisses true, To favor this one is to lose desire, To crave that one, my virgin pride to tame; On either hand I face a prospect dire, Whatever path I tread, the goal the same; To be adored by him of whom I tire, Or else by him who scorns me brought to shame. –Peter H. Goldsmith

Documents  127 ARRAIGNMENT OF THE MEN Males perverse, schooled to condemn Women by your witless laws, Though forsooth you are prime cause Of that which you blame in them: If with unexampled care You solicit their disdain, Will your fair words ease their pain, When you ruthless set the snare? Their resistance you impugn, Then maintain with gravity That it was mere levity Made you dare to importune. What more elevating sight Than of man with logic crass, Who with hot breath fogs the glass, Then laments it is not bright! Scorn and favor, favor, scorn, What you will, result the same, Treat you ill, and earn your blame, Love you well, be left forlorn. Scant regard will she possess Who with caution wends her way, Is held thankless for her “nay,” And as wanton for her “yes.” What must be the rare caprice Of the quarry you engage: If she flees, she wakes your rage, If she yields, her charms surcease. Who shall bear the heavier blame, When remorse the twain enthralls, She, who for the asking, falls, He who, asking, brings to shame? Whose the guilt, where to begin, Though both yield to passion’s sway, She who weakly sins for pay, He who, strong, yet pays for sin? Then why stare ye, if we prove That the guilt lies at your gate?

128  Documents Either love those you create, Or create those you can love. To solicitation truce, Then, sire, with some show of right You may mock the hapless plight Or the creatures of your use! –Peter H. Goldsmith Source: Thomas Walsh (1875–1928), Hispanic anthology: Poems Translated from the Spanish by English and North American Poets, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920, pp. 359–362.

Document 5: Concolorcorvo engages the postal inspector about Indian Affairs, Lima, Peru, 1776 This is the partial record of a conversation between a Spanish Inspector who walked the roads from Buenos Aires to Lima in the eighteenth century and a native companion (referred to as Mr. Inca) on matters dealing with colonial policy toward the Indians. [Inca] The first charge against the priests is that they do not put all of their efforts into introducing the Castilian [Spanish] language into their parishes, by the easy means that I have proposed. Only these gentlemen, ministers of doctrine, can achieve this triumph, because the corregidores [district governors], who govern for five years [up to] thirty towns, and often for just two years, do not have time nor resources to establish the same, so useful to religion and the State. The assistants to the priests, who generally are ordained themselves because of their knowledge of a native language, and who deal most with the Indians, do not want them to speak another language, and some who want to explain themselves in Spanish, scold them, and treat them as graduates and learned, as the current bishop of La Paz confessed to me. This practice much delays the progress of the introduction of the Spanish language. The Jesuits who were the main teachers in this kingdom for more than one hundred and fifty years, tried, through a policy detrimental to the State, to prevent the Indians from communicating with the Spaniards, and learning another language; they wanted them to speak their own native tongues, which they [the Jesuits] understood very well. I do not intend to itemize their teachings or to combat them, because being already expatriates, I should only speak of the general points their disciples and successors followed. Those good priests stated that the Indians, as a result of their interaction with the Spaniards and from learning their language, became

Documents  129 contaminated with and practiced enormous vices, which they had never before imagined. It cannot be doubted that these ministers of the gospel spoke falsely about this issue, because in all the stories that were written at the beginning of the conquest, many abominations were noted that were foreign to Spaniards’ thinking, as I have said before. Spaniards can only be charged with declaring in their language the enormity of sin and an abhorrence of it such as eating human flesh, sacrificing prisoners of war to their gods, worshipping monsters or horrendous figures carved from tree trunks, and often [using] poisonous vermin. Polygamy and incest were permitted by their laws and were not practiced among the Spaniards, nor was the bestial and heinous sin of homosexuality that was commonly found among the Indians, as is seen today amongst those who are not yet conquered. The six, seventh, and eighth commandments of the law of God, were, and are so commonly broken, as among the Spaniards and other nations of the world, that it can be inferred that the Spanish did not introduce any sin into the kingdom, that was not [already] doubly stocked. If one speaks of execrations or curses, the Indians knew how to say Supaypaguagua, which means son of the devil, and God understood it as such, and they offended Him in one language or another, as if it did not mean that God only understands Spanish and He punishes only those who offend Him with their words. Drunkenness was more prevalent among the Indians than in peoples in any other part of the world, and only the Spaniards seem to be blamed for having introduced stronger versions of brandy and wine. The priests will do a great service to God, to the king and to the Indians in banishing the native language from their parishes, substituting the Spanish language, entrusting this task to their assistants. The corregidores, their lieutenants and cashiers, and all those who pass through the parishes, will receive a remarkable benefit, because the Indians, by virtual of not understanding Spanish, feign ignorance of many things, that leads to quarrels, pitiful trouble; and enough on Indians. [Spaniard] No for God’s sake, I told him. Do not say goodbye without explaining to me something of how you feel about their value and industry. [Inca] As for the first, I say that they are of the quality of greyhounds, that together they are capable of attacking a lion, and that one by one they barely catch a hare, with the condition that the same thing is to draw a drop of blood, from someone who is already considered dead, and in the greatest tumult, unless accompanied by drunkenness, as to see one of their own dead, the others fleeing, even if there are fifty for each of us. For this reason, I replied, a few Spaniards conquered more than seven million Indians. [Spaniard] You understand little, Mr. Inca, the Inspector told me. A conquest of a civilized kingdom, and what its inhabitants have to lose, who do not expect help from other powers, is conquered by winning two or three pitched battles, especially if the commanders perish or become prisoners.

130  Documents The Spaniards, with the defeat of Ottumba’s army, did not succeed in anything except that it earned them a reputation for bravery, but they made the Indians understand that they were mortal and vulnerable, like their horses; but with the taking of Mexico, aided by the noble Tlaxcalans, they subjugated that great empire of more than forty million souls, because each prince, general or chief, then lent his obedience, out of fear of being fought and ruined. If Darius had opposed Alexander the Great, fifty thousand men, with one or two good generals, even if they were defeated, and in the retreat, the officers could have gathered at least twenty thousand men, and Alexander, even if he had lost no more than four or five thousand, would have used a section of his army to guard the prisoners and equipment. Darius could have attacked him a second, third, fourth, and fifth time with the same army, knowing precisely that the brave troops of Alexander had to tire and diminish in the clashes of the key garrisons he was gaining. Darius attacked Alexander as a victor, not as a warrior. It seemed to him that Alexander would be frightened of his mighty united army and the size and roar of his elephants. With this confidence he faced the battle, and in one day he lost with his life a great empire, abandoning his treasures to the victor along with his wife and daughters. The Chileans knew how to deal better with the Spaniards, because they observed that they had always been defeated with four times the number of combatants, and even many times with a hundred men against one, they changed their plan and way of fighting. They considered that the Spaniards were more skillful and courageous than they, and that they fought with better weapons, but they knew that they were mortal and subject to human misery, and thus they decided to face them in repeated battles, until they were tired, defeated and had retreated to their trenches with the loss of some settlements. These reflections prove that a large, disorderly led army of two hundred thousand men, even if they are veteran soldiers, with inexperienced general officers, can be defeated and put to flight by thirty thousand welldisciplined soldiers, led by wise and courageous leaders. But these matters are outside our discourse and knowledge, and so say you, Mr. Inca, if you have more to speak or ask about your countrymen. [Inca] I ask, then, for what reason, the Spaniards, who conquered and colonized with their customs and laws seven million Indians, cannot dominate and subdue the Indians of the Chaco and the jungle? [Spaniard] That question would be more appropriate for you to ask one of your Inca ancestors and caciques; but since those have given an account to God of their operations, good or bad, I will take the trouble to defend them, as well as to instruct some Spaniards who think that with a thousand militia men, regulated and directed by good officers, it is possible to conquer the Chaco, and with a like number conquer the extensive jungle. Of course, I confess that this number of men, at much expense, will wander through one and another province and territory, but the barbarian Indians, who do

Documents  131 not have permanent settlements or sown fields, will migrate and make fun of the vane efforts of the Spaniards, who, not being able to strengthen the sites, will abandon them, and would recover them with considerable loss on their part, like you judiciously expressed in your opening statement. By barbarian people I mean the ones that are not subject to laws or officials, and who finally live as they wish, always following their passions. Of this nature are the Indians of the pampas and those inhabitants of the Chaco. In New Spain, seeing the impossibility of subjugating the barbarian Indians who inhabited the open plains of the center of New Vizcaya, they traveled more than a hundred leagues from the royal road to arrive at the San Bartolome del Parral Valley. The Spaniards built four fortifications, with a distance from one to the next of twenty five leagues, with fifty soldiers each, led by their corresponding officers. The garrisons were manned by soldiers who were to be married and of age to father children. These men escorted large mule trains from one fort to the next every month. If a convoy did not reach the next stage by the third day of the journey, its arrival was not expected until the following month. Thus, the muleteers took their measures to advance or stop in fertile and safe pastures. No fee was obtained for this escort, because the officers and soldiers were always paid well by the king. To protect the fields where they kept their horses, the soldiers of the first three garrisons never wandered to the right or to the left of the road for more than two leagues. However, in the fertile and delightful valley of San Bartolome, where a large town of the same name is to be found, a mobile company of soldiers was maintained. Platoons patrolled to survey the fields in long distance treks, with orders not to attack the Indians without being sure of victory. In case of finding a large number congregated, their location was observed and news was given to all the fortifications and militiamen, so that united, they would attack and disperse them with the loss of some. They seldom took prisoners, and very rarely did they admit any of these barbarians into the fortifications, because the soldiers claimed that, if shown any trust, those Indians were only good for eating their bread and stealing their horses. The garrisons are not twenty years old and each one of them already is made up of a large population of mestizos and Spaniards of both sexes, with cultivated lands and pastures for cattle, so that the fortification of the route was increased so much that the Count of San Pedro del Alamo, who had large neighboring estates, asked the government to transplant or extinguish them, as they were useless in that place, which was already free from the incursions of the Indians, who were less harmful to them than the multitude of mestizos and Spaniards, who supported themselves by working his estates [haciendas]. In the end, he promised to clear the fields and protect the mule trains, with the savings in favor of the royal treasury of twelve thousand pesos per year that it had cost, which, as His Majesty had established and endowed those garrisons, with the condition that as those lands were populated and the Indians distanced, they would

132  Documents advance as well. The Count achieved his wish, and perhaps at present not a single fort exists in those vast lands, only numerous towns in proportion to the more or less fertility of the land and waters, that the countryside of New Vizcaya lacks. I am going to conclude this point with a public and notorious event in New Vizcaya. A certain captain of the mobile company, whose [first] name I do not remember, but with the surname, Berroteran, whom the barbarian Indians called Perroteran [perro as in dog], was several times deceived by the promises that they made to him while he attended to the pious maxim of our kings, who repeatedly ordered that peace be granted to the Indians who asked for it, even if it was in the midst of combat and their ultimate defeat. Trusting in the benignity of our laws, deceived repeatedly by the infidels, he proposed to wage war on them without quarter, and thus, when the Indians asked for peace, the good Cantabrian interpreted the word paz (peace) as bread (pan), and replied that he would take it for himself and his soldiers, and charged at them with more impetus until he effectively terrorized them and banished them from all that territory. And, it is reported that when asked by the priest who aided him to die well, if he regretted having killed so many Indians, he replied that he was only sorry to leave on earth even one single scoundrel without religion, faith or law, who thought only of treachery and deceit, and living at the expense of the labor of the Spaniards and the sweat of the civilized Indians. The truth is that there is no other measure with these barbarous Indians than the defense of lessening their numbers through our multiplication. In New Mexico, which is eight hundred leagues from the capital, small numbers of Spaniards remain under the command of a governor, and live among a multitude of opposing nations, taking no other side than to ask the victorious nation to forgive the remnants of the defeated army, that sought their help. With this maxim, they become feared and loved by those barbarians who are less rude than the inhabitants of the pampas and Chaco. [Inca] From all that I have said, I infer that you consider the Indians to be civil. [Spaniard] If you speak of the Indians subject to the emperors of Mexico and Peru, and to their laws, good or bad, I say that not only have they been and are civil, but that it is the nation most obedient to their superiors than anywhere else in the world. From the Chichas to the Piuranos I have observed their way of governing themselves. With punctuality they obey the regidor, who acts as a minister to the corregidor. They live from their crops and cattle raising, without aspiring to be rich, although they have had some situations through the discoveries of mines and [rich] huacas [ancestral tombs], contenting themselves with getting a small sum from them for their festivals and bacchanalia. Some attribute this attitude to suspicion that the Spaniards will deprive them of those treasures, which are generally imaginary or depend, like in silver and gold mining, on industrious men and immense investment.

Documents  133 The Spaniards would be very happy if the Indians were rich, to trade with them and enjoy part of their wealth, but the pity is that in the largest fair that the Indians have, which is that of Cocharcas [Charcas in modern Bolivia], where more than two thousand come from various provinces, it is not seen that any of them buy merchandise worth a real [one eighth of a peso; about half a day’s wages for an agricultural worker] from a Spaniard because they do not approve of their stinginess. Consequently, they buy from Indian shopkeepers, who have the patience to sell them a muleteer’s needle, costing a quarter real, a quarter of a real of string, and so on. The Spanish trade is done with one another, including the mestizos and other castes that belonging to the Indian sphere, going down or up. The rare Indian who makes himself comfortable financially is esteemed by the Spaniards, who offer him their goods and extend him generous credit, and do not disdain with trading with him, and seating him at their tables. No Spaniard is capable of deceiving an Indian, and if someone by violence has taken something from him, he will persecute him in court until the end of his days. This is not why I say, as I have also said before, that tyrannies are lacking, that they cannot be said to be such, with respect to the fact that they are reciprocal, due to the bad example of the first conquerors, who governed themselves by the customs of the land. Source: CONCOLORCORVO THE LAZARILLO OF BLIND WALKERS from Buenos Aires to Lima, 1773 ARAUJO Guide of Outsiders of the Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires 1803 BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES BY MARTINIANO LEGUIZAMON at BUENOS AIRES South American Banknote Company 1908. Translated by Fernando Artuo Siles Quesada (February 2021).

Glossary

Alcabala Sales tax Alcalde de Barrio Eighteenth-century neighborhood inspector Alcalde Mayor Chief magistrate or mayor of a city Alcaldes Councilmen, magistrates Armada Armed fleet Asiento License, especially to import and sell slaves in Spanish America Audiencia Supreme Court Bachiller A title given to a person who has finished high school and is preparing for university studies. Bandeirante An explorer of Brazil’s interior, seeking slaves Black Legend A Protestant condemnation of Spain, painting the Spanish as ruthless exploiters. Caballería A varying unit of land measurement equal to 64 manzanas, each 10,000 varas (33.3 inches) square) Cabezon Tax on fallow land Cabildo Town council Caboclo Offspring of a Portuguese and an Indian Cacique Native chieftain Calmecac An Aztec institution of higher instruction, meaning priests’ house, that taught students destined to be priests, tax collectors, judges, and military commanders Calpull(i) Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs) for “big house”. Each occupied a city neighborhood and paid tribute as a collective. Capitanía Private settlement enterprises in Brazil established in the mid1530s. They were about 50 miles wide and extended inland to the line of the Treaty of Tordesillas. The donees were granted the power to tax, administer law and justice, make appointments, and distribute lands. Capitulación Contract Casa de Contratación House of Trade in Seville Casa de Moneda The mint Casta Mixed blood individual Caudillo Local strong man Caudillismo The rule of a strong man

136 Glossary Chicherias Stores selling maize beer (chicha) Chinampas Floating gardens built by the Aztecs to grow food Ciudad City Composición A process of land title review by which for a fee the crown would excuse and rectify any deficiencies in land titles, including the acknowledgment that the owner controlled more territory than was initially granted or otherwise acquired. Consejo de las Indias Council of the Indies Consulado Merchant guild that represented the group Corregidor Local governor under the Hapsburgs Creole Offspring of European parents born in America Curaca Quechua Word for paramount lord Diezmo Tithe Dueño de Indios Native lord, literally “owner of Indians” Dueño de tienda Store owner Encomendero Trustee of a group of natives Encomienda Protectorship of a group of natives for Crown service Entradas Expeditions into unexplored lands Estancia Ranch Estanciero Livestock breeder Familiar Representative of the Inquisition Fanega A Spanish bushel equal to about 55.5 liters in Castile Fanegada A variable measure of land defined by the amount of land that could be planted with one fanega (a Spanish bushel equal to about 55.5 liters in Castile) of seed Fazenda Ranch Fiel Ejecutor Inspector of Weights and Measures Flota Atlantic fleet Flower(y) War Aztec wars to capture slaves and sacrificial victims Forastero Outsider, stranger Fuero Privilege, especially to have specialty courts Galeon(es) Galleons, ships Gauchupín Peninsular Spaniard, usually in a derogatory sense Gente decente Polite society, usually used to identify the elite Gremio Guild Guardafaroleros Street light guards Hacendado Rural estate owner Hacienda Rural estate, usually large; latifundio Hombres de Negocios Businessmen Huitzilopochtli Aztec god of War Ingenio Mill, usually wáter driven Intendente Bourbon governor who replaced corregidores Junta Committee Kiva Kivas were architecturally unique rooms or structures built by natives in the southwest that served important ceremonial and social functions.

Glossary  137 La Noche Triste The Sad Night when Spaniards fled Tenochtitlán Lavrador Sugarcane grower who had no mill Laws of Burgos Law Code of 1512 Licenciado A university degree equivalent to a bachelor’s degree Limpieza de Sangre Clean blood with no trace of Jewish, Moor or black ancestry Manzana A unit of land measurement, each 10,000 varas (33.3 inches) square Mark Equivalent to 67 reales Mercachifle Retailer Mercader Merchant Merced Grant, gift, usually of land Mesillero Street vendor Mestizo Offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian Metador(es) Spanish smuggler of coins and bullion Mingados Wage laborers Mit’a Forced, rotating labor obligation of natives Mitayos A native serving his turn Molino Mill, usually driven by animals Mulatto Offspring of a Spaniard and Black Muslims or Moors Believers of Islam Naborías enslaved workers in the Caribbean in Columbus’ era Obraje Textile mill Oidores Supreme Court judges; literally, listeners Ouvidor-geral The chief justice of Brazil Partidos Sub-districts of Intendencias Patronato Real Royal Patronage, an agreement that the Spanish crown would underwrite the spread of the gospel in the Americas in return for a veto over high ecclesiastical appointments, such as the archbishops and bishops. Peninsular(es) Spaniards born in the Iberian Peninsula Peonía Land grant of about 100 acres each Peso de Ocho Reales Spanish currency of 8 reales, pieces of 8 Pochteca Aztec merchants, spies, and ambassadors Potosí Silver mine, mountain, and city in Bolivia Presidencia Districts of a Viceroy’s jurisdiction Provedor-mor Chief treasurer in Brazil Pulperias Small general stores or taverns Quinto Real The 50 percent tax on mineral wealth owed to the monarchy, usually referred to as the “royal fifth” Real Cedula Royal decree Real Hacienda Royal Treasury Recogimiento Women’s shelter Reconquista Reconquest Reducción or Congregacion Reduction, concentration of natives in towns Regatador(es) Street vendor

138 Glossary Regidores Councilmen Repartimiento de bienes Forced sale of goods to natives República de españoles Republic of Spaniards. One of the two sector ideal for organizing colonial society República de indios Republic of Indians. One of the two sector ideal for organizing colonial society Requerimiento The Requirement, statement to be read to natives before combat Residencia Judicial review of an official’s term of office Senado da câmara Brazilian town council Senhor de engenho Mill owner Siete Partidas Seven-Part Spanish Law Code that described slavery as “contra razón de natura” (against natural reason) and that a slave had an absolute right to security, property, and religious protection. Solar House site, usually in newly formed towns Sub delegado Assistants to Intendentes Suprema Supreme Council of the Inquisition Telpochcalli Aztec House of Youth a school that prepared a child for his religious and military duties and indoctrinated him to the ideals of society Tenochtitlán Aztec capital city Tierra Firme Firm land, mainland Tina y tenería Soap-making and tanning facilities Tlaloc Aztec god of rain Trapiche Mill, usually animal driven Tratante Peddlar Vagamundo Vagabond Vara Measurement of 33.3 inches Vecino Citizen of a town Villa Small city Virreinato Viceroyalty Visita Inspection visit Yanacona Personal retainer or dependent

Further reading

Primary sources Castillo, Bernal Diaz del. The True History of the Conquest of Mexico. La Jolla, CA: Renaissance Press, 1568/1979. Chimalpahin, Domingo Francisco. Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics of Mexico. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder, eds. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, c. 1621/1997. Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe. Letter to a King: A Peruvian Chief’s Account of Life under the Incas and under Spanish Rule. Christopher Dilke, ed. New York: Dutton, 1978. Sahagun, Bernardino. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. 12 vols. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, trans. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1950–1982. Vega, Garcilaso de la. The Royal Commentaries of the Incas. 2 vols. Harold V. Livermore, trans. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965.

Secondary sources Barrett, Ward. The Sugar Hacienda of the Marqueses del Valle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970. Brown, Kendall W. A History of Mining in Latin America: From the Colonial Era to the Present. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012. Clendinen, Inga. Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 and subsequent editions. Cook, Noble David. Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520–1620. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981 and subsequent editions. Crosby. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972 and other subsequent editions. Díaz, Mónica. To Be Indio in Colonial Spanish America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017. Duenas-Vargas, Guiomar. Of Love and Other Passions: Elites, Politics, and Family in Bogota, Colombia, 1778–1870. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015. Herzog, Tamar. Upholding Justice: Society and the Penal System in Quito. 1650– 1750. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.

140  Further reading Johnson, Lyman. Workshop of Revolution: Plebeian Buenos Aires and the Atlantic World, 1776–1810. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. Kicza, John. Colonial Entrepreneurs: Families and Business in Bourbon Mexico City. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983. Landers, Jane G. and Robinson, Barry M. Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Lane, Kris. The Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010. Lockhart, James, Spanish Peru. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968. López- Portilla, Miguel. Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2006 and other editions. Ricard, Robert. The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico. Lesley Byrd Simpson, trans. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Robertson, William S. Rise of the Spanish American Republics: As Told in the Lives of Their Liberators. New York: Free Press, 1946, 1965. Russell, Philip L. The History of Mexico from Pre-Conquest to Present. New York: Routledge, 2010. Socolow, Susan M. The Women of Colonial Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Van Deusen, Nancy. Global Indios: The Indigenous Struggle for Justice in Sixteenth Century Spain. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Wheat, David. Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570–1640. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

Index

Alfonso d’ABURQUERQUE 108 Pedro de AHUMADA 37 ALCABLA 51, 61, 80, 84, 135 ALCALDE 35–36, 41, 62, 89–90, 93, 120, 135 Hernando de ALARCON 25 ALEXANDER VI xii, xiv, 5, 43 ALFONSO Henriques 107 Diego de ALMAGRO xiii, xix, 16–19, 25, 29, 123 Alonso de ALVARADO 24 Pedro de ALVARADO 13, 22–25 Pascual de ANDOGOYA 23 ARAWAK Indians 5 ARGENTINA xii, xx, xxi, 14, 17, 23–25, 97, 100–103 ARMADA 41, 57, 59, 62, 78, 89, 136 José Gervasio ARTIGAS 101 ASIENTO 57, 92, 135 ASUNCIÓN 34, 102 ATAHUALPA vii, xiii, xv, xvi, xix, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22, 30, 48, 62 AUDIENCIA(S) 8, 33–35, 38, 40–43, 80–81, 94–95, 120–123, 135 Juan de AYOLAS 25 AZORES xi, 3, 5, 52, 108 AZTECS vii, xv, xvi, 10–13, 20, 21 68, 135, 136, 139 BAHÍA 111, 115–116 Vasco Núñez de BALBOA xi, xviii, 9, 16, 22, 23 BANDEIRANTES 107, 112, 114–115, 135 Rodrigo de BASTIDA 9, 23 Sebastián de BENALCAZAR 24 Toribio de BENABENTE 63 BLACK LEGEND 64, 135 Francisco de BOBADILLA xiii, 7, 29

Santa Fe de BOGOTÁ 25, 34, 36, 89, 94, 102 Simón BOLIVAR xiii, xiv, xvii, xx, 100, 101, 104 BOLIVIA xii, xiii, xxi, 14, 17, 24, 40, 46, 49, 71, 82, 100–102, 133, 137 BOURBON REFORMS vii, 77, 79, 81–83, 85, 87, 89–93, 95 BOURBONS xii, 79–85, 87, 89, 101 BRASILWOOD 7–8, 21, 107, 109, 111, 113 BRAZIL viii, ix, xi, xii, xiv, xvi, xix, xx, 23, 25, 78, 98, 102, 107, 109–117, 135, 137, 138 BUENOS AIRES 34–35, 82–83, 89, 97, 100, 102–103, 128, 133 BULL (Inter Caetera) xi, 5 Laws of BURGOS xi, 8, 30, 63, 137 Alvar Núñez CABEZA de Vaca 24 CABILDO(S) 8, 12, 17, 36, 41–42, 51, 53, 55–56, 61–63, 77, 80, 87, 91–93, 95, 98, 112, 135 CABOCLO 114, 135 Sebastián CABOT 24 Pedro Álvares CABRAL xiii, 23, 109 CACIQUE(S) 5, 17, 26, 52, 70, 73, 93, 119, 124, 130, 135 CADIZ 58, 89, 98, 100 CAJAMARCA vii, xiii, xv, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 22, 25, 34, 51, 59 Order of the CALATRAVA xiii, 7 CALICUT xi CALPULLI 11 CAPE Bojador xi, 3, 108 CAPE of Good Hope xi, xv, 3, 108 CAPE Verde Islands xi, 3, 5, 108 CAPTAIN GENERAL 32, 34, 119 CAPTAINCY 111

142 Index CAPITANIA 116, 135 Real Compañía Guipuzcoana de CARACAS 79 CARIBE Indians xi, 6–7 CARTAGENA 34, 45, 52, 58, 89 CASA de Contratación (House of Trade) xi, 31, 57, 89, 135 CASTAS 31, 67, 70, 87, 89, 92–93, 95–96, 99, 135 CASTILE xiii, xiv, 32, 40, 54, 107, 119–121, 136 CATHOLIC CHURCH xxii, 99, 107 CATHOLIC KINGS xiv, 4–5, 43, 57 CAUDILLISMO 104, 136 CAUDILLO 136 CEUTA xi, 3, 108 CHACO 130–132 CHARCAS 32, 34–35, 89, 133 CHARLES I 32, 77, 120 CHARLES II 79, 81 CHARLES III 81, 89 CHARLES IV 81, 98 CHARLES V of Spain xviii, xx, 32, 77 CHICHAS 132 CHICHIMEC(A)S 10, 37 CHILE xii, xiii, xviii, xx, 14, 17, 19, 25, 32, 34, 35, 58, 65, 84, 100–102, 130 Congress of CHILPANCINGO xii, 99 Baltasar Hidalgo de CISNEROS 97, 103 Duarte de COELHO 111 COLOMBIA xii, xiii, xiv, xx, xxi, 5, 14, 17, 23–25, 48, 50–52, 100–102, 139 Gran COLOMBIA xi Bartolomeu COLUMBUS 29 Christopher COLUMBUS xi, xiii, xiv, xxii, 3–9, 21–22, 29, 57, 62–63, 65, 68, 108, 137 Diego COLUMBUS xiv, 8 COMPOSICIÓN 56, 136 José Gabriel CONDORCANQUE xxi, 93 CONGO River xi, 3 CONGREGACION(ES) 9, 53, 64, 137 CONQUEST xiii, xv, xvi, xix, xxii, 22, 47, 64, 77, 109, 124, 129–140 CONSTITUTION of 1812 98 CONSULADO 59–60, 136 CONTRABAND 21, 42, 50, 52, 57–58, 79–82, 85, 90, 92–93, 111, 137 Francisco Vásquez de CORONADO 22, 25, 122

CORREGIDOR xxi, 35–36, 38–40, 42–43, 45, 54, 61, 63, 73, 80, 83, 86, 91–95, 99, 128–129, 132, 136 CORRUPTION 36, 42, 78–80, 83, 96–97 CORTES 98 Hernán CORTES vii, xi, xv, xvii, xvii, xviii, 10–13, 20, 22, 23, 24, 30, 37, 40, 62, 64, 68, 111, 116 Martín CORTES xvi, 40, 68 Juan de la COSA 8–9 COSTA RICA 6, 84, 102 COUNCIL of the Indies (Concejo de Indias) 31, 40, 120, 136 CREOLE xxi, 31, 35, 38, 77, 79–84, 86–97, 99–101, 103, 116, 136 Sor Juana Inés de la CRUZ xv, 69, 126 CUBA xv, xxii, 5, 6, 8, 11–13, 23, 48, 53, 81, 83, 84, 102 Diego Velázquez de CUELLAR xxii, 8, 12 CURACA 45, 93, 119, 136 CUZCO ix, xiii, xix, 14, 17, 18–20, 34, 58, 70, 94, 112 Bartolomeu DIAS xi, xv, 3 DIEZMO 44–45, 80, 136 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 102 DONATORY SYSTEM 111 ECUADOR xii, xiii, xvi, xviii, xx, xxi, 14, 16, 22, 24, 25, 100–102 EL SALVADOR 23, 24, 50, 102 ENCOMENDERO(S) xviii, 9, 30–32, 39, 48, 53–54, 63, 65, 77, 80–81, 85, 120, 126 ENCOMIENDA xviii, xix, 6–9, 12, 16, 17, 30–32, 53, 64, 111, 113, 119, 123, 136 ENLIGHTENMENT xvi, xvii, xix, xxii, 81, 88, 96, 101 Martín ENRIQUEZ de Almansa y Ulloa 38, 59 ENTRADA 64, 136 ESPAÑOLA (Hispanola) xi, 5–9, 12, 21, 29, 48, 53, 62, 70 Juan de ESQUIVEL xv, 8 ESTANCIA 55, 136 ESTANCIERO 86, 136 FANEGA 26, 54, 72, 136 FAZENDA 114, 136 Nickolaus FEDERMANN 25

Index  143 FERDINAND I 77 FERDINAND II xiv, 4, 9, 40, 57 FERDINAND IV 81, 97 FERDINAND VII 97–98 FIEL EJECUTOR(ES) 26, 136 FLOWER(Y) WAR(S) 10, 136 José Gaspar Rodríguez de FRANCIA 101 FRENCH Revolution xii, xix, 99 FUERO 86–88, 95, 136 Vasco da GAMA xi, 3 Alejo GARCIA 24 Diego GARCIA 24 Diego GARCIA de Colio 37–38 Pedro de GOMEZ 24 Gil GONZALEZ DAVILA 23 GRANADA xi, xiv, 4, 33, 40, 120 GREMIO 79, 136 Juan de GRIJALVA 11–12, 23 GRITO de Dolores xii, xv, 99 GRITO de Ipiranga 116 GUATEMALA 11, 23, 24, 33, 35, 37, 50, 102 GULF of Guinea xi, 3, 108 Nuño de GUZMAN 24 HACENDADO 55–56, 62, 84, 86, 92, 136 HACIENDA 55, 88, 131, 136, 139 HAITI 102 HAPSBURG vii, 27, 30, 32, 34–38, 40, 42–44, 46, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 77, 80, 81, 83, 136 HAVANA xxii, 8, 33, 52, 86, 102 Prince HENRY, The Navigator 3, 108 Francisco Hernández de CORDOVA 23 Antonio de HERRERA 25 Miguel de HIDALGO y Costilla xii, xv, xvii, 99, 101 HAITI 102 HONDURAS 6, 23, 24, 50, 102 HUANCAVELICA 45, 50, 58, 78–79 HUASCAR xiii, xv, xvi, 17, 19–20 HUITZILOPOCHTLI 11, 21, 136 García HURTADO de Mendoza 41 Diego de IBARRA 37, 40 Francisco de IBARRA 37–38 IDOLATRY 46, 72, 124 INDEPENDENCE vii, xii, xiii, xv, xvi, xvii, xix, xx, xxi, 31, 41, 47, 66, 85, 93–101, 103, 108, 116, 117

INGENIO 55, 136 INQUISITION 44–45, 78, 136, 138 INTENDENCIA 137 INTENDENTE 81, 83–84, 91–92, 103, 136, 138 IÑAQUITO xviii, 32 Domingo Martinez de IRALA 25 ISABELLA xi, xiv, 4, 6–9, 43, 57 Agustín de ITURBIDE xvi, 99, 101 JAMAICA xv, 5, 6, 8, 102 Juan JARAMILLO 40 JESUITS 43, 88–89, 93, 96, 100, 112, 114, 128 Gonzalo JIMENEZ de Quesada 25 JOÃO III 111 JOÃO VI xvi, xix, 115–116 JOSEPH BONAPARTE 98–99, 115 JUST WAR 50, 66, 112–113 Tomas KATARI 93 Julián Tupac KATARI 94 LACHIRA 17, 62 LA PLATA 34, 82–84, 95, 98, 101 Bartolomé de LAS CASAS xiii, xviii, 7–8, 63–64, 120 LATIFUNDIO 52, 109, 114, 136 LAVRADOR 114, 137 Diego LEON PINELO 42 LIMA xvii, xviii, xix, 31, 34, 35, 41, 44, 45, 57, 58, 60, 64, 65, 70, 71, 73, 83, 85, 89, 90, 93, 94, 95, 102, 128, 133 Santiago de LINIERS 97, 103 LISBON 4, 6, 53, 116 John LOCKE xvi, 88, 96 LONDON xviii, 52, 100 Hernando de LUQUE xix, 16 MADEIRA Islands xi, 3, 108 MADRID xx, 43, 78, 112 Fernando de MAGELLAN 22, 23 MALINTZIN (also Doña Marina or Malinche) xvi, 12, 40, 68 MANCO INCA 19–20, 70 Baltazar Jaime MARTÍNEZ COMPAÑÓN 89 Antonio de MENDOZA xvii, 32, 40, 72 Pedro de MENDOZA 24–25 MERCED 53–5, 137 MESTIZO 31, 64, 67, 72, 93–94, 99, 113, 131, 133, 137 MEXICA vi, 10, 11, 20, 70

144 Index MEXICO xii, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, 9–12, 21–26, 30–33, 35, 37, 38, 40, 42, 44, 49, 50, 54, 55, 57, 58, 60, 61–63, 68, 69, 71–73, 81, 82, 85, 90, 93, 99, 101–103, 130, 132, 139, 140 El Mezquital Valley 22 MILITIA 41, 80, 84–88, 92–93, 95, 103, 130–131 MINAS Gerais 107, 114 MINING 9, 35, 37, 39–42, 45, 48–52, 58–59, 62, 66, 69, 77–83, 85–86, 91–96, 107, 109–110, 114–115, 119, 132, 137, 139 Francisco de MIRANDA xii, xvii, xviii, 98, 100–101 MISSIONARIES xiv, xviii, xx, 43, 45, 88, 100, 109, 112, 114 MIT’A 51, 137 MITAYO 51, 137 MOCTEZUMA II xv, xvii, 20, 62 MOLINO 55, 137 Charles–Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de MONTESQUIEU xvii, 97 Jose Maria MORELOS y Pavon xvii, 99, 101 Antonio MORGA 42 MORISCOS 67, 78 Luis de MOSCOSO 25 Toribio de Benavente MOTOLINIA xviii, 63 MULATTO 31, 67, 72, 137 NAPOLEON 98, 115 Pánfilo de NARVAEZ 13, 22–26, 72 NAVIDAD xi, 5, 6, 62, 70 NEW CASTILE 32, 34, 35, 82 NEW Granada xx, 48, 51, 84–85, 94–95, 100–101 NEW Laws xviii, 32, 50, 53, 63, 64, 120, 123 NEW MEXICO xviii, 25, 71, 132 NEW SPAIN xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, 32, 33, 35, 38, 40, 82, 84, 86, 89, 122, 123, 131, 139 NEW VISCAYA 37–38, 40, 131–132 NICARAGUA 6, 50, 102 Pedro Alonso NIÑO 23 NOCHE Triste xi, 13, 137 Fernao de NORONHA 109 Blasco NÚÑEZ VELA xviii, 32, 53 OBRAJE 55, 80, 94, 137 O’HIGGINS, Bernardo xvii, xviii, 100–101

OIDORES (Judges) 6, 9, 35, 37–38, 41–43, 137 Alonso de OJEDA 23 Cristóbal de OLID 24 Juan de OÑATE xviii, 72 Francisco de ORELLANA de Soto 25 Frey Nicolas de OVANDO y Caceres xviii, 7–9, 29 Juan López de PALACIOS RUBIOS 30 PANAMA xviii, xix, 6, 16, 23, 32, 34, 35, 57, 89, 93, 102 PARAGUAY xii, 24, 25, 84, 88, 100–103 PARDO 87 PATRONATO REAL 43, 137 PAUL III 63–64 PEDRO I xvi, 115 PEDRO II xix, 116–117 PENINSULAR(ES) 87, 92, 95, 99, 103, 136–137 Gastón de PERALTA, Marques de Falces 38 PERNAMBUCO 111–113, 116 PERU ix, xii, xiii, xv, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, xxi, 6, 14, 16, 17, 20–22, 24–26, 30, 32, 34, 35, 42, 45, 46, 49–51, 53, 54, 55, 58, 59, 61, 68, 69, 71, 78, 81–85, 89, 91, 93, 94, 98, 100–103, 119, 123, 128, 132, 139, 140 PESO 26, 36, 42, 48–51, 58, 60, 69, 79, 85, 87, 131, 133 PHILIP II 37–38, 44, 51, 77–78, 124 PHILIP III 79 PHILIP V 80–81 PHILIPPINES 44, 52, 57, 83 Martin Alonso PINZÓN 5 San Miguel de PIURA 17, 26, 34, 62, 132 PIURANO 132 Francisco PIZARRO vii, xiii, xix, 9, 14, 16–19, 22, 25, 29, 30, 32, 48, 52, 60, 62, 64, 68, 111, 119, 123 Gonzalo PIZARRO 25, 32 Hernando PIZARRO 18 POCHTECA 11, 137 Felipe Guamán POMA DE AYALA 74, 139 Luis PONCE de LEON 22, 23 Home Riggs POPHAM 97 PORTUGAL xiv, xv, xvi, xix, xx, 78, 98, 100, 107–109, 111–113, 115, 116 PORTUGUESE viii, xi, xiv, xv, xix, xx, 3–5, 22, 29, 51, 98, 107–116, 135

Index  145 POTOSÍ 33–34, 42, 49–51, 58, 82, 91, 137 PUEBLO REVOLT 72 PUERTO RICO 5, 49, 102 QUETZALCOATL 12, 20 QUINTO REAL 17, 49, 51, 85, 137 QUITO xvi, xviii, 32, 34, 36, 41–42, 102 REAL HACIENDA 31, 35, 50, 61, 78, 83, 87, 97, 122, 131, 137, 139 RECONQUISTA xi, 4, 8, 21, 62, 65 REDUCCION(ES) 9, 53–54, 64, 73, 88, 112, 137 REGIDOR 36, 63, 120, 132, 136 REQUERIMIENTO xi, 30, 50, 64, 65, 138 RESIDENCIA 36, 39, 42, 138 RIO de Janeiro xvi, 115–116 Juan RODRÍGUEZ Cabrillo 25 Juan ROLDAN 119 Jean–Jacques ROUSSEAU xix, xxi, 88, 96, 100 Bernardo de SAHAGUN xix, xx, 63, 139 Bartolomé SALAZAR 42 José de SAN MARTÍN xvii, xx, 37–38, 100–101 Gonzalo SANDOVAL 13, 23 SANTIAGO xv, xxii, 33–34, 102 SANTO Domingo xiii, xviii, 8, 29, 33, 35, 57, 102 SÃO VICENTE xx, 109, 111–114 SEBASTIAN 108 SENADO DA CÂMARA 112, 138 SENHOR de engenho 114–115, 138 Juan Gines de SEPULVEDA xix, 64 SESMARIA 109, 112–114 SEVEN YEARS WAR 86 SLAVES 5, 9–11, 20, 21, 26, 45, 49, 50, 55–57, 64–67, 69, 81, 100, 104, 107, 112–115, 121, 122, 135, 136, 140 Rafael de SOBREMONTE 97, 103 Juan Diaz de SOLIS 9, 23 Martim Afonso de SOUSA xx, 109, 111 Tomé de SOUSA xx, 112 Hernando de SOTO 9, 25 SPAIN ix, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, xxi, xxii, 5, 6, 8, 12, 17, 22, 30–33, 35, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 49, 50, 52, 55, 57–59, 60, 63–65, 73, 77, 78,

80–84, 86, 89, 93, 97, 98, 100, 102, 108, 113–115, 120, 122–125, 131, 135, 139, 140 SUBDELEGADO 83 Antonio José de SUCRE xx, xxi, 100–101 TAINO natives 26 TAPUYA 109 TAQUI ONQOY 71, 73 TAXES 4, 10–11, 18, 20, 31, 35–36, 39, 41–42, 49–52, 54, 56–61, 78–80, 82–85, 89–96, 101, 111, 115, 135, 137 TENOCHTITLAN xi, xv, xvii, 10–13, 20, 21, 26, 30, 31, 37, 59, 70, 112, 137, 138 TINA Y TENERIA 55, 138 TLALOC 11, 138 TLAXCALA 10, 12, 20, 130 Francisco de TOLEDO xxi, 17, 70–71, 73, 79, 93 TRANSCULTURATION 22 TRAPICHE 55, 138 TREATY OF MADRID 112 TREATY of Rio de Janeiro xvi TREATY of TORDESILLAS xi, 6, 22, 78, 108, 109, 111, 112, 135 TRIANGULAR TRADE 113 TRIBUTE 6, 11, 21, 30–31, 35–36, 39, 42, 45, 54, 63–64, 70, 72–74, 87, 123, 126, 135 TRUJILLO (Peru) 17, 34, 98, 119 TUPAC Amaru I xxi, 19 TUPAC AMARU II xxi, 93–94 TUPAC KATARI 93–94 TUPI–GUARANÍ 109 Francisco de ULLOA 25 UPPER PERU 32, 35, 46, 49, 58, 82, 91, 93–94, 101 URUGUAY 23–25, 100–102 Pedro de VALDIVIA 25 Francisco VASQUEZ de CORONADO 22, 25 VECINO 17, 36–37, 40–41, 62, 70, 138 Inca Garcilaso de la VEGA xxi, 65, 139 Diego VELAQUEZ xv Luis de VELASCO 37–38, 40 VENEZUELA xii, xiii, xvii, xviii, xx, xxi, 5, 23, 25, 40, 80, 82, 84–85, 98, 100–102, 122 Melchior VERDUGO 30

146 Index Américo VESPUCCI 22, 23 VICEROY xii, xiv, xvii, xviii, xxi, 4, 8, 31–32, 34–35, 37–38, 40–44, 53, 59, 70–73, 79–80. 82, 84, 87, 92–94, 97–100, 103, 120, 122–23, 137 Viceroyalty 33, 34, 51, 82, 94, 95, 98, 133, 138 VILCABAMBA xxi, 19–20, 70, 93 VILLA 8, 35, 64, 70, 138 Juan de VILLALBA y Angulo 86

VIRGIN of GUADALUPE 99 VISITA 43, 138 Francois–Marie Arouet–VOLTAIRE xxii, 97, 100 WAR of the Spanish Succession xii, 80 YANACONAS 74, 138 Vicente YAÑEZ de PINZÓN 9, 23