Spanish Conquest in the Americas

The Atlantic World: Silver and Conquest

• Most Spaniards lived in towns, with former imperial cities of Mexico City and Cuzco flourishing.
• European conquerors extracted more precious metals from Mexico and the Andes in 20 years than all the gold accumulated in Europe over centuries.
• Potosi (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) mines produced the greatest amounts of silver for Spain.
• The Spanish relied heavily on slave and coerced local labor.
• The discovery of Potosi silver mines in 1545 led to the production of 17,000 tons of silver and 200 tons of gold by 1640.
• Heavy working conditions in the mines, including the use of quicksilver, long hours, and high mortality rates, led to the extinction of local populations in several decades.

Portugal's New World Colony

• The Portuguese and Spanish divided South America with the unenforceable Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494.
• Papal support for Spanish colonization came from Spanish-born Pope Alexander VI.
• When no precious metals were discovered in Brazil, the Portuguese began to produce sugar.
• The Portuguese imported African slaves for labor when the Amerindian population fought or fled.
• The Portuguese settled along the coast, but rarely intermarried with the local population.

The Atlantic World: The Incas

• The Inca Empire in the Andes had a population of 4 to 6 million before the Spanish arrived.
• A smallpox epidemic spread from Mesoamerica into the Andes, killing the Inca Emperor and sparking a war between his sons.
• In 1532, Francisco Pizarro defeated Atahualpa and the Incas with his 600 men, horses, and dogs.
• The Spanish established their capital in Lima, Peru, and introduced a new scale of imperial expansion and provided Europe with great wealth and a market for their products.

The Atlantic World: First Conquests

• Columbus claimed the island of Hispaniola, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic for Spain, prompting more expeditions with tales of gold.
• The Spanish experimented with colonial rule, creating a model in Hispaniola for the rest of the New World.
• The Spanish responded to Amerindian resistance by enslaving Indians to work in gold mines.
• The Spanish crown awarded encomiendas (grants) to settlers with the right to force Amerindians for labor, though they had to pay special taxes on precious metals extracted from their land.

The Atlantic World: Aztecs and the Spanish Conquest

• The Aztecs united numerous independent states under a single monarch, creating an empire of 25 million based around Lake Texcoco.
• The city of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) was large and wealthy.
• The Aztecs were a powerful, wealthy, complex, and militarized empire untouched by Africa-Eurasia and unprepared for European invaders and their warfare.