McNeill%2C+551-557.pdf

What were the major effects In the Americas of joining the Global web? 661 conversion to Christian ity. Clustering, however, sped rht: subjects of the In kas. When "Spanish" conquerors later transmission of mosr infecrious diseases. 'l11e Californ ia marched into Chile, their armi...

What were the major effects In the Americas of joining the Global web? 661 conversion to Christian ity. Clustering, however, sped rht: subjects of the In kas. When "Spanish" conquerors later transmission of mosr infecrious diseases. 'l11e Californ ia marched into Chile, their armies consisted mainly of for- missions begun in 1769, for example, suffered popularion mer lnka soldiers, and when Spaniards led armies into losses thar exceeded 90 percent wirhin 50 years. Herc roo, Guaremala or fought rhe Chichimecs in northern Mexico, few babies were born ro cake rhe place of rhe dead and it was mainly A1.tecs and T laxcalans who followed. dying. In Mesoamerica, when Cortes and his indigenous all ies overrhrew che Aztec state, he proclaimed the Viceroyalty EFFECT ON CLIMATE All in all, rhe fare of indige- of New Spain. Pizarro created a Viceroyalty of Peru. In nous Americans after 1492 was among rhe mosr d ismal some ways, these two Span ish colonial scares were just chapters in world h isrory. 111c experience of depopularion rhe latest successors in narive imperial traditions that and displacement was shared wirh Tasman ians, rhe Khoi srrerched back centuries. The Spanish in Peru, for exam- ofsourhern Africa, and several orher peoples a round rhc ple, no r o nly continued the lnka forced labor system, but world. Bur rhe scale of rhe popularion disaster was larger they a lso maintained rhe reciprocal exchange networks in the Americas than anywhere else-large enough, per- among lineages (ayllus) that had underpinned Andean haps, 10 affect the Earth's climare. society under rhe I nkas and the Moche before them. The The loss of population in rhc Americas fro m 1492 ro Viceroyalty of Peru foughr on t he same frontiers as had 1700 may have d eepened rhe chill of rhe Lirrle Ice Age. the lnkas a century before, using mainly lnka soldiers. Where some 40 to 70 million people had once lived, in In Mexico, che Spanish also rebui lt an e m pire o n 1700 fewer rhan 5 mi llion remained. Former farm land Aztec foundat ions. Tribute payments from surrounding became foresr over broad parches of rhe Americas. As rhe districts, formerly sent ro Aztec Tenochrirl:in, now went forests grew, rhey absorbed carbon dioxide from rhe atmo- ro rhe same place-Spanish Mexico C ity. The Spanish sphere, lowering its concentration and weakening (ever governt:d rogether with indigenous elites, splitting tribure ~o slightly) the g ret:nhouse effect. 11, is (a lo ng wirh big revenues and ocher perks of power. 111ey did not exact rolcanic eruptions and reduced energy ourpur from rhe tribute from the Tlaxcalans, their coconquerors. In M ex- sun) may help explain why the coldest spells in rhe Lirrle ico, as in Peru, the Spanish were too few ro conquer and kc Age occurred berween 1590 and 1710. govern a lone. Spaniards supplied superior armament and global knowledge; ind igenous elites supplied local knowl- edge and manpower. Together, Spanish and local elites NEW EMPIRES could rule the rapidly declining mass of rhe population. n1earrival of Europea ns a nd rhe disastrous depopulation Where indigenous policies were small or absent, Euro- in the Americas had political consequences rhar varied peans encountered more enduring resistance ro rheir rule. from place ro place. W here large empires had existed, as 11,e Mapuche ofsouthern Chile and the Maya of Mexico's in the Andes and Mesoarnerica, new, Spanish-led o nes Yucat:in Peninsula, for example, who did not have much instantly replaced rhem. Where smalle r-scale politica l in the way of states, fought long and hard against Span- structures had existed, as in most of t he Americas, gue- ish control. Unlike the populations of Peru and central rilla resistance was more common, and European control Mexico, they had no tradition of d eference ro any impe- rook far longer to establish. rial authority. For centuries, they succeed ed in keeping ll1e largest-sca le conquesrs rook place in Mexico themselves independent of Spanish rule in most respects, and Peru. In both cases, small bands of conquisradores and when chat foiled they often mounted rebellions. In allied wirh big local a rmies, such as the Tlaxcalans \Vho general, indigeno us revolts happened more often in north- joined Cortes. Locals often outnumbered Spaniards in ern New Spain and in the southern Andes. In what is now the armies of conquesr by 100 to 1. So, in effect, in 1521 New Mexico in 1680, the Pueblo rose up againsr Spanish indigenous Mesoamericans used Cortes and his band to amhoriry and either killed or expelled a ll Spaniards for the overthrow a hared Azrec Empire. Indeed, T laxcalans in next 12 years. ·n 1e biggest uprising, however, rook place in the mid-sixteenth century considered that they, nor Span- the ht:arr of the Andes, around Cuzco in 1781-1783, led by iards, had conquered the Aztecs. Similarly, in Peru, Span- a descendant of the lnka royal family, Tt'1pac A ma ru II. Ir ish conquistadores made common cause w ith dissidt:nt failed , at a cosr of mo re than 100,000 lives. Nonetheless, 552 C H APTER 16 Disruption: Africa, the Americas, Siberia, and Oceania COAST SALISH 0 o CREE OJIBWA O O Q MONTAGNAIS CHINOOK f~fcE BLACKFEET ASSINIBOINE y PUEBLO 0 CHEROKEE O V IRGINIA A K/MEL WICHITA 0 SOUTH O' OTHAM CREEK c,o ---- CAROLINA 0 APACHE NA TCH~Z Charleston O APALACHff O G EORGIA 0 VICEROYALTY F &.OR10A 0 OF NEW SPAIN A TLANT/C OCEAN Oo 0 Gulf of 0 zacatecas Mexico 0 CHICHIMECS 010~11 CIBONEY 0 TLAXCALANS Cu~ TAINO SAINT DOMINGUE PURftPEl;HA AZTfCSo Mexico City o YucaMn LOWLAND an '.o6 llisl)dniOIJ TAINO MAYA MtndlCif ~ Puerto 0 ZAPOTECS 0 Rico HIGHLAN8 MAYA.,,:!; Caribbean Sea ~ 0 ~...O 'Z GUAH/80 O CI-/IBCHA.J. HU/TOTO MAKU CAR/BS ,.. "'---.1...r--''--- PACIFIC OCEAN INKA 1> -7 Amazonia r DUTCH BRAZ (1630-1654) MUNDURUCU BRA'ZIL 0 NAMBICUARA INKIV VICEROY ALTY -4;,; OF PERU J ,._,...,-9. 0 400 BOO mi INKA ""0 Potosi 0 400 800 km 0 INKA Indigenous people. sixteenth century European settlement, ca. 1750 British Dutch French f Portuguese Spanish Economic activity, ca. 1750 o Coffee o Rice o Fish O Silver o Furs o Sugar o Pearls Tobacco European Presence In the Americas, ca. 1750 By 1750. most of the land in the Americas was claimed by one or anot pean state. However, the degree to which th ey actuall y controll ed A m erican territory varied g reatl y. Where indigeno1 remained numerically dominant. as in the heart of North America , th ey oft en exercised economic and territorial P< European claims carried little weight. The new export economy of furs had a longer reach and was a collaboration indigenous people and Europeans.  What were the major effects ln the Americas of Joining t he Global web? 553 1he Spanish Em pire in America was a patchy o ne w it h econo mics of the A mericas. E u ropean laborers crossed firm control only in a few centers. rhe Atla ntic too, a few as slaves, many as indentured The ocher Eu ropean empires in the Americas were servants-meaning t hey had to work for no wages fo r a much smaller tha n the Spanish. Po rtugal claimed Brazil set period, ofren seven yea rs. Bu r up t0 1820, roughly four bur controlled o nly stretches of coastline and their im me- enslaved Africans came co the A mericas for each Euro- diate hinterla nds as late as 1600. W he n the Durch decided pean mig rant, whether inde ntured o r free. Ir would n't be 10 take a bit of Brazil for themselves in 1618, Portugal u ntil about 1880 chat the cu mulat ive number of Eu ropean could not p revent it. Almost a ll of Brazil rema ined und er arrivals in the Americas eq ualed rhe number o f enslaved indigenous authority into the eighteenth century, whe n A fricans who survived the Middle Passage. gold and dia mo nd st rikes brought a wave o f Eu ropean African and European migrants, sometimes together immigrants. TI1e D urc h Empire was smaller still, con- w ith indigenous populat io ns, b uilt a new economy in t he fined co a few small Caribbean islands, the riny setrlemenc Americas. The new con nect ions to transatlantic markers, of New Netherland (now New York), and fo r 30 years a and in some cases new crops o r tech nologies, presented corner of Brazil. And t he D urch surrendered New Neth- novel opportunities. All t he Eu ropea n powers hoped to erland to Britai n in 1667. fi nd precious metals, as t he Spanish did in great quan- Like rhe Spanish a nd D urch, both the French a nd Brit- tities. W here t hat failed, rhe new e mpires sought other ish claimed some Caribbean territories. They fou nded col- ways ro realize the economic potent ial of t he A mericas onies on severa l small island s a nd some of t he big o nes, for the ir own benefit. such as Jam a ica, chat Spa in could not hold. In Nort h America, they cook gradual control of the eastern sea- FISHERIES AND FURS O ne oppor tun ity lay in the board from the dwind ling ind igenous popu latio ns. The world's richesr cod fisheries, from Cape Cod to New- French settled at Q uebec after 160 8 bur struggled ro found land. From the 1520s o nward, Brit ish, French, and populace rhei r colony, called New France, with fa rm- Basque (and eventually A me rican and Canad ian) fisher- ers. By 1750, New France had on ly abo ut 50,0 00 peo- men, free men working for wages, caug ht t housands of ple despite high birrh rares. Very few French wanted ro cons of cod a n nually. Most o f it was salted o r dried a nd move co New France. Brit ish settlement began in 160 7 sh ipped to Europe fo r sale. On t he m ai nla nd o f Norrh in Virginia a nd 1620 in Massachusetts, a nd soon spread Ame rica, ar least its northern half, hu ndreds of m illions everywhere from Georgia co Nova Scotia. 1l1ese colonies of beavers provid ed a nother way to make money. Ind ige- grew qu ickly, expanding co t he Appalachia n Mountains nous Americans had lo ng hunted and trapped fu r-bearing by 1750, at wh ich rime big fam ilies and stream s of immi- grants accounted for a population of nearly 2 million, '""·- ' some 20 percent of who m were enslaved. In economic..~~.... and strategic terms, Caribbean isla nds such as Jama ica and even tiny Martinique were worth a lo t more than the North American colonies-because o f the money made selling sugar from slave plantatio ns. SETTLEMENT AND TRANSOCEANIC ECONOMIES The populatio n catastrophe in the A mericas played havoc wirh economic life and increased t he scale o f slavery. Labor grew ever scarcer o utside of Norch America's east- ern seaboa rd, and a mbit io us businessmen despaired over how ro m ine ores o r raise crops without sufficient labo r. Cod Fishe ries Fishermen process cod on Newfoundland in this eighteenth-century illustration. After bring ing the fish ashore. The motive beh ind both the transatla ntic African a nd they gut and dry them. and then pack them in sal t to preserve indigeno us slave trades was co provide cheap labo r for t he them for the journey to other parts of North America and Europe. 554 C HAPTER 16 Disrupt io n: Africa, the Americas, Siberia, and Oceania ani ma ls on a modest scale. An expo rc trade began arou nd S ILVER Precio us metals formed the mosc valuable seer 1630, fun neled t hroug h Monrreal and New Amsterdam in rhe transatla ntic economy. Con es and Pizarro soug (New York after 1667) to Europe, where beaver coats a nd gold and silver, and fou nd both in envy-provoking q ua hats ado rned the prosperous classes. Indigeno us people cities. They and t heir successors used all rhe cools rh still did most of the trapping, but they now sold most of had- imaginat ion, guile, rechnology, brutality-co co t heir fur harvest to French, D urch, o r British merchants. more gold a nd silver o ur of Mexico and Peru. Span i Agents for European fur mercha nts, especially those based authorities o rganized large-scale silver m ining in Zaca1 in New France, eventually ranged far inro the inrerior of cas, Mexico, and at Potosi in the Andes. Potosi alo North America, often ma rrying into indigenous commu- yielded 40,000 cons ofsilver between the 1540s a nd 1781 nit ies in a rrangements broad ly parallel to those with wives Ir temporarily becam e one of rhe wo rld's largest ciri of the coast in the A frican slave t rade. By 1800, the North despite a n elevation well over 13,000 feet (4,000 merer Ame rican fur trade extended as fa r west as the Rocky By 1600 at Potosi, some 20,000 ind igenous people Mounrains. To the east, beavers were growing scarce, and both wage workers and m ita forced laborers- mined, p1 their tens of m illions of ponds, equal in area to 10 rimes cessed, a nd m inted silver into coins. \Xlage workers w, N o rth America's G rear Lakes, dried up. well pa id by local sr:rndards, bur t heir lives were brutal a short o n accou nt of harsh co nd it ions, frequent accider THE PLANTATION ZONE Another transarlanricecon- and poisoning from t he mercury used in the refining p omy, even more luc rative than t he cod fisheries o r fu r ccss. Potosi mineworkers performed heavy labo r in da trade, rook root in the wa rmer regio ns, from the Chesa- ness relieved only by cand lelight. They breathed air lac peake south to Brazil. lhis became the plantation zone with dust char over time brought on silicosis and otl of the Ame ricas, the dest ina tion of the g reat majo rity lung d iseases. Many of them spent their shifts carryin[ of enslaved Africans shipped across the Atlantic. In the lb. (25 kg) sacks of ore up rickety ladders, climbing m Chesapeake, where English settlement began in 1607, the tha n 650 feet (200 merers)-no wonder t hey woulc mo neymaking crop was tobacco. In South Carolina a nd work wit hout a wad of coca leaves in their check to d Georgia, a rice planrarion economy Aourished after 1690. t heir pain, hunger, thirst, and minds. Andean peas: It was based o n slave labor and to some extent o n slave communities held rhe equivalent of fu nerals for ym know-how: Africa ns from rice-growing regio ns tra ns- men d rafted for t he Porosf m ira, knowing what lay a he planted their culrivarion techniques. By r6o8, the mira could no lo nger del iver eno t "TI1e heart of the plantation zone lay in the Caribbean indigeno us workers, and m ine owners bo ught ensla· and no rtheastern Brazil, whe re sugar became rhe most rewarding plantation crop. Unlike fishing, fur trapping, or even tobacco fa rming, sugar cultivation o nly made sense o n a large sca le. Sugarca ne juice had to be crysrallized within days after rhe cane was cur, which required elabo- rate machinery to press ju ice our of rhe cane and boiling houses to convert the cane ju ice ro sugar crystals. Because it called fo r hefty capital investment, sugar production became a business dom inated by big planters with connec- tions to Eu ropean merchant ho uses. Dozens of C aribbea n islands, including British Barbados and Jamaica, Spanish C uba, and French Saint- Do m ingue (pa rt of Hispaniola), prod uced sugar, as did Po rm guesc Brazil. From 1650 co 1800, sugar isla nds were the second-most valuable posses- sio ns in rhe Americas. Sugar plantation workers suffered rhe h ighest morta lity rares anywhere in rhe pla ntatio n Slive r Mines The Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry had n been to the Americas. but his depiction of silver mining at Pc zone. Mill io ns of Africans died on rhese plantations. indicates the difficult physical conditions that forced lab< Pla nters bought m illions more co take t heir places. endured there.  What were the major effects In the Americas of joining the Global web? 555 Africans for work ac Potosi. l11ey generally roiled above languages o f the Americas were a good measure of broader ground in transport or refining. Life expecrancies were so social and cultural change. short for miners, a nd slaves so expensive, chat employers preferred ro see mica recruits do as much as possible of CREOLE LANGUAGES AND CULTURES Many 1he lethal work belowground. One Spanish friar wrorc in indigenous rongues spoke n in 1492 gradually died our 1628, "Every peso coin mimed in Potosi has cost rhe lives as t he number of speakers dwindled. By 1800, per- of1en Indians who died in che depths of rhe mines." This haps one-third of rhc roughly 25 mi llion people living exaggerated rhe roll b ur underlines che human cosr of rhe in rhe Americas spoke an indigenous lang uage. Maybe silver busi ncss. one-tenth-generally, people born in Africa- spoke an Mule caravans and coastal shipping carried mosr Mex- African language. 1l1e majority spoke a European lan- ican and Andean silver to port cities for transport th rough g uage, alchough sometimes nor as their narive tongue. 1heCaribbean to Spain. Some went directly from Mexico In the plantation zone especially, new, creole languages 10Manila in the Philippines. Much of the silver that Spain developed that typically combined features from Euro- extracted from rhe Americas eventually found its way to pean and African tongues. (Most people in rhe Caribbean China or India, as we shall see in a larcr chapter. today speak one or more c reole languages.) Haitian Cre- o le, or Krcyol, combined mainly French vocabulary wirh AGRICULTURE People could n't car fu rs or silver: grammar based on West African languages. Papiamenro, agriculture fed almost everyone from French Quebec to spoken in Aruba, Bonaire, and C ura