Colonial New Spain, Peru, Brazil

Things happened, and the rest is history

1. 01

   The Treaty of Tordesillas divides the world

   Event

   What happened

   In 1494 Spain and Portugal sign the Treaty of Tordesillas, setting a north-south line in the Atlantic about 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Lands found east of the line are to go to Portugal and lands west of it to Spain. Pope Julius II confirms the treaty in 1506.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The line is later used to support the Portuguese claim to the part of South America that became Brazil. In 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral reaches the Brazilian coast and claims it for Portugal. Other European powers did not accept the division, and the real boundaries in South America were later shifted by settlement and by treaties such as Madrid in 1750.

   Sources

   1. PrimaryTreaty of Tordesillas. Agreement between the Crowns of Castile and Portugal, 7 June 1494. Archivo General de Indias, Seville, and Torre do Tombo, Lisbon.
   2. BookDavenport, Frances Gardiner, ed. European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1917.
2. 02

   The Spanish crown organises its empire

   Event

   What happened

   After the conquests, the Spanish crown sets up institutions to govern the Americas. The Council of the Indies is established in 1524. The Viceroyalty of New Spain is created in 1535, with Antonio de Mendoza as first viceroy, and the Viceroyalty of Peru follows in 1542. Royal courts called audiencias handle justice and administration.

   ↓ The rest is history

   This system placed colonial rule under officials appointed from Spain, with the aim of limiting the power of the conquerors. The New Laws of 1542 tried to restrict the encomienda system, which gave settlers the labour of Indigenous communities, though settler resistance, especially in Peru, forced the crown to soften them. Spain kept the basic structure of viceroyalties until the Bourbon reforms of the 1700s added new ones in New Granada and Río de la Plata.

   Sources

   1. BookLockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
   2. BookHaring, Clarence H. The Spanish Empire in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.
3. 03

   Portugal begins settling Brazil

   Event

   What happened

   For about thirty years after 1500 Portugal does little in Brazil beyond trading in brazilwood. From 1532 the crown divides the coast into hereditary captaincies and São Vicente is founded. In 1549 Tomé de Sousa arrives as the first governor-general and founds Salvador, the capital.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Sugar planting soon became the basis of the colony, first in the northeast. Planters turned first to Indigenous labour, then increasingly to enslaved Africans. Jesuit missionaries arrived in 1549 and set up mission villages. By the late 1500s Brazil was one of the world's main sugar producers, and its economy rested on the Atlantic slave trade.

   Sources

   1. BookSchwartz, Stuart B. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
   2. BookBethell, Leslie, ed. The Cambridge History of Latin America, Volume 1: Colonial Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
4. 04

   Silver at Potosí and Zacatecas

   Event

   What happened

   In 1545 Spaniards begin mining the silver mountain of Cerro Rico at Potosí in present-day Bolivia, and in 1546 silver is found at Zacatecas in Mexico. The use of mercury amalgamation from the 1550s makes refining far cheaper. In Peru, Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in the 1570s organises the mita, a system of forced rotating labour drawn from Indigenous communities.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Silver from these mines became a main export of the Spanish empire. It flowed to Spain, and across the Pacific through Manila to China, where it was in high demand. Potosí grew into one of the largest cities in the Americas. The mita caused heavy suffering and deaths among Indigenous workers, and historians still debate its exact toll. It lasted until the early 1800s.

   Sources

   1. BookBakewell, Peter. Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico: Zacatecas, 1546-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971.
   2. BookCole, Jeffrey A. The Potosí Mita, 1573-1700: Compulsory Indian Labor in the Andes. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985.
5. 05

   The Dutch occupy northeastern Brazil

   Event

   What happened

   In 1630 the Dutch West India Company captures Recife and Olinda in Pernambuco. Under Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, governor from 1637, the Dutch hold much of the sugar-producing northeast. A revolt by Portuguese colonists begins in 1645, and the Dutch surrender their last positions in 1654.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The Dutch were pushed out, but they took sugar-growing skills to the Caribbean, where Barbados and other islands became rivals to Brazil. Portugal formally recognised the loss of Dutch claims by treaty in 1661. The episode also showed that Iberian control of the Atlantic coast could be challenged, and the Portuguese crown became more dependent on Brazilian wealth afterwards.

   Sources

   1. BookBoxer, C. R. The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-1654. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957.
   2. BookSchwartz, Stuart B. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
6. 06

   Palmares and the Brazilian quilombos

   Event

   What happened

   During the 1600s many enslaved Africans escape from Brazilian plantations and found settlements called quilombos. The largest, Palmares in the hills of what is now Alagoas, grows through the century to include thousands of people. Portuguese and colonial forces attack it repeatedly, and it falls in 1694. Its leader Zumbi is killed in 1695.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Palmares showed that enslaved people could build lasting communities beyond plantation control, and it drew on African political traditions. Quilombos continued to form across Brazil until slavery was abolished in 1888. Zumbi is remembered today in Brazil, and 20 November, the traditional date of his death, is a day of Black Consciousness.

   Sources

   1. BookKent, R. K. "Palmares: An African State in Brazil." In Maroon Societies, edited by Richard Price. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.
   2. BookSchwartz, Stuart B. Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
7. 07

   Gold in Minas Gerais

   Event

   What happened

   In the 1690s gold is found in the interior of Brazil, in the region later called Minas Gerais. A rush of settlers from Brazil and Portugal follows, and diamonds are found in the 1720s. Towns such as Vila Rica, now Ouro Preto, grow rapidly, worked largely by enslaved Africans.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The mining boom shifted Brazil's economic centre south, and in 1763 the capital moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. Gold made Portugal's crown rich through the 1700s. It also brought heavy taxation, which fed the failed Inconfidência Mineira conspiracy of 1789, in which Tiradentes was later executed.

   Sources

   1. BookBoxer, C. R. The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962.
   2. BookLockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
8. 08

   The Túpac Amaru II rebellion

   Event

   What happened

   In November 1780 José Gabriel Condorcanqui, who takes the name Túpac Amaru II, leads a large revolt in the southern Andes against Spanish officials and taxes. He captures and executes the local magistrate Arriaga, and the uprising spreads across highland Peru and into Upper Peru. He is captured in 1781 and executed at Cuzco.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The rebellion was put down, but fighting continued under other leaders, including Túpac Katari near La Paz, and the death toll was very high. Spain tightened control and restricted Indigenous elite privileges and symbols. The revolt is often seen as a forerunner of independence movements, though historians debate how far its aims were separatist rather than reformist.

   Sources

   1. BookWalker, Charles F. The Tupac Amaru Rebellion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
   2. BookStern, Steve J., ed. Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
9. 09

   El Dorado, the golden king

   Popular belief

   The legend

   Explorers in the 1500s tell of El Dorado, a golden man or kingdom hidden in South America, rich beyond measure. Expeditions search the Andes and the Amazon for it, and the story grows into a golden city.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The tale began from a real Muisca ceremony near Lake Guatavita in present-day Colombia, in which a new ruler was covered with gold dust and offered gold to the lake. Spaniards heard of it in the 1530s, and over time the name came to mean a place rather than a man. Expeditions such as that of Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana in 1541 to 1542 found no golden kingdom, though Orellana did travel down the Amazon. Gold objects from the Muisca, such as the Muisca raft, survive in the Gold Museum in Bogotá.

   Sources

   1. PrimaryCastellanos, Juan de. Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias. Verse chronicle, 1589.
   2. BookHemming, John. The Search for El Dorado. London: Michael Joseph, 1978.
10. 10

    The Virgin of Guadalupe

    Origin story

    The legend

    In December 1531 the Virgin Mary appears to an Indigenous man, Juan Diego, on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City. She asks for a church to be built there. When the bishop wants a sign, Juan Diego opens his cloak, roses fall out, and her image appears on the cloth.

    ↓ The rest is history

    The earliest known written account, the Nican Mopohua in Nahuatl, dates to the mid 1600s, though some scholars argue for an earlier oral tradition. A shrine at Tepeyac existed by the mid 1500s and drew disputes over devotion. The cult grew through the colonial period and became a symbol shared by many Mexicans, and in 1810 Miguel Hidalgo's insurgents carried her banner. Juan Diego was canonised in 2002, and the Basilica of Guadalupe is among the most visited Catholic shrines.

    Sources

    1. PrimarySánchez, Miguel. Imagen de la Virgen María, Madre de Dios de Guadalupe. Mexico City, 1648.
    2. BookPoole, Stafford. Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531-1797. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995.
11. 11

    The Black Legend of Spanish cruelty

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A common view holds that Spanish rule in the Americas was uniquely cruel, a story of greed and massacre unlike other European empires. It is often traced to the writings of the friar Bartolomé de las Casas.

    ↓ The rest is history

    Las Casas wrote his Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1542, and it was printed in 1552 to urge reform, describing real abuses and probably exaggerating numbers. Protestant rivals such as the English and Dutch later reprinted it with engravings to attack Spain. Historians now agree the abuses and the huge population collapse, caused mainly by disease, were real, but other empires also committed violence and enslavement. The term leyenda negra was coined by the Spanish writer Julián Juderías in 1914.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLas Casas, Bartolomé de. Brevísima relación de la destruición de las Indias. Written 1542, printed Seville, 1552.
    2. BookJuderías, Julián. La leyenda negra y la verdad histórica. Madrid: Tip. de la Revista de Archivos, 1914.
12. 12

    The Jesuit mission kingdom in Paraguay

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Stories in Europe in the 1700s describe a secret Jesuit kingdom in South America, where priests ruled Guaraní people as a hidden state and hoarded wealth.

    ↓ The rest is history

    The real basis was the Jesuit reductions, mission towns founded from 1609 in the borderlands of present-day Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Some 30 towns held tens of thousands of Guaraní at their height, with local councils, farming and music. They were under Spanish crown authority, not independent. The Treaty of Madrid of 1750 moved the border and led to the Guaraní War of 1754 to 1756, and the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish lands in 1767. Ruins such as São Miguel das Missões in Brazil survive.

    Sources

    1. BookCaraman, Philip. The Lost Paradise: The Jesuit Republic in South America. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1975.
    2. BookLockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.