The major challenge of colonization is obviously the quest for precious metals: the term “Spanish Golden Age” applies in the proper sense to the Iberian Peninsula from the 16the century, because the influx of gold and silver will confer on the monarchy of Charles V and then of Philip II, an economic power and a decisive political influence in Europe. In the frantic search for wealth, the colonization of the Spanish Indies is done at the expense of the Amerindian populations who are massacred and exploited until the risk of their extinction.
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When we observe a planisphere in the middle of the XVIe century, we see that the territories conquered by the Spaniards in America extend from Mexico to Peru, Chile and Argentina, including Florida, Cuba, Santo Domingo… This colonial empire is divided into two vice- royalties, that of New Spain in the north and that of Peru in the south.
American silver and gold
The first imports ofgold and silver in Spain began in 1503, the year in which The Contract House, colonial administration installed in Seville to control all the trade of the Spanish Indies. Each ship pays a tax of 20%, the quintoreal, on all goods from America arriving in Spain. The Casa de Contractación also controls the crews and passengers of the boats to prevent Jews and Muslims from embarking for the Americas and thus guarantee a Catholic population of the colonies.
Where do the metals precious of the New World? The most important silver mines, located in Mexico (mines of Zacatecas) and in Peru (mines of Potosi), were discovered in the 1540s. rapidly giving way to intensive mining and the systematic exploitation of Indian populations. When there are no longer enough Amerindian workers, we import the African black slaves to Colombia. In Mexico and Peru, the silver mines will be very labour-intensive; the mines of Potosi benefit from forced recruitment (inherited from “la mita”, drudgery owed by the Indians to the Inca sovereign).
A conquest by violence
The conquest of the Spanish colonial empire resulted in the disappearance of two pre-Columbian civilizations, the Aztecs and the Incas. The military superiority of the Spaniards (first massacre by the army of Cortes in October 1519), their diplomatic skill which consists in raising the local tribes against the Inca and Aztec Empires, the prophecies announcing the arrival of the Spaniards by assimilating them to gods, contributed to the inevitable end of these two civilizations. The ensuing colonization engendered a major demographic catastrophe: the population ofInca Empire, estimated at between 12 and 15 million people before its fall in 1532, plummeted below one million a century later. With the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the total population of Mexico would have fallen from 20 million to 2 million inhabitants, a reduction of 90% between the years 1520 and 1620. The island of Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic current) loses all its indigenous population between 1492 (arrival of Christopher Columbus) and 1540; the evolution is similar for Cuba, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. How to explain such a human disaster while the crown of Spain claims to colonize to Christianize the Amerindians?
The question of the humanity of the peoples of America
From the beginning of colonization, voices were raised in Spain to denounce the methods of exploitation of the Amerindians: in 1539, the theologian Vitoria, professor at the University of Salamanca, affirmed that all societies were equal in dignity and that no one can rely on the inferiority of their development to subjugate them. It takes up the bull of Pope Paul III of June 1537, which confirms that the Amerindians are free human beings and therefore condemns the practice of slavery. The Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas, who traveled to Mexico and witnessed the massacres perpetrated by the Spaniards, became a fierce defender of the Amerindians. Charles V (king of Spain from 1516 to 1555) adopted the “New Laws of the Indies” in 1542, which placed the Indians under the protection of the Crown of Spain: he prohibited the colonists from reducing them to slavery and underlined that the Amerindians are faithful to whom the Catholic religion opens its doors.
From September 1550, the conference or “Controversy” of Valladolid took place, which brought together jurists and theologians at the request of Charles V. It actually opposes Bartolomé de Las Casas to the theologian Juan de Sepulveda, defender of the conquistadors. The discussions do not concern the question of the humanity of the Indians since the pope affirmed it in 1537. The debates deal with the way of colonizing the New World by the right of conquest, with the moral justification of ending the modes of life of pre-Columbian civilizations (especially their practice of human sacrifice). Sepulveda concludes with the inferiority of the Indians and the need to place them under guardianship. Las Casas succeeds in having people admit that the Amerindians “have a soul” and that exterminating them is impossible: the Spanish crown must limit itself to sending preachers to evangelize the populations, without any armed force. But Philip II (king from 1556) lost interest in the Amerindian cause in favor of that of the settlers and the precious metals they supplied to Spain.
A catastrophic human toll
If it is necessary to establish a human balance sheet of Spanish colonization at the end of the XVIe century, land confiscation, massacres, enslavement and epidemics are the causes of the mass extermination of the Amerindian populations. The microbial shock imported from Europe, decimated natives not immunized and enslaved by the mining work. Indeed, in one century, 80% to 90% of the population disappears, subject to diseases such as measlesthe varicellathe smallpox or the flu. The Amerindians of the Greater Antilles were wiped out by the middle of the XVIe century ; they will be replaced by African slaves for the exploitation of these islands by the Spaniards.
The conquest and colonization of the New World will lead to a double worldwide demographic catastrophe: the large-scale extermination of the Amerindian populations (eighty million at the end of the 15the century, five million early XVIIIe) and the deportation of twelve million Africans to America.
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