European Interactions
Marianne Duer
- Caribbean
- Tainos were most prominent in the region; indigenous peoples
- Lived in small villages under authority of chiefs
- Little resistance to European visitors
- Taints were interested in Spanish trade goods
- Christopher Columbus made Hispaniola base of Spanish operations.
- Built fort of Santo Domingo–capital of Spanish Caribbean
- Caribbean region did not have silk or spices
- Tainos mined gold
- Encomienda–gave Spanish settlers the right to force Tainos to work in their mines or field.
- In return, the encomenderos (Spanish settlers) looked after their workers’ health and welfare and encouraged conversion to Christianity.
- Encomenderos worked Tainos hard and severely punished them if they did not deliver the expected quantities of gold or work sufficiently hard.
- Tainos occasionally rebelled, however they were no match to the Spanish forces steel swords and firearms.
- Smallpox and brutal abuses led to decline of Tainos
- Mexico and Peru—priests served as representatives of the crown and supported civil administrators
- Hernán Cortés
- Conquistador who founded the Aztecs
- Army of men seized the emperor Moctezuma II and conquered the Aztec empire
- Cortéz and fleet of ships sieged Tenochtitlan and starved the city until they surrendered.
- Weaponry benefited Spanish, and conquistadors forged alliances with peoples who resented Mexica rule and made the Spanish army stronger
- Epidemic diseases (smallpox) also helped the Spanish by killing off their rivals.
- Purpose of Exploration
- To convert people to Christianity and economic exploitation
- Francisco Pizarro
- Led a small band of men and conquered the Inca empire
- Conquered Inca empire at Cuzco
- Killed the ruling elites
- Internal problems (subjects of the empire’s resentment against the Incas ways of governing, i.e. tax collecting) helped Pizarro, as well as smallpox
- By 1540, Spanish forces controlled all of the former Inca empire