Imperialism and Colonialism: Latin America | History Optional for UPSC (Notes) PDF Download

Colonization of Latin America

• The extensive European colonization of Latin America began in 1492 when a Spanish expedition led by the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus set sail westward in search of a new trade route to the Far East (India) but instead stumbled upon the Americas.
• Columbus's initial voyages (1492–93) reached the Bahamas and various Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and Cuba. As the sponsor of Columbus's expeditions, Spain became the first European power to settle and colonize vast areas, ranging from North America and the Caribbean to the southern tip of South America. Spanish cities were established as early as 1496, with Santo Domingo in present-day Dominican Republic being one of the first.

Colonization by Other European Powers

• France established colonies in eastern North America, several Caribbean islands, and small coastal regions of South America.
• Portugal colonized Brazil and attempted early colonization of the coasts of present-day Canada (beginning in 1499).

Europe was initially preoccupied with internal conflicts and slowly recovering from the population decline caused by the bubonic plague. Therefore, the rapid growth in wealth and power witnessed in the early 1400s was unexpected. Eventually, the entire Western Hemisphere came under the nominal control of European governments, leading to significant changes in its landscape, population, and flora and fauna. In the 19th century alone, over 50 million people emigrated from Europe to the Americas.

The post-1492 period is known as the Columbian Exchange, characterized by a widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations (including slaves), diseases, and ideas between the Americas and the Afro-Eurasian hemispheres following Columbus's voyages.

Early European Explorations and Conquests

• Spanish and Portuguese explorations and conquests began immediately after their reconquest of Iberia in 1492.
• In the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, ratified by the Pope, Spain and Portugal divided the non-European world into two areas for exploration and colonization, with a north-south boundary cutting through the Atlantic Ocean, near present-day Brazil.
• Based on this treaty and early claims by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513, Spain conquered large territories in North, Central, and South America.
• By the mid-16th century, the Spanish Crown controlled much of western South America, Central America, and southern North America, in addition to its earlier Caribbean territories.
• During the same period, Portugal claimed lands in North America (Canada) and colonized much of eastern South America, naming it Santa Cruz and Brazil.

Other European nations soon contested the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas. England and France attempted to establish colonies in the Americas in the 16th century, but these efforts were largely unsuccessful. However, in the following century, England, France, and the Dutch Republic succeeded in establishing permanent colonies. Some of these colonies were on Caribbean islands, which had often been conquered by the Spanish or depopulated by disease, while others were in eastern North America, which had not been colonized by Spain north of Florida.

As more nations became interested in colonizing the Americas, competition for territory intensified. Colonists often faced threats from neighboring colonies, indigenous tribes, and pirates.

Early State-Sponsored Colonization

• The first phase of well-financed European activity in the Americas began with Christopher Columbus's Atlantic crossings (1492–1504), sponsored by Spain, originally intended to find a new route to India and China, referred to as “the Indies.”
• Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil and claimed it for Portugal.
• Amerigo Vespucci, working for Portugal in voyages from 1497 to 1513, established that Columbus had encountered a new set of continents. The Latinized version of his first name, America, was used for these continents.
• In 1513, Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and led the first European expedition to view the Pacific Ocean from the west coast of the New World, claiming the Pacific Ocean and all adjoining lands for the Spanish Crown.
• In 1517, another expedition from Cuba visited Central America in search of slaves.

These explorations were followed, particularly in the case of Spain, by a phase of conquest. The Spaniards, having recently completed the Reconquista of Spain from Muslim rule, were the first to colonize the Americas. Ten years after Columbus's discovery, the administration of Hispaniola(located in the Caribbean) was entrusted to Nicolás de Ovando, a Spanish soldier of noble birth.

• The encomienda system, a legal framework employed by the Spanish crown during the colonization of the Americas to regulate Native Americans and reward individual Spaniards for their services to the crown, was gradually established. This system granted access to indigenous labor and taxation to European settlers.
• In the first century and a half following Columbus's voyages, the native population of the Americas declined by an estimated 80%, primarily due to outbreaks of Old World diseases. In 1532, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor of the Spanish Empire, sent a vice-king to Mexico to curb Hernán Cortés' independent endeavors. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers who initiated the first phase of Spanish colonization in the Americas.
• Two years later, Charles V enacted the New Laws, prohibiting slavery and forced labor, while claiming all American lands and indigenous people as his subjects. In May 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull granting the new lands to the Kingdom of Spain, with the stipulation of evangelizing the indigenous people.
• Consequently, many priests accompanied Columbus on his second voyage. In 1537, a papal bull issued by Pope Paul III recognized that Native Americans possessed souls and prohibited their enslavement. However, some argued that a native who had rebelled and was subsequently captured could be enslaved.

The process of Christianization initially involved violence. When the first Franciscans arrived in Mexico in 1524, they destroyed pagan worship sites, alienating much of the local population. In the 1530s, they began adapting Christian practices to local customs, including constructing new churches on the sites of ancient places of worship.

Colonization by Spain

• Colonial expansion was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries.
• The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Catholic faith through indigenous conversions.
• Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus and continuing for over three centuries, the Spanish Empire would expand across half of South America, most of Central America and the Caribbean Islands, and much of North America.
• In the early 19th century, the Spanish American wars of independence resulted in the emancipation of most Spanish colonies in the Americas, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico, which were finally given up in 1898, following the Spanish-American War, together with Guam and the Philippines in the Pacific. Spain’s loss of these last territories politically ended the Spanish colonization in the Americas.

Demographic impact:

• It has been estimated that in the 16th century about 240,000 Spaniards emigrated to the Americas, and in the 17th century about 500,000, predominantly to Mexico and Ecuador.
• In Hispaniola the indigenous population of several hundred thousand declined to sixty thousand by 1509.
• The population of the Native Amerindian population in Mexico declined by an estimated 90% by the early 17th century.
• In Peru the indigenous Amerindian population of around 6.5 million declined to 1 million by the early 17th century.
• The indigenous Californian population at first contact, in 1769, was about 310,000 and had dropped to 25,000 by 1910. The vast majority of the decline happened after the Spanish period, in the Mexican and American periods of Californian history (1821–1910).

Cultural impact:

• The Spaniards were committed, by Royal decree, to convert their New World indigenous subjects to Catholicism.
• However, often initial efforts were questionably successful, as the indigenous people added Catholicism into their long standing traditional ceremonies and beliefs.
• The many native expressions, forms, practices, and items of art could be considered idolatry and prohibited or destroyed by Spanish missionaries, military and civilians.
• Though the Spanish did not force their language to the extent they did their religion, some indigenous languages of the Americas evolved into replacement with Spanish.

Colonization of Brazil

• In April 1500, the land now known as Brazil was claimed by Portugal when the Portuguese fleet, part of the second Portuguese India Armada and led by Cabral, arrived on the shores of Bahia.
• The Portuguese encountered Indigenous nations divided into various tribes. Even though the Portuguese sailors stayed for only nine days, the indigenous people were intrigued by the iron tools, the Catholic mass, and the alcoholic beverages they observed. The Portuguese mistakenly believed that this fascination indicated a readiness to convert to Christianity.
• At that time, Portugal did not fully appreciate Brazil's value, as their primary imports came from India and the Far East. It was mainly the New Christians (converted Jews) who scouted and defended the coast, trading in brazilwood and sharing their monopoly contracts with the Portuguese king. This led to a system of royal and private ownership, where private investors were allowed to conquer certain areas for their own benefit at their own costs.
• Brazilwood, valued for its rich red dye used in textiles and clothing, attracted the interest of other European nations. The French and Spanish made repeated attempts to invade Brazil, but the Portuguese fought fiercely to defend their territory, sending strong fleets to clear the coast.
• The first permanent Portuguese settlement, Sao Vicente, was established in 1532. However, true colonization began in 1534 when King Dom Joao III divided the territory into fifteen hereditary captaincies. This system proved ineffective, leading to the appointment of a Governor-General in 1549 to oversee the entire colony.

Unlike their management culture in India, the Portuguese faced resistance from Brazilian locals, who captured and killed their Portuguese 'owners' in complex ceremonies. This forced the Portuguese king to heed the warnings of the indigenous people and assume direct control over the colony.

• The first Governor-General of Brazil, Sousa, was appointed in 1549 and ruled until 1553. Under his leadership, Salvador was declared the capital city. Sousa waged war against the indigenous people to reduce the threat posed by the French, who planned to ally with the locals. He played a crucial role in establishing towns, sugar mills, and important buildings.
• Over time, the Portuguese crown ordered Sousa to treat the locals well to convert them to Christianity, with non-converters facing enslavement. As cultures and genes intermixed, colonists adopted aspects of Brazilian culture, while indigenous people embraced some European customs.
• As the Portuguese crown and church underwent reforms, slavery became increasingly disapproved, leading to a significant decline in the number of slaves in Brazil. The Portuguese assimilated some native tribes, while others disappeared due to prolonged wars or European diseases to which they lacked immunity.
• Between 1562 and 1563, epidemics of smallpox, measles, and flu devastated the local population. This was followed by famine, causing desperate locals to sell themselves into slavery to avoid starvation. Investors were needed for land portions and sugar mills, and Portuguese colonizers had to maintain positive relationships with the locals.
• By the late 1500s, sugar emerged as Brazil's agricultural and financial cornerstone. As indigenous people fled to the interior to escape colonial pressures, European settlers began importing slaves from Africa. By the mid-16th century, sugar had become Brazil's most significant export due to rising international demand.
• By 1700, over 963,000 African slaves had been brought to Brazil, more than to all other places in the Americas combined. The Portuguese gradually expanded their territory through wars against the French, capturing Rio de Janeiro in 1567 and São Luís in 1615. They also sent military expeditions to the Amazon rainforest and conquered English and Dutch strongholds.
• In 1680, they reached the far south and founded Sacramento (present-day Uruguay). At the end of the 17th century, sugar exports began to decline. However, the discovery of gold in the region that would later be called Minas Gerais in the 1690s revived the colony.

Thousands of immigrants from various parts of Brazil and Portugal flocked to the mines. In 1775, the three colonies of Portuguese America (the State of Brazil, the State of Maranhao and Piaui, and the State of Grao-Para and Rio Negro) were united into a singular colony under the State of Brazil. This arrangement persisted until the end of Colonial Brazil, preventing Brazil from splitting into several countries like its Spanish-speaking neighbors.

• The Spanish attempted to hinder Portuguese expansion according to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, succeeding in conquering Uruguay in 1777. However, a treaty signed in the same year settled territorial disputes, with Spain ceding territories in Brazil to Portugal (e.g., the Amazon Basin) in exchange for control over Uruguay. This confirmed Portuguese sovereignty over expanded lands, establishing most of current Brazilian borders.

From Colony to United Kingdom:

• In 1807, during Napoleon's invasion of Portugal, the Portuguese royal family fled to Brazil, making Rio de Janeiro the de facto capital of Portugal. This led to the establishment of many institutions necessary for an independent state in Brazil and allowed Brazil to trade freely with other nations.
• After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, to maintain the capital in Brazil and alleviate Brazilian concerns about returning to colonial status, King John VI of Portugal elevated Brazil's status to an integral part of a United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves. This status lasted for seven years until Brazil's independence.