The Empires Spanish and portuguais
Chart Alain Houot
Spain colonial power The discoveries of Christophe Colomb, made in the name of the sovereigns of Castille and Aragon, propel Spain to the row of colonial great power, and put it in direct competition with Portugal. The two rival nations, and nevertheless sisters in Christendom, are led to share territorial acquisitions of the future.
By the treaty of Tordesillas, in 1494, a line of demarcation is established with 370 miles marine (approximately 2 ' 000 km) west of islands of Cape Verde: Spain limits its prerogatives to the grounds which are west of this line, and Portugal agrees to limit to them his with those which are in the east. The meridian line of demarcation passes in fact very close to the mouths of the Amazon - nobody knows at the time South America forms covered east of this line, which will make it possible later Portugal to assert Brazil. No other State recognizes the treaty of Tordesillas, but the undeniable naval supremacy of Spain and Portugal enables them to make it respect during one century.
In search of the Eldorado The Spanishs are initially satisfied to occupy the Antilles, where they think of finding gold; but, in front of the failure of their research, having learned by the natives that there would be great sources of noble metal on the American continent, they undertake his conquest some fifteen years after the death of Colomb.
In certain continental areas, in particular in Mexico with the Aztec ones, and Peru with Incas, the Spanishs discover true States, and people arrived to a advanced degree of civilization. The conquest of Mexico is carried out by Hernán Cortés, between 1519 and 1521; that of Peru - where, according to the indigenous accounts, would be the Eldorado, the fabulous country of gold - by Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, between 1532 and 1537.
Fate of the autochtones
Consequences of colonization Colonization had disastrous consequences on the populations autochtones. It involved obviously the disappearance of their civilizations, but also, in many areas like Hispaniola
Two schools are opposed: that of the minimalists, who recruit themselves preferentially in Hispanic historiography, estimates that the initial population was approximately 13 to 15 million inhabitants; the maximalist ones, being based on extrapolations of studies local, but very precise, affirm with many evidence that the population of the New World at the time of its discovery was close to 100 million people, and that in any case it could not be lower than 80 million. One century and half later, at one time when the studies can be based on reliable censuses, this population was not any more but of 4.5 million inhabitants for the whole of the continent.
An alarming mortality
Causes of this demographic collapse (nearly 95 % of the population!) are complex. The most spread assumption, particularly among laymen, blames the nature even of the Conquest and its warlike violence, and compare it to a genocide. The serious and impartial studies make it possible today to challenge this simplistic thesis, which would like to make conquistadors a horde of systematic massacreurs of the indigenous populations.
Not that the Conquest was not accompanied by innumerable violences, even of atrocities them testimonies do not miss, in particular those of some priests who took the defense of the local populations; one of them, Bartolomé de Las Put, which passed its life to denounce these atrocities, ends up moving the emperor Charles Quint, which prohibits the maltreatment on the Indians - but, taking into consideration the populations concerned, the demographic impact of the attested massacres (Cholula, Cajamarca, catch of Tenochtitlán or Cuzco) was reduced, and the dramatic fall of the Indian population cannot be explained by this only conquering violence.
Apart from precise case of battles or wars limited in time, there was never in the conquistadors an affirmed wish destroy the Indian people (which they had on the contrary an imperative need to control to make thrive their colonial company), and, with regard to Mexico for example, the warlike horrors of the Conquest undoubtedly had less impact on demography than the bleedings imposed annually on the populations by the ritual requirements of Aztec and the “rivers of blood” spread by the human victims of the sacrifices.
As first cause of the demographic collapse of the Amerindian populations, it quasi totality of the serious studies place today the infectious illness introduced without their knowledge by Europeans. The American continent, until 1492, constituted a biological entity isolated since from the millenia. Immunizing defenses of Pre-Columbian had learned how to recognize pathologies of their environment, but were completely surprised in front of brutally imported germs. The microbial shock was quite worse than the military shock; the epidemics were propagated with the speed and the violence of an appalling cataclysm and, throughout the XVI E century, carried until the three quarters of the Indian population; cold, influenza, variola, measles caused spectacular devastations, particularly in the children, which had dramatic consequences on the demographic trends.
To replace these decimated populations autochtones, the Spanishs will then have recourse to the draft of the Blacks, which will develop during the XVII E and XVIII E centuries and will cost in its turn the life million Africans.
Spanish colonization and Portuguese colonization
Whereas the Portuguese Empire is composed only of maritime stations and counters, the Castilian Empire is characterized by the establishment on the conquered grounds people of the Peninsula, who make stock there. New crossed people are formed, the Creoles (criollos), who durably installs the Spanish influence in America. On the other hand, the Portuguese are satisfied to attend their exotic counters to accumulate goods bound for Lisbon. They there spend just the time necessary to grow rich then, made fortune, go back in their country. The Portuguese capital becomes a large spice warehouse where all Europe comes to provide itself. The Portuguese colonial power lasts approximately seventy-five years; as of the end of the XVI E century, the Dutchmen remove in Lisbon most invaluable of its colonies, the islands of the Probe.
The kings of Spain, for their part, organize their new possessions so as to narrowly subject them to the metropolis. The various colonies are controlled by high officials sent of the Peninsula, general viceroys and captains. In Spain, a Supreme council of the Indies has the upper hand on all that touches with the civil administration, military, religious and legal of the colonies. The Portuguese following the example of, the Spanishs reserve the monopoly of the trade with their possessions of overseas.